and reasonable. In the first place, future contingent volitions are
never without a cause and sufficient ground of their existence, the
individual will being always taken as the cause and sufficient ground of
the individual volitions. God has therefore provided for the possible
existence of volitions other than his own, in the creation and
constitution of finite free will. Now, in relation to him, it is not
required to conceive of _media_ by which all the particular volitions
may be made known or proved to his mind, previous to their actual
existence. Whatever he knows, he knows by direct and infinite intuition;
he cannot be dependent upon any media for his knowledge. It is enough,
as I have already shown, to assign him prescience, in order to bring
within his positive knowledge all future contingent volitions. He knows
all the variety and the full extent of the possible, and amid the
possible he foresees the actual; and he foresees not only that class of
the actual which, as decreed and determined by himself, is relatively
necessary, but also that class of the actual which is to spring up under
the characteristic of contingency.
And herein, I would remark, lies the superiority of the divine
prescience over human forecast,--in that the former penetrates the
contingent as accurately as the necessary. With the latter it is far
otherwise. Human forecast or calculation can foresee the motions of the
planets, eclipses of the sun and moon, and even the flight of the
comets, because they are governed by necessary laws; but the volitions
of the human will form the subject of only _probable_ calculations.
But if human volitions, as contingent, form the subject of probable
calculations, there must be in opposition to Edwards something "that is
evident" and "now existent, with which the future existence of the
_contingent_ event is connected."
There are three kinds of certainty. _First_, absolute certainty. This is
the certainty which lies in necessary and eternal principles e. g. 2 x
2=4; the existence of space; every body must be in space; every
phenomenon must have a cause; the being of God.
Logical certainty, that is, the connexion between premises and
conclusion, is likewise absolute.
_Secondly_. Physical certainty. This is the certainty which lies in the
connexion between physical causes and their phenomena: e. g.
gravitation, heat, chemical affinities in general, mechanical forces.
The reason conceives of these causes as inherently active and uniform;
and hence, wherever a physical cause exists, we expect its proper
phenomena.
Now we do not call the operation of these causes _absolutely_ certain,
because they depend ultimately upon will,--the will of God; and we can
conceive that the same will which ordained them, can change, suspend, or
even annihilate them: they have no intrinsic necessity, still, as causes
given in time and space, we conceive of them generally as immutable. If
in any case they be changed, or suspended, we are compelled to recognise
the presence of that will which ordained them. Such change or suspension
we call a _miracle_; that is, a surprise,--a wonder, because it is
unlooked for.
When, therefore, we affirm any thing to be physically certain, we mean
that it is certain in the immutability of a cause acting in time and
space, and under a necessity relatively to the divine will; but still
not _absolutely_ certain, because there is a possibility of a miracle.
But when we affirm any thing to be absolutely certain, we mean that it
is certain as comprehended in a principle which is unalterable in its
very nature, and is therefore independent of will.
_Thirdly_. Moral certainty, is the certainty which lies between the
connexion of motive and will. By will we mean a self-conscious and
intelligent cause, or a cause in unity with intelligence. It is also, in
the fullest sense, a cause _per se_; that is, it contains within itself
proper efficiency, and determines its own direction. By _motives_ we
mean the reasons according to which the will acts. In general, all
activity proceeds according to rules, or laws, or reasons; for they have
the same meaning: but in mere material masses, the rule is not
contemplated by the acting force,--it is contemplated only by the
intelligence which ordained and conditioned the force. In spirit, on the
contrary, the activity which we call will is self-conscious, and is
connected with a perception of the reasons, or ends, or motives of
action. These motives or ends of action are of two kinds. _First_, those
found in the ideas of the practical reason, which decides what is fit
and right. These are reasons of supreme authority. _Secondly_, those
found in the understanding and sensitivity: e. g. the immediately useful
and expedient, and the gratification of passion. These are right only
when subordinate to the first.
Now these reasons and motives are a light to the will, and serve to
direct its activities; and the human conscience, which is but the
reason, has drawn up for the will explicit rules, suited to all
circumstances and relations, which are called _ethics_, or _the rules_.
These rules the will is not compelled or necessitated to obey. In every
volition it is conscious of a power to do or not to do; but yet, as the
will forms a unity with the intelligence, we take for granted that it
will obey them, unless grounds for an opposite conclusion are apparent.
But the only probable ground for a disobedience of these rules lies in a
state of sinfulness,--a corruption of the sensitivity, or a disposition
to violate the harmony and fitness of the spiritual constitution. Hence
moral certainty can exist only where the harmony of the spiritual being
is preserved. For example: God and good angels. In God moral certainty
is infinite. His dispositions are infinitely pure, and his will freely
determines to do right; it is not compelled or necessitated, for then
his infinite meritoriousness would cease. Moral certainty is _not
absolute_, because will being a power to do or not to do, there is
always a possibility, although there may be no probability, nay an
infinite improbability, that the will may disobey the laws of the
reason.
In the case of angels and good men, the moral certainty is such as to be
attended with no apprehension of a dereliction. With respect to such men
as Joseph, Daniel, Paul, Howard, and Washington, we can calculate with a
very high and satisfactory moral certainty, of the manner in which they
will act in any given circumstances involving the influence of motives.
We know they will obey truth, justice, and mercy,--that is, the _first_
class of motives; and the _second_ only so far as they are authorized by
the first. If the first class of motives are forsaken, then human
conduct can be calculated only according to the influence of the second
class.
Human character, however, is mixed and variously compounded. We might
make a scale of an indefinite number of degrees, from the highest point
of moral excellence to the lowest point of moral degradation, and then
our predictions of human conduct would vary with every degree.
In any particular case where we are called upon to reason from the
connexion of motives with the will, it is evident we must determine the
character of the individual as accurately as possible, in order to know
the probable _resultant_ of the opposite moral forces which we are
likely to find.
We have remarked that moral certainty exists only where the harmony of
the moral constitution is preserved. Here we know the right will be
obeyed. It may be remarked in addition to this, however, that moral
certainty may almost be said to exist in the case of the lowest moral
degradation, where the right is altogether forsaken. Here the rule is,
"whatever is most agreeable;" and the volition is indeed merged into the
sense of the most agreeable. But in the intermediate state lies the wide
field of probability. What is commonly called the knowledge of human
nature, and esteemed of most importance in the affairs of life, is not
the knowledge of human nature as it ought to be, but as it is in its
vast variety of good and evil. We gain this knowledge from observation
and history. What human nature ought to be, we learn from reason.
On a subject of so much importance, and where it is so desirable to have
clear and definite ideas, the rhetorical ungracefulness of repetition is
of little moment, when this repetition serves our great end. I shall be
pardoned, therefore, in calling the attention of the reader to a point
above suggested, namely, that the will is in a triunity with reason and
sensitivity, and, in the constitution of our being, is designed to
derive its rules and inducements of action from these. Acts which are in
the direction of neither reason nor sensitivity, must be very trifling
acts; and therefore acts of this description, although possible, we may
conclude are very rare. In calculating, then, future acts of will, we
may, like the mathematicians, drop infinitesimal differences, and assume
that all acts of the will are in the direction of reason or sensitivity,
or of both in their harmony. Although the will is conscious of power to
do, out of the direction of both reason and sensitivity, still, in the
triunity in which it exists, it submits itself to the general interests
of the being, and consults the authority of conscience, or the
enjoyments of passion. Now every individual has acquired for himself
habits and a character more or less fixed. He is known to have submitted
himself from day to day, and in a great variety of transactions, to the
laws of the conscience; and hence we conclude that he has formed for
himself a fixed purpose of doing right. He has exhibited, too, on many
occasions, noble, generous, and pure feelings; and hence we conclude
that his sensitivity harmonizes with conscience. Or he is known to have
violated the laws of the conscience from day to day, and in a great
variety of transactions; and hence we conclude that he has formed for
himself a fixed purpose of doing wrong. He has exhibited, too, on many
occasions, low, selfish, and impure feelings; and hence we conclude that
his sensitivity is in collision with conscience.
In both cases supposed, and in like manner in all supposable cases,
there is plainly a basis on which, in any given circumstances, we may
foresee and predict volitions. There is something "that is evident and
now existent with which the future existence of the contingent event is
connected." On the one hand these predictions exert no necessitating
influence over the events themselves, for they are entirely disconnected
with the causation of the events: and, on the other hand, the events
need not be assumed as necessary in order to become the objects of
probable calculations. If they were necessary, the calculations would no
longer be merely probable:--they would, on the contrary, take the
precision and certainty of the calculation of eclipses and other
phenomena based upon necessary laws. But these calculations can aim only
at _moral_ certainty, because they are made according to the generally
known and received determinations of will in a unity with reason and
sensitivity; but still a will which is known also to have the power to
depart at any moment from the line of determination which it has
established for itself. Thus the calculations which we make respecting
the conduct of one man in given circumstances, based on his known
integrity, and the calculations which we make respecting another, based
on his known dishonesty, may alike disappoint us, through the
unexpected, though possible dereliction of the first, and the
unexpected, though possible reformation of the latter. When we reason
from moral effects to moral causes, or from moral causes to moral
effects, we cannot regard the operation of causes as positive and
uniform under the same law of necessity which appertains to physical
causes, because in moral causality the free will is the efficient and
last determiner. It is indeed true that we reason here with a high
degree of probability, with a probability sufficient to regulate wisely
and harmoniously the affairs of society; but we cannot reason respecting
human conduct, as we reason respecting the phenomena of the physical
world, because it is possible for the human will to disappoint
calculations based upon the ordinary influence of motives: e. g. the
motive does not hold the same relation to will which fire holds to
combustible substance; the fire must burn; the will may or may not
determine in view of motive. Hence the reason why, in common parlance,
probable evidence has received the name of moral evidence: moral
evidence being generally probable, all probable evidence is called
moral.
The will differs from physical causes in being a cause _per se_, but
although a cause _per se_, it has laws to direct its volitions. It may
indeed violate these laws and become a most arbitrary and inconstant law
unto itself; but this violation of law and this arbitrary determination
do not arise from it necessarily as a cause _per se_, but from an abuse
of its liberty. As a cause in unity with the laws of the reason, we
expect it to be uniform, and in its harmonious and perfect movements it
is uniform. Physical causes are uniform because God has determined and
fixed them according to laws derived from infinite wisdom.
The human will may likewise be uniform by obeying the laws of
conscience, but the departures may also be indefinitely numerous and
various.
To sum up these observations in general statements, we remark;--
First: The connexion on which we base predictions of human volitions, is
the connexion of will with reason and sensitivity in the unity of the
mind or spirit.
Secondly: By this connexion, the will is seen to be designed to be
regulated by truth and righteousness, and by feeling subordinated to
these.
Thirdly: In the purity of the soul, the will is thus regulated.
Fourthly: This regulation, however, does not take place by the necessary
governance which reason and sensitivity have over will, but by a
self-subjection of will to their rules and inducements;--this
constitutes meritoriousness,--the opposite conduct constitutes ill
desert.
Fifthly: Our calculations must proceed according to the degree and
fixedness of this self-subjection to reason and right feeling; or where
this does not exist, according to the degree and fixedness of the habits
of wrong doing, in a self-subjection to certain passions in opposition
to reason.
Sixthly: Our calculations will be more or less certain according to the
extent and accuracy of our observations upon human conduct.
Seventhly: Our calculations can never be attended with _absolute_
certainty, because the will being contingent, has the power of
disappointing calculations made upon the longest observed uniformity.
Eighthly: Our expectations respecting the determinations of Deity are
attended with the highest moral certainty. We say _moral_ certainty,
because it is certainty not arising from necessity, and in that sense
absolute; but certainty arising from the free choice of an infinitely
pure being. Thus, when God is affirmed to be immutable, and when it is
affirmed to be impossible for him to lie, it cannot be meant that he has
not the power to change or to determine contrary to truth; but that
there is an infinite moral certainty arising from the perfection of his
nature, that he never will depart from infinite wisdom and rectitude.
To assign God any other immutability would be to deprive him of freedom.
Ninthly: The divine foresight of human volitions need not be supposed to
necessitate them, any more than human foresight, inasmuch as foreseeing
them, has no necessary connexion in any case with their causation.
Again, if it does not appear essential to the divine foresight of
volitions that they should be necessary. We have seen that future
contingent volitions may be calculated with a high degree of certainty
even by men; and now supposing that the divine being must proceed in the
same way to calculate them through _media_,--the reach and accuracy of
his calculations must be in the proportion of his intelligence, and how
far short of a certain and perfect knowledge of all future contingent
volitions can infinite intelligence be supposed to fall by such
calculations?
Tenthly: But we may not suppose that the infinite mind is compelled to
resort to deduction, or to employ _media_ for arriving at any particular
knowledge. In the attribute of prescience, he is really present to all
the possible and actual of the future.
III. The third and last point of Edwards's argument is as follows: "To
suppose the future volitions of moral agents, not to be necessary
events; or which is the same thing, events which it is not impossible
but that they may not come to pass; and yet to suppose that God
certainly foreknows them, and knows all things, is to suppose God's
knowledge to be inconsistent with itself. For to say that God certainly
and without all conjecture, knows that a thing will infallibly be, which
at the same time he knows to be so contingent, that it may possibly not
be, is to suppose his knowledge inconsistent with itself; or that one
thing he knows is utterly inconsistent with another thing he knows."
(page 117.)
The substance of this reasoning is this. That inasmuch as a contingent
future event is _uncertain_ from its very nature and definition, it
cannot be called an object of _certain_ knowledge, to any mind, not even
to the divine mind, without a manifest contradiction. "It is the same as
to say, he now knows a proposition to be of certain infallible truth,
which he knows to be of contingent uncertain truth."
We have here again an error arising from not making a proper
distinction, which I have already pointed out,--the distinction between
the certainty of a future volition as a mere fact existent, and the
manner in which that fact came to exist.
The fact of volition comes to exist contingently; that is, by a power
which in giving it existence, is under no law of necessity, and at the
moment of causation, is conscious of ability to withhold the causative
_nibus_. Now all volitions which have already come to exist in this way,
have both a certain and contingent existence. It is certain that they
have come to exist, for that is a matter of observation; but their
existence is also contingent, because they came to exist, not by
necessity as a mathematical conclusion, but by a cause contingent and
free, and which, although actually giving existence to these volitions,
had the power to withhold them.
Certainty and contingency are not opposed, and exclusive of each other
in reference to what has already taken place. Are they opposed and
exclusive of each other in reference to the future? In the first place,
we may reason on probable grounds. Contingent causes have already
produced volitions--hence they may produce volitions in the future. They
have produced volitions in obedience to laws of reason and
sensitivity--hence they may do so in the future. They have done this
according to a uniformity self-imposed, and long and habitually
observed--hence this uniformity may be continued in the future.
A future contingent event may therefore have a high degree of
probability, and even a moral certainty.
But to a being endowed with prescience, what prevents a positive and
infallible knowledge of a future contingent event? His mind extends to
the actual in the future, as easily as to the actual in the past; but
the actual of the future is not only that which comes to pass by his own
determination and _nibus_, and therefore necessarily in its relation to
himself as cause, but also that which comes to pass by the _nibus_ of
constituted wills, contingent and free, as powers to do or not to do.
There is no opposition, as Edwards supposes, between the infallible
divine foreknowledge, and the contingency of the event;--the divine
foreknowledge is infallible from its own inherent perfection; and of
course there can be no doubt but that the event foreseen will come to
pass; but then it is foreseen as an event coming to pass contingently,
and not necessarily.
The error we have just noted, appears again in the corollary which
Edwards immediately deduces from his third position. "From what has been
observed," he remarks, "it is evident, that the absolute _decrees_ of
God are no more inconsistent with human liberty, on account of the
necessity of the event which follows such decrees, than the absolute
foreknowledge of God." (page 118.) The absolute decrees of God are the
determinations of his will, and comprehend the events to which they
relate, as the cause comprehends the effect. Foreknowledge, on the
contrary, has no causality in relation to events foreknown. It is not a
determination of divine will, but a form of the divine intelligence.
Hence the decrees of God do actually and truly necessitate events; while
the foreknowledge of God extends to events which are not necessary but
contingent,--as well as to those which are pre-determined.
Edwards always confounds contingency with chance or no cause, and thus
makes it absurd in its very definition. He also always confounds
certainty with necessity, and thus compels us to take the latter
universal and absolute, or to plunge into utter uncertainty, doubt, and
disorder.
Prescience is an essential attribute of Deity. Prescience makes the
events foreknown, certain; but if certain, they must be necessary. And
on the other hand, if the events were not certain, they could not be
foreknown,--for that which is uncertain cannot be the object of positive
and infallible knowledge; but if they are certain in order to be
foreknown, then they must be necessary.
Again: contingence, as implying no cause, puts all future events
supposed to come under it, out of all possible connexion with anything
preceding and now actually existent, and consequently allows of no basis
upon which they can be calculated and foreseen. Contingence, also, as
opposed to necessity, destroys certainty, and excludes the possibility
even of divine prescience. This is the course of Edwards's reasoning.
Now if we have reconciled contingence with both cause and certainty, and
have opposed it only to necessity, thus separating cause and certainty
from the absolute and unvarying dominion of necessity, then this
reasoning is truly and legitimately set aside.
Necessity lies only in the eternal reason, and the sensitivity connected
with it:--contingency lies only in will. But the future acts of will can
be calculated from its known union with, and self-subjection to the
reason and sensitivity.
These calculations are more or less probable, or are certain according
to the known character of the person who is the subject of these
calculations.
Of God we do not affirm merely the power of calculating future
contingent events upon known data, but a positive prescience of all
events. He sees from the beginning how contingent causes or wills, will
act. He sees with absolute infallibility and certainty--and the events
to him are infallible and certain. But still they are not necessary,
because the causes which produce them are not determined and
necessitated by anything preceding. They are causes contingent and free,
and conscious of power not to do what they are actually engaged in
doing.