“God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong, but I can't. If a thing is free to be good it's also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata -of creatures that worked like machines- would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they've got to be free.
I would offer, God who is not a man as us created or willed man in his “own image” .Jesus said; the father and I are one. In the image of God created he him. (Adam and Eve as one creation). Male and female created he them separately. (Those that were not created in His image, no soul, the rest of the creatures not subject to salvation)
He created him, mankind in his own image in a hope they would obey His will. He did not create a will that was separate from His. He did not want them to learn by experience but walk by faith, the unseen voice of God. The father of lies in his subtleness put his words in the mouth of a serpent as that seen.
They fell from a faith that came from hearing God not seen by doing the pleasure of another will , the voice of Satan the god of this world..as that temporally seen .
Free will to a believer (one who has as faith that comes from hearing God not seen) is to do the will of another, God not seen, not being a slave to the will of another. It’s the kind of spiritual food needed for our spiritual bodies that the disciples knew not of. Like our daily bread as in thy will be done on earth as it is heaven
Then they went out of the city, and came unto him. In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat. But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat? Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.John 4:30-34
It’s His will that works in a believer to both will and do his good pleasure .It’s what we work out, as he works in us, not what we work for to gain. But as he does work in us making what he believed (his faith) complete as a imputed righteousness not that of our own self.
Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work outyour own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Do all things without murmurings and disputings: Phillipians 2 :13