N05663:702
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.
If any shall still stand to it, that the foregoing Reasoning is nothing but metaphysical Sophistry; and that it must be so, that the seeming Force of the Arguments all depends on some Fallacy and Wile that is hid in the Obscurity, which always attends a great Degree of metaphysical Abstraction and Refinement; and shall be ready to say, Here is indeed something that tends to confound the Mind, but not to satisfy it: For who can ever be truly satisfied in it, that Men are fitly blamed or commended, punished or rewarded, for those Volitions which are not from themselves, and of whose Existence they are not the Causes. Men may refine, as much as they please, and advance their abstract Notions, and make out a Thousand seeming Contradictions, to puzzle our Understandings; yet there can be no Satisfaction in such Doctrine as this: The natural Sense of the Mind of Man will always resist it. *I humbly conceive, that such an Objector, if he ⟨p. 281⟩has Capacity and Humility and Calmness of Spirit, sufficient impartially and thoroughly to examine himself, will find that he knows not really what he would be at; and that indeed his Difficulty is nothing but a mere Prejudice, from an inadvertent customary Use of Words, in a Meaning that is not clearly understood, nor carefully reflected upon.— Let the Objector reflect again, if he has Candour and Patience enough, and don't scorn to be at the Trouble of close Attention in the Affair.— He would have a Man's Volition be from himself. Let it be from himself, most primarily and originally of any Way ⟨p. 282⟩conceivable; that is, from his own Choice: How will that help the Matter, as to his being justly blamed or praised, unless that Choice itself be blame or praise-worthy? And how is the Choice itself (an ill Choice, for Instance) blame-worthy, according to these Principles, unless that be from himself too, in the same Manner; that is, from his own Choice? But the original and first determining Choice in the Affair is not from his Choice: His Choice is not the Cause of it.—And if it be from himself some other Way, and not from his Choice, surely that will not help the Matter: If it be not from himself of Choice, then it is not from himself voluntarily; and if so, he is surely no more to Blame, than if it were not from himself at all.