An Examination of President Edwards' Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will

Оглавление

Albert Taylor Bledsoe. An Examination of President Edwards' Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

SECTION I. OF THE POINT IN CONTROVERSY

SECTION II. OF EDWARDS’ USE OF THE TERM CAUSE

SECTION III. THE INQUIRY INVOLVED IN A VICIOUS CIRCLE

SECTION IV. VOLITION NOT AN EFFECT

SECTION V. OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF REGARDING VOLITION AS AN EFFECT

SECTION VI. OF THE MAXIM THAT EVERY EFFECT MUST HAVE A CAUSE

SECTION VII. OF THE APPLICATION OF THE MAXIM THAT EVERY EFFECT MUST HAVE A CAUSE

SECTION VIII. OF THE RELATION BETWEEN THE FEELINGS AND THE WILL

SECTION IX. OF THE LIBERTY OF INDIFFERENCE

SECTION X. OF ACTION AND PASSION

SECTION XI. OF THE ARGUMENT FROM THE FOREKNOWLEDGE OF GOD

SECTION XII. OF EDWARDS’ USE OF THE TERM NECESSITY

SECTION XIII. OF NATURAL AND MORAL NECESSITY

SECTION XIV. OF EDWARDS’ IDEA OF LIBERTY

SECTION XV. OF EDWARDS’ IDEA OF VIRTUE

SECTION XVI. OF THE SELF-DETERMINING POWER

SECTION XVII. OF THE DEFINITION OF A FREE AGENT

SECTION XVIII. OF THE TESTIMONY OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Отрывок из книги

It is worse than a waste of time, it is a grievous offence against the cause of truth, to undertake to refute an author without having taken pains to understand exactly what he teaches. In every discussion, the first thing to be settled is the point in dispute; and if this be omitted, the controversy must needs degenerate into a mere idle logomachy. It seldom happens that any thing affords so much satisfaction, or throws so much light on a controversy, as to have the point at issue clearly made up, and constantly borne in mind.

What then, is the precise doctrine of the Inquiry which I intend to oppose? The great question is, says Edwards, what determines the will. It is taken for granted, on all sides, that the will is determined; and the only point is, or rather has been, as to what determines it. It is determined by the strongest motive, says one; it is not determined by the strongest motive, says another. But although the issue is thus made up in general terms, it is very far from being settled with any tolerable degree of clearness and precision; ample room is still left for all that loose and declamatory kind of warfare in which so many controversialists delight to indulge.

.....

From the supposition made by Edwards, that “if activity of nature be the cause why a spirit acts,” it has been concluded that he regarded the soul of man as the efficient cause of its volitions, and motive as merely the occasion on which they are put forth or exerted. But surely, those who have so understood the Inquiry, have done so very unadvisedly, and have but little reason to complain, as they are prone to do, that his opponents do not understand him. If Edwards makes mind the efficient cause of volition, what becomes of his famous argument against the self-determining power, by which he reduces it to the absurdity of an infinite series of volitions? “If the mind causes its volition,” says he, “it can do so only by a preceding volition; and so on ad infinitum.” Is not all this true, on the supposition that the mind is the efficient cause of volition? And if so, how can any reader of Edwards, who does not wish to make either his author or himself appear ridiculous, seriously contend that he holds mind to be the efficient, or producing cause of volition? There be pretended followers and blind admirers of President Edwards, who, knowing but little of his work themselves, are ever ready to defend him, whensoever attacked, even by those who have devoted years to the study of the Inquiry, by most ignorantly and flippantly declaring that they do not understand him. These pseudo-disciples will not listen to the charge, that Edwards makes the strongest motive the producing cause of volition; but whether this charge be true or not, we shall see in the following section.

Once more. In relation to the acts of the will, he adopts the following language to show that they are necessarily dependent on the influence of motives: “For an event to have a cause and ground of its existence, and yet not be connected with its cause, is an inconsistency. For if the event be not connected with the cause, it is not dependent on its cause; its existence is as it were loose from its influence; and it may attend it, or it may not; its being a mere contingency, whether it follows or attends the influence of the cause, or not; and that is the same thing as not to be dependent on it. And to say the event is not dependent on its cause, is absurd; it is the same thing as to say, it is not its cause, nor the event the effect of it; for dependence on the influence of a cause is the very notion of an effect. If there be no such relation between one thing and another, consisting in the connexion and dependence of one thing on the influence of another, then it is certain there is no such relation between them as is signified by the relation of cause and effect,” p. 77-8. Now, here we are told, that it is the very notion of an effect, that it owes its existence to the influence of its cause; and that it is absurd to speak of an effect which is loose from the influence of its cause. It is this influence, “which causes volition to arise and come forth into existence.” Any other notion of cause and effect is absurd and unmeaning. And yet, President Edwards informs us, that he sometimes uses the term cause to signify any antecedent, though it may exert no influence; and that he so employs it, in order to prevent cavilling and objecting. Now, what is all this taken together, but to inform us, that he sometimes uses the word in question very absurdly, in order to keep us from finding fault with him? The truth is, that whatever apparent concession President Edwards may have made, he does habitually bring down the term cause to its narrow and restrained sense, to its strict and proper meaning, when he says, that motive is the cause of volition. He loses sight entirely of the idea, that it is only the occasion on which the mind acts.

.....