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A careful and strict enquiry into the modern prevailing notions of that freedom of…
A careful and strict enquiry into the modern prevailing notions of that freedom of will, which is supposed to be essential to moral agency, virtue and vice, reward and punishment, praise and blame. By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Pastor of the church in Stockbridge. ; [One line from Romans]A careful and strict enquiry into the modern prevailing notions of that freedom of will, which is supposed to be essential to moral agency, vertue and vice, reward and punishment, praise and blame. By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Pastor of the church in Stockbridge. ; [One line from Romans]
printed by S. Kneeland, 1754
Part 2 › Section 7: Concerning the Notion of Liberty of Will consisting in Indifference.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
If any should suppose, that these Difficulties and Absurdities may be avoided, by saying, that the Liberty of the Mind consists in a Power to suspend the Act of the Will, and so to keep it in a State of Indifference, 'till there has been Opportunity for Consideration; and so shall say, that however Indifference is not essential to Liberty in such a Manner, that the Mind must make it's Choice in a State of Indifference, which is an Inconsistency, or that the Act of Will must spring immediately out of Indifference; yet Indifference may be essential to the Liberty of Acts of the Will in this Respect; viz. That Liberty consists in a Power of the Mind to forbear or suspend the Act of Volition, and keep the Mind in a State of Indifference for the present, 'till there has been Opportunity for proper Deliberation: I say, if any one imagines that this helps the Matter, it is a great Mistake: It reconciles no Inconsistency, and relieves no Difficulty which the Affair is attended with. — For here the following Things must be observed,
1. That this suspending of Volition, if there be properly any such Thing, is it self an Act of Volition. If the Mind determines to suspend it's Act, it determines it voluntarily; it chooses, on some Consideration, to suspend it. And this Choice or Determination, is an Act of the Will: And indeed it is supposed to be so in the very Hypothesis; for 'tis supposed, that the Liberty of the Will consists in it's Power ⟨p. 71⟩to do thus, and that it's doing it is the very Thing wherein the Will exercises it's Liberty. But how can the Will exercise Liberty in it, if it be not an Act of the Will? The Liberty of the Will is not exercised in any Thing but what the Will does.
1. That this suspending of Volition, if there be properly any such Thing, is it self an Act of Volition. If the Mind determines to suspend it's Act, it determines it voluntarily; it chuses, on some Consideration, to suspend it. And this Choice or Determination, is an Act of the Will: And indeed it is supposed to be so in the very Hypothesis; for 'tis supposed, that the Liberty of the Will consists in it's Power