The consciousness of mankind in general, the Chris- tian consciousness especially, has always asserted the fact of freedom, even in comiection often with theories that have been called theories of necessity. The free- dom of the will was strongly and almost universally afhrmed, with little or no qualification or psychological analysis, as the doctrine of the Church during the ante- Nieene period. "All the Greek fathers, as well as the apologists Justin iSIartyr, Tatian, and Athenagoras, also tlie theologians of the Alexandrian scliodl, ( lement and Origen, exalt the autonomy, scll-ilcit rminaiion {avrt- ^ov(yiov) of the human soul witli I he liolm.ss of youth anda tincture of llcllcnisiic idealism, Imi also iiithionced by a practical Cliristian iiiii r( >i ' i I laL;cnI)acli. Hist, of JJocf. i, loo). Willi I hi-, the riaiwnic and Aristotelian philosophy was in harniony. Its ethics presujiposcs freedom. The forms in which the idea of necessity appears in the early history of philosophy, and in the (inpular sentiment of tlie first Christian centuries, are thosR of nialcrialism and fatalism.
II. Ilislurivdl Ik'Velopmcnl of the Necesntarian Idea. — 1. In the early tjreek jihilosophy we find all things — the cosmos — subjected to a materialistic necessity, of which the conceptions of matter and mind peculiar to the ma- terialistic philosophy of the present day are in some measure a reproduction. Ileraclitus (about B.C. 500) '■ assumes as the substantial principle of things ethereal lire," identifies it with tlie Divine Spirit, the Xoyor, or tlie eternal all-embracing order, which is according to him immanent, as the unis-ersal princijile of the con- stant flux of all things. Democritus, with his theory of atoms, according to which "the soul consists of (ire, smooth and round atoms, wiiich are also atoms of lire," held that the molioii or rest of the atoms is not due to "an all-ruling Mind," but to natural necessity. Tiie Stoics reproduced the doctrine of Ilerailitus, atlirming matter and force as two ultimate iirinciples, that the working force in the universe is (Jod, " tiiat the rise and decay of the world are controlled by an alisolute neces- sity; this necessity is at once fate {tlfinnfir-i'))) and the ])rovidence (ttpiu'oki) wiiich governs all things. In the luiman soul, which is a part of the Deity, or an emanation from the same, is a governing force (ro //yt/ioj'ocoi'), to which belong representation, desires, and understand- ing." As tlie attention of these philosoiihers was di- rected mainly to the universe of nature instead of man, making their philosoi)liy cosmological rather than an-
thropological, they seem not to have attempted any special explanation of the phenomena of volition, or any logically rigorous application of their doctrines of ne- cessity to the working of the human will. In their ethics they speak of men's action as if they were free. Ileraclitus " calls upon each individual to follow in his thought and action the universal reason." Democritus says, "Not the act as such, but the will determines moral character." " The Sage alone is free ; he is lord also over his own life, and can lawfully bring it to an end according to his own free self-determination." Later, in the more theological Greek philosophy, as that of Philo, "God alone is free; everything finite is involved in necessity." In the less philosophical and more pop- ular thought of the time, human action was sometimes viewed as under the control of a fate which stands in some magical way in intimate connection with the stars, or with other objects in nature. Such views were held by some of the (.Jnostics.
2. In the more special and systematic treatment of Christian doctrines following the Council of Nice, the theologians undertook to harmonize the doctrines of the freedom of the will and divine predestination and fore- knowledge. The lieathen philosophy already noticed, in attempting to be theological, had so conceived of the Divine Being in relation to the world as to bring i)oth men and things under a necessii y. pliysical or fatalistic. Christianity, much more decidedly thc<ilogical, now un- dertook to give a philosophy of God's relations to human action. In the controversy on the freedom of the will between Augustine and the Pelagians, the point of dis- pute was the relation of the will in its activity to the grace of God. Freedom was affirmed on both sides, each asserting that its own was the true idea of freedom. The differences consist in the degree and manner of in- fluence upon the soul ascribed to divine grace. The views of Augustine are historically of much importance in the presentation of this subject, as they have formed the basis of the Calvinistic view in modern times. "This general view has been ili.-iuiiaud a theory of necessity, though its adhercnis (.Ki( . i Im the term as ambiguous and misleading. Au-ii-iinr looked upon grace as the active principle of life, generating as an aiiiding good that freedom of the will which is entirely lost in the natural man." Pelagius admitted that man stands in need of divine aid; " but he sujiposed this grace of God to be something external, and added to the eflbrts put forth by the free-will of man." "He has not the con- ception of a life unfolding itself; he only recognises the mechanical concatenation of single acts." Augustine " recognises in the grace of God an inspiration of love {inspiratio dilectionis), and considers this the source of everything. It was not the view of Augustine that man is like a stone or stick, niion whom grace works externally; he could conceive of grace as working only in the sphere of freedom" (Hagenbaeh, ]lisi. of Doc- trines i, 301,302). In accordance with the idea and defi- nition of the will and its freedom, wliicli distinguishes the Latin from the (Jreek anthropology (comp. Shedd, Hist, of Boot, i, Gl), Augustine's idea of freeilom is silf- determinalion, as distinguished from jwdetermination. In his view the activity of the will proceeds jjurely from within the man himself, and this is freedom. In all the conditions in which he contemplates man — name- ly, as nnfallen, as fallen, and as renewed— there is self- determination, that is, the "human will moves towards a proposed end by its own self-motion." The will is free in evil, even when by virtue of the moral condition of the man it can will nothing else hut evil, because it delights in evil. Hence in the will of Adam, as created, there was an inclination to holiness, but at tlie same time also, nnited with it. the possibility of sinning {pos- siiililas peccaiidi). In the fallen Adam, the activity of the will is inclination to sin, "the unforced, free, self- originating, self-moved energy of the creature." It is freedom in sin, but at the same time a necessity or cer- tainty of sinning. In the renewed, or in those in whota