A Review of Edwards's "Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will" — John Shaqi
A Review of Edwards's "Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will"Tappan, Henry Philip
Religion
A Review of Edwards's "Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will"
Tappan, Henry Philip
Edwards, Jonathan, 1703-1758. Freedom of the will; Free will and determinism
IX. Divine commands, warnings, and rebukes, when obeyed and yielded to,
are obeyed and yielded to by the necessary force which they possess in
relation to the state of mind to which they are addressed. When not
obeyed and yielded to, they fail necessarily, through a moral inability
on the part of the mind addressed; or, in other words, through the want
of a proper correlation between them and the state of mind addressed:
that is, there is not in the case a sufficient power to produce the
required volitions, and their existence of course is an utter
impossibility.
Divine commands, warnings, and rebukes, produce volitions of obedience
and submission, only as they produce the sense of the most agreeable;
and as the will of the creature can have no part in producing this
sense, since this would be producing a volition by a volition, it is
produced in a correlation antecedent to will, and of course by a
positive necessity. This is so clear from all that has gone before; that
no enlargement here is required.
When no obedience and submission take place, it is because the divine
commands, warnings, and rebukes, do not produce the sense of the most
agreeable. And as the will of the creature can have no part in producing
this sense, since this would be producing a volition by a volition; and
as it is produced in a correlation antecedent to will, and of course by
a positive necessity; so likewise the will of the creature can have no
part in preventing this sense from taking place. The volition of
obedience and the volition of disobedience are manifestations of the
antecedent correlations of certain objects with the subject, and are
necessarily determined by the nature of the correlation.
Now the Divine Being must know the precise relation which his commands
will necessarily hold to the vast variety of mind to which they are
addressed, and consequently must know in what cases obedience will be
produced, and in what cases disobedience. Both results are equally
necessary. The commands have therefore, necessarily and fitly, a
two-fold office. When they come into connexion with certain states of
mind, they necessarily and fitly produce what we call obedience: when in
connexion with other states of mind, they necessarily and fitly produce
what we call rebellion: and as all volitions are predetermined and fixed
by a necessary and infinite wisdom, and are therefore in their time and
place the best, it must follow that rebellion no less than obedience is
a wise and desirable result.
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