Free Will

The doctrine of free will, as understood by classic Reformed and Puritan authors, is not a celebration of human independence but a sober account of how sin has bound the will and how grace alone sets it free. These writers insist that while people make real choices and bear real responsibility, their natural will is so enslaved to sin that they cannot turn to God without a prior work of divine grace. This matters because it shapes how we preach the gospel, how we understand conversion, and how we give all glory to God rather than to human decision.

The will is real but enslaved

Matthew Henry is careful not to deny that sinners make voluntary choices. He observes that sinners are voluntary slaves to sin; they yield themselves to it, so their ruin is their own act and deed (Romans 6:19). The bondage is not external force but an inward love of evil. Charles Spurgeon makes the same point with striking force: humanity's helpless condition is not merely a calamity but also a fault, because people love the evil that destroys them and their 'cannot' is really a 'will not' (Romans 5:6). Henry traces this further back, noting that the blindness of their understanding was caused by the willful aversion of their wills and affections; they did not retain God in their knowledge because they did not like it, since it contradicted their lusts (Romans 1:28). The will is active, but it actively chooses sin.

Human resolutions cannot break the power of sin

Spurgeon is blunt about the limits of human effort. Human resolutions and vows are powerless to deliver a person from the mastery of sin (Romans 5:21). The problem is not lack of sincerity in the moment of resolving, but the deeper bondage of the heart. Henry adds that even notorious sinners may have faint desires to leave off their sins and yet persist in them, showing the impotency and insufficiency of their convictions (Romans 7:14–25). A person may see the evil of sin and even wish to escape it, yet remain enslaved because the will itself is corrupted. This is why moral reform, apart from regenerating grace, always falls short.

The carnal mind cannot submit to God

Henry grounds human inability in the nature of the carnal mind. The carnal mind's enslavement to sin proves that any change in a person comes from God's grace, not from the freedom of man's will (Romans 8:7). The mind set on the flesh is not neutral; it is hostile to God and cannot please him. This does not mean sinners never do outwardly good things, but that even their best actions spring from a heart at enmity with God. Henry also notes that a hypocrite may give a practical consent to the law as good, while that consent is still overpowered by the lusts of the flesh and of the mind (Romans 2:18). Outward agreement with God's law does not prove a freed will.

Grace alone makes the difference

If the will is enslaved, then conversion cannot be credited to human choice. Spurgeon insists that boasting cannot take a place in conversion, because a person's believing and repenting is not to their own credit, since grace alone makes the difference (Romans 3:27). He presses the point further: human free will cannot take credit for conversion, because Scripture teaches that God works in us to will and to do, and that the new birth is not by human will (Romans 3:27). The new birth is not the result of a free decision but the cause of a freed decision. Henry agrees, stating that whatever good comes from God to man is not due to human desire or effort but only to the free grace and mercy of God (Romans 9:16).

God chooses, not man

Spurgeon draws the sharpest line on this point. It is not man who chooses God, but God who chooses man, as Christ taught (Romans 3:27). He sees this as a direct implication of Christ's own words. Christ dealt a death-blow to free will by declaring both that sinners will not come to him for life and that no one can come unless the Father draws him (Romans 3:27). The human will, left to itself, refuses Christ. Only the Father's drawing overcomes that refusal. This does not make the drawn person come against their will, but it means the willingness itself is a gift of grace.

Faith is a real act of a renewed will

Jonathan Edwards offers a careful balance. He does not deny that faith is a genuine human act. Faith forms a consequent union, in which the regenerate soul, acting as a free moral agent, believes in and receives Christ as its Savior (John 14:6, Ephesians 3:17). The soul truly believes, truly receives, truly chooses Christ. Yet this act follows regeneration; it is the fruit of a new nature, not the cause of it. Edwards also distinguishes between what God does and what he requires. God is not bound by the human will; he can unite a soul to Christ for justification without the sinner's previous consent, though he requires consent as a matter of obligation (no specific verse). God's power does not depend on human permission, but his moral government calls for voluntary compliance.

Justification and the moral agent

Edwards explains that in the first justification, the person is a passive possessor of union, righteousness, and life; in the second, the adult person must actively determine on what to found his plea of acceptance with God (no specific verse). The sinner does not contribute to the first act of being united to Christ, but once united, the believer actively rests on Christ alone. Because all gospel appeals are addressed to men as moral agents who must choose how to obtain acceptance with God, justification by faith is the great point argued in the apostolic writings (no specific verse). God as moral governor demands a voluntary compliance with the plan of mercy from every free agent, and the regenerate person capable of acting complies by faith (no specific verse). Faith is not a work that merits justification, but it is the appointed way a renewed sinner receives what God freely gives.

The objection of injustice

Henry addresses a common objection: if no one can resist God's will, how can God find fault? He argues that the objection that God cannot find fault if no one resists his will would have no force if Paul were only discussing the terms of salvation, but it arises against the doctrine of distinguishing grace (Romans 9:19). The objection only makes sense because Paul teaches that God's sovereign will determines who receives mercy. Henry does not resolve the tension by denying human responsibility. Instead, he leaves both truths standing: God's grace is distinguishing, and sinners are still accountable for their willing rejection of God.

Conscience and the will

Henry offers a practical word on how the will relates to the understanding. Our wills should follow the dictates of our understanding, so acting against even a mistaken conscience involves the same corruption of will as if the act were really sinful (Romans 14:14). The will is not free when it ignores what the mind knows to be right. Even when the conscience is misinformed, the act of going against it reveals a will bent on its own way. This shows that the problem of sin lies not merely in ignorance but in a will that resists known duty.

All these things—all your resolutions and your vows were powerless! They could not deliver you; they could not set you free Charles Spurgeon, sermon “Reigning Grace” Does the Ethiopian change his skin and the leopard his spots? Is it not God that works in us to will and to do of His own good pleasure? Of His own will He begat us with the Word of Truth and it is not of the will of man, nor of blood, nor of birth Charles Spurgeon, sermon “Grace Exalted—Boasting Excluded” And what did He say to the ungodly multitude, "You will not come unto Me that you might have life." In which He gave the death-blow to all ideas of free will—when He declared that man will not come to Him that he might have life. And then He said again, in another place, as if that were not enough, "No man can come unto Me except the Father which has sent Me draw him Charles Spurgeon, sermon “Grace Exalted—Boasting Excluded” Only there is this darker shade in your picture, that your condition is not only your calamity, but your fault. In other diseases men are grieved at their sickness, but this is the worst feature in your case, that you love the evil which is destroying you Charles Spurgeon, sermon “For Whom Did Christ Die?” We maintain that faith forms a consequent union. Man being a subject of moral government, and therefore a free agent, at liberty to choose his end and means of happiness for which he is accountable; and God in infinite mercy proposing Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life; the all-sufficient and only Saviour of sinners—in whom we are required to believe and to trust with confidence, and whom we are encouraged to receive into our hearts, that he may dwell there by faith—the regenerate soul, by believing, unites itself to this object Jonathan Edwards, “Justification by Faith Alone” And equally absurd is it to suppose that Christ cannot effect a vital union because the sinner’s voluntary consent to it is wanting; as if God’s high sovereignty were bound by the human will! That God requires the sinner’s consent, as a matter of obligation, is a solemn fact; but God has not laid himself under any obligation that he will never unite a soul to Christ for justification of life but by the sinner’s previous consent Jonathan Edwards, “Justification by Faith Alone” But God, in the character of a moral governor, has a further claim on every free agent; he exhibits to the view, and solicits, yea demands, a voluntary compliance with the plan of mercy through the blessed Redeemer, who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. The regenerate person that is capable of acting for him self, as the subject of commands and invitations, complies; he becomes an active recipient of the appointed righteousness, which he now pleads in opposition to all charges presented against him Jonathan Edwards, “Justification by Faith Alone” See how wretchedly the corrupt will of man is enslaved to sin; as far as the carnal mind prevails, there is no inclination to the law of God; therefore wherever there is a change wrought it is by the power of God's grace, not by the freedom of man's will Matthew Henry, “Exposition of the Old and New Testaments” Whatever good comes from God to man, the glory of it is not to be ascribed to the most generous desire, nor to the most industrious endeavour, of man, but only and purely to the free grace and mercy of God Matthew Henry, “Exposition of the Old and New Testaments” Had the apostle been arguing only for God's sovereignty in appointing and ordering the terms and conditions of acceptance and salvation, there had not been the least colour for this objection; for he might well find fault if people refused to come up to the terms on which such a salvation is offered; the salvation being so great, the terms could not be hard Matthew Henry, “Exposition of the Old and New Testaments”