Please click on the link to view “Early Church Fathers on the Freedom of the Will and Romans 9.”
The early church resoundingly affirmed the liberty of the will, in spite of the well-known philosophical option of theistic determinism. They did not see Romans 9 as posing any difficulty for this view. How, then, did they read Romans 9?
This paper gives an snapshot of the various styles of determinism and philosophy faced by the early church. The reader is introduced to the actual commentary on Romans 9 or associated themes as provided by four church fathers: Irenaeus (~185AD), Origen (~240AD), Ambrosiaster (~370AD), and John Chrysostom (~370AD). These are all of the extant writers from before 400AD who clearly wrote about or preached on Romans 9.
