free-willer

English

Alternative forms

• free willer

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɪlə(ɹ)

Noun

free-willer (plural free-willers)

1. A person who believes that human beings have free will.

   Antonym: determinist

   • 1975, Andrew McClary, chapter 16, in Biology and Society: The Evolution of Man and His Technology‎^[1], New York: Macmillan, pages 225–226:

     […] most of us are “free-willers.” We automatically assume we can shape the future, including our technology, in almost any fashion we wish, at least within the constraints of the natural environment. A small but vocal school of determinists, however, argues that we delude ourselves.

   • 2006, John Taylor: The Mind: A User’s Manual, Chichester: John Wiley, Part 3, Chapter 18, p. 205,^[2]

     Causality and determinism, in a quantum framework, persist down to the very shortest distances that experiments have been performed in high-energy particle accelerators. I see no way that a person could employ forces above (or even approximately near) what are achieved in those gigantic particle machines to achieve the dream of the free willers: uncaused processes.

   • 2023, Robert M. Sapolsky, Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, New York: Penguin, →ISBN:

     Here's the challenge to a free willer: Find me the neuron that started this process in this man's brain, the neuron that had an action potential for no reason, where no neuron spoke to it just before.

2. A person who exercises free will.
   • 1847, Ralph Waldo Emerson, journal entry dated May 1847, in Stephen E. Whicher (ed.), Selections from Ralph Waldo Emerson: An Organic Anthology, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957, p. 310,^[3]

     The Americans are free-willers, fussy, self-asserting, buzzing all round creation.

   • 1898, George Bernard Shaw, “Forgotten ere finished”, in The Perfect Wagnerite‎^[4]:

     […] the saviour is no longer the volition of the full-grown spirit of Man, the Free Willer of Necessity, sword in hand, but simply Love […]

3. (historical, Protestantism, derogatory) A person belonging to a sect that rejected the doctrine of predestination.

   Synonyms: Arminian, Pelagian, Remonstrant, Semipelagian

   Antonyms: Calvinist, predestinarian

   • 1614, John Robinson, Of Religious Communion Private, & Publique, “Of the Baptism of Infants,” p. 96[a],^[5]

     Since all are by nature alike children of wrath, I would know of these free-willers, how some become the children of God, & beleevers, & some abyde vnder the wrath of God?

   • 1675, Richard Baxter, Richard Baxter’s Catholick Theologie, London: Nevill Simmons, “Of Natural Corruption and Impotency, and Free-will,” The third Crimination, p. 125,^[6]

     And is it not then a horrid shame, to hear honest people so seduced into Love-killing factious sidings by their Teachers, as that Boys and Women speak of wiser and better persons with disaffection and reproach, saying, O he is a Free-willer, or he holdeth Free-will, when they know not what they talk of: but are made believe that it is some monstrous impious Opinion, making a man almost an Heretick?

   • 1779, Isaac Watts, undated letter to Enoch Watts, in Posthumous Works, London: T. Becket and J. Bew, Volume 2, p. 153,^[7]

     There was one Pelagius of old, that invented several opinions about free-will, and against free-grace, those that followed him strictly were called Pelagians; those that allowed more to free-grace were called Semi-Pelagians, almost the same with modern Armenians, called also Remonstrants, and by the common people Free-willers. Their notions are, that God elects none to salvation but on the account of that faith he foresees in them.

   • 1862, Philip Cater, Punch in the Pulpit, London: William Freeman, Letter 1, p. 19,^[8]

     […] let a man be deeply imbued with the spirit of hyper-calvinism, and he will treat those whom he deems mistaken brethren, with ridicule and contempt; he will call them “free-willers,” “duty-faith men,” &c.; he will give them all sorts of nicknames, and cover them with all sorts of religious abuse.

4. (historical, US) An immigrant to the United States who, upon arrival, voluntarily became an indentured servant.

   Synonym: redemptioner

   • 1770, William Eddis, letter dated 20 September, 1770 in Letters from America, Historical and Descriptive, comprising occurrences from 1769, to 1777, inclusive, London: for the author, 1792, pp. 63-64,^[9]

     Persons in a state of servitude are under four distinct denominations: negroes, who are the entire property of their respective owners: convicts, who are transported from the mother country for a limited term: indented servants, who are engaged for five years previous to their leaving England; and free-willers, who are supposed, from their situation, to possess superior advantages.

   • 1887, Francis Fontaine, chapter 41, in Etowah: A Romance of the Confederacy‎^[10], Atlanta, page 483:

     There were two kinds of redemptioners—‘indented servants,’ who had bound themselves to their masters for a term of years previous to leaving Europe, and ‘free-willers,’ who allowed themselves to be sold on arrival to defray the cost of passage to America.

   • 1889, Andrew D. Mellick Jr., Story of an Old Farm or Life in New Jersey in the Eighteenth Century, Somerville, NJ: The Unionist-Gazette, Chapter 11, p. 150,^[11]

     Alas! the “free-willers,” with rare exceptions, had a rude awakening on reaching the colonies. Under their agreements, the captains had a legal lien on the persons of the immigrants until the ship charges were paid; consequently they were not allowed to go on shore, but were exposed to view on deck to the people who came on board in search of servants.

   • 1921, Paul H. Douglas, American Apprenticeship and Industrial Education‎^[12], New York: Columbia University, Part 1, Chapter 2, pp. 36-37:

     Indentured service continued through the 18th and into the 19th century. In fact there was not appreciable decline in the number of German “free-willers” who entered Maryland until after 1817, when legislation protecting the servants made the trade unprofitable for the shipmasters.