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Edwards on the Will
Author(s) -
Holmes Steve
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
international journal of systematic theology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.149
H-Index - 13
eISSN - 1468-2400
pISSN - 1463-1652
DOI - 10.1111/1463-1652.00019
Subject(s) - argument (complex analysis) , virtue , moral responsibility , free will , philosophy , epistemology , environmental ethics , law and economics , sociology , biology , biochemistry
Jonathan Edwards' The Freedom of the Will advances an ethical argument concerning the nature of the freedom that a person must have to be considered morally culpable. The view he opposes, that free decisions must be uncaused, is shown to be now common in Western culture, and the results he predicted of that are displayed. His own view, whereby a free decision is one constrained only by moral causes, is shown to be theologically grounded and consistent with ethical responsibility. Mention is made of the virtue ethic he relied upon, and of the predestinarian nature of the account.