Ralph:
No, I don't know that. The paper I have, if I remember, is either a dissertation by a doctoral candidate, or is a research paper done for a symposium. I know I have it somewhere. It's not in a book form for me, since it is photo-copied, so I'll have to dig around in some boxes for it. It's been a few years since I last looked at it.
I once did a study on ";;free will";;. I was in a church setting in which the pastor opposed man's free will with God's sovereignty. He also denied ";;common grace.";; So I went into the matter somewhat.
Very basically, Jonathan Edwards does not deny free will, but redefines it. He demonstrates quite definitively that the Arminian view of free will is not free will at all, because it denies two things: that the sovereign God is truly free; and that true freedom for man is in doing God's will, not his own. The latter, doing his own will, is actually the cause of the Fall, and cannot be the cause of redemption.
He goes into extended detail about the extent of will, the cause of will, the purpose of will, etc., and how it relates to man's actions. THese are details that are difficult for us to understand because we are so diffused with modern psychology, more than we think. The Puritan psychology, I think, was better founded than our modern one. But it does take a shift in gears to comprehend what he is saying. But if you don't understand it, that's OK. Go through it anyways, and take from it what you can. It is still the difinitive Calvinistic work on Free Will.
What I've said above is from memory, vague as that may be. I'll look for the paper later today, when I have a better opportunity to tear into things. I'll also relate to you the publisher of my copy of Free Will, by J-E., so you can look for that book as well. If I recall, I got it through Ligonier, R.C. Sproul's org. You can google it to look for it, if you like. I do seem to remember that Gerstner's son, John Gerstner, handed me the book, recommending it on behalf of his late father.
