It is unquestionable that the source of most of the confusion on the subject is in the ambiguity lurking un- der the term necessit;/, which includes both kinds of ne- cessity, moral and physical. The double meaning of the word has been the chief reason why persons who were guided more by their own feelings and the custom- ary associations of language than by formal definitions have altogether rejected the doctrine, while persons of a more logical turn, who could not deny the truth of the abstract principle, have yet, in their explanation of it and inference from it, fallen into the same error as their opponents. The partisans of necessity have given up their common sense, as they supposed, to their reason, while the advocates of liberty rejected a demonstrable truth from a dread of its consequences, and both have been the dupes of a word. The obnoxiousness of the name unquestionably has been the cause of nearly all the difficulty and repugnance which many who really hold the doctrine find in admitting it. It was to remove this i)rejudice that Dr. Jonathan Edwards was induced to write his celebrated treatise on the Will. In a letter written expressly to vindicate himself from the charge of having, in his great work, confounded moral with physical necessity, he says: "On the contrarj', I have largely declared that the connection between antecedent things and consequent ones, which take place with re- gard to the acts of men's wills, which is called moral ne- cessity, is called by the name of necessity improperly, and that all such terms as iiuisf, cannot, impossible, Jin- able, irresistible, nnavoidiible, invincible, etc., when applied here, are not employed in their pro])er signification, and are either used nonsensically and with perfect insignifi- cance, or in a sense quite diverse from their original and proper meaning and their use in common speech, and that such a necessity as attends the acts of men's wills is more properly called certainty than necessiti/." The well-known definition of Edwards on this subject is in the following words ; " The plain and obvious meaning of the words freedom and liberty, in common speech, is pou-er, opportunity, or advantaye that any one has to do as he pleases, or, in other words, his being free from hin- derance or impediment in the way of doing or conduct- ing in any respect as he wills. I say not only doing, but conducting, because a voluntary forbearing to do, sitting still, keeping silence, etc., are instances of persons' con-
duct about which liberty is exercised, though they are not so properly called doing. And the contrary to lib- erty, whatever name we call that by, is a person's being hindered or unable to conduct as he will, or being neces- sitated to do otherwise." The radical defect in this defi- nition as to the question in hand is that liberty, as thus defined, relates solely to action (or non-action, as the case may be), and not to the will at all. Thus, by a singular method of pet itio principii, the very possibility of all freedom of wUl is excluded. The real point at is- sue is but casually named, and arbitrarily dismissed as a contradiction. That point is not whether a man may act as he wills (this, again, is mere physical liberty), but whether the will has a self-determining power ; wheth- er, in other words, a man may ivill in opposition to ex- ternal influences, usually called motives. This question the universal experience of mankind has determined in the affirmative. On these two grounds, 1, the essential fallacj^ as to the point in dispute, and, 2, the unanimous testimon}^ of consciousness as to the spontaneity of voli- tion, the fundamental position of Edwards has been so successfully attacked, as, for instance (to name only Cal- vinistic writers), by Tappan and Bledsoe, that it may now be regarded as failing to meet the present theolog- ical status of the question. See Will.
True liberty evidentlj' consists simply in freedom from external constraint. That God is free in this sense, at least in his acts, all must admit, inasmuch as there is no conceivable power that could coerce him. It is likewise obvious that he is equally free in his voli- tions, unless we suppose a system of arbitrary latrs or absolute line of j^oHcy which shuts him up to a certain line of conduct. So far as these may be the resultant or expression of his own nature, they might perhaps be admitted without essentially impairing our notions of his freedom. So, again, of man; if the motives, by which alone, if at all, it is claimed that his volitions are governed, are self-originated, or derive their governing weight from the influence which his o\vn mind imparts to them, he may still be said to be free in at least the strict sense of the definition. If, however, these prepon- derating elements consist in his own desires, and if, fur- ther, these desires are beyond his own control (whether by reason of natural predisposition, inveterate habit, or the divine or satanic interposition), then it must still re- main dubious if his liberty amounts to the measure of a rational, moral, and accountable agent. In the human sphere this is precisely the point of difliculty, but its de- termination as a matter of fact, if indeed possible, be- longs properh' under another head. See JIotive. In the divine sphere, on the other hand, the difficulty arises from the so-called system of fore-ordination, which is tenaciously held by Calvinistic divines, being either as- sumed as a metaphysical dogma, or inferred from certain scriptural statements, and as strenuously denied by oth- ers. See Prkdestixation.