# free-willer
## English
### Alternative forms

* free willer

### Etymology

From free will +‎ -er.

### Pronunciation

* Rhymes: -ɪlə(ɹ)

### Noun

free-willer (plural free-willers)
* 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, 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,
    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.
* 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,
    The Americans are free-willers, fussy, self-asserting, buzzing all round creation.
** 1898, George Bernard Shaw, “Forgotten ere finished”, in The Perfect Wagnerite‎:[…] 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 […]
* (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],
    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,
    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,
    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,
    […] 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.
* (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,
    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, 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,
    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, 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.