.
Subsections
Reformed Free Choice vs. Determinism
How Predestination & Free Choice Consist
Free Causes
Contingent Causes
Reformed vs. Aquinas
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Order of Contents
Articles 34+
Books 4+
Quotes 6+
Historical 5+
Cause of the Will 2
Primacy of Intellect or Will
Last Judgment of the Practical Intellect
In Heaven 1
Latin 3
.
Articles
1200’s
Aquinas – ch. 76, ‘Freedom of Choice in Intellectual Substances’ in Compendium of Theology, pt. 1
Duns Scotus, John – 25th Distinction, Question: ‘Whether an act of will is caused in the will by the object moving it, or by the will moving itself’ in Ordinatio, bk. 2, dist. 15-25 tr. Peter Simpson (2025), pp. 58-71
“69… Therefore, I hold a middle way, that both the will and the object concur for causing an act of willing, so that the act of willing is from the will and from the object known, as from effective cause…
70… Therefore I say that with the will, in idea of effective cause, the intellect, actually understanding the object, concurs for causing the act of willing, as briefly thus: ‘nature in act, understanding the object, and free,’ is cause of willing and refusing; and in this consists free choice, whether in us or in angels.” – p. 66
“74. From this is plain how there is freedom in the will. For I am said ‘to see freely’ because I can freely use the visual power for seeing; so in the matter at hand, however much any cause be natural and always uniformly acting (as far as is on its own part), yet because it does not determine nor necessitate the will to willing, but the will of its own liberty can concur with it for willing or not willing and so can freely use it, therefore is it said that ‘to will and to refuse freely’ is in our power.” – p. 67
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1500’s
Melanchthon, Philip
ch. 3. ‘On the Powers of Man, Especially of Free Will’ in The Loci Communes of Philip Melanchthon… tr. Charles L. Hill (1521; Boston: Meador Publishing, 1944), pp. 69-81
Though Melanchthon (1497–1560) was a Lutheran, this work of his was the first ‘systematic theology’ of the Reformation, and, as it was very influential on reformed systematic theologies following shortly thereafter.
Article 18, Of Free Will in The Apology of the Augsburg Confession tr: F. Bente & W. H. T. Dau (1531)
ch. 5. ‘Of Human Strength & Free Will’ in Melanchthon on Christian Doctrine, Loci Communes, 1555 tr. Clyde L. Manschreck (1555; NY: Oxford Univ. Press, 1965), pp. 51-70
Calvin, John
5. ‘Free Will’ in Instruction in Faith (1537) tr. Paul T. Fuhrman (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1949), p. 22
2. ‘Of the Knowledge of Man & of Free Will’ in Institutes of the Christian Religion: 1541 French Edition tr. Elsie A. McKee (1541; Eerdmans, 2009), pp. 47-115
Canons 4-5 in Antidote to the Canons of the Council of Trent in Acts of the Council of Trent with the Antidote (1547)
Institutes of the Christian Religion tr. Henry Beveridge (1559; Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845), vol. 1
bk. 1, ch. 15. ‘State in which man was created. The faculties of the Soul—The Image of God—Free Will—Original Righteousness’ 214-30
bk. 2, ch. 2. ‘Man now deprived of Freedom of Will, & miserably enslaved’ 297-334
Bullinger, Henry – 4. ‘Of Free-Will’ in Questions of Religion Cast Abroad in Helvetia [Switzerland] by the Adversaries of the Same, & Answered… tr. John Coxe (1560; London, 1572), pp. 43-46
Vermigli, Peter Martyr – The Common Places… (d. 1562; London: Henrie Denham et al., 1583), pt. 2
pt. 2, ch. 2. ‘Of Free-Will’ 252
‘Of Voluntary & Not Voluntary’ & ‘Of that which is Voluntary’ 280
‘Of Man’s Election, or Making of Choice’ 293
Discourses
’Certain Clauses or Sentences concerning Free-Will’ 125-29
Musculus, Wolfgang – ‘Free-Will’ in Common Places of the Christian Religion (1560; London, 1563), folio 18.b ff.
Beza, Theodore
A Brief & Pithy Sum of the Christian Faith made in Form of a Confession (London, 1565)
Ch. 3, 14. What freewill remains in man after sin
pp. 27-31 in A Book of Christian Questions & Answers… (London, 1574)
Becon, Thomas – 8. ‘Of Freewill’ in Prayers & Other Pieces by Thomas Becon (d. 1567; Cambridge: Parker Society, 1844), The Common Places of Holy Scripture, pp. 328-29
Becon (c. 1511-1567) was an Anglican reformer, clergyman and a chaplain to Thomas Cranmer. He was initially significantly influenced by Luther, and then Zwingli.
de Brès, Guy – ‘Of Freewill, of the Merits of Works & of Justification by Faith’ in The Staff of Christian Faith… for to Know the Antiquity of our Holy Faith… gathered out of the Works of the Ancient Doctors of the Church… (London, 1577), pp. 51-70
de Bres (1522-1567) was a Walloon pastor, Protestant reformer and theologian, a student of Calvin and Beza in Geneva.
Viret, Pierre – A Christian Instruction… (d. 1571; London: Veale, 1573)
A Familiar Exposition of the Principal Points of the Catechism, and of the Christian Doctrine, made in Form of Dialogue, 3rd Dialogue
The Exposition of the Preface of the Law
Prime, John – ’The whole question of free-will handled at large’ in A Fruitful & Brief Discourse in Two Books: the One of Nature, the Other of Grace, with Convenient Answer to the Enemies of Grace, upon Incident Occasions Offered by the Late Rhemish Notes in their New Translation of the New Testament, & Others (London, 1583), bk. 1
Prime (c.1549-1596) was a reformed Anglican clergyman and Oxford scholar.
Ursinus, Zachary
The Sum of Christian Religion: Delivered… in his Lectures upon the Catechism… tr. Henrie Parrie (Oxford, 1587)
1. Of the word, ‘Liberty’
2. What is the liberty of will
3. What is like or common, and what diverse or different in the liberty of will, which is in God, in Angels and man
4. Whether there be any liberty in us, and what it is
5. There are four degrees of freewill
Of God’s Providence, 2. What the Providence of God is
4th Sophism: Of Contingency & Liberty or Freeness
6th Sophism: Of the Merit of Good & Evil
11. Of Free Will in Rules & Axions of Certain Chief Points of Christianity in A Collection of Certain Learned Discourses… (Oxford, 1600)
Zanchi, Girolamo – Confession of the Christian Religion… (1586; Cambridge, 1599)
ch. 8, ’Of Man’s Free-Will after his Fall’ 38-42
ch. 20, ’Of the Regenerate Man’s Free-Choice & Power to do Good’ 156-62
Junius, Francis – Leiden Theses, disputation 22 (1590) in ed. Willem J. van Asselt, Reformed Thought on Freedom: the Concept of Free Choice in Early Modern Reformed Theology (2010), pp. 98-107
Beza, Theodore & Anthony Faius – pt. 2, ch. 16, ‘Free-Will’ in Propositions & Principles of Divinity Propounded & Disputed… (Edinburgh, 1591), pp. 35-37
Zanchi, Jerome – in ed. Willem J. van Asselt, Reformed Thought on Freedom: the Concept of Free Choice in Early Modern Reformed Theology (2010), pp. 53-75
‘The Free Choice of our First Parents before the Fall’ in The Works of God in Creation during a Period of Six Days (d. 1590; 1591), pp. 704-10
‘Free Will in Unregenerated Man after the First Sin’ in The Fall of the First Man, Sin & the Law of God (d. 1590; 1617), pp. 87-94
Polanus, Amandus – ‘Theological Theses on the Choice of Man’, pt. 1, 2 (Basel: Waldkirchius, 1597) trans. at Obedientia Mortis Christi
Rollock, Robert – 37. ‘Freewill’ in A Treatise of Effectual Calling (1603) in Select Works of Robert Rollock… (d. 1599; Edinburgh, 1849), vol. 1, pp. 252-65
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1600’s
Perkins, William
1. Freewill in A Reformed Catholic… ([Cambridge] 1598)
A Golden Chain (Cambridge: Legat, 1600), Errors of the Papists in their distributing of the Causes of Salvation
2. Predestination is mutable: men are contingently predestinated, on God’s part and man’s: hence those appointed to salvation may be condemned, and those appointed to damnation may be saved
…
4. Predestination’s last effects has this cause in man: in man’s freewill and works: whom God had foreseen that they would receive grace offered in Christ and lead their life according to the law, them He predestinated, not of works, but of his mercy, yet so, as that He had respect unto works
…
7. Man after Adam’s fall has freewill to do good and evil, though in a diverse manner: he has freewill to do evil simply, without any external aid: but to do well, none at all, but by God’s grace preventing or guiding: which grace every man has and it is in our freewill either to consent and together work with or not. Freewill’s power to do what is good and acceptable to God is only attenuated and weakened before conversion; hence man can of himself work a preparation to justification
9. That preparation to grace, which is caused by the power of free-will, may by the merit of congruity deserve justification
…
11. Man’s love of God does in order and time go before his justification and reconciliation with God
…
15. It is possible to fulfill the Law in this life
Trelcatius, Sr., Lucas – ‘On the Free Will of Man’ in Opuscula Theologica Omnia (d. 1602), trans. AI at Confessionally Reformed Theology
Gomar, Francis – ‘Theological Disputation on Free Choice’ (1602) in ed. Willem J. van Asselt, Reformed Thought on Freedom: the Concept of Free Choice in Early Modern Reformed Theology (2010), pp. 128-33 See also this AI translation. Latin
Bucanus, William – Institutions of Christian Religion... (London: Snowdon, 1606)
11. ‘Of Man’s Free Will before the Fall’, pp. 106-12
Is the word ‘free-will’ found in the Scriptures?
What are we to understand by this word ‘free-will’?
To what things is free-will attributed in the Scriptures?
What and of what kind is free-will which is attributed to God, spirits and man?
How do you prove this latter?
How far forth did the powers of free-will extend themselves in Adam before the Fall?
Did Adam besides these sound faculties stand in need of God’s grace?
But what kind of grace was that?
Why did God make Adam mutable, and not rather such a one who neither could nor would ever sin?
Ought the first man therefore to be excused from sin, and God to be accused?
What is the use of this doctrine?
Did God give Adam a mortal or an immortal body?
How came it to pass that it was mortal, and how that it was immortal?
Whether could he either be oppressed by external force, or die for famine or thirst, or be extinguished by diseases, or at length wear away with old age?
Did then the Tree of Life avail anything to the retaining of that immortality?
But how did it avail?
Whether beside the fruit of that Tree of Life, had Adam need of meats for the preservation of his life?
What then should have become of man in the conclusion if he had not sinned, should he have ever lived upon earth?
What things be contrary to this doctrine?
18. ‘Of Free-will after the Fall’, pp. 181-89
What is usually understood in this disputation by the name of free-will?
What is the reason of this name, Liberum arbitrium?
Is there such free-will in man after the Fall?
What think you then of the free-will of man before his conversion?
Are we therefore like senseless stocks in regard of spiritual things?
Does not Paul say, Rom. 2:14, that ‘the gentiles by nature do the work of the law,’ and in the 15th verse that they show the work of the law written in their hearts?
But the gentiles excelled in notable gifts, which gifts seem to show that man’s nature is not altogether corrupted
Therefore what kind of will is remaining in a man not regenerate?
But does not man’s will freely incline to evil?
How stands the will of man in his conversion, is it merely passive or active also?
How is that to be understood which Christ speaks, Jn. 6:44, ‘No man comes to Me except the Father draw him’?
What therefore be the causes of our conversion?
What manner of free-will is there in a regenerate man?
How to good?
How is there in them a free-will to evil?
Is it in our power to refuse or accept the grace of God offered to us, and continue in grace, or again to fall from it?
But after we have been converted and have given place to the first grace, does not our strength work together with the grace which follows?
If a man can do nothing in spiritual things, in vain therefore are propounded all punishments, precepts, reproofs, exhortations and promises, as these, ‘If you will do this’ etc. ‘You shall eat the good things of the land’ etc.
But Zech. 1:3, seems to part and divide the effects of our conversion betwixt God and us, saying, ‘Turn you unto Me and I will turn unto you’?
But Moses, Dt. 30:11,14, speaks thus, ‘The commandment which I command thee this day, is not hid from thee, neither is far off, but it is with thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart that thou mayest do it’?
What is the use of this doctrine?
What things oppose this doctrine?
Bremen [Germany] Delegation at Dort – pp. 33-36 of ‘On Predestination, Reprobation, Christ’s Death, Regeneration, Free Choice & Perseverance’ in The Acts of the Synod of Dort (1618), trans. AI
Alsted, Johannes H.
3. ‘On Grace & the Predestination of God, & on the Free Will of Man’ in Polemical Theology, exhibiting the Principal Eternal Things of Religion in Navigating Controversies tr. by AI by Nosferatu (Hanau, 1620; 1627), pt. 4, Controversies with the Romanists, pp. 538-47 Latin
11. ‘Free-Will’ in Polemical Theology, exhibiting the Principal Eternal Things of Religion in Navigating Controversies, pt. 2, 4-6 (Partial) tr. by AI by Onku (Hanau, 1620; 1627), pt. 2, 2. A Major catholic Symphony: Theological Common Places, pp. 30-33 Latin
Walaeus, Anthony – 17. ‘On Free Choice’ in Synopsis of a Purer Theology: Latin Text & English Translation Buy (1625; Brill, 2016), vol. 1, pp. 406-32
Wolleb, Johannes – 10. ‘Original Sin & Free Will’ in Abridgment of Christian Divinity (1626) in ed. John Beardslee, Reformed Dogmatics: J. Wollebius, G. Voetius & F. Turretin (Oxford Univ. Press, 1965), bk. 1, pp. 69-71
Wolleb (1589–1629) was a Swiss reformed theologian. He was a student of Amandus Polanus.
Maccovius, Johannes – ch. 9, ‘On Free Choice’ in Scholastic Discourse: Johannes Maccovius (1588-1644) on Theological & Philosophical Distinctions & Rules (1644; Apeldoorn: Instituut voor Reformatieonderzoek, 2009), pp. 177-81
Maccovius (1588–1644) was a reformed, supralapsarian Polish theologian.
Voet, Gisbert – A Philosophical-Theological Disputation, containing Two Questions, the Distinction of the Divine Attributes & the Freedom of the Will, pt. 2 (Utrecht: Johann a Waesberge, 1652) in ed. Willem J. van Asselt, Reformed Thought on Freedom: the Concept of Free Choice in Early Modern Reformed Theology (2010), pp. 148-52
Leigh, Edward – ch. 3. Of Conversion & Free-Will in A System or Body of Divinity… (London, A.M., 1654), bk. 7, pp. 491-99
Le Blanc de Beaulieu, Louis – Theological Theses Published at Various Times in the Academy of Sedan 3rd ed. tr. by AI by Colloquia Scholastica (1675; London, 1683) Latin See also the professional translation, pt. 1, 2 by Lynch of part of this.
Free will of man in general: Reformed doctrine is expounded 565
. pt. 2, Roman school 577
. pt. 3, State and significance of questions between Roman and Reformed schools 589
Divine concurrence and cooperation with the freedom of human will can be reconciled 599
Concord of human liberty with divine foreknowledge 611
. pt. 1, On knowledge attributed to God of contingent future events, not absolutely, but conditionally, called ‘Middle Knowledge’ 620
. pt. 2, Roman opinion 635
. pt. 3, Reformed opinion 642
How man’s free will stands in nature’s fallen state with respect to spiritual and salvific good 653
Necessity of grace and human free will’s powers about moral good in fallen nature: Roman school 666
. pt. 2, Protestant doctrine 679
Various distinctions and acceptances of ‘grace’ 695
. pt. 2, Reformed Schools 709
. pt. 3 Roman School: Sufficient and efficacious; harmony of human liberty with the efficacy of grace 718
. pt. 4, Protestants: Sufficient and efficacious; harmony of human liberty with the efficacy of grace 750-56
…
Necessity of grace for fallen nature for salvific good and true piety: Roman doctrine 847
. pt. 2, Protestants’ doctrine compared with Roman 859
Whether man, in a state of sin, can prepare and dispose himself for grace by his natural powers alone 867
. pt. 2, Roman school 879
. pt. 3, Protestant and Roman opinions are compared 891-906
Gale, Theophilus – sect. 2, ‘On Physical Liberty’ tr. by AI by Nosferatu 63 pp. in General Philosophy in Two Parts... (London: 1676), pt. 1, bk. 3, ch. 3, pp. 440-508 Latin
Gale was a reformed philosopher in the Platonic tradition and here discusses lots of issues regarding physical liberty, concurrence (§9, pp. 26-49), etc.
Turretin, Francis – Institutes of Elenctic Theology, tr. George M. Giger, ed. James Dennison Jr. (1679–1685; P&R, 1992), vol. 1
3rd Topic
14. ‘Does God will some things necessarily and others freely? We affirm.’, pp. 218-20
4th Topic
4. ‘Does the decree necessitate future things? We affirm.’, pp. 319-22
See also: Carl Gobelman, ‘To be Free or not to be Free? An Analysis & Assessment of Francis Turretin’s Doctrine of Free Will’, in Mid-America Journal of Theology, 22 (2011), pp. 129-44
7th Topic
4. ‘What is the will and the free will of angels? Do affections belong to them?’, pp. 546-47
8th Topic
1. ‘What was the liberty of Adam in his state of innocence?’ 569
2. ‘Did Adam have the power to believe in Christ?’ 571
10th Topic
1. ‘Whether the term ‘free will’ or self-determining power (autexousiou) should be retained in the Christian schools. And to what faculty of the soul does it properly belong—the intellect or will?’ 659
2. ‘Whether every necessity is repugnant to freedom of will. We deny against the papists and Remonstrants.’ 661
3. ‘Whether the formal reason of free will consists in indifference or in rational spontaneity. The former we deny; the latter we affirm against papists, Socinians and Remonstrants.’ 665
4. ‘Whether the free will in a state of sin is so a servant of and enslaved by sin that it can do nothing but sin; or whether it still has the power to incline itself to good, not only civil and externally moral, but internal and spiritual, answering accurately to the will of God prescribed in the law. The former we affirm; the latter we deny, against the papists, Socinians and Remonstrants.’ 668
5. ‘Whether the virtues of the heathen were good works form which the power of free will to good can be inferred. We deny against the papists.’ 683
a Marck, Johannes – ch. 13, sect. 13 in Compendium of Christian Theology (1686; 1690), p. 272 in ed. Willem J. van Asselt, Reformed Thought on Freedom: the Concept of Free Choice in Early Modern Reformed Theology (2010), p. 203
van Mastricht, Peter – bk. 3, ch. 9, section 6, ‘In the Rational Soul is Intellect, Will & Free Choice’ in Theoretical Practical Theology (RHB), vol. 3
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1700’s
à Brakel, Wilhelmus – ch. 15, ‘Man‟s Free Will or Impotency & the Punishment Due Upon Sin’ in The Christian’s Reasonable Service, vols. 1 ed. Joel Beeke, trans. Bartel Elshout Buy (1700; RHB, 1992/1999), pp. 407-27
a Brakel (1635-1711) was a contemporary of Voet and Witsius and a major representative of the Dutch Further Reformation.
Holtzfuz, Barthold – ‘Theological Dissertation on the Free Will of Man’ trans. AI by Nosferatu (Frankfurt: Zeitler, 1707) 25 pp. Latin
Holtzfus (1659-1717) was a German, reformed professor of philosophy and theology at Frankfurt.
Holtzfuz defends some positions of Scotus in contrast to Thomists. Holtzfus has an eclectic tendency. He denies divine, physical predetermination (ch. 2, sect. 5, point 5, p. 21).
ҤIX. As for what regards the definition of free will; the scholastics, at least the later ones, both the Thomists and the Scotists; also the Greeks, Lutherans, and Remonstrants, and not a few of the Reformed, define free will as the power or faculty by which, with all things requisite for acting being posited, the will can act or not act, this or that, and act otherwise.
Some of the Reformed, however, define free will by rational preference, by which man does what he pleases, with a preceding judgment of reason. [e.g. Turretin]
But many other of the Reformed—Francis Junius, Gerhard Johann Voss, Davenant, Johann and Louis Crocius, Louis le Blanc, William Ames, Robert Baron, Johann Strangius, Richard Baxter, D. Elias Grebenitz, D. Phil. Buchius, Dn. D. Samuel Strimesius, Pierre Jurieu—out of love for truth, antiquity and ecclesiastical peace, have preferred to retain that old and accustomed definition of free will; because it, in itself, and viewed without the abuse of the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians, contains nothing evil or inconvenient.
Following their moderation, we (with the principle always being saved, from whence free will receives or has its powers, and the mode of operation of divine grace) define free will thus: Free will is the active faculty of the will, by which the will, with all things requisite for acting being posited, can act or not act, this or that, and act otherwise.” – p. 7
Turretin, Jean-Alphonse – 7. “Concerning Human Liberty, in opposition to Spinoza et al.” in Dissertations on Natural Theology tr. William Crawford Ref (Belfast: Magee, 1777), pp. 229-68
De Moor, Bernardinus – ch. 13, sect. 13 in Perpetual Commentary on John Mark’s Compendium (Leiden: Hasebroek, 1761-1771), vol. 2, pp. 1045-54 in ed. Willem J. van Asselt, Reformed Thought on Freedom: the Concept of Free Choice in Early Modern Reformed Theology (2010), pp. 203-9
Venema, Herman – pp. 511-14 in Translation of Hermann Venema’s inedited Institutes of Theology tr. Alexander W. Brown (d. 1787; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1850), ch. 30, Effects of the Fall
.
1800’s
Duncan, John ‘Rabbi’ – ‘The Nature of Free-Will’ in Colloquia Peripatetica, pp. 93-95
Bavinck, Herman – ch. 8, ‘The Faculty of Desiring’, G. Freedom of the Will in Foundations of Psychology trans. Born, Kloosterman & Bolt 2nd ed. (1897; 1921), pp. 226-45
.
Books
Anthology of the Post-Reformation
van Asselt, Willem J. – Reformed Thought on Freedom: the Concept of Free Choice in Early Modern Reformed Theology (2010) 243 pp. ToC
This includes translated articles from Zanchi, Junius, Gomarus, Voet, Turretin and De Moor.
.
1500’s
Luther, Martin – The Bondage of the Will tr. J.I. Packer & O.R. Johnston (1525; Fleming H. Revell, 1957) ToC This is the best translation; the introduction is superb. Older translations exist, such as by Edward T. Vaughan and Henry Cole.
Luther (1483-1546) was a major Protestant reformer.
.
1600’s
Perkins, William – A Treatise of God’s Free Grace & Man’s Freewill (Cambridge: Legat, 1601) 184 pp. no ToC on Mt. 23:27-28
Amyraut, Moses – A Disputation on the Free Choice of Man trans. AI (d. 1664; Saumur: Lesnier, 1667) 76 pp. Latin
1. What free choice is 5
2. What is the power of free choice in man, insofar as he is man 19
3. How free will belongs to man, insofar as he is morally good or evil 42
4. How free choice pertains to man, insofar as he is subject to the supreme cause of providence 57-75
Sterry, Peter – A Discourse of the Freedom of the Will (London, 1675) 245 pp.
Sterry (1613–1672) was an Independent, a Westminster divine and a chaplain to Cromwell. Sterry associated with the Cambridge Platonists prominent during the English Civil War era. Sterry had a mystical streak and was a millenarian; he expected the second advent of Christ, with the millennium on earth following, in the early 1650’s, and 1656 at the latest.
This book has three parts. The first argues against “those arguments… in opposition to that liberty of the will, which [liberty] is placed in the determining of its power, received from the First Cause, unto a contrariety or contradiction in its actings, with an independency upon the First Cause, the order and connection of causes, and the understanding.”
The second part further argues “the reasons upon which that opinion of this freedom is established. These reasons are taken: 1. from the will itself; 2. from the nature of sin, and the divine justice; 3. the language of the Scripture; 4. from the end of laws; 5. from the order and nature of things.” The third part is “An enlargement upon the argument taken from the mediation of Christ.”
.
1700’s
Edwards, John
Veritas Redux: Evangelical Truths Restored: Namely, Those Concerning God’s Eternal Decrees, The Liberty of Man’s Will, Grace & Conversion, The Extent & Efficacy of Christ’s Redemption, & Perseverance in Grace Buy (1707)
This John Edwards (1637–1716) was a reformed Anglican. He was one of the last prominent reformed divines of that era to teach the older reformed view of free will, just shortly before Jonathan Edwards in America was promulgating a synthesis of Calvinism and Enlightenment philosophy on the will.
“So that God’s decree is the cause of their necessity, contingency, spontaneity, and freedom. All these different qualities which are in second causes or effects, are derived from the will of God, who appointed them to be of that nature. It is He that fits necessary causes to necessary effects, and contingent ones to those that are contingent, and so on. Whatever comes to pass necessarily, so comes to pass by virtue of the divine decrees; and whatever happens contingently, and etc. so happens because of the same decree.
The second causes do always retain their own particular nature and property, and their effects accordingly are necessary or causal, or proceed from mere sense or spontaneous motion, or from reason and will: but the first cause is immutable, and with respect to his foreknowledge and decree all effects and events are immutable, necessary, fix’d and stable, and cannot be otherwise.” – pp. 265-6
“They all happen and are according to the decree, but they are not caused by it, and therefore rational agents may act freely notwithstanding the preordination of God. For the decree does not so affect the actions of men, as to lay any force upon the actors. It is not denied that there is a necessity of the certain futurition of the acts and events, so that they shall infallibly and inevitably come to pass; but there is not on the things themselves or the actors a necessity, whereby the persons are forced to do what they do, and ot do it unwillingly.” – p. 266
.
Quotes
Order of
Rutherford
Essenius
Baxter
Wyttenbach
Wolter
Feser
.
1600’s
Samuel Rutherford
Lex Rex... (1644; Edinburgh: Ogle, 1843), p. 17
“When God (Deut. 17) forbids them [Israel] to choose a stranger [as king], He presupposes they may choose a stranger; for God’s law now given to man in the state of sin, presupposes he has corruption of nature to do contrary to God’s law.”
.
Andreas Essenius
‘Theological Disputation on the Image of God in Man’ Download tr. Jonathan Tomes (Utrecht: Johannes Waesberg, 1653) Latin
“IV… Joined to these [the soul’s faculties, such as intellect and will] is free will, or, as others prefer, liberum arbitrium, which is to be considered strictly and generically, arising from the interaction of both faculties and acting according to a natural inclination and from an intrinsic principle, which alone is free in an uncoerced manner.
This freedom applies not only to man but also to beasts and some inanimate objects that act uncoercedly, though not in a state of moral freedom as man does, where actions are performed both directly and by command, with premeditated consultation, deliberation, judgment, and from the will, which gives it liberty.”
.
Richard Baxter
The Cure of Church Divisions… (London, 1670), pt. 1, Direction 15, pp. 109-10
“Though God by his grace must change the perverse disposition of men’s wills before they will make a gracious choice, yet it is most certain that the teachings, commands, exhortations and reproofs of God are directed to the will of man: And that the promises and threatnings, mercies and judgements are used to move and change the will:
And that in the tenor of his laws and covenants, Christ has set life and death before men and put their happiness in their own choice; and that no man shall have better or worse than he made choice of: that is, none shall be either happy or miserable but as they did choose or refuse the causes of happiness or misery.
And the reason of this is, because natural-free-will was part of the natural-image of God on Adam; and it is as natural to a man to be a free-agent as to be reasonable. And God will govern man as man agreeably to his nature.”
.
A Second Admonition to Mr. Edward Bagshaw… (London: Simmons, 1671), section 56, pp. 139-40
“Edward Bagshaw, p. 18: ‘His own free-will has not the least power to receive the things of God.’
Richard Baxter:
1. What not sanctified free-will?
2. What! not a receiving obediential power? A receiving power is a passive power (as it is strictly taken). Has a free-agent less power to receive grace than a marble to receive the engraving of the workman? Does no man ever receive grace? Or do they receive what they cannot receive? Has a man no more receptive power than a block or stone?
I know it’s said ‘The natural man receiveth not, etc.’, that is, understands not, believes not, and loves not in sensu composito [in a combined sense]: But its never said that, ‘Our free-will has not the least power to receive.'”
.
Catholic Theology, Plain, Pure, Peaceable... (London: White, 1675), Preface, n.p.
“I had never read one Socinian, nor much of any Arminians… and I remembered two or three things in Dr. [William] Twisse (whom I most esteemed) which inclined me to moderation in the five Articles [disputed between Arminians and the Reformed]:
…
2. That he reduces all the decrees to two, de fine et de mediis [of the end and of the means], as the healing way.
3. That he professes that Arminius and we and all the Schoolmen are agreed that there is no necessity consequentis laid on us by God in predestination, but only necessity consequentiae, or [a] logical [necessity] (but in election I shall here suspend)…”
.
1700’s
Daniel Wyttenbach
Theological Theses, containing the Chief Heads of the Christian Doctrine, Deduced from Axioms… (1747; NY: Samuel Brown, 1766), pp. 24-25
“52. Because nothing is done without a sufficient Reason (sect. 1), also liberty in election cannot act without reason, we therefore define the same as that faculty of the mind to elect or choose out of more possible things what one pleases, agreeable to proposed reasons.
Hence all coaction [coercion] by which man is compelled thorugh extrinsical violence is at a great distance from liberty; metaphysical necessity, where there is but one only object possible, and consequently election ceases, has nothing to do with liberty; also physical necessity (i.e. natural necessity), when there is no knowledge of the objects, is far distant from liberty (or is utterly inconsistent with the very nature of it);
but there is only a moral necessity, which is no more than a certainty so that man is sweetly and willingly inclined or moved to this or that thing from these or other motives, namely because he sees what things are best.
53. Hence since liberty of indifference is repugnant to the principle of a sufficient reason, it is utterly impossible (i.e. there is no liberty of indifference); it is a chimera (or a groundless and vain imagination which has no foundation in reason or nature); it is nothing but the mere inaction of the will;
besides let those who maintain an indifference of the equilibrium in liberty (or those who place the essence of liberty in the indifference of the will), let them answer us (let them reply to the following queries, viz.), Whether God, the (holy) angels and all the inhabitants of heaven are not most free, or act with the most perfect liberty? and whether they are indifferent about good and evil?”
.
1900’s
Allan Wolter
Little Summary of Metaphysics (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1958), Wolter was a Scotist.
‘On the Existence of Contingent Being’, p. 49
“We are immediately conscious that we are free agents. The validity of this witness as regard our volitions themselves seems to be of the same weight and certitude that we have of our own cognition. Hence we are certain that something at least is contingent, namely our willing. To the extent that we can prove other actions or effects of this sort to be truly under the command or our will, to that extent is the existence of other contingent beings proved.”
.
p. 82
“a) The principle ‘whatever is moved is moved by another’ is not a per se nota [through known things themselves] proposition, nor does it seem to be universally valid (Scotus, Oxon. 1, d. 3, q. 7, 2 d. 2, q. 10, 2 d. 25, q. un, Questions on Metaphysics 9, q.14).
[The principle ‘whatever is moved is moved by another,’ is Thomist, albeit articulated in a loose way, which could be shored up. Wolter is giving Scotist criticisms. He is saying this principle is presupposed and not demonstrated through known things. One proposed exception to it in the Scotist tradition, though perhaps there may be others, is the free will of created rational agents.]
b) The argument that is founded on the impossibility of passing from potency to act save as by a being in act does not seem to be valid, because an agent, insofar as an agent has an active power, virtually contains its own action even before it actually acts. This is plain certainly about the will and probably about the intellect and other principles of motion.”
[The argument Wolter critiques is again Thomist.]
.
2000’s
Edward Feser
Immortal Souls: a Treatise on Human Nature (Editiones Scholasticae, 2024), pt. 4, ‘What is the Soul’ Feser is an Analytical Thomist.
ch. 10, ‘Immortality’, pp. 478-79
“…the will, for Aquinas, just is the inclination of a rational substance toward what the intellect judges to be good… for Aquinas the will inclines of necessity toward what the intellect judges to be good, and in particular at what we judge will bring happiness. That does not entail that we cannot will what we judge to be in some way bad. Aquinas’s view is rather that whenever we will some end, it is because of some good we judge it to have, even if the intellect acknowledges it to be bad in other respects. At the moment of choice, it is the good that the intellect sees in it that it focuses on, and the will opts for it under that aspect.
Though I follow here the common practice of speaking about what the intellect sees, what the will opts for, and so on, it is important to emphasize that strictly sepaking, it is the person or rational substance who does these things. The intellect and will are powers or capacities of this substance rather than substances in their own right. When it is said that the intellect knows something, this is to be understood as a shorthand way of saying that the person knows it, by virtue of his intellect. Similarly, when it is said that the will chooses some end, this is a shorthand way of saying that the person chooses it, by virtue of his will.
Now many ends are pursued for the sake of further ends. You labor in order to earn an income… But Aquinas holds that there must be one ultimate end toward which all our actions are directed… he hold that that end is happiness. Moreover, he argues that what alone can bring happiness is to know and love God. That is not to deny that people disagree about what will bring happiness, and that many seek it in something other than God. The point is that whatever ultimate end they seek, they seek it as that which they suppose will bring happiness. And, Aquinas holds, what alone can really bring it is in fact God, even if some do not see that.”
.
ch. 11, ‘The Form of the Body’, p. 493
“Third, by virtue of having a rational nature, a human person is also in part of an incorporeal nature. In particular, the rational powers of forming concepts, putting them together into propositions, reasoning logically from one proposition to another, and willing actions on the basis of what these intellectual capacities present as ends worth pursuing, do not directly involve any bodily organs.”
.
Historical
1200’s to 1300’s
On Duns Scotus
Articles
De Doctrina Ionnis Duns Scoti (Acta Congressus Scotistici Internationalis Oxonii et Edimburgi 11-17 Sept. 1966),
vol. 2
Zavalloni, Roberto – ‘Personal Freedom & Scotus’ Voluntarism’, pp. 613-27
Messerich, Valerius – ‘The Awareness of Causal Initiative & Existential Responsibility…’, pp. 629-44
Gavran, Ignatius – ‘The Idea of Freedom as a Basic Concept of Human Existence according to John Duns Scotus’, pp. 645-69
vol. 4
Marcil, George – ‘The Unconscious & Free Choice: a Comparison between Freud & Scotus’, pp. 647-52
.
Book
Gelber, Hester G. – It Could Have Been Otherwise: Contingency & Necessity in Dominican Theology at Oxford, 1300-1350 Pre (Brill, 2004) 360 pp. ToC
.
On the Post-Reformation
Article
Hampton, Stephen – 1. ‘Free Choice’ in ‘Sin, Grace & Free Choice in Post-Reformation Reformed Theology’ in Lehner, Muller & Roeber, The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theology, 1600-1800 (Oxford, 2016), pp. 229-31
.
Books
van Asselt, Willem J. – Reformed Thought on Freedom: the Concept of Free Choice in Early Modern Reformed Theology Buy (2010) 243 pp.
“…the Fall causes a damage or loss of moral and spiritual freedom (man can no longer do the good or love God); the natural freedom, by which man’s will can choose between opposites without being necessitated towards one of both, remains after the Fall. This natural freedom is essential to man, in the sense that without this freedom he would no longer be man as a rational and responsible creature.
The Reformed authors treated in this volume [Zanchius, Junius, Gomarus, Voetius, Turretin, de Moore] take pains to combine the permanence of essential freedom (presupposing contingency in reality) with the disastrous slavery of sin by which man’s will s bound (accounting for the factual impossibility of doing the good, since we can only do the good by loving and obeying God).
…human freedom does not go unqualified: man does not act out of nature, or contrary to the (ultimate) judgment of his intellect, or outside of God’s providence. Still, these forms of necessity obtain in terms of the necessity of the consequence by which the outcome (the consequent) is not made necessary in itself.” – p. 235
Yoo, Jeongmo – John Edwards (1637-1716) on Human Free Choice & Divine Necessity Pre Buy (2013) 234 pp.
This John Edwards (1637–1716) was a reformed Anglican. He was one of the last prominent reformed divines of that era to teach the older reformed view of free will, just shortly before Jonathan Edwards in America was promulgating a synthesis of Calvinism and Enlightenment philosophy on the will.
Muller, Richard – Divine Will & Human Choice: Freedom, Contingency & Necessity in Early Modern Reformed Thought Excerpt Buy (2017) 336 pp.
“The views on contingency and freedom, including the assumption of alternativity [alternate choice, or the power to choose alternatives] in the definition of freedom, were in the main line of early modern Reformed theological and philosophical development…
The early modern Reformed argumentation… was capable of affirming human free choice as defined by intellective deliberation and multiple volitional potencies and as embodying genuine alternativity in a manner that does not comport with the assumptions of modern compatibilist [determinist] theology and philosophy.” – p. 311
“The language of synchronic contingency [something can be contingent in different ways at the same time, and that alternatives can be contingent possibilities at the same time]… What makes the language interesting is its application to the particular case of the concurrent willing of two rational beings [God and a human person] involved in the actualization of one effect–a case in which both of the beings could will otherwise, but given that both wills taken together are the necessary and sufficient conditions for the actualization of the effect, both must be understood as freely concurrring to a single effect. That is interesting.” – pp. 314-315
“The case of human freedom, as a species of contingency, is quite different: it references a genuine alternativity in human choice that is ontically [the order of being, not just in the order of knowledge] grounded in the divine decree, maintained in the providential concursus, and rooted in the potencies belonging to the will and the free determinations of the intellect.” – p. 316
Beck, Andreas J. – Gisbertus Voetius (1589–1676) on God, Freedom, & Contingency Pre (Brill, 2022) 600 pp. ToC
.
On Jonathan Edwards
Articles
Muller, Richard
‘Jonathan Edwards & the Absence of Free Choice: A Parting of Ways in the Reformed Tradition’ (2011) 20 pp. This is the article form of his audio lecture.
Here is Paul Helm’s published rejoinder. You may need to set up a free account to read it.
‘Jonathan Edwards & Francis Turretin on Necessity, Contingency & Freedom of Will. In Response to Paul Helm’ (2014) 19 pp.
Here is Paul Helm’s surrejoinder. Muller dominates the exchanges.
.
Audio Lecture
Muller, Richard – “Jonathan Edwards & the Absence of Free Choice: A Parting of Ways in the Reformed Tradition” 71 min., Sept. 29th, 2010, at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, being the Inaugural Lecture for the Jonathan Edwards Center. This lecture is in article form above.
“Jonathan Edwards is often regarded as an epitome of Calvinism for his teaching on the freedom of will, though he was, in his own time and for a century after his death, a much-debated thinker whose views polarized Reformed circles.
This lecture will concentrate on Edwards’s reception in Britain, which has received little attention despite its significance in the Reformed tradition. Concentrating on two historical contexts, Dr. Muller will consider the mixed reception of Edwards’ thought, note differences between Edwards and the older Reformed orthodoxy, and point to a parting of the ways in the Reformed tradition that took place largely in the eighteenth century.”
.
On the Cause(s) of the Human Will
Quotes
Order of
Walaeus
Feser
.
1600’s
Anthony Walaeus
Theological Theses on the Efficacious Vocation of the Sinner to Salvation trans. AI (Leiden: Marcus, 1620), p. 5
“XXIII. The mode by which God acts in efficacious vocation having now been explained, it remains for us to see how man conducts himself toward it. Here, there can be a twofold notion of man, as he is considered either in the first act of conversion or in the second act. Considered in the former, he behaves purely passively toward the efficacy of his vocation, contributing nothing as such, only receiving what is impressed upon him from elsewhere.
XXIV. In the second act, however, there is some operation of man, and here he also performs his parts, so that he himself acts, believes, and wills rightly; yet in such a way that he perfects all these things in the virtue of the Holy Spirit as the principal mover. He indeed moves himself, but as one who has been moved, and thus he receives all good inclinations from Him, by which he is active (Phil. 2:12-13).”
.
2000’s
Edward Feser
Immortality of Souls: a Treatise on Human Nature (Editiones Scholastica, 2024), ch. 4, ‘The Will’ Feser is an Anyltical Thomist, writing in the Thomist tradition. What is said below is consistent with divine, physical predetermination.
p. 146
“…the conceptual order outstrips the order of things conceptualized. And it is this outstripping that entails the possibility of willing otherwise. Because the intellect is not necessitated to conceptualizing things one way rather than another, the will is not necessitated to being moved to one end rather than another.
But neither is choice random or arbitrary. For choice is always for a reason, even if the reason is not necessitated. And to act for a reason is precisely not to act randomly or arbitrarily.”
.
pp. 169-70
“What makes it the case that I do in fact act or refrain from acting on the reasons in question? Doesn’t a choice to act require a cause, and if the act is to be a free and thus self-determined one, doesn’t that entail that the cause must be some further choice on my part? If that is the case, doesn’t that further choice itself require yet another choice as a cause, and so on ad infinitum?
The answer is that this does not follow. Just as the will’s ultimate ends in the order of final causes are simply given rather than pursued for the sake of yet further ends, so too its ultimate acts in the order of efficient causes can bring about effects (such as bodily movements) without themselves being caused. The will is in this sense an uncaused cause or unmoved mover.†
† …as Cuypers goes on to note, this is consistent with holding that the will is ultimately moved by God, just as, for the Thomist, everything other than God ultimately exists and acts at any moment only insofar as God conserves it in being and concurs with its causal activity. If we acccept this theological picture (as I happen to), the will would count as an unmoved mover only in a relative sense, with God alone being an unmoved mover in an absolute sense… In my view, how divine causality related to the will is in any event more a question about the nature of divine causality than it is a question about the nature of the will.
This does not entail that its operation is random, either in the snese of being an exception to the principle of causality or in the sense of being unintelligible or devoid of explanation. It is not an exception to the principle of causality, because events require causes insofar as they contain some passive potentiality that requires actualization… The exertion of the will by contrast, is entirely active rather than passive. It is a bringing about that is not itself brought about by anything else. Yet it is not unintelligible or devoid of explanation, because it is done for a reason–in particular, for the sake of the end grasped by the intellect–and something done for a reason is the opposite of unintelligible.
Hence the defender of agent-causal free will [which Aquinas’s view more or less fits into] is not stuck with the dilemma of having to posit either ‘an infinite regress or a nonrational flip-flop.”
.
On the Primacy of the Intellect or of the Will
Order of
Intellect 1
Will 1
.
Primacy of the Intellect
Quote
On Aquinas
Edward Feser, Immortal Souls: a Treatise on Human Nature (Editiones Scholastica, 2024), ch. 4, ‘The Will’, pp. 122-23
“Aquinas holds that the intellect is prior to the will, a thesis sometimes called intellectualism (where voluntarism is the rival view that the will is prior to the intellect).
What has been said should make it clear what this means and why he holds it. For the will is a power of a substance, and a power is ontologically less fundamental than the substance of which it is a power. And the kind of substance of which it is a power is a rational or intellectual substance. Hence, the will is posterior to the intellect in just the way that the power to cause sleep is posterior to opium, or the power to sink roots into the ground is posterior to a plant. To say that the will is prior to the intellect would be like saying that a plant’s power to sink roots is prior to its vegetative nature. It would get things the wrong way around, putting the volitional cart before the intellective horse.
Moreover, a thing cannot be willed unless it is known, and it is the intellect that knows. An appetite is an appetite for some object, and if the object is not known intellectually, then the appetite would be a natural appetite or a sensory appetite rather than a rational appetite, and thus would not be a will.
By contrast, if, per impossible, an intellectual substance lacked a will and therefore were not inclined toward or away from what it knows, it would still know what it knows.
To be sure, there is a sense in which the will can move the intellect, as even Aquinas allows. But when properly understood, this does not in any way conflict with what has been said so far. For the will cannot move the intellect, any more than it can do anything else, unless the intellect first judges such movement to be good and worthy of pursuit.
For example, suppose we say that the will moves the intellect to contemplate some topic. That is precisely because the intellect judges such contemplation to be worth pursuing, and the will simply follows its lead. When we speak of the will doing this or that, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking of the will as if it had a mind of its own, which somehow competes with the intellect. In fact the only mind the will has is the intellect itself. When the will moves the intellect, it is really the intellect moving the intellect by the means of the will. Or, better still, it is the rational substance moving itself, by means of the same power by which it moves other things, namely the will.
To think that the will somehow moves the intellect on its own is like thinking that, when I pull a rug out from under myself and fall down, it is the rug that has knocked me down. In fact I knocked myself down by means of pulling the rug, and in the same way, I move my intellect myself when I will either to contemplate or not contemplate some topic.”
.
Article
Clark, Gordon –
.
Primacy of the Will
Quotes
1700’s
Barthold Holtzfus
‘Theological Dissertation on Man’ (Frankfurt: Schwartz, 1712), p. 17
ҤXXXIV. Scotus and the Scotists, after Hales, Bonaventure, and Richard, also rightly state that the will, with respect to its acts, is more excellent than the intellect, for:
1. The Intellect is a merely natural and necessary faculty, which only represents and shows to the will things to be done and chosen, but does not command them; whereas the will determines the intellect to speculate on this or that, and often commands it to consider this and not that, and to judge in this way and not another. But it is more noble to command than to do or execute what is commanded.
2. Liberty, which is the highest perfection of an intellectual nature, inheres in the will, at whose nod the other faculties act or cease; from this, then, shines the nobility of the will.”
.
‘Theological Dissertation on the Free Will of Man’ trans. AI by Nosferatu (Frankfurt: Zeitler, 1707), pp. 8, 11 Latin
ҤXIII. The special subject, as to man, is either of denomination or the subject which, and this is the whole man; or of inhesion or the subject by which, and this, the remote and mediate, is the soul of man; the proximate and immediate is formally the will; but the intellect, according to Thomas, is so radically; according to Scotus, better, antecedently: because with Scotus and Henricus Gandavensis as
authorities, the name of root signifies a true cause, but the intellect is not the true cause of the liberty of the will; but only the antecedent and the condition without which there would not be liberty in the will.
…
§XVIII. The object of free will is τὰ πρακτὰ, agibilia (doable things), proposed and shown to the will by the intellect. For the will is not borne toward the unknown: nor is anything willed, unless it is first known. Whence that trite saying: Of the unknown there is no desire. Therefore the intellect is not indeed properly the root of liberty, since root signifies a true cause, but causality cannot be attributed to the intellect with respect to liberty; but it is the antecedent and the condition without which the will would not choose freely; whence the will is called the rational appetite, since on the contrary the appetite in brutes is not free, because it is not rational. Nor yet is it always necessary for desiring an object that the intellect should practically judge that the proposed object is to be chosen, but sometimes a simple apprehension of the object as good suffices; which has its place before all others in the movements of the will which they call the very first, and which happen without deliberation.”
.
On Whether the Will Invariably follows the Last Judgment of the Practical Intellect
Order of
Yes
No
Yes vs. No
.
Yes
Proponents
Thomists
Maresius
.
Articles
1600’s
Turretin, Francis – Institutes (P&R), vol. 1, 10th Topic
sections 7-8, 12, 15-17 in Question 2, ‘Whether every necessity is repugnant to freedom of will. We deny against the papists and Remonstrants’, pp. 663-5
sections 7 & 14-15 in Question 3, ‘Whether the formal reason of free will consists in indifference or in rational spontaneity. The former we deny; the latter we affirm against papists, Socinians and Remonstrants’, pp. 666, 668
.
1900’s
Lagrange –
.
2000’s
Feser, Edward – ‘Being, the Good & the Guise of the Good’ in eds. Daniel D. Novotny & Lukas Novak, Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives in Metaphysics (London: Routledge, 2012)
.
Quote
2000’s
Edward Feser
Immortal Souls: a Treatise on Human Nature (Editiones Scholastica, 2024), ch. 4, ‘The Will’, pp. 137-38
“A will that was not of its nature directed toward what the intellect takes to be good would be like an acorn that was not of its nature directed toward becoming an oak. The latter just wouldn’t really be an acorn, and the former just wouldn’t really be a will.¹
¹ For further discussion and defense of the thesis that the will always aims at what the intellect takes to be good, see Edward Feser, ‘Being, the Good, and the Guise of the Good,’ in Daniel D. Novotny and Lukas Novak, eds., Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives in Metaphysics (London: Routledge, 2012).
…A tree that did not aim at getting its branches toward the sun would not be a freer tree, but just a defective tree. And a will that did not aim at the good would not be a freer will, but just a defective will.”
.
No
Proponents
Scotists
.
Articles
1600’s
Rutherford, Samuel – pp. 89-90 in the Appendix to Peter van Mastricht, A Treatise on Regeneration… (New Haven, 1770) trans. by the anonymous editor from Rutherfords, Exercitationes Apologeticae pro Gratia Divina, p. 366
van Mastricht, Peter – A Treatise on Regeneration… (New Haven, 1770)
pp. 26-27 of section XV in Doctrinal Part
section 26, pp. 37-39 in Elenchtic Part
.
Quote
1700’s
Barthold Holtzfuz
‘Theological Dissertation on the Free Will of Man’ trans. AI by Nosferatu (Frankfurt: Zeitler, 1707), pp. 9-11 Latin
ҤXVII. The ultimate judgment of the practical intellect is indeed a condition without which the
will does not ordinarily operate; In the meantime, however, the will is not determined by the practical judgment of the intellect. Which, against the Thomists and certain of the Reformed, to whom Bellarmine accedes here in bk. 3 of On Grace & Free Will, ch. 8, the Scotists and others rightly deny, who teach that the ultimate judgment of the practical intellect does not necessarily determine the will, for:
(1) Scripture teaches that men often act, or choose something against the light of the intellect, or the dictate of right reason and grace, as in:
Job 21:14, ‘They said to God, depart from us, we do not want the knowledge of thy ways.’ Ch. 24:13, ‘They were rebellious to the light.’ Lk. 12:47, ‘The servant who knew the will of his Lord, and did not prepare himself, nor did according to his will, will be beaten with many stripes.’ Jm. 4:17, ‘To him who knows to do good and does it not, to him it is sin.’
(2) Whence they are damned who have acted against the dictate of the intellect or of right reason.
Jn. 3:19, ‘This is the judgment, because men loved darkness more than the light: for their works were evil.’ Rom. 2:1-2, ‘Thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest. For wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself: for thou dost the same things which thou judgest.’ vv. 17-18 ff., ‘If thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, and knowest his will, and approvest the more profitable things, being instructed by the law, art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them that are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, having the form of knowledge and of truth in the law. Thou therefore that teachest another, teachest not thyself? thou that preachest that men should not steal, stealest? Thou that sayest, men should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? Thou that makest thy boast of the law, by transgression of the law dishonourest God.’ Eze. 12:2, ‘They have eyes to see, and see not: and ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a provoking house.’ cf. Eze. 33:31-32; Zech. 7:11-12; Jer. 6:16-17; Jn. 5:40; ch. 8:46; ch. 15:22; Acts 7:51; ch. 13:46; Mt. 11:21.
(3) If the will were necessarily determined by the ultimate judgment of the practical intellect, it would follow that the will acts not freely but naturally.
(4) This opinion being admitted, the will would not be an active faculty that moves and determines, but a passive one, moved and determined; which should rather be said of the intellect.
(5) It would follow that the will could never prefer a lesser good to a greater good; and
(6) from two equal goods it could choose neither. But experience teaches the contrary.
(7) There would be no voluntary, deliberate sins against conscience; against the passages cited in n. 2; for to sin voluntarily and against conscience is to cry out against the ultimate judgment of the practical intellect.
(8) There would be no blasphemy against
the Holy Spirit, against Mt. 12:31-32; Mk. 3:28-29; Heb. 6:4-6; 10:29.
The intellect therefore moves the will indeed, but not physically, but morally, as a guide, not as a master; and the will depends on the intellect, but not as from an effective principle of volition, but as from a condition without which it would not be. In agreement are:
Peter Molinæus, Enodatio Gravissimarum Quaestionum, Tract 6, quest. 2, p. 192; Ames, On Conscience & its Law or Cases, bk. 1, ch. 7, §6-7; Robert Baron, Metaphysica Generalis, sect. 12, disp. 1, n. 20, 29 ff., pp. 325, 335 ff.; G.J. Voss, On Idolatry, §3, ch. 43; Dn. D. Samuel Strimesius, Praxiologia Apodictica, ch. 3, subsect. 3, art. 1, §10 ff.; Baxter, Method of Theology, pt. 1, ch. 5, n. 35-37, p. 160; ch. 8, n. 106, p. 208; ch. 14, n. 68-70, pp. 276-77; and from the Cartesian hypothesis, Burmann, Synopsis, bk. 2, ch. 11, §5; Wittich, Pacific Theology, ch. 11, §126-27. Compare also Hornejus, Moral Philosophy, bk. 2, ch. 5-6, 10 ff.; and from the Scholastics, Suarez, Metaphysical Disputations, 19, sect. 6, n. 2; Becanus, Scholastic Theology, pt. 2, tract 1, ch. 2, quest. 5; Arriaga, Disputations on Physics, 8, sect. 2; Fonseca, etc.; also Boyvin, Philosophy of Scotus, pt. 4, pt. 1, disp. 2, quest. 1 and Theology of Scotus, pt. 2, Tract on the Grace of Christ, ch. 2, quest. 4.”
.
Yes vs. No
Quote
On Maresius (Pro) & van Mastricht (Contra)
Stephen Hampton, 1. ‘Free Choice’, pp. 229-30 in ‘Sin, Grace & Free Choice in Post-Reformation Reformed Theology’ in Lehner, Muller & Roeber, The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theology, 1600-1800 (Oxford, 2016)
“…one key prerequisite for human action [according to Samuel Maresius] is the ‘ultimate judgment of practical reason’–the discernment, by the intellect, of what course of action seems best in all the circumstances. If free choice involved the potential to reject this judgment, then human beings would not be rational agents (Maresius 1646-48, 2:4).
For this reason, Maresius underlines that free choice cannot be identified solely with the will. Choosing a course of action involves making an intellectual judgment about what should be done, which the will then follows as a matter of intrinsic necessity (Maresius 1646-48, 2:12). That is why Maresius calls intellectual judgment the ‘prime mover’ of the human microcosm, ‘by which the will is determined to willing’ (Maresius 1646-48, 2:12). It follows from this that free choice is incompatible with coercion; because if one is forced to act contrary to one’s intellectual judgment, then one’s choice is not free as Maresius understands it. Free choice requires… the freedom to act as one thinks best.
…
In Maresius’s conception of free choice, the will is invariably determined by the last judgment of practical reason; that, indeed, is what makes it a rational faculty. But this view was not universal amongst the Reformed. In his Theoretico-Practica Theologia, Petrus van Mastricht (1630-1706) notes Maresius’s position, but disagrees with it.
If Maresius were right, he argues, grace would only need to illuminate the human intellect for conversion to happen. However, scripture makes clear that conversion requires not only a new mind but also a new heart (Ez 36:26), and that saving grace directly affects the will (Phil. 2:13). Van Mastricht suggests, therefore, that the will only follows the judgment of practical reason when the judgment is congruous with its habitual disposition. As a result, a sinful will may not automatically follow what the intellect judges to be the best course of action… (Van Mastricht 1699, 383-84).”
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On Free Choice in Heaven
Quote
1700’s
Barthold Holtzfus
‘Theological Dissertation on the Free Will of Man’ trans. AI by Nosferatu (Frankfurt: Zeitler, 1707), p. 27 Latin
“§XVI. In the prestituted state or the State of Glory, the blessed will be free even from misery itself and from the sense or root of sin. Concerning which state Augustine in his Enchiridion, ch. 105, says: “free will will be much more free, because it will be altogether unable to serve sin.”
For although the blessed will be determined to the good alone, they will yet enjoy the liberty of exercise or of contradiction, by which they will be able to act or not to act; and the liberty of specification, by which they will be able to choose this good before that, in which matter they will be not only “equal to the angels” (ισάγγελοι), but also like God Himself, 1 Jn. 3:2.
For God, on account of the absolute perfection of his essence and his essential sanctity, cannot will evil, but necessarily wills good; yet to the outside, from the number of goods, He can choose either this or that, and this He can either will or not will;
and this true, most excellent and eminent Liberty of the sons of God, that will last forever, we ought here ardently to seek and to pant for! since this is the end of our creation.”
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Latin
1600’s
Alsted, Henry – ch. 13, ‘Free Choice’ in Distinctions through Universal Theology, taken out of the Canon of the Sacred Letters & Classical Theologians (Frankfurt: 1626), pp. 59-62
Voet, Gisbert – II. Of Enslaved & Free Choice in Syllabus of Theological Problems (Utrecht, 1643), pt. 1, section 1, tract 4 Abbr.
Wettstein, Gernler & Buxtorf – 8. Sin, Free Choice & the Punishment of Sin in A Syllabus of Controversies in Religion which come between the Orthodox Churches & whatever other Adversaries, for material for the regular disputations… customarily held in the theological school of the academy at Basil (Basil, 1662), pp. 26-30
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Related Pages
The Reformed Freedom of Choice vs. Determinism