N05663:431
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 3 › Section 4: Command, and Obligation to Obedience, consistent with moral Inability to obey.
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.
Here if it should be said, that altho' the Mind has not any Ability to will contrary to what it does will, in the original and leading Act of the Will, because there is supposed to be no prior Act to determine and order it otherwise, and the Will can't immediately change it self, because it can't at present incline to a Change; yet the Mind has an Ability for the present to forbear to proceed to Action, and take Time for Deliberation; which may be an Occasion of the Change of the Inclination.
I answer, (1.) In this Objection that seems to be forgotten which was observed before, viz. that the determining to take the Matter into Consideration, is it self an Act of the Will: And if this be all the Act wherein the Mind exercises Ability and Freedom, then this, by the Supposition, must be all that can be commanded or required by Precept. And if this Act be the commanded Act, then all that has been observed concerning the commanded Act of the Will remains true, that the very Want of it is a moral Inability to exert it, &c. (2.) We are speaking concerning the first and leading Act of the Will in the Case, or about the Affair; And if a Determining to deliberate, or on the contrary, to proceed immediately without deliberating, be the first and leading Act; or whether it be or no, if there be another Act before it, which determines that; or whatever be the original and leading Act; still the foregoing Proof stands good, that the Non-compliance of the leading Act implies moral Inability to comply.
If it should be objected, that these Things make all moral Inability equal, and suppose Men morally unable to will otherwise than they actually do will, in all Cases, and equally so, in every Instance.