Book · 32 chapters · 8 hr 4 min read · Moderate

Freedom of the Will

A Careful and Strict Inquiry

Other titles: A Careful and Strict Enquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions of That Freedom of Will Which Is Supposed to Be Essential to Moral Agency

Jonathan Edwards · 1703–1758

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About this book

Jonathan Edwards's most rigorous piece of philosophy: an argument that the will is never indifferent but always follows what the mind finds most compelling, so that a person is free to do as they please and yet not free to please otherwise. Written against the idea of a will that determines itself out of nothing.

IT may possibly be thought, that there is no great need of going about to define or describe the Will; this word being generally as well understood as any other words we can use to explain it: and so perhaps it would be, had not philosophers, metaphysicians, and polemic divines, brought the matter into obscurity by the things they have said of
From Section I. Concerning the Nature of the Will

Contents

  1. 1 Section I. Concerning the Nature of the Will 8 min
  2. 2 Section II. Concerning the Determination of the Will 18 min
  3. 3 Section III. Concerning the Meaning of the Terms, Necessity, Impossibility, Inability, &c and of Contingence 14 min
  4. 4 Section IV. Of the Distinction of Natural and Moral Necessity, and Inability 15 min
  5. 5 Section V. Concerning the Notion of Liberty, and of Moral Agency 8 min
  6. 6 Section I. Showing the Manifest Inconsistence of the Arminian Notion of Liberty of Will, Consisting in the Will’s Self-Determing Power 8 min
  7. 7 Section II. Several Supposed Ways of Evading the Foregoing Reasoning Considered 11 min
  8. 8 Section III. Whether Any Event Whatsoever, and Volition in Particular, Can Come to Pass Without a Cause of Its Existence 13 min
  9. 9 Section IV. Whether Volition Can Arise Without a Cause, Through the Activity of the Nature of the Soul 8 min
  10. 10 Section V. Showing, That If the Things Asserted in These Evasions Should Be Supposed to Be True, They Are Altogether Impertinent, and Cannot Help the Cause of Arminian Liberty; and How, This Being the State of the Case, Arminian Writers Are Obliged to Talk Inconsistently 9 min
  11. 11 Section VI. Concerning the Will Determining in Things Which Are Perfectly Indifferent in the View of the Mind 15 min
  12. 12 Section VII. Concerning the Notion of Liberty of Will, Consisting in Indifference 20 min
  13. 13 Section VIII. Concerning the Supposed Liberty of the Will, as Opposite to All Necessity 7 min
  14. 14 Section IX. Of the Connexion of the Acts of the Will with the Dictates of the Understanding 15 min
  15. 15 Section X. Volition Necessarily Connected with the Influence of Motives: with Particular Observations on the Great Inconsistence of Mr. Chubb’s Assertions and Reasonings about the Freedom of the Will 30 min
  16. 16 Section XI. The Evidence of Gods Certain Foreknowledge of the Volitions of Moral Agents 40 min
  17. 17 Section XII. God’s Certain Foreknowledge of the Future Volitions of Moral Agents, Inconsistent with Such a Contingence of Those Volitions as Is without All Necessity 27 min
  18. 18 Section XIII. Whether We Suppose the Volitions of Moral Agents to Be Connected with Any Thing Antecedent, or Not, Yet They Must Be Necessary in Such a Sense as to Overthrow Arminian Liberty 7 min
  19. 19 Section I. God’s Moral Excellency Necessary, Yet Virtuous and Praiseworthy 7 min
  20. 20 Section II. The Acts of the Will of the Human Soul of Jesus Christ, Necessarily Holy, Yet Truly Virtuous, Praise-worthy, Rewardable, &c 30 min
  21. 21 Section III. The Case of Such as Are Given up to God to Sin, and of Fallen Man in General, Proves Moral Necessity and Inability to Be Consistent with Blameworthiness 14 min
  22. 22 Section IV. Command and Obligation to Obedience, Consistent with Moral Inability to Obey 21 min
  23. 23 Section V. That Sincerity of Desires and Endeavours, Which, Is Supposed to Excuse in the Non-performance of Things in Themselves Good, Particularly Considered 16 min
  24. 24 Section VI. Liberty of Indifference, Not Only Not Necessary to Virtue, But Utterly Inconsistent with It; and All, Either Virtuous or Vicious Habits or Inclinations, Inconsistent with Arminian Notions of Liberty and Moral Agency 16 min
  25. 25 Section VII. Arminian Notions of Moral Agency Inconsistent with All Influence of Motive and Inducement, in Either Virtuous or Vicious Actions 13 min
  26. 26 Section I. The Essence of the Virtue and Vice of Dispositions of the Heart and Acts of the Will, Lies Not in Their Cause, But Their Nature 13 min
  27. 27 Section II. The Falseness and Inconsistence of That Metaphysical Notion of Action and Agency Which Seems to Be Generally Entertained by the Defenders of the Arminian Doctrine Concerning Liberty, Moral Agency, &c 15 min
  28. 28 Section III. The Reasons Why Some Think It Contrary to Common Sense, to Suppose Those Things Which Are Necessary, to Be Worthy of Either Praise or Blame 13 min
  29. 29 Section IV. It is Agreeable to Common Sense, and the Natural Notions of Mankind, to Suppose Moral Necessity to Be Consistent with Praise and Blame, Reward and Punishment 17 min
  30. 30 Section V. Concerning Those Objections, That This Scheme of Necessity Renders All Means and Endeavours for the Avoiding of Sin, or the Obtaining Virtue and Holiness, Vain and to No Purpose; and That It Makes Men No More Than Mere Machines in Affairs of Morality and Religion 14 min
  31. 31 Section VI. Concerning That Objection Against the Doctrine Which Has Been Maintained, That It Agrees with the Stoical Doctrine of Faith, and the Opinions of Mr. Hobbes 6 min
  32. 32 Section VII. Concerning the Necessity of the Divine Will 14 min

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John Frederick Kensett, “Passing off of the Storm” (1872). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access.