VII. We are now fully prepared to state the ground which Necessitarians
of every school are bound to take in respect to the doctrine of Ability.
It is to deny that doctrine wholly, to take the open and broad ground,
that, according to any appropriate signification of the words, it is
absolutely impossible for men to will, and consequently to act,
differently from what they do; that when they do wrong, they always do
it, with the absolute impossibility of doing right; and that when they
do right, there is always an equal impossibility of their doing wrong.
If men have not power to _will_ differently from what they do, it is
undeniably evident that they have no power whatever to act differently:
because there is an absolutely necessary connection between volitions
and their consequents, external actions. The doctrine of Necessity takes
away wholly all ability from the creature to will differently from what
he does. It therefore totally annihilates his ability to _act_
differently. What, then, according to the theory of Necessity, becomes
of the doctrine of Ability? It is annihilated. It is impossible for us
to find for it a "local habitation or a name." As honest men,
Necessitarians are bound to proclaim the fact. They are bound to
proclaim the doctrine, that, in requiring men to be holy, under
influences under which they do sin, and cannot but sin (as it is true of
all sinful acts according to their theory), God requires of them
absolute impossibilities, and then dooms them to perdition for not
performing such impossibilities.
The subterfuge to which Necessitarians resort here, will not avail them
at all, to wit: that men are to blame for not doing right, because, they
might do it if they chose. To will right is the thing, and the only
thing really required of them. The above maxim therefore amounts, as we
have already seen, to this: Men are bound to do, that is, to will, what
is right, because if they should will what is right, they would will
what is right.
DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY, AS REGARDED BY NECESSITARIANS OF DIFFERENT
SCHOOLS.
VIII. Two schools divide the advocates of Necessity. According to one
class, God produces in men all their volitions and acts, both sinful and
holy, by the direct exertion of his own omnipotence. Without the Divine
agency, men, they hold, are wholly incapable of all volitions and
actions of every kind. With it, none but those which God produces can
arise, and these cannot but arise. This is the scheme of Divine
efficiency, as advocated by Dr. Emmons and others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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