Dabney on Sensualistic Philosophy

(Please don’t get started on Dabney or racism.  He was a white supremacist, just like everyone else in America, North or South, at the time.  I condemn his racism as much as I condemn the racism of Lincoln or Sherman.) I am only posting this because of his discussions on faculty psychology as they relate to Edwards studies).

Dabney anticipates modern debates. He sees in the “Sensualists” modern Neo-Atheism. His response is an early, if inchoate, form of Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism. As Dabney sees it, the danger is if man is nothing but atoms, how can there be the existence of a soul, mind, will, or even God? Of course, many physicalists today deny precisely that, so sometimes Dabney’s reductios fall flat. His arguments are worth exploring, nonetheless.

Positive statement of the thesis: human intelligence is a pure rational spirit, not a bundle of senses (Dabney 12). He sees the beginning of Sensualism in Thomas Hobbes, where desire is “sensation transmuted.” And against later empiricists such as Locke, they confuse the occasion of the genesis of ideas with its cause (22).

Not every chapter is of immediate relevance. Dabney–as well as his opponents–were working with very limited understandings of science. Dabney’s true genius, rather, lies in his discussions of mind and soul. “The mind is a distinct spiritual substance” which is part of the common sense of mankind (107). And in defending the validity of a priori notions, he writes, “Our minds are validly entitled to intuitive cognitions gained apart from sense-experience (159). Concerning the origins of a priori notions, Our notions are determined from within our mind and not by a posteriori causes (182). Dabney even anticipates the idea of “properly basic beliefs” (he calls them ‘primitive judgments’). It is a judgment that does not depend on prior premises, whether deductive or inductive.

Dabney even anticipates modern rebuttals to empiricism and scientism. Sensual Empiricism is self-refuting. The claim “the mind derives all its ideas from sensation” is itself a non-sensory derived statement (185)! How can the empiricist make a universal judgment about cause-effect without seeing all examples? The mind, by contrast, makes immediately active judgments. When we see a succession of events, our mind automatically sequences them regardless of whether we have empirically verified the prior concept of “succession.” It just happens (shades of Thomas Reid!). Indeed, we have Properly basic beliefs (1st principles, etc) which cannot be conclusions of observations because “they must be in the mind in order to the making of any conclusions” (189).

Dabney and Free Agency

Dabney notes that the reformed system is not fatalistic or deterministic. He argues, “the grand condition of moral responsibility is rational spontaneity (211). The sensualist, by contrast, volitions are the effects of desires, and desire is sense-impression reappearing in reflex form.” The object of our choosing is the inducement to volition and the motive is the subjective cause. Motives arise from subjective reflections (214).

Volitions are free, yet they often have a uniformity of quality that we can predict them. This uniformity is what the Scholastics called habitus, the permanent subjective law of man’s free agency. Freedom is more than the liberty to execute volitions. The soul is self-determining. This is not Pelagianism, though. We are not saying the faculty of will is self-determining. The soul has its own regulative law of action. This regulative law is its dispositions. This fact coexists with the fact of consciousness.

Wherein consisteth man’s free agency? We maintain that the soul is the self-determining power. We reject the idea that the will is in perpetual equilibrium (and here Edwards’ critique is accurate).

Evaluation:

This book is hard-sledding. Some of it will not be relevant to the Christian theist today. A lot of Dabney’s reductios assumed that even his opponents will agree to the idea of “mind” or “soul.” This is not the case today. Further, some atheists can even hold to property-dualism, which does not reduce all to matter (e.g., holds to mental states). On the other hand, though, the book is an outstanding presentation of the traditional doctrines of the mind, soul, and free agency.

 

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Witsius, Notes: Vol 1

This is mainly Books 1-3 of The Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man (Reformation Heritage reprint)

Book 1

Chapter 1: Covenants in General

Generally, covenants signify a mutual agreement between parties, with respect to something (43).  A covenant of God, furthermore, “is an agreement between God and man, about the way of obtaining consummate happiness,” including sanctions (45).  This covenant comprises three things: a) Promise; b) condition; c) sanction.

While it is a free agreement between God and man, man really couldn’t say no.  Not to desire God’s promises is to refuse the goodness of God, which is sin.

Covenant of Works: in the covenant of works there is no mediator (49).

Chapter 2: Of the contracting parties of the covenant of works

The CoW = natural law = covenant of nature (50).  Witsius notes that there was supernatural revelation in this covenant (53).

Image of God

The imago dei has knowledge, righteousness, and holiness (54).

Chapter 3: Of the Law, or Condition, of the Covenant of Works

The law of nature: the rule of good and evil inscribed on man’s conscience.  Further, it is identical with the substance of the decalogue (62).

Witsius views the CoW as probationary, yet Adam wouldn’t have “earned” the reward per any intrinsic merit.  The reward is rooted in God’s covenant, not in man’s merit.

Chapter 4: Of the Promises of the Covenant of Works

Man’s natural conscience teaches him that God desires not to be served in vain (71).

Chapter 5: Of the Penal Sanction

Nature of the soul: a spiritual substance endowed with understanding and will (89).  Witsius notes that the soul is conscious of itself, which modern philosophers like JP Moreland call “self-presenting.”

Aquinas and the majesty of God: Adam’s disobedience, no matter how small, is divine treason–it is not honoring and infinite majesty as it deserves. God’s holiness is such that he cannot admit a sinner to communion without satisfaction first made to his justice (94).

Chapter 7: Of the First Sabbath

Contra Turretin, Witsius doesn’t think Adam fell on the first day (126).

Chapter 8: Of the Violation of the Covenant of Works on the Part of Man

Witsius suggests that Satan’s suggestion to Eve that she can disobey God and not die, which is a venial sin, is functionally equivalent to Rome’s definition of venial sin (138).

Foreknowledge and Predestination: God’s knowledge of future things cannot be conceived apart from his decreeing them (141).  The creature acts in concurrence with God’s action. All things come from God. There is only one first cause (I.8.15). If something could act besides having God as its cause, then there would be multiple first Causes, which is polytheism.

God and sin.  If all beings come from God, and even though sin is privation of being, it, too, is a kind of entity, then it also arises from God’s plan (para 22).

Chapter 9: Of the Abrogation of the Covenant of Works

The covenant of law demands a merit of perfect obedience, otherwise Christ would have been under no necessity to submit to this covenant (158).

Book II.

Chapter 1: Introduction to the Covenant of Grace

Definition: a compact or agreement between God and the elect sinner, God on his part declaring his free good-will concerning eternal salvation, and every thing relative thereto, freely to be given to those in covenant, by, and for the mediator Christ; and man on his part consenting to that goodwill by a sincere faith (2.1.5).

Chapter 2: Of the Covenant between God the Father and Son

The covenant of redemption is between God and the Mediator. The will of the Father, giving the Son to be the Head and Redeemer of the elect; and the will of the Son, presenting himself as a Sponsor or Surety for them (2.2.2). Christ’s suretyship consists in his willingness to undertake to perform that condition (2.2.4).

The exegetical foundation is in Zech. 6.13.  There is a counsel of Peace between God and the Branch. 

Covenant and Justification: God the Father, through Christ’s use of the sacraments, sealed the federal promise concerning justification (para 11).  Christ’s baptism illustrates the sealing of the covenant from both sides.

Chapter 3: The nature of the covenant between the Father and the Son more fully explained

Lines of argument:  Christ was foreordained (1 Peter i.20).

Rejects the idea of liberty of will = indifference (p. 187).

The reward the Son was to obtain:

1. Highest degree of glory (John 17.1).
2. Christ’s obedience is the cause of the rewards.

Chapter 4: Of the Person of the Surety

4 things necessary for a surety: true man;  holy man; true God; unity of person.

Chapter 7: Of the Efficacy of Christ’s Satisfaction

The proximate effect of redemption and payment of ransom is setting the captives free, and not a bare possibility of liberty (235).

Chapter 9: Of the Persons for whom Christ engaged and satisfied

Key point: those “all for whom” (2 Cor. 5.15) Christ died are those who are also dead to the old man (257).

Chapter 10: After What manner Christ used the sacraments

Key point: Christ used the sacraments of the old covenant to show them as signs and seals of the covenant, whereby mutual contracting parties are sealed (273). The promsies made to Christ as mediator were principally sealed to him by the sacraments.

BOOK III

Chapter 1: Of the Covenant of God with the Elect

The contracting parties are God and the elect (281). The son is not only mediator but testator, who ratified the covenant with his death. Are there conditions in the covenant of Grace?  Earlier divines like Rutherford spoke a qualified “yes,” though Witsius removes himself from that language. Condition: that action which gives a man a right to the reward (284).

Chapter 12: Sanctification

Witsius gives a warm and pastoral chapter on mortifying the flesh.

Concerning body, soul, spirit:

1. Spirit is the mind, or the leading faculty of man (II.17).
2. Soul denotes the inferior faculties.
3. Yet spirit and soul aren’t two different substances.

God is the author and the efficient cause of sanctification (18).

Chapter 13: Of Conservation, or the manner by which God preserves us

God conserves us internally by the Spirit and externally by the means he hath appointed (55).  This is otherwise known as “P” in the unfortunately-named “TULIP.” Our security is guaranteed because of God’s covenant, not only with us, but between the members of the Trinity (62ff).

Chapter 14: Of Glorification

Df. = that act of God whereby he translates his chosen and redeemed people to the next life.

Nature of the Soul

The soul must continue after death because the righteous who die in the Lord are considered “blessed,” yet how can someone be blessed without knowledge or feeling?

Paradise and the thief on the cross:

It makes no sense to say that the “today, I say to you” refers to when Christ spoke.  The thief already knows that Christ is speaking on that day (p. 95). The thief was asking a “when” question, and Christ gives him a “when” answer.

 

Plantinga: God and Other Minds

And so begins Plantinga’s project. Plantinga evaluates the issue of whether we are rationally *justified* in believing in God. In doing so, he considers the natural theologian’s arsenal, the atheologian’s response, and whether belief in God can be salvaged from the analogy of other minds.

Natural Theology

In considering the Cosmological, Ontological, and Teleological arguments, Plantinga points out that most criticisms of these arguments do not obtain, but still, at the end of the day, the natural theologian is not in a better position. Admittedly, this section is dizzying. The ontological argument comprised two chapters (though we did get a fine survey of the then-current literature).

Various Atheologica

Plantinga explores the atheologian’s criticisms of theism: the problem of evil (PE), the free will(FV) defense, and verificationism (Vf). With regard to PE, Plantinga notes if the atheologian’s premises are correct, it still doesn’t prove that God doesn’t exist. There is no logical contradiction between the classical theistic view of God and the existence of evil. The atheologian needs to add the following premise:

(a) An all-powerful, all-loving God is *morally obligated* to create a world where persons freely choose the good at all times.

But introducing moral considerations is off-limits for the atheologian at this time. In any case, the atheologian’s criticism only speaks of what kind of God exists, not that he doesn’t exist.

Plantinga’s FW defense is the best chapter in the book. Whether we hold to free will or not is true, Plantinga argues that it is logically coherent and thus serves to defeat the atheologian’s defeater. The atheologian wants the following premise:

(b) God could create a world where the state of affairs obtain where a person P freely chooses the good at all times.

As Plantinga notes, this is hard to square with any definition of freedom. Further, just because God is omnipotent does not mean that he can create any state of affairs (e.g., God cannot create the state of affairs that is not created by God!) Further, Plantinga gives a nice discussion of what is a human person:

(c) x is a possible person = def. x is a consistent set of H properties such that for every H property P, either P or P (complement) is a member of x (Plantinga 141).

And if it is false that God can instantiate any possible state of affairs he chooses, then it is false that he can create any person he chooses. Therefore, (b) is no threat to theism.

God and Other Minds

This last section was confusing. Plantinga argued that the other minds analogy has drawbacks but then suggests something like it to *justify* belief in God.  It’s important to note that at this point in his career, Plantinga is still speaking in terms of justification and has not yet moved to warrant.

Evaluation and Limitations

This book was one of Plantinga’s earlier projects. Notice that I have been using the word “justify” in terms of evaluating belief in God. By the time of Warrant and Proper Function, Plantinga has rejected this line of thought. Justification is a stricter criterion of rationality. It suggests deontological duty and if Plantinga wants to speak of theistic belief as *justified* on the basis of other minds analogy, then his project certainly falls short. But this is no longer Plantinga’s position.

Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil

Plantinga, summarizing his earlier work in The Nature of Necessity and God and Other Minds, demonstrates that the theist does not face a contradiction in a) asserting God exists and b) evil exists. In this work Plantinga also deals with essences, persons, possible worlds, and logical analysis. While Plantinga uses rigorous logic, this book is well-written and and fairly short.

Is There a Logical Contradiction?

If there is a contradiction between the following three premises, the atheologian has yet to show it:
1. God is omnipotent
2. God is wholly good
3. Evil exists

We will call this Set {A}. The atheologian has to show that one of these propositions’ denial or negation contradicts another proposition (Plantinga 13). Even if the atheologian cannot show a logical contradiction, Plantinga will go on to argue that he cannot show a logical inconsistency (at least not on these three propositions. By the end of the book all three of these are meticulously refined).

The Free Will Defense (FWD) is the heart of Plantinga’s argument. He argues that a person is free with respect to an action, a world containing free creatures is more valuable than a world without it, and to create free creatures capable of moral good is to create them capable of moral evil (29-31).

Plantinga further clarifies classical theism by noting that an omnipotent God cannot create just any world. God can only create logically possible worlds (or rather, God can only actualize logically possible states of affairs). For example, God cannot actualize a state of affairs in which God didn’t actualize any state of affairs.

This leads to discussions of Possible Worlds (W). W is a way things could have been. It is an actual state of affairs that obtains. A W is a possible state of affairs, but a possible state of affairs is not necessarily a W (35).

Must Evil Exist?

This is the trickiest part of the book. Plantinga seems to imply “yes” at times (though to be fair that probably isn’t his intention). Classical theism has always denied that evil is necessary. Plantinga calls his model “Transworld Depravity:” God cannot create a world in why my essential properties (E) mean I will be free and always do the right thing (48, 52). I think Plantinga is correct but we need to change “always” to “always compelled.”

Conclusion:

This is the easiest of Plantinga’s books to read. And while the material is simpler, he does clarify points from *The Nature of Necessity.* My only criticism is the second half on natural theology. His arguments on Evil and Free Will Defense stand or fall independent of Natural Theology. That section merely restated the material from *God and Other Minds.*

Analytical Outline of Freedom of the Will

Terminology:

1. Will: that by which the mind chooses anything (1.1).
   1. Act of will: act of choosing.  JE identifies volition with the prevailing act of the soul; what other writers call “voluntary.”
   2. Determined: under some influence to a fixed object.
2. Thesis: it is that motive which, as it stands in the view of the mind, is the strongest that determines the will (I.).

Necessity of consequence:  while JE plays fast and loose sometimes with terms, what he says makes sense, nonetheless.   There is also a weaker type of necessity, accidental necessity.

 

• Part 1

1. Thesis: a man never wills anything contrary to his (greatest apparent) desire (section 1).

2. Section 2: Determination of the WIll

   1. A will is determined when its choice is directed to a fixed object. Motive is that which excites the mind to volition. For Edwards “understanding” is the whole faculty of perception.

3. Section 3: Necessity

   1. A thing is necessary when it cannot be otherwise. Necessity is a fixed connection between things (e.g., the subject and predicate of a proposition).  Contingency is when something has no previous connection.

4. Section 4: Moral Necessity and Inability

   1. Moral necessity is the certainty of the will itself.  Edwards’ argument seems to be that it is impossible for the will to act contrary to its greatest inclination. This impossibility is the moral inability.

   2. Moral inability is the want or defect of an inclination.  Being able is not the same thing as being willing.  I can have the faculty/capacity to do x, yet never actualize it.

5. Section 5: Concerning the Notion of Liberty and Agency

   1. Liberty is the power to do as one pleases.  It doesn’t belong under the category of “Will,” but agency.  Agents are free, wills are not.

 

Part 2: Is there a such thing as Arminian Liberty?

1. Inconsistency
   1. If the Will determines all its free acts, then every free choice is determined by a preceding act of choice.
   2. JE sees a chain of causes in each act of the will.  The key question: is this first act of the Will free or not?  If it is free (in the sense of uncaused), then we have an uncaused Cause (God).  If it isn’t free, then the Will is not free.
2. Is the Will active or passive?
   1. If the Will is active, then the Will is determining other acts of the Will.  If passive, then in what sense is the will a determining factor?
   2. The very act of volition is itself a determination of the mind.
   3. Definition of a cause: an antecedent on which an event depends.
3. Short essay on the Cosmological Argument.
4. The soul, even if active, cannot be the subject of effects which have no cause.
5. JE recaps his argument.
6. Difficulties in the view that the will is uninfluenced
   1. This is like saying that the mind has a preference but at the same time it has no preference.
   2. To suppose the Will to act in a complete state of indifference is to assert that the mind chooses without choosing.
7. Liberty of Will and Indifference
   1. On an Arminian gloss, indifference must be taken in an absolute sense. This is so because if the will is already inclined, then the choosing isn’t solely on the sovereign power of the Will.
   2. Is a self-determining will really free? How can the soul be both in a state of choice and a state of equilibrium?
   3. Does the mind suspend itself in a state of complete indifference?
8. Liberty and Necessity
   1. Acts of will are never contingent.
9. Connection between the Will and Understanding
   1. Every act of will is connected with the perceived good from the understanding.
10. Volition and Motives
    1. Every act of will is excited by some motive.
    2. The motive is the cause of the will’s act.
    3. Volitions are necessarily connected with the motive.
    4. If the motives dispose the mind to action, then they cause the mind to be disposed; and to cause the mind to be disposed is to cause it to be willing; and to cause it to be willing is to cause it to will.
11. God’s Foreknowledge
    1. Thesis: God has a certain foreknowledge of the voluntary acts of moral agents. These acts, therefore, are not contingent.
    2. If God doesn’t have knowledge of the future actions of moral agents, then the prophecies in general are without foreknowledge.
12. God’s foreknowledge inconsistent with contingent actions.
    1. The voluntary acts of moral agents are necessary in the sense of connection or consequence.
       1. For example, past actions are now necessary.
       2. God’s foreknowledge, therefore, gives the actions a kind of necessary ground of existence.
       3. If something is indissolubly connected with a necessary event, it, too, is necessary.
    2. Therefore, there is a necessary connection between God’s foreknowledge and these events.
    3. Infallible foreknowledge proves the necessity of the event foreknown, but does not necessarily cause it.
13. Recap of argument

Part III: Is Liberty inconsistent with moral excellency?

The Arminian objects that anything that is necessary cannot be morally praiseworthy.

1. God’s nature and moral excellency are necessary but that doesn’t preclude His being praiseworthy.
   1. Indeed, it is commanded.
   2. On the Arminian objection, why should we thank God for his Goodness, since His good acts are necessary?
2. Jesus was necessarily holy and couldn’t sin, yet he is praiseworthy.
   1. In this section Edwards upholds dyotheletism.
   2. God promised to preserve and uphold Jesus by his Spirit.
   3. The benefits of Christ’s obedience are in the nature of a reward.
3. Moral necessity and Inability are consistent with blameworthiness because of the fact that God gives people up to sin.
   1. If coaction and necessity prove men blameless, then Judas was blameless for betraying Christ.
4. Command and obligation to obedience are consistent with moral inability to obey.
   1. The Arminian says that the only good acts are when the will acts from a state of Indifference and equilibrium.  Yet, this runs into problems:
      1. If the soul doesn’t act by prior determining influences, then volitions are events that happen by pure chance.
      2. Laws require virtue and repress vice, yet a libertarian action is indifferent with respect to law.
      3. If liberty consists in indifference, then anything that biases the will destroys Liberty.
      4. Yet Scripture teaches that the Saint is most free when he obeys God.
   2. The inclination of a will is itself unable to change.  This would be like saying the mind is inclined otherwise than it is now inclined!
5. Sincerity of Desires are irrelevant
   1. Men are already inclined or not inclined prior to the relevance of needing to be sincerely inclined.
      1. It is like saying a man should sincerely incline to have an inclination.
      2. Being sincere is no virtue unless it is being sincere towards a virtuous thing.
   2. But being sincere destroys the idea of a Will resting in a complete state of indifference.
6. Liberty of Indifference is not Necessary to virtue but actually opposed to it.
   1. If indifference of Will is necessary to Virtue, then the heart must be indifferent to the virtuous act when it performs it!
   2. Therefore, there is no virtue (or vice) in habitual inclinations.
7. Arminian notions of moral agency (indifference) are inconsistent with the influence of motives and Inducement.
   1. If the only good act is one springing from an indifferent will, then what is the point of using motives or promises?
   2. Motives bias the mind and destroy indifference.
   3. If acts of the will are incited by motives, then motives cause those acts, which means the will isn’t self-caused.
   4. If the soul has in its act no motive or end, then in that act it seeks nothing. It desires nothing.  It chooses nothing.

Part IV: Refuting Arminianism

1. Essence of virtue, etc., lies in nature, not in Cause.
   1. We condemn or praise an act, not in its cause, but in the nature of the act.
   2. If we blame the cause of an act, then we have to ask why that Cause is evil, which moves the discussion back to a previous cause, and so on.
2. Metaphysical notions of action and agency
3. On necessity
   1. Strong connection between the thing said to be necessary, and the antecedents.
4. Moral necessity consistent with praise and blame.
   1. When someone does wrong, it is because he is doing as he pleases, and we blame him for doing as he pleases.
   2. We do not speculate on the Causes of his actions (at least not immediately).
5. Objections considered
   1. Necessity does not render endeavors to be vain, for we judge an endeavor based on the success of it, and not simply on the means.
6. We are not fatalists.  Edwards admits he has not read Hobbes.
7. Necessity of the Divine Will
   1. God wills necessarily, yet no one bats an eye at this.
   2. God necessarily acts in a way to exhibit the perfections of his Nature.
8. Necessity of God’s volitions
   1. If presented between two objects, ex hypothesi, God will always necessarily choose between the fittest.
   2. JE then gives an amazing analytical theological discussion about the nature of identity.  
9. Is God the author of sin?
   1. God is not the author of sin in that he is the agent of sin.
   2. Yet God does order the universe in such a way that sin does come about.  Even Arminians must admit this.
10. Concerning sin’s first entrance into the world.
11. On supposed inconsistencies.
    1. God’s secret and revealed will.
    2. Men are still invited to the gospel, even if God has secretly ordered the universe in such a way that men will not respond.
12. On atheism and licentiousness
    1. JE’s apologetics: the doctrine of necessity is the only medium for proving the being of God.
13. Are we too metaphysical? No.
    1. The being of God is metaphysically construed, and this is valuable for apologetics.
14. Conclusion
    1. God orders all events.
15. Appendix
    1. Liberty is the power that anyone has to do as he pleases.
    2. Moral necessity is the connection between antecedent things and consequent things.

Edwards, Freedom of Will Part 3

Part III: Is Liberty inconsistent with moral excellency?

The Arminian objects that anything that is necessary cannot be morally praiseworthy.

1. God’s nature and moral excellency are necessary but that doesn’t preclude His being praiseworthy.
   1. Indeed, it is commanded.
   2. On the Arminian objection, why should we thank God for his Goodness, since His good acts are necessary?
2. Jesus was necessarily holy and couldn’t sin, yet he is praiseworthy.
   1. In this section Edwards upholds dyotheletism.
   2. God promised to preserve and uphold Jesus by his Spirit.
   3. The benefits of Christ’s obedience are in the nature of a reward.
3. Moral necessity and Inability are consistent with blameworthiness because of the fact that God gives people up to sin.
   1. If coaction and necessity prove men blameless, then Judas was blameless for betraying Christ.
4. Command and obligation to obedience are consistent with moral inability to obey.
   1. The Arminian says that the only good acts are when the will acts from a state of Indifference and equilibrium.  Yet, this runs into problems:
      1. If the soul doesn’t act by prior determining influences, then volitions are events that happen by pure chance.
      2. Laws require virtue and repress vice, yet a libertarian action is indifferent with respect to law.
      3. If liberty consists in indifference, then anything that biases the will destroys Liberty.
      4. Yet Scripture teaches that the Saint is most free when he obeys God.
   2. The inclination of a will is itself unable to change.  This would be like saying the mind is inclined otherwise than it is now inclined!
5. Sincerity of Desires are irrelevant
   1. Men are already inclined or not inclined prior to the relevance of needing to be sincerely inclined.
      1. It is like saying a man should sincerely incline to have an inclination.
      2. Being sincere is no virtue unless it is being sincere towards a virtuous thing.
   2. But being sincere destroys the idea of a Will resting in a complete state of indifference.
6. Liberty of Indifference is not Necessary to virtue but actually opposed to it.
   1. If indifference of Will is necessary to Virtue, then the heart must be indifferent to the virtuous act when it performs it!
   2. Therefore, there is no virtue (or vice) in habitual inclinations.
7. Arminian notions of moral agency (indifference) are inconsistent with the influence of motives and Inducement.
   1. If the only good act is one springing from an indifferent will, then what is the point of using motives or promises?
   2. Motives bias the mind and destroy indifference.
   3. If acts of the will are incited by motives, then motives cause those acts, which means the will isn’t self-caused.
   4. If the soul has in its act no motive or end, then in that act it seeks nothing. It desires nothing.  It chooses nothing.

Edwards, Freedom of Will Part Two

“Part” corresponds more or less to chapter.  The outline headings are Edwards’ own sections.  The subheadings are major quotations or summaries.

Part 2: Is there a such thing as Arminian Liberty?

1. Inconsistency
   1. If the Will determines all its free acts, then every free choice is determined by a preceding act of choice.
   2. JE sees a chain of causes in each act of the will.  The key question: is this first act of the Will free or not?  If it is free (in the sense of uncaused), then we have an uncaused Cause (God).  If it isn’t free, then the Will is not free.
2. Is the Will active or passive?
   1. If the Will is active, then the Will is determining other acts of the Will.  If passive, then in what sense is the will a determining factor?
   2. The very act of volition is itself a determination of the mind.
   3. Definition of a cause: an antecedent on which an event depends.
3. Short essay on the Cosmological Argument.
4. The soul, even if active, cannot be the subject of effects which have no cause.
5. JE recaps his argument.
6. Difficulties in the view that the will is uninfluenced
   1. This is like saying that the mind has a preference but at the same time it has no preference.
   2. To suppose the Will to act in a complete state of indifference is to assert that the mind chooses without choosing.
7. Liberty of Will and Indifference
   1. On an Arminian gloss, indifference must be taken in an absolute sense. This is so because if the will is already inclined, then the choosing isn’t solely on the sovereign power of the Will.
   2. Is a self-determining will really free? How can the soul be both in a state of choice and a state of equilibrium?
   3. Does the mind suspend itself in a state of complete indifference?
8. Liberty and Necessity
   1. Acts of will are never contingent.
9. Connection between the Will and Understanding
   1. Every act of will is connected with the perceived good from the understanding.
10. Volition and Motives
    1. Every act of will is excited by some motive.
    2. The motive is the cause of the will’s act.
    3. Volitions are necessarily connected with the motive.
    4. If the motives dispose the mind to action, then they cause the mind to be disposed; and to cause the mind to be disposed is to cause it to be willing; and to cause it to be willing is to cause it to will.
11. God’s Foreknowledge
    1. Thesis: God has a certain foreknowledge of the voluntary acts of moral agents. These acts, therefore, are not contingent.
    2. If God doesn’t have knowledge of the future actions of moral agents, then the prophecies in general are without foreknowledge.
12. God’s foreknowledge inconsistent with contingent actions.
    1. The voluntary acts of moral agents are necessary in the sense of connection or consequence.
       1. For example, past actions are now necessary.
       2. God’s foreknowledge, therefore, gives the actions a kind of necessary ground of existence.
       3. If something is indissolubly connected with a necessary event, it, too, is necessary.
    2. Therefore, there is a necessary connection between God’s foreknowledge and these events.
    3. Infallible foreknowledge proves the necessity of the event foreknown, but does not necessarily cause it.
13. Recap of argument

Outline of Edwards on Freedom of Will, part 1

Terminology:

Will: that by which the mind chooses anything (1.1).

Act of will: act of choosing.  JE identifies volition with the prevailing act of the soul; what other writers call “voluntary.”

Determined: under some influence to a fixed object.

Thesis: it is that motive which, as it stands in the view of the mind, is the strongest that determines the will (I.).

Necessity of consequence:  while JE plays fast and loose sometimes with terms, what he says makes sense, nonetheless.   There is also a weaker type of necessity, accidental necessity.

Part 1

Thesis: a man never wills anythiing contrary to his (greatest apparent) desire (section 1).

Section 2: Determination of the WIll

A will is determined when its choice is directed to a fixed object. Motive is that which excites the mind to volition. For Edwards “understanding” is the whole faculty of perception.

Section 3: Necessity

A thing is necessary when it cannot be otherwise. Necessity is a fixed connection between things (e.g., the subject and predicate of a proposition).  Contingency is when something has no previous connection.

Section 4: Moral Necessity and Inability

Moral necessity is the certainty of the will itself.  Edwards’ argument seems to be that it is impossible for the will to act contrary to its greatest inclination. This impossibility is the moral inability.

Moral inability is the want or defect of an inclination.  Being able is not the same thing as being willing.  I can have the faculty/capacity to do x, yet never actualize it.

Section 5: Concerning the Notion of Liberty and Agency

Liberty is the power to do as one pleases.  It doesn’t belong under the category of “Will,” but agency.  Agents are free, wills are not.

Edwards on free will, in a nutshell

This is taken from Perry Miller’s exposition.  I will place letters (a, b…z) throughout the paragraph to better order the argument.  They are not original to Miller.

If the will determines its own act [per Arminianism], there must always be a will before the act.  Each act must be preceded by an act of the will, and that by another, and so on, ad infinitum, until we come to the theoretical first act; if this is determined by a still previous act of the will, we take up the march again, but if we call a halt, (a) and this act is first, we have an act that flows from no volition, which is just simply an act, (b) arbitrarily given, which cannot be the selection of a free will (p. 259).

Edwards’/Miller’s argument is interesting on several levels.  He highlights that a rejection of Calvinism actually brings the denier to the very stereotype of Calvinism that he so strenuously avoided.  If we accept the premise that every act flows from a will, then we are either left with an infinite series, which does us no good because we are not infinite and can never get to the beginning, or (a), which appears to be the stereotype of Calvinism.   However, (a), divorced from a Calvinist system, leads to chaos, given (b).  At this point, man is both chaotically free and a robot.   Edwards neatly anticipated existentialism and reduced his opponents to this absurdity.

Notes on person and will

The Two Energies of Christ

Person operates by will. Will is a property of nature and energy is operation proper to that nature. So in Christ Incarnate there are two will and two operations proper to each nature, but the divine energeia deifies the human will and energy.

 

The raising of the dead was a willed operation proper to the divine energy, while eating food was a willed operation proper to the human energy, albeit both are willed by one divine Person – the Logos.

The Notion of Will in Saint Maximus

 

Thelesis–basic term for “will.” Extremely loaded lexical background.

Gnome and proaerisis–a mode of willing bringing to mind sinful and post-lapsarian man.

Maximus makes the important distinction between willing and “mode of willing.” We can take the distinction even further to see the capacity of willing and the object of willing (119).

The “mode of willing” is the particular way in which a will is actualized.

More on Proaerisis–closely linked to the English words “choice” and “decision.”

Gnome is a disposition of the appetite: Maximus uses these words to refer to the sinful state. Maximus excludes these modes of willing from Christ firstly, because it would introduce a human person in Christ. Why? While will is a faculty of nature, natures qua natures do not will. Persons do. If Christ had a deliberative will per gnome, and this was part of his human nature, he would now have a human person as well as a divine person (152). Further, as Joseph Farrell notes, gnome is a sub-category of “the mode of willing,” it is not identical with the mode of willing. Excluding the former does not negate the latter.

The Willing of the Saints in Heaven

Can saints have free-will in heaven? Sort of. Obviously, they will not sin, but neither will they be robots. How? The wills of the saints in heaven will be one according to the logos of nature, but varied insofar as the mode of movement of the wills is concerned, for each saint will participate in God in a manner proportionate to his desire (157; Farrell also scores huge points on this, Free Choice in St. Maximus the Confessor, 124).

Nature

Nature exists in a “mode of existence,” which is the hypostasis (Loudonikos 93ff).

Every nature has an energy, and the energy is constituted by the principle of nature itself.  Each energy reveals God in his entirety in each entity in accordance with the logos of its existence.  Thus, the doctrine of the uncreated energies imply the doctrine of the logoi.  The distinction between essence and energy (this time with Palamas) promotes the distinction between essence and will in God made by Athanasius and the Cappadocians.

Having will by nature is not the same as the act of “willing.”  The former is a natural; the latter is modal and hypostatic.  The distinction between natural and gnomic is analogous to the distinction between logos and tropos.   However, we should not press the distinction too far:   Christ has two natural wills but he does not have a gnomic will (or more precisely, he does not “will” (verb) in a gnomic way, since the latter implies uncertainty.