Does John 6:44 imply that there is no free will when it comes to salvation? I was struck by reading this verse in John the other night:


  No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him


I've heard the term 'predestination', however it is unclear to me how free will is reconciled with it. 

In the instance of free will, one has the choice to either listen or to ignore God's tap on the shoulder. This also leads to the question regarding predestination in general where religious doctrine is concerned.  What exactly is predestination?  Does it necessarily preclude the ability to choose as one wills?
Short Answer: No, John 6:44 does not imply that there is no free will when it comes to salvation.

What the text itself implies (theology aside) is that a person can only come to Jesus if the Father draws him. It says nothing about whether free will plays a part in salvation, or (if so) how it does. (In fact, it doesn't even really say anything about predestination.)

To illustrate, here are three possibilities for how free will might be understood with respect to this verse:


A) A person must, out of their own free will, desire to be reconciled to God, and then God must subsequently draw them to Jesus to get saved.
B) God must draw a person, and as He does so, the person must concurrently allow themselves to be drawn out of their own free will.
C) God must draw a person by convicting them of their sin and presenting them with the Gospel, and then the person, out of their own free will, must respond appropriately to the Gospel and be saved.


These are only a few possibilities, chosen to show that the answer is, in fact "no." (Each of these explanations are popular Christian positions.) There are other perspectives on free will and predestination as well, which yield different explanations of this verse. For example, some would say:


D) God must draw a person -- and must cause that person to be saved -- before they can have (or exercise) "free will." Note, however, that this perspective uses a different definition of "free will" than the colloquial meaning.


Summary

Essentially, all that this verse implies about "free will" is that our free will cannot be understood as the end of the story regarding salvation. It doesn't really imply anything about free will beyond that, and it can easily be reconciled with any major theology on free will, as shown above.