Daniel Whedon
Freedom of the Will: A Wesleyan Response to Jonathan Edwards is the second installment from John Wagner, in recovering past theological treasures from the Arminian perspective. John Wagner’s first installment was the classic work by Puritan, John Goodwin, Redemption Redeemed: A Puritan Defense of Unlimited Atonement. In this, his second installment, Methodist theologian, Daniel D. Whedon (1808-1885) responds to famed Calvinist, Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758). Although this volume is not an easy read, when carefully studied, it reveals itself to be another masterpiece.
Whedon painstakingly parses through the logic of Edwards on an array of theological controversies, including, but not limited to, the nature of man’s Will and God’s Foreknowledge.
As a sample, Whedon writes: “Edwards continues to say, ‘Now it must be answered, according to the Arminian notion of freedom, that the Will influences, orders, and determined itself thus to act. And if it does, I say it must be by some antecedent act.’ (65) But, we reply, as our ‘notion of freedom’ requires no anterior causing or ordering of the Will to act, as we hold the Will in its condition to be a complete cause acting uncausedly, there is no requisite for any ‘antecedent act.’ And so again the necessitarian cobweb is broken.” (p.105)
In other words, while yes, there are always external influences, including God’s influence of Prevenient Grace, man, being a self-volitional being, is therefore of himself, one of those influences, and thus acts freely and uncausedly in his choices.
Whedon writes: “If God’s omniscient foresight of all that is or is not in the future is the effect of God’s determination, then an attribute of God is created by an act of God. ... If God’s foreknowledge depends on his determination, and must wait until after its existence, then he can have no foreknowledge of his own acts, and must wait for present or post-knowledge of them.” (pp.225-226)
Whedon writes: “If by the absolute perfection of God’s omniscience that one train of free events, put forth with the full power otherwise, is embraced in his foreknowledge, it follows that God foreknows the free act, and that the foreknowledge and the freedom are compatible.” (p.229)
Speaking on Foreknowledge:
