RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Wildenspuch Wilkinson
tion may be made of his Instructions in the Devotional Life (London, 1871); Instructions in the Way of Salvation (1872); Lent Lectures (1878); Hindrances and Helps to the Deepening of the Spiritual Life among Clergy and People (1880); Holy Week and Easter (1880); ‘The Chastening of the Lord” (1888) ; The Communion of Saints: A Help to the Higher Life of Communicants (1883); Some Laws in God’s Spiritual Kingdom (1886); The Heavenly Vision (1909); and Invisible Glory, Selected Sermons (1909).
BrisuiocrarHy: A. J. Mason, Memoir of George Howard Wilkinson, 2 vols., London and New York, 1909.
WILKINSON, THOMAS EDWARD: Anglican bishop for Northern and Central Europe; b. at Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, Dec. 26, 1837. He was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge (B.A., 1859); was ordered deacon in 1861 and ordained priest in 1862; was curate at Cavendish, Suffolk (1861-64), and Rickinghall, Suffolk (1864-70); was consecrated bishop of Zululand in the latter year. He traveled extensively in South Africa, and in 1874 visited the Transvaal, his tour resulting in the creation of a new African diocese. He resigned his see of Zululand in 1876; was rector of Caerhayes, Cornwall (1878-82), was chosen in 1886 to be bishop-coadjutor of London for North and Central Europe, his jurisdiction extending over Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and Russia. He has also been rector of St. Catherine Coleman, London, since 1886. In addition to preparing a Zulu translation of selections from Hymns Ancient and Modern (Natal, 1874), he has written A Suffolk Boy in East Africa (London, 1875); A Lady’s Life in Zululand and the Transvaal (the journal of his late wife ; 1876); Does England wish her Boys and Girls to grow up Atheists and Anarchists? (1894); Emigration the true Solution of the Social Question (1894); Saat, the Slave Boy of Khartoum (1898); and T’wenty Years of Continental Work and Travel (1906).
WILKINSON, WILLIAM CLEAVER: Baptist; b. at Westford, Vt., Oct. 19, 1883. He was educated at the University of Rochester (A.B., 1857) and Rochester Theological Seminary, from which he was graduated in 1859; in the same year he was ordained to the ministry; was pastor of the Second Baptist Church, New Haven, Conn. (1859-61); acting professor of modern languages in the University of Rochester (1863-64); pastor of Mount Auburn Baptist Church, Cincinnati (1865-66), but was compelled by failing health to retire from the ministry, and opened a school at Tarrytown, N. Y.; he was professor of homiletics and pastoral theology in Rochester Theological Seminary (1872-81). He was then engaged in literary work until 1892, when he was appointed to his present position of professor of poetry and criticism in the University of Chicago. He was prominent in the Chautauqua movement, being one of the counselors of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle and dean of the department of literature and art in the Chautauqua School of Theology. He lectured at Crozer Theological Seminary and Drew Theological Seminary in 1903, and at Baylor University in the following year. Among his writings, which include numerous text-
Will, Freedom of The
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
a ee
books for Chautauqua courses, special mention may be made of The Dance of Modern Society (New York, 1868); A Free Lance in the Field of Life and Letters (1874); The Baptist Principle (Philadelphia, 1881); Edwin Arnold as Poetizer and Paganizer (New York, 1885); The Epic of Saul (1889); The Epic of
Paul (1897); The Epic of Moses (1905); and Modern Masters of Pulpit Discourse (1905); Good of Life and Other Little Essays (1910); and Daniel Webster; a Vindication, and other historical Essays (1911). His poems have been collected in five volumes (New York, 1909). ’
WILL, FREEDOM OF THE.
I. Biblical. Il. Historical. Classical Antiquity (§ 1). Greek Patristics (§ 2). Latin Patristics; Pelagian Controversy (§ 3).
I. Biblical: The Old Testament as a Biblical theological basis is favorable to the assumption of the freedom of the human will. The will of God always appeals to the autonomy of man. Nothing happens without the divine will (Job vii. 17-21; Isa. xlv. 17-21; Jer. x. 23, xxxi. 18); on the other hand, the autonomous decision of the human will, whether in relation to enticing sin (Gen. iv. 7) or to grace (Jer. xxix. 13-14), is asserted more frequently and positively. The law makes its appeal to free choice (Deut. xxx. 15 sqq.); the relation of man and God adapts itself to the free inclination of the human heart (Ps. xviii. 26-29). In view of this parallelism striking antitheses and paradoxical symbolisms are inevitable (Ex. xxxiv. 6-7; Hos. xiii.; ef. Deut. xxx., xxxi.; Jer. xvili.). The tradition of the Mosaic idea of hereditary guilt gives way to that of personal accountability (Jer. xxxi.; Ezek. xviii.). A distinction between hereditary guilt and original sin would not resolve the contradiction: because (1) it would exceed the simple Old-Testament representation; (2) the same figures applied to ordinary human weaknesses are also referred to man’s proneness to sin; (3) a development of the idea of freedom appears in prophecy (Isa. xxix., xlv.; Jer. xviii.). Western thought first laid open the logical alternative between these two trains of religious and ethical thought series, which lie in the Old Testament in embryo: Is the good such because God wills it or vice versa? (Plato.) Must man will the good because God works within him to do so? (Augustine.) Or, is the willing of man good because of voluntary adaptation to the divine will? (Duns Scotus.) This dilemma gave rise to a theological antinomy and became the principal point of controversy between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants; and the cleavage was present already between the free-will Sadducees, the deterministic Hssenes, and the Pharisees holding to a general dependence upon divine omnipotence, with free choice to the individual. The synoptical discourses of Jesus emphasize sometimes the moral freedom of the individual (Matt. vii. 24, xii. 27, 37, xix. 14, xxiii. 37); at other times the causal connection of character with education, heredity, or divine descent (Matt. xii. 34, xv. 18, xviii. 7, xxiii. 32). Paul, too, emphasizes the idea of freedom. Although everything good, especially forgiveness, is a gift of God and sanctification the work of God, yet there is the direct appeal (Rom. vi. 12); damnation is just (iii. 7-8), and every one is accountable (II Cor. v. 10). To the contrary is the fact of experience that conduct does not result from perception of the good
Medieval Catholicism (§ 4). The Reformation Period (§ 5). Modern Philosophy (§ 6).
The Nineteenth Century (§ 7).
TYI., Analysis of the Problem.
The Nature of Freedom (§ 1).
The Avoidability of Sin (§ 2).
Omniscience and Freedom
(§ 3).
IV. Supplement. and corresponding willing (Rom. vii. 20; Gal. v. 17); much less may the natural man sold under sin (Rom. vii. 14) be called free (vii. 23, viii. 7). Grace has broken the bond of sin (vi. 18), but the new state is another servitude (vi. 19), and God performed the act of transformation (iii. 21 sqq.; Eph. ii. 8). The descent of sin according to the law may be traced back to the progenitor of the race (Rom. v. 12 sqq.), and the growth of sin falls into unison with the purpose of grace (v. 20-21). Formal freedom may seem implied at least for the reason (vii. 16); but free deliberation is expressly denied the arbitrament (iii. 19, ix. 20; II Cor. x. 5); and beside the duality of “mind” and “flesh,” is pictured the monism of the absolute dependence on God (Rom. xi. 32). The contrast is yet sharper in the Johannine writings. The knowledge of truth and the reception of eternal life depend on the will of the individual (John v. 40, vil. 17; cf. vii. 45-46). I John betrays a strong undertone sounding an appeal to faithfulness and brotherly love, and casually calls for the duty of self-sacrifice (iii. 16). On the other hand, the Christian state of grace appears so exclusively the work of divine omnipotence that the believer is designated as the offspring of God, as the product of a divine ‘‘seed,’”’ even incapable of sinning (ili. 9, iv. 4-5). The Gospel, too, teaches this dualism (vi. 34, 44, 47). God wills the salvation of all men (II Pet. iii. 9), and voluntary surrender to corruption results in the inevitable doom (ii. 9). On the other side, unbelievers are appointed to stumble (I Pet. ii. 8). The New-Testament doctrine teaches freedom as well as constraint. There is no theoretical contradiction, since there is no thematic discussion, but a multiplicity of particular expressions bear upon the various sides of the problem in the vivid, Oriental symbolical fashion. The individual is now God’s planting, offspring, elect, and now self-determining: partly fundamentally one with God, and partly distinct and different. Dualism applies now to the antithesis of God and man, now of God and Satan, and again of good and evil. The only difference between the Old and New Testaments is that in the latter the duty of moral volition and the sense of natural impotence have been intensified (Mark xiii. 87; I Cor. xvi. 13; Gal. v.; Rom. vii.).
Il. Historical: The Old Hellenic theory of the will was predominantly deterministic, partly in the metaphysical, religious sense of fate (Heraclitus, the Pythagoreans, and the Eleatics), and partly in the psychological, ethical sense that the will is governed by the degree of understanding (the Socratic school).