Baptist Forefathers on Free Will

Today there is much confusion about the freedom of the human will. In much of American Evangelicalism, the will of man is almost made into an idol.

Free Will Theology is popular in some Southern Baptist circles as well, however, this conflicts with what our Baptist forefathers believed. Below is the chapter on Free Will taken from the 1689 London Baptist Confession.


Chapter 9: Of Free Will

1._____ God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty and power of acting upon choice, that it is neither forced, nor by any necessity of nature determined to do good or evil. ( Matthew 17:12; James 1:14; Deuteronomy 30:19 )

2._____ Man, in his state of innocency, had freedom and power to will and to do that which was good and well-pleasing to God, but yet was unstable, so that he might fall from it. ( Ecclesiastes 7:29; Genesis 3:6 )

3._____ Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto. ( Romans 5:6; Romans 8:7; Ephesians 2:1, 5; Titus 3:3-5; John 6:44 )

4._____ When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, he freeth him from his natural bondage under sin, and by his grace alone enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good; yet so as that by reason of his remaining corruptions, he doth not perfectly, nor only will, that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil. ( Colossians 1:13; John 8:36; Philippians 2:13; Romans 7:15, 18, 19, 21, 23 )

5._____ This will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone in the state of glory only. ( Ephesians 4:13 )


I hope and pray that someday Southern Baptists would return to their rich theological heritage!

Soli Deo Gloria!

Rhett Kelley