N05663:352
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.
(2.) The Objection is founded on the Immutability of God's Knowledge: For 'tis the Immutability of Knowledge makes his Knowledge to be without Succession. But this most directly and plainly demonstrates the Thing I insist on, viz. that 'tis utterly impossible the known Events should fail of Existence. For if that were possible, then it would be possible for there to be a Change in God's Knowledge and View of Things. For if the known Event should fail of Existence, and not come into Being, as God expected, then God would see it, and so would change his Mind, and see his former Mistake; and thus there would be Change and Succession in his Knowledge. But as God is immutable, and so it is utterly and infinitely impossible that his View should be changed; so 'tis, for the same Reason, just so impossible that the fore-known Event should not exist: And that is to be impossible in the highest Degree: and therefore the contrary is necessary. Nothing is more impossible than that the immutable God should be changed, by the Succession of Time; who comprehends all Things, from Eternity to Eternity, in one, most ⟨p. 130⟩perfect, and unalterable View; so that his whole eternal Duration is Vitae interminabilis, tota, simul, & perfecta Possessis.
On the whole, I need not fear to say, that there is no Geometrical Theorem or Proposition whatsoever, more capable of strict Demonstration, than that God's certain Prescience of the Volitions of moral Agents is inconsistent with such a Contingence of these Events, as is without all Necessity; and so is inconsistent with the Arminian Notion of Liberty.
Corol. 2. Hence the Doctrine of the Calvinists, concerning the absolute Decrees of God, does not at all infer any more Fatality in Things, than will demonstrably follow from the Doctrine of most Arminian Divines, who acknowledge God's Omniscience, and universal Prescience. Therefore all Objections they make against the Doctrine of the Calvinists, as implying Hobbes's Doctrine of Necessity, or the Stoical Doctrine of Fate, lie no more against the Doctrine of Calvinists, than their own Doctrine: And therefore it don't become those Divines, to raise such an Out-cry against the Calvinists, on this Account.