Edwards and Priestley

Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards (October 5, 1703 – March 22, 1758) was a revivalist preacher, philosopher, and Congregationalist Protestant theologian. Like most of the Puritans, he held to the Reformed theology (Calvinism).

Calvinists broke with the Roman Catholic Church but differed with Lutherans on the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, theories of worship, and the use of God's law for believers, among other things.

Regarded as one of America's most important and original philosophical theologians. Edwards' theological work is broad in scope, but he was rooted in Reformed theology, the metaphysics of theological determinism, and the Puritan heritage.

Edwards on the Will

An Inquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions of the Freedom of the Will which is Supposed to be Essential to Moral Agency, Virtue and Vice, Reward and Punishment, Praise and Blame or simply The Freedom of the Will, is a work by Christian reformer, theologian, and author Jonathan Edwards which uses the text of Romans 9:16 as its basis (“So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.”)

It examines the status of humanity's will, taking the Calvinist viewpoint on total depravity of the will and the need of humanity for God's grace in salvation.

Edwards on the Will

One of the authors that provoked the writing of The Freedom of the Will was Daniel Whitby. Whitby was an Arminian minister of the Church of England who was known for his anti-Calvinist viewpoint and his statement that “It is better to deny prescience [foreknowledge] than liberty.”

It is this claim that Edwards attempts to answer in The Freedom of the Will. Edwards responded that a person may freely choose whatever seems good, but that whatever it is that seems good is based on an inherent predisposition that has been foreordained by God.

Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley (24 March 1733 – 6 February 1804) was an 18th-century English theologian, dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and Liberal political theorist who published over 150 works. He is usually credited with the discovery of oxygen.

Priestley on Necessity

He was the first to claim that what he called "philosophical necessity" (a position akin to absolute determinism) is consonant with Christianity.

His philosophy was based on his theological interpretation of the natural world; like the rest of nature, man's mind is subject to the laws of causation, but because a benevolent God created these laws, Priestley argued, the world and the men in it will eventually be perfected.

Priestley on Necessity

He argued that the associations made in a person's mind were a necessary product of their lived experience because Hartley's theory of associationism was analogous to natural laws such as gravity. Priestley contends that his necessarianism can be distinguished from fatalism and predestination because it relies on natural law.

Isaac Kramnick points out the paradox of Priestley's positions: as a reformer, he argued that political change was essential to human happiness and urged his readers to participate, but he also claimed in works such as Philosophical Necessity that humans have no free will.[5][6]