The Will in Its Theological Relations

The Will in Its Theological Relations addresses human freedom and God’s decrees within a nineteenth-century debate over full-blown determinism. More specifically, John L. Girardeau challenges Jonathan Edwards’s doctrine of the will and its tendency to identify certain foreknowledge with causal necessity. While appreciative of Edwards as a brilliant thinker and spiritual giant, Girardeau respectfully exposes Edwards’s theory of necessity as an injurious incursion into Reformed theology. Here is one of the clearest and fullest cases against Edwardsian determinism. It is also an articulate restatement of the orthodox Reformed perspective on human bondage to sin against Arminian theology.

Publisher: Reformation Heritage Books
Type: Hardback
ISBN: 9798886860139

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John L. Girardeau (1825–1898) served as a minister before and after the Civil War and as a military chaplain during the war. In 1875 he was called to the position of professor of didactic and polemic theology at Columbia Theological Seminary.

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“John Girardeau’s The Will in Its Theological Relations is a unique opportunity to listen to an ongoing conversation about one of theology’s more challenging questions—the relationship between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. The republication of Girardeau’s insightful work affords students of Scripture the privilege of learning more about how God foreordains whatsoever comes to pass and yet does not offer violence to the will of creatures. An additional benefit is Richard Muller’s outstanding introduction that expertly situates Girardeau’s work within its immediate nineteenth-century setting and wider context within the Reformed tradition. With Muller as an able guide, readers can greatly profit from this work, one worthy of careful study and meditation.” J. V. Fesko, Harriett Barbour Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary, Jackson, Mississippi