MAN'S MORAL AGENCY

All the various theories of the will properly fall under two general classes-that of necessity on the one hand, and that of free agency on the other. Dr. Hodge makes three general classes-necessity, contingency, and certainty. He does this to conceal from himself and others the necessitarianism of his own scheme of thought.

I. The various schemes of necessity are the following:

The doctrine of fatalism. This teaches that all events are determined by a blind necessity. Under the sway of fate all things are necessarily determined; so that they could not but be as they are. Fate binds all things in the equal chains of necessity, also all events and all intelligences-God, angels and men, and all their thoughts, feelings and plans-(if there be any angels or any God). This theory precludes the idea of foresight or plan, or of the voluntary selection of an end, and the adoption of means for its accomplishment. Things are as they are, and must be as they are, and are to be, without any rational cause. Whatever may be the cause of events the stars or blind force or the constitution of things, the theory leaves no room for liberty of action, and reduces the acts of men to the level of the acts of the lower animals. Speaking exactly, fatalism refers everything to blind fate.

2. There is the mechanical theory. This denies that man is the efficient cause of his own acts. It represents man as passive, or as endued with no higher form of activity than spontaneity. It avowedly precludes the idea of responsibility. The inward state of man and his outward acts are determined by his circumstances.

3. Much akin to the latter is materialism. From its nature it must be necessitarian. The forces of nature operate inevitably under a law of necessity. If everything is matter, there can be, of course, no free self-determining spirit.

4. Pantheism is a doctrine of necessity. "In pantheism God is the totality of being, and works from a necessity of his nature without consciousness, intelligence or aim. Finite existences, including man, are mere modes of himself, and the product of his aimless activity. Hence man, as the mode of a being subject to a law of absolute necessity, could not have freedom of action in himself" (Jouffroy, "Introduction to Ethics," Vol. I, p. 193).

5. A fifth form of necessity includes all the schemes which supersede the efficiency of second causes and refer everything to God. All efficiency is in God. Matter and mind are alike passive. All the changes of nature, and all the actions of man are due to God's immediate operation.

One form of this doctrine is that the agency of God in the preservation of the world is a continuous creation. But if God creates the physical world at each successive moment then he is the immediate cause of all its changes. Likewise, if He recreates man each successive second, then God would alone be responsible for whatever man feels or thinks or plans or purposes. Let us illustrate. One second God created Cain getting angry at his brother Abel; the next second He created him seizing a club; and third second God created him swinging it madly through the air; the fourth He created him smashing his brother's skull. Then God calls to Cain: "Where is thy brother Abel?" The absurdity of such a doctrine is only equaled by its blasphemy.

Closely allied with this doctrine is "the exercise scheme" which teaches that "the soul is a series of exercises created by God." These experiences follow each other with amazing rapidity. Dr. Nathaniel Emmons said God creates them. Of course, then, it is vain to speak of the liberty of man in producing the creative acts of God. If He creates the decisions of man's will in view of motives, then they are His acts and not ours, and He alone would be responsible. President Mahan tells us that Dr. Lyman Beechel visited Dr. Emmons in his old age and said to him: "I understand that you teach that all the actions and experiences of the soul are the direct creation of God." "I so teach," said Dr. Emmons. "Well I cannot understand," said Beecher, "and will you kindly explain to me how it is that, if God creates all these actions of the soul, He forbids sin, and is angry at it, and calls on heaven and earth to witness His grieved surprise when men do sin?" A blank look came over Dr. Emmon's face; his head dropped; he put his hand to his embarrassed brow; his gifted tongue was silent. The utter foolishness of his life-long theory, which he had taught to a hundred preachers at last dawned on this great Calvinist's mind. It mad3 him speechless; and Lyman Beecher was too much of a gentleman to press his questions further.

6. The Calvinistic doctrines of predestination, divine sovereignty and monergism involve necessity. Many predestinarians deny this; but others admit it, and are logically the more consistent. Absolute decrees must have their effectuation in the divine agency as Dr. Hodge declares

7. The Calvinistic doctrine that motives must determine our volitions and choices and that choice must go with the strongest motive, is also a doctrine of necessity. It is often called philosophical or moral necessity. Akin to it is the doctrine of moral inability to do good. All these views end in the same conclusion, that man does what he does from necessity, and is not a free moral agent.

We will now examine the teaching of President Edwards and Dr. Hodge, as specimen writers of Calvinism.

II. PRESIDENT EDWARDS' DOCTRINE. This great and good man had a philosophical mind of the first order, and was a subtle reasoner and thinker. But he has led multitudes into error by his erroneous teaching on this great subject. Professedly he was writing about "The Freedom of the Will," and consequent "human accountability." But singularly enough, as his definitions, and discussion and conclusions show, he missed the subject entirely and advocated a system of blank necessity.

1. His definition of the freedom of the will was. utterly fallacious. He defines it as, "the power, opportunity, or advantage one has to do as he pleases. Or, in other words, his being free from hindrance or impediment in the way of doing or conduction in any respect as he wills." "Let the person come by his volition or choice how he will." (Let it happen without a cause, or be the result of a previous state of mind or volition, or be necessitated by a motive or be produced by a direct act of God Almighty; "yet if he is able, and there is nothing in the way to hinder his pursuing and executing his will, the man is fully and perfectly free, according to the primary and common notion of freedom."

Now the reader will notice that this definition does not even refer to the question how the decision of the will came to be made, but only refers to the carrying out of the choice after it has been made. His definition of natural ability wholly excludes the power to will, and includes only the power or ability to execute the volition or choice of will after it is made. Thus it is evident that natural ability with Edwards respects external action only and has nothing whatever to do with -willing. It refers only to the external action of the body in carrying out the decision of the will. Therefore, of course, his natural ability has no relation to morality or immorality, sin or holiness. This was Edwards' fundamental error that is woven into his whole system.

2. A second error is that he always confounds desire with volition or the act of will, making them the same thing. Edwards regarded the mind as possessing but two primary faculties-the will and the understanding. He confounded all states of the sensibility with acts of will, and since the movement of the sensibility on certain conditions is inevitable, therefore he concluded that the action of the will was inevitable.

"I have chosen to express myself thus, that the will is always as the greatest apparent good is, or what appears most agreeable. If strict propriety of speech be insisted on, it may more probably be said, that the voluntary action, which is the immediate consequence of the mind's choice, is determined by that which appears most agreeable rather than by the choice itself." The strongest desire with him is always identical with volition or choice. He says, "By whatever name we call the act of the will, choosing, refusing, approving, disapproving, liking, disliking, embracing, rejecting, determining, directing, commanding, forbidding, inclining, or being averse, being pleased or displeased with, all may be reduced to this of choosing." Thus liking and being pleased with, and willing are, with him, all the same.

He defends it by saying, "I humbly conceive that the affections of the soul are not properly distinguished from the will, as though there were two faculties." "All acts of the will are truly acts of the affections." Thus this great metaphysician, by confounding things that are perfectly distinct in nature, was led to adopt views respecting the human will which are contrary to truth, full of obscurity and self-contradictory.

3. His third error was that motive determines the will. "If objects of desire have no tendency to move the will in a particular direction, they are not, properly speaking, motives. If they have such a tendency, they must actually move the will, provided there is nothing which has a tendency to move it in a different direction. When on one side there is no influence, any influence on the other side must turn the scale." This is true of the sensibility; but it is not true of the will, as we shall show later.

4. The fourth error of Edwards was that choice is always decided by the strongest motive. He says: "It is sufficient to my present purpose to say, it is that motive which, as it stands in view of the mind, is the strongest that determines the will." "It is also evident, from what has been before proved, that the will is always, and in every individual act, necessarily determined by the strongest! motive; and so is always unable to go against the motive which, all things considered, has now the greatest strength and advantage to move the will." Now it is perfectly manifest that there can be no freedom of will, if its choices and decisions "must be" "necessarily determined" by anything but itself. If one asks proof of all this domination of the strongest motive none whatever is given. He and all the thinkers of his school simply affirm that "motive controls ' choice and the determination must be according to the law of comparative strength." It never occurs to them that there is any power \ in man to give weight to a motive, or to set it wholly aside. It is -only the merest assertion that the strongest motive "must certainly rule." With such an absolute domination of motive, there would be no possible escape from the absolutest necessitation of choice. The will would be no more free than a weathervane, or the mercury of a thermometer. If the south wind blows the strongest it points to the south and if the north wind is strongest, it veers to the north. If the heat influence is stronger, the mercury goes up; if the cold is stronger the mercury falls. So would it be with the will.

5. A fifth error of Edwards and all his school of thinkers is that they assume that the physical law of cause and effect rules in the realm of mind, just as it does in the realm of matter. They seek for a cause for man's decisions and choices of will. It never seems to dawn on their minds, that the mind itself is an original fountain of causation in the universe. They find all causes in previous states of mind, character, habit, depravity, external influences, circumstances, etc., which they call

MOTIVES, and the strongest motive must rule. Of course it landed Edwards, as it does all his followers, in a scheme of absolute necessity. The steps were few.

(1) The theory asserts the domination of motive.

(2) The theory admits of no power over motive.

(3) It denies the intervention of personal agency. Any motive state consistent with the theory must be purely spontaneous, and must immediately determine the volitional result, and such a result must be a necessity.

Thus the theory assumes that choice has a cause, and that motive is the only cause. There can be but one logical result to such a theory; it denies the power of personal agency over motive, and of course necessity lies in the very notion of the causal relation of motive to choice. "Choice must have a cause; motive is the only possible cause; therefore motive must determine the choice." The sovereign power of mind to originate its own choice is wholly overlooked.

The irresistible logical inferences to be drawn from such a course of reasoning, are truly amazing. Miley states them graphically as follows: "A law of necessity has determined all human volitions. Not a single choice could have been avoided or in the least varied; not one could have been added to the actual number. We are the passive subjects of spontaneous impulses, and are without any true personal agency, rational or moral. There must be the same determining law, also, for all other finite intelligences, and even for God himself. In all the realm of mind a law of necessity reigns.

Of all actual volitions, good and evil, none could have been avoided; nor could one have been added. It must be in the future as it has been in the past. Necessity is the universal and eternal law!"

To such a monstrous conclusion does Jonathan Edwards' famous discussion of the freedom of the will directly lead. Then he discusses natural ability and natural inability and moral inability and rings all the possible combinations and permutations and changes upon them, until he runs himself and all his followers into dense fogbanks of misconception and delusion and error. President Finney followed Edwards through all his sinuous arguments and relentlessly exhibited his fallacies.

1. Finney showed that Edwards' natural ability was no ability at all, since it referred only to the ability to execute the choice when made, but had nothing whatever to do with originating the choice. Said Finney: "If we have not the power to will, we have not the power or ability to do anything. All ability or power to do resides in the will, and power to will is the necessary condition of ability to do. In morals and religion the willing is the doing. The power to will is the condition of obligation to do. The soul has no other faculty whereby it can, in a direct and proper sense, comply with any command of God but the faculty of will; and it is by this faculty only that the soul can directly disobey or refuse compliance. Even Edwards himself admitted that the will was the executive faculty, and that the soul can do nothing except as it wills to do it, and that for this reason a command to do is strictly a command to will." "It is enough to say," said Finney, "that it is absurd and sheer nonsense to talk of an ability to do when there is no ability to will. But let it be distinctly understood that ability to will entered not at all into Edwards' idea and definition of natural ability. His ability is no ability at all, and nothing but an empty name, a metaphysico-theological fiction."

2. Notice what according to Edwards constituted natural inability. He said: "We are said to be naturally unable to do a thing when we cannot do it if we will, because what is most commonly called nature does not allow it; or because of some impeding defect or obstacle that is extrinsic to the will." This shows that Edwards' natural inability had nothing to do with willing but only with the effects of willing. That is to say, his natural inability also referred only to outward action or doing, but had nothing whatever to do with the ability to originate a volition.

3. "This natural inability," declared Finney, "is not inability at all." By this is intended that, so far as morals and religion are concerned, the willing is the doing, and therefore when the willing actually takes place, the real thing required or prohibited is already done." Edwards says: "If the will fully complies and the proposed effect does not prove, according to the laws of nature, to be connected with his volition, the man is perfectly excused; he has a natural inability to do the thing required."

Finney replies: "Here, then, it is manifest, that the Edwardean notions of natural ability and inability have no connection with moral law or moral government, and, of course, with morals and religion. That the Bible everywhere accounts the willing as the deed, is most manifest. Both as it respects sin and holiness, if the required or prohibited act of the will takes place the moral law and the Lawgiver regard the deed as having been done, or the sin committed, whatever impediment may have prevented the natural effect from following." "It is truly, amazing that Edwards could have written the paragraph just quoted and many more like it without perceiving the fallacy and absurdity of his speculation, - without seeing that the ability or inability about which he was writing had no connection with morals or religion."

4. Finney urges with great power, that natural ability is identical with freedom of will and that man has the natural ability to obey God.

(1) He contends that moral obligation respects strictly only acts of will; (2) that willing is the doing required by the true spirit of the moral law. Ability, therefore, to will in accordance with the moral law, must be natural ability to obey God, but, (3), this is and must be the only proper freedom of the will so far as morals and religion or moral law are concerned. In other words, true freedom or liberty of will must consist in the power or ability to will in every instance in accordance with, or in opposition to moral obligation. For moral obligation respects acts of will. Edwards himself holds that ability to do is indispensable to liberty. Natural ability and natural liberty to will, must then be identical.

Let this be distinctly remembered, for many have scouted the doctrine of natural ability to obey God, who have nevertheless been great sticklers for the freedom of the will. In this they are greatly inconsistent. The ability is called a natural ability, because it belongs to man as a moral agent, in such a sense that without it he could not be a proper subject of command, of reward or punishment. That is, without this liberty or ability, he could not be a moral agent, and a proper subject of moral government. He must then either possess this power in himself as essential to his own nature, or must be able to avail himself of power to will in every instance in accordance with moral obligation. Whatever he can do he can do only by willing; he must therefore either possess the power in himself directly to will as God commands, or he must be able by willing to avail himself of power, and to make himself willing. If he has such power by nature to will directly as God requires, or by willing to avail himself of power' so to will, then he is naturally free and able to obey the commandments of God. Then let it be borne distinctly in mind, that natural ability, about which so much has been said is nothing more or less than the freedom or liberty of the will of a moral agent.

5. Since the human will is free, men have power or ability to do all their duty. The moral government of God everywhere assumes and implies the liberty of the human will, and the natural ability of men to obey God. Every command, every threatening, every expostulation and denunciation in the Bible implies and assumes this. Nor does the Bible do violence to the human intelligence in this assumption; for the human mind necessarily assumes the freedom of the human will as a first truth. The first truths, let it be remembered, are those that are necessarily assumed by every moral agent. They are assumed always and necessarily by the law of the intelligence. In all our judgments respecting our own moral character and that of others, we always and necessarily assume the liberty of the human will, or natural ability to obey God. The very ideas of right and wrong, of the praiseworthiness and blameworthiness of human beings, imply the assumption on the part of those who have these ideas of the universal freedom of the human will, or of the natural ability of men as moral agents to obey God. I know that philosophers and theologians have in theory denied the doctrine of natural ability or liberty in the sense in which I have defined it; and I know, too, that with all their theorizing, they did assume, in common with all other men, that man is free in the sense that he has liberty or power to will as God commands. I know that, but for this assumption, the human mind could no more predicate praiseworthiness or blameworthiness, right or wrong of man, than it could of the motions of a windmill. But the fact is, that in all cases the assumption has lain deep in the mind as a first truth, that all men are free in the sense of being naturally able to obey God; and this assumption is a necessary condition of the affirmation that moral character belongs to man."

6. Let its hear Edwards on his moral inability. He defines it thus: "We are said to be naturally unable to do a thing when we cannot do it if we will, because of some impeding defect or obstacle that is extrinsic to the will as constitution of the body or external objects. But moral inability consists not in any of these things but either in a want of inclination, or the want of sufficient motives in view, to induce and excite the act of the will, or the strength of apparent motives to the contrary. Or both these may be resolved into one, and it may be said in one word that moral inability consists in the opposition or want of inclination." Now let it be remembered that according to Edwards, the acts of will are necessitated by motives. He says: "If every act of will is excited by a motive, then that motive is the cause of the act. If the acts of the will are excited by motives, then motives are the causes of their being excited; or, which is the same thing, the cause of their existence. And if so, the existence of the acts of the will is properly the effect of their motives." Hence, according to Edwards, man is unable to obey God when, 1. There is a want of such motives as would compel him to obey, or, 2. When there are present such motives as compel him to disobey. In other words, inability to obey God, consists in a want of the inclination, choice, desire, or sense of the most agreeable that God requires, or in an inclination, or existing choice, volition, or sense of the most agreeable which is opposed to the requirement of God, or, what is the same thing, a wicked spirit of disobedience.

Finney says: "Here is the great error of Edwards. He assumes that no agent whatever, not even God himself, possesses a power of self-determination; that the will of God and of all moral agents is determined not by themselves but by an objective motive. If they will in one direction or another, it is not from any free and sovereign self-determination in view of motives, but because the motives or inducements present to the mind, inevitably produce or necessitate the sense of the most agreeable, or choice. If this is not fatalism or natural necessity, what is?

Edwards' moral inability is the only natural inability that has anything to do with duty, morality or religion. His present moral inability to obey is identical with present disobedience, with a natural inability to obey. It is amazing to see how so great and good a man could involve himself in a metaphysical fog, and bewilder himself and his readers to such a degree, that an absolutely senseless distinction should pass into the current phraseology, philosophy, and theology of the church, and a score of theological dogmas be built upon the assumption of its truth. This nonsensical distinction has been in the mouth of the Edwardean school of theology, from Edwards' day to the present. Both saints and sinners have been bewildered and, I must say, abused by it. Men have been told that they are as really unable to will as God directs, they were to create themselves; and when it is replied that this inability excuses the sinner, we are directly silenced by the assertion, that this is only a moral inability, or an inability of will and therefore, that it is so far from excusing the sinner, that it constitutes the very ground and substance, and whole of his guilt Indeed! Men are under moral obligation only to will as God directs. But an inability thus to will, consisting in the absence of such motives as would necessitate the required choice, or the presence of such motives as to necessitate an opposite choice, as a moral inability, and really constitutes the sinner worthy of an exceeding great and eternal weight of damnation! Ridiculous! EDWARDS I REVERE; HIS BLUNDERS I DEPLORE.

I speak thus of this Treatise on the Will, because while it abounds with unwarrantable assumptions, distinctions without a difference, and metaphysical subtleties, it has been adopted as the text-book of a multitude of what are called Calvinistic divines for scores of years. It has bewildered the head, and greatly embarrassed the heart and the action of the Church of God. It is time, high time, that its errors should be exposed, and so exploded that such phraseology should be laid aside, and the ideas which these words represent should cease to be entertained" (Finney's Theology, pp 320-333).

III. CHARLES HODGE'S DOCTRINE.

He tries to lay for his argument a good foundation, as if coi scious of having a large contract on hand.

1. He sets forth to suit himself the doctrine of Contingency as opposed to necessity. He says: "Sometimes it is called the libert of indifference; by which is meant that, the will, at the moment q decision, is self-poised among conflicting motives, and decides oil way or the other, not because of the greater influence of one motivj over others, but because it is indifferent or undetermined, able ti act in accordance with the weaker against the stronger motive, di even without any motive at all. Sometimes this doctrine is ejf pressed by the phrase, self-determining power of the will. By thl it is intended to deny that the will is determined by motives, and affirm that the reason of its decisions is to be sought in itself. It a cause and not an effect, and therefore requires nothing out itself to account for its acts.

Sometimes this doctrine is called the power of contrary choice; that is, that in every volition there is and must be power to contrary. Even supposing all antecedents external and internal to have been precisely the same, the decision might have been the reverse of what it actually was. Contingency is therefore necessary to liberty. A contingent event is one that may or may not happen. Contingence, therefore, is opposed not merely to necessity, but also to certainty. (Not true.) If a man may act in opposition to all motives, external and internal, and in despite of all influence which can be exerted on him, short of destroying his liberty, then it must forever remain uncertain how he will act. The advocates of his theory of liberty, therefore, maintain, that the will is independent of reason, of feeling, and of God.

"Although the advocates of the liberty of contingency generally direct their arguments against the doctrine of necessity, yet it is apparent that they regard certainty no less than necessity to be inconsistent with liberty" (Vol. II, pp. 282, 283).

We may pause here to remark that (1), this last statement is not true. Ralston says in his Theology, p. 25, "If the term contingent in this controversy, has any definite meaning at all, as applied to the moral actions of man, it must mean their freedom, and stands opposed, not to certainty, but to necessity. A free action is a voluntary one; and an action which results from the choice of the agent is distinguished from a necessary one in this> that it might not have been, or might have been otherwise, according to the self-determining power of the agent. It is with reference to this specific quality of a free action that the term contingency is used-it might have been otherwise. In other words, it was not necessitated. Contingency in moral actions is, therefore their freedom, and is opposed, not to certainty, but to necessity. The question is not about the certainty of moral actions, that is, whether they will happen or not, but about the nature of them, whether free or Constrained, whether they must happen or not."

We could quote many other Arminian writers to this effect. We are aware that some Arminians, in their zeal to defend the freedom of the will, have very unwisely denied the certainty of the future actions of moral beings, and thus have played into the hands of their opponents. But Dr. Hodge ought to have known that Arminians do not, as a class, deny the certainty of future actions of men. They are contingent with us, but are all certain to God. How he knows them is beyond our understanding.

(2) It is perfectly plain from this single quotation from Dr. Hodge, just where his discussion will end. He is" going to deny that man is "self-poised among conflicting motives," and deny the "self-determining power of the will," and deny "the power of contrary choice," and make man the helpless victim of causes and motives over which he has no possible control. When a man comes to the fork of the road and chooses the right-hand fork, he could not have chosen the left-hand road to save his life, for according to Hodge there is "no power of contrary choice." A man goes to the store and reflects whether he will buy a pound of tea or a pound of coffee. He buys tea. According to Hodge he could not, by any possibility, have bought coffee instead, because "the external and internal antecedents to the choice being the same, the decision could not have been the reverse of what it actually was." In other words, man is the helpless victim of "external and internal antecedents" and "motives." The reader can see where all this will end inevitably. But we will let him tell his own story.

2. He states with great care his own theory which he calls "CERTAINTY" as if we denied that future events would be certain. But we shall hereafter see just how his "certainty" is brought about. He defines thus: "It teaches that a man is free when his volitions are truly and properly his own, DETERMINED by nothing out of himself, but proceeding from his own views, feelings, and immanent dispositions, so that they are the real, intelligent and conscious expression of his character, or what is in his mind. This theory is often called moral or philosophical necessity. This is a most unfortunate and unsuitable designation. Using the word necessity to express the idea of certainty brings the truth into reproach. It clothes it in the garb of error. It makes Edwards use the language of Hobbes; it puts Luther in the category with Spinoza; it puts all Augustinians in the same class with the French materialists. They all use the same language, though their meaning is as diverse as possible." Mark his admission that infidels and Calvinists use the same language! (p. 285).

"Another form in which this doctrine is expressed is that the will is as the greatest apparent good. If, however, the word good be taken in a more comprehensive sense including everything desirable, whether as right becoming or useful, as well as suited to give happiness, then the doctrine is no doubt true" (p. 287). This is Edwards over again; and the doctrine is utterly untrue. Nobody knows better than the sinner that he is not choosing, "the greatest apparent good."

"It is still more common to say that the will is always determined by the strongest motive." To this statement there are two obvious objections. (1) The ambiguity of the word motive. (2) The impossibility of establishing any test of the relative strength of motive. It is better to abide by the general statement. The will is j not determined by any law of necessity; it is not independent, indifferent or self-determined, but is always DETERMINED by the preceding state of mind; so that a man is free so long as his volitions are the conscious expression of his own mind; or so long as his activity is DETERMINED and CONTROLLED by his reason and feelings" (p. 288). This is an utter confusion of thought, for the feelings ten thousand times are opposed to the reason, and a decision must be made between them. But notice how he uses the words "determined" and "controlled."

3. Dr. Hodge tries to fix up a meaning to the words, "motive," "cause," "liberty" and "ability" so as to help himself out. He says, "Most of the arguments against the statement that motives are the cause of volitions, are founded on the assumption that they are affirmed to be the producing causes, and that it is intended to deny that the agent is the efficient cause of his own acts; whereas the meaning simply is that motives are the reasons, which DETERMINE the agent to assert his efficiency in one way rather than another. They, are, however, TRULY CAUSES in so far as they determine the effect to be thus and not otherwise" (p. 290). Juggle with the words "motives" and "cause" as he will, he cannot escape the fundamental idea that they are "truly causes" and "determine the effect" of the will. On page 293, he tells us that ability may be lost, and liberty remain, and quotes Augustine approvingly when he says that "man is not free since the fall, since he cannot but sin." So liberty and ability are not identical.

He says, page 295, "When we say that an agent is self-determined, we say two things. (1) That he is the author or efficient cause of his own act. (2) That the grounds or reasons of his determination are within himself. He is determined by what constitutes him at the moment a particular individual, his feelings, principles, character, dispositions," (and the motives, "which are truly causes and determine" the will, according to this author).

President Fairchild answers this point in the following words: "It is a very prevalent doctrine that the will is determined by the inclination, or disposition or character; and this is made up of the aggregate of thoughts, of feelings and tendencies, back of the will. Freedom of the will is supposed to lie in the power to act. according to the inclination or disposition, while there is no power to act against that inclination or disposition. This doctrine obliterates freedom. The man must act according to his character-something back of the will; (exactly the theory of Dr. Hodge) then he; must have character before he can act. Thus his character determines his action, and not his action his character. Those who hold the view that the inclination determines the action, admit that the will is not free if it is determined by anything outside of the man himself. But if the inclination determines the will, and this inclination is determined by nature or surroundings, then the will is determined by something outside of the man himself, and is not free; and the entire character and action are effects for which the agent is not responsible. Every such linking of the will to motive, inclination, character, making its action determined by something out of itself, makes the man a machine and annihilates responsibility. The true conception is that man, with his free will, the power to determine his own moral action and character, stands in the presence of the motives which solicit him to choose, and freely makes his choice, or determines his governing purpose. Unless this power exists in men, of determining their action in the midst of whatever motives, there is no free agency, no obligation, no virtue, no sin. It is utter delusion to say there is freedom, if there is power to choose according to the inclination, without power to go against the inclination. There is just as much freedom in the falling of an apple, or in water flowing down hill, or according to the inclination; it flows freely. This is the conception which some have who claim that they maintain the doctrine." Dr. Hodge thinks it is the highest freedom.

4. Dr. Hodge makes a great argument for his "certainty." He argues: (1) From God's foreknowledge. "Human acts are known before they occur in time, and consequently are foreknown. But if foreknown as future they must be certain. It is a contradiction in terms to say that an uncertain event can be foreknown as certain. If all things are known by Him, all things, whether fortuitous or free, are certain; consequently certainty must be consistent with freedom" (p. 299). He calls it only certainty; but it is very plain that necessity is in his thought. For on page 300 he says: " If from all eternity it is fixed how every man will act; if the same consequences follow invariably from the same antecedents; if the acts of men are inevitable, this is declared to be fatalism!" Here the cat is out of the bag at last. Its name is "Fixed FROM ALL ETERNITY," "CONDUCT OF MEN INEVITABLE." But he Complains that it is very, very unkind in us to call it "FATALISM'." Oh, perish the thought. It is only certainty!

(2) He argues his certainty from foreordination. He says, page 301, "Those who believe that God foreordains whatever comes to pass, must believe that the occurrence of all events is WITH UNALTERABLE CERTAINTY! There is no difficulty attending the doctrine of foreordination which does not attach to that of foreknowledge. The latter supposes the certainty of free acts, and the former SECURES THEIR CERTAINTY. If their being certain be consistent with liberty, their being RENDERED CERTAIN cannot be incompatible with it. All that foreordination does is to RENDER IT CERTAIN that free acts shall occur. The foreordination of future events precludes the doctrine of contingency." Of course there would be no "necessity" about an act of man "DETERMINED WITH UNALTERABLE CERTAINTY" by an omnipotent God! We think John Calvin showed more candor when he wrote the following: "For since God foresees future events only in consequence of his decree that they shall happen, it is useless to contend about foreknowledge, while it is evident that all things come to pass by ordination and decree. It is a horrible decree I confess; but no one can deny that God foreknew the future fate of man before he created; and that he did foreknow it because it was appointed by his own decree." The fair-minded student can judge for himself whether there is any "necessity" in such a doctrine.

(3) Hodge argues certainty from God's providence (p. 301): "That doctrine teaches that God governs all creatures and all their actions. Here again the difficulty is the same, and is no greater than before. Foreknowledge supposes certainty; foreordination DETERMINES it; and providence EFFECTS it!" If this is not a concatenated scheme of necessity and fatalism, then what is it? And what could be?

Then the Doctor grows eloquent. "Who for any metaphysical difficulty,- who, because he is not able to comprehend how God can effectually govern free agents without destroying their nature, would give up the doctrine of providence? Who would wish to see the reins of universal empire fall from the hands of infinite wisdom and love, to be seized by chance or fate? Who would not rather be governed by a Father than by a tornado? If God cannot EFFECTUALLY CONTROL THE ACTS OF FREE AGENTS there Can be no prophecy, no prayer, no thanksgiving, no promise, no security of salvation, no certainty whether in the end God or Satan is to be triumphant, whether heaven or hell is to be the consummation. Give us certainty-the secure conviction that a sparrow cannot fall, or a sinner move a finger, but as God permits and ordains."

It sounds very fine and eloquent; but let us illuminate it with an illustration. A few months ago a young married man in Virginia hid a loaded shot-gun in the bushes skirting a lonely road. Then he, Mr. Beatty, took his young, unsuspecting wife, the mother of his babe, in his automobile to that spot and "moved his finger" on the trigger and shot her in the back of the head, and brought her dead body back to town,-all that he might bask in the sunshine of his mistress' smiles. Now, according to Dr. Hodge, that "moving of that wicked man's finger" on the trigger of that gun pointed at his faithful wife, was "permitted," "ordained," "effected by God's providence," "determined with unalterable certainty," "and "fixed from all eternity," by his foreordination! Then this great man deludes himself and tries to delude others into believing that this is not "necessity"! Oh, no, no! it is only "certainty." If so, then language has no meaning.

Let us hear Fairchild on this kind of certainty: "It is said that God's foreknowledge implies that events are certain, otherwise they could not be foreknown. This is true, but what do we mean by the certainty of events? It is often meant that they are so linked to existing causes that they must occur as they will occur. This is more than certainty-it is necessity. There are those who discard the word necessity as implying fatalism, and substitute "certainty,"- but they still carry the idea of necessity in their thought.

Certainty is properly simple futurition. The event is in the future, and will take place, and God foresees it in the future. His foreknowledge does not cause it or make it certain. Its certainty or futurition is the condition of His foreknowledge, its logical antecedent. He could not foreknow it if it were not to be. Whatever causes the event to come to pass makes it certain. In the world of nature, the divine will, working through natural forces, makes natural events certain. The choice of a free agent who shall exist a thousand years hence, is just as certain as any event of nature, and thus is an object of God's foreknowledge; but the cause of that certainty is the agent himself that is to be." How much. more sane and sensible this is than Dr. Hodge's monstrosity of Calvinism! But we will hear him through.

(4) He argues his doctrine from the regeneration of men. He! says: "The whole Christian world believes that God can convert men. They believe that He can effectually, lead them to repentance and faith; and that He can secure them in heaven from ever falling into sin. That is, they believe that He can render their free| acts absolutely certain. He can by His grace, without violating I their freedom, make it absolutely certain that they will repent, and I believe, and persevere in holiness"

(p. 302.) Could an equal number of words contain a more infamous reflection on our holy and loving God? It implies that God could save everybody if He would, and He does not do it because He prefers that the great mass of mankind should be damned. But this atrocious argument is in perfect harmony with that lovely Calvinistic creed which runs as follows: "By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life and others foreordained to everlasting death. These angels and men, thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished." The simple answer is that man, being endowed with a free-will, is arbiter of his own destiny. God will not and cannot convert him against his will. Salvation and compulsion are contradictory terms. There must be human co-operation.

(5) Dr. Hodge makes another argument for his "certainty" from the moral character of volitions. Thus: "Unless the will be determined by' the previous state of mind, in opposition to being self-determined, there can be no morality in our acts. A man is responsible for his external acts, because they are decided by his will; he is responsible for his volitions, because they are determined by his principles and feelings; he is responsible for his principles and feelings; because of their inherent nature as good or bad, and because they are his own, and constitute his character. If a man when filled with pious feelings can will the most impious acts; or, when filled with enmity to God, have the volitions of a saint, then his volitions and acts have nothing to do with the man himself." It will be remembered, this was answered under the third argument, by a quotation from President Fairchild. We will add, that the argument implies that a man's choice must always be as his previous feelings, disposition and character. We all know it is not true. Men are continually choosing, against their previous character, and so are continually changing their character. Good men, become bad men, and bad men become good men. The angels were holy in heaven, perhaps for a million years. At last a third part of them somehow, in spite of their holiness, managed to make a sinful choice. So did our first parents. And we see sinners making right choices, and reforming their lives; and see Christians making wrong choices and back-sliding. The every day facts are against his argument.

(6) He argues "certainty" from the doctrine of a sufficient cause (p. 306). He says: "The axiom that every effect must have a cause, or the doctrine of a sufficient reason, applies to the internal as well as to the external world. It governs the whole sphere of our experience, inward and outward. There must have been some sufficient reason why it was so, rather than otherwise. That reason was not the mere power of the agent to act; for that only accounts for his acting, not for his acting one way rather than another."

This is nothing but the old doctrine of necessity, from the law of cause and effect. Stewart answers: "The advocates for liberty acknowledge that the motive is the occasion for acting, or the reason for acting; but contend that it is so far from being the efficient cause of it, that it supposes the efficiency to reside elsewhere, namely, in the mind of the agent."

Dr. Hodge further argues that "a man may be justly accountable for acts which are determined by his character, whether that character or inward state be inherited, concreated, innate, acquired or infused" (pp. 308, 309).

Here his discussion ends. And what a doctrine! A man's conduct is all "determined," "fixed from all eternity," by his "internal state," which was also "foreknown, predetermined and fixed." His internal state is innate, concreated by God and inherited, and is the penalty of Adam's sin. And from the determination of Adam's sin, a man "must be a sinner" and, no matter though he is in such a sad plight, through no fault of his own, he must be damned for it, unless purely arbitrary and irresistible grace brings him to salvation! Where does either accountability or responsibility have any place in such a scheme?

The occurrence of all events is "determined with unalterable certainty." Foreknowledge foreknew them as certain. Therefore foreordination determines them. Providence "effects" them, for "providence SECURES the certainty." Now, all the sins of the universe are among the events that occur. God foreknew them as certain, for, according to Hodge and Calvin, His foreordination "determined" them; and his providence "effected them," ie., "SECURED THEIR CERTAINTY." Yet sinners, with utter "inability" to do right, must be eternally damned for necessary conduct, which God "foreknew," because he "foreordained," "fixed it from all eternity," "determined it with unalterable certainty," and, "by his providence, effected and made it securely certain"! Out on such a blasphemous reflection on God, such a moral monstrosity, such a nightmare of human reason!

We have dwelt at length on these theories of Edwards and Hodge; for they are giant Calvinists, and show that system of thought completely. They give us the best that Calvinism has to offer on Freedom of the Will, or Free Moral Agency. They professed to be arguing for it, and probably thought they were. But they ran themselves and their followers into the black ditch of fatalism. And it is the best that Calvinism has to offer a sin-stricken world.

Jonathan Edwards argued his own son into skepticism. Dr. Hodge advocated stern views from which the minds of men instinctively revolt first to liberalism, then to infidelity. Such doctrines lead to clouds and darkness, unbelief and despair. In that direction the truth will not be found.