Binding: Clothbound
Page Count: 347
Publisher: Soli Deo Gloria
ISBN#:
9781573580335
Availability: Usually Ships the Same Business Day
Description
: Regarded by many as Jonathan Edwards’ greatest work,
The Freedom of the Will
examines the nature and state of man’s will, explaining that man’s will is fallen and in need of God’s grace for salvation.
In 1754 Edwards published
The Freedom of the Will, which although it was written long before the modern debate over Open Theism, thoroughly answers and demolishes the errors of this view.
The full title of Edwards’ great philosophical work is, “An Inquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions of the Freedom of the Will which is Supposed to be Essential to Moral Agency, Virtue and Vice, Reward and Punishment, Praise and Blame.” His text was Romans 9:16, “It is not of him that willeth.”
One of the authors that he was refuting was Daniel Whitby, an Arminian minister in the Church of England. Whitby was known for being strongly anti-Calvinistic, and later gave evidence of strong Arian and Unitarian tendencies. In 1710 he had written his Discourse on the Five Points [of Calvinism]. What Edwards interacted with most was the fourth discourse on “The Liberty of the Will of Man in a State of Trial and Probation.”
Whitby’s statement, “It is better to deny prescience [foreknowledge] than liberty.” Is from that section. He also said that it is better to say that God does not know the future, or that God both does and doesn’t know the future. One can see the “Openness of God” theology in these statements three hundred years ago.
Edwards responded in
The Freedom of the Will that man freely chooses whatever seems good to him, but that what seems good to him is always based on an inherent predisposition. That inherent predisposition has been foreordained and predestined by a sovereign God who does not inhibit man’s ability to freely choose from a limited menu. For Edwards the issue regarding a totally free will is a simple one: either contingency and the liberty of self-determination must be run out of this world, or God will be shut out.
"Pelagianism has a death grip on the modern church. Perhaps the most important refutation of this distinctive is Edwards' Freedom of the Will. I believe this is the most important theological book ever published in America."
- Dr. R.C. Sproul
"In this book, Edwards annihilated false views of the will that prevailed in his century and in ours, in order that men may know how to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. This profoundest of all Edwards' works is essentially and intentionally and evangelistic tract."
- John H. Gerstner
