Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics: With Some of Their ApplicationsThornton, William Thomas
Philosophy
Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics: With Some of Their Applications
Thornton, William Thomas
Metaphysics; Utilitarianism
to actual arrangements, there must be reasons for our wishes, and that
on those reasons our wishes must depend. Should we then prefer that
there were no such reasons? Would we have our wishes to be independent
of reason, and adrift before irrational caprice? Probably we may, on
second thoughts, be content to forego an enfranchisement like this; but,
if not, we may at least console ourselves for its indefinite
postponement, by reflecting that Omnipotence itself is, equally with
ourselves, subject to the sort of necessity under which we are groaning;
equally destitute of the sort of free-will to which we aspire. It is
manifest that, since there cannot be omnipotence without boundless
liberty, omnipotence must possess completest freedom of will. Yet even
the Will of Omnipotence is subject to the despotism of causation. Divine
perfection cannot but be at all times affected in modes as exactly
corresponding with its own excellence as human imperfection is in modes
corresponding with its deficiencies, and the movements of the Divine
Mind cannot but correspond with the affections of the Divine Mind. Those
movements are not unmeaning, purposeless, wayward. They, too, have their
appropriate springs, and proceed by regular process from legitimate
causes, the chief of those causes being the infinite perfection of the
Divine Nature. Divine Power cannot then, any more than human, be
directed by its owner's will to purposes against which its owner's
nature revolts. But is this inability a matter to lament over? Those
must be greatly at a loss for a grievance who make one of its being
impossible for them to will things which they have over-ruling reasons
for not willing. Besides, does man, in order to believe himself free,
require more freedom than his Maker? The disciple is not above his
master, nor the servant above his lord. Surely it is sufficient that
the disciple be as his master, and the servant as his lord.[25]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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