In this number he would prove that there must be free agents and
contingent agents, as well as necessary agents, from the order, beauty,
and perfection of the world. I that thought that the order, beauty, and
perfection of the world required that which was in the world, and not
that which the Bishop had need of for his argument, could see no force
of consequence to infer that which he calls free and contingent. That
which is in the world, is the order, beauty, and perfection which God
hath given the world; and yet there are no agents in the world, but such
as work a seen necessity, or an unseen necessity; and when they work an
unseen necessity in creatures inanimate, then are those creatures said
to be wrought upon contingently, and to work contingently; and when the
necessity unseen is of the actions of men, then it is commonly called
free, and might be so in other living creatures; for free and voluntary
are the same thing. But the Bishop in his reply hath insisted most upon
this, that I make it a contradiction to say that “he that maketh a
thing, doth not make it necessary”, and wonders how a contradiction can
be in one proposition, and yet within two or three lines after found it
might be. And therefore, to clear the matter, he saith that such
necessity is not _antecedent_, but a necessity _of supposition_: which,
nevertheless, is the same kind of necessity which he attributeth to the
burning of the fire, where there is a necessity that the thing thrown
into it shall be burned; though yet it be but burning, or but departing
from the hand that throws it in; and, therefore, the necessity is
antecedent. The like is in making a garment; the necessity begins from
the first motion towards it, which is from eternity, though the tailor
and the Bishop are equally insensible of it. If they saw the whole order
and conjunction of causes, they would say it were as necessary as any
thing else can possibly be; and therefore God that sees that order and
conjunction, knows it is necessary.
The rest of his reply is to argue a contradiction in me; for he says,
(_a_) “I grant that there are some free agents, and some contingent
agents, and that perhaps the beauty of the world doth require it; but
like a shrewd cow, which, after she hath given her milk, casts it down
with her foot, in the conclusion I tell him, that nevertheless they are
all necessary.”
It is true that I say some are free agents, and some contingent;
nevertheless they may be all necessary. For according to the
significations of the words necessary, free, and contingent, the
distinction is no more but this. Of agents, some are necessary, some are
contingent, and some are free agents; and of agents, some are living
creatures, and some are inanimate; which words are improper, but the
meaning of them is this. Men call necessary agents, such as they know to
be necessary, and contingent agents, such inanimate things as they know
not whether they work necessarily or no, and free agents, men whom they
know not whether they work necessarily or no. All which confusion
ariseth from that presumptuous men take for granted, that that _is_ not,
which they _know_ not.
(_b_) “Neither do I approve his definition of contingents; that they are
such agents as work we know not how.”
The reason is, because it would follow that many necessary actions
should be contingent, and many contingent actions necessary. But that
which followeth from it really is no more but this: that many necessary
actions would be such as we know not to be necessary, and many actions
which we know not to be necessary, may yet be necessary; which is a
truth. But the Bishop defineth contingents thus: “all things which may
be done and may not be done, may happen or may not happen, by reason of
the indetermination or accidental concurrence of the causes”. By which
definition, contingent is nothing, or it is the same that I say it is.
For there is nothing can be done and not be done, nothing can happen and
not happen, by reason of the indetermination or accidental concurrence
of the causes. It may be done or not done for aught he knows, and happen
or not happen for any determination he perceiveth; and that is my
definition. But that the indetermination can make it happen or not
happen, is absurd; for indetermination maketh it equally to happen or
not to happen, and therefore both; which is a contradiction. Therefore
indetermination doth nothing; and whatsoever causes do, is necessary.