A Critique of Jonathan Edwards' "Freedom of Will" Sermon

In “Freedom of the Will” Jonathan Edwards explores the concept of “the will” or “free will”.  Edwards opens by defining “will” through narrative and the juxtaposing of the word with a number of synonyms.   He then proceeds to contrast “will” and desire”, “will” being the matter of how one decides to react to “desire”.

From there, Edwards explores what determines “will”, its relationship to “good” and the interplay of “will” with a variety of philosophical concepts such as necessity, impossibility, inability, and existence.  Edwards continues on with a very lengthy discussion of will, liberty, moral agency and related/peripheral concepts. 

After getting through paragraph three, the best way to describe my intellectual/emotional state was despair, such was the verbosity of Edwards’ definition of “will”.  Things only got worse from there.  After a few more paragraphs, I was reminded of the hopelessly tangled ball of Christmas lights Clark Griswold asked his son, Rusty, to untangle in the movie, Christmas Vacation.  Edwards’ long-winded, somewhat bombastic style of writing produces marathon length sentences so full of twists and turns one often forgets how they started.  This is very unfortunate as this work is full of good information – enlightenment and jewels of wisdom.   If only the jewels weren’t hidden in a jungle of obfuscation. 

“Freedom of the Will” is excellently researched and considered.  It evinces a scholarly and theological brilliance and, unfortunately, an insufferable tendency toward self-indulgence.  Edwards seems so enthralled with the current of his thinking – its depth, breadth and intellectual complexity – that he seems to forget that many people who need the lesson on “free will” will probably lack the education, attention span, and absorption time to really process and benefit from the article.

Because Edwards was an intelligent man who knew his audience, “Freedom of the Will” indicates a level of arrogance that focused this work a bit too much on writing over people’s heads to impress by its daunting length and intellectual altitude.  Perhaps this is a harsh statement, but one can read any of Edwards’ sermons or writings and come away with at least a slight suspicion that he was subtly communicating to his audiences through the ivory tower elements of his writing that while they needed to be saved and live Christ-like lives, they would never attain his level of intellect, holiness or wisdom in the ways of God and His Word.   

In conclusion, “Freedom of the Will” is a 20-minute lecture stretched into a three hour-long class.  Through either self-indulgence, a lack of confidence in his ability to make his points succinctly, or the custom at the time of preachers preaching multi-hour sermons, this work goes on way too long.  It probably left most listeners or readers behind by about the end of the third paragraph.  (By the way, one can probably rule out a lack of self-confidence as a reason for Edwards producing such a long article.)

Like the diamond mine experience in Murfreesboro, Arkansas, if one can wade through the excess long enough, he will find gems of some worth.  As mentioned earlier, “Freedom of the Will” is full of enlightenment and jewels of wisdom if one is patient enough to dig them out. For those of you who enjoy the writings of church fathers throughout history, I highly recommend you give “Freedom of Will” a try in spite of the flaws I mention above. Its message, once you sort through all of its bombast, is well worth the time it will take. Just be prepared to not skim this one.