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Free will in theology

October 28, 2023

This article is about the theological questions of free will. For other uses, see Free will (disambiguation).

Free will in theology is an important part of the debate on free will in general. Religions vary greatly in their response to the standard argument against free will and thus might appeal to any number of responses to the paradox of free will, the claim that omniscience and free will are incompatible.

Overview Edit

Main article: Argument from free will

The theological doctrine of divine foreknowledge is often alleged to be in conflict with free will, particularly in Calvinistic circles: if God knows exactly what will happen (right down to every choice a person makes), it would seem that the "freedom" of these choices is called into question.[1]

This problem relates to Aristotle's analysis of the problem of the sea battle: tomorrow either there will or will not be a sea battle. According to the Law of Excluded Middle, there seem to be two options. If there will be a sea battle, then it seems that it was true even yesterday that there would be one. Thus it is necessary that the sea battle will occur. If there will not be one, then, by similar reasoning, it is necessary that it will not occur.[2] That means that the future, whatever it is, is completely fixed by past truths: true propositions about the future (a deterministic conclusion is reached: things could not have been any other way).

However, some philosophers follow William of Ockham (c. 1287 – 1347) in holding that necessity and possibility are defined with respect to a given point in time and a given matrix of empirical circumstances, and so something that is merely possible from the perspective of one observer may be necessary from the perspective of an omniscient.[3] Some philosophers follow Philo in holding that free will is a feature of a human's soul, and thus that non-human animals lack free will.[4][5]

Common defenses Edit

Jewish philosophy stresses that free will is a product of the intrinsic human soul, using the word neshama (from the Hebrew root n.sh.m. or .נ.ש.מ meaning "breath"), but the ability to make a free choice is through Yechida (from Hebrew word "yachid", יחיד, singular), the part of the soul that is united with God,[citation needed] the only being that is not hindered by or dependent on cause and effect (thus, freedom of will does not belong to the realm of the physical reality, and inability of natural philosophy to account for it is expected).

In Islam, the theological issue is not usually how to reconcile free will with God's foreknowledge but with God's jabr or divine commanding power. al-Ash'ari developed an "acquisition" or "dual-agency" form of compatibilism, in which human free will and divine jabr were both asserted, and which became a cornerstone of the dominant Ash'ari position.[6] In Shia Islam, Ash'aris understanding of a higher balance toward predestination is challenged by most theologists.[7] Free will, according to Islamic doctrine is the main factor for man's accountability in his/her actions throughout life. All actions committed by man's free will are said to be counted on the Day of Judgement because they are his/her own and not God's.

The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard claimed that divine omnipotence cannot be separated from divine goodness.[8] As a truly omnipotent and good being, God could create beings with true freedom over God. Furthermore, God would voluntarily do so because "the greatest good... which can be done for a being, greater than anything else that one can do for it, is to be truly free."[9] Alvin Plantinga's free-will defense is a contemporary expansion of this theme, adding how God, free will, and evil are consistent.[10]

Christianity Edit

See also: Free will in antiquity § Christianity

Academic views Edit

The consensus of scholars who focus on the study of free will in the ancient world is that the Bible does not explicitly address free will. [11][12][13]

The leading scholar on the subject of free will in antiquity, Michael Frede, observed that "freedom and free will cannot be found in either the Septuagint or the New Testament and must have come to the Christians mainly from Stoicism."[14]

Frede wrote that he could not find either the language of free will nor even any assumption of it in the New Testament or the Greek Old Testament.[15] According to Frede, the early Church fathers most certainly developed their doctrine of free will from the pagans.[16]

Another Oxford scholar, Dr. Alister McGrath, concurs entirely with Frede, “The term ‘free will’ is not biblical, but derives from Stoicism. It was introduced into Western Christianity by the second-century theologian Tertullian.”[17]

Pauline expert, Troels Engberg-Pedersen, unequivocally insists that, “Paul firmly believed in divine determination as an intrinsic part of his whole conception of God.”[18]

The implicit argument Edit

Nonetheless, many have argued an "implicit" case for finding free will in the bible. The most fundamental source for this case lies in the fall into sin by Adam and Eve that occurred in their "willfully chosen" disobedience to God.[19]

Some contend that "freedom" and "free will" can be treated as one because the two terms are commonly used as synonyms;[20] however, there are widespread disagreements in definitions of the two terms.[21] Because of these disagreements, Christian philosopher Mortimer Adler found that a delineation of three kinds of freedom is necessary for clarity on the subject, as follows:

(1) Circumstantial freedom is "freedom from coercion or restraint" that prevents acting as one wills.[22]

  • In the Bible, circumstantial freedom was given to the Israelites in The Exodus from slavery in Egypt.[23]

(2) Natural freedom (a.k.a. volitional freedom) is freedom to determine one's own "decisions or plans." Natural freedom is inherent in all people, in all circumstances, and "without regard to any state of mind or character which they may or may not acquire in the course of their lives."[24]

  • Other theologians, paralleling Adler, view all humanity as naturally possessing the "free choice of the will."[25] If "free will" is taken to mean unconstrained and voluntary choice, the Bible assumes that all people, unregenerate and regenerate, possess it.[26] For examples, "free will" is taught in Matthew 23:37 and Revelation 22:17.[27][clarification needed]

(3) Acquired freedom is freedom "to live as [one] ought to live," a freedom that requires a transformation whereby a person acquires a righteous, holy, healthy, etc. "state of mind or character."[28]

  • The Bible testifies to the need for acquired freedom because no one "is free for obedience and faith till he is freed from sin's dominion." People possess natural freedom but their "voluntary choices" serve sin until they acquire freedom from "sin's dominion." The New Bible Dictionary denotes this acquired freedom for "obedience and faith" as "free will" in a theological sense.[26] Therefore, in biblical thinking, an acquired freedom from being "enslaved to sin" is needed "to live up to Jesus' commandments to love God and love neighbor."[29]
  • Jesus told his hearers that they needed to be made "free indeed" (John 8:36). "Free indeed [ontós]" means "truly free" or "really free," as it is in some translations.[30] Being made "free indeed" means freedom from "bondage to sin."[31] This acquired freedom is "freedom to serve the Lord."[32] Being "free indeed" (i.e., true freedom) comes by "God's changing our nature" to free us from being "slaves to sin." and endowing us with "the freedom to choose to be righteous."

Mark R. Talbot,[33] a "classical Christian theist,"[34] views this acquired "compatibilist freedom" as the freedom that "Scripture portrays as worth having."[35]

Open theism denies that classical theism's compatibilist "freedom to choose to be righteous without the possibility of choosing otherwise."[36] qualifies as true freedom. For open theism, true libertarian freedom is incompatibilist freedom. Regardless of factors, a person has the freedom to choose the opposite alternatives. In open theist William Hasker's words, regarding any action it is always "within the agent's power to perform the action and also in the agent's power to refrain from the action."[37] Although open theism generally contradicts classical theism's "freedom to choose to be righteous without the possibility of choosing otherwise," Hasker allows that Jesus possessed and humans in heaven will possess such freedom. Regarding Jesus, Hasker views Jesus as "a free agent," but he also thinks that "it was not really possible" that Jesus would "abort the mission."[38] Regarding heaven, Hasker foresees that as the result of our choice we will be "unable to sin" because all sinful impulses will be gone.[39]

Roman Catholic Edit

Today, theologians of the Roman Catholic Church universally embrace the idea of free will, but generally do not view free will as existing apart from or in contradiction to grace. According to the Roman Catholic Church "To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of "predestination", he includes in it each person's free response to his grace."[40] The Council of Trent declared that "the free will of man, moved and excited by God, can by its consent co-operate with God, Who excites and invites its action; and that it can thereby dispose and prepare itself to obtain the grace of justification. The will can resist grace if it chooses. It is not like a lifeless thing, which remains purely passive. Weakened and diminished by Adam's fall, free will is yet not destroyed in the race (Sess. VI, cap. i and v)."

During the era of the original Jesuits, a movement arose in Catholicism called Jansenism, which contradicted the Jesuits' teaching on free will. French Philosopher, Blaise Pascal was an adherent of this theology. There are no modern adherents of Jansenism.

St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas wrote extensively on free will, with Augustine focusing on the importance of free will in his responses to the Manichaeans, and also on the limitations of a concept of unlimited free will as denial of grace, in his refutations of Pelagius.

Denying the Roman Catholic teaching, John Duns Scotus asserted that "the created will acts just for internal reasons, and therefore contingently in all circumstances", even in Heaven, "regardless of the perfection of the object presented by the intellect."[41] On the contrary, the Roman Catholic teaching affirms that when God—the proper object of the will—is known with sufficient clarity in the afterlife, then "the perpetuity" of the free will's act is necessary and "in Heaven is guaranteed by the absence of reason for the will to will something else."[41]

The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church asserts that "Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will".[42] It goes on to say that "God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. God willed that man should be 'left in the hand of his own counsel,' so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him.""[43] The section concludes with the role that grace plays, "By the working of grace the Holy Spirit educates us in spiritual freedom in order to make us free collaborators in his work in the Church and in the world."[44]

Reformed Latin Christianity's views on free will and grace are often contrasted with predestination in Reformed Protestant Christianity, especially after the Counter-Reformation, but in understanding differing conceptions of free will it is just as important to understand the differing conceptions of the nature of God, focusing on the idea that God can be all-powerful and all-knowing even while people continue to exercise free will, because God transcends time.

The papal encyclical on human freedom, Libertas Praestantissimum by Pope Leo XIII (1888),[45] seems to leave the question unresolved as to the relation between free will and determinism: whether the correct notion is the compatibilist one or the libertarian one. The quotations supporting compatibilism include the one from St. Thomas (footnote 4) near the end of paragraph 6, regarding the cause of evil ("Whereas, when he sins, he acts in opposition to reason, is moved by another, and is the victim of foreign misapprehensions"),[46] and a similar passus suggesting a natural, cause-and-effect function of human will ("harmony with his natural inclinations", "Creator of will", "by whom all things are moved in conformity with their nature") near the end of paragraph 8 (when considering the problem of how grace can have effects on free will). On the other hand, metaphysical libertarianism – at least as a sort of possibility of reversing the direction of one's acting – is suggested by the reference to the well-known philosophical term metaphysical freedom at the beginning of paragraph 3 and, to an extent, a contrasting comparison of animals, which always act "of necessity", with human liberty, by means of which one can "either act or not act, do this or do that".

Critique that seems more or less to support popular incompatibilistic views can be found in some papal documents especially in the 20th century,[47] no explicit condemnation, however, of causal determinism in its most generic form can be found there. More often these documents focus on condemnation of physicalism/materialism and the stressing of significance of belief in soul, as a non-physical indivisible substance equipped with intellect and will, which decides human proceeding in a (perhaps imprecise) way.

Orthodox Christianity Edit

Oriental Orthodox Edit

The concept of free will is also of vital importance in the Oriental (or non-Chalcedonian) Churches, those in communion with the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. As in Judaism, free will is regarded as axiomatic. Everyone is regarded as having a free choice as to in what measure he or she will follow his or her conscience or arrogance, these two having been appointed for each individual. The more one follows one's conscience, the more it brings one good results, and the more one follows one's arrogance, the more it brings one bad results. Following only one's arrogance is sometimes likened to the dangers of falling into a pit while walking in pitch darkness, without the light of conscience to illuminate the path. Very similar doctrines have also found written expression in the Dead Sea Scrolls "Manual of Discipline", and in some religious texts possessed by the Beta Israel Jews of Ethiopia.

Eastern Orthodox Edit

The Eastern (or Chalcedonian) Orthodox Church espouses a belief different from the Lutheran, Calvinist, and Arminian Protestant views. The difference is in the interpretation of original sin, alternatively known as "ancestral sin," where the Orthodox do not believe in total depravity. The Orthodox reject the Pelagian view that the original sin did not damage human nature; they accept that the human nature is depraved, but despite man's fallenness the divine image he bears has not been destroyed.

The Orthodox Church holds to the teaching of synergy (συνεργός, meaning working together), which says that man has the freedom to, and must if he wants to be saved, choose to accept and work with the grace of God. St. John Cassian, a 4th-century Church Father and pupil of St. John Chrysostom, articulated this view and all the Eastern Fathers embraced it. He taught that "Divine grace is necessary to enable a sinner to return unto God and live, yet man must first, of himself, desire and attempt to choose and obey God", and that "Divine grace is indispensable for salvation, but it does not necessarily need to precede a free human choice, because, despite the weakness of human volition, the will can take the initiative toward God.".

Some Orthodox Christians use the parable of a drowning man to plainly illustrate the teaching of synergy: God from the ship throws a rope to a drowning man, pulls him up, saving him, and the man, if he wants to be saved, must hold on tightly to the rope; explaining both that salvation is a gift from God and man cannot save himself, and that man must co-work (syn-ergo) with God in the process of salvation.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, the Russian Orthodox Christian novelist, suggested many arguments for and against free will. Famous arguments are found in "The Grand Inquisitor" chapter in The Brothers Karamazov, and in his work Notes from Underground. He also developed an argument that suicide, if irrational, is actually a validation of free will (see Kirilov in the Demons) novel. As for the argument presented in The Brothers Karamazov's section "The Rebellion" that the suffering of innocents was not worth the price of free will, Dostoevsky appears to propose the idea of apocatastasis (or universal reconciliation) as one possible rational solution.

Roman Catholic teaching

Illustrating as it does that the human part in salvation (represented by holding on to the rope) must be preceded and accompanied by grace (represented by the casting and drawing of the rope), the image of the drowning man holding on to the rope cast and drawn by his rescuer corresponds closely to Roman Catholic teaching, which holds that God, who "destined us in love to be his sons" and "to be conformed to the image of his Son",[48] includes in his eternal plan of "predestination" each person's free response to his grace.[49]

The Roman Catholic Church holds to the teaching that "by free will, (the human person) is capable of directing himself toward his true good ... man is endowed with freedom, an outstanding manifestation of the divine image'."[50] Man has free will either to accept or reject the grace of God, so that for salvation "there is a kind of interplay, or synergy, between human freedom and divine grace".[51] "Justification establishes cooperation between God's grace and man's freedom. On man's part it is expressed by the assent of faith to the Word of God, which invites him to conversion, and in the cooperation of charity with the prompting of the Holy Spirit who precedes and preserves his assent: 'When God touches man's heart through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, man himself is not inactive while receiving that inspiration, since he could reject it; and yet, without God's grace, he cannot by his own free will move himself toward justice in God's sight' (Council of Trent)."[52]

God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace. the fatherly action of God is first on his own initiative, and then follows man's free acting through his collaboration.[53] For Roman Catholics, therefore, human cooperation with grace is essential.[54] When God establishes his eternal plan of 'predestination', he includes in it each person's free response to his grace, whether it is positive or negative: "In this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place" (Acts 4:27–28).[55]

The initiative comes from God,[56] but it demands a free response from man: "God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace. the fatherly action of God is first on his own initiative, and then follows man's free acting through his collaboration".[53] "Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit and by charity, we can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life."[57]

Orthodox criticism of Roman Catholic theology

Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky has stated that the teaching of John Cassian, who in the East is considered a witness to Tradition, but who "was unable to make himself correctly understood", "was interpreted, on the rational plane, as a semi-pelagianism, and was condemned in the West".[58] Where the Roman Catholic Church defends the concept of faith and free will these are questioned in the East by the conclusions of the Second Council of Orange. This council is not accepted by the Eastern churches and the Roman Catholic Church's use[failed verification][59] of describing their position and St Cassian as Semi-Pelagian is also rejected.[60]

Although the Roman Catholic Church explicitly teaches that "original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants",[61] some Eastern Orthodox nevertheless claim that Roman Catholicism professes the teaching, which they attribute to Saint Augustine, that everyone bears not only the consequence, but also the guilt of Adam's sin.[62][63]

Differences of view between Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches Edit

Various Roman Catholic theologians identify Cassian as a teacher of the semipelagian heresy which was condemned by the Council of Orange.[64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72] While the Orthodox do not apply the term semipelagian to their theology, they criticize the Roman Catholics for rejecting Cassian whom they accept as fully orthodox,[73] and for holding that human consent to God's justifying action is itself an effect of grace,[74] a position shared by Eastern Orthodox theologian Georges Florovsky, who says that the Eastern Orthodox Church "always understood that God initiates, accompanies, and completes everything in the process of salvation", rejecting instead the Calvinist idea of irresistible grace.[75]

Recently, some Roman Catholic theologians have argued that Cassian's writings should not be considered semipelagian.[citation needed] And scholars of other denominations too have concluded that Cassian's thought "is not Semi-Pelagian",[76] and that he instead taught that "salvation is, from beginning to end, the effect of God's grace"[76] and held that "God's grace, not human free will, is responsible for 'everything which pertains to salvation' - even faith."[77]

The Orthodox Church holds to the teaching of synergy (συνεργός, meaning working together), which says that man has the freedom to, and must if he wants to be saved, choose to accept and work with the grace of God. Once baptised the experience of his salvation and relationship with God is called theosis. Mankind has free will to accept or reject the grace of God. Rejection of the gifts of God is called blasphemy of the Holy Spirit (gifts of grace, faith, life).[78][79] The first who defined this teaching was John Cassian, 4th-century Church Father, and a pupil of John Chrysostom, and all Eastern Fathers accept it. He taught that "Divine grace is necessary to enable a sinner to return unto God and live, yet man must first, of himself, desire and attempt to choose and obey God", and that "Divine grace is indispensable for salvation, but it does not necessarily need to precede a free human choice, because, despite the weakness of human volition, the will can take the initiative toward God.".[citation needed]

Some Orthodox use an example of a drowning man to illustrate the teaching of synergy: God from the ship throws a rope to a drowning man, the man may take the rope if he wants to be saved, but he may decide not to take the rope and perish by his own will. Explaining both that salvation is a gift from God and man cannot save himself. That man must co-work (syn-ergo) with God in the process of salvation.

Protestant Edit

Lutheranism Edit

Main article: Lutheranism
 
A.C. Article 18: Of Free Will

Lutherans adhere to divine monergism, the teaching that salvation is by God's act alone, and therefore reject the idea that humans in their fallen state have a free will concerning spiritual matters.[80] Lutherans believe that although humans have free will concerning civil righteousness, they cannot work spiritual righteousness without the Holy Spirit, since righteousness in the heart cannot be wrought in the absence of the Holy Spirit.[81] In other words, humanity is free to choose and act in every regard except for the choice of salvation.

Lutherans also teach that sinners, while capable of doing works that are outwardly "good," are not capable of doing works that satisfy God's justice.[82] Every human thought and deed is infected with sin and sinful motives.[83] For Luther himself, in his Bondage of the Will, people are by nature endowed with free-will/free choice in regard to "goods and possessions" with which a person "has the right of using, acting, and omitting according to his Free-will." However, in "God-ward" things pertaining to "salvation or damnation" people are in bondage "either to the will of God, or to the will of Satan."[84]

As found in Paul Althaus' study of Luther's theology,[85] sin's infection of every human thought and deed began with Adam's fall into sin, the Original Sin. Adam's fall was a "terrible example" of what "free will" will do unless God constantly motivates it to virtuous behavior. Humanity inherits Adam's sin. Thus, in our "natural condition," we have an inborn desire to sin because that is the person we are by birth. As Luther noted, "Adam sinned willingly and freely and from him a will to sin has been born into us so that we cannot sin innocently but only voluntarily."[86]

The controversial term liberum arbitrium was translated "free-will" by Henry Cole[87] and "free will" remains in general use. However, the Rupp/Watson study of Luther and Erasmus chose "free choice" as the translation and provided a rationale.[88] Luther used "free choice" (or "free-will") to denote the fact that humans act "spontaneously" and with "a desirous willingness."[89] He also allowed "Free-will" as that "power" by which humans "can be caught by the Spirit" of God.[90] However, he deplored the use of the term "Free-will" because it is too "grand, copious, and full." Therefore, Luther held that the inborn faculty of "willingness" should be "called by some other term."[91]

Although our wills are a function of and are in bondage to our inherited sinful desires, Luther insisted that we sin "voluntarily." Voluntarily means that we sin of our own free will.[92] We will to do what we desire. As long as we desire sin, our wills are only free for sin. This is Luther's "bondage of the will" to sin. The sinner's "will is bound, but it is and remains his will. He repeatedly and voluntarily acts according to it." So it is, to be set free from sin and for righteousness requires a "rebirth through faith."[93] A rebirth of faith gives "true freedom from sin," which is, wrote Luther, "a liberty [freedom] to do good."[94]

To use a biblical word important to Luther, to be set free from sin and for righteousness requires a metanoia.[95] Luther used Jesus' image of the good and bad trees to depict the necessity of changing the person to change what a person wills and does. In Jesus' image, "a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit" (Matthew 7:18).[96] Like the bad tree that can only produce bad fruit, before a rebirth through faith, people are in bondage to the sinful desires of their hearts. They can only will to do sin, albeit "spontaneously and with a desirous willingness."[97] Given his view of the human condition, Luther concluded that, without a rebirth, the "free choice" that all humans possess is "not free at all" because it cannot of itself free itself from its inherent bondage to sin.[98]

Thus, Luther distinguished between different kinds of freedom: (a) by nature, a freedom to act as we will and (b) by rebirth through faith, a freedom to act righteously.[99]

God and creation Edit

Orthodox Lutheran theology holds that God made the world, including humanity, perfect, holy and sinless. However, Adam and Eve chose to disobey God, trusting in their own strength, knowledge, and wisdom.[100][101] Consequently, people are saddled with original sin, born sinful and unable to avoid committing sinful acts.[102] For Lutherans, original sin is the "chief sin, a root and fountainhead of all actual sins."[103]

According to Lutherans, God preserves his creation, in doing so cooperates with everything that happens, and guides the universe.[104] While God cooperates with both good and evil deeds, with evil deeds he does so only inasmuch as they are deeds, but not with the evil in them. God concurs with an act's effect, but he does not cooperate in the corruption of an act or the evil of its effect.[105] Lutherans believe everything exists for the sake of the Christian Church, and that God guides everything for its welfare and growth.[106]

Predestination Edit

Lutherans believe that the elect are predestined to salvation.[107] Lutherans believe Christians should be assured that they are among the predestined.[108] Lutherans believe that all who trust in Jesus alone can be certain of their salvation, for it is in Christ's work and his promises in which their certainty lies.[109] According to Lutheranism, the central final hope of the Christian is "the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting" as confessed in the Apostles' Creed rather than predestination. Conversion or regeneration in the strict sense of the term is the work of divine grace[110] and power[111] by which man, born of the flesh,[112] and void of all power to think,[113] to will,[114] or to do[115] any good thing, and dead in sin[116] is, through the gospel and holy baptism,[117] taken[118] from a state of sin and spiritual death under God's wrath[119] into a state of spiritual life of faith and grace,[120] rendered able to will and to do what is spiritually good[121] and, especially, led to accept the benefits of the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.[122]

Lutherans disagree with those that make predestination the source of salvation rather than Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection. Lutherans reject the Calvinist doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. Like both Calvinist camps, Lutherans view the work of salvation as monergistic in that "the natural [that is, corrupted and divinely unrenewed] powers of man cannot do anything or help towards salvation" (Formula of Concord: Solid Declaration, art. ii, par. 71 2008-05-16 at the Wayback Machine), and Lutherans go further along the same lines as the Free Grace advocates to say that the recipient of saving grace need not cooperate with it. Hence, Lutherans believe that a true Christian (that is, a genuine recipient of saving grace) can lose his or her salvation, "[b]ut the cause is not as though God were unwilling to grant grace for perseverance to those in whom He has begun the good work... [but that these persons] wilfully turn away..." (Formula of Concord: Solid Declaration, art. xi, par. 42 2008-05-16 at the Wayback Machine). Unlike Calvinists, Lutherans do not believe in a predestination to damnation.[123] Instead, Lutherans teach eternal damnation is a result of the unbeliever's sins, rejection of the forgiveness of sins, and unbelief.[124]

Anabaptism Edit

The Anabaptist movement was characterized by the fundamental belief in the free will of man. Many earlier movements such as Waldensians and others likewise held this viewpoint. Denominations today representing this view include Old Order Mennonites, Amish, Conservative Mennonites and Ukrainian Baptists.

Calvinism Edit

Main article: Calvinism

John Calvin ascribed "free will" to all people in the sense that they act "voluntarily, and not by compulsion."[125] He elaborated his position by allowing "that man has choice and that it is self-determined" and that his actions stem from "his own voluntary choosing."[126]

The free will that Calvin ascribed to all people is what Mortimer Adler calls the "natural freedom" of the will. This freedom to will what one desires is inherent in all people.[24]

Calvin held this kind of inherent/natural[127] free will in disesteem because unless people acquire the freedom to live as they ought by being transformed, they will desire and voluntarily choose to sin. "Man is said to have free will," wrote Calvin, "because he acts voluntarily, and not by compulsion. This is perfectly true: but why should so small a matter have been dignified with so proud a title?"[128] The glitch in this inherent/natural freedom of the will is that although all people have the "faculty of willing," by nature they are unavoidably (and yet voluntarily without compulsion) under "the bondage of sin."[129]

The kind of free will that Calvin esteems is what Adler calls "acquired freedom" of the will, the freedom/ability[130] "to live as [one] ought." To possess acquired free will requires a change by which a person acquires a desire to live a life marked by virtuous qualities.[28] As Calvin describes the change required for acquired freedom, the will "must be wholly transformed and renovated."[131]

Calvin depicts this transformation as "a new heart and a new spirit (Ezek. 18:31)." It sets one free from "bondage to sin" and enables "piety towards God, and love towards men, general holiness and purity of life."[132]

Calvinist Protestants embrace the idea of predestination, namely, that God chose who would be saved and who would be not saved prior to the creation. They quote Ephesians 1:4 "For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight" and also 2:8 "For it is by grace you are saved, through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God." One of the strongest defenders of this theological point of view was the American Puritan preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards.

Edwards believed that indeterminism was incompatible with individual dependence on God and hence with his sovereignty. He reasoned that if individuals' responses to God's grace are contra-causally free, then their salvation depends partly on them and therefore God's sovereignty is not "absolute and universal." Edwards' book Freedom of the Will defends theological determinism. In this book, Edwards attempts to show that libertarianism is incoherent. For example, he argues that by 'self-determination' the libertarian must mean either that one's actions including one's acts of willing are preceded by an act of free will or that one's acts of will lack sufficient causes. The first leads to an infinite regress while the second implies that acts of will happen accidentally and hence can't make someone "better or worse, any more than a tree is better than other trees because it oftener happens to be lit upon by a swan or nightingale; or a rock more vicious than other rocks, because rattlesnakes have happened oftener to crawl over it."[133]

It should not be thought that this view completely denies freedom of choice, however. It claims that man is free to act on his strongest moral impulse and volition, which is externally determined, but is not free to act contrary to them, or to alter them. Proponents, such as John L. Girardeau, have indicated their belief that moral neutrality is impossible; that even if it were possible, and one were equally inclined to contrary options, one could make no choice at all; that if one is inclined, however slightly, toward one option, then that person will necessarily choose that one over any others.

Some non-Calvinist Christians attempt a reconciliation of the dual concepts of predestination and free will by pointing to the situation of God as Christ. In taking the form of a man, a necessary element of this process was that Jesus Christ lived the existence of a mortal. When Jesus was born he was not born with the omniscient power of God the Creator, but with the mind of a human child - yet he was still God in essence. The precedent this creates is that God is able to will the abandonment of His knowledge, or ignore knowledge, while remaining fully God. Thus it is not inconceivable that although omniscience demands that God knows what the future holds for individuals, it is within his power to deny this knowledge in order to preserve individual free will. Other theologians argue that the Calvinist-Edwardsean view suggests that if all human volitions are predetermined by God, then all actions dictated by fallen will of man necessarily satisfy His sovereign decree. Hence, it is impossible to act outside of God's perfect will, a conclusion some non-Calvinists claim poses a serious problem for ethics and moral theology.

An early proposal toward such a reconciliation states that God is, in fact, not aware of future events, but rather, being eternal, He is outside time, and sees the past, present, and future as one whole creation. Consequently, it is not as though God would know "in advance" that Jeffrey Dahmer would become guilty of homicide years prior to the event as an example, but that He was aware of it from all eternity, viewing all time as a single present. This was the view offered by Boethius in Book V of The Consolation of Philosophy.

Calvinist theologian Loraine Boettner argued that the doctrine of divine foreknowledge does not escape the alleged problems of divine foreordination. He wrote that "what God foreknows must, in the very nature of the case, be as fixed and certain as what is foreordained; and if one is inconsistent with the free agency of man, the other is also. Foreordination renders the events certain, while foreknowledge presupposes that they are certain." Some Christian theologians, feeling the bite of this argument, have opted to limit the doctrine of foreknowledge if not do away with it altogether, thus forming a new school of thought, similar to Socinianism and process theology, called open theism.

Arminianism Edit

Main articles: Arminianism and History of Calvinist–Arminian debate

Christians who were influenced by the teachings of Jacobus Arminius (such as Methodists) believe that while God is all-knowing and always knows what choices each person will make, he still gives them the ability to choose or not choose everything, regardless of whether there are any internal or external factors contributing to that choice.

Like John Calvin, Arminius affirmed total depravity, but Arminius believed that only prevenient grace allowed people to choose salvation:

Concerning grace and free will, this is what I teach according to the Scriptures and orthodox consent: Free will is unable to begin or to perfect any true and spiritual good, without grace.... This grace [prœvenit] goes before, accompanies, and follows; it excites, assists, operates that we will, and co operates lest we will in vain.[134]

Prevenient grace is divine grace which precedes human decision. It exists prior to and without reference to anything humans may have done. As humans are corrupted by the effects of sin, prevenient grace allows persons to engage their God-given free will to choose the salvation offered by God in Jesus Christ or to reject that salvific offer. Methodist theology thus teaches:

Our Lord Jesus Christ did so die for all men as to make salvation attainable by every man that cometh into the world. If men are not saved that fault is entirely their own, lying solely in their own unwillingness to obtain the salvation offered to them. (John 1:9; I Thess. 5:9; Titus 2:11-12).[135]

Thomas Jay Oord offers perhaps the most cogent free will theology presupposing prevenient grace. What he calls "essential kenosis" says God acts preveniently to give freedom/agency to all creatures. This gift comes from God's eternal essence, and is therefore necessary. God remains free in choosing how to love, but the fact that God loves and therefore gives freedom/agency to others is a necessary part of what it means to be divine.

This view is backed in the Bible with verses such as Luke 13:34, NKJV

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing!"

Here we see Jesus lamenting that He is unable to save Jerusalem as they are not willing. We see that whilst Jesus wants to save Jerusalem He respects their choice to continue on in sin despite His will that they be saved.

Comparison of Protestants Edit

This table summarizes three classical Protestant beliefs about free will.

John Calvin Martin Luther Jacob Arminius
For Calvin, humanity possesses "free will,"[136] but it is in bondage to sin,[129] unless it is "transformed."[137] For Luther, humanity possesses free-will/free choice in regard to "goods and possessions," but regarding "salvation or damnation" people are in bondage either to God or Satan."[138] For Arminius, humanity possesses freedom from necessity, but not "freedom from sin" unless enabled by "prevenient grace."[139]

Latter Day Saints Edit

Main article: Agency in Mormonism

Latter Day Saints believe that God has given all humans the gift of moral agency. Moral agency includes free will and agency. Proper exercise of unfettered choice leads to the ultimate goal of returning to God's presence. Having the choice to do right or wrong was important, because God wants a society of a certain type—those that comply with eternal laws. Before this Earth was created, this dispute over agency rose to the level that there was a "war in heaven." Lucifer (who favored no agency) and his followers were cast out of heaven for rebelling against God's will. Many Mormon leaders have also taught that the battle in Heaven over agency is now being carried out on earth[citation needed], where dictators, influenced by Satan, fight against freedom (or free agency) in governments contrary to the will of God.

Mormons also believe in a limited form of foreordination — not in deterministic, unalterable decrees, but rather in callings from God for individuals to perform specific missions in mortality. Those who are foreordained can reject the foreordination, either outright or by transgressing the laws of God and becoming unworthy to fulfill the call.

New Church Edit

The New Church, or Swedenborgianism, teaches that every person has complete freedom to choose heaven or hell. Emanuel Swedenborg, upon whose writings the New Church is founded, argued that if God is love itself, people must have free will. If God is love itself, then He desires no harm to come to anyone: and so it is impossible that he would predestine anyone to hell. On the other hand, if God is love itself, then He must love things outside of Himself; and if people do not have the freedom to choose evil, they are simply extensions of God, and He cannot love them as something outside of Himself. In addition, Swedenborg argues that if a person does not have free will to choose goodness and faith, then all of the commandments in the Bible to love God and the neighbor are worthless, since no one can choose to do them - and it is impossible that a God who is love itself and wisdom itself would give impossible commandments.

Hinduism Edit

See also: Free will § Hindu philosophy

As Hinduism is primarily a conglomerate of different religious traditions,[140] there is no one accepted view on the concept of free will. Within the predominant schools of Hindu philosophy there are two main opinions. The Advaita (monistic) schools generally believe in a fate-based approach, and the Dvaita (dualistic) schools are proponents for the theory of free will.[141] The different schools' understandings are based upon their conceptions of the nature of the supreme Being (see Brahman, Paramatma and Ishvara) and how the individual Self (atma or jiva) dictates, or is dictated by karma within the illusory existence of maya.

In both Dvaita and Advaita schools, and also in the many other traditions within Hinduism, there is a strong belief in destiny[142] and that both the past and future are known, or viewable, by certain saints or mystics as well as by the supreme being (Ishvara) in traditions where Ishvara is worshipped as an all-knowing being. In the Bhagavad Gita, the Avatar, Krishna says to Arjuna:

  • I know everything that has happened in the past, all that is happening in the present, and all things that are yet to come.[143]

However, this belief in destiny is not necessarily believed to rule out the existence of free will, as in some cases both free will and destiny are believed to exist simultaneously.[144][145]

The Bhagavad Gita also states:

Nor does the Supreme Lord assume anyone's sinful or pious activities (Bhagavad Gita 5.15)
From wherever the mind wanders due to its flickering and unsteady nature, one must certainly withdraw it and bring it back under the control of the self (Bhagavad Gita 6.26), indicating that God does not control anyone's will, and that it is possible to control the mind.

Different approaches Edit

The six orthodox (astika) schools of thought in Hindu philosophy give differing opinions: In the Samkhya, for instance, matter is without any freedom, and Self lacks any ability to control the unfolding of matter. The only real freedom (kaivalya) consists in realizing the ultimate separateness of matter and self. For the Yoga school, only Ishvara is truly free, and its freedom is also distinct from all feelings, thoughts, actions, or wills, and is thus not at all a freedom of will. The metaphysics of the Nyaya and Vaisheshika schools strongly suggest a belief in determinism, but do not seem to make explicit claims about determinism or free will.[146]

A quotation from Swami Vivekananda, a Vedantist, offers a good example of the worry about free will in the Hindu tradition.

Therefore, we see at once that there cannot be any such thing as free-will; the very words are a contradiction, because will is what we know, and everything that we know is within our universe, and everything within our universe is moulded by conditions of time, space and causality. ... To acquire freedom we have to get beyond the limitations of this universe; it cannot be found here.[147]

However, Vivekananda's above quote can't be taken as a literal refutation of all free will, as Vivekanda's teacher, Ramakrishna Paramahansa used to teach that man is like a goat tied to a stake - the karmic debts and human nature bind him and the amount of free will he has is analogous to the amount of freedom the rope allows; as one progresses spiritually, the rope becomes longer.

On the other hand, Mimamsa, Vedanta, and the more theistic versions of Hinduism such as Shaivism and Vaishnavism have often emphasized the importance of free will. For example, in the Bhagavad Gita the living beings (jivas) are described as being of a higher nature who have the freedom to exploit the inferior material nature (prakrti):

Besides these, O mighty-armed Arjuna, there is another, superior energy of Mine, which comprises the living entities who are exploiting the resources of this material, inferior nature.[148]

The doctrine of Karma in Hinduism requires both that we pay for our actions in the past, and that our actions in the present be free enough to allow us to deserve the future reward or punishment that we will receive for our present actions. The Advaitin philosopher Chandrashekhara Bharati Swaminah puts it this way:

Fate is past karma, free-will is present karma. Both are really one, that is, karma, though they may differ in the matter of time. There can be no conflict when they are really one. Fate, as I told you, is the resultant of the past exercise of your free-will. By exercising your free-will in the past, you brought on the resultant fate. By exercising your free-will in the present, I want you to wipe out your past record if it hurts you, or to add to it if you find it enjoyable. In any case, whether for acquiring more happiness or for reducing misery, you have to exercise your free-will in the present.[149]

Islam Edit

See also: Predestination in Islam

Disputes about free will in Islam began with the Mu'tazili vs Hanbali disputes,[150] with the Mu'tazili arguing that humans had qadar,[151] the capacity to do right or wrong, and thus deserved the reward or punishment they received, whereas Hanbali insisted on God's jabr, or total power and initiative in managing all events.[152] Schools that developed around earlier thinkers such as Abu Hanifa and al-Ash'ari searched for ways to explain how both human qadar and divine jabr could be asserted at the same time. Ash'ari develops a "dual agency" or "acquisition" account of free will in which every human action has two distinct agents. God creates the possibility of a human action with his divine jabr, but then the human follows through and "acquires" the act, making it theirs and taking responsibility for it using their human qadar.[153]

Judaism Edit

See also: Free will in antiquity § Judaism

The belief in free will (Hebrew: bechirah chofshit בחירה חפשית, bechirah בחירה) is axiomatic in Jewish thought, and is closely linked with the concept of reward and punishment, based on the Torah itself: "I [God] have set before you life and death, blessing and curse: therefore choose life" (Deuteronomy 30:19).

Free will is therefore discussed at length in Jewish philosophy, firstly as regards God's purpose in creation, and secondly as regards the closely related, resultant, paradox. The topic is also often discussed in connection with negative theology, divine simplicity and divine providence, as well as Jewish principles of faith in general.

Free will and creation Edit

According to the Mishnah, "This world is like a vestibule before the World to Come".[154] According to an 18th century rabbinic work, "Man was created for the sole purpose of rejoicing in God, and deriving pleasure from the splendor of His Presence… The place where this joy may truly be derived is the World to Come, which was expressly created to provide for it; but the path to the object of our desires is this world..."[155] Free will is thus required by God's justice, "otherwise, Man would not be given or denied good for actions over which he had no control".[156]

It is further understood that in order for Man to have true free choice, he must not only have inner free will, but also an environment in which a choice between obedience and disobedience exists. God thus created the world such that both good and evil can operate freely, this is the meaning of the rabbinic maxim, "All is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven".[157]

According to Maimonides,

Free will is granted to every man. If he desires to incline towards the good way and be righteous, he has the power to do so; and if he desires to incline towards the unrighteous way and be a wicked man, he also has the power to do so. Give no place in your minds to that which is asserted by many of the ignorant: namely that the Holy One, blessed be He, decrees that a man from his birth should be either righteous or wicked. Since the power of doing good or evil is in our own hands, and since all the wicked deeds which we have committed have been committed with our full consciousness, it befits us to turn in penitence and to forsake our evil deed.[158]

The paradox of free will Edit

In rabbinic literature, there is much discussion as to the apparent contradiction between God's omniscience and free will. The representative view is that "Everything is foreseen; yet free will is given" (Pirkei Avot 3:15). Based on this understanding, the problem is formally described as a paradox, beyond our understanding.

The Holy One, Blessed Be He, knows everything that will happen before it has happened. So does He know whether a particular person will be righteous or wicked, or not? If He does know, then it will be impossible for that person not to be righteous. If He knows that he will be righteous but that it is possible for him to be wicked, then He does not know everything that He has created. ...[T]he Holy One, Blessed Be He, does not have any temperaments and is outside such realms, unlike people, whose selves and temperaments are two separate things. God and His temperaments are one, and God's existence is beyond the comprehension of Man… [Thus] we do not have the capabilities to comprehend how the Holy One, Blessed Be He, knows all creations and events. [Nevertheless] know without doubt that people do what they want without the Holy One, Blessed Be He, forcing or decreeing upon them to do so... It has been said because of this that a man is judged according to all his actions.[159]

The paradox is explained, but not resolved, by observing that God exists outside of time, and therefore, his knowledge of the future is exactly the same as his knowledge of the past and present. Just as his knowledge of the past does not interfere with man's free will, neither does his knowledge of the future.[156] This distinction, between foreknowledge and predestination, is in fact discussed by Abraham ibn Daud.

One analogy here is that of time travel. The time traveller, having returned from the future, knows in advance what x will do, but while he knows what x will do, that knowledge does not cause x to do so: x had free will, even while the time traveller had foreknowledge.[160] One objection raised against this analogy – and ibn Daud's distinction – is that if x truly has free will, he may choose to act otherwise when the event in question comes to pass, and therefore the time traveller (or God) merely has knowledge of a possible event: even having seen the event, there is no way to know with certainty what x will do; see the view of Gersonides below. Further, the presence of the time traveller, may have had some chaotic effect on x's circumstances and choice, absent when the event comes to pass in the present.)

In line with this, the teaching from Pirkei Avot quoted above, can be read as: "Everything is observed (while - and no matter where - it happens), and (since the actor is unaware of being observed) free will is given".[161]

Alternate approaches Edit

Although the above discussion of the paradox represents the majority rabbinic view, there are several major thinkers who resolve the issue by explicitly excluding human action from divine foreknowledge.

  • Both Saadia Gaon and Judah ha-Levi hold that "the decisions of man precede God's knowledge".[162]
  • Gersonides holds that God knows, beforehand, the choices open to each individual, but does not know which choice the individual, in his freedom, will make.[163]
  • Isaiah Horowitz takes the view that God cannot know which moral choices people will make, but that, nevertheless, this does not impair his perfection; it is as if one's actions cause one of the many possibilities that existed then to have become known, but only once chosen. [164]

Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner holds perhaps the most controversial view: apparently denying that man has free will, and that instead all is determined by God.

Kabbalistic thought Edit

The existence of free will, and the paradox above (as addressed by either approach), is closely linked to the concept of Tzimtzum. Tzimtzum entails the idea that God "constricted" his infinite essence, to allow for the existence of a "conceptual space" in which a finite, independent world could exist. This "constriction" made free will possible, and hence the potential to earn the World to Come.

Further, according to the first approach, it is understood that the Free-will Omniscience paradox provides a temporal parallel to the paradox inherent within Tzimtzum. In granting free will, God has somehow "constricted" his foreknowledge, to allow for Man's independent action; He thus has foreknowledge and yet free will exists. In the case of Tzimtzum, God has "constricted" his essence to allow for Man's independent existence; He is thus immanent and yet transcendent.

See also Edit

References and notes Edit

  1. ^ Alston, William P. 1985. "Divine Foreknowledge and Alternative Conceptions of Human Freedom." International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 18:1, 19–32.
  2. ^ Aristotle. "De Interpretatione" in The Complete Works of Aristotle, vol. I, ed. Jonathan Barnes. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1984.
  3. ^ Ockham, William. Predestination, God's Knowledge, and Future Contingents, early 14th century, trans. Marilyn McCord Adams and Norman Kretzmann 1982, Hackett, esp p. 46–7
  4. ^ Wolfson, Harry Austryn (1947). Philo: foundations of religious philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Structure and growth of philosophic systems from Plato to Spinoza. Vol. 2 (2 ed.). Harvard University Press. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  5. ^ Wolfson, Harry Austryn (1961). "St. Augustine and the Pelagian Controversy". Religious Philosophy: A Group of Essays. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
  6. ^ Watt, Montgomery. Free-Will and Predestination in Early Islam. Luzac & Co.: London 1948; Wolfson, Harry. The Philosophy of Kalam, Harvard University Press 1976
  7. ^ Man and His Destiny
  8. ^ Jackson, Timothy P. (1998) "Arminian edification: Kierkegaard on grace and free will" in Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998.
  9. ^ Kierkegaard, Søren. (1848)Journals and Papers, vol. III. Reprinted in Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1967–78.
  10. ^ Mackie, J.L. (1955) "Evil and Omnipotence,"Mind, new series, vol. 64, pp. 200–212.
  11. ^ Michael Frede, A Free Will: Origins of the Notion in Ancient Thought, chapter 7
  12. ^ Paul Linjamaa, "Free Will and the Configuration of the Human Mind," in The Ethics of The Tripartite Tractate: A Study of Determinism and Early Christian Philosophy of Ethics (2019) “The notion of free will is not discussed explicitly in the New and Old Testament. Nor are the technical terms used associated with the discourse on free will.”
  13. ^ George Karamanolis, Fate, Providence and Free Will: Philosophy and Religion in Dialogue in the Early Imperial Age Series: Ancient Philosophy & Religion, Volume: 4. “Scripture not only lacks a discussion of all the important issues in this area but also lacks the relevant terminology, which early Christians employ in their writings.”
  14. ^ Michael Frede, A Free Will: Origins of the Notion in Ancient Thought. Sather Classical Lectures 68. Berkeley/Los Angeles/Oxford: University of California Press, 2011. xiv, 206
  15. ^ Michael Frede, A Free Will: Origins of the Notion in Ancient Thought, chapter 7
  16. ^ ibid.
  17. ^ Alister McGrath, Christian Theology, 351.
  18. ^ Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Fate, Providence and Free Will: Philosophy and Religion in Dialogue in the Early Imperial Age (2020)
  19. ^ Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, s.v. "Fall, the."
  20. ^ Ted Honderich, "Determinism and Freedom Philosophy – Its Terminology," http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/dfwTerminology.html (accessed November 7, 2009).
  21. ^ Robert Kane, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Free Will, (Oxford, 2005), 10 and Fischer, J., Kane, R., Pereboom, D., & Vargas, M., Four Views on Free Will (Blackwell, 2007), 128 and R. Eric Barnes, . Archived from the original on 2005-02-16. Retrieved 2009-10-19. (accessed October 19, 2009).
  22. ^ Mortimer J. Adler, The Idea of Freedom: A Dialectical Examination of the Idea of Freedom, Vol 1 (Doubleday, 1958), 127.
  23. ^ Walter A. Elwell, Philip Wesley Comfort, eds, Tyndale Bible Dictionary (Tyndale House, 2001), s.v. "Exodus," 456.
  24. ^ a b Mortimer J. Adler, The Idea of Freedom: A Dialectical Examination of the Idea of Freedom, Vol 1 (Doubleday, 1958), 149.
  25. ^ Donald K. McKim, Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms (Westminster John Knox Press, 1996). s.v. "free will."
  26. ^ a b J. D. Douglas, ed., The New Bible Dictionary (Eerdmans, 1962), s.v. "Liberty, Section III. FREE WILL."
  27. ^ Joseph P. Free, revised and expanded by Howard Frederic Vos, Archaeology and Bible History (Zondervan, 1992.), 83.
  28. ^ a b Mortimer J. Adler, The Idea of Freedom: A Dialectical Examination of the Idea of Freedom, Vol 1 (Doubleday, 1958), 135.
  29. ^ Ted Peters, Sin: Radical Evil in Soul and Society (Eerdmans, 1994), 8.
  30. ^ Strong's Greek Dictionary translates ontós as "really" or "truly." Versions using these translations include The Darby Translation, The Bible in Basic English, New Century Version, Young's Literal Translation, and Good News Translation.
  31. ^ Gary M. Burge, "Gospel of John," in The Bible Knowledge Background Commentary: John's Gospel, Hebrews-Revelation, ed. Craig A. Evans, (David C. Cook, 2005), 88.
  32. ^ Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, s.v. "Freedom."
  33. ^ . Archived from the original on 2014-07-01. Retrieved 2014-06-21.
  34. ^ Mark R. Talbot, "Does God Reveal Who He Actually Is?" in God Under Fire, ed. Douglas S. Huffman, Eric L. Johnson (Zondervan, 2002), 69.
  35. ^ Mark R. Talbot, "True Freedom: The Liberty That Scripture Portrays as Worth Having" in Beyond the Bounds, ed. John Piper and others, 105-109.
  36. ^ Mark R. Talbot, "True Freedom: The Liberty That Scripture Portrays as Worth Having" in Beyond the Bounds, ed. John Piper and others, (Crossway, 2003), 107,109.
  37. ^ William Hasker, "A Philosophical Perspective," in The Openness of God (InterVarsity, 1994), 136-137, Hasker's italics.
  38. ^ William Hasker, answer to "Did Jesus have free will?" at . Archived from the original on 2012-03-06. Retrieved 2014-07-23. (accessed September 27, 2009).
  39. ^ William Hasker, answer to "So, will there be free will in heaven?" at . Archived from the original on 2006-04-08. Retrieved 2014-07-23. (accessed Oct 14, 2009).
  40. ^ Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, section 600
  41. ^ a b Alliney, Guido (September 24, 2005). "La libertà dell'atto beatifico nel pensiero di Francesco d'Appignano" (PDF). Atti del III Convegno Internazionale su Francesco d'Appignano (in Italian and English). Appignano del Tronto: 9. OCLC 297575140. Retrieved April 22, 2022.
  42. ^ "1731". Catechism of the Catholic Church. Retrieved 21 April 2012.
  43. ^ "1730". Catechism of the Catholic Church. Retrieved 21 April 2012.
  44. ^ "1742". Catechism of the Catholic Church. Retrieved 21 April 2012.
  45. ^ Leo XIII, Libertas Praestantissimum, 1888
  46. ^ Likewise in paragraph 5 that the good or the choice of the good comes from the judgement of reason (in Roman Catholic doctrine it is not identical with free will), which is usually considered causal in philosophy.
  47. ^ See especially e.g. an address of Pius XII to the Fifth International Congress on Psychotherapy and Clinical Psychology 2015-04-18 at the Wayback Machine
  48. ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church, 257 March 3, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
  49. ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church, 600
  50. ^ CCC 1704-1705
  51. ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church, Reader's Guide to Themes (Burns & Oates 1999 ISBN 0-86012-366-9), p. 766
  52. ^ CCC 1993 June 23, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
  53. ^ a b CCC 2008
  54. ^ James Patrick, Renaissance and Reformation (Marshall Cavendish 2007 ISBN 978-0-7614-7651-1), vol. 1, p. 186
  55. ^ CCC 600)
  56. ^ We receive the grace of Christ in the Holy Spirit, and without the Holy Spirit no one can have faith in Christ (1 Cor. 12:3), and as Saint Cyril of Alexandria said: "It is unworkable for the soul of man to achieve any of the goods, namely, to control its own passions and to escape the mightiness of the sharp trap of the devil, unless he is fortified by the grace of the Holy Spirit and on this count he has Christ himself in his soul" (Against Julian, 3)
  57. ^ CCC 2010
  58. ^ It is not, in the circumstances, surprising that a representative of the Eastern tradition-St. John Cassian-who took part in this debate and was opposed both to the Pelagians and to St Augustine, was not able to make himself correctly understood. His position of seeming to stand 'above' the conflict, was interpreted, on the rational plane, as a semi-pelagianism, and was condemned in the West. The Eastern Church, on the other hand, has always considered him as a witness to tradition. The mystical theology of the Eastern Church By Vladimir Lossky Publisher: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press; Edition Not Stated edition Language: English ISBN 978-0-913836-31-6
  59. ^ Council of Orange local Council, never accepted in the East, 529 AD Convened regarding Pelagianism. Condemned various beliefs of Pelagianism: that humans are unaffected by Adam's sin, that a person's move towards God can begin without grace, that an increase of faith can be attained apart from grace, that salvation can be attained apart from the Holy Spirit, that man's free will can be restored from its destruction apart from baptism, that 'merit' may precede grace, that man can do good and attain salvation without God's help, Statement we must, under the blessing of God, preach and believe as follows. The sin of the first man has so impaired and weakened free will that no one thereafter can either love God as he ought or believe in God or do good for God's sake, unless the grace of divine mercy has preceded him....According to the Roman Catholic faith we also believe that after grace has been received through baptism, all baptized persons have the ability and responsibility, if they desire to labor faithfully, to perform with the aid and cooperation of Christ what is of essential importance in regard to the salvation of their soul. We not only do not believe that any are foreordained to evil by the power of God, but even state with utter abhorrence that if there are those who want to believe so evil a thing, they are anathema. We also believe and confess to our benefit that in every good work it is not we who take the initiative and are then assisted through the mercy of God, but God himself first inspires in us both faith in him and love for him without any previous good works of our own that deserve reward, so that we may both faithfully seek the sacrament of baptism, and after baptism be able by his help to do what is pleasing to him. [1]
  60. ^ In no sense is this a Pelagian or Semi-Pelagian position. The balanced synergistic doctrine of the early and Eastern Church, a doctrine misunderstood and undermined by Latin Christianity in general from St. Augustine on— although there was always opposition to this in the Latin Church— always understood that God initiates, accompanies, and completes everything in the process of salvation. The Ascetic Ideal and the New Testament: Reflections on the Critique of the Theology of the Reformation Georges Florovsky [2]
  61. ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church, 405 September 4, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
  62. ^ So far Roman Catholicism agrees with the Church; it differs with Orthodoxy on the nature of man's fall and the human condition. Following Augustine of Hippo, the Latins teach that Adam and Eve sinned against God. The guilt of their sin has been inherited by every man, woman and child after them. All humanity is liable for their "original sin." WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ORTHODOXY AND ROMAN CATHOLICISM? by Father Michael Azkoul [3] 2004-06-03 at the Wayback Machine
  63. ^ The Orthodox, I discovered, objected to the Roman Catholic understanding of original sin as the stain of inherited guilt passed down from Adam, as a result of his sin, to the rest of the human race. The Orthodox saw this notion of original sin as skewed, drawing almost exclusively on the thought of Saint Augustine. He had virtually ignored the teachings of the Eastern Fathers, who tended to see original sin not as inherited guilt but rather as "the ancestral curse" by which human beings were alienated from the divine life and thus became subject to corruption and death. As I read further, I discovered that Saint Augustine's and consequently, the Roman Catholic Church's view was the result of the faulty Latin translation of Romans 5:12, the New Testament passage on which the teaching of original sin is based. When the original Greek is properly translated it reads, "Therefore, as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and death spread to all in that (eph ho) all sinned. . ." The Latin which Augustine used rendered the eph ho ("in that") as in > quo ("in whom"), meaning "in Adam." Thus the passage was misconstrued as saying that all sinned in Adam, that all shared in the guilt of his original disobedience. It is understandable how the Roman Catholic doctrine of original sin followed from this misinterpretation. It is also easy to see why the Orthodox rejected the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Because they understood original sin in terms of the ancestral curse of human mortality, they saw Pius IX's dogma as amounting to no less than an assertion of Mary's immortality! That is, by saying that Mary was free from original sin, the Roman Church in effect was saying that Mary was not mortal! She was therefore not like the rest of the human race. This was something no Orthodox Christian could accept. In fact, Orthodoxy calls Mary "the first of the redeemed", the first human to receive the great blessing of salvation now available to all mankind. Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism - What are the differences - Father Theodore Pulcini ISBN 978-1-888212-23-5 . Archived from the original on 2011-07-17. Retrieved 2010-09-22.
  64. ^ OSV's encyclopedia of Roman Catholic history By Matthew Bunson's
  65. ^ Bethune-Baker, James Franklin (1954). An Introduction to the Early History of Christian Doctrine: To the Time of ... - James Franklin Bethune-Baker - Google Books. Retrieved 2012-04-20.
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  67. ^ Herbermann, Charles George (1913). The Catholic encyclopedia: an international work of reference on the ... - Google Books. Retrieved 2012-04-20.
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  70. ^ Hogan, Richard M. (2001). Dissent from the Creed: Heresies Past and Present - Richard M. Hogan - Google Books. ISBN 9780879734084. Retrieved 2012-04-20.
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  73. ^ The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press 1976 ISBN 0-913836-31-1) p. 198
  74. ^ "When Catholics say that persons cooperate in preparing for an accepting justification by consenting to God's justifying action, they see such personal consent as itself an effect of grace, not as an action arising from innate human abilities" . Archived from the original on 2010-11-30. Retrieved 2010-07-16.
  75. ^ The existential and ontological meaning of man's created existence is precisely that God did not have to create, that it was a free act of Divine freedom. But— and here is the great difficulty created by an unbalanced Christianity on the doctrine of grace and freedom— in freely creating man God willed to give man an inner spiritual freedom. In no sense is this a Pelagian or Semi-Pelagian position. The balanced synergistic doctrine of the early and Eastern Church, a doctrine misunderstood and undermined by Latin Christianity in general from St. Augustine on— although there was always opposition to this in the Latin Church— always understood that God initiates, accompanies, and completes everything in the process of salvation. What it always rejected— both spontaneously and intellectually— is the idea of irresistible grace, the idea that man has no participating role in his salvation. The Ascetic Ideal and the New Testament: Reflections on the Critique of the Theology of the Reformation Georges Florovsky [5]
  76. ^ a b . Archived from the original on 2010-06-10. Retrieved 2010-11-30.
  77. ^ Augustine Casiday, Tradition and Theology in St John Cassian (Oxford University Press 2007 ISBN 0-19-929718-5), p. 103
  78. ^ We receive the grace of Christ in the Holy Spirit, and without the Holy Spirit no one can have faith in Christ (I Cor. 12:3)
  79. ^ Cyril of Alexandria: "For it is unworkable for the soul of man to achieve any of the goods, namely, to control its own passions and to escape the mightiness of the sharp trap of the devil, unless he is fortified by the grace of the Holy Spirit and on this count he has Christ himself in his soul." (Against Julian, 3)
  80. ^ 1 Cor. 2:14, 12:3, Rom. 8:7, Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent: Vol. I. Trans. Fred Kramer, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1971, pp. 409-53, "Seventh Topic, Concerning Free Will: From the Decree of the Sixth Session of the Council of Trent".
  81. ^ Augsburg Confession, Article 18, Of Free Will 2008-09-15 at the Wayback Machine.
  82. ^ Rom. 7:18, 8:7 1 Cor. 2:14, Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent: Vol. I. Trans. Fred Kramer, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1971, pp. 639-52, "The Third Question: Whether the Good Works of the Regenerate in This Life Are So Perfect that They Fully, Abundantly, and Perfectly Satisfy the Divine Law".
  83. ^ Gen. 6:5, 8:21, Mat. 7:17, Krauth, C.P., The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology: As Represented in the Augsburg Confession, and in the History and Literature of the Evangelical Lutheran Church . Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott. 1875. pp. 388-90, Part IX The Specific Doctrines Of The Conservative Reformation: Original Sin, Thesis VII The Results, Section ii Positive.
  84. ^ Henry Cole, trans, Martin Luther on the Bondage of the Will (London, T. Bensley, 1823), 66.
  85. ^ Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther (Fortress, 1966), §§ "The Bondage of the Will" and "Original Sin," 156-170, 247.
  86. ^ Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther (Fortress, 1966), 156.
  87. ^ Henry Cole, trans, Martin Luther on the Bondage of the Will (London, T. Bensley, 1823)
  88. ^ Ernest Gordon Rupp and Philip Saville Watson, Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation (Westminster, 1969), 29.
  89. ^ Henry Cole, trans, Martin Luther on the Bondage of the Will (London, T. Bensley, 1823), 60
  90. ^ 63BOWCole
  91. ^ Henry Cole, trans, Martin Luther on the Bondage of the Will (London, T. Bensley, 1823), 64.
  92. ^ "Voluntarily" means "of one's own free will." http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/voluntarily
  93. ^ Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther (Fortress, 1966), 156-157.
  94. ^ Martin Luther, Commentary on Romans, J. Theodore Mueller, translator (Kregel Classics, 1976), xxii.
  95. ^ Treadwell Walden, The Great Meaning of the Word Metanoia: Lost in the Old Version, Unrecovered in the New (Thomas Whittaker, 1896), 26, footnote #1. Available online in Google Books.
  96. ^ Steven D. Paulson, Luther for the Armchair Theologians (Westminster John Knox, 2004), 9.
  97. ^ Erwin Lutzer, The Doctrines That Divide: A Fresh Look at the Historic Doctrines That Separate Christians (Kregel, 1998), 172-173.
  98. ^ Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation, edited by Ernest Gordon Rupp and Philip Saville Watson (Westminster, 1969), 141.
  99. ^ Martin Luther, "On the Bondage of the Will" (1525), in Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation, edited by Ernest Gordon Rupp and Philip Saville Watson (Westminster, 1969, reissued by Westminster John Knox, 2006), 27, 141.
  100. ^ Paul R. Sponheim, "The Origin of Sin," in Christian Dogmatics, Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, eds. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 385–407.
  101. ^ Francis Pieper, "Definition of Original Sin," in Christian Dogmatics (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1953), 1:538.
  102. ^ Krauth, C.P., The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology: As Represented in the Augsburg Confession, and in the History and Literature of the Evangelical Lutheran Church . Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott. 1875. pp. 335-455, Part IX The Specific Doctrines Of The Conservative Reformation: Original Sin.
  103. ^ Formula of Concord, Original Sin 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Machine.
  104. ^ Mueller, J.T., Christian Dogmatics. Concordia Publishing House. 1934. pp. 189-195 and Fuerbringer, L., Concordia Cyclopedia Concordia Publishing House. 1927. p. 635 and Christian Cyclopedia article on Divine Providence. For further reading, see The Proof Texts of the Catechism with a Practical Commentary, section Divine Providence, p. 212, Wessel, Louis, published in Theological Quarterly, Vol. 11, 1909.
  105. ^ Mueller, Steven P.,Called to Believe, Teach, and Confess. Wipf and Stock. 2005. pp. 122-123.
  106. ^ Mueller, J.T., Christian Dogmatics. Concordia Publishing House: 1934. pp. 190 and Edward. W. A.,A Short Explanation of Dr. Martin Luther's Small Catechism. Concordia Publishing House. 1946. p. 165. and Divine Providence and Human Adversity 2010-07-07 at the Wayback Machine by Markus O. Koepsell
  107. ^ Acts 13:48, Ephesians 1:4–11, Epitome of the Formula of Concord, Article 11, Election 2008-10-10 at the Wayback Machine, Mueller, J.T., Christian Dogmatics. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1934. pp. 585-9, section "The Doctrine of Eternal Election: 1. The Definition of the Term", and Engelder, T.E.W., Popular Symbolics. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1934. pp. 124-8, Part XXXI. "The Election of Grace", paragraph 176.
  108. ^ 2 Thessalonians 2:13, Mueller, J.T., Christian Dogmatics. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1934. pp. 589-593, section "The Doctrine of Eternal Election: 2. How Believers are to Consider Their Election, and Engelder, T.E.W., Popular Symbolics. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1934. pp. 127-8, Part XXXI. "The Election of Grace", paragraph 180.
  109. ^ Romans 8:33, Engelder, T.E.W., Popular Symbolics. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1934. pp. 127-8, Part XXXI. "The Election of Grace", paragraph 179., Engelder, T.E.W., The Certainty of Final Salvation. The Lutheran Witness 2(6). English Evangelical Missouri Synod: Baltimore. 1891, pp. 41ff.
  110. ^ 1 Peter 1:3, 2 Timothy 1:9, Ephesians 2:7, Titus 3:5
  111. ^ Ephesians 1:19, Colossians 2:12, John 1:13, John 6:26, 2 Corinthians 5:17
  112. ^ John 3:6
  113. ^ 2 Corinthians 3:5, 1 Corinthians 2:14, Ephesians 4:18, Ephesians 5:8
  114. ^ Genesis 6:5, Genesis 8:2, Romans 8:7
  115. ^ Philippians 1:6, Philippians 2:13, John 15:45, Romans 7:14
  116. ^ Colossians 2:13, Ephesians 2:5
  117. ^ James 1:18, 1 Peter 1:23, John 3:5, Titus 3:5, 1 Corinthians 4:15, Galatians 4:19
  118. ^ Colossians 1:12–13, 1 Peter 2:25, Jeremiah 31:18
  119. ^ Romans 3:9–23, Romans 6:17, Job 15:14, Psalm 14:3, Ephesians 2:3, 1 Peter 2:10, 1 Peter 2:25, Acts 26:18
  120. ^ Ephesians 2:5, Colossians 2:13, John 3:5, Titus 3:5, Acts 20:21, Acts 26:18
  121. ^ Philippians 2:13
  122. ^ 1 Peter 1:3, Galatians 3:26, Galatians 4:5, 1 Peter 2:10, Acts 26:18, Augustus Lawrence Graebner, Lutheran Cyclopedia p. 136, "Conversion"
  123. ^ 1 Timothy 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9, Epitome of the Formula of Concord, Article 11, Election 2008-10-10 at the Wayback Machine, and Engelder's Popular Symbolics, Part XXXI. The Election of Grace, pp. 124-8.
  124. ^ Hosea 13:9, Mueller, J.T., Christian Dogmatics. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1934. p. 637, section "The Doctrine of the Last Things (Eschatology), part 7. "Eternal Damnation", and Engelder, T.E.W., Popular Symbolics. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1934. pp. 135-6, Part XXXIX. "Eternal Death", paragraph 196.
  125. ^ John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge, III.23.2. Available online at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.toc.html CCEL.org.
  126. ^ John Calvin from Bondage and Liberation of the Will, edited by A.N.S. Lane, translated by G. I. Davies (Baker Academic, 2002) 69-70.
  127. ^ Inherent and natural are synonyms. http://thesaurus.com/browse/inherent.
  128. ^ John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge, II.2.7.
  129. ^ a b John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge, II.3.5.
  130. ^ Freedom and ability are synonyms. http://thesaurus.com/browse/freedom.
  131. ^ John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge, II.3.6.
  132. ^ John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge, III.3.6, 16.
  133. ^ Freedom of the Will, 1754; Edwards 1957-, vol. 1, pp. 327.
  134. ^ Jacobus Arminius, The Works of James Arminius, D.D., Formerly Professor of Divinity in the University of Leyden (Auburn, NY: Derby and Miller, 1853), 4:472.
  135. ^ Discipline of the Immanuel Missionary Church. Shoals, Indiana: Immanuel Missionary Church. 1986. p. 7.
  136. ^ John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge, III.23.2.
  137. ^ John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge, III.3.6.
  138. ^ Henry Cole, trans, Martin Luther on the Bondage of the Will (London, T. Bensley, 1823), 66. The controversial term liberum arbitrium was translated "free-will" by Cole. However Ernest Gordon Rupp and Philip Saville Watson, Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation (Westminster, 1969) chose "free choice" as their translation.
  139. ^ Keith D. Stanglin and Thomas H. McCall, Jacob Arminius: Theologian of Grace (Oxford University, 2012), 157-158.
  140. ^ Cambridge University HCS 2007-02-03 at the Wayback Machine "Since Hinduism is itself a conglomerate of religions, an attitude of tolerance and acceptance of the validity of other belief systems has long been a part of Hindu thought."
  141. ^ Predictive Astrology - Understanding Karma, Fate, & Free Will 2006-12-06 at the Wayback Machine ""Dvaita" or dualism and is generally a proponent of a free will orientation. The path of surrender or non-action, represents "Advaita" or non-dualism and is generally a proponent of fate orientation."
  142. ^ Himalayan Academy "Hindus believe in karma, the law of cause and effect by which each individual creates his own destiny by his thoughts, words and deeds"
  143. ^ Bhagavad Gita 7.26 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Machine
  144. ^ Bhagavad-Gita 3.27 Archived 2012-07-07 at archive.today "The spirit soul bewildered by the influence of false ego thinks himself the doer of activities that are in actuality carried out by the three modes of material nature"
  145. ^ B-Gita 15.7 purport "As fragmental parts and parcels of the Supreme Lord, the living entities also have fragmental portions of His qualities, of which independence is one. Every living entity, as an individual Self, has his personal individuality and a minute form of independence. By misuse of that independence one becomes a conditioned Self, and by proper use of independence he is always liberated"
  146. ^ Koller, J. (2007) Asian Philosophies. 5th ed. Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-092385-0
  147. ^ Swami Vivekananda (1907) "Freedom" from The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. vol. 1. ((online))[permanent dead link]
  148. ^ Bhagavad Gita 7.5 2007-03-01 at the Wayback Machine
  149. ^ Chandrashekhara Bharati in Dialogues with the Guru by R. Krishnaswami Aiyar, Chetana Limited, Bombay, 1957
  150. ^ Goldschmit, Arthur (2010). A Concise History of the Middle East. Westview Press. pp. 115–116. ISBN 978-0-8133-4388-4.
  151. ^ "Sunan Abi Dawud 4691 - Model Behavior of the Prophet (Kitab Al-Sunnah) - كتاب السنة - Sunnah.com - Sayings and Teachings of Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه و سلم)". sunnah.com. Retrieved 2021-04-21.
  152. ^ Denny, Frederick. An Introduction to Islam, 1985 Macmillan
  153. ^ Watt, Montgomery. Free-Will and Predestination in Early Islam. Luzac & Co.: London 1948.; Wolfson, Harry. The Philosophy of Kalam, 1976 Harvard University Press and (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-08-23. Retrieved 2006-08-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  154. ^ Pirkei Avot 4:16
  155. ^ Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, Mesillat Yesharim, chapter 1
  156. ^ a b "Redirecting".
  157. ^ Babylonian Talmud, Berachot 33b
  158. ^ Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Teshuvah 5:1-3
  159. ^ Maimonides, Mishneh Torah Teshuva 5:5
  160. ^ See
  161. ^ See for example, the commentary of Bartenura, ad loc
  162. ^ "FREE WILL - JewishEncyclopedia.com".
  163. ^ Milchamot Hashem, book 3, ch. 4
  164. ^ See also Rashi on Sotah 9:a s.v. ini

External links Edit

General Edit

  • Foreknowledge and Free Will, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Christian material Edit

  • Calvinism and Free Will

Jewish material Edit

  • "Free will" article at Jewish Encyclopedia
  • Fate and Destiny 2006-10-05 at the Wayback Machine, Aryeh Kaplan
  • On Repentance and Predestination 2020-06-22 at the Wayback Machine
  • The Paradox of Free Choice: Six Questions

October 28, 2023
free, will, theology, this, article, about, theological, questions, free, will, other, uses, free, will, disambiguation, this, article, lead, section, short, adequately, summarize, points, please, consider, expanding, lead, provide, accessible, overview, impor. This article is about the theological questions of free will For other uses see Free will disambiguation This article s lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of all important aspects of the article February 2022 Free will in theology is an important part of the debate on free will in general Religions vary greatly in their response to the standard argument against free will and thus might appeal to any number of responses to the paradox of free will the claim that omniscience and free will are incompatible Contents 1 Overview 2 Common defenses 3 Christianity 3 1 Academic views 3 1 1 The implicit argument 3 2 Roman Catholic 3 3 Orthodox Christianity 3 3 1 Oriental Orthodox 3 3 2 Eastern Orthodox 3 4 Differences of view between Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches 3 5 Protestant 3 5 1 Lutheranism 3 5 1 1 God and creation 3 5 1 2 Predestination 3 5 2 Anabaptism 3 5 3 Calvinism 3 5 4 Arminianism 3 5 5 Comparison of Protestants 3 6 Latter Day Saints 3 7 New Church 4 Hinduism 4 1 Different approaches 5 Islam 6 Judaism 6 1 Free will and creation 6 2 The paradox of free will 6 3 Alternate approaches 6 4 Kabbalistic thought 7 See also 8 References and notes 9 External links 9 1 General 9 2 Christian material 9 3 Jewish materialOverview EditMain article Argument from free will The theological doctrine of divine foreknowledge is often alleged to be in conflict with free will particularly in Calvinistic circles if God knows exactly what will happen right down to every choice a person makes it would seem that the freedom of these choices is called into question 1 This problem relates to Aristotle s analysis of the problem of the sea battle tomorrow either there will or will not be a sea battle According to the Law of Excluded Middle there seem to be two options If there will be a sea battle then it seems that it was true even yesterday that there would be one Thus it is necessary that the sea battle will occur If there will not be one then by similar reasoning it is necessary that it will not occur 2 That means that the future whatever it is is completely fixed by past truths true propositions about the future a deterministic conclusion is reached things could not have been any other way However some philosophers follow William of Ockham c 1287 1347 in holding that necessity and possibility are defined with respect to a given point in time and a given matrix of empirical circumstances and so something that is merely possible from the perspective of one observer may be necessary from the perspective of an omniscient 3 Some philosophers follow Philo in holding that free will is a feature of a human s soul and thus that non human animals lack free will 4 5 Common defenses EditJewish philosophy stresses that free will is a product of the intrinsic human soul using the word neshama from the Hebrew root n sh m or נ ש מ meaning breath but the ability to make a free choice is through Yechida from Hebrew word yachid יחיד singular the part of the soul that is united with God citation needed the only being that is not hindered by or dependent on cause and effect thus freedom of will does not belong to the realm of the physical reality and inability of natural philosophy to account for it is expected In Islam the theological issue is not usually how to reconcile free will with God s foreknowledge but with God s jabr or divine commanding power al Ash ari developed an acquisition or dual agency form of compatibilism in which human free will and divine jabr were both asserted and which became a cornerstone of the dominant Ash ari position 6 In Shia Islam Ash aris understanding of a higher balance toward predestination is challenged by most theologists 7 Free will according to Islamic doctrine is the main factor for man s accountability in his her actions throughout life All actions committed by man s free will are said to be counted on the Day of Judgement because they are his her own and not God s The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard claimed that divine omnipotence cannot be separated from divine goodness 8 As a truly omnipotent and good being God could create beings with true freedom over God Furthermore God would voluntarily do so because the greatest good which can be done for a being greater than anything else that one can do for it is to be truly free 9 Alvin Plantinga s free will defense is a contemporary expansion of this theme adding how God free will and evil are consistent 10 Christianity EditSee also Free will in antiquity Christianity Academic views Edit The consensus of scholars who focus on the study of free will in the ancient world is that the Bible does not explicitly address free will 11 12 13 The leading scholar on the subject of free will in antiquity Michael Frede observed that freedom and free will cannot be found in either the Septuagint or the New Testament and must have come to the Christians mainly from Stoicism 14 Frede wrote that he could not find either the language of free will nor even any assumption of it in the New Testament or the Greek Old Testament 15 According to Frede the early Church fathers most certainly developed their doctrine of free will from the pagans 16 Another Oxford scholar Dr Alister McGrath concurs entirely with Frede The term free will is not biblical but derives from Stoicism It was introduced into Western Christianity by the second century theologian Tertullian 17 Pauline expert Troels Engberg Pedersen unequivocally insists that Paul firmly believed in divine determination as an intrinsic part of his whole conception of God 18 The implicit argument Edit Nonetheless many have argued an implicit case for finding free will in the bible The most fundamental source for this case lies in the fall into sin by Adam and Eve that occurred in their willfully chosen disobedience to God 19 Some contend that freedom and free will can be treated as one because the two terms are commonly used as synonyms 20 however there are widespread disagreements in definitions of the two terms 21 Because of these disagreements Christian philosopher Mortimer Adler found that a delineation of three kinds of freedom is necessary for clarity on the subject as follows 1 Circumstantial freedom is freedom from coercion or restraint that prevents acting as one wills 22 In the Bible circumstantial freedom was given to the Israelites in The Exodus from slavery in Egypt 23 2 Natural freedom a k a volitional freedom is freedom to determine one s own decisions or plans Natural freedom is inherent in all people in all circumstances and without regard to any state of mind or character which they may or may not acquire in the course of their lives 24 Other theologians paralleling Adler view all humanity as naturally possessing the free choice of the will 25 If free will is taken to mean unconstrained and voluntary choice the Bible assumes that all people unregenerate and regenerate possess it 26 For examples free will is taught in Matthew 23 37 and Revelation 22 17 27 clarification needed 3 Acquired freedom is freedom to live as one ought to live a freedom that requires a transformation whereby a person acquires a righteous holy healthy etc state of mind or character 28 The Bible testifies to the need for acquired freedom because no one is free for obedience and faith till he is freed from sin s dominion People possess natural freedom but their voluntary choices serve sin until they acquire freedom from sin s dominion The New Bible Dictionary denotes this acquired freedom for obedience and faith as free will in a theological sense 26 Therefore in biblical thinking an acquired freedom from being enslaved to sin is needed to live up to Jesus commandments to love God and love neighbor 29 Jesus told his hearers that they needed to be made free indeed John 8 36 Free indeed ontos means truly free or really free as it is in some translations 30 Being made free indeed means freedom from bondage to sin 31 This acquired freedom is freedom to serve the Lord 32 Being free indeed i e true freedom comes by God s changing our nature to free us from being slaves to sin and endowing us with the freedom to choose to be righteous Mark R Talbot 33 a classical Christian theist 34 views this acquired compatibilist freedom as the freedom that Scripture portrays as worth having 35 Open theism denies that classical theism s compatibilist freedom to choose to be righteous without the possibility of choosing otherwise 36 qualifies as true freedom For open theism true libertarian freedom is incompatibilist freedom Regardless of factors a person has the freedom to choose the opposite alternatives In open theist William Hasker s words regarding any action it is always within the agent s power to perform the action and also in the agent s power to refrain from the action 37 Although open theism generally contradicts classical theism s freedom to choose to be righteous without the possibility of choosing otherwise Hasker allows that Jesus possessed and humans in heaven will possess such freedom Regarding Jesus Hasker views Jesus as a free agent but he also thinks that it was not really possible that Jesus would abort the mission 38 Regarding heaven Hasker foresees that as the result of our choice we will be unable to sin because all sinful impulses will be gone 39 Roman Catholic Edit Today theologians of the Roman Catholic Church universally embrace the idea of free will but generally do not view free will as existing apart from or in contradiction to grace According to the Roman Catholic Church To God all moments of time are present in their immediacy When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of predestination he includes in it each person s free response to his grace 40 The Council of Trent declared that the free will of man moved and excited by God can by its consent co operate with God Who excites and invites its action and that it can thereby dispose and prepare itself to obtain the grace of justification The will can resist grace if it chooses It is not like a lifeless thing which remains purely passive Weakened and diminished by Adam s fall free will is yet not destroyed in the race Sess VI cap i and v During the era of the original Jesuits a movement arose in Catholicism called Jansenism which contradicted the Jesuits teaching on free will French Philosopher Blaise Pascal was an adherent of this theology There are no modern adherents of Jansenism St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas wrote extensively on free will with Augustine focusing on the importance of free will in his responses to the Manichaeans and also on the limitations of a concept of unlimited free will as denial of grace in his refutations of Pelagius Denying the Roman Catholic teaching John Duns Scotus asserted that the created will acts just for internal reasons and therefore contingently in all circumstances even in Heaven regardless of the perfection of the object presented by the intellect 41 On the contrary the Roman Catholic teaching affirms that when God the proper object of the will is known with sufficient clarity in the afterlife then the perpetuity of the free will s act is necessary and in Heaven is guaranteed by the absence of reason for the will to will something else 41 The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church asserts that Freedom is the power rooted in reason and will 42 It goes on to say that God created man a rational being conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions God willed that man should be left in the hand of his own counsel so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him 43 The section concludes with the role that grace plays By the working of grace the Holy Spirit educates us in spiritual freedom in order to make us free collaborators in his work in the Church and in the world 44 Reformed Latin Christianity s views on free will and grace are often contrasted with predestination in Reformed Protestant Christianity especially after the Counter Reformation but in understanding differing conceptions of free will it is just as important to understand the differing conceptions of the nature of God focusing on the idea that God can be all powerful and all knowing even while people continue to exercise free will because God transcends time The papal encyclical on human freedom Libertas Praestantissimum by Pope Leo XIII 1888 45 seems to leave the question unresolved as to the relation between free will and determinism whether the correct notion is the compatibilist one or the libertarian one The quotations supporting compatibilism include the one from St Thomas footnote 4 near the end of paragraph 6 regarding the cause of evil Whereas when he sins he acts in opposition to reason is moved by another and is the victim of foreign misapprehensions 46 and a similar passus suggesting a natural cause and effect function of human will harmony with his natural inclinations Creator of will by whom all things are moved in conformity with their nature near the end of paragraph 8 when considering the problem of how grace can have effects on free will On the other hand metaphysical libertarianism at least as a sort of possibility of reversing the direction of one s acting is suggested by the reference to the well known philosophical term metaphysical freedom at the beginning of paragraph 3 and to an extent a contrasting comparison of animals which always act of necessity with human liberty by means of which one can either act or not act do this or do that Critique that seems more or less to support popular incompatibilistic views can be found in some papal documents especially in the 20th century 47 no explicit condemnation however of causal determinism in its most generic form can be found there More often these documents focus on condemnation of physicalism materialism and the stressing of significance of belief in soul as a non physical indivisible substance equipped with intellect and will which decides human proceeding in a perhaps imprecise way Orthodox Christianity Edit Oriental Orthodox Edit The concept of free will is also of vital importance in the Oriental or non Chalcedonian Churches those in communion with the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria As in Judaism free will is regarded as axiomatic Everyone is regarded as having a free choice as to in what measure he or she will follow his or her conscience or arrogance these two having been appointed for each individual The more one follows one s conscience the more it brings one good results and the more one follows one s arrogance the more it brings one bad results Following only one s arrogance is sometimes likened to the dangers of falling into a pit while walking in pitch darkness without the light of conscience to illuminate the path Very similar doctrines have also found written expression in the Dead Sea Scrolls Manual of Discipline and in some religious texts possessed by the Beta Israel Jews of Ethiopia Eastern Orthodox Edit The Eastern or Chalcedonian Orthodox Church espouses a belief different from the Lutheran Calvinist and Arminian Protestant views The difference is in the interpretation of original sin alternatively known as ancestral sin where the Orthodox do not believe in total depravity The Orthodox reject the Pelagian view that the original sin did not damage human nature they accept that the human nature is depraved but despite man s fallenness the divine image he bears has not been destroyed The Orthodox Church holds to the teaching of synergy synergos meaning working together which says that man has the freedom to and must if he wants to be saved choose to accept and work with the grace of God St John Cassian a 4th century Church Father and pupil of St John Chrysostom articulated this view and all the Eastern Fathers embraced it He taught that Divine grace is necessary to enable a sinner to return unto God and live yet man must first of himself desire and attempt to choose and obey God and that Divine grace is indispensable for salvation but it does not necessarily need to precede a free human choice because despite the weakness of human volition the will can take the initiative toward God Some Orthodox Christians use the parable of a drowning man to plainly illustrate the teaching of synergy God from the ship throws a rope to a drowning man pulls him up saving him and the man if he wants to be saved must hold on tightly to the rope explaining both that salvation is a gift from God and man cannot save himself and that man must co work syn ergo with God in the process of salvation Fyodor Dostoevsky the Russian Orthodox Christian novelist suggested many arguments for and against free will Famous arguments are found in The Grand Inquisitor chapter in The Brothers Karamazov and in his work Notes from Underground He also developed an argument that suicide if irrational is actually a validation of free will see Kirilov in the Demons novel As for the argument presented in The Brothers Karamazov s section The Rebellion that the suffering of innocents was not worth the price of free will Dostoevsky appears to propose the idea of apocatastasis or universal reconciliation as one possible rational solution Roman Catholic teachingIllustrating as it does that the human part in salvation represented by holding on to the rope must be preceded and accompanied by grace represented by the casting and drawing of the rope the image of the drowning man holding on to the rope cast and drawn by his rescuer corresponds closely to Roman Catholic teaching which holds that God who destined us in love to be his sons and to be conformed to the image of his Son 48 includes in his eternal plan of predestination each person s free response to his grace 49 The Roman Catholic Church holds to the teaching that by free will the human person is capable of directing himself toward his true good man is endowed with freedom an outstanding manifestation of the divine image 50 Man has free will either to accept or reject the grace of God so that for salvation there is a kind of interplay or synergy between human freedom and divine grace 51 Justification establishes cooperation between God s grace and man s freedom On man s part it is expressed by the assent of faith to the Word of God which invites him to conversion and in the cooperation of charity with the prompting of the Holy Spirit who precedes and preserves his assent When God touches man s heart through the illumination of the Holy Spirit man himself is not inactive while receiving that inspiration since he could reject it and yet without God s grace he cannot by his own free will move himself toward justice in God s sight Council of Trent 52 God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace the fatherly action of God is first on his own initiative and then follows man s free acting through his collaboration 53 For Roman Catholics therefore human cooperation with grace is essential 54 When God establishes his eternal plan of predestination he includes in it each person s free response to his grace whether it is positive or negative In this city in fact both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel gathered together against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place Acts 4 27 28 55 The initiative comes from God 56 but it demands a free response from man God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace the fatherly action of God is first on his own initiative and then follows man s free acting through his collaboration 53 Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification at the beginning of conversion Moved by the Holy Spirit and by charity we can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification for the increase of grace and charity and for the attainment of eternal life 57 Orthodox criticism of Roman Catholic theologyOrthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky has stated that the teaching of John Cassian who in the East is considered a witness to Tradition but who was unable to make himself correctly understood was interpreted on the rational plane as a semi pelagianism and was condemned in the West 58 Where the Roman Catholic Church defends the concept of faith and free will these are questioned in the East by the conclusions of the Second Council of Orange This council is not accepted by the Eastern churches and the Roman Catholic Church s use failed verification 59 of describing their position and St Cassian as Semi Pelagian is also rejected 60 Although the Roman Catholic Church explicitly teaches that original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam s descendants 61 some Eastern Orthodox nevertheless claim that Roman Catholicism professes the teaching which they attribute to Saint Augustine that everyone bears not only the consequence but also the guilt of Adam s sin 62 63 Differences of view between Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches Edit Various Roman Catholic theologians identify Cassian as a teacher of the semipelagian heresy which was condemned by the Council of Orange 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 While the Orthodox do not apply the term semipelagian to their theology they criticize the Roman Catholics for rejecting Cassian whom they accept as fully orthodox 73 and for holding that human consent to God s justifying action is itself an effect of grace 74 a position shared by Eastern Orthodox theologian Georges Florovsky who says that the Eastern Orthodox Church always understood that God initiates accompanies and completes everything in the process of salvation rejecting instead the Calvinist idea of irresistible grace 75 Recently some Roman Catholic theologians have argued that Cassian s writings should not be considered semipelagian citation needed And scholars of other denominations too have concluded that Cassian s thought is not Semi Pelagian 76 and that he instead taught that salvation is from beginning to end the effect of God s grace 76 and held that God s grace not human free will is responsible for everything which pertains to salvation even faith 77 The Orthodox Church holds to the teaching of synergy synergos meaning working together which says that man has the freedom to and must if he wants to be saved choose to accept and work with the grace of God Once baptised the experience of his salvation and relationship with God is called theosis Mankind has free will to accept or reject the grace of God Rejection of the gifts of God is called blasphemy of the Holy Spirit gifts of grace faith life 78 79 The first who defined this teaching was John Cassian 4th century Church Father and a pupil of John Chrysostom and all Eastern Fathers accept it He taught that Divine grace is necessary to enable a sinner to return unto God and live yet man must first of himself desire and attempt to choose and obey God and that Divine grace is indispensable for salvation but it does not necessarily need to precede a free human choice because despite the weakness of human volition the will can take the initiative toward God citation needed Some Orthodox use an example of a drowning man to illustrate the teaching of synergy God from the ship throws a rope to a drowning man the man may take the rope if he wants to be saved but he may decide not to take the rope and perish by his own will Explaining both that salvation is a gift from God and man cannot save himself That man must co work syn ergo with God in the process of salvation Protestant Edit Lutheranism Edit Main article Lutheranism nbsp A C Article 18 Of Free WillLutherans adhere to divine monergism the teaching that salvation is by God s act alone and therefore reject the idea that humans in their fallen state have a free will concerning spiritual matters 80 Lutherans believe that although humans have free will concerning civil righteousness they cannot work spiritual righteousness without the Holy Spirit since righteousness in the heart cannot be wrought in the absence of the Holy Spirit 81 In other words humanity is free to choose and act in every regard except for the choice of salvation Lutherans also teach that sinners while capable of doing works that are outwardly good are not capable of doing works that satisfy God s justice 82 Every human thought and deed is infected with sin and sinful motives 83 For Luther himself in his Bondage of the Will people are by nature endowed with free will free choice in regard to goods and possessions with which a person has the right of using acting and omitting according to his Free will However in God ward things pertaining to salvation or damnation people are in bondage either to the will of God or to the will of Satan 84 As found in Paul Althaus study of Luther s theology 85 sin s infection of every human thought and deed began with Adam s fall into sin the Original Sin Adam s fall was a terrible example of what free will will do unless God constantly motivates it to virtuous behavior Humanity inherits Adam s sin Thus in our natural condition we have an inborn desire to sin because that is the person we are by birth As Luther noted Adam sinned willingly and freely and from him a will to sin has been born into us so that we cannot sin innocently but only voluntarily 86 The controversial term liberum arbitrium was translated free will by Henry Cole 87 and free will remains in general use However the Rupp Watson study of Luther and Erasmus chose free choice as the translation and provided a rationale 88 Luther used free choice or free will to denote the fact that humans act spontaneously and with a desirous willingness 89 He also allowed Free will as that power by which humans can be caught by the Spirit of God 90 However he deplored the use of the term Free will because it is too grand copious and full Therefore Luther held that the inborn faculty of willingness should be called by some other term 91 Although our wills are a function of and are in bondage to our inherited sinful desires Luther insisted that we sin voluntarily Voluntarily means that we sin of our own free will 92 We will to do what we desire As long as we desire sin our wills are only free for sin This is Luther s bondage of the will to sin The sinner s will is bound but it is and remains his will He repeatedly and voluntarily acts according to it So it is to be set free from sin and for righteousness requires a rebirth through faith 93 A rebirth of faith gives true freedom from sin which is wrote Luther a liberty freedom to do good 94 To use a biblical word important to Luther to be set free from sin and for righteousness requires a metanoia 95 Luther used Jesus image of the good and bad trees to depict the necessity of changing the person to change what a person wills and does In Jesus image a good tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit Matthew 7 18 96 Like the bad tree that can only produce bad fruit before a rebirth through faith people are in bondage to the sinful desires of their hearts They can only will to do sin albeit spontaneously and with a desirous willingness 97 Given his view of the human condition Luther concluded that without a rebirth the free choice that all humans possess is not free at all because it cannot of itself free itself from its inherent bondage to sin 98 Thus Luther distinguished between different kinds of freedom a by nature a freedom to act as we will and b by rebirth through faith a freedom to act righteously 99 God and creation Edit Orthodox Lutheran theology holds that God made the world including humanity perfect holy and sinless However Adam and Eve chose to disobey God trusting in their own strength knowledge and wisdom 100 101 Consequently people are saddled with original sin born sinful and unable to avoid committing sinful acts 102 For Lutherans original sin is the chief sin a root and fountainhead of all actual sins 103 According to Lutherans God preserves his creation in doing so cooperates with everything that happens and guides the universe 104 While God cooperates with both good and evil deeds with evil deeds he does so only inasmuch as they are deeds but not with the evil in them God concurs with an act s effect but he does not cooperate in the corruption of an act or the evil of its effect 105 Lutherans believe everything exists for the sake of the Christian Church and that God guides everything for its welfare and growth 106 Predestination Edit Lutherans believe that the elect are predestined to salvation 107 Lutherans believe Christians should be assured that they are among the predestined 108 Lutherans believe that all who trust in Jesus alone can be certain of their salvation for it is in Christ s work and his promises in which their certainty lies 109 According to Lutheranism the central final hope of the Christian is the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting as confessed in the Apostles Creed rather than predestination Conversion or regeneration in the strict sense of the term is the work of divine grace 110 and power 111 by which man born of the flesh 112 and void of all power to think 113 to will 114 or to do 115 any good thing and dead in sin 116 is through the gospel and holy baptism 117 taken 118 from a state of sin and spiritual death under God s wrath 119 into a state of spiritual life of faith and grace 120 rendered able to will and to do what is spiritually good 121 and especially led to accept the benefits of the redemption which is in Christ Jesus 122 Lutherans disagree with those that make predestination the source of salvation rather than Christ s suffering death and resurrection Lutherans reject the Calvinist doctrine of the perseverance of the saints Like both Calvinist camps Lutherans view the work of salvation as monergistic in that the natural that is corrupted and divinely unrenewed powers of man cannot do anything or help towards salvation Formula of Concord Solid Declaration art ii par 71 Archived 2008 05 16 at the Wayback Machine and Lutherans go further along the same lines as the Free Grace advocates to say that the recipient of saving grace need not cooperate with it Hence Lutherans believe that a true Christian that is a genuine recipient of saving grace can lose his or her salvation b ut the cause is not as though God were unwilling to grant grace for perseverance to those in whom He has begun the good work but that these persons wilfully turn away Formula of Concord Solid Declaration art xi par 42 Archived 2008 05 16 at the Wayback Machine Unlike Calvinists Lutherans do not believe in a predestination to damnation 123 Instead Lutherans teach eternal damnation is a result of the unbeliever s sins rejection of the forgiveness of sins and unbelief 124 Anabaptism Edit The Anabaptist movement was characterized by the fundamental belief in the free will of man Many earlier movements such as Waldensians and others likewise held this viewpoint Denominations today representing this view include Old Order Mennonites Amish Conservative Mennonites and Ukrainian Baptists Calvinism Edit Main article Calvinism John Calvin ascribed free will to all people in the sense that they act voluntarily and not by compulsion 125 He elaborated his position by allowing that man has choice and that it is self determined and that his actions stem from his own voluntary choosing 126 The free will that Calvin ascribed to all people is what Mortimer Adler calls the natural freedom of the will This freedom to will what one desires is inherent in all people 24 Calvin held this kind of inherent natural 127 free will in disesteem because unless people acquire the freedom to live as they ought by being transformed they will desire and voluntarily choose to sin Man is said to have free will wrote Calvin because he acts voluntarily and not by compulsion This is perfectly true but why should so small a matter have been dignified with so proud a title 128 The glitch in this inherent natural freedom of the will is that although all people have the faculty of willing by nature they are unavoidably and yet voluntarily without compulsion under the bondage of sin 129 The kind of free will that Calvin esteems is what Adler calls acquired freedom of the will the freedom ability 130 to live as one ought To possess acquired free will requires a change by which a person acquires a desire to live a life marked by virtuous qualities 28 As Calvin describes the change required for acquired freedom the will must be wholly transformed and renovated 131 Calvin depicts this transformation as a new heart and a new spirit Ezek 18 31 It sets one free from bondage to sin and enables piety towards God and love towards men general holiness and purity of life 132 Calvinist Protestants embrace the idea of predestination namely that God chose who would be saved and who would be not saved prior to the creation They quote Ephesians 1 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight and also 2 8 For it is by grace you are saved through faith and this not of yourselves it is the gift of God One of the strongest defenders of this theological point of view was the American Puritan preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards Edwards believed that indeterminism was incompatible with individual dependence on God and hence with his sovereignty He reasoned that if individuals responses to God s grace are contra causally free then their salvation depends partly on them and therefore God s sovereignty is not absolute and universal Edwards book Freedom of the Will defends theological determinism In this book Edwards attempts to show that libertarianism is incoherent For example he argues that by self determination the libertarian must mean either that one s actions including one s acts of willing are preceded by an act of free will or that one s acts of will lack sufficient causes The first leads to an infinite regress while the second implies that acts of will happen accidentally and hence can t make someone better or worse any more than a tree is better than other trees because it oftener happens to be lit upon by a swan or nightingale or a rock more vicious than other rocks because rattlesnakes have happened oftener to crawl over it 133 It should not be thought that this view completely denies freedom of choice however It claims that man is free to act on his strongest moral impulse and volition which is externally determined but is not free to act contrary to them or to alter them Proponents such as John L Girardeau have indicated their belief that moral neutrality is impossible that even if it were possible and one were equally inclined to contrary options one could make no choice at all that if one is inclined however slightly toward one option then that person will necessarily choose that one over any others Some non Calvinist Christians attempt a reconciliation of the dual concepts of predestination and free will by pointing to the situation of God as Christ In taking the form of a man a necessary element of this process was that Jesus Christ lived the existence of a mortal When Jesus was born he was not born with the omniscient power of God the Creator but with the mind of a human child yet he was still God in essence The precedent this creates is that God is able to will the abandonment of His knowledge or ignore knowledge while remaining fully God Thus it is not inconceivable that although omniscience demands that God knows what the future holds for individuals it is within his power to deny this knowledge in order to preserve individual free will Other theologians argue that the Calvinist Edwardsean view suggests that if all human volitions are predetermined by God then all actions dictated by fallen will of man necessarily satisfy His sovereign decree Hence it is impossible to act outside of God s perfect will a conclusion some non Calvinists claim poses a serious problem for ethics and moral theology An early proposal toward such a reconciliation states that God is in fact not aware of future events but rather being eternal He is outside time and sees the past present and future as one whole creation Consequently it is not as though God would know in advance that Jeffrey Dahmer would become guilty of homicide years prior to the event as an example but that He was aware of it from all eternity viewing all time as a single present This was the view offered by Boethius in Book V of The Consolation of Philosophy Calvinist theologian Loraine Boettner argued that the doctrine of divine foreknowledge does not escape the alleged problems of divine foreordination He wrote that what God foreknows must in the very nature of the case be as fixed and certain as what is foreordained and if one is inconsistent with the free agency of man the other is also Foreordination renders the events certain while foreknowledge presupposes that they are certain 6 Some Christian theologians feeling the bite of this argument have opted to limit the doctrine of foreknowledge if not do away with it altogether thus forming a new school of thought similar to Socinianism and process theology called open theism Arminianism Edit Main articles Arminianism and History of Calvinist Arminian debate Christians who were influenced by the teachings of Jacobus Arminius such as Methodists believe that while God is all knowing and always knows what choices each person will make he still gives them the ability to choose or not choose everything regardless of whether there are any internal or external factors contributing to that choice Like John Calvin Arminius affirmed total depravity but Arminius believed that only prevenient grace allowed people to choose salvation Concerning grace and free will this is what I teach according to the Scriptures and orthodox consent Free will is unable to begin or to perfect any true and spiritual good without grace This grace prœvenit goes before accompanies and follows it excites assists operates that we will and co operates lest we will in vain 134 Prevenient grace is divine grace which precedes human decision It exists prior to and without reference to anything humans may have done As humans are corrupted by the effects of sin prevenient grace allows persons to engage their God given free will to choose the salvation offered by God in Jesus Christ or to reject that salvific offer Methodist theology thus teaches Our Lord Jesus Christ did so die for all men as to make salvation attainable by every man that cometh into the world If men are not saved that fault is entirely their own lying solely in their own unwillingness to obtain the salvation offered to them John 1 9 I Thess 5 9 Titus 2 11 12 135 Thomas Jay Oord offers perhaps the most cogent free will theology presupposing prevenient grace What he calls essential kenosis says God acts preveniently to give freedom agency to all creatures This gift comes from God s eternal essence and is therefore necessary God remains free in choosing how to love but the fact that God loves and therefore gives freedom agency to others is a necessary part of what it means to be divine This view is backed in the Bible with verses such as Luke 13 34 NKJV O Jerusalem Jerusalem the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings but you were not willing Here we see Jesus lamenting that He is unable to save Jerusalem as they are not willing We see that whilst Jesus wants to save Jerusalem He respects their choice to continue on in sin despite His will that they be saved Comparison of Protestants Edit This table summarizes three classical Protestant beliefs about free will John Calvin Martin Luther Jacob ArminiusFor Calvin humanity possesses free will 136 but it is in bondage to sin 129 unless it is transformed 137 For Luther humanity possesses free will free choice in regard to goods and possessions but regarding salvation or damnation people are in bondage either to God or Satan 138 For Arminius humanity possesses freedom from necessity but not freedom from sin unless enabled by prevenient grace 139 Latter Day Saints Edit Main article Agency in Mormonism Latter Day Saints believe that God has given all humans the gift of moral agency Moral agency includes free will and agency Proper exercise of unfettered choice leads to the ultimate goal of returning to God s presence Having the choice to do right or wrong was important because God wants a society of a certain type those that comply with eternal laws Before this Earth was created this dispute over agency rose to the level that there was a war in heaven Lucifer who favored no agency and his followers were cast out of heaven for rebelling against God s will Many Mormon leaders have also taught that the battle in Heaven over agency is now being carried out on earth citation needed where dictators influenced by Satan fight against freedom or free agency in governments contrary to the will of God Mormons also believe in a limited form of foreordination not in deterministic unalterable decrees but rather in callings from God for individuals to perform specific missions in mortality Those who are foreordained can reject the foreordination either outright or by transgressing the laws of God and becoming unworthy to fulfill the call New Church Edit The New Church or Swedenborgianism teaches that every person has complete freedom to choose heaven or hell Emanuel Swedenborg upon whose writings the New Church is founded argued that if God is love itself people must have free will If God is love itself then He desires no harm to come to anyone and so it is impossible that he would predestine anyone to hell On the other hand if God is love itself then He must love things outside of Himself and if people do not have the freedom to choose evil they are simply extensions of God and He cannot love them as something outside of Himself In addition Swedenborg argues that if a person does not have free will to choose goodness and faith then all of the commandments in the Bible to love God and the neighbor are worthless since no one can choose to do them and it is impossible that a God who is love itself and wisdom itself would give impossible commandments Hinduism EditSee also Free will Hindu philosophy As Hinduism is primarily a conglomerate of different religious traditions 140 there is no one accepted view on the concept of free will Within the predominant schools of Hindu philosophy there are two main opinions The Advaita monistic schools generally believe in a fate based approach and the Dvaita dualistic schools are proponents for the theory of free will 141 The different schools understandings are based upon their conceptions of the nature of the supreme Being see Brahman Paramatma and Ishvara and how the individual Self atma or jiva dictates or is dictated by karma within the illusory existence of maya In both Dvaita and Advaita schools and also in the many other traditions within Hinduism there is a strong belief in destiny 142 and that both the past and future are known or viewable by certain saints or mystics as well as by the supreme being Ishvara in traditions where Ishvara is worshipped as an all knowing being In the Bhagavad Gita the Avatar Krishna says to Arjuna I know everything that has happened in the past all that is happening in the present and all things that are yet to come 143 However this belief in destiny is not necessarily believed to rule out the existence of free will as in some cases both free will and destiny are believed to exist simultaneously 144 145 The Bhagavad Gita also states Nor does the Supreme Lord assume anyone s sinful or pious activities Bhagavad Gita 5 15 From wherever the mind wanders due to its flickering and unsteady nature one must certainly withdraw it and bring it back under the control of the self Bhagavad Gita 6 26 indicating that God does not control anyone s will and that it is possible to control the mind dd Different approaches Edit The six orthodox astika schools of thought in Hindu philosophy give differing opinions In the Samkhya for instance matter is without any freedom and Self lacks any ability to control the unfolding of matter The only real freedom kaivalya consists in realizing the ultimate separateness of matter and self For the Yoga school only Ishvara is truly free and its freedom is also distinct from all feelings thoughts actions or wills and is thus not at all a freedom of will The metaphysics of the Nyaya and Vaisheshika schools strongly suggest a belief in determinism but do not seem to make explicit claims about determinism or free will 146 A quotation from Swami Vivekananda a Vedantist offers a good example of the worry about free will in the Hindu tradition Therefore we see at once that there cannot be any such thing as free will the very words are a contradiction because will is what we know and everything that we know is within our universe and everything within our universe is moulded by conditions of time space and causality To acquire freedom we have to get beyond the limitations of this universe it cannot be found here 147 However Vivekananda s above quote can t be taken as a literal refutation of all free will as Vivekanda s teacher Ramakrishna Paramahansa used to teach that man is like a goat tied to a stake the karmic debts and human nature bind him and the amount of free will he has is analogous to the amount of freedom the rope allows as one progresses spiritually the rope becomes longer On the other hand Mimamsa Vedanta and the more theistic versions of Hinduism such as Shaivism and Vaishnavism have often emphasized the importance of free will For example in the Bhagavad Gita the living beings jivas are described as being of a higher nature who have the freedom to exploit the inferior material nature prakrti Besides these O mighty armed Arjuna there is another superior energy of Mine which comprises the living entities who are exploiting the resources of this material inferior nature 148 The doctrine of Karma in Hinduism requires both that we pay for our actions in the past and that our actions in the present be free enough to allow us to deserve the future reward or punishment that we will receive for our present actions The Advaitin philosopher Chandrashekhara Bharati Swaminah puts it this way Fate is past karma free will is present karma Both are really one that is karma though they may differ in the matter of time There can be no conflict when they are really one Fate as I told you is the resultant of the past exercise of your free will By exercising your free will in the past you brought on the resultant fate By exercising your free will in the present I want you to wipe out your past record if it hurts you or to add to it if you find it enjoyable In any case whether for acquiring more happiness or for reducing misery you have to exercise your free will in the present 149 Islam EditSee also Predestination in Islam Disputes about free will in Islam began with the Mu tazili vs Hanbali disputes 150 with the Mu tazili arguing that humans had qadar 151 the capacity to do right or wrong and thus deserved the reward or punishment they received whereas Hanbali insisted on God s jabr or total power and initiative in managing all events 152 Schools that developed around earlier thinkers such as Abu Hanifa and al Ash ari searched for ways to explain how both human qadar and divine jabr could be asserted at the same time Ash ari develops a dual agency or acquisition account of free will in which every human action has two distinct agents God creates the possibility of a human action with his divine jabr but then the human follows through and acquires the act making it theirs and taking responsibility for it using their human qadar 153 Judaism EditSee also Free will in antiquity Judaism The belief in free will Hebrew bechirah chofshit בחירה חפשית bechirah בחירה is axiomatic in Jewish thought and is closely linked with the concept of reward and punishment based on the Torah itself I God have set before you life and death blessing and curse therefore choose life Deuteronomy 30 19 Free will is therefore discussed at length in Jewish philosophy firstly as regards God s purpose in creation and secondly as regards the closely related resultant paradox The topic is also often discussed in connection with negative theology divine simplicity and divine providence as well as Jewish principles of faith in general Free will and creation Edit According to the Mishnah This world is like a vestibule before the World to Come 154 According to an 18th century rabbinic work Man was created for the sole purpose of rejoicing in God and deriving pleasure from the splendor of His Presence The place where this joy may truly be derived is the World to Come which was expressly created to provide for it but the path to the object of our desires is this world 155 Free will is thus required by God s justice otherwise Man would not be given or denied good for actions over which he had no control 156 It is further understood that in order for Man to have true free choice he must not only have inner free will but also an environment in which a choice between obedience and disobedience exists God thus created the world such that both good and evil can operate freely this is the meaning of the rabbinic maxim All is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven 157 According to Maimonides Free will is granted to every man If he desires to incline towards the good way and be righteous he has the power to do so and if he desires to incline towards the unrighteous way and be a wicked man he also has the power to do so Give no place in your minds to that which is asserted by many of the ignorant namely that the Holy One blessed be He decrees that a man from his birth should be either righteous or wicked Since the power of doing good or evil is in our own hands and since all the wicked deeds which we have committed have been committed with our full consciousness it befits us to turn in penitence and to forsake our evil deed 158 The paradox of free will Edit In rabbinic literature there is much discussion as to the apparent contradiction between God s omniscience and free will The representative view is that Everything is foreseen yet free will is given Pirkei Avot 3 15 Based on this understanding the problem is formally described as a paradox beyond our understanding The Holy One Blessed Be He knows everything that will happen before it has happened So does He know whether a particular person will be righteous or wicked or not If He does know then it will be impossible for that person not to be righteous If He knows that he will be righteous but that it is possible for him to be wicked then He does not know everything that He has created T he Holy One Blessed Be He does not have any temperaments and is outside such realms unlike people whose selves and temperaments are two separate things God and His temperaments are one and God s existence is beyond the comprehension of Man Thus we do not have the capabilities to comprehend how the Holy One Blessed Be He knows all creations and events Nevertheless know without doubt that people do what they want without the Holy One Blessed Be He forcing or decreeing upon them to do so It has been said because of this that a man is judged according to all his actions 159 The paradox is explained but not resolved by observing that God exists outside of time and therefore his knowledge of the future is exactly the same as his knowledge of the past and present Just as his knowledge of the past does not interfere with man s free will neither does his knowledge of the future 156 This distinction between foreknowledge and predestination is in fact discussed by Abraham ibn Daud One analogy here is that of time travel The time traveller having returned from the future knows in advance what x will do but while he knows what x will do that knowledge does not cause x to do so x had free will even while the time traveller had foreknowledge 160 One objection raised against this analogy and ibn Daud s distinction is that if x truly has free will he may choose to act otherwise when the event in question comes to pass and therefore the time traveller or God merely has knowledge of a possible event even having seen the event there is no way to know with certainty what x will do see the view of Gersonides below Further the presence of the time traveller may have had some chaotic effect on x s circumstances and choice absent when the event comes to pass in the present In line with this the teaching from Pirkei Avot quoted above can be read as Everything is observed while and no matter where it happens and since the actor is unaware of being observed free will is given 161 Alternate approaches Edit Although the above discussion of the paradox represents the majority rabbinic view there are several major thinkers who resolve the issue by explicitly excluding human action from divine foreknowledge Both Saadia Gaon and Judah ha Levi hold that the decisions of man precede God s knowledge 162 Gersonides holds that God knows beforehand the choices open to each individual but does not know which choice the individual in his freedom will make 163 Isaiah Horowitz takes the view that God cannot know which moral choices people will make but that nevertheless this does not impair his perfection it is as if one s actions cause one of the many possibilities that existed then to have become known but only once chosen 164 Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner holds perhaps the most controversial view apparently denying that man has free will and that instead all is determined by God Kabbalistic thought Edit This section does not cite any sources Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed September 2021 Learn how and when to remove this template message The existence of free will and the paradox above as addressed by either approach is closely linked to the concept of Tzimtzum Tzimtzum entails the idea that God constricted his infinite essence to allow for the existence of a conceptual space in which a finite independent world could exist This constriction made free will possible and hence the potential to earn the World to Come Further according to the first approach it is understood that the Free will Omniscience paradox provides a temporal parallel to the paradox inherent within Tzimtzum In granting free will God has somehow constricted his foreknowledge to allow for Man s independent action He thus has foreknowledge and yet free will exists In the case of Tzimtzum God has constricted his essence to allow for Man s independent existence He is thus immanent and yet transcendent See also EditDe libero arbitrio voluntatis early treatise about freedom of will by Augustine of Hippo Karma Theodicy and the Bible Bible and free will theodicyReferences and notes Edit Alston William P 1985 Divine Foreknowledge and Alternative Conceptions of Human Freedom International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 18 1 19 32 Aristotle De Interpretatione in The Complete Works of Aristotle vol I ed Jonathan Barnes Princeton University Press Princeton New Jersey 1984 Ockham William Predestination God s Knowledge and Future Contingents early 14th century trans Marilyn McCord Adams and Norman Kretzmann 1982 Hackett esp p 46 7 Wolfson Harry Austryn 1947 Philo foundations of religious philosophy in Judaism Christianity and Islam Structure and growth of philosophic systems from Plato to Spinoza Vol 2 2 ed Harvard University Press Retrieved 8 May 2019 Wolfson Harry Austryn 1961 St Augustine and the Pelagian Controversy Religious Philosophy A Group of Essays Cambridge Harvard University Press Watt Montgomery Free Will and Predestination in Early Islam Luzac amp Co London 1948 Wolfson Harry The Philosophy of Kalam Harvard University Press 1976 Man and His Destiny Jackson Timothy P 1998 Arminian edification Kierkegaard on grace and free will in Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard Cambridge University Press Cambridge 1998 Kierkegaard Soren 1848 Journals and Papers vol III Reprinted in Indiana University Press Bloomington 1967 78 Mackie J L 1955 Evil and Omnipotence Mind new series vol 64 pp 200 212 Michael Frede A Free Will Origins of the Notion in Ancient Thought chapter 7 Paul Linjamaa Free Will and the Configuration of the Human Mind in The Ethics of The Tripartite Tractate A Study of Determinism and Early Christian Philosophy of Ethics 2019 The notion of free will is not discussed explicitly in the New and Old Testament Nor are the technical terms used associated with the discourse on free will George Karamanolis Fate Providence and Free Will Philosophy and Religion in Dialogue in the Early Imperial Age Series Ancient Philosophy amp Religion Volume 4 Scripture not only lacks a discussion of all the important issues in this area but also lacks the relevant terminology which early Christians employ in their writings Michael Frede A Free Will Origins of the Notion in Ancient Thought Sather Classical Lectures 68 Berkeley Los Angeles Oxford University of California Press 2011 xiv 206 Michael Frede A Free Will Origins of the Notion in Ancient Thought chapter 7 ibid Alister McGrath Christian Theology 351 Troels Engberg Pedersen Fate Providence and Free Will Philosophy and Religion in Dialogue in the Early Imperial Age 2020 Baker s Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology s v Fall the Ted Honderich Determinism and Freedom Philosophy Its Terminology http www ucl ac uk uctytho dfwTerminology html accessed November 7 2009 Robert Kane ed The Oxford Handbook of Free Will Oxford 2005 10 and Fischer J Kane R Pereboom D amp Vargas M Four Views on Free Will Blackwell 2007 128 and R Eric Barnes PHIL 101 Free Will Debate Topic Archived from the original on 2005 02 16 Retrieved 2009 10 19 accessed October 19 2009 Mortimer J Adler The Idea of Freedom A Dialectical Examination of the Idea of Freedom Vol 1 Doubleday 1958 127 Walter A Elwell Philip Wesley Comfort eds Tyndale Bible Dictionary Tyndale House 2001 s v Exodus 456 a b Mortimer J Adler The Idea of Freedom A Dialectical Examination of the Idea of Freedom Vol 1 Doubleday 1958 149 Donald K McKim Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms Westminster John Knox Press 1996 s v free will a b J D Douglas ed The New Bible Dictionary Eerdmans 1962 s v Liberty Section III FREE WILL Joseph P Free revised and expanded by Howard Frederic Vos Archaeology and Bible History Zondervan 1992 83 a b Mortimer J Adler The Idea of Freedom A Dialectical Examination of the Idea of Freedom Vol 1 Doubleday 1958 135 Ted Peters Sin Radical Evil in Soul and Society Eerdmans 1994 8 Strong s Greek Dictionary translates ontos as really or truly Versions using these translations include The Darby Translation The Bible in Basic English New Century Version Young s Literal Translation and Good News Translation Gary M Burge Gospel of John in The Bible Knowledge Background Commentary John s Gospel Hebrews Revelation ed Craig A Evans David C Cook 2005 88 Baker s Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology s v Freedom Mark Talbot Wheaton Archived from the original on 2014 07 01 Retrieved 2014 06 21 Mark R Talbot Does God Reveal Who He Actually Is in God Under Fire ed Douglas S Huffman Eric L Johnson Zondervan 2002 69 Mark R Talbot True Freedom The Liberty That Scripture Portrays as Worth Having in Beyond the Bounds ed John Piper and others 105 109 Mark R Talbot True Freedom The Liberty That Scripture Portrays as Worth Having in Beyond the Bounds ed John Piper and others Crossway 2003 107 109 William Hasker A Philosophical Perspective in The Openness of God InterVarsity 1994 136 137 Hasker s italics William Hasker answer to Did Jesus have free will at Open Theism Information Site Archived from the original on 2012 03 06 Retrieved 2014 07 23 accessed September 27 2009 William Hasker answer to So will there be free will in heaven at Open Theism Information Site Archived from the original on 2006 04 08 Retrieved 2014 07 23 accessed Oct 14 2009 Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church section 600 a b Alliney Guido September 24 2005 La liberta dell atto beatifico nel pensiero di Francesco d Appignano PDF Atti del III Convegno Internazionale su Francesco d Appignano in Italian and English Appignano del Tronto 9 OCLC 297575140 Retrieved April 22 2022 1731 Catechism of the Catholic Church Retrieved 21 April 2012 1730 Catechism of the Catholic Church Retrieved 21 April 2012 1742 Catechism of the Catholic Church Retrieved 21 April 2012 Leo XIII Libertas Praestantissimum 1888 Likewise in paragraph 5 that the good or the choice of the good comes from the judgement of reason in Roman Catholic doctrine it is not identical with free will which is usually considered causal in philosophy See especially e g an address of Pius XII to the Fifth International Congress on Psychotherapy and Clinical Psychology Archived 2015 04 18 at the Wayback Machine Catechism of the Catholic Church 257 Archived March 3 2013 at the Wayback Machine Catechism of the Catholic Church 600 CCC 1704 1705 Catechism of the Catholic Church Reader s Guide to Themes Burns amp Oates 1999 ISBN 0 86012 366 9 p 766 CCC 1993 Archived June 23 2014 at the Wayback Machine a b CCC 2008 James Patrick Renaissance and Reformation Marshall Cavendish 2007 ISBN 978 0 7614 7651 1 vol 1 p 186 CCC 600 We receive the grace of Christ in the Holy Spirit and without the Holy Spirit no one can have faith in Christ 1 Cor 12 3 and as Saint Cyril of Alexandria said It is unworkable for the soul of man to achieve any of the goods namely to control its own passions and to escape the mightiness of the sharp trap of the devil unless he is fortified by the grace of the Holy Spirit and on this count he has Christ himself in his soul Against Julian 3 CCC 2010 It is not in the circumstances surprising that a representative of the Eastern tradition St John Cassian who took part in this debate and was opposed both to the Pelagians and to St Augustine was not able to make himself correctly understood His position of seeming to stand above the conflict was interpreted on the rational plane as a semi pelagianism and was condemned in the West The Eastern Church on the other hand has always considered him as a witness to tradition The mystical theology of the Eastern Church By Vladimir Lossky Publisher St Vladimir s Seminary Press Edition Not Stated edition Language English ISBN 978 0 913836 31 6 Council of Orange local Council never accepted in the East 529 AD Convened regarding Pelagianism Condemned various beliefs of Pelagianism that humans are unaffected by Adam s sin that a person s move towards God can begin without grace that an increase of faith can be attained apart from grace that salvation can be attained apart from the Holy Spirit that man s free will can be restored from its destruction apart from baptism that merit may precede grace that man can do good and attain salvation without God s help Statement we must under the blessing of God preach and believe as follows The sin of the first man has so impaired and weakened free will that no one thereafter can either love God as he ought or believe in God or do good for God s sake unless the grace of divine mercy has preceded him According to the Roman Catholic faith we also believe that after grace has been received through baptism all baptized persons have the ability and responsibility if they desire to labor faithfully to perform with the aid and cooperation of Christ what is of essential importance in regard to the salvation of their soul We not only do not believe that any are foreordained to evil by the power of God but even state with utter abhorrence that if there are those who want to believe so evil a thing they are anathema We also believe and confess to our benefit that in every good work it is not we who take the initiative and are then assisted through the mercy of God but God himself first inspires in us both faith in him and love for him without any previous good works of our own that deserve reward so that we may both faithfully seek the sacrament of baptism and after baptism be able by his help to do what is pleasing to him 1 In no sense is this a Pelagian or Semi Pelagian position The balanced synergistic doctrine of the early and Eastern Church a doctrine misunderstood and undermined by Latin Christianity in general from St Augustine on although there was always opposition to this in the Latin Church always understood that God initiates accompanies and completes everything in the process of salvation The Ascetic Ideal and the New Testament Reflections on the Critique of the Theology of the Reformation Georges Florovsky 2 Catechism of the Catholic Church 405 Archived September 4 2012 at the Wayback Machine So far Roman Catholicism agrees with the Church it differs with Orthodoxy on the nature of man s fall and the human condition Following Augustine of Hippo the Latins teach that Adam and Eve sinned against God The guilt of their sin has been inherited by every man woman and child after them All humanity is liable for their original sin WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ORTHODOXY AND ROMAN CATHOLICISM by Father Michael Azkoul 3 Archived 2004 06 03 at the Wayback Machine The Orthodox I discovered objected to the Roman Catholic understanding of original sin as the stain of inherited guilt passed down from Adam as a result of his sin to the rest of the human race The Orthodox saw this notion of original sin as skewed drawing almost exclusively on the thought of Saint Augustine He had virtually ignored the teachings of the Eastern Fathers who tended to see original sin not as inherited guilt but rather as the ancestral curse by which human beings were alienated from the divine life and thus became subject to corruption and death As I read further I discovered that Saint Augustine s and consequently the Roman Catholic Church s view was the result of the faulty Latin translation of Romans 5 12 the New Testament passage on which the teaching of original sin is based When the original Greek is properly translated it reads Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin and death spread to all in that eph ho all sinned The Latin which Augustine used rendered the eph ho in that as in gt quo in whom meaning in Adam Thus the passage was misconstrued as saying that all sinned in Adam that all shared in the guilt of his original disobedience It is understandable how the Roman Catholic doctrine of original sin followed from this misinterpretation It is also easy to see why the Orthodox rejected the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception Because they understood original sin in terms of the ancestral curse of human mortality they saw Pius IX s dogma as amounting to no less than an assertion of Mary s immortality That is by saying that Mary was free from original sin the Roman Church in effect was saying that Mary was not mortal She was therefore not like the rest of the human race This was something no Orthodox Christian could accept In fact Orthodoxy calls Mary the first of the redeemed the first human to receive the great blessing of salvation now available to all mankind Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism What are the differences Father Theodore Pulcini ISBN 978 1 888212 23 5 Church of Antioch Orthodoxy and Catholicism Archived from the original on 2011 07 17 Retrieved 2010 09 22 OSV s encyclopedia of Roman Catholic history By Matthew Bunson s Bethune Baker James Franklin 1954 An Introduction to the Early History of Christian Doctrine To the Time of James Franklin Bethune Baker Google Books Retrieved 2012 04 20 Yet Cassian did not himself escape the suspicion of erroneous teaching he is in fact regarded as the originator of what since the Middle Ages has been known as Semipelagianism The New Advent the Catholic Encyclopedia online 4 Herbermann Charles George 1913 The Catholic encyclopedia an international work of reference on the Google Books Retrieved 2012 04 20 Trinkaus Charles Edward O Malley John William Izbicki Thomas M Christianson Gerald 1993 Humanity and Divinity in Renaissance and Reformation Essays In Honor of John W O Malley Thomas M Izbicki Gerald Christianson Google Books ISBN 9004098046 Retrieved 2012 04 20 pg 198 Hogan Richard M 2001 Dissent from the Creed Heresies Past and Present Richard M Hogan Google Books ISBN 9780879734084 Retrieved 2012 04 20 Ogliari Donato 2003 Gratia Et Certamen The Relationship Between Grace and Free Will in the Donato Ogliari Google Books ISBN 9789042913516 Retrieved 2012 04 20 Parsons Reuben 1906 Studies in church history Reuben Parsons Google Books Retrieved 2012 04 20 The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church St Vladimir s Seminary Press 1976 ISBN 0 913836 31 1 p 198 When Catholics say that persons cooperate in preparing for an accepting justification by consenting to God s justifying action they see such personal consent as itself an effect of grace not as an action arising from innate human abilities Beyond Justification Archived from the original on 2010 11 30 Retrieved 2010 07 16 The existential and ontological meaning of man s created existence is precisely that God did not have to create that it was a free act of Divine freedom But and here is the great difficulty created by an unbalanced Christianity on the doctrine of grace and freedom in freely creating man God willed to give man an inner spiritual freedom In no sense is this a Pelagian or Semi Pelagian position The balanced synergistic doctrine of the early and Eastern Church a doctrine misunderstood and undermined by Latin Christianity in general from St Augustine on although there was always opposition to this in the Latin Church always understood that God initiates accompanies and completes everything in the process of salvation What it always rejected both spontaneously and intellectually is the idea of irresistible grace the idea that man has no participating role in his salvation The Ascetic Ideal and the New Testament Reflections on the Critique of the Theology of the Reformation Georges Florovsky 5 a b Lauren Pristas The Theological Anthropology of John Cassian Archived from the original on 2010 06 10 Retrieved 2010 11 30 Augustine Casiday Tradition and Theology in St John Cassian Oxford University Press 2007 ISBN 0 19 929718 5 p 103 We receive the grace of Christ in the Holy Spirit and without the Holy Spirit no one can have faith in Christ I Cor 12 3 Cyril of Alexandria For it is unworkable for the soul of man to achieve any of the goods namely to control its own passions and to escape the mightiness of the sharp trap of the devil unless he is fortified by the grace of the Holy Spirit and on this count he has Christ himself in his soul Against Julian 3 1 Cor 2 14 12 3 Rom 8 7 Martin Chemnitz Examination of the Council of Trent Vol I Trans Fred Kramer St Louis Concordia Publishing House 1971 pp 409 53 Seventh Topic Concerning Free Will From the Decree of the Sixth Session of the Council of Trent Augsburg Confession Article 18 Of Free Will Archived 2008 09 15 at the Wayback Machine Rom 7 18 8 7 1 Cor 2 14 Martin Chemnitz Examination of the Council of Trent Vol I Trans Fred Kramer St Louis Concordia Publishing House 1971 pp 639 52 The Third Question Whether the Good Works of the Regenerate in This Life Are So Perfect that They Fully Abundantly and Perfectly Satisfy the Divine Law Gen 6 5 8 21 Mat 7 17 Krauth C P The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology As Represented in the Augsburg Confession and in the History and Literature of the Evangelical Lutheran Church Philadelphia J B Lippincott 1875 pp 388 90 Part IX The Specific Doctrines Of The Conservative Reformation Original Sin Thesis VII The Results Section ii Positive Henry Cole trans Martin Luther on the Bondage of the Will London T Bensley 1823 66 Paul Althaus The Theology of Martin Luther Fortress 1966 The Bondage of the Will and Original Sin 156 170 247 Paul Althaus The Theology of Martin Luther Fortress 1966 156 Henry Cole trans Martin Luther on the Bondage of the Will London T Bensley 1823 Ernest Gordon Rupp and Philip Saville Watson Luther and Erasmus Free Will and Salvation Westminster 1969 29 Henry Cole trans Martin Luther on the Bondage of the Will London T Bensley 1823 60 63BOWCole Henry Cole trans Martin Luther on the Bondage of the Will London T Bensley 1823 64 Voluntarily means of one s own free will http www merriam webster com thesaurus voluntarily Paul Althaus The Theology of Martin Luther Fortress 1966 156 157 Martin Luther Commentary on Romans J Theodore Mueller translator Kregel Classics 1976 xxii Treadwell Walden The Great Meaning of the Word Metanoia Lost in the Old Version Unrecovered in the New Thomas Whittaker 1896 26 footnote 1 Available online in Google Books Steven D Paulson Luther for the Armchair Theologians Westminster John Knox 2004 9 Erwin Lutzer The Doctrines That Divide A Fresh Look at the Historic Doctrines That Separate Christians Kregel 1998 172 173 Luther and Erasmus Free Will and Salvation edited by Ernest Gordon Rupp and Philip Saville Watson Westminster 1969 141 Martin Luther On the Bondage of the Will 1525 in Luther and Erasmus Free Will and Salvation edited by Ernest Gordon Rupp and Philip Saville Watson Westminster 1969 reissued by Westminster John Knox 2006 27 141 Paul R Sponheim The Origin of Sin in Christian Dogmatics Carl E Braaten and Robert W Jenson eds Philadelphia Fortress Press 1984 385 407 Francis Pieper Definition of Original Sin in Christian Dogmatics St Louis Concordia Publishing House 1953 1 538 Krauth C P The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology As Represented in the Augsburg Confession and in the History and Literature of the Evangelical Lutheran Church Philadelphia J B Lippincott 1875 pp 335 455 Part IX The Specific Doctrines Of The Conservative Reformation Original Sin Formula of Concord Original Sin Archived 2007 09 27 at the Wayback Machine Mueller J T Christian Dogmatics Concordia Publishing House 1934 pp 189 195 and Fuerbringer L Concordia Cyclopedia Concordia Publishing House 1927 p 635 and Christian Cyclopedia article on Divine Providence For further reading see The Proof Texts of the Catechism with a Practical Commentary section Divine Providence p 212 Wessel Louis published in Theological Quarterly Vol 11 1909 Mueller Steven P Called to Believe Teach and Confess Wipf and Stock 2005 pp 122 123 Mueller J T Christian Dogmatics Concordia Publishing House 1934 pp 190 and Edward W A A Short Explanation of Dr Martin Luther s Small Catechism Concordia Publishing House 1946 p 165 and Divine Providence and Human Adversity Archived 2010 07 07 at the Wayback Machine by Markus O Koepsell Acts 13 48 Ephesians 1 4 11 Epitome of the Formula of Concord Article 11 Election Archived 2008 10 10 at the Wayback Machine Mueller J T Christian Dogmatics St Louis Concordia Publishing House 1934 pp 585 9 section The Doctrine of Eternal Election 1 The Definition of the Term and Engelder T E W Popular Symbolics St Louis Concordia Publishing House 1934 pp 124 8 Part XXXI The Election of Grace paragraph 176 2 Thessalonians 2 13 Mueller J T Christian Dogmatics St Louis Concordia Publishing House 1934 pp 589 593 section The Doctrine of Eternal Election 2 How Believers are to Consider Their Election and Engelder T E W Popular Symbolics St Louis Concordia Publishing House 1934 pp 127 8 Part XXXI The Election of Grace paragraph 180 Romans 8 33 Engelder T E W Popular Symbolics St Louis Concordia Publishing House 1934 pp 127 8 Part XXXI The Election of Grace paragraph 179 Engelder T E W The Certainty of Final Salvation The Lutheran Witness 2 6 English Evangelical Missouri Synod Baltimore 1891 pp 41ff 1 Peter 1 3 2 Timothy 1 9 Ephesians 2 7 Titus 3 5 Ephesians 1 19 Colossians 2 12 John 1 13 John 6 26 2 Corinthians 5 17 John 3 6 2 Corinthians 3 5 1 Corinthians 2 14 Ephesians 4 18 Ephesians 5 8 Genesis 6 5 Genesis 8 2 Romans 8 7 Philippians 1 6 Philippians 2 13 John 15 45 Romans 7 14 Colossians 2 13 Ephesians 2 5 James 1 18 1 Peter 1 23 John 3 5 Titus 3 5 1 Corinthians 4 15 Galatians 4 19 Colossians 1 12 13 1 Peter 2 25 Jeremiah 31 18 Romans 3 9 23 Romans 6 17 Job 15 14 Psalm 14 3 Ephesians 2 3 1 Peter 2 10 1 Peter 2 25 Acts 26 18 Ephesians 2 5 Colossians 2 13 John 3 5 Titus 3 5 Acts 20 21 Acts 26 18 Philippians 2 13 1 Peter 1 3 Galatians 3 26 Galatians 4 5 1 Peter 2 10 Acts 26 18 Augustus Lawrence Graebner Lutheran Cyclopedia p 136 Conversion 1 Timothy 2 4 2 Peter 3 9 Epitome of the Formula of Concord Article 11 Election Archived 2008 10 10 at the Wayback Machine and Engelder s Popular Symbolics Part XXXI The Election of Grace pp 124 8 Hosea 13 9 Mueller J T Christian Dogmatics St Louis Concordia Publishing House 1934 p 637 section The Doctrine of the Last Things Eschatology part 7 Eternal Damnation and Engelder T E W Popular Symbolics St Louis Concordia Publishing House 1934 pp 135 6 Part XXXIX Eternal Death paragraph 196 John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion trans Henry Beveridge III 23 2 Available online at http www ccel org ccel calvin institutes toc html CCEL org John Calvin from Bondage and Liberation of the Will edited by A N S Lane translated by G I Davies Baker Academic 2002 69 70 Inherent and natural are synonyms http thesaurus com browse inherent John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion trans Henry Beveridge II 2 7 a b John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion trans Henry Beveridge II 3 5 Freedom and ability are synonyms http thesaurus com browse freedom John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion trans Henry Beveridge II 3 6 John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion trans Henry Beveridge III 3 6 16 Freedom of the Will 1754 Edwards 1957 vol 1 pp 327 Jacobus Arminius The Works of James Arminius D D Formerly Professor of Divinity in the University of Leyden Auburn NY Derby and Miller 1853 4 472 Discipline of the Immanuel Missionary Church Shoals Indiana Immanuel Missionary Church 1986 p 7 John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion trans Henry Beveridge III 23 2 John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion trans Henry Beveridge III 3 6 Henry Cole trans Martin Luther on the Bondage of the Will London T Bensley 1823 66 The controversial term liberum arbitrium was translated free will by Cole However Ernest Gordon Rupp and Philip Saville Watson Luther and Erasmus Free Will and Salvation Westminster 1969 chose free choice as their translation Keith D Stanglin and Thomas H McCall Jacob Arminius Theologian of Grace Oxford University 2012 157 158 Cambridge University HCS Archived 2007 02 03 at the Wayback Machine Since Hinduism is itself a conglomerate of religions an attitude of tolerance and acceptance of the validity of other belief systems has long been a part of Hindu thought Predictive Astrology Understanding Karma Fate amp Free Will Archived 2006 12 06 at the Wayback Machine Dvaita or dualism and is generally a proponent of a free will orientation The path of surrender or non action represents Advaita or non dualism and is generally a proponent of fate orientation Himalayan Academy Hindus believe in karma the law of cause and effect by which each individual creates his own destiny by his thoughts words and deeds Bhagavad Gita 7 26 Archived 2007 09 27 at the Wayback Machine Bhagavad Gita 3 27 Archived 2012 07 07 at archive today The spirit soul bewildered by the influence of false ego thinks himself the doer of activities that are in actuality carried out by the three modes of material nature B Gita 15 7 purport As fragmental parts and parcels of the Supreme Lord the living entities also have fragmental portions of His qualities of which independence is one Every living entity as an individual Self has his personal individuality and a minute form of independence By misuse of that independence one becomes a conditioned Self and by proper use of independence he is always liberated Koller J 2007 Asian Philosophies 5th ed Prentice Hall ISBN 0 13 092385 0 Swami Vivekananda 1907 Freedom from The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda vol 1 online permanent dead link Bhagavad Gita 7 5 Archived 2007 03 01 at the Wayback Machine Chandrashekhara Bharati in Dialogues with the Guru by R Krishnaswami Aiyar Chetana Limited Bombay 1957 Goldschmit Arthur 2010 A Concise History of the Middle East Westview Press pp 115 116 ISBN 978 0 8133 4388 4 Sunan Abi Dawud 4691 Model Behavior of the Prophet Kitab Al Sunnah كتاب السنة Sunnah com Sayings and Teachings of Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه و سلم sunnah com Retrieved 2021 04 21 Denny Frederick An Introduction to Islam 1985 Macmillan Watt Montgomery Free Will and Predestination in Early Islam Luzac amp Co London 1948 Wolfson Harry The Philosophy of Kalam 1976 Harvard University Press and Archived copy PDF Archived from the original PDF on 2006 08 23 Retrieved 2006 08 23 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint archived copy as title link Pirkei Avot 4 16 Moshe Chaim Luzzatto Mesillat Yesharim chapter 1 a b Redirecting Babylonian Talmud Berachot 33b Mishneh Torah Hilchot Teshuvah 5 1 3 Maimonides Mishneh Torah Teshuva 5 5 See See for example the commentary of Bartenura ad loc FREE WILL JewishEncyclopedia com Milchamot Hashem book 3 ch 4 See also Rashi on Sotah 9 a s v iniExternal links EditGeneral Edit Foreknowledge and Free Will Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyChristian material Edit Free will article at Catholic Encyclopedia Calvinism and Free WillJewish material Edit Free will article at Jewish Encyclopedia Fate and Destiny Archived 2006 10 05 at the Wayback Machine Aryeh Kaplan On Repentance and Predestination Archived 2020 06 22 at the Wayback Machine The Paradox of Free Choice Six Questions Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Free will in theology amp oldid 1173238199, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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