Description
Book SynopsisThis fresh study from an internationally respected scholar of the Reformation and post-Reformation eras shows how the Reformers and their successors analyzed and reconciled the concepts of divine sovereignty and human freedom. Richard Muller argues that traditional Reformed theology supported a robust theory of an omnipotent divine will and human free choice and drew on a tradition of Western theological and philosophical discussion. The book provides historical perspective on a topic of current interest and debate and offers a corrective to recent discussions.
Table of ContentsContents
Part I: Freedom and Necessity in Reformed Thought: The Contemporary Debate
1. Introduction: The Present State of the Question
2. Reformed Thought and Synchronic Contingency: Logical and Historical Issues
Part II: Philosophical and Theological Backgrounds: Aristotle, Aquinas, and Duns Scotus
3. Aristotle and Aquinas on Necessity and Contingency
4. Duns Scotus and Late Medieval Perspectives on Freedom
Part III: Early Modern Reformed Perspectives: Contingency, Necessity, and Freedom in the Real Order of Being
5. Necessity, Contingency, and Freedom: Reformed Understandings
6. Scholastic Approaches to Necessity, Contingency, and Freedom: Early Modern Reformed Perspectives
7. Divine Power, Possibility, and Actuality
8. Divine Concurrence and Contingency
9. Conclusions
