WCF 9.2
Westminster Confession of Faith
9.2. Of Free Will
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, mutably, so that he might fall from it
Proof texts
- Eccles. 7:29
- Gen. 1:26 — [26] Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
- Gen. 2:16, 17 — [16] And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, [17] but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
- Gen. 3:6 — [6] So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
For discussion
- The Assembly cited Eccles. 7:29 in support of this answer. Read it in context — how does it bear on what is claimed here?
- 4 passages are cited here. Which does the most work, and is anything claimed that the proofs do not obviously carry?
- WSC Q13 treats the same ground. What does it add, and why might it put things differently?
- WSC Q29 treats the same ground. What does it add, and why might it put things differently?
Read alongside
WSC Q13 · WSC Q29 · WSC Q30 · WSC Q31 · WSC Q32 · WLC Q21 · WLC Q25 · WLC Q57 · HC Q53 · BC 6.1 · BC 6.2 · BC 6.3 · CD 3.1 · SC60 2.2 · IAR 4.5 · SHC 2.3 · SHC 2.4
Leader's notes
A Commentary on the Confession of Faith (A.A. Hodge): These Sections briefly state and contrast the various conditions which characterize the free agency of man in his four different estates of innocency, hereditary sin, grace and glory. In all these estates man is unchangeably a free, responsible agent, and in all cases choosi^ig or refusing as, upon the whole, he prefers to do. A. man's volition is as his desires are in the given case. His desires in any given case are as they are determined to be by the general and permanent tastes, tendencies and habitudes of his character. He is responsible for his desires, because they are determined by th^ nn,tnrf> and permanent characteristics of his o^n roilL. He is responsible for these, because they are the…
An Exposition of the Confession of Faith (Robert Shaw): The human will is not a distinct agent, but only a power of tlie rational soul. It is essential to a soul to have a moral * Adam Gib on Liberty and Necessity ; Contemplations, p. 484. dlsjMsition, good or bad, or a mixture of both ; and, according to what is the prevailing moral disposition of the soul, must be the moral actings of the will. Hence there is a great diflPerence in regard to the freedom of the will in the different states of man. In the state of innocence, the natural inclination of man's will was only to good ; but it was liable to change through the power of temptation, and therefore free to choose evil…