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Article: Free Will
- Article from:
- Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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FREE WILL
FREE WILL.
Belief in human free will was challenged by two intellectual developments at the beginning of the early modern period in Europe, the Protestant Reformation and the development of the mechanical theory of matter. The challenges were not entirely new. Medieval theologians had long wrestled with the question of whether human free will was compatible with God's omnipotence and providence and with the theory of nature they had inherited primarily from Aristotle. But challenges to the belief in free will became particularly sharp in early modern Europe.
DESCARTES AND THE CARTESIANS
The notion of free will was central to the thought of Ren
é
Descartes (1596
–
...