An Examination of President Edwards' Inquiry into the Freedom of the WillBledsoe, Albert Taylor
Philosophy
An Examination of President Edwards' Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will
Bledsoe, Albert Taylor
Edwards, Jonathan, 1703-1758. Freedom of the will; Free will and determinism
There is one thing well worthy of remark in this connexion. President
Edwards contends, as we have seen, that Adam must have been created with
a principle of virtue, of which his Maker was the sole author, or else
the existence of virtue would have been impossible, And yet, he contends
that Adam was created perfectly free from sin;--that as he came from the
hand of his Maker, he was perfectly pure and holy, without the least
stain or blemish of any wrong or vicious principle upon his nature. Is
it not wonderful, that it did not occur to so acute a reasoner as the
author of the "Inquiry," that if his own argument was sound, it would,
according to his own principle, prove the introduction of sin into the
world to be utterly impossible? That he did not see, if it is impossible
to account for the existence of holiness, except on the supposition that
man was created or brought into the world with a principle of holiness
implanted in his heart; so, for the same reason, it is equally
impossible to account for the existence of sin, except on the
supposition that a sinful principle was implanted in the breast of man
by the hand of his Maker?
The above extract, by which Edwards endeavours to prove that Adam could
not have performed a virtuous act, unless a virtuous principle had been
planted in his nature by the Creator, would be just as correct and
conclusive, if we were to read vicious instead of virtuous. By the very
same argument, we might prove that he could not have sinned, and so sin
would have been impossible, unless God had planted a sinful principle or
disposition in his nature.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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