1) God’s Infallible Word
John 1:13: “Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
Romans 8:5-8: “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.“
2) Before the Reformation
Augustine (354-430): “I once laboured hard for the free will of man, until the grace of God at length overcame me.”
Fulgentius of Ruspe (c.467-c.532): ”The one who commits sin is a slave of sin’ [John 8:34] and ‘by whatever someone has been overcome, by that also he has been made a slave’ [II Pet. 2:19]. As sin reigns a man does indeed have free choice, but this is freedom without God, not freedom under God. That is, he is free of righteousness [Rom. 6:20], not free under grace, and therefore he is free in the worst and most servile way … ‘If the Son sets you free, you will be truly free’ [John 8:36]” (First Letter to the Scythian Monks 19.38).
Ambrose Autpert (c.730-784): “And surely the Apostle says: It is not of the one willing nor of the one running, but of God who shows mercy (Rom. 9:16). How can one who wills receive, if he receives it freely, unless the grace of God is given for both – grace which makes a person willing from being unwilling, and then once willing, it gratuitously leads him to that which he desires? It is as if the bountiful one should say of this same grace: Having been inspired gratuitously, he began to desire eternal things, and gratuitously he trusts that he is able to attain them. For, no one except one who wills, receives the water of life; and no one is led to eternal life freely except one who, having been first preceded by grace, begins to will. On this it is said in another passage through the excellent preacher: For, it is God who works in us both to will and to do his good pleasure (Phil. 2:13)” (Comm. on Rev. 22:17).
Alcuin of York (c.735-804): “What is No one is able to come to me except that no one is able to believe in me unless the Father who sent me draws him [John 6:44]? One comes, whom the grace of God goes ahead of. About this we must say with the prophet: His mercy will come before me (Ps. 59:11); and again: His mercy will follow me (Ps. 23:6). It will come before us so that we can choose, and follow us so that we can do (cf. Phil. 2:13)” (Comm. on John 6:41-42).
Agobard of Lyons (c.779-840): “Let the believer beware that he not presume altogether or even in part on his own powers, but on God’s help, to arrive at the culmination of goodness and to persevere in good works, as the Lord says, ‘Apart from me you can do nothing’ [John 15:5]. The apostle also: ‘It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to accomplish for good favour’ [Phil. 2:13]. And again: ‘By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves’ [Eph. 2:8]. Still further: ‘Not that we are able to consider anything by us as though from us, but our sufficiency is from God’ [II Cor. 3:5]. The Lord says, ‘No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me shall draw him’ [John 6:44]” (On the Truth of the Faith).
Prudentius of Troyes (d.861): “Concerning Free Will. First. Evidently, that one should confess that free will, lost in Adam by the merit of disobedience, is restored to us and freed through our Lord Jesus Christ. Meanwhile [we live] in hope [of salvation]; later [we shall possess it] in reality, just as the Apostle says, ‘For in hope we have been saved’ (Rom 8:24). Nevertheless, we should assign the grace of the omnipotent God to every good work, whether in proposing, beginning, working out, or finishing with perseverance. And we should know that without it we are in no way able to do anything good, whether to propose, or to will, or to work.”
Gottschalk of Orbais (c.808-868): “For from the time he [i.e., man] became a slave of sin [John 8:34], he is of course shown to have had free choice only for doing evil, as someone completely lost” (On Predestination, 10).
Thomas Bradwardine (c.1300-1349): “What multitudes, O Lord, do this day join hands with Pelagius in contending for free will and in fighting … free grace.”
John Wycliffe (c.1331-1384): “To believe in the power of man in the work of regeneration is the great heresy of Rome, and from that error has come the ruin of the church. Conversion proceeds from the grace of God alone, and the system which ascribes it partly to man and partly to God is worse than Pelagianism.”
Waldensians: “Whosoever upholds free will absolutely denies predestination and the grace of God.”
3) Martin Luther (1483-1546)
“Free will is an empty term.”
“Free will cannot will good and of necessity serves sin.”
“This is plainly to ascribe divinity to ‘free will.’”
“This error of free will is a special doctrine of the Antichrist.”
“But however, that the advocates for ‘free will’ deny Christ, is proved, not by this Scripture only, but by their own very way of life” (The Bondage of the Will).
“And I would also, that the advocates for ‘free will’ be admonished in this place, that when they assert ‘free will,’ they are deniers of Christ” (The Bondage of the Will).
“I frankly confess that, for myself, even if it could be, I should not want ‘free will’ to be given me, nor anything to be left in my own hands to enable me to endeavour after salvation; not merely because in face of so many dangers, and adversities and assaults of devils, I could not stand my ground … but because even were there no dangers … I should still be forced to labour with no guarantee of success … But now that God has taken my salvation out of the control of my own will, and put it under the control of His, and promised to save me, not according to my working or running, but according to His own grace and mercy [Rom. 9:16], I have the comfortable certainty that He is faithful and will not lie to me, and that He is also great and powerful, so that no devils or opposition can break Him or pluck me from Him. Furthermore, I have the comfortable certainty that I please God, not by reason of the merit of my works, but by reason of His merciful favour promised to me; so that, if I work too little, or badly, He does not impute it to me, but with fatherly compassion pardons me and makes me better. This is the glorying of all the saints in their God” (The Bondage of the Will).
4) John Calvin (1509-1564)
“The Papists … hold that man, through his own free will, returns to God; and on this point is our greatest contest with them at this day.”
“Concerning that this clown babbleth of free will, it is sufficiently rejected throughout the whole scripture.”
“Faith is a special gift of God, which proceedeth not from our free will.”
“Let that ethical philosophy therefore of free will be far from a Christian mind.”
“No free will of man can resist Him that willeth to save.”
“This movement of the will is not of that description which was for many ages taught and believed—viz. a movement which thereafter leaves us the choice to obey or resist it, but one which affects us efficaciously. We must, therefore, repudiate the oft-repeated sentiment of Chrysostom, “Whom he draws, he draws willingly;” insinuating that the Lord only stretches out his hand, and waits to see whether we will be pleased to take his aid. We grant that, as man was originally constituted, he could incline to either side, but since he has taught us by his example how miserable a thing free will is if God works not in us to will and to do [Phil. 2:13], of what use to us were grace imparted in such scanty measure? Nay, by our own ingratitude, we obscure and impair divine grace. The Apostle’s doctrine is not, that the grace of a good will is offered to us if we will accept of it, but that God himself is pleased so to work in us as to guide, turn, and govern our heart by his Spirit, and reign in it as his own possession” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.3.10).
5) John Knox (1514-1572)
“Ye [Anabaptists] be proud contemners of the free grace of God offered to man in Christ Jesus. For with the Pelagians and Papists ye are become teachers of free will, and defenders of your own righteousness” (An Answer to a Great Number of Blasphemous Cavillations Written by an Anabaptist and Adversary to God’s Eternal Predestination [London: Thomas Charde, 1591], p. 121).
“And finally the general consent of all that sect is, that God by His foreknowledge, counsel, and wisdom, hath no assured election, neither yet any certain reprobation; but that every man may elect or reprobate himself by his own free will, which he hath, say they, to do good or evil. The rest of their opinions, most horrible and absurd, I omit at this present, touching only for advertisement this, which they think inexpugnable, and in which they glory, as of most precious pearls forged by their own brains, and polished by their fineness of their wits, when yet, in very deed, they are but rotten heresies of Arius and Pelagius, long ago confuted by Augustine, and by ancient writers before him” (Select Practical writings of John Knox, p. 191).
“But the foundation of this damnable error, Which is, that in God they can acknowledge no justice, except that which their foolish brain be able to comprehend” (Select Practical writings of John Knox, p. 192).
“And finally, if any persuade, that our merits, good works, or obedience, be any cause either of our justification, or yet of our election, let him be accursed” (Select Practical writings of John Knox, p. 194).
“But now, in these last days, most cruelly doth he rage, omitting no occasion by the which he is able to deface the same, so that what he cannot do by open tyranny, that he travaileth to bring to pass by false doctrine and errors damnable; that is, Satan continually laboureth to intermeddle, and mix somewhat proceeding from us, besides Christ Jesus and His righteousness, in the cause and matter of our redemption and salvation” (Select Practical writings of John Knox, pp. 195-196).
6) 16th Century
William Tyndale (c.1494-1536): “They go and set up free will with the heathen philosophers and say that a man’s free will is the cause why God chooseth and not another, contrary to all scriptures.”
Robert Ferrar (Welsh Bishop of St. David’s martyred in Carmarthen on 30 March, 1555) with ten other reforming ministers: “… we disallow papistical doctrines of free will, of works of supererogation, of merits, of the necessity of auricular confession, and satisfaction to God-wards.”
Jerome Zanchius (1516-1590): “No free will of the creature can resist the will of God” (quoting Augustine).
7) Reformation Confessions
Belgic Confession (1561): “… we reject all that is taught repugnant to this, concerning the free will of man, since man is but a slave to sin; and has nothing of himself, unless it is given from heaven. For who may presume to boast, that he of himself can do any good, since Christ saith, No man can come to me, except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him? Who will glory in his own will, who understands, that to be carnally minded is enmity against God? Who can speak of his knowledge, since the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God? In short, who dare suggest any thought, since he knows that we are not sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but that our sufficiency is of God? And therefore what the apostle saith ought justly to be held sure and firm, that God worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure. For there is no will nor understanding, conformable to the divine will and understanding, but what Christ hath wrought in man; which he teaches us, when he saith, Without me ye can do nothing” (14).
Thirty-Nine Articles (1562/1563): “The condition of Man after the fall of Adam is such, that he can not turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith, and calling upon God. Wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will” (X).
Heidelberg Catechism (1563): “Are we then so corrupt that we are wholly incapable of doing any good, and inclined to all wickedness? Indeed we are; except we are regenerated by the Spirit of God” (Q. & A. 8).
Canons of Dordt (1618-1619): “Therefore all men are conceived in sin, and by nature children of wrath, incapable of saving good, prone to evil, dead in sin, and in bondage thereto, and without the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit, they are neither able nor willing to return to God, to reform the depravity of their nature, nor to dispose themselves to reformation” (III/IV:3).
Canons of Dordt (1618-1619): “Faith is therefore to be considered as the gift of God, not on account of its being offered by God to man, to be accepted or rejected at his pleasure; but because it is in reality conferred, breathed, and infused into him; or even because God bestows the power or ability to believe, and then expects that man should by the exercise of his own free will, consent to the terms of that salvation, and actually believe in Christ; but because he who works in man both to will and to do, and indeed all things in all, produces both the will to believe, and the act of believing also” (III/IV:14).
Westminster Confession (1646), IX – Of Free Will:
- Man, in his state of innocency, had freedom and power to will and to do that which is good and well-pleasing to God; but yet mutably, so that he might fall from it.
- Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.
- When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, he freeth him from his natural bondage under sin, and by his grace alone enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good; yet so as that, by reason of his remaining corruption, he doth not perfectly nor only will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil.
- The will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to do good alone in the state of glory only.
8) 17th Century
Henry Ainsworth (1571-1622): “we grant evil freewill (or freewill to evil) is remaining in all natural men: we believe that freewill to good, is from grace and regeneration.”
Daniel Featley (1582-1645): “many men have too much free will, and take to themselves too free liberty now a days to advance and maintain free will.”
John Preston (1587-1628): “not by the power of free will but by the infused grace of His spirit.”
John Trapp (1601-1669): “The friends of free will are the enemies of free grace.”
Pierre du Moulin (1601-1684): “It is proved out of the holy scriptures that an unregenerate man is altogether destitute of the power and liberty of his will, in those things that pertain to faith and salvation.”
William Jenkyn (1613–1685): “The bending of men’s hearts to believe and persevere are the supernatural fruits of God’s eternal decree, and not the natural fruits of man’s depraved and frail free will.”
Francis Turretin (1623-1687): “The word ‘freewill’ (as also ‘self-determining power’ [autexousiou] used by the Greek Fathers) does not occur in Scripture … I Cor 7:37 does not mean freedom of the will.”
9) John Owen (1616-1683)
“the whole Pelagian poison of free will … a clear exaltation of the old idol free will into the throne of God … That the decaying estate of Christianity have invented.”
“[Free will is] corrupted nature’s deformed darling, the Pallas or beloved self-conception of darkened minds” (Works, vol. 10, p. 150).
“SECONDLY, The second end at which the new doctrine of the Arminians aimeth is, to clear human nature from the heavy imputation of being sinful, corrupted, wise to do evil but unable to do good; and so to vindicate unto themselves a power and ability of doing all that good which God can justly require to be done by them in the state wherein they are, — of making themselves differ from others who will not make so good use of the endowments of their natures; that so the first and chiefest part in the work of their salvation may be ascribed unto themselves; — a proud Luciferian endeavour!” (A Display of Arminianism, chapter 1).
“I come now to consider the main question of this difference, though sparingly handled by our divines, concerning what our Saviour merited and purchased for them for whom he died. And here you shall find the old idol [i.e., free will] playing his pranks, and quite divesting the merit of Christ from the least ability or power of doing us any good; for though the Arminians pretend, very speciously, that Christ died for all men, yet, in effect, they make him die for no one man at all, and that by denying the effectual operation of his death, and ascribing the proper issues of his passion to the brave endeavours of their own Pelagian deity” (A Display of Arminianism, chapter 9).
“We, according to the Scriptures, plainly believe that Christ hath, by his righteousness, merited for us grace and glory; that we are blessed with all spiritual blessings, in, through, and for him; that he is made unto us righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption; that he hath procured for us, and that God for his sake bestoweth on us, every grace in this life that maketh us differ from others, and all that glory we hope for in that which is to come; he procured for us remission of all our sins, an actual reconciliation with God, faith, and obedience. Yea, but this is such a desperate doctrine as stabs at the very heart of the idol, and would make him as altogether useless as if he were but a fig-tree log. What remaineth for him to do, if all things in this great work of our salvation must be thus ascribed unto Christ and the merit of his death? Wherefore the worshippers of this great god, Lib. Arbit. [i.e., free will], oppose their engines against the whole fabric, and cry down the title of Christ’s merits to these spiritual blessings, in the behalf of their imaginary deity” (A Display of Arminianism, chapter 9).
10) Thomas Watson (c.1620-1686)
“If it be God’s purpose that saves then it is not free will.”
“This crown of free will is fallen from our head.”
“We ought not to unite with error. ‘What communion has light with darkness?’ (II Corinthians 6:14). There are many who would have peace, by the destroying of truth; peace with Arminian, Socinian, and other heretics. This is a peace of the devil’s making” (The Beatitudes).
11) 18th Century
Matthew Henry (1662-1714): “The counsels and decrees of God do not truckle to the frail and fickle will of man.”
George Whitefield (1714-1770): “Man is nothing; he hath a free will to go to hell, but none to go to heaven, till God worketh in him” and “you dishonour God by denying election. You plainly make salvation depend, not on God’s ‘free grace’ but on Man’s ‘free will.’”
Augustus Toplady (1740-1778): “A man’s free will cannot cure him even of the toothache, or a sore finger; and yet he madly thinks it is in its power to cure his soul.”
William Huntington (1745-1813): “This brought me out of the free will fog, and truth shone in my heart like a comet … from that moment I waged war against free will.”
11) 19th Century
J. N. Darby, early leader of the Plymouth Brethren (1800-1882): “This re-appearance of the doctrine of freewill serves to support that of the pretension of the natural man to be not irremediably fallen, for this is what such doctrine tends to. All who have never been deeply convicted of sin, all persons in whom this conviction is based on gross external sins, believe more or less in freewill” (Man’s So-called Freewill, p. 1).
George Smeaton (1814-1889): “The absence of the Spirit, which man, as originally formed, possessed as the Spirit of illumination in his understanding, and of power in all his faculties, has left the mind in moral and spiritual impotence. If regard be had to the understanding, the unconverted cannot know the things of the Spirit of God (I Cor. 2:14); to the will, he cannot be subject to the law of God (Rom. 8:7); to worship, he cannot call Jesus Lord (I Cor. 12:3); to practice, he cannot please God (Rom. 8:8); to fruit, he cannot bear fruit (John 15:4); to faith, he cannot receive the Spirit of truth (John 14:17). His familiarity with sacred truths, which he does not love, only leaves him seared in conscience and twice dead. For this impotence the regenerating power of the Holy Ghost is absolutely indispensable. The fact of man’s inability, which Scripture everywhere asserts or implies, is to be explained by the withdrawal of the Spirit, which left him in SPIRITUAL DEATH. Scripture, therefore, in terms the most express, denies to man the power or ability to think a good thought (II Cor. 3:5), or to receive the things of the Spirit of God (I Cor. 2:14); and declares that human nature is wholly turned away from God, and enmity against Him (Rom. 8:7); and this state of the heart has a determining influence on the will in all religious and moral judgments” (The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, p. 179).
12) Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)
“I will go as far as Martin Luther, where he says, ‘If any man ascribes anything of salvation, even the very least thing, to the free will of man, he knows nothing of grace, and he has not learned Jesus Christ rightly.’”
“Free will doctrine—what does it? It magnifies man into God. It declares God’s purposes a nullity, since they cannot be carried out unless men are willing. It makes God’s will a waiting servant to the will of man, and the whole covenant of grace dependent on human action. Denying election on the ground of injustice, it holds God to be a debtor to sinners.”
“His will cannot be neutral or ‘free’ to act contrary to his nature.”
“Free will has carried many souls to hell, but yet never a soul to heaven.”
“I do not come into this pulpit hoping that perhaps somebody will of his own free will return to Christ. My hope lies in another quarter. I hope that my Master will lay hold of some of them and say, ‘You are mine, and you shall be mine. I claim you for myself.’ My hope arises from the freeness of grace, and not from the freedom of the will.”
13) 20th and 21st Centuries
Louis Berkhof (1873-1957): “Freedom of the will is a psychological fiction.”
Arthur W. Pink (1886-1952): “If the will is their servant then it is not sovereign, and if the will is not sovereign, we certainly cannot predicate ‘freedom’ of it.”
Gordon H. Clark (1902-1985): “The Bible consistently denies free will.”
John Gerstner (1914-1996): “We have already shown that there is no such thing as free will. That’s a will-o’-the–wisp. You never make choices without reasons, not as a responsible or a rational person” (A Primer on Free Will, p. 11).
W. E. Best (1919-2007): “God’s character is maligned by every person who believes in free will.”
R. C. Sproul (1939-2017): “The neutral view of free will is impossible. It involves choice without desire.”
James White (1962-): “Then why do you embrace Christ, and your moral Buddhist neighbour across the street does not? Are you smarter than he is? More spiritually sensitive? Better, in any way? What makes you to differ? Is the Holy Spirit working just as hard on him as He did on you? If so, why do you believe, and he does not? No matter how hard you try, you can’t avoid coming to the conclusion that, in a ‘free will’ system of salvation, those who believe do so because there is something different about them. If the Spirit is bringing equal conviction to bear upon each individual, the only deciding factor, given equality in everything else, is something in the person himself. I believe the only possible difference between the redeemed in heaven and the guilty, condemned, punished sinner in hell is a five-letter word … It’s called ‘grace.'”
Steven Houck: “This free-willism is a serious error which is contrary to the Holy Scriptures.”
For more on this subject,
- read “The Bondage of the Will” by Rev. Steven Houck
- listen to “Martin Luther and the Bondage of the Will” by Rev. Angus Stewart
