A Review of Edwards's Part 11

There are three kinds of certainty. _First_, absolute certainty. This is the certainty which lies in necessary and eternal principles e. g. 2 x 2=4; the existence of s.p.a.ce; every body must be in s.p.a.ce; every phenomenon must have a cause; the being of G.o.d.

Logical certainty, that is, the connexion between premises and conclusion, is likewise absolute.

_Secondly_. Physical certainty. This is the certainty which lies in the connexion between physical causes and their phenomena: e. g.

gravitation, heat, chemical affinities in general, mechanical forces.

The reason conceives of these causes as inherently active and uniform; and hence, wherever a physical cause exists, we expect its proper phenomena.

Now we do not call the operation of these causes _absolutely_ certain, because they depend ultimately upon will,--the will of G.o.d; and we can conceive that the same will which ordained them, can change, suspend, or even annihilate them: they have no intrinsic necessity, still, as causes given in time and s.p.a.ce, we conceive of them generally as immutable. If in any case they be changed, or suspended, we are compelled to recognise the presence of that will which ordained them. Such change or suspension we call a _miracle_; that is, a surprise,--a wonder, because it is unlooked for.

When, therefore, we affirm any thing to be physically certain, we mean that it is certain in the immutability of a cause acting in time and s.p.a.ce, and under a necessity relatively to the divine will; but still not _absolutely_ certain, because there is a possibility of a miracle.

But when we affirm any thing to be absolutely certain, we mean that it is certain as comprehended in a principle which is unalterable in its very nature, and is therefore independent of will.

_Thirdly_. Moral certainty, is the certainty which lies between the connexion of motive and will. By will we mean a self-conscious and intelligent cause, or a cause in unity with intelligence. It is also, in the fullest sense, a cause _per se_; that is, it contains within itself proper efficiency, and determines its own direction. By _motives_ we mean the reasons according to which the will acts. In general, all activity proceeds according to rules, or laws, or reasons; for they have the same meaning: but in mere material ma.s.ses, the rule is not contemplated by the acting force,--it is contemplated only by the intelligence which ordained and conditioned the force. In spirit, on the contrary, the activity which we call will is self-conscious, and is connected with a perception of the reasons, or ends, or motives of action. These motives or ends of action are of two kinds. _First_, those found in the ideas of the practical reason, which decides what is fit and right. These are reasons of supreme authority. _Secondly_, those found in the understanding and sensitivity: e. g. the immediately useful and expedient, and the gratification of pa.s.sion. These are right only when subordinate to the first.

Now these reasons and motives are a light to the will, and serve to direct its activities; and the human conscience, which is but the reason, has drawn up for the will explicit rules, suited to all circ.u.mstances and relations, which are called _ethics_, or _the rules_.

These rules the will is not compelled or necessitated to obey. In every volition it is conscious of a power to do or not to do; but yet, as the will forms a unity with the intelligence, we take for granted that it will obey them, unless grounds for an opposite conclusion are apparent.

But the only probable ground for a disobedience of these rules lies in a state of sinfulness,--a corruption of the sensitivity, or a disposition to violate the harmony and fitness of the spiritual const.i.tution. Hence moral certainty can exist only where the harmony of the spiritual being is preserved. For example: G.o.d and good angels. In G.o.d moral certainty is infinite. His dispositions are infinitely pure, and his will freely determines to do right; it is not compelled or necessitated, for then his infinite meritoriousness would cease. Moral certainty is _not absolute_, because will being a power to do or not to do, there is always a possibility, although there may be no probability, nay an infinite improbability, that the will may disobey the laws of the reason.

In the case of angels and good men, the moral certainty is such as to be attended with no apprehension of a dereliction. With respect to such men as Joseph, Daniel, Paul, Howard, and Washington, we can calculate with a very high and satisfactory moral certainty, of the manner in which they will act in any given circ.u.mstances involving the influence of motives.

We know they will obey truth, justice, and mercy,--that is, the _first_ cla.s.s of motives; and the _second_ only so far as they are authorized by the first. If the first cla.s.s of motives are forsaken, then human conduct can be calculated only according to the influence of the second cla.s.s.

Human character, however, is mixed and variously compounded. We might make a scale of an indefinite number of degrees, from the highest point of moral excellence to the lowest point of moral degradation, and then our predictions of human conduct would vary with every degree.

In any particular case where we are called upon to reason from the connexion of motives with the will, it is evident we must determine the character of the individual as accurately as possible, in order to know the probable _resultant_ of the opposite moral forces which we are likely to find.

We have remarked that moral certainty exists only where the harmony of the moral const.i.tution is preserved. Here we know the right will be obeyed. It may be remarked in addition to this, however, that moral certainty may almost be said to exist in the case of the lowest moral degradation, where the right is altogether forsaken. Here the rule is, "whatever is most agreeable;" and the volition is indeed merged into the sense of the most agreeable. But in the intermediate state lies the wide field of probability. What is commonly called the knowledge of human nature, and esteemed of most importance in the affairs of life, is not the knowledge of human nature as it ought to be, but as it is in its vast variety of good and evil. We gain this knowledge from observation and history. What human nature ought to be, we learn from reason.

On a subject of so much importance, and where it is so desirable to have clear and definite ideas, the rhetorical ungracefulness of repet.i.tion is of little moment, when this repet.i.tion serves our great end. I shall be pardoned, therefore, in calling the attention of the reader to a point above suggested, namely, that the will is in a triunity with reason and sensitivity, and, in the const.i.tution of our being, is designed to derive its rules and inducements of action from these. Acts which are in the direction of neither reason nor sensitivity, must be very trifling acts; and therefore acts of this description, although possible, we may conclude are very rare. In calculating, then, future acts of will, we may, like the mathematicians, drop infinitesimal differences, and a.s.sume that all acts of the will are in the direction of reason or sensitivity, or of both in their harmony. Although the will is conscious of power to do, out of the direction of both reason and sensitivity, still, in the triunity in which it exists, it submits itself to the general interests of the being, and consults the authority of conscience, or the enjoyments of pa.s.sion. Now every individual has acquired for himself habits and a character more or less fixed. He is known to have submitted himself from day to day, and in a great variety of transactions, to the laws of the conscience; and hence we conclude that he has formed for himself a fixed purpose of doing right. He has exhibited, too, on many occasions, n.o.ble, generous, and pure feelings; and hence we conclude that his sensitivity harmonizes with conscience. Or he is known to have violated the laws of the conscience from day to day, and in a great variety of transactions; and hence we conclude that he has formed for himself a fixed purpose of doing wrong. He has exhibited, too, on many occasions, low, selfish, and impure feelings; and hence we conclude that his sensitivity is in collision with conscience.

In both cases supposed, and in like manner in all supposable cases, there is plainly a basis on which, in any given circ.u.mstances, we may foresee and predict volitions. There is something "that is evident and now existent with which the future existence of the contingent event is connected." On the one hand these predictions exert no necessitating influence over the events themselves, for they are entirely disconnected with the causation of the events: and, on the other hand, the events need not be a.s.sumed as necessary in order to become the objects of probable calculations. If they were necessary, the calculations would no longer be merely probable:--they would, on the contrary, take the precision and certainty of the calculation of eclipses and other phenomena based upon necessary laws. But these calculations can aim only at _moral_ certainty, because they are made according to the generally known and received determinations of will in a unity with reason and sensitivity; but still a will which is known also to have the power to depart at any moment from the line of determination which it has established for itself. Thus the calculations which we make respecting the conduct of one man in given circ.u.mstances, based on his known integrity, and the calculations which we make respecting another, based on his known dishonesty, may alike disappoint us, through the unexpected, though possible dereliction of the first, and the unexpected, though possible reformation of the latter. When we reason from moral effects to moral causes, or from moral causes to moral effects, we cannot regard the operation of causes as positive and uniform under the same law of necessity which appertains to physical causes, because in moral causality the free will is the efficient and last determiner. It is indeed true that we reason here with a high degree of probability, with a probability sufficient to regulate wisely and harmoniously the affairs of society; but we cannot reason respecting human conduct, as we reason respecting the phenomena of the physical world, because it is possible for the human will to disappoint calculations based upon the ordinary influence of motives: e. g. the motive does not hold the same relation to will which fire holds to combustible substance; the fire must burn; the will may or may not determine in view of motive. Hence the reason why, in common parlance, probable evidence has received the name of moral evidence: moral evidence being generally probable, all probable evidence is called moral.

The will differs from physical causes in being a cause _per se_, but although a cause _per se_, it has laws to direct its volitions. It may indeed violate these laws and become a most arbitrary and inconstant law unto itself; but this violation of law and this arbitrary determination do not arise from it necessarily as a cause _per se_, but from an abuse of its liberty. As a cause in unity with the laws of the reason, we expect it to be uniform, and in its harmonious and perfect movements it is uniform. Physical causes are uniform because G.o.d has determined and fixed them according to laws derived from infinite wisdom.

The human will may likewise be uniform by obeying the laws of conscience, but the departures may also be indefinitely numerous and various.

To sum up these observations in general statements, we remark;--

First: The connexion on which we base predictions of human volitions, is the connexion of will with reason and sensitivity in the unity of the mind or spirit.

Secondly: By this connexion, the will is seen to be designed to be regulated by truth and righteousness, and by feeling subordinated to these.

Thirdly: In the purity of the soul, the will is thus regulated.

Fourthly: This regulation, however, does not take place by the necessary governance which reason and sensitivity have over will, but by a self-subjection of will to their rules and inducements;--this const.i.tutes meritoriousness,--the opposite conduct const.i.tutes ill desert.

Fifthly: Our calculations must proceed according to the degree and fixedness of this self-subjection to reason and right feeling; or where this does not exist, according to the degree and fixedness of the habits of wrong doing, in a self-subjection to certain pa.s.sions in opposition to reason.

Sixthly: Our calculations will be more or less certain according to the extent and accuracy of our observations upon human conduct.

Seventhly: Our calculations can never be attended with _absolute_ certainty, because the will being contingent, has the power of disappointing calculations made upon the longest observed uniformity.

Eighthly: Our expectations respecting the determinations of Deity are attended with the highest moral certainty. We say _moral_ certainty, because it is certainty not arising from necessity, and in that sense absolute; but certainty arising from the free choice of an infinitely pure being. Thus, when G.o.d is affirmed to be immutable, and when it is affirmed to be impossible for him to lie, it cannot be meant that he has not the power to change or to determine contrary to truth; but that there is an infinite moral certainty arising from the perfection of his nature, that he never will depart from infinite wisdom and rect.i.tude.

To a.s.sign G.o.d any other immutability would be to deprive him of freedom.

Ninthly: The divine foresight of human volitions need not be supposed to necessitate them, any more than human foresight, inasmuch as foreseeing them, has no necessary connexion in any case with their causation.

Again, if it does not appear essential to the divine foresight of volitions that they should be necessary. We have seen that future contingent volitions may be calculated with a high degree of certainty even by men; and now supposing that the divine being must proceed in the same way to calculate them through _media_,--the reach and accuracy of his calculations must be in the proportion of his intelligence, and how far short of a certain and perfect knowledge of all future contingent volitions can infinite intelligence be supposed to fall by such calculations?

Tenthly: But we may not suppose that the infinite mind is compelled to resort to deduction, or to employ _media_ for arriving at any particular knowledge. In the attribute of prescience, he is really present to all the possible and actual of the future.

III. The third and last point of Edwards's argument is as follows: "To suppose the future volitions of moral agents, not to be necessary events; or which is the same thing, events which it is not impossible but that they may not come to pa.s.s; and yet to suppose that G.o.d certainly foreknows them, and knows all things, is to suppose G.o.d's knowledge to be inconsistent with itself. For to say that G.o.d certainly and without all conjecture, knows that a thing will infallibly be, which at the same time he knows to be so contingent, that it may possibly not be, is to suppose his knowledge inconsistent with itself; or that one thing he knows is utterly inconsistent with another thing he knows."

(page 117.)

The substance of this reasoning is this. That inasmuch as a contingent future event is _uncertain_ from its very nature and definition, it cannot be called an object of _certain_ knowledge, to any mind, not even to the divine mind, without a manifest contradiction. "It is the same as to say, he now knows a proposition to be of certain infallible truth, which he knows to be of contingent uncertain truth."

We have here again an error arising from not making a proper distinction, which I have already pointed out,--the distinction between the certainty of a future volition as a mere fact existent, and the manner in which that fact came to exist.

The fact of volition comes to exist contingently; that is, by a power which in giving it existence, is under no law of necessity, and at the moment of causation, is conscious of ability to withhold the causative _nibus_. Now all volitions which have already come to exist in this way, have both a certain and contingent existence. It is certain that they have come to exist, for that is a matter of observation; but their existence is also contingent, because they came to exist, not by necessity as a mathematical conclusion, but by a cause contingent and free, and which, although actually giving existence to these volitions, had the power to withhold them.

Certainty and contingency are not opposed, and exclusive of each other in reference to what has already taken place. Are they opposed and exclusive of each other in reference to the future? In the first place, we may reason on probable grounds. Contingent causes have already produced volitions--hence they may produce volitions in the future. They have produced volitions in obedience to laws of reason and sensitivity--hence they may do so in the future. They have done this according to a uniformity self-imposed, and long and habitually observed--hence this uniformity may be continued in the future.

A future contingent event may therefore have a high degree of probability, and even a moral certainty.

But to a being endowed with prescience, what prevents a positive and infallible knowledge of a future contingent event? His mind extends to the actual in the future, as easily as to the actual in the past; but the actual of the future is not only that which comes to pa.s.s by his own determination and _nibus_, and therefore necessarily in its relation to himself as cause, but also that which comes to pa.s.s by the _nibus_ of const.i.tuted wills, contingent and free, as powers to do or not to do.

There is no opposition, as Edwards supposes, between the infallible divine foreknowledge, and the contingency of the event;--the divine foreknowledge is infallible from its own inherent perfection; and of course there can be no doubt but that the event foreseen will come to pa.s.s; but then it is foreseen as an event coming to pa.s.s contingently, and not necessarily.

The error we have just noted, appears again in the corollary which Edwards immediately deduces from his third position. "From what has been observed," he remarks, "it is evident, that the absolute _decrees_ of G.o.d are no more inconsistent with human liberty, on account of the necessity of the event which follows such decrees, than the absolute foreknowledge of G.o.d." (page 118.) The absolute decrees of G.o.d are the determinations of his will, and comprehend the events to which they relate, as the cause comprehends the effect. Foreknowledge, on the contrary, has no causality in relation to events foreknown. It is not a determination of divine will, but a form of the divine intelligence.

Hence the decrees of G.o.d do actually and truly necessitate events; while the foreknowledge of G.o.d extends to events which are not necessary but contingent,--as well as to those which are pre-determined.

Edwards always confounds contingency with chance or no cause, and thus makes it absurd in its very definition. He also always confounds certainty with necessity, and thus compels us to take the latter universal and absolute, or to plunge into utter uncertainty, doubt, and disorder.

Prescience is an essential attribute of Deity. Prescience makes the events foreknown, certain; but if certain, they must be necessary. And on the other hand, if the events were not certain, they could not be foreknown,--for that which is uncertain cannot be the object of positive and infallible knowledge; but if they are certain in order to be foreknown, then they must be necessary.

Again: contingence, as implying no cause, puts all future events supposed to come under it, out of all possible connexion with anything preceding and now actually existent, and consequently allows of no basis upon which they can be calculated and foreseen. Contingence, also, as opposed to necessity, destroys certainty, and excludes the possibility even of divine prescience. This is the course of Edwards's reasoning.

Now if we have reconciled contingence with both cause and certainty, and have opposed it only to necessity, thus separating cause and certainty from the absolute and unvarying dominion of necessity, then this reasoning is truly and legitimately set aside.

Necessity lies only in the eternal reason, and the sensitivity connected with it:--contingency lies only in will. But the future acts of will can be calculated from its known union with, and self-subjection to the reason and sensitivity.

These calculations are more or less probable, or are certain according to the known character of the person who is the subject of these calculations.

Of G.o.d we do not affirm merely the power of calculating future contingent events upon known data, but a positive prescience of all events. He sees from the beginning how contingent causes or wills, will act. He sees with absolute infallibility and certainty--and the events to him are infallible and certain. But still they are not necessary, because the causes which produce them are not determined and necessitated by anything preceding. They are causes contingent and free, and conscious of power not to do what they are actually engaged in doing.

I am persuaded that inattention to the important distinction of the certainty implied in the divine foreknowledge, and the necessity implied in the divine predetermination or decree, is the great source of fallacious reasonings and conclusions respecting the divine prescience.

When G.o.d pre-determines or decrees, he fixes the event by a necessity relative to himself as an infinite and irresistible cause. It cannot be otherwise than it is decreed, while his decree remains. But when he foreknows an event, he presents us merely a form of his infinite intelligence, exerting no causative, and consequently no necessitating influence whatever. The volitions which I am now conscious of exercising, are just what they are, whether they have been foreseen or not--and as they now do actually exist, they have certainty; and yet they are contingent, because I am conscious that I have power not to exercise them. They are, but they might not have been. Now let the intelligence of G.o.d be so perfect, as five thousand years ago, to have foreseen the volitions which I am now exercising; it is plain that this foresight does not destroy the contingency of the volitions, nor does the contingency render the foresight absurd. The supposition is both rational and possible.

It is not necessary for us to consider the remaining corollaries of Edwards, as the application of the above reasoning to them will be obvious.