12 QUESTIONS THAT HAVE SHAPED CHURCH HISTORY (11): What is true freedom? (Part 3)

Continuing from Part 2 . . .

Part 4- Wherein the Chief Grounds of the Reasonings of Arminians, in Support and Defense of the Forementioned Notions of Liberty, Moral Agency, etc. and Against the Opposite Doctrine, Are Considered

Edwards begins the final part of Freedom by differentiating between the essence of the Arminian understanding of virtue and vice and the Puritan-Reformed (i.e. Calvinistic) understanding. Arminianism teaches that the moral agency of the will (i.e. whether an act of the will can be praiseworthy or blameworthy, considered virtue or vice) is defined by its cause. Edwards, on the other hand, understands that the moral agency of the will is defined by its nature.

Edwards points out the self-defeating problem inherent to the Arminian doctrine, namely the problem of infinite regress.

If the essence of virtuousness or commendableness, and of viciousness or fault, don't lie in the nature of the dispositions or acts of mind, which are said to be our virtue or our fault, but in their cause, then it is certain it lies nowhere at all. Thus, for instance, if the vice of a vicious act of will, lies not in the nature of the act, but the cause; so that its being of a bad nature will not make it at all our fault, unless it arises from some faulty determination of ours as its cause, or something in us that is our fault; then for the same reason, neither can the viciousness of that cause lie in the nature of the thing itself, but in its cause: that evil determination of ours is not our fault, merely because it is of a bad nature, unless it arises from some cause in us that is our fault. And when we are come to this higher cause, still the reason of the thing holds good; though this cause be of a bad nature, yet we are not at all to blame on that account, unless it arises from something faulty in us. Nor yet can blameworthiness lie in the nature of this cause, but in the cause of that. And thus we must drive faultiness back from step to step, from a lower cause to a higher, in infinitum: and that is thoroughly to banish it from the world, and to allow it no possibility of existence anywhere in the universality of things. On these principles, vice or moral evil can't consist in anything that is an effect;, because fault don't consist in the nature of things, but in their cause; as well as because effects are necessary, being unavoidably connected with their cause: therefore the cause only is to blame. And so it follows, that faultiness can lie only in that cause, which is a cause only, and no effect of anything. Nor yet can it lie in this; for then it must lie in the nature of the thing itself; not in its being from any determination of ours, nor anything faulty in us which is the cause, nor indeed from any cause at all, for by the supposition, it is no effect, and has no cause. And thus, he that will maintain, it is not the nature of habits or acts of will that makes them virtuous or faulty, but the cause, must immediately run himself out of his own assertion; and in maintaining it, will insensibly contradict and deny it (337-38).

N.B. The Arminian doctrine that the essence of moral agency lies in the cause of an act of the will is self-defeating, because it requires an infinite regress of causes. The essence of moral agency does not lie in the cause of an act of the will but in its nature. In other words, the virtue or vice of a choice is not defined by its cause but its nature.

Edwards explains:

Thus for instance, ingratitude is hateful and worthy of dispraise, according to common sense; not because something as bad, or worse than ingratitude, was the cause that produced it; but because it is hateful in itself, by its own inherent deformity. So the love of virtue is amiable, and worthy of praise, not merely because something else went before this love of virtue in our minds, which caused it to take place there; for instance our own choice; we chose to love virtue, and by some method or other wrought ourselves into the love of it; but because of the amiableness and condecency of such a disposition and inclination of heart (340).

Next Edwards demonstrates the problems inherent to the Arminian definition of "action" or "agency" with respect to moral acts of the will. He presents the Arminian definition writing:

They say, unless the soul has a self-determining power, it has no power of "action"; if its volitions be not caused by itself, but are excited and determined by some extrinsic cause, they can't be the soul's own "acts"; and that the soul can't be "active," but must be wholly "passive," in those effects which it is the subject of necessarily, and not from its own free determination (343).

This is, simply put, the teaching of libertarian (i.e. ultimately autonomous) freedom, a teaching that is self-defeating. Why is self-determination self-defeating? Edwards explains, because it asserts a wholly passive action. In other words, it teaches that the will is wholly passive, "under the power, influence or action of no cause," in determining itself (344), and at the same time wholly active in determining itself. A thing cannot be both wholly passive and wholly active at the same time (the modifier "wholly" accounting for sense). "So here we have this contradiction, that action is always the effect of foregoing choice; and therefore can't be action; because it is passive to the power of that preceding causal choice; and the mind can't be active and passive in the same thing, at the same time" (344).

What the Arminian doctrine assumes is that acting freely (for Edwards "action") and being acted upon (for Edwards "passion") are contradictory concepts. But is that true? Only if we assume that whatever is simultaneously active and passive is both active and passive in the same sense. If we distinguish the sense in which the thing is simultaneously active and passive, then there is no contradiction. Edwards explains in terms of cause and effect, "The words "cause" and "effect" are terms of opposite signification; but nevertheless, if I assert that the same thing may at the same time, in different respects and relations, be both cause and effect, this will not prove that I confound the terms" (347). Edwards concludes:

So to suppose, that there are acts of the soul by which a man voluntarily moves, and acts upon objects, and produces effects, which yet themselves are effects of something else, and wherein the soul itself is the object of something acting upon, and influencing that, don't at all confound "action" and "passion." The words may nevertheless be properly of opposite signification: there may be as true and real a difference between acting and being caused to act, though we should suppose the soul to be both in the same volition, as there is between living, and being quickened, or made to live. 'Tis no more a contradiction, to suppose that action may be the effect of some other cause, besides the agent, or being that acts, than to suppose that life may be the effect of some other cause, besides the liver, or the being that lives, in whom life is caused to be (348).

N.B. The Arminian doctrine of a self-determined will is self-defeating because it asserts that the will is simultaneously wholly active and wholly passive in its determination. This problem is resolved by the Puritan-Reformed doctrine that the will may be passive in one sense and active in another, both effect and cause, simultaneously.

Next Edwards demonstrates the problem with the Arminian doctrine that necessity of action contradicts morality of action. He begins by agreeing that natural necessity is indeed inconsistent with praiseworthiness and blameworthiness. An authority cannot justly require from a subordinate something he is naturally incapable of doing. Also, if an authority requires something that is, naturally speaking, very difficult though not wholly impossible, then the subordinate's omission is to some degree excused.

Because men are so used to thinking in terms of natural necessity, they often confuse all necessity for natural necessity. This is a problem of the Arminian system. It conceives all necessity in terms of natural necessity, and therefore recoils from the Puritan-Reformed doctrine of determinism, claiming it to be inconsistent with praiseworthiness and blameworthiness.

N.B. The Arminian system fails to distinguish between natural and moral necessity; therefore, it views all necessity, rather than just natural necessity, as inconsistent with moral agency.

In the next section Edwards demonstrates the consistency of praiseworthiness and blameworthiness with moral necessity. Simply put Edwards distinguishes natural necessity from moral necessity by defining moral necessity as willingness. To be naturally unable to perform an act leaves room for the constraint of one's will (i.e. being willing but unable), which would certainly contradict moral agency. But to be morally unable to perform an act precludes the constraint of one's will. If one is morally unable then he is, by definition, unwilling. In other words, moral inability might be defined as unwillingness to perform the praiseworthy act. Whereas moral ability might be defined as willingness to perform the praiseworthy act. The more fervent and consistent one's willingness or inclination to perform the praiseworthy act, the more praiseworthy the act. Likewise, the more fervent and consistent one's willingness to perform the blameworthy act, the more blameworthy the act. Perfect virtue (i.e. divine virtue) is then understood as absolute fervency and consistency (i.e. necessity) of inclination to perform the virtuous act; perfect vice is understood as absolute fervency and consistency (i.e. necessity) of inclination to perform the evil act.

If there be an approach to a moral necessity in a man's exertion of good acts of will, they being the exercise of a strong propensity to good, and a very powerful love to virtue; 'tis so far from being the dictate of common sense, that he is less virtuous, and the less to be esteemed, loved and praised; that 'tis agreeable to the natural notions of all mankind that he is so much the better man, worthy of greater respect, and higher commendation. And the stronger the inclination is, and the nearer it approaches to necessity in that respect, or to impossibility of neglecting the virtuous act, or of doing a vicious one; still the more virtuous, and worthy of higher commendation. And on the other hand, if a man exerts evil acts of mind; as for instance, acts of pride or malice, from a rooted and strong habit or principle of haughtiness and maliciousness, and a violent propensity of heart to such acts; according to the natural sense of all men, he is so far from being the less hateful and blamable on that account, that he is so much the more worthy to be detested and condemned by all that observe him (360).

Edwards closes this section with a familiar corollary:

From things which have been observed, it will follow, that it is agreeable to common sense to suppose, that the glorified saints have not their freedom at all diminished, in any respect; and that God himself has the highest possible freedom, according to the true and proper meaning of the term; and that he is in the highest possible respect an agent, and active in the exercise of his infinite holiness; though he acts therein in the highest degree necessarily: and his actions of this kind are in the highest, most absolutely perfect manner virtuous and praiseworthy; and are so, for that very reason, because they are most perfectly necessary (364).

N.B. Moral necessity is consistent with moral agency because it precludes the constraint of one's will. In other words, moral necessity is consistent with moral agency because it speaks to the fervency and consistency of one's inclinations, and the fervency and consistency of one's inclinations are certainly due their just praise or blame.