Freedom of the Will

By: Jonathan Edwards

Narrated by: Bob Souer

Freedom of the Will is a deeply affecting Christian text that serves as a philosophical guide to the free will of people, their moral agency, and our accountability to God.

Jonathan Edwards was a Protestant theologian and a leading revivalist preacher during the Great Awakening. Edwards wrote Freedom of the Will in the 18th century while working as a missionary to a tribe of Housatonic Native Americans in Massachusetts. He carefully drew out the differences of thought between the Calvinist and Arminian theologies and sided with the Calvinist views on humanity's will. Edwards sought to understand God's foreknowledge and how it related to free will and the ability to choose between good and evil. Ultimately, he concluded that to find salvation we must accept God's grace and trust in what is good, which God has foreordained, and use our free will to seek it out in all our choices.

Public Domain (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Kevin Hughes review of Freedome of the Will

This is an excellent book. the Lord surely blessed Edwards' pen. the book begins with a lengthy section defining terms. This may seem tedious but actually is extremely helpful because in the end the force of Edwards' arguments cannot be escaped by even the most shrewd of all Arminians.

The book expressly reveals the foolishness of a doctrine of "free will" and makes very clear that atheism, Arminian thought, and essentially any other folly is inescapably just that, folly and absurdity of the highest degree.

God is the first cause

You'll find that God is sovereign and as sovereign he determines what is while still holding man responsible for his intention.

sounds robotic

Listen to a sample before purchasing. You might like it more than I liked it.

Narration blunder

This is a classic, wonderful treatise by America's greatest theologian, very much worth reading. The narrator does a decent job except for one unfortunate mistake that occurs repeatedly throughout the book. The abbreviation "viz." is for the Latin "videlicet." It was very widely used in many great works of that time period. It would be appropriate to simply pronounce it "viz," or even to substitute the word "namely." But this narrator consistently reads it as "vis-a-vis" which is completely wrong and doesn't even fit grammatically. For me, it was very annoying because it broke my train of thought every time it happened. Bob Souer's voice is a familiar one, very clear and pleasant to hear. I'm surprised he didn't know better. If you can overlook that one related blunder, this is a good version of the audiobook.

Good book

Chapter 29 is the best chapter in the book. The first half just sets up his argument. If you are willing, based on his reputation, to allow his premises, you can skip to chapter 29 and listen to the end.