In this paper, I argue that the divine decree entails determinism because its scope is universal, its efficacy entails a hypothetical necessity, and it is internal to God; and in light of determinism, we ought to affirm compatibilism—the belief that free agency and moral responsibility are compatible with determinism. The Reformed tradition has affirmed this view of the decree historically, but Richard Muller and the authors of Reformed Thought on Freedom deny that the Reformed were compatibilists. Instead, they argue that the Reformed held to “dependent freedom.” Dependent freedom affirms the creature’s dependence upon the decree, contra libertarianism, but denies that the decree can determine a free will to one effect, contra compatibilism. If the will is determined to one effect, then the agent no longer possesses categorical alternativity which is a requisite of dependent freedom.
After a short biblical and theological demonstration of the universality, efficacy, and internality of the decree, I argue that dependent freedom is incompatible with the Reformed view of the decree for three reasons. First, the internal decree of God ensures God’s infallible foreknowledge of future events. That which God eternally foreknows cannot be otherwise than he eternally decreed. Second, the decree terminates ad extra as God executes in time what he decreed from eternity. God’s external and transient acts cannot differ from his intrinsic and immanent decree. Third, since the decree entails a hypothetical necessity, the Reformed argued that the will can be determined to one effect without violating human freedom. Dependent freedom denies that the will can be determined to one effect; thus, the Reformed could not have held to dependent freedom. Rather, they were compatibilists.