Haaa, love the quote. Certainly makes one interested in reading the rest of his reports.
It also touches on something that's been irritating me since I first read it: FW's opposition to predestination, and the fact that he made it such an important part of Frederick's submission. Because as far as I know, FW was a calvinist, and Calvin's doctrine was clearly pro predestination, so I don't quite get it. Did he just not care about the doctrine in this case and his opposition is all personal and a result of his conflict with Fritz, as in: Fritz discovering it as a clever argument against him, saying that everything he is/does/likes is predestined by God, so why would his father fault him for it? Certainly comes across that way. (It's an argument to irritate his father for sure, but it's also interesting in the context of Fritz trying to make sense of himself I think.)
And of course Fritz, submission or not, argues for predestination again, early on in his correspondence with Voltaire, while Voltaire obviously takes the free will side. It's very much a philosophical instead of a theological argument with him, though, because since Fritz doesn't believe in an immortal soul, the whole post-death part of salvation/damnation is clearly irrelevant to him.
Re: Chesterfield on FW / predestination
It also touches on something that's been irritating me since I first read it: FW's opposition to predestination, and the fact that he made it such an important part of Frederick's submission. Because as far as I know, FW was a calvinist, and Calvin's doctrine was clearly pro predestination, so I don't quite get it. Did he just not care about the doctrine in this case and his opposition is all personal and a result of his conflict with Fritz, as in: Fritz discovering it as a clever argument against him, saying that everything he is/does/likes is predestined by God, so why would his father fault him for it? Certainly comes across that way. (It's an argument to irritate his father for sure, but it's also interesting in the context of Fritz trying to make sense of himself I think.)
And of course Fritz, submission or not, argues for predestination again, early on in his correspondence with Voltaire, while Voltaire obviously takes the free will side. It's very much a philosophical instead of a theological argument with him, though, because since Fritz doesn't believe in an immortal soul, the whole post-death part of salvation/damnation is clearly irrelevant to him.