I can only assume one of two things: either Norm didn't comprehend Edward's argument that all choices are based on previous inclinations, in which case we should all simply ignore his refutation; or Norm is explicitly rejecting such an obvious truth, and instead suggesting that a "free agent" can cause a "free action" without any previous desire or inclination to do so. If this is the case, then Norm is equating man with the creator in his ability to to create ex nihilo. How else can one make choices with neither motivation nor circumstance? Heck, I don't think even the Armenians here on FR would go so far.
1) Geisler is explicitly rejecting the notion that all choices are a matter of internal compulsion. 2) We have Armenians around here? I didn't even think that people from Armenia had access to the Internet, for the most part.
I'll defend Edwards by simply calling Norman's arguments irrational, and point out that Edward's assertions concerning the will must be true since people are made in the image of God.
Oh? So since we're made in the image of God, we are unable to act without prior cause effecting us into action? You do realize that for man to be made in God's image and subject to prior cause in his actions means that God must either be a Cause Ad Infinitum (a cause who is his own cause who is his own cause, etc.) or man must be just as free to act as his Deity? Geisler's response to this line of thinking, in his appendix on "Answering Objections To Free Will":
Self-determinism violates the principle of causalityThe principle of causality holds that every event has an adequate cause. If this is so, then it would seem that even the act of free choice has a cause and so on back to God (or inifnity). In any case, if the act of free choice is caused by another, then it cannot be caused by one's self. Thus self-determiniation would be contrary to the principle of causality that it embraces.
Response
There is a basic confusion in this objection. This confusion results in part from an infelicitous expression of the self-determinism view. Representatives of moral self-determinism sometimes speak of free will as though it were the efficient cause of moral actions. This would lead one naturally to ask: What is the cause of the act of free choice, and so on? But a more precise description of the process of a free act would avoid this problem. Technically, free will is not the efficient cause of a free act; it is simply the power through which the agent performs the free act. I (my Self) act by means of my will. The efficient cause of a free act is really the free agent, not the free choice. Free choice is simply the power by which the free agent acts. We do not say that person is free choice but simply that he has free choice. Likewise we do not say man is thought but only that he has the power of thought. So it is not the power of free choice that causes a free act, but the person who has this power.
Now, if the real cause of a free act is not an act but an actor, then it makes no sense to ask for the cause of the actor as though it were another act. The cause of a performance is the performer Likewise, the cause of a free act is not another free act, and so on. Rather, it is a free agent. And once we have arrived at the free agent, it is meaningless to ask what caused its free acts. For if something else caused its actions, then the agent is not the cause of them and thus is not responsible for them. The free moral agent is the cause of free moral actions. And it is as senseless to ask what caused the free agent to act as it is to ask: Who made God? The answer is the same in both cases: Nothing can cause the first cause because it is first. There is nothing before the first. Likewise, a person is the first cause of his own moral actions. If he were not the cause of his own free actions, then they would not be his actions.
If it is insisted that a person cannot be the first cause of his moral actions, then it is also impossible for God (who is also a Person) to be the first cause of His moral actions. Tracting the cause of human actions back to God does not simply solve the problem of finding a cause for every action. It simply pushes the problem back further. Sooner or later those proposing this argument will have to admit that a free act is a self-determined act that is not caused by another. Eventually it must be acknowledged that all acts come from an actor, but that the actor (i.e., free agent) is the first cause of his action, and who, therefore, has no prior cause of his actions.
The real question, then, is not whether there are agents who cause their own actions but whether God is the only true Agent (i.e., Person) in the universe. Christians have always denounced as a form of pantheism the belief that there is ultimately only one Person (Agent) in the universe. But a denial of human free agency is reducible to this charge.