N05663:58
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.
SECTION III. Concerning the Meaning of the Terms Necessity, Impossibility, Inability, and of Contingence.
THE Words Necessary, Impossible &c. are abundantly used in Controversies about Free-will and moral Agency; and therefore the Sense in which they are used, should be clearly understood.
Here I might say, that a Thing is then said to be necessary, when it must be, and cannot be otherwise. But this would not properly be a Definition of Necessity, or an Explanation of the Word, any more than if I explained the Word must, by there being a Necessity. The Words must, can, and cannot, need Explication as much as the Words necessary, and impossible; excepting that the former are Words that Children commonly use, and know something of the Meaning of earlier than the latter.
Here I might say, that a Thing is then said to be necessary, when it must be, and cannot be otherwise. But this would not properly be a Definition of Necessity, or an Explanation of the Word, any more than if I explain'd the Word must, by there being a Necessity. The Words must, can, and cannot, need Explication as much as the Words necessary, and impossible; excepting that the former are Words that Children commonly use, and know something of the Meaning of earlier than the latter.