N05663:328
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.
4. 'Tis no less evident, that if there be a full, certain and infallible Foreknowledge of the future Existence of the Volitions of moral Agents, then there is a certain infallible and indissoluble Connection between those Events and that Foreknowledge; and that therefore, by the preceding Observations, those Events are necessary Events; being infallibly and indissolubly connected with that whose Existence already is, and so is now necessary, and can't but have been.
4. 'Tis no less evident, that if there be a full, certain and infallible Foreknowledge of the future Existence of the Volitions of moral Agents, then there is a certain infallible and indissoluble Connection between those Events and that Foreknowledge; and that therefore, by the preceeding Observations, those Events are necessary Events; being infallibly and indissolubly connected with that whose Existence already is, and so is now necessary, and can't but have been.
To say, the Foreknowledge is certain and infallible, and yet the Connection of the Event with that Foreknowledge is not indissoluble, but dissoluble and fallible, is very absurd. To affirm it, would be the same Thing as to affirm, that there is no necessary Connection between a Proposition's being infallibly known to be true, and it's being true indeed. So that it is perfectly demonstrable, that if there be any infallible Knowledge of future Volitions, the Event is ⟨p. 119⟩necessary; or, in other Words, that it is impossible but the Event should come to pass. For if it be not impossible but that it may be otherwise, then it is not impossible but that the Proposition which affirms it's future coming to pass, may not now be true. But how absurd is that, on the Supposition that there is now an infallible Knowledge (i. e. Knowledge which it is impossible should fail) that it is true. There is this Absurdity in it, that it is not impossible but that there now should be no Truth in that Proposition, which is •ow infallibly known to be true.