Francis Turretin and Jonathan Edwards on Compatibilism

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 335-355
Author(s):  
Paul Helm
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Human Choice ◽  
Divine Will ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
The Will

AbstractThe aim of this article is to show that the claim of Richard Muller in his recent book Divine Will and Human Choice: Freedom, Contingency, and Necessity in Early Modern Reformed Thought, that the Reformed Orthodox were not compatibilists in their view of freedom but held to the indeterminate freedom of the will, is false. The argument takes the reader through Turretin’s claim in his Institutes that freedom does not consist in indifference but in rational spontaneity. It assesses Muller’s argument that indeterminate freedom incorporates choices between two or more contraries and of none by showing that Edwards respected the same distinctions, and that Turretin and Edwards were agreed that God, the human nature of Christ, and the redeemed in heaven did not act from indifference. The article ends with remarks on Muller’s interpretation of Turretin’s position, that it involves ‘multiple potencies,’ arguing that this proposal meets serious difficulties.

Grace and Freedom

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Muller
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Reformed Theology ◽  
Divine Grace ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
Ultimate Cause ◽  
The Will ◽  
Libertarian Freedom ◽  
The Church

Grace and Freedom addresses the issue of divine grace in relation to the freedom of the will in Reformed or “Calvinist” theology in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century with a focus on the work of the English Reformed theologian William Perkins, and his role as an apologist of the Church of England, defending its theology against Roman Catholic polemic, and specifically against the charge that Reformed theology denies human free choice. Perkins and his contemporaries affirmed that salvation occurs by grace alone and that God is the ultimate cause of all things, but they also insisted on the freedom of the human will and specifically the freedom of choice in a way that does not conform to modern notions of libertarian freedom or compatibilism. In developing this position, Perkins drew on the thought of various Reformers such as Peter Martyr Vermigli and Zacharias Ursinus, on the nuanced positions of medieval scholastics, and on several contemporary Roman Catholic representatives of the so-called second scholasticism. His work was a major contribution to early modern Reformed thought both in England and on the continent. His influence in England extended both to the Reformed heritage of the Church of England and to English Puritanism. On the Continent, his work contributed to the main lines of Reformed orthodoxy and to the piety of the Dutch Second Reformation.

Jonathan Edwards on the Sense of the Heart

1948 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Perry Miller
Keyword(s):  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Great Awakening ◽  
American Mind ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
The World ◽  
Real Work ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Mind

The reputation of Jonathan Edwards, impressive though it is, rests upon only a fragmentary representation of the range or profundity of his thinking. Harassed by events and controversies, he was forced repeatedly to put aside his real work and to expend his energies in turning out sermons, defenses of the Great Awakening, or theological polemics. Only two of his published books (and those the shortest), The Nature of True Virtue and The End for which God Created the World, were not ad hoc productions. Even The Freedom of the Will is primarily a dispute, aimed at silencing the enemy rather than expounding a philosophy. He died with his Summa still a mass of notes in a bundle of home-made folios, the handwriting barely legible. The conventional estimate that Edwards was America's greatest metaphysical genius is a tribute to his youthful Notes on the Mind — which were a crude forecast of the system at which he labored for the rest of his days — and to a few incidental flashes that illumine his forensic argumentations. The American mind is immeasurably the poorer that he was not permitted to bring into order his accumulated meditations.

scholarly journals Edwards on the Incompatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Free Will

Sententiae ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-45
Author(s):  
Oleh Bondar ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Divine Foreknowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
The Will ◽  
Theological Fatalism ◽  
Nelson Pike ◽  
Necessity Of The Past

In the book “Freedom of the Will”, Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) put forward a strong ar-gument for theological fatalism. This argument, I suppose, can be considered as the universal basis for discussion between Fatalists and Anti-Fatalists in the 20th century, especially in the context of the most powerful argument for fatalism, introduced by Nelson Pike. The argument of Edwards rests upon the following principles: (a) if something has been the case in the past, it has been the case necessarily (Necessity of the past); (b) if God knows something (say A), it is not the case that ~A is possible (Infallibility of God`s knowledge). Hence, Edwards infers that if God had foreknowledge that A, then A is necessary, and it is not the case that someone could voluntarily choose ~A. The article argues that (i) the Edwards` inference Kgp → □p rests upon the modal fallacy; (ii) the inference „God had a knowledge that p will happen, therefore „God had a knowledge that p will happen” is the proposition about the past, and hence, the necessarily true proposition“ is ambiguous; thus, it is not the case that this proposition necessarily entails the impossibility of ~p; (iii) it is not the case that p, being known by God, turns out to be necessary. Thus, we can avoid the inference of Edwards that if Kgp is a fact of the past, then we cannot freely choose ~p. It has also been shown that the main provisions of the argument of Edwards remain significant in the context of contemporary debates about free will and foreknowledge (Theories of soft facts, Anti-Ockhamism, theories of temporal modal asymmetry, „Timeless solution”). Additionally, I introduce a new challenge for fatalism – argument from Brouwerian axiom.

Davenant on the Will of God and the Divine Decrees

2021 ◽  
pp. 147-160
Author(s):  
Michael J. Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Extended Treatment ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Divine Will ◽  
God's Love ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Will Of God

This chapter discusses another important doctrine relative to John Davenant’s hypothetical universalism: the divine will. Observing that the doctrine of God’s will in early modern scholastic theology, including among Reformed theologians, involved a plethora of scholastic distinctions, the chapter shows that Davenant’s theology of the divine will was heavily influenced by these distinctions, which were themselves ways of making sense of apparent contradictory claims in Scripture. Davenant’s employment of these medieval distinctions, such as between God’s love of simple complacency and his absolute will, are given extended treatment. This chapter also gives attention to the difference between a divine conditional and an absolute will. Finally, tying all these distinctions together, this chapter explains how Davenant employs them to buttress his hypothetical universalism.

Liberty and Mutability

2020 ◽  
pp. 97-124
Author(s):  
Richard A. Muller
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
The Will ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Do So

Perkins’ understanding of human willing was also defined by the traditional Augustinian definition of the four states of human nature: before the fall, after the fall in sin, after regeneration by grace, and in final glory. This chapter takes up the issue of willing in the first two states, in which the will at first is righteous and sinless but able to sin and then, following the fall, is not able not to sin. Nonetheless, the will remains free according to its nature—initially free in righteousness, and after the fall, free to determine its own choices, albeit bound to do so sinfully. The fall does not remove the inherent freedom of the will. Choice remains a genuinely contingent act, defined by alternativity within the bounds of a sinful nature.

The Passions and Human Nature

2019 ◽  
pp. 71-89
Author(s):  
Jay L. Garfield
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Social Nature ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
In Virtue Of

This chapter addresses the causes of the passions and their role in Hume’s psychology. I argue that the passions form the foundation of Hume’s naturalistic program to explain human nature and normativity. It also addresses the relationship between the passions and the idea of the freedom of the will, showing that the account of the passions undergirds Hume’s critique of the idea of freedom. This chapter also shows how central our social context is to the development of the passions, and to our psychology in general, in virtue of Hume’s argument that not only is our social nature determined by our passions, but that many of our passions are conditioned by social factors.

Horses, Pigeons, and the Therapy of Conversion: A Psychological Reading of Jonathan Edwards's Theology

1981 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 337-352
Author(s):  
David R. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Freedom Of Will ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
The Will

Jonathan Edwards expected his inquiry on the Freedom of the Will to be the definitive work on that subject, establishing for all time the truth of predestination on the twin pillars of reason and revelation. He answered every objection of the Arminians with irrefutable scriptural texts, biting satire, and devastating logic. He brought the revolutionary insights of Locke and Newton to the defense of Reformed doctrine, restructuring ancient truths on the foundations of the latest science.The effort was immediately successful. For sixteen years no one dared to publish a rebuttal. Then, in 1770, with Edwards safely dead, James Dana of Wallingford, Connecticut, published An Examination of the Late President Edwards's Enquiry on Freedom of Will.

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