John Edwards on Human Free Choice and Divine Necessity

Yeongmo Yoo examines John Edwards' (1637-1716) doctrine of free choice, focusing on his understanding of the relation between divine necessity and human freedom. Filling the historiographical gap, Yoo raises a fundamental question concerning the criticism of the Reformed doctrine of free choice in relationship to divine necessity as determinism. Unlike the deterministic interpretation of traditional Reformed thought on free choice, the substantive and careful study of Edwards' writings on free choice in the intellectual context of the seventeenth and the eighteenth century shows that in Edwards' view, human beings retain the natural freedom from compulsion and freedom of contrary choice even after the Fall, and divine necessity such as decree, predestination, and foreknowledge does not exclude human free choice at all. Therefore, in so far as human freedom and contingencies are maintained by Edwards, especially with respect to divine necessity, his thought does not conform to the stereotype of Reformed theology as a deterministic system. Consequently, the examination of Edwards' view of free choice points toward the need for a broad reassessment of Reformed understanding of free choice in the Reformation and Post-Reformation eras.