I appreciate how Richard Muller summarizes the Reformed understanding of the human will under his entry “libertas naturae” in Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms:
“The freedom or liberty of nature; viz., the liberty that is proper to a being given its particular nature. No being, not even omnipotent God, can act contrary to its nature. In man, this ‘libertas naturae’ can be distinguished into four distinct categories or states:
- The ‘libertas Adami,’ or freedom of Adam, before the fall – this is the ability or power not to sin, potentia non peccandi, and Adam and Eve are described, in the traditional Augustinian terminology, as ‘possse non peccare’, able not to sin.
- The ‘libertas peccatorum’, or freedom of sinners, a freedom that is proper to and confined within the limits of fallen nature and is therefore an absolute ‘impotentia bene agendi’, inability to do good or act for the good, with the sinner described as ‘non posse non peccare’, not able not to sin,
- The ‘libertas fidelium’, or freedom of the faithful, a freedom of those regenerated by the Holy Spirit that is proper to the regenerate nature and is characterized by the ‘potentia peccandi et bene agendi’, the ability to sin and to do good; the regenerate, because of grace, can be described as ‘posse peccare et non peccare’, able to sin and not to sin;
- The ‘libertas gloriae’, or liberty of glory, a freedom proper to the fully redeemed nature of the ‘beati’, who, as residents of the heavenly kingdom, as ‘in patria’, are now characterized by ‘impotentia peccare’, inability to sin, and as ‘non posse peccare’, unable to sin.
Richard Muller, Dictionary, p. 176.
Shane Lems
Covenant Presbyterian Church (OPC)
Hammond, WI, 54015