A Reformed View of Freedom: The Compatibility of Guidance Control and Reformed Theology

Reformed Christians do not believe in free will. This is a common assertion today and it is completely false. The Reformed tradition does advocate free will, just not libertarian free will. A Reformed View of Freedom: The Compatibility of Guidance Control and Reformed Theology explains how the Reformed tradition articulated its view of human freedom and moral responsibility in terms of rational spontaneity. It shows how the Reformed view of rational spontaneity is compatible with contemporary compatibilist and semi-compatibilist views, especially that of guidance control. This work addresses a number of pressing issues in the current academic climate. Is Reformed theology theological determinism? Is it compatibilism? Did Jonathan Edwards part ways with the Reformed tradition? What is the relationship between Reformed theology and contemporary compatibilist and semi-compatibilist positions in analytic philosophy? This book addresses these questions by exegeting the classic Reformed confessions, catechisms, and Reformed scholastics. It sets them in relation to contemporary analytic philosophy. It is an exercise in analytic theology. The reader will come away with a better understanding of how the Reformed viewed free will and moral responsibility in light of contemporary analytic philosophy.

Michael Patrick Preciado is a philosopher and a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America. He holds a BA and MA in philosophy, an MDiv from Westminster Seminary California, and a PhD in philosophical theology from the University of Aberdeen.


Paul Helm is a Teaching Fellow at Regent College, Vancouver, Canada. He held the Chair of the History and Philosophy at King's College, London, 1993-2000. He is the author of several books, including John Calvin's Ideas (2004) and Eternal God (2nd ed., 2010).