_T. H._ For the seventh point, that all events have necessary causes, it
is there proved in that they have sufficient causes. Further, let us in
this place also suppose any event never so casual, as for example, the
throwing ambs-ace upon a pair of dice; and see if it must not have been
necessary before it was thrown. For, seeing it was thrown, it had a
beginning, and consequently a sufficient cause to produce it; consisting
partly in the dice, partly in the outward things, as the posture of the
party’s hand, the measure of force applied by the caster, the posture of
the parts of the table, and the like. In sum, there was nothing wanting
that was necessarily requisite to the producing of that particular cast;
and consequently, that cast was necessarily thrown. For if it had not
been thrown, there had wanted somewhat requisite to the throwing of it;
and so the cause had not been sufficient. In the like manner it may be
proved that every other accident, how contingent soever it seem, or how
voluntary soever it be, is produced necessarily; which is that J. D.
disputes against. The same also may be proved in this manner. Let the
case be put for example, of the weather. _It is necessary, that
to-morrow it shall rain or not rain._ If therefore it be not necessary
it shall rain, it is necessary it shall not rain. Otherwise it is not
necessary that the proposition, _it shall rain or it shall not rain_,
should be true. I know there are some that say, it may necessarily be
true, that one of the two shall come to pass, but not singly, that it
shall rain or it shall not rain. Which is as much as to say, one of them
is necessary, yet neither of them is necessary. And therefore, to seem
to avoid that absurdity, they make a distinction, that neither of them
is true _determinate_, but _indeterminate_. Which distinction either
signifies no more than this: one of them is true, but we know not which,
and so the necessity remains, though we know it not: or if the meaning
of the distinction be not that, it has no meaning. And they might as
well have said, one of them is true _tytyrice_, but neither of them
_tupatulice_.
[Sidenote: The Bishop’s reply.]
_J. D._ (_a_) “His former proof, that all sufficient causes are
necessary causes, is answered before (No. XXXI). (_b_) And his two
instances of casting ambs-ace, and raining to-morrow, are altogether
impertinent to the question now agitated between us, for two reasons.
First, our present controversy is concerning free actions, which proceed
from the liberty of man’s will: both his instances are of contingent
actions, which proceed from the indetermination or contingent
concurrence of natural causes. First, that there are free actions which
proceed merely from election, without any outward necessitation, is a
truth so evident as that there is a sun in the heavens; and he that
doubteth of it, may as well doubt whether there be a shell without the
nut, or a stone within the olive. A man proportions his time each day,
and allots so much to his devotions, so much to his study, so much to
his diet, so much to his recreations, so much to necessary or civil
visits, so much to his rest; he who will seek for I know not what causes
of all this without himself, except that good God who hath given him a
reasonable soul, may as well seek for a cause of the Egyptian pyramids
among the crocodiles of Nilus. (_c_) Secondly, for mixed actions which
proceed from the concurrence of free and natural agents, though they be
not free, yet they are not necessary. As, to keep my former instance, a
man walking through a street of a city to do his occasions, a tile falls
from a house and breaks his head. The breaking of his head was not
necessary, for he did freely choose to go that way without any
necessitation; neither was it free, for he did not deliberate of that
accident; therefore it was contingent, and by undoubted consequence,
there are contingent actions in the world which are not free. Most
certainly by the concurrence of free causes, as God, the good and bad
angels, and men, with natural agents, sometimes on purpose and sometimes
by accident, many events happen, which otherwise had never happened;
many effects are produced, which otherwise had never been produced. And
admitting such things to be contingent, not necessary, all their
consequent effects, not only immediate, but mediate, must likewise be
contingent, that is to say, such as do not proceed from a continued
connexion and succession of necessary causes; which is directly contrary
to T. H.’s opinion.
(_d_) “Thirdly, for the actions of brute beasts, though they be not
free, though they have not the use of reason to restrain their appetites
from that which is sensitively good by the consideration of what is
rationally good, or what is honest, and though their fancies be
determined by nature to some kinds of work; yet to think that every
individual action of theirs, and each animal motion of theirs, even to
the least murmur or gesture, is bound by the chain of unalterable
necessity to the extrinsical causes or objects, I see no ground for it.
Christ saith, _one of these sparrows doth not fall to the ground without
your heavenly Father_, that is, without an influence of power from him,
or exempted from his disposition; he doth not say, which your heavenly
Father casteth not down. Lastly, for the natural actions of inanimate
creatures, wherein there is not the least concurrence of any free or
voluntary agents, the question is yet more doubtful. For many things are
called contingent in respect of us, because we know not the cause of
them, which really and in themselves are not contingent, but necessary.
Also many things are contingent in respect of one single cause, either
actually hindered, or in possibility to be hindered, which are necessary
in respect of the joint concurrence of all collateral causes. (_e_) But
whether there be a necessary connexion of all natural causes from the
beginning, so as they must all have concurred as they have done, and in
the same degree of power, and have been deficient as they have been in
all events whatsoever, would require a further examination, if it were
pertinent to this question of liberty; but it is not. It is sufficient
to my purpose, to have showed that all elective actions are free from
absolute necessity: and moreover, that the concurrence of voluntary and
free agents with natural causes, both upon purpose and accidentally,
hath helped them to produce many effects, which otherwise they had not
produced, and hindered them from producing many effects, which otherwise
they had produced: and that if this intervention of voluntary and free
agents had been more frequent than it hath been, as without doubt it
might have been, many natural events had been otherwise than they are.
And therefore he might have spared his instance of casting ambs-ace and
raining to-morrow. And first, for his casting ambs-ace: if it be thrown
by a fair gamester with indifferent dice, it is a mixed action; the
casting of the dice is free, but the casting of ambs-ace is contingent.
A man may deliberate whether he will cast the dice or not; but it were
folly to deliberate whether he will cast ambs-ace or not, because it is
not in his power, unless he be a cheater that can cog the dice, or the
dice be false dice; and then the contingency, or degree of contingency,
ceaseth accordingly as the caster hath more or less cunning, or as the
figure or making of the dice doth incline them to ambs-ace more than to
another cast, or necessitate them to this cast and no other. Howsoever,
so far as the cast is free or contingent, so far it is not necessary:
and where necessity begins, there liberty and contingency do cease to
be. Likewise his other instance of raining or not raining to-morrow, is
not of a free elective act, nor always of a contingent act. In some
countries, as they have their _stati venti_, their certain winds at set
seasons; so they have their certain and set rains. The Ethiopian rains
are supposed to be the cause of the certain inundation of Nilus. In some
eastern countries they have rain only twice a year, and those constant;
which the Scriptures call _the former and the later rain_. In such
places not only the causes do act determinately and necessarily, but
also the determination or necessity of the event is foreknown to the
inhabitants. In our climate, the natural causes celestial and sublunary
do not produce rain so necessarily at set times; neither can we say so
certainly and infallibly, it will rain to-morrow, or it will not rain
to-morrow. Nevertheless, it may so happen that the causes are so
disposed and determined, even in our climate, that this proposition, it
will rain to-morrow or it will not rain to-morrow, may be necessary in
itself; and the prognostics, or tokens, may be such in the sky, in our
own bodies, in the creatures, animate and inanimate, as weather glasses,
&c., that it may become probably true to us that it will rain to-morrow,
or it will not rain to-morrow. But ordinarily, it is a contingent
proposition to us; whether it be contingent also in itself, that is,
whether the concurrence of the causes were absolutely necessary, whether
the vapours or matter of the rain may not yet be dispersed, or otherwise
consumed, or driven beyond our coast, is a speculation which no way
concerns this question. So we see one reason why his two instances are
altogether impertinent; because they are of actions which are not free,
nor elective, nor such as proceed from the liberty of man’s will.
“Secondly, our dispute is about absolute necessity; his proofs extend
only to hypothetical necessity. Our question is, whether the concurrence
and determination of the causes were necessary before they did concur,
or were determined. He proves that the effect is necessary after the
causes have concurred, and are determined. The freest actions of God or
man are necessary, by such a necessity of supposition, and the most
contingent events that are, as I have showed plainly, No. III, where his
instance of ambs-ace is more fully answered. So his proof looks another
way from his proposition. His proposition is, ‘that the casting of
ambs-ace was necessary before it was thrown’. His proof is, that it was
necessary when it was thrown. Examine all his causes over and over, and
they will not afford him one grain of antecedent necessity. The first
cause is in the dice: true, if they be false dice there may be something
in it; but then his contingency is destroyed: if they be square dice,
they have no more inclination to ambs-ace, than to cinque and quatre, or
any other cast. His second cause is ‘the posture of the party’s hand’:
but what necessity was there that he should put his hands into such a
posture? None at all. The third cause is ‘the measure of the force
applied by the caster’. Now for the credit of his cause let him but
name, I will not say a convincing reason nor so much as a probable
reason, but even any pretence of reason, how the caster was necessitated
from without himself to apply just so much force, and neither more nor
less. If he cannot, his cause is desperate, and he may hold his peace
for ever. His last cause is the posture of the table. But tell us in
good earnest, what necessity there was why the caster must throw into
that table rather than the other, or that the dice must fall just upon
that part of the table, before the cast was thrown: he that makes these
to be necessary causes, I do not wonder if he make all effects necessary
effects. If any one of these causes be contingent, it is sufficient to
render the cast contingent; and now that they are all so contingent, yet
he will needs have the effect to be necessary. And so it is when the
cast is thrown; but not before the cast was thrown, which he undertook
to prove. Who can blame him for being so angry with the Schoolmen, and
their distinctions of necessity into absolute and hypothetical, seeing
they touch his freehold so nearly?
“But though his instance of raining to-morrow be impertinent, as being
no free action, yet because he triumphs so much in his argument, I will
not stick to go a little out of my way to meet a friend. For I confess
the validity of the reason had been the same, if he had made it of a
free action, as thus: _either I shall finish this reply to-morrow, or I
shall not finish this reply to-morrow_, is a necessary proposition. But
because he shall not complain of any disadvantage in the alteration of
his terms, I will for once adventure upon his shower of rain. And first,
I readily admit his major, that this proposition, _either it will rain
to-morrow or it will not rain to-morrow_, is necessarily true: for of
two contradictory propositions, the one must of necessity be true,
because no third can be given. But his minor, that ‘it could not be
necessarily true, except one of the members were necessarily true’, is
most false. And so is his proof likewise, that ‘if neither the one nor
the other of the members be necessarily true, it cannot be affirmed that
either the one or the other is true’. A conjunct proposition may have
both parts false, and yet the proposition be true; as, _if the sun shine
it is day_, is a true proposition at midnight. And T. H. confesseth as
much, No. XIX. ‘_If I shall live I shall eat_, is a necessary
proposition, that is to say, it is necessary that that proposition
should be true whensoever uttered. But it is not the necessity of the
thing, nor is it therefore necessary that the man shall live or that the
man shall eat’. And so T. H. proceeds: ‘I do not use to fortify my
distinctions with such reasons’. But it seemeth he hath forgotten
himself, and is contented with such poor fortifications. And though both
parts of a disjunctive proposition cannot be false; because if it be a
right disjunction, the members are repugnant, whereof one part is
infallibly true; yet vary but the proposition a little to abate the edge
of the disjunctions, and you shall find in that which T. H. saith to be
true, that it is not the necessity of the thing which makes the
proposition to be true. As for example, vary it thus: _I know that
either it will rain to-morrow or that it will not rain to-morrow_, is a
true proposition: but it is not true that I know it will rain to-morrow,
neither is it true that I know it will not rain to-morrow; wherefore the
certain truth of the proposition doth not prove that either of the
members is determinately true in present. Truth is a conformity of the
understanding to the thing known, whereof speech is an interpreter. If
the understanding agree not with the thing, it is an error; if the words
agree not with the understanding, it is a lie. Now the thing known, is
known either in itself or in its causes. If it be known in itself as it
is, then we express our apprehension of it in words of the present
tense; as _the sun is risen_. If it be known in its cause, we express
ourselves in words of the future tense; as _to-morrow will be an eclipse
of the moon_. But if we neither know it in itself, nor in its causes,
then there may be a foundation of truth, but there is no such
determinate truth of it that we can reduce it into a true proposition.
We cannot say it doth rain to-morrow, or it doth not rain to-morrow;
that were not only false but absurd. We cannot positively say it will
rain to-morrow, because we do not know it in its causes, either how they
are determined or that they are determined. Wherefore the certitude and
evidence of the disjunctive proposition is neither founded upon that
which will be actually to-morrow, for it is granted that we do not know
that; nor yet upon the determination of the causes, for then we would
not say indifferently either it will rain or it will not rain, but
positively it will rain, or positively it will not rain. But it is
grounded upon an undeniable principle, that of two contradictory
propositions the one must necessarily be true. (_f_) And therefore to
say, _either this or that will infallibly be, but it is not yet
determined whether this or that shall be_, is no such senseless
assertion that it deserved a _tytyrice tupatulice_, but an evident truth
which no man that hath his eyes in his head can doubt of.
(_g_) “If all this will not satisfy him, I will give one of his own kind
of proofs; that is, an instance. That which necessitates all things,
according to T. H. (No. XI), is the decree of God, or that order which
is set to all things by the eternal cause. Now God himself, who made
this necessitating decree, was not subjected to it in the making
thereof; neither was there any former order to oblige the first cause
necessarily to make such a decree; therefore this decree being an act
_ad extra_, was freely made by God without any necessitation. Yet
nevertheless this disjunctive proposition is necessarily true: _either
God did make each a decree, or he did not make such a decree_. Again,
though T. H.’s opinion were true, that all events are necessary, and
that the whole Christian world are deceived who believe that some events
are free from necessity; yet he will not deny, but if it had been the
good pleasure of God, he might have made some causes free from
necessity; seeing that it neither argues any imperfection, nor implies
any contradiction. Supposing therefore that God had made some second
causes free from any such antecedent determination to one; yet the
former disjunction would be necessarily true: either this free
undetermined cause will act after this manner, or it will not act after
this manner. Wherefore the necessary truth of such a disjunctive
proposition doth not prove that either of the members of the disjunction
singly considered, is determinately true in present; but only that the
one of them will be determinately true to-morrow.