Akratic Action and John Calvin’s Understanding of Adam’s Prelapsarian Free Choice

Abstract

AbstractI argue in this article that the concept of akratic action can be profitably employed to better secure the twin notions that John Calvin sought to establish with the doctrine of the Fall: the necessity and inevitability of the Fall (due to God’s predetermination) and the assumption of full moral responsibility on the part of Adam (due to his action being a free choice). Furthermore, this picture of prelapsarian free will and choice, where Adam is not granted the constancy to persevere in choosing rightly resulting in an inevitable akratic action setting in at some point in time, comports well with Calvin’s wider understanding of free will and choice in postlapsarian, redeemed and glorified humanity.