[Sidenote: The Bishop’s reply.]
_J. D._ “Fourthly, if either the decree of God, or the foreknowledge of
God, or the influence of the stars, or the concatenation of causes, or
the physical or moral efficacy of objects, or the last dictate of the
understanding, do take away true liberty, then Adam before his fall had
no true liberty. For he was subjected to the same decrees, the same
prescience, the same constellations, the same causes, the same objects,
the same dictates of the understanding. But, _quicquid ostendes mihi
sic, incredulus odi_; the greatest opposers of our liberty, are as
earnest maintainers of the liberty of Adam. Therefore none of these
supposed impediments take away true liberty.”
_T. H._ The fourth argument is to this effect: “If the decree of God, or
his foreknowledge, or the influence of the stars, or the concatenation
of causes, or the physical or moral efficacy of causes, or the last
dictate of the understanding, or whatsoever it be, do take away true
liberty, then Adam before his fall had no true liberty. _Quicquid
ostendes mihi sic, incredulus odi._” That which I say necessitateth and
determineth every action, (that he may no longer doubt of my meaning),
is the sum of all those things, which being now existent, conduce and
concur to the production of that action hereafter, whereof if any one
thing now were wanting, the effect could not be produced. This concourse
of causes, whereof every one is determined to be such as it is by a like
concourse of former causes, may well be called (in respect they were all
set and ordered by the eternal cause of all things, God Almighty) the
decree of God.
But that the foreknowledge of God should be a cause of any thing, cannot
be truly said; seeing foreknowledge is knowledge, and knowledge
dependeth on the existence of the things known, and not they on it.
The influence of the stars is but a small part of the whole cause,
consisting of the concourse of all agents.
Nor doth the concourse of all causes make one simple chain or
concatenation, but an innumerable number of chains joined together, not
in all parts, but in the first link, God Almighty; and consequently the
whole cause of an event does not always depend upon one single chain,
but on many together.
Natural efficacy of objects does determine voluntary agents, and
necessitates the will, and consequently the action; but for moral
efficacy, I understand not what he means by it. The last dictate of the
judgment concerning the good or bad that may follow on any action, is
not properly the whole cause, but the last part of it; and yet may be
said to produce the effect necessarily, in such manner as the last
feather may be said to break an horse’s back, when there were so many
laid on before as there wanted but that to do it.
Now for his argument, that if the concourse of all the causes
necessitate the effect, that then it follows, Adam had no true liberty.
I deny the consequence; for I make not only the effect, but also the
election of that particular effect to be necessary, inasmuch as the will
itself, and each propension of a man during his deliberation, is as much
necessitated, and depends on a sufficient cause, as any thing else
whatsoever. As for example, it is no more necessary that fire should
burn, than that a man, or other creature, whose limbs be moved by fancy,
should have election, that is, liberty to do what he has a fancy to,
though it be not in his will or power to choose his fancy, or choose his
election or will.
This doctrine, because he says he hates, I doubt had better been
suppressed; as it should have been, if both your Lordship and he had not
pressed me to an answer.
_J. D._ (_a_) “This argument was sent forth only as an espy to make a
more full discovery, what were the true grounds of T. H.’s supposed
necessity. Which errand being done, and the foundation whereupon he
builds being found out, which is, as I called it, a concatenation of
causes, and, as he calls it, a concourse of necessary causes; it would
now be a superfluous and impertinent work in me to undertake the
refutation of all those other opinions, which he doth not undertake to
defend. And therefore I shall waive them at the present, with these
short animadversions.
(_b_) “Concerning the eternal decree of God, he confounds the decree
itself with the execution of his decree. And concerning the
foreknowledge of God, he confounds that speculative knowledge, which is
called _the knowledge of vision_, (which doth not produce the
intellective objects, no more than the sensitive vision doth produce the
sensible objects), with that other knowledge of God, which is called the
_knowledge of approbation_, or _a practical knowledge_, that is,
knowledge joined with an act of the will, of which divines do truly say,
that it is the cause of things, as the knowledge of the artist is the
cause of his work. John i.: _God made all things by his word_; that is,
by his wisdom. Concerning the influence of the stars, I wish he had
expressed himself more clearly. For as I do willingly grant, that those
heavenly bodies do act upon these sublunary things, not only by their
motion and light, but also by an occult virtue, which we call influence,
as we see by manifold experience in the loadstone and shell-fish, &c.:
so if he intend that by these influences they do naturally or physically
determine the will, or have any direct dominion over human counsels,
either in whole or in part, either more or less, he is in an error.
Concerning the concatenation of causes, whereas he makes not one chain,
but an innumerable number of chains, (I hope he speaks hyperbolically,
and doth not intend that they are actually infinite), the difference is
not material whether one or many, so long as they are all joined
together, both in the first link, and likewise in the effect. It serves
to no end but to shew what a shadow of liberty T. H. doth fancy, or
rather what a dream of a shadow. As if one chain were not sufficient to
load poor man, but he must be clogged with innumerable chains. This is
just such another freedom as the Turkish galley-slaves do enjoy. But I
admire that T. H., who is so versed in this question, should here
confess that he understands not the difference between physical or
natural, and moral efficacy: and much more that he should affirm, that
outward objects do determine voluntary agents by a natural efficacy. No
object, no second agent, angel or devil, can determine the will of man
naturally, but God alone, in respect of his supreme dominion over all
things. Then the will is determined naturally, when God Almighty,
besides his general influence, whereupon all second causes do depend, as
well for their being as for their acting, doth moreover at some times,
when it pleases him in cases extraordinary, concur by a special
influence, and infuse something into the will, in the nature of an act,
or an habit, whereby the will is moved and excited, and applied to will
or choose this or that. Then the will is determined morally, when some
object is proposed to it with persuasive reasons and arguments to induce
it to will. Where the determination is natural, the liberty to suspend
its act is taken away from the will, but not so where the determination
is moral. In the former case, the will is determined extrinsically, in
the latter case intrinsically; the former produceth an absolute
necessity, the latter only a necessity of supposition. If the will do
not suspend, but assent, then the act is necessary; but because the will
may suspend, and not assent, therefore it is not absolutely necessary.
In the former case, the will is moved necessarily and determinately; in
the latter, freely and indeterminately. The former excitation is
immediate; the latter is mediate _mediante intellectu_, and requires the
help of the understanding. In a word, so great a difference there is
between natural and moral efficacy, as there is between his opinion and
mine in this question.
“There remains only the last dictate of the understanding, which he
maketh to be the last cause that concurreth to the determination of the
will, and to the necessary production of the act, ‘as the last feather
may be said to break an horse’s back, when there were so many laid on
before that there wanted but that to do it.’ I have shewed (No. VII.)
that the last dictate of the understanding is not always absolute in
itself, nor conclusive to the will; and when it is conclusive, yet it
produceth no antecedent nor extrinsical necessity. I shall only add one
thing more at present, that by making the last judgment of right reason
to be of no more weight than a single feather, he wrongs the
understanding as well as he doth the will; and endeavours to deprive the
will of its supreme power of application, and to deprive the
understanding of its supreme power of judicature and definition. Neither
corporeal agents and objects, nor yet the sensitive appetite itself,
being an inferior faculty and affixed to the organ of the body, have any
direct or immediate dominion or command over the rational will. It is
without the sphere of their activity. All the access which they have
unto the will, is by the means of the understanding, sometimes clear and
sometimes disturbed, and of reason, either right or misinformed. Without
the help of the understanding, all his second causes were not able of
themselves to load the horse’s back with so much weight as the least of
all his feathers doth amount unto. But we shall meet with his horseload
of feathers again, No. XXIII.
“These things being thus briefly touched, he proceeds to his answer. My
argument was this: if any of these or all these causes formerly recited,
do take away true liberty, (that is, still intended from necessity),
then Adam before his fall had no true liberty.
“But Adam before his fall had true liberty.
“He mis-recites the argument, and denies the consequence, which is so
clearly proved, that no man living can doubt of it. Because Adam was
subjected to all the same causes as well as we, the same decree, the
same prescience, the same influences, the same concourse of causes, the
same efficacy of objects, the same dictates of reason. But it is only a
mistake; for it appears plainly by his following discourse, that he
intended to deny, not the consequence, but the assumption. For he makes
Adam to have had no liberty from necessity before his fall, yea, he
proceeds so far as to affirm that all human wills, his and ours, and
each propension of our wills, even during our deliberation, are as much
necessitated as anything else whatsoever; that we have no more power to
forbear those actions which we do, than the fire hath power not to burn.
Though I honour T. H. for his person and for his learning, yet I must
confess ingenuously, I hate this doctrine from my heart. And I believe
both I have reason so to do, and all others who shall seriously ponder
the horrid consequences which flow from it. It destroys liberty, and
dishonours the nature of man. It makes the second causes and outward
objects to be the rackets, and men to be but the tennis-balls of
destiny. It makes the first cause, that is, God Almighty, to be the
introducer of all evil and sin into the world, as much as man, yea, more
than man, by as much as the motion of the watch is more from the
artificer, who did make it and wind it up, than either from the spring,
or the wheels, or the thread, if God, by his special influence into the
second causes, did necessitate them to operate as they did. And if they,
being thus determined, did necessitate Adam inevitably, irresistibly,
not by an accidental, but by an essential subordination of causes to
whatsoever he did, then one of these two absurdities must needs follow:
either that Adam did not sin, and that there is no such thing as sin in
the world, because it proceeds naturally, necessarily, and essentially
from God; or that God is more guilty of it, and more the cause of evil
than man, because man is extrinsically, inevitably determined, but so is
not God. And in causes essentially subordinate, the cause of the cause
is always the cause of the effect. What tyrant did ever impose laws that
were impossible for those to keep, upon whom they were imposed, and
punish them for breaking those laws, which he himself had necessitated
them to break, which it was no more in their power not to break, than it
is in the power of the fire not to burn? Excuse me if I hate this
doctrine with a perfect hatred, which is so dishonourable both to God
and man; which makes men to blaspheme of necessity, to steal of
necessity, to be hanged of necessity, and to be damned of necessity. And
therefore I must say and say again, _quicquid ostendes mihi sic,
incredulus odi_. It were better to be an atheist, to believe no God; or
to be a Manichee, to believe two Gods, a God of good and a God of evil;
or with the heathens, to believe thirty thousand Gods: than thus to
charge the true God to be the proper cause and the true author of all
the sins and evils which are in the world.”