Freedom of the Will: A Wesleyan Response to Jonathan Edwards

Description: Is the human will in bondage to sinful motives to the point that people cannot make truly free decisions? Daniel D. Whedon a prominent nineteenth-century Wesleyan theologian takes aim at this central thesis of the famed theologian Jonathan Edwards. In this new edition of his widely admired 1864 work Whedon offers a step-by-step examination of Edwardss positions and finds them lacking in Biblical and logical support. Within his position against Edwards he argues that the difference between natural ability and moral ability is meaningless that Edwardss deterministic necessitarian argument makes God the author of sin and that people frequently act against their strongest motives. He concludes that without a free will there can be no justice no satisfying the moral sense no moral Government of which the creature can be the rightful subject and no God the righteous administrator. About the Contributor(s): Daniel D. Whedon (1808-1885) was a prominent university professor theologian and author. He served as Professor of Ancient Languages at Wesleyan University in Connecticut; as Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Michigan; and as editor of the Methodist Quarterly Review from 1856 to1884. He authored numerous books including Commentary on the New Testament (New York: Carlton & Porter 1860); Commentary on the Old Testament (New York: Nelson & Phillips 1873); What is Arminianism? (Toronto: W. Briggs 1879); and Essays Reviews and Discourses (New York: Phillips & Hunt 1887) About the Editor: John D. Wagner a Biblical Studies student at Trinity Theological Seminary is the editor of Redemption Redeemed: A Puritan Defense of Unlimited Atonement by John Goodwin. He has a masters degree in Journalism from University of Arizona and has studied and debated the Calvinism vs. Arminianism controversy for many years.