Providence, Freedom, And the Will in Early Modern Reformed Theology

Too often scholars impose on the past modern terms and theories. This is particularly evident concerning discussions of divine sovereignty and human responsibility, where libertarian and compatibilist notions of freedom obscure older understandings of concurrence.

Providence, Freedom, and the Will is one historian’s attempt to help us interpret early modern documents in context with attention to their theological and philosophical terminology. In it, Richard A. Muller investigates the Reformed approach to causality and governance as it relates to divine concurrence with creaturely or temporal causes. He examines treatments of grace and freedom concerning the capabilities of the will as a free cause, operating of its own accord. And he explains free choice in the light of traditional assumptions concerning faculty psychology and the way in which external objects are selected or rejected.