Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will

A landmark of Reformed philosophical theology, this treatise mounts a rigorous defense of moral necessity and a devastating critique of Arminian self-determining free will. Edwards argues that the will is always determined by the strongest motive — the greatest apparent good — and that this necessity is fully consistent with moral agency, virtue, vice, praise, and blame. Drawing on philosophy, Scripture, and careful logic, he demonstrates that God's foreknowledge and sovereignty require the very determinism his opponents deny.