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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 11: The Evidence of GOD's certain Foreknowledge of the Volitions of moral Agents.
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.
(1.) If God don't foreknow, He can't foretell such Events; that is, He can't peremptorily and certainly foretell them. If God has no more than an uncertain Guess concerning Events of this Kind, then He can declare no more than an uncertain Guess. Positively to foretell, is to profess to foreknow, or to declare positive Foreknowledge.
(1.) If God don't foreknow, He can't foretell such Events; that is, He can't peremptorily and certainly foretell them. If God has no more than an uncertain Guess concerning Events of this Kind, then He can declare no more than an uncertain Guess. Positively to foretell, is to profess to foreknow, or to declare positive Foreknowlege.
(2.) If God don't certainly foreknow the future Volitions of moral Agents, then neither can He certainly foreknow those Events which are consequent and dependent on these Volitions. The Existence of the one depending on the Existence of the other, the Knowledge of the Existence of the one depends on the Knowledge of the Existence of the other; and the one can't be more certain than the other.
Therefore, how many, how great, and how extensive soever the Consequences of the Volitions of moral Agents may be; tho' they should extend to an Alteration of the State of Things through the Universe, and should be continued in a Series of successive Events to all Eternity, and should in the Progress of Things branch forth into an infinite Number of Series, each of them going on in an endless Line or Chain of Events; God must be as ignorant of all these Consequences, as He is of the Volition whence they first take their Rise: All these Events, and the whole State of Things depending on them, how important, extensive and vast soever, must be hid from him.