# John Duncan on Thomas Chalmers, Jonathan Edwards, and philosophical necessity



## Reformed Covenanter (Oct 9, 2019)

... Chalmers never could understand the real difficulty of the Edwardean controversy. It was very poor insight in him to imagine that he had settled the controversy. He and I often talked of Edwards and Philosophical Necessity. He never could see that there was a third thing between Necessity and Contingency —viz. Liberty. ...

For more, see John Duncan on Thomas Chalmers, Jonathan Edwards, and philosophical necessity.

Is anyone here able to enlighten us further with respect to this subject? @BayouHuguenot or @alexandermsmith may be able to help, as they seem to have been reading a bit about this issue of late.

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## RamistThomist (Oct 9, 2019)

Reformed Covenanter said:


> ... Chalmers never could understand the real difficulty of the Edwardean controversy. It was very poor insight in him to imagine that he had settled the controversy. He and I often talked of Edwards and Philosophical Necessity. He never could see that there was a third thing between Necessity and Contingency —viz. Liberty. ...
> 
> For more, see John Duncan on Thomas Chalmers, Jonathan Edwards, and philosophical necessity.
> 
> Is anyone here able to enlighten us further with respect to this subject? @BayouHuguenot or @alexandermsmith may be able to help, as they seem to have been reading a bit about this issue of late.



See the debate between Muller and Helm. Edwards' language suggests that all contingency = Arminianism. Muller responds by noting that a number of theologians like Voetius and Turretin speak of contingency in our willing.

I think Edwards saw everything as an iron chain of causes, which, if true, is a novelty in the Reformed world.

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