The following is a discussion I had with ChatGPT on which side a few theologians leaned toward regarding human free will. Whether a theologian leaned more towards a libertarian free will view or a compatibilist free will view. As always take what Artificial Intelligence writes "with a grain of salt" because AI can be wrong and mistaken in a number of ways.
AP: While it's anachronistic, Is Thomas Aquinas better understood to have been a libertarian or compatibilist with regard to free will?
ChatGPT:
If forced to choose between the two anachronistic labels, Thomas Aquinas is much closer to a compatibilist than to a libertarian.
The caveat is that Aquinas predates the modern free-will debate by centuries, so neither category maps perfectly onto his views.
Aquinas holds several claims that modern libertarians often reject:
God is the first cause of every created action.
Nothing acts independently of God's causal activity.
God moves creatures to act according to their natures.
Divine providence encompasses all events.
God knows and wills the entire order of creation.
Human actions are included within providence rather than existing outside it.
Human freedom is compatible with being caused.
For Aquinas, an act can be genuinely free even if it has causes.
Freedom consists primarily in acting through intellect and will rather than through external coercion.
This resembles the central compatibilist idea that freedom and causal determination (or at least sufficient causation) are not necessarily opposed.
Modern compatibilists usually work within a framework of natural causation. Aquinas is operating within a very different metaphysics.
For Aquinas:
Human beings possess real powers of deliberation.
The will is not compelled by finite goods.
Rational agents can genuinely choose among alternatives presented by reason.
He does not think freedom is merely acting according to one's strongest desire. Rather, the intellect can consider different goods, and the will retains a certain openness with respect to them.
Because of this, some scholars argue that Aquinas preserves something like alternative possibilities, a feature often associated with libertarianism.
Modern libertarian theories typically insist that a free choice cannot be fully determined by prior causes.
Aquinas is uncomfortable with framing freedom that way because:
He does not see causation as inherently threatening freedom.
God's causality extends to free acts themselves.
The more God causes an act, the less free it is not; divine causation and creaturely freedom operate at different levels.
This is one of the most distinctive features of his thought. Aquinas rejects the assumption, common in many modern debates, that if God causes an action then the creature cannot truly cause it.
Many historians of philosophy describe Aquinas as holding a theory of free will compatible with divine determination and providence, though not necessarily compatible with modern physical determinism.
His position is often called:
Classical compatibilism
Scholastic compatibilism
or a theory of concurrentism, where divine and human causation coexist in the same act.
If a contemporary philosopher were sorting Aquinas into one of the two modern camps, compatibilist would be the better fit, because Aquinas explicitly argues that human freedom is compatible with being fully caused by God, but his account of freedom remains richer and more metaphysically robust than most modern compatibilist theories.
For John Calvin, the answer is much more straightforward than for Thomas Aquinas:
Calvin is overwhelmingly closer to a compatibilist than to a libertarian.
In fact, many modern discussions of theological determinism use Calvin as one of the clearest historical examples of a compatibilist position.
Calvin affirms all of the following:
God sovereignly ordains everything that occurs.
Nothing happens outside God's decree.
Human actions, including sinful actions, fall within divine providence.
Humans act voluntarily.
People choose what they want.
They are not generally forced by external compulsion.
Moral responsibility does not require the power to do otherwise.
A sinner is responsible because he willingly sins.
Responsibility is grounded in the will's voluntary character, not in an undetermined capacity for alternative choice.
These claims fit naturally with modern compatibilism, especially the kind associated with thinkers such as Jonathan Edwards, who explicitly developed a sophisticated compatibilist account within the Reformed tradition.
A key feature of Calvin's view is that fallen humans retain a faculty of will but lack moral freedom in a stronger sense.
For example:
A person chooses according to their desires.
But those desires are corrupted by sin.
Therefore, apart from grace, a person cannot choose God savingly.
This resembles the compatibilist idea that one acts freely when acting according to one's own motives, even if those motives are themselves determined.
Modern libertarianism generally requires that, at the moment of choice, an agent could genuinely choose among alternative possibilities in a way not fully determined by prior causes.
Calvin repeatedly rejects views that make God's decree contingent upon autonomous human choices.
He is especially hostile to the suggestion that human freedom requires independence from divine determination.
As a result, most libertarians would regard Calvin's position as incompatible with libertarian freedom.
Calvin himself does not usually frame the issue as "determinism versus free will."
Instead, he rejects what he sees as a false dilemma:
God is sovereign over all things.
Humans act voluntarily.
Therefore humans remain responsible.
He does not believe that divine predestination turns people into puppets, because their actions proceed from their own wills.
That structure is very close to modern compatibilist reasoning.
The contrast is revealing:
| Question | Aquinas | Calvin |
|---|---|---|
| God causes human acts? | Yes | Yes |
| Human acts are genuinely free? | Yes | Yes |
| Emphasis on rational openness among alternatives? | Strong | Much weaker |
| Divine predestination central? | Present but less emphasized | Central |
| Resembles modern libertarianism? | Somewhat | Very little |
| Resembles modern compatibilism? | Moderately | Strongly |
So if Aquinas sits somewhere between the modern categories while leaning compatibilist, Calvin sits much more decisively on the compatibilist side. Many contemporary philosophers would classify Calvin's view as a form of theological compatibilism, and some would even describe it as a form of theological determinism combined with compatibilist freedom.
For Augustine of Hippo, the answer depends heavily on which Augustine you're talking about.
His views developed significantly over time, especially during his controversies with Pelagius and the Pelagians.
If forced to place Augustine in the modern debate, I would say:
Early Augustine is difficult to classify but has some libertarian-sounding elements. Late Augustine is much closer to compatibilism.
In works such as On Free Choice of the Will (De Libero Arbitrio), Augustine strongly emphasizes:
Human responsibility.
The will as the source of sin.
The idea that evil choices originate from the creature rather than from God.
He argues that people sin because they freely turn away from higher goods toward lower goods. This can sound quite close to a libertarian intuition: genuine moral responsibility seems to require that the sinner could have chosen otherwise.
However, Augustine never develops a modern libertarian theory in the contemporary philosophical sense.
During the Pelagian controversy, Augustine increasingly stresses:
The necessity of grace.
The inability of fallen humans to choose God without grace.
God's predestining activity in salvation.
By this period, Augustine argues that fallen humans willingly sin because their wills are disordered. They are not externally compelled, but neither can they simply choose righteousness through unaided free will.
That starts to look very much like later compatibilist formulations:
People act according to what they most want.
Their desires determine their choices.
They remain responsible because they act voluntarily.
One reason Augustine is hard to classify is that he distinguishes between:
Free choice (liberum arbitrium) — the capacity to choose.
True freedom (libertas) — the ability to choose the good.
After the Fall:
Humans retain free choice.
Humans lose true moral freedom.
Grace restores genuine freedom.
This differs from both many modern libertarians and many modern compatibilists.
A modern libertarian typically insists that, at the moment of choice, the agent has an undetermined power to do otherwise.
Late Augustine increasingly emphasizes:
The bondage of the fallen will.
The efficacy of divine grace.
Predestination.
These themes sit uneasily with standard libertarian theories.
Unlike many contemporary compatibilists, Augustine does not think freedom is simply acting according to one's desires.
For Augustine:
Freedom is fundamentally oriented toward the good.
Sin is a kind of bondage.
The highest freedom is not the ability to choose either good or evil, but the inability to be separated from the good.
This is a very different conception of freedom from the one found in most modern compatibilist theories.
A rough comparison:
| Thinker | Libertarian resemblance | Compatibilist resemblance |
|---|---|---|
| Augustine (early) | Moderate | Moderate |
| Augustine (late) | Low–moderate | High |
| Aquinas | Moderate | High |
| Calvin | Very low | Very high |
One way historians sometimes describe the trajectory is:
Augustine → Aquinas → Calvin
All three affirm divine sovereignty and grace, but:
Augustine develops the foundational doctrines of grace and predestination.
Aquinas integrates them into a broader Aristotelian account of intellect and will.
Calvin radicalizes and systematizes the Augustinian emphasis on predestination and the inability of fallen humans.
So if you asked a contemporary philosopher to choose just one label for the Augustine who most influenced Western theology—the late anti-Pelagian Augustine—the better answer would probably be compatibilist, though with more hesitation than in Calvin's case and somewhat more hesitation than in Aquinas's case.
For Charles Spurgeon, the answer is fairly clear:
Spurgeon is much closer to compatibilism than to libertarianism.
In this respect, he stands firmly within the Augustinian–Calvinist tradition.
Spurgeon strongly affirmed:
Divine sovereignty.
Predestination.
Human responsibility.
The necessity of grace for salvation.
He repeatedly argued that these doctrines are compatible rather than contradictory.
Like Calvin, he maintained that people make real choices and are morally responsible, but those choices occur within God's sovereign plan.
Spurgeon often defined freedom in terms of acting according to one's desires rather than in terms of an indeterminate ability to choose otherwise.
He argued that sinners freely choose sin because they want sin.
Likewise, believers come to Christ willingly because God's grace changes their hearts so that they desire Christ.
This is very close to the classical Reformed understanding later developed by thinkers such as Jonathan Edwards.
A characteristic Spurgeon theme is:
God does not drag unwilling people into salvation.
God changes the will so that the person comes willingly.
That is a paradigmatic compatibilist move: divine determination and voluntary action coexist.
Modern libertarian theories usually require that, at the moment of decision, the agent possesses a genuinely undetermined power to choose otherwise.
Spurgeon generally rejected this framework.
He explicitly denied that fallen humans possess the moral ability to choose Christ apart from divine grace.
In his preaching, he often distinguished between:
Natural ability (people still have minds and wills).
Moral ability (people lack the disposition to choose God).
This distinction cuts against libertarian accounts of freedom.
Spurgeon was not a systematic philosopher.
Unlike Edwards, he did not construct a detailed theory of free will.
In fact, he often expressed suspicion toward overly abstract philosophical systems.
His approach was more pastoral and biblical than analytic.
As a result, you can find passages where he simply affirms both:
God's complete sovereignty.
Human responsibility.
without explaining precisely how they fit together.
Nevertheless, the underlying structure of his thought is unmistakably Reformed and compatibilist.
| Thinker | Libertarian resemblance | Compatibilist resemblance |
|---|---|---|
| Augustine (late) | Low–moderate | High |
| Aquinas | Moderate | High |
| Calvin | Very low | Very high |
| Spurgeon | Very low | Very high |
The main difference between Calvin and Spurgeon is not their position on freedom but their style:
Calvin develops a sophisticated theological account of providence and predestination.
Spurgeon primarily preaches and defends those doctrines to ordinary Christians.
If a modern philosopher were classifying him, Spurgeon would almost certainly be placed in the camp of theological compatibilism, very near Calvin and Edwards and quite far from libertarian theories of free will.
For Jonathan Edwards, this is probably the easiest classification of everyone you've asked about.
Edwards is not merely closer to compatibilism than libertarianism—he is one of the most important compatibilists in the history of philosophy.
If Calvin is a theological source for later Reformed compatibilism, Edwards is arguably its greatest philosophical architect.
In his major work, Freedom of the Will, Edwards argues that every act of the will is determined by what appears most desirable to the agent at the moment of choice.
In simplified form:
The will always follows the strongest motive.
Choices arise from the agent's character, desires, and understanding.
An uncaused or self-determining choice would be irrational and unintelligible.
Therefore moral responsibility does not require the power to choose otherwise.
That is remarkably close to what many philosophers today would recognize as a compatibilist position.
A large portion of Freedom of the Will is devoted to criticizing what would now be called libertarianism.
Edwards repeatedly argues that if a choice were not determined by the agent's motives, character, and reasons, then it would be arbitrary.
He presses a regress argument against the notion of a self-determining will:
If the will chooses itself, what determines that choice?
If another act of will determines it, what determines that act?
And so on indefinitely.
His conclusion is that libertarian freedom fails to provide a coherent explanation of agency.
For Edwards, freedom is not the power to do otherwise under exactly the same conditions.
Instead, freedom means something like:
The ability to do what one wants without external coercion.
If you choose according to your own desires, intentions, and character, the act is free—even if those desires and intentions are themselves determined.
This is a classic compatibilist definition.
Edwards is especially famous for insisting that:
God ordains all events.
Human actions are part of that ordained order.
Human beings remain morally responsible.
He sees no contradiction here because responsibility depends on actions flowing from the agent's own will, not on metaphysical indeterminacy.
This places him very close to modern compatibilists who reject the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (the idea that responsibility requires the ability to do otherwise).
Among contemporary philosophers of religion and historians of philosophy, Edwards is often treated as:
A major compatibilist thinker.
A precursor to many contemporary discussions of freedom and determinism.
One of the strongest historical critics of libertarian free will.
Interestingly, many secular compatibilists find parts of Edwards philosophically sophisticated even when they reject his theology.
| Thinker | Libertarian resemblance | Compatibilist resemblance |
|---|---|---|
| Augustine (late) | Low–moderate | High |
| Aquinas | Moderate | High |
| Calvin | Very low | Very high |
| Spurgeon | Very low | Very high |
| Edwards | Extremely low | Extremely high |
If I had to rank the figures you've asked about by how naturally they fit into the modern compatibilist camp, I'd probably put them in roughly this order:
Edwards (most compatibilist)
Calvin
Spurgeon
Aquinas
Augustine
The reason Edwards comes first is that he doesn't merely hold a compatibilist view; he develops one of the most systematic and philosophically rigorous defenses of compatibilism in the Christian tradition. Many of the arguments that contemporary libertarians still respond to are arguments Edwards articulated in the eighteenth century.
