sciousness under grace ; that the unconditioned benefits of atonement include not only personal existence, but also all the refjuisitcs of a fair probation, among which the power to redise the evil and clioosc the good is chief, is fundamental and essential. These differences among theologians deserve mention in this connection; but it is not needful that they be kept in mind, for the discus- sion is the same, whether they be considered or left out of the account.
(1.) Freedomism is sust-«ined by an appeal to vnirei- sal coiiscioufiiess. It is affirmed that every man does, every day of his life, many things with a consciousness while doing these things that he has power to do other- wise. It is objected to this appeal by opponents that consciousness testifies to the acts of mind, and not to its jiou-ers. This objection is an assumption which all psychologists do not admit, and it cannot be denied that man is, in some sense, conscious of his powers. But allowing the objection to stand for what it is worth, it is still averred that the consciousness of a conviction so universal as is the conviction that very many tilings we do, we do with the same ability to do otherwise that we have to do as we do, is as determinative as any con- viction ever existing in consciousness. If consciousness can be relied upon in any testimony that it gives re- specting human nature, or if a conviction existing in universal consciousness is any evidence that that con- viction is true, then man is free in the sense of the free- domists ; he possesses power, or, more accurately, he is himself a power for either of several results.
(2.) Freedomists affirm that the power to the contra- ry is essential to moral ohligation ; that a conviction of its existence arises necessarily from a consciousness of moral responsibility. It is affirmed that it is impossi- ble for any one to feel responsible for any event, unless he also feels that that event is under his control. If one feels obligated to choose the good, he must also feel that he has power to do so; if he feels condemned for choosing the evil, he must also feel that he might have chosen the good. These convictions are in perfect ac- cordance with what, in abstract science, must be judged as just, honorable, and right. Wherever obligation and responsibility exist, alternativity must be coexistent. In justice and in honor, punishment cannot be awarded for the unavoidable ; if but one way be possible, moral desert is impossible. Kecessitarians attempt to avoid these manifest inferences by affirming that not a power to contrary, but voluntariness, is the basis of obligation and responsibility; voluntariness, they say, is self-mo- tion in the absence of constraint. It is said if a man choose evil unconstrained by anything extraneous to himself, he is responsible; though being what he is it were impossible for him to choose otherwise. More- over, it is said that it is no matter how he came to be what he is, whether his depravity be concreatcd, in- fused, or self-imposed, if his acts are his own and not another's, he is responsible. Is this so? If without any fault or agency of my own I am a slave to evil de- sires, so that I have no power or ability to choose good, am I responsible for the evil I do? Let the common sense of mankind answer.
(3.) Freedomists aver that a denial of power to the contrary, if not itself identical with fatalism, is logical- ly its equivalent, since absence of power to be otherwise equals necessity. The term necessity cannot be more accurately defined than by the term absence of power to the contrary. In reply, necessitarians make a dis- tinction between a physical and a moral necessity ; the former being found in the connection between a physi- cal cause and its effect, and the latter between a men- tal state and its consequent, Edwards says the neces- sity he contends for is "the full and fixed connection between the thing signified by the subject and predicate of a proposition which affirms something to be true." The rejoinder of the freedomist is that necessity is al- ways the same, whatever be the subject to which it ap- plies, and is always impossibility of the opposite. No
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distinction founded on an irrelevant matter, nor the ob- scurity of Edwards's definition, avails to avert the force of the evident affirmation that absence of power to be otherwise is necessity, fate; and necessitarianism equals fatalism.
(4.) Freedomists affirm that to deny the power to the contrary is to deny human liberty fully and totally. If man cannot do otherwise than he does, he is not free. To avoid this affirmation, vicious definitions are given of the terms liberty, freedom, etc. Liberty is power to do as you will, to will as you choose, to do as you are pleased, etc. To do as you will defines phj'sical liber- ty, the freedom of the body, and has no relation what- ever to mental freedom. To will as you choose is with- out significance, because choosing is willing, and liber- ty, if anywhere, is found in the clioice itself, and not in the accordance with it of any subsecpient act either of body or mind. To will as you are pleased admits the inseparable connection between choice and antecedent pleasure or desire, and may reject the possibility of the opposite, and this is precisely that for which the defini- tion is constructed. When used for this purpose, the outcome is simply a statement of the issue; tlie defini- tion, and all that depends upon it, avails nothing in averting the affirmatTon that the denial of a possible opposite is a denial of the possibility of freedom fully and totally. Liberty does not exist, fixed fate governs all things.