N05663:231
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
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.
Dr. Samuel Clark, in his Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, †to evade the Argument to prove the Necessity of Volition, from it's necessary Connection with the last Dictate of the Understanding, supposes the latter not to be diverse from the Act of the Will it self. But if it be so, it will not alter the Case as to the Evidence of the Necessity of the Act of the Will. If the Dictate of the Understanding be the very same with the Determination of the Will or Choice, as Dr. Clark supposes, then this Determination is no Fruit or Effect of Choice: And if so, no Liberty of Choice has any Hand in it: As to Volition or Choice, it is necessary; That is, Choice can't prevent it. If the last Dictate of the Understanding be the same with the Determination of Volition it self, then the Existence of that Determination must be necessary as to Volition; in as much as Volition can have no Opportunity to determine whether it shall exist or no, it having Existence already before Volition ⟨p. 82⟩has Opportunity to determine any Thing. It is it self the very Ri•e and Existence of Volition. But a Thing, after it exists, has no Opportunity to determine as to it's own Existence; it is too late for that.
- †Edit. 6. P. 93.
If Liberty consists in that which Arminians suppose, viz. in the Will's determining it's own Acts, having •ree Opportunity, and being without all Necessity; This is the same as to say, that Liberty consists in the Soul's having Power and Opportunity to have what Determinations of the Will it pleases or chooses. And if the Determinations of the Will, and the last Dictates of the Understanding be the same Thing, then Liberty consists in the Mind's having Power to have what Dictates of the Understanding it pleases, having Opportunity to choose it's own Dictates of Understanding. But this is absurd; for it is to make the Determination of Choice prior to the Dictate of Understanding, and the Ground of it; which can't consist […] the Dictate of Understanding's being the Determination […] Choice […]