Sovereignty vs/and Freedom

I'm about half-way done with Bruce Ware's defense of the compatibility between God's meticulous/exhaustive sovereighty and human freedom (which is defined freedom of inclination as Jonathan Edwards put it). I find this to be the strongest case so far that I have read. The Four Views book turned out to be a little dissapointing. It is clear now that a majority of their discussion on God's foreknowledge leaned towards more philosophical (Greek) leanings and influence than on theology.

Bruce Ware on the other hand establishes his Scriptural case for meticulous and exhaustive sovereignty and works from that premise on what human freedom looks like instead of the other way around (he makes a case that Arminians and their "step-child" open theists like to start with human (libertarian) freedom and then craft a model for divine providence based on holding on to libertarian freedom).

The crux of Ware's argument is the idea of "freedom of inclination" rather than libertarian freedom.

“Human beings perform our choices and actions out of what we desire in our hearts. That is, what we want most, what our natures incline us most strongly to-this is the pool out of which the stream of our choices and actions flows.” Pg. 79

If, as Arminians propose, our freedom consists in the power of contrary choice, then quite unlike what Jesus has taught us, regardless of our hearts and characters, we are always free to choose either good or evil. But Jesus indicated just the opposite: that a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.” Pg. 79

“But it stands to reason that if we choose to do what we want, then at the moment of that choice, we are not “free” to do otherwise.” Pg. 80

“If, as we’ve argued here, our freedom consists in our choosing to act according to our strongest desires or inclinations, then it stands to reason that we can change our behavior only when our strongest desires and inclinations change. Character transformation is the key to behavior modification. And, of course, this is why Scripture is so consistently concerned with the renewal of our minds, our hearts, our characters, and our inner persons.” Pg. 81

I think Ware makes a strong case of both meticulous sovereignty and human freedom and a solid argument against libertarian freedom. That being defined here as

“Libertarian freedom proposes that at the very moment of choice, we are free in making that choice if (and only if) in choosing what we do, we could have chosen otherwise. So we are free when choosing A if, at the moment of this choice, we could instead have chosen not-A, or B. And if this is not the case, then we are not genuinely free.” Pg. 63

I think "freedom of inclination" makes much more sense than libertarian freedom and is much more compatible with the sovereignty of God as revealed in Scripture.

Wow! I'm siding with Bruce Ware. I never thought the day would come!