Part 18

J. D. “But the patrons of necessity being driven out of the plain field with reason, have certain retreats or distinctions which they fly unto for refuge. First, they distinguish between Stoical necessity and Christian necessity, between which they make a threefold difference.

“First, say they, the Stoics did subject Jupiter to destiny, but we subject destiny to God. I answer, that the Stoical and Christian destiny are one and the same; Fatum, quasi effatum Jovis. Hear Seneca: Destiny is the necessity of all things and actions depending upon the disposition of Jupiter, &c. I add, that the Stoics left a greater liberty to Jupiter over destiny, than these stoical Christians do to God over his decrees, either for the beginnings of things, as Euripides, or for the progress of them, as Chrysippus, or at least of the circumstances of time and place, as all of them generally. So Virgil: Sed trahere et moras ducere, &c. So Osyris in Apuleius, promiseth him to prolong his life, ultra fato constituta tempora, beyond the times set down by the destinies.

“Next, they say, that the Stoics did hold an eternal flux and necessary connexion of causes; but they believed that God doth act præter et contra naturam, besides and against nature. I answer, that it is not much material whether they attribute necessity to God, or to the stars, or to a connexion of causes, so as they establish necessity. The former reasons do not only condemn the ground or foundation of necessity, but much more necessity itself upon what ground soever. Either they must run into this absurdity, that the effect is determined, the cause remaining undetermined; or else hold such a necessary connexion of causes as the Stoics did.

“Lastly, they say, the Stoics did take away liberty and contingence, but they admit it. I answer, what liberty or contingence was it they admit but a titular liberty and an empty shadow of contingence, who do profess stiffly that all actions and events, which either are or shall be, cannot but be, nor can be otherwise, after any other manner, in any other place, time, number, order, measure, nor to any other end, than they are; and that in respect of God determining them to one. What a poor ridiculous liberty or contingency is this!

“Secondly, they distinguish between the first cause, and the second causes; they say, that in respect of the second causes many things are free, but in respect of the first cause all things are necessary. This answer may be taken away two ways.

“First, so contraries shall be true together; the same thing at the same time shall be determined to one, and not determined to one; the same thing at the same time must necessarily be, and yet may not be. Perhaps they will say, not in the same respect. But that which strikes at the root of this question is this, if all the causes were only collateral, this exception might have some colour: but where all the causes being joined together, and subordinate one to another, do make but one total cause, if any one cause (much more the first) in the whole series or subordination of causes be necessary, it determines the rest, and without doubt makes the effect necessary. Necessity or liberty is not to be esteemed from one cause, but from all the causes joined together. If one link in a chain be fast, it fastens all the rest.

“Secondly, I would have them tell me whether the second causes be predetermined by the first cause, or not. If it be determined, then the effect is necessary, even in respect of the second causes. If the second cause be not determined, how is the effect determined, the second cause remaining undetermined? Nothing can give that to another which it hath not itself. But say they, nevertheless the power or faculty remaineth free. True, but not in order to the act, if it be once determined. It is free, in sensu diviso, but not in sensu composito. When a man holds a bird fast in his hand, is she therefore free to fly where she will, because she hath wings? Or a man imprisoned or fettered, is he therefore free to walk where he will, because he hath feet and a locomotive faculty? Judge without prejudice, what a miserable subterfuge is this which many men confide so much in.

CERTAIN DISTINCTIONS WHICH HE SUPPOSING MAY BE BROUGHT TO HIS ARGUMENTS, ARE BY HIM REMOVED.

T. H. He saith, “a man may perhaps answer, that the necessity of things held by him is not a Stoical necessity, but a Christian necessity,” &c., but this distinction I have not used, nor indeed have ever heard before. Nor do I think any man could make Stoical and Christian two kinds of necessities, though they may be two kinds of doctrine. Nor have I drawn my answer to his arguments from the authority of any sect, but from the nature of the things themselves.

But here I must take notice of certain words of his in this place, as making against his own tenet. “Where all the causes”, saith he, “being joined together, and subordinate one to another, do make but one total cause, if any one cause, much more the first, in the whole series of subordination of causes be necessary, it determines the rest, and without doubt maketh the effect necessary.” For that which I call the necessary cause of any effect, is the joining together of all causes subordinate to the first, into one total cause. If any one of those, saith he, especially the first, produce its effect necessarily, then all the rest are determined, and the effect also necessary. Now, it is manifest, that the first cause is a necessary cause of all the effects that are next and immediate to it; and therefore by his own reason, all effects are necessary. Nor is that distinction of necessary in respect of the first cause, and necessary in respect of second causes, mine; it does, as he well noteth, imply a contradiction.

J. D. “Because T. H. disavows these two distinctions, I have joined them together in one paragraph. He likes not the distinction of necessity, or destiny, into Stoical and Christian; no more do I. We agree in the conclusion, but our motives are diverse. My reason is, because I acknowledge no such necessity either as the one or as the other; and because I conceive that those Christian writers, who do justly detest the naked destiny of the Stoics, as fearing to fall into those gross absurdities and pernicious consequences which flow from thence, do yet privily, though perhaps unwittingly, under another form of expression introduce it again at the back-door, after they had openly cast it out at the fore-door. But T. H. rusheth boldly without distinctions, which he accounts but jargon, and without foresight, upon the grossest destiny of all others, that is, that of the Stoics. He confesseth, that “they may be two kinds of doctrine.” May be? Nay, they are; without all peradventure. And he himself is the first who bears the name of a Christian, that I have read, that hath raised this sleeping ghost out of its grave, and set it out in its true colours. But yet he likes not the names of Stoical and Christian destiny. I do not blame him, though he would not willingly be accounted a Stoic. To admit the thing, and quarrel about the name, is to make ourselves ridiculous. Why might not I first call that kind of destiny which is maintained by Christians, Christian destiny: and that other maintained by Stoics, Stoical destiny? But I am not the inventor of the term. If he had been as careful in reading other men’s opinions, as he is confident in setting down his own, he might have found not only the thing, but the name itself often used. But if the name of fatum Christianum do offend him, let him call it with Lipsius, fatum verum; who divides destiny into four kinds: 1. mathematical or astrological destiny: 2. natural destiny: 3. Stoical or violent destiny: and 4. true destiny; which he calls, ordinarily, nostrum, our destiny, that is, of Christians; and fatum pium, that is, godly destiny; and defines it just as T. H. doth his destiny, to be (a) a series or order of causes depending upon the divine counsel (De Constantia, lib. 1. cap. xvii. xviii. xix). Though he be more cautelous than T. H. to decline those rocks which some others have made shipwreck upon, yet the divines thought he came too near them; as appears by his Epistle to the Reader in a later edition, and by that note in the margin of his twentieth chapter, ‘Whatsoever I dispute here, I submit to the judgment of the wise, and being admonished I will convert it; one may convince me of error, but not of obstinacy.’ So fearful was he to over-shoot himself; and yet he maintained both true liberty and true contingency. T. H. saith, ‘he hath not sucked his answer from any sect’; and I say, so much the worse. It is better to be the disciple of an old sect, than the ring-leader of a new.

(b) “Concerning the other distinction, of liberty in respect of the first cause, and liberty in respect of the second causes; though he will not see that which it concerned him to answer, like those old Lamiæ, which could put out their eyes when they list; as, namely, that the faculty of willing, when it is determined in order to the act, (which is all the freedom that he acknowledgeth), is but like the freedom of a bird when she is first in a man’s hand, &c.: yet he hath espied another thing wherein I contradict myself, because I affirm, that if any one cause in the whole series of causes, much more the first cause, be necessary, it determineth the rest. But, saith he, ‘it is manifest that the first cause is a necessary cause of all the effects that are next’. I am glad; yet it is not I who contradict myself, but it is some of his manifest truths which I contradict; that ‘the first cause is a necessary cause of all effects’; which I say is a manifest falsehood. Those things which God wills without himself, he wills freely, not necessarily. Whatsoever cause acts or works necessarily, doth act or work all that it can do, or all that is in its power. But it is evident that God doth not all things without himself, which he can do, or which he hath power to do. He could have raised up children unto Abraham of the very stones which were upon the banks of Jordan (Luke iii. 8); but he did not. He could have sent twelve legions of angels to the succour of Christ, (Matth. xxvi. 53); but he did not. God can make T. H. live the years of Methuselah; but it is not necessary that he shall do so, nor probable that he will do so. The productive power of God is infinite, but the whole created world is finite. And, therefore God might still produce more, if it pleased him. But thus it is, when men go on in a confused way, and will admit no distinctions. If T. H. had considered the difference between a necessary being, and a necessary cause, or between those actions of God which are immanent within himself, and the transient works of God which are extrinsical without himself; he would never have proposed such an evident error for a manifest truth. Qui pauca considerat, facile pronuntiat.”

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE BISHOP’S REPLY NO. XVIII.

The Bishop, supposing I had taken my opinion from the authority of the Stoic philosophers, not from my own meditation, falleth into dispute against the Stoics: whereof I might, if I pleased, take no notice, but pass over to No. XIX. But that he may know I have considered their doctrine concerning fate, I think fit to say thus much, that their error consisteth not in the opinion of fate, but in feigning of a false God. When therefore they say, fatum est effatum Jovis, they say no more but that fate is the word of Jupiter. If they had said it had been the word of the true God, I should not have perceived anything in it to contradict; because I hold, as most Christians do, that the whole world was made, and is now governed by the word of God, which bringeth a necessity of all things and actions to depend upon the Divine disposition. Nor do I see cause to find fault with that, as he does, which is said by Lipsius, that (a) fate is a series or order of causes depending upon the Divine counsel; though the divines thought he came too near the rocks, as he thinks I do now. And the reason why he was cautelous, was, because being a member of the Romish Church he had little confidence in the judgment and lenity of the Romish clergy; and not because he thought he had over-shot himself.

(b) “Concerning the other distinction, of liberty in respect of the first cause, and liberty in respect of the second causes, though he will not see that which it concerned him to answer, &c.”, “as, namely, that the faculty of willing, &c.” I answer, that distinction he allegeth, not to be mine, but the Stoics’; and therefore I had no reason to take notice of it; for he disputeth not against me, but others. And whereas he says, it concerned me to make that answer which he hath set down in the words following; I cannot conceive how it concerneth me (whatsoever it may do somebody else) to speak absurdly.

I said that the first cause is a necessary cause of all the effects that are next and immediate to it; which cannot be doubted, and though he deny it, he does not disprove it. For when he says, “those things which God wills without himself, he wills freely and not necessarily”; he says rashly, and untruly. Rashly, because there is nothing without God, who is infinite, in whom are all things, and in whom we live, move, and have our being; and untruly, because whatsoever God foreknew from eternity, he willed from eternity, and therefore necessarily. But against this he argueth thus: “Whatsoever cause acts or works necessarily, doth work or act all that it can do, or all that is in its power; but it is evident that God doth not all things which he can do,” &c. In things inanimate, the action is always according to the extent of its power; not taking in the power of willing, because they have it not. But in those things that have will, the action is according to the whole power, will and all. It is true, that God doth not all things that he can do if he will; but that he can will that which he hath not willed from all eternity, I deny; unless that he can not only will a change, but also change his will, which all divines say is immutable; and then they must needs be necessary effects, that proceed from God. And his texts, God could have raised up children unto Abraham, &c.; and sent twelve legions of angels, &c., make nothing against the necessity of those actions, which from the first cause proceed immediately.

NO. XIX.

J. D. “Thirdly, they distinguish between liberty from compulsion, and liberty from necessitation. The will, say they, is free from compulsion, but not free from necessitation. And this they fortify with two reasons. First, because it is granted by all divines, that hypothetical necessity, or necessity upon a supposition, may consist with liberty. Secondly, because God and the good angels do good necessarily, and yet are more free than we. To the first reason, I confess that necessity upon a supposition may sometimes consist with true liberty, as when it signifies only an infallible certitude of the understanding in that which it knows to be, or that it shall be. But if the supposition be not in the agent’s power, nor depend upon anything that is in his power; if there be an exterior antecedent cause which doth necessitate the effect; to call this free, is to be mad with reason.

“To the second reason, I confess that God and the good angels are more free than we are, that is, intensively in the degree of freedom, but not extensively in the latitude of the object; according to a liberty of exercise, but not of specification. A liberty of exercise, that is, to do or not to do, may consist well with a necessity of specification, or a determination to the doing of good. But a liberty of exercise, and a necessity of exercise, a liberty of specification, and a necessity of specification, are not compatible, nor can consist together. He that is antecedently necessitated to do evil, is not free to do good. So this instance is nothing at all to the purpose.”

T. H. But the distinction of free, into free from compulsion, and free from necessitation, I acknowledge. For to be free from compulsion, is to do a thing so as terror be not the cause of his will to do it. For a man is then only said to be compelled, when fear makes him willing to it; as when a man willingly throws his goods into the sea to save himself, or submits to his enemy for fear of being killed. Thus all men that do anything from love, or revenge, or lust, are free from compulsion; and yet their actions may be as necessary as those which are done upon compulsion. For sometimes other passions work as forcibly as fear; but free from necessitation I say nothing can be. And it is that which he undertook to disprove. This distinction, he says, useth to be fortified by two reasons. But they are not mine. The first, he says, is, “that it is granted by all divines, that an hypothetical necessity, or necessity upon supposition, may stand with liberty”. That you may understand this, I will give you an example of hypothetical necessity. If I shall live, I shall eat; this is an hypothetical necessity. Indeed, it is a necessary proposition; that is to say, it is necessary that that proposition should be true, whensoever uttered; but it is not the necessity of the thing, nor is it therefore necessary, that the man shall live, or that the man shall eat. I do not use to fortify my distinctions with such reasons. Let him confute them as he will, it contents me. But I would have your Lordship take notice hereby, how an easy and plain thing, but withal false, may be, with the grave usage of such words as hypothetical necessity, and necessity upon supposition, and such like terms of Schoolmen, obscured and made to seem profound learning.

The second reason that may confirm the distinction of free from compulsion, and free from necessitation, he says, is that ‘God and good angels do good necessarily, and yet are more free than we’. This reason, though I had no need of it, yet I think it so far forth good, as it is true that God and good angels do good necessarily, and yet are free. But because I find not in the articles of our faith, nor in the decrees of our Church, set down in what manner I am to conceive God and good angels to work by necessity, or in what sense they work freely, I suspend my sentence in that point; and am content that there may be a freedom from compulsion, and yet no freedom from necessitation, as hath been proved in that, that a man may be necessitated to some actions without threats and without fear of danger. But how he can avoid the consisting together of freedom and necessity, supposing God and good angels are freer than men and yet do good necessarily, that we must now examine.

“I confess,” saith he, “that God and good angels are more free than we, that is, intensively in degree of freedom, not extensively in the latitude of the object, according to a liberty of exercise, not of specification.” Again we have here two distinctions that are no distinctions, but made to seem so by terms invented, by I know not whom, to cover ignorance, and blind the understanding of the reader. For it cannot be conceived that there is any liberty greater than for a man to do what he will, and to forbear what he will. One heat may be more intensive than another, but not one liberty than another. He that can do what he will, hath all liberty possible; and he that cannot, has none at all. Also liberty (as he says the Schools call it) of exercise, which is, as I have said before, a liberty to do or not to do, cannot be without a liberty, which they call of specification; that is to say, a liberty to do or not to do this or that in particular. For how can a man conceive, that he has liberty to do any thing, that hath not liberty to do this, or that, or somewhat in particular? If a man be forbidden in Lent to eat this, and that, and every other particular kind of flesh, how can he be understood to have a liberty to eat flesh, more than he that hath no license at all?

You may by this again see the vanity of distinctions used in the Schools; and I do not doubt but that the imposing of them by authority of doctors in the Church, hath been a great cause that men have laboured, though by sedition and evil courses, to shake them off; for, nothing is more apt to beget hatred, than the tyrannising over man’s reason and understanding, especially when it is done, not by the Scripture, but by pretence of learning, and more judgment than that of other men.

J. D. “He who will speak with some of our great undertakers about the grounds of learning, had need either to speak by an interpreter, or to learn a new language (I dare not call it jargon or canting) lately devised, not to set forth the truth, but to conceal falsehood. He must learn a new liberty, a new necessity, a new contingency, a new sufficiency, a new spontaneity, a new kind of deliberation, a new kind of election, a new eternity, a new compulsion, and in conclusion, a new nothing. (a) This proposition, the will is free, may be understood in two senses; either that the will is not compelled, or that the will is not always necessitated; for if it be ordinarily, or at any time free from necessitation, my assertion is true, that there is freedom from necessity. The former sense, that the will is not compelled, is acknowledged by all the world as a truth undeniable: voluntas non cogitur. For if the will may be compelled, then it may both will and not will the same thing at the same time, under the same notion; but this implies a contradiction. Yet this author, like the good woman whom her husband sought up the stream when she was drowned upon pretence that when she was living she used to go contrary courses to all other people, holds, that true compulsion and fear may make a man will that which he doth not will, that is, in his sense may compel the will: “as when a man willingly throws his goods into the sea to save himself, or submits to his enemy for fear of being killed”. I answer, that T. H. mistakes sundry ways in this discourse.

(b) “First, he erreth in this, to think that actions proceeding from fear are properly compulsory actions: which in truth are not only voluntary, but free actions; neither compelled, nor so much as physically necessitated. Another man, at the same time, in the same ship, in the same storm, may choose, and the same individual man otherwise advised might choose not, to throw his goods overboard. It is the man himself, who chooseth freely this means to preserve his life. It is true, that if he were not in such a condition, or if he were freed from the grounds of his present fears, he would not choose neither the casting of his goods into the sea, nor the submitting to his enemy. But considering the present exigence of his affairs, reason dictates to him, that of two inconveniences the less is to be chosen, as a comparative good. Neither doth he will this course as the end or direct object of his desires, but as the means to attain his end. And what fear doth in these cases, love, hope, hatred, &c. may do in other cases; that is, may occasion a man to elect those means to obtain his willed end, which otherwise he would not elect. As Jacob, to serve seven years more, rather than not to enjoy his beloved Rachel. The merchant, to hazard himself upon the rough seas in hope of profit. Passions may be so violent, that they may necessitate the will, that is, when they prevent deliberations; but this is rarely, and then the will is not free. But they never properly compel it. That which is compelled, is against the will; and that which is against the will, is not willed.

(c) “Secondly, T. H. errs in this also, where he saith, that ‘a man is then only said to be compelled, when fear makes him willing to an action’: as if force were not more prevalent with a man, than fear. We must know therefore, that this word compelled is taken two ways: sometimes improperly, that is, when a man is moved or occasioned by threats or fear, or any passion, to do that which he would not have done, if those threats or that passion had not been. Sometimes it is taken properly; when we do any thing against our own inclination, moved by an external cause, the will not consenting nor concurring, but resisting as much as it can. As in a rape, or when a Christian is drawn or carried by violence to the idol’s temple. Or as in the case of St. Peter (John xxi. 18): Another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This is that compulsion, which is understood when we say, the will may be letted, or changed, or necessitated, or that the imperate actions of the will, that is the actions of the inferior faculties which are ordinarily moved by the will, may be compelled: but that the immanent actions of the will, that is, to will, to choose, cannot be compelled; because it is the nature of an action properly compelled, to be done by an extrinsical cause, without the concurrence of the will.

(d) “Thirdly, the question is not, whether all the actions of a man be free, but whether they be ordinarily free. Suppose some passions are so sudden and violent, that they surprise a man, and betray the succours of the soul, and prevent deliberation; as we see in some motus primo primi, or antipathies, how some men will run upon the most dangerous objects, upon the first view of a loathed creature, without any power to contain themselves. Such actions as these, as they are not ordinary, so they are not free; because there is no deliberation nor election. But where deliberation and election are, as when a man throws his goods overboard to save the ship, or submits to his enemy to save his life, there is always true liberty.

“Though T. H. slight the two reasons which I produce in favour of his cause, yet they who urged them deserved not to be slighted, unless it were because they were School-men. The former reason is thus framed: a necessity of supposition may consist with true liberty. But that necessity which flows from the natural and extrinsical determination of the will, is a necessity of supposition. To this, my answer is in effect, that (e) a necessity of supposition is of two kinds. Sometimes the thing supposed is in the power of the agent to do, or not to do. As for a Romish priest to vow continence, upon supposition that he be a Romish priest, is necessary; but because it was in his power to be a priest or not to be a priest, therefore his vow is a free act. So supposing a man to have taken physic, it is necessary that he keep at home; yet because it was in his power to take a medicine or not to take it, therefore his keeping at home is free. Again, sometimes the thing supposed is not in the power of the agent to do, or not to do. Supposing a man to be extremely sick, it is necessary that he keep at home; or supposing that a man hath a natural antipathy against a cat, he runs necessarily away so soon as he sees her: because this antipathy, and this sickness, are not in the power of the party affected, therefore these acts are not free. Jacob blessed his sons, Balaam blessed Israel; these two acts being done, are both necessary upon supposition. But it was in Jacob’s power, not to have blessed his sons; so was it not in Balaam’s power, not to have blessed Israel (Numb. xxii. 38). Jacob’s will was determined by himself; Balaam’s will was physically determined by God. Therefore Jacob’s benediction proceeded from his own free election; and Balaam’s from God’s determination. So was Caiphas’ prophecy (John xi. 51): therefore the text saith, he spake not of himself. To this T. H. saith nothing; but only declareth by an impertinent instance, what hypothetical signifies; and then adviseth your Lordship, to take notice how errors and ignorance may be cloaked under grave scholastic terms. And I do likewise intreat your Lordship to take notice, that the greatest fraud and cheating lurks commonly under the pretence of plain dealing. We see jugglers commonly strip up their sleeves, and promise extraordinary fair dealing, before they begin to play their tricks.