The attempt of Edwards to establish free and accountable agency on the
basis of necessity—The views of the younger Edwards, Day, Chalmers, Dick,
D’Aubigne, Hill, Shaw, and M’Cosh, concerning the agreement of liberty and
necessity.
The great metaphysician of New-England insists, that his scheme, and his
scheme alone, is consistent with the free-agency and accountability of
man. But how does he show this? Does he endeavour to shake the stern
argument by which all things seem bound together in the relation of cause
and effect? Does he even intimate a doubt with respect to the perfect
coherency and validity of this argument? Does he once enter a protest
against the doctrine of the Stoics, or of the materialistic fatalists,
according to which all things in heaven and earth are involved in an
“implex series of causes?” He does not. On the contrary, he has stated and
enforced the great argument from cause and effect, in the strongest
possible terms. He contends that volition is caused, not by the will nor
the mind, but by the strongest motive. This is the cause of volition, and
it is impossible for the effect to be loose from its cause. It is an
inherent contradiction, a glaring absurdity, to say that motive is the
cause of volition, and yet admit that volition may, or may not, follow
motive. This is to say, indeed, that motive is the cause, and yet that it
is not the cause, of volition; which is a contradiction in terms.(25) So
far from saying anything, then, to extricate the volitions of men from the
adamantine circle of necessity, he has exerted his prodigious energies to
fasten them therein.
Hence the question arises, Has he left any room for the introduction of
that _freedom of the mind_, which it is the great object of his inquiry to
establish upon its true foundations? The liberty for which he contends,
is, after all his labours, precisely that advocated by Hobbes and Collins,
and no other. It is a freedom from co-action, and not from necessity. But
he is entitled to speak for himself, and we shall permit him so to do:
“The plain and obvious meaning of the word _freedom_ and liberty,” says
he, “in common speech, is the _power_, opportunity, _or advantage, that
any one has, to do as he pleases_. Or, in other words, his being free from
hinderance or impediment in the way of doing or conducting in any respect
_as he wills_. And the contrary to liberty, whatever name we call it by,
is a person being hindered, or unable to conduct as he will, or being
necessitated to do otherwise.” Here, it will be seen, that liberty,
according to this notion of it, has no relation to the manner in which the
will arises, or comes into existence; if one’s external conduct can only
follow his will, he is free.
“There are two things,” says he, “contrary to what is called liberty in
common speech. One is _constraint_, otherwise called _force_,
_compulsion_, and _co-action_; which is a person being necessitated to do
a thing _contrary_ to his will. The other is _restraint_; which is, his
being hindered, and not having power to do _according_ to his will. But
that which has no will cannot be the subject of these things.” This
definition, it is plain, presupposes the existence of a volition; and
liberty consists in the absence of co-action. It has no relation to the
question as to how we come by our volitions, whether they are put forth by
the mind itself without being necessitated, or whether they are
necessarily produced in us. It leaves this great fundamental question
untouched.
On this subject his language is perfectly explicit. There is nothing in
Kames, nor Collins, nor Crombie, nor Hobbes, nor any other writer, more
perfectly unequivocal. “But one thing more,” says he, “I would observe
concerning what is vulgarly called liberty, namely, that power and
opportunity for one to do and conduct as he will, or according to his
choice, is all that is meant by it, without taking into the meaning of the
word anything of the cause of that choice, or at all considering how the
person came to have such a volition, or internal habit and bias; whether
it was determined by some internal antecedent volition, or whether it
happened without a cause; whether it were necessarily connected with
something foregoing, or not connected. _Let the person come by his choice
any how_, yet, if he is able, and there is nothing in the way to hinder
his pursuing and executing his will, _the man is perfectly free according
to the primary and common notion of freedom_.” Now this is all the
definition of liberty with which his “Inquiry” furnishes us; and this, he
says, is “sufficient to show what is meant by liberty, according to the
common notion of mankind, and in the usual and primary acceptation of the
word.”
It is easy to see, that there is no difficulty in reconciling liberty, in
such a sense, with the most absolute scheme of necessity or fatalism the
world has ever seen. Let a man come by his volition ANY HOW; let it be
produced in him by the direct and almighty power of God himself; yet, “he
is perfectly free,” provided there is no external co-action to prevent his
volition from producing its natural effects!
President Day is not pleased with the definition contained in the
“Inquiry;” and in this particular we think he has discovered a superior
sagacity to Edwards. But his extreme anxiety to save the credit of his
author has betrayed him, it seems to us, into an apology which will not
bear a close examination. “On the subject of liberty or freedom,” says he,
“which occupies a portion of the fifth section of Edwards’s first book, he
has been less particular than was to be expected, considering that this is
the great object of inquiry in his work. His explanation of what he
regards as the proper meaning of the term is applicable to the liberty of
outward _action_, to what is called by philosophers _external_ liberty.”
“This is very well as far as it goes. But the professed object of his
book, according to the title-page, is an inquiry concerning the freedom of
the will, not the freedom of the external conduct. We naturally look for
his meaning of this internal liberty. What he has said, in this section,
respecting freedom of the will, has rather the appearance of evading such
a definition of it as might be considered his own.”(26) Now, is it
possible that President Edwards has instituted an inquiry into the freedom
of the will, and written a great book in defence of it, and yet has evaded
giving his own definition of it? If so, then he may have demolished the
views of others on this subject, but he has certainly not established his
own in their stead; and hence, for aught we know, he really did not
believe in the freedom of the will at all; and, for all his work shows,
there may be no such freedom. For how is it possible for any man to
establish his views of the freedom of the will, if he is not at sufficient
pains to explain his meaning of the terms, and forbears even to give his
own definition of them?
But the truth is, the author of the “Inquiry” has placed it beyond all
controversy, that he has been guilty of no such omission or evasion. He
has left no room to doubt that the definition of liberty, which he says is
in conformity “with the common notion of mankind,” is his own. He always
uses this definition when he undertakes to repel objections against his
scheme of necessity. “It is evident,” he says, “that such a providential
disposing and determining of men’s moral actions, though it infers a moral
necessity of those actions, _yet it does not in the least infringe the
real liberty of mankind, the only liberty that common sense teaches to be
necessary to moral agency, which_, AS HAS BEEN DEMONSTRATED, is not
inconsistent with such necessity.”(27) He defines liberty in the very
words of Collins and Hobbes, to mean the power or opportunity any one has
“to do as he pleases;” or, in other words, to do “as he _wills_.”(28) This
definition, he says, is according to the primary and common notion of
mankind; and now he declares, that “this is the only liberty common sense
teaches is necessary to moral agency.” It is very strange that any one
should have read the great work of President Edwards without perceiving
that this is the sense in which he always uses the term when he undertakes
to repel the attacks of his adversaries. To select only one instance out
of many, he says, “If the Stoics held such a fate as is repugnant to any
liberty, consisting in our doing as we please, I utterly deny such a fate.
If they held any such fate as is not consistent with the common and
universal notions that mankind have of liberty, activity, moral agency,
virtue, and vice, I disclaim any such thing, and think I have demonstrated
the scheme I maintain is no such scheme.”(29) Thus he always has recourse
to this definition of liberty, consisting in the power or opportunity any
one has “to do as he pleases,” or, in other words, “as he wills,” whenever
he attempts to reconcile his doctrine with the moral agency and
accountability of man, or to vindicate it against the attacks of his
opponents. We must suppose then, that Edwards has given his own definition
of liberty in the Inquiry, or we must conclude that he defended his system
by the use of an idea of liberty which he did not believe to be correct;
that when he alleged that he “had demonstrated” his doctrine to be
consistent with free-agency, he only meant with a false and atheistical
notion of free-agency.
We are not surprised that President Day does not like this definition of
liberty; but we are somewhat surprised, we confess, that such an idea of
liberty should be so unhesitatingly adopted from Edwards, and so
confidently set forth as the highest conceivable notion thereof, by Dr.
Chalmers. He does not seem to entertain the shadow of a doubt, either that
the definition of liberty contained in the Inquiry is that of Edwards
himself, or that which is fully founded in truth. He freely concedes, that
“we can do as we please,” and supposes that the reader may be startled to
hear that this is “cordially admitted by the necessitarians themselves!”
But this concession he easily reconciles with the tenet of necessity. “To
say that you can do as you please,” says he, “is just to affirm one of
those sequences which take place in the phenomena of mind—a sequence
whereof a volition is the antecedent, and the performance of that volition
is the consequent. It is a sequence which no advocate of the philosophical
necessity is ever heard to deny. Let the volition ever be formed, and if
it point to some execution which lies within the limits we have just
adverted to, the execution of it will follow.”(30) Thus, his notion of
liberty makes it consist in the absence of external impediments, which
might break the connexion of a volition and its consequent, and not in the
freedom of the will itself from the absolute dominion of causes. Such an
idea of free-will, it must be confessed, is very well adopted by one who
intends to maintain “a rigid and absolute predestination” of all events.
The manner in which Edwards attempts to reconcile the free-agency and
accountability of man with the great argument from the law of causation,
or with his doctrine of necessity, is, as we have seen, precisely the same
as that adopted by Hobbes. There is not a shade of difference between
them. It is, indeed, easy to demonstrate that liberty, according to this
definition of it, is not inconsistent with necessity; and it is just as
easy to demonstrate, that it is not inconsistent with any scheme of fate
that has ever been heard of among men. The will may be absolutely
necessitated in all its acts, and yet the body may be free from external
co-action or natural necessity!
But though there is this close agreement between Hobbes and Edwards, there
are some points of divergency between Edwards and Calvin. The former comes
forward as the advocate of free-will, the latter expressly denies that we
have a free-will. Calvin admits that we may be free from co-action or
compulsion; but to call this freedom of the will, is, he considers, to
decorate a most “diminutive thing with a superb title.” And though this is
all the freedom Edwards allows us to possess, yet he does not hesitate to
declare that his doctrine is perfectly consistent with “the highest degree
of liberty that ever could be thought of, or that ever could possibly
enter into the heart of man to conceive.”
The only liberty we possess, according to all the authors referred to, is
a freedom of the body and not of the mind. Though the younger Edwards is a
strenuous advocate of his father’s doctrine, he has sometimes, without
intending to do so, let fall a heavy blow upon it. He finds, for instance,
the following language in the writings of Dr. West, “he might have omitted
doing the thing if he would,” and he is perplexed to ascertain its
meaning. “To say that if a man had chosen not to go to a debauch, (for
that is the case put by Dr. West,) he would, indeed, have chosen not to go
to it, is too great trifling to be ascribed to Dr. West.” “Yet to say,” he
continues, “that the man could have avoided the _external action of
going_, &c., if he would, would be equally trifling; for the question
before us is concerning the liberty of the _will_ or _mind_, and _not_ the
body.” The italics are his own. It seems, then, that in the opinion of the
younger Edwards it is very great trifling to speak of the power to do an
_external action_ in the present controversy, _because it relates to the
will or mind, and not to the body_. We believe this remark to be perfectly
just, and although it was aimed at the antagonist of President Edwards, it
falls with crushing weight on the doctrine of President Edwards himself.
Is it not wonderful that so just a reflection did not occur to the younger
Edwards, in relation to the definition of liberty contained in the great
work he had undertaken to defend?
We have now seen how some of the early reformers, and some of the great
thinkers in after-times, have endeavoured to reconcile the scheme of
necessity with the free-agency and accountability of man. Before quitting
this subject, however, we wish to adduce a remarkable passage from one of
the most correct reasoners, as well as one of the most impressive writers
that in modern times have advocated the doctrines of Calvinism. “Here we
come to a question,” says he, “which has engaged the attention, and
exercised the ingenuity, and perplexed the wits of men in every age. If
God has foreordained whatever comes to pass, the whole series of events is
necessary, and human liberty is taken away. Men are passive instruments in
the hands of their Maker; they can do nothing but what they are secretly
and irresistibly impelled to do; they are not, therefore, responsible for
their actions; and God is the author of sin.” After sweeping away some
attempts to solve this difficulty, he adds: “It is a more intelligible
method to explain the subject by the doctrine which makes liberty consist
in the power of acting according to the prevailing inclination, or the
motive which appears strongest to the mind. Those actions are free which
are the _effects of volition_. _In whatever manner the state of mind which
gave rise to volition has been produced, the liberty of the agent is
neither greater nor less. It is his will alone which is to be considered,
and not the means by which it has been determined._ If God foreordained
certain actions, and placed men in such circumstances that the actions
would certainly take place agreeably to the laws of the mind, men are
nevertheless moral agents, because they act voluntarily and are
responsible for the actions which consent has made their own. _Liberty
does not consist in the power of acting or not acting, but in acting from
choice._ The choice is determined by something in the mind itself, or by
something external influencing the mind; but _whatever is the cause_, the
choice makes the action free, _and the agent accountable_. _If this
definition of liberty be admitted, you will perceive that it is possible
to reconcile the freedom of the will with absolute decrees; but we have
not got rid of every difficulty._” Now this definition of liberty, it is
obvious, is precisely the same as that given by President Edwards, and
nothing could be more perfectly adapted to effect a reconciliation between
the freedom of the will and the doctrine of absolute decrees. How
perfectly it shapes the freedom of man to fit the doctrine of
predestination! It is a fine piece of workmanship, it is true; but as the
learned and candid author remarks, we must not imagine that we have “got
rid of every difficulty.” For, “_by this theory_,” he continues, “_human
actions appear to be as necessary as the motions of matter according to
the laws of gravitation and attraction; and man seems to be a machine,
conscious of his movements, and consenting to them, but impelled by
something different from himself_.”(31) Such is the candid confession of
this devoted Calvinist.
We have now seen the nature of that freedom of the will which the immortal
Edwards has exerted all his powers to recommend to the Christian world!
“Egregious liberty!” exclaimed Calvin. “It merely allows us elbow-room,”
says Leibnitz. “It seems, after all, to leave us mere machines,” says
Dick. “It is trifling to speak of such a thing,” says the younger Edwards,
in relation to the will. “Why, surely, this cannot be what the great
President Edwards meant by the freedom of the will,” says Dr. Day. He
certainly must have evaded his own idea on that point. Is it not evident,
that the house of the necessitarian is divided against itself?
Necessitarians not only refute each other, but in most cases each one
contradicts himself. Thus the younger Edwards says, it is absurd to speak
of a power to act according to our choice, when the question relates, not
to the freedom of the body, but to the freedom of the mind itself. He
happens to see the absurdity of this mode of speaking when he finds it in
his adversary, Dr. West; and yet it is precisely his own definition of
freedom. “But if by liberty,” says he, “be meant a power of willing and
choosing, an exemption from co-action and natural necessity, and power,
opportunity, and advantage, to _execute our own choice_; in this sense we
hold liberty.”(32) Thus he returns to the absurd idea of free-will as
consisting in “elbow-room,” which merely allows our choice or volition to
pass into effect. Dr. Dick is guilty of the same inconsistency. Though he
admits, as we have seen, that this definition of liberty does not get rid
of every difficulty, but seems to leave us mere “machines;” yet he has
recourse to it, in order to reconcile the Calvinistic view of divine grace
with the free-agency of man. “The great objection,” says he, “against the
invincibility of divine grace, is, that it is subversive of the liberty of
the will.”(33) But, he replies, “True liberty consists in doing what we do
with knowledge and _from choice_.”
Yet as if unconscious that their greatest champions were thus routed and
overthrown by each other, we see hundreds of minor necessitarians still
fighting on with the same weapons, perfectly unmindful of the disorder and
confusion which reigns around them in their own ranks. Thus, for example,
D’Aubigné says, “It were _easy to demonstrate_ that the doctrine of the
reformers did not take away from man the liberty of a moral agent, and
reduce him to a passive machine.” Now, how does the historian so easily
demonstrate that the doctrine of necessity, as held by the reformers, does
not deny the liberty of a moral agent? Why, by simply producing the old
effete notion of the liberty of the will, as consisting in freedom from
co-action; as if it had never been, and never could be, called in
question. “Every action performed without external restraint,” says he,
“and in pursuance of the determination of the soul itself, is a free
action.”(34) This demonstration, it is needless to repeat, would save any
scheme of fatalism from reproach, as well as the doctrine of the
reformers.
The scheme of the Calvinists is defended in the same manner in Hill’s
Divinity: “The liberty of a moral agent,” says he, “consists in the power
of acting according to his choice; and those actions are free, which are
performed without any external compulsion or restraint, in consequence of
the determination of his own mind.” “According to the Calvinists,” says
Mr. Shaw, in his Exposition of the Confession of Faith, “the liberty of a
moral agent consists in the power of acting according to his choice; and
those actions are free which are performed without any external compulsion
or restraint, in consequence of the determination of his own mind.”(35)
Such, if we may believe these learned Calvinists, is the idea of the
freedom of the will which belongs to their system. If this be so, then it
must be conceded that the Calvinistic definition of the freedom of the
will is perfectly consistent with the most absolute scheme of fatality
which ever entered into the heart of man to conceive.
The views of M’Cosh respecting the freedom of the will, seem, at first
sight, widely different from those of other Calvinists and necessitarians.
The freedom and independence of the will is certainly pushed as far by him
as it is carried by Cousin, Coleridge, Clarke, or any of its advocates in
modern times. “True necessitarians,” says he, “should learn in what way to
hold and defend their doctrine. Let them disencumber themselves of all
that doubtful argument, derived from man being supposed to be swayed by
the most powerful motive.”(36) Again: “The truth is,” says he, “it is not
motive, properly speaking, that determines the working of the will; but it
is the will that imparts the strength to the motive. As Coleridge says,
‘It is the man that makes the motive, and not the motive the man.’ ”(37)
According to this Calvinistic divine, the will is not determined by the
strongest motive; on the contrary, it is self-active and self-determined.
“Mind is a self-acting substance,” says he; “and hence its activity and
independence.” In open defiance of all Calvinistic and necessitarian
philosophy, he even adopts the self-determining power of the will. “Nor
have necessitarians,” says he, “even of the highest order, been
sufficiently careful to guard the language employed by them. Afraid of
making admissions to their opponents, we believe that none of them have
fully developed the phenomena of human spontaneity. Even Edwards ridicules
the idea of the faculty or power of will, or the soul in the use of that
power determining its own volitions. Now, we hold it to be an
incontrovertible fact, and one of great importance, that the true
determining cause of every given volition is not any mere anterior
incitement, but the very soul itself, by its inherent power of will.”(38)
Surely, the author of such a passage cannot be accused of being afraid to
make concessions to his opponents. But this is not all. If possible, he
rises still higher in his views of the lofty, not to say god-like,
independence of the human will. “We rejoice,” says he, “to recognise such
a being in man. We trust that we are cherishing no presumptuous feeling,
when we believe him to be free, as his Maker is free. We believe him,
morally speaking, to be as independent of external control as his Creator
must ever be—as that Creator was when, in a past eternity, there was no
external existence to control him.”(39)
Yet, strange as it may seem, Mr. M’Cosh trembles at the idea of “removing
the creature from under the control of God;” and hence, he insists as
strenuously as any other necessitarian, that the mind, and all its
volitions, are subjected to the dominion of causes. “We are led by an
intuition of our nature,” says he, “to a belief in the invariable
connexion between cause and effect; and we see numerous proofs of this law
of cause and effect reigning in the human mind as it does in the external
world, and reigning in the will as it does in every other department of
the mind.”(40) Again: “It is by an intuition of our nature that we believe
this thought or feeling could not have been produced without a cause; and
that this same cause will again and forever produce the same effects. And
this intuitive principle leads us to expect the reign of causation, not
only among the thoughts and feelings generally, but among the wishes and
volitions of the soul.”(41)
Now here is the question, How can the soul be self-active,
self-determined, and yet all its thoughts, and feelings, and volitions,
have producing causes? How can it be free and independent in its acts, and
yet under the dominion of efficient causes? How can the law of causation
reign in all the states of the mind, as it reigns over all the movements
of matter, and yet leave it as free as was the Creator when nothing beside
himself existed? In other words, How is such a scheme of necessity to be
reconciled with such a scheme of liberty? The author replies, We are not
bound to answer such a question(42)—nor are we. As we understand it, the
very idea of liberty, as above set forth by the author, is a direct
negative of his doctrine of necessity.
But although he has taken so much pains to dissent from his necessitarian
brethren, and to advocate the Arminian notion of free-will, Mr. M’Cosh,
nevertheless, falls back upon the old Calvinistic definition of liberty,
as consisting in a freedom from external co-action, in order to find a
basis for human responsibility. It may seem strange, that after all his
labour in laying the foundation, he should not build upon it; but it is
strictly true. “If any man asserts,” says he, “that in order to
responsibility, the will must be free—that is, free from physical
restraint; free to act as he pleases—we at once and heartily agree with
him; and we maintain that in this sense the will is free, as free as it is
possible for any man to conceive it to be.” And again: “If actions do not
proceed from the will, but from something else, from mere physical or
external restraint, then the agent is not responsible for them. But if the
deeds proceed from the will, then it at once attaches a responsibility to
them. Place before the mind a murder committed by a party through pure
physical compulsion brought to bear on the arm that inflicts the blow, and
the conscience says, here no guilt is attachable. But let the same murder
be done with the thorough consent of the will, the conscience stops not to
inquire whether _this consent has been caused or no_.”(43) Thus, after all
his dissent from Edwards, he returns precisely to Edwards’s definition of
the freedom of the will as the ground of human responsibility; after all
his strictures upon “necessitarians of the first order,” he falls back
upon precisely that notion of free-will which was so long ago condemned by
Calvin, and exploded by Leibnitz, and which relates, as we have so often
seen, not to acts of the will at all, but only to the external movements
of the body.