A Review of Edwards's "inquiry Into the Freedom of the Will"

Part 1

Produced by Keith G Richardson

A REVIEW OF EDWARDS'S

"INQUIRY

INTO THE

FREEDOM OF THE WILL."

CONTAINING

I. STATEMENT OF EDWARDS'S SYSTEM.

II. THE LEGITIMATE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS SYSTEM.

III. AN EXAMINATION OF THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST A SELF-DETERMINING WILL.

BY HENRY PHILIP TAPPAN.

"I am afraid that Edwards's book (however well meant,) has done much harm in England, as it has secured a favourable hearing to the same doctrines, which, since the time of Clarke, had been generally ranked among the most dangerous errors of Hobbes and his disciples."--Dugald Stewart.

NEW-YORK:

JOHN S. TAYLOR,

THEOLOGICAL PUBLISHER AND BOOKSELLER, BRICK CHURCH CHAPEL,

1839.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1839, by HENRY PHILIP TAPPAN, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New-York.

G. F. Hopkins, Printer, 2 Ann-street.

INTRODUCTION.

Discussions respecting the will, have, unhappily, been confounded with theological opinions, and hence have led to theological controversies, where predilections for a particular school or sect, have generally prejudged the conclusions of philosophy. As a part of the mental constitution, the will must be subjected to the legitimate methods of psychological investigation, and must abide the result. If we enter the field of human consciousness in the free, fearless, and honest spirit of Baconian observation in order to arrive at the laws of the reason or the imagination, what should prevent us from pursuing the same enlightened course in reference to the will?

Is it because responsibility and the duties of morality and religion are more immediately connected with the will? This, indeed, throws solemnity around our investigations, and warns us of caution; but, at the same time, so far from repressing investigation, it affords the highest reason why we should press it to the utmost limit of consciousness. Nothing surely can serve more to fix our impressions of moral obligation, or to open our eye to the imperishable truth and excellency of religion, than a clear and ripe knowledge of that which makes us the subjects of duty. As a believer in philosophy, I claim unbounded liberty of thought, and by thinking I hope to arrive at truth. As a believer in the Bible I always anticipate that the truths to which philosophy leads me, will harmonize with its facts and doctrines. If in the result there should appear to be a collision, it imposes upon me the duty of re-examining both my philosophy and my interpretation of the text. In this way I may in the end remove the difficulty, and not only so, but even gain from the temporary and apparent collision, a deeper insight into both philosophy and religion. If the difficulty cannot be removed, then it remains a vexed point. It does not follow, however, that I must either renounce the philosophical conclusion, or remove the text.

If the whole of philosophy or its leading truths were in opposition to the whole of revelation or its leading truths, we should then evidently be placed on the alternative of denying one or the other; but as the denial of philosophy would be the destruction of reason, there would no longer remain in our being any principle on which a revelation could be received. Such a collision would therefore disprove the claims of any system to be from Heaven. But let us suppose, on the other hand, that with every advance of philosophy the facts of the Bible are borne aloft, and their divine authority and their truth made more manifest, have we not reason to bless the researches which have enabled us to perceive more clearly the light from Heaven? A system of truth does not fear, it courts philosophical scrutiny. Its excellency will be most resplendent when it has had the most fiery trial of thought. Nothing would so weaken my faith in the Bible as the fact of being compelled to tremble for its safety whenever I claimed and exercised the prerogative of reason. And what I say of it as a whole, I say of doctrines claiming to be derived from it.

Theologists are liable to impose upon themselves when they argue from the truths of the Bible to the truths of their philosophy; either under the view that the last are deducible from the former, or that they serve to account for and confirm the former. How often is their philosophy drawn from some other source, or handed down by old authority, and rendered venerable by associations arbitrary and accidental; and instead of sustaining the simplicity of the Bible, the doctrine is perhaps cast into the mould of the philosophy.

It is a maxim commended by reason and confirmed by experience, that in pursuing our investigations in any particular science we are to confine ourselves rigorously to its subjects and methods, neither seeking nor fearing collision with any other science. We may feel confident that ultimately science will be found to link with science, forming a universal and harmonious system of truth; but this can by no means form the principle of our particular investigations. The application of this maxim is no less just and necessary where a philosophy or science holds a relation to revelation. It is a matter of the highest interest that in the developements of such philosophy or science, it should be found to harmonize with the revelation; but nevertheless this cannot be received as the principle on which we shall aim to develope it. If there is a harmony, it must be discovered; it cannot be invented and made.

The Cardinals determined upon the authority of Scripture, as they imagined, what the science of astronomy must be, and compelled the old man Gallileo to give the lie to his reason; and since then, the science of geology has been attempted, if not to be settled, at least to be limited in its researches in the same way. Science, however, has pursued her steady course resistlessly, settling her own bounds and methods, and selecting her own fields, and giving to the world her own discoveries. And is the truth of the Bible unsettled? No. The memory of Gallileo and of Cuvier is blessed by the same lips which name the name of Christ.

Now we ask the same independence of research in the philosophy of the human mind, and no less with respect to the Will than with respect to any other faculty. We wish to make this purely a psychological question. Let us not ask what philosophy is demanded by Calvinism in opposition to Pelagianism and Arminianism, or by the latter in opposition to the former; let us ask simply for the laws of our being. In the end we may present another instance of truth honestly and fearlessly sought in the legitimate exercise of our natural reason, harmonizing with truths revealed.

One thing is certain; the Bible no more professes to be a system of formal mental philosophy, than it professes to contain the sciences of astronomy and geology. If mental philosophy is given there, it is given in facts of history, individual and national, in poetry, prophecy, law, and ethics; and as thus given, must be collected into a system by observation and philosophical criticism.

But observations upon these external facts could not possibly be made independently of observations upon internal facts--the facts of the consciousness; and the principles of philosophical criticism can be obtained only in the same way. To him who looks not within himself, poetry, history, law, ethics, and the distinctions of character and conduct, would necessarily be unintelligible. No one therefore can search the Bible for its philosophy, who has not already read philosophy in his own being. We shall find this amply confirmed in the whole history of theological opinion. Every interpreter of the Bible, every author of a creed, every founder of a sect, plainly enough reveals both the principles of his philosophy and their influence upon himself. Every man who reflects and aims to explain, is necessarily a philosopher, and has his philosophy. Instead therefore of professing to oppose the Bible to philosophy, or instead of the pretence of deducing our philosophy solely and directly from the Bible, let us openly declare that we do not discard philosophy, but seek it in its own native fields; and that inasmuch as it has a being and a use, and is related to all that we know and do, we are therefore determined to pursue it in a pure, truth-loving spirit.

I am aware, however, that the doctrine of the will is so intimately associated with great and venerable names, and has so long worn a theological complexion, that it is well nigh impossible to disintegrate it. The authority of great and good men, and theological interests, even when we are disposed to be candid, impartial, and independent, do often insensibly influence our reasonings.

Part 2

It is out of respect to these old associations and prejudices, and from the wish to avoid all unnecessary strangeness of manner in handling an old subject, and more than all, to meet what are regarded by many as the weightiest and most conclusive reasonings on this subject, that I open this discussion with a review of "Edwards's Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will." There is no work of higher authority among those who deny the self-determining power of the will; and none which on this subject has called forth more general admiration for acuteness of thought and logical subtlety. I believe there is a prevailing impression that Edwards must be fairly met in order to make any advance in an opposite argument. I propose no less than this attempt, presumptuous though it may seem, yet honest and made for truth's sake. Truth is greater and more venerable than the names of great and venerable men, or of great and venerable sects: and I cannot believe that I seek truth with a proper love and veneration, unless I seek her, confiding in herself alone, neither asking the authority of men in her support, nor fearing a collision with them, however great their authority may be. It is my interest to think and believe aright, no less than to act aright; and as right action is meritorious not when compelled and accidental, but when free and made under the perception and conviction of right principles; so also right thinking and believing are meritorious, either in an intellectual or moral point of view, when thinking and believing are something more than gulping down dogmas because Austin, or Calvin, or Arminius, presents the cup.

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