Part 26

(i) “The reason for the sixth point is like the former, a phantastical or imaginative reason: ‘How can a man imagine anything to begin without a cause; or if it should begin without a cause, why it should begin at this time, rather than at that time?’ He saith truly, nothing can begin without a cause, that is to be; but it may begin to act of itself without any other cause. Nothing can begin without a cause; but many things may begin without a necessary cause.” He granteth nothing can begin without a cause; and he hath granted formerly that nothing can cause itself. And now he saith, it may begin to act of itself. The action therefore begins to be without any cause, which he said nothing could do, contradicting what he had said but in the line before. And for that that he saith, that “many things may begin not without a cause, but without a necessary cause”; it hath been argued before; and all causes have been proved, if entire and sufficient causes, to be necessary. And that which he repeateth here, namely, that “a free cause may choose his time when he will begin to work”; and that “although free effects cannot be foretold, because they are not certainly predetermined in their causes, yet when the free causes do determine themselves, they are of as great certainty as the other”; it has been made appear sufficiently before that it is but jargon, the words free cause and determining themselves being insignificant, and having nothing in the mind of man answerable to them.

(k) “And now that I have answered T. H.’s arguments, drawn from the private conceptions of men concerning the sense of words, I desire him seriously to examine himself, &c.” One of his interrogatories is this, “whether I find not by experience, that I do many things which I might have left undone if I would”. This question was needless, because all the way I have granted him that men have liberty to do many things if they will, which they left undone because they had not the will to do them. Another interrogatory is this, “whether I do not some things without regard to the direction of right reason, or serious respect of what is honest or profitable”. This question was in vain, unless he think himself my confessor. Another is, “whether I writ not this defence against liberty, only to show I will have a dominion over my own actions”. To this I answer, no: but to show I have no dominion over my will, and this also at his request. But all these questions serve in this place for nothing else, but to deliver him of a jest he was in labour withal: and therefore his last question is, “whether I do not sometimes say, ‘Oh, what a fool was I to do thus and thus!’ or, ‘Oh, that I had been wise!’ or, ‘Oh, what a fool was I to grow old!’” Subtle questions, and full of episcopal gravity! I would he had left out charging me with blasphemous, desperate, destructive, and atheistical opinions. I should then have pardoned him his calling me fool; both because I do many things foolishly, and because, in this question disputed between us, I think he will appear a greater fool than I.

NO. XXXIV.

T. H. For the seventh point, that all events have necessary causes, it is there proved in that they have sufficient causes. Further, let us in this place also suppose any event never so casual, as for example, the throwing ambs-ace upon a pair of dice; and see if it must not have been necessary before it was thrown. For, seeing it was thrown, it had a beginning, and consequently a sufficient cause to produce it; consisting partly in the dice, partly in the outward things, as the posture of the party’s hand, the measure of force applied by the caster, the posture of the parts of the table, and the like. In sum, there was nothing wanting that was necessarily requisite to the producing of that particular cast; and consequently, that cast was necessarily thrown. For if it had not been thrown, there had wanted somewhat requisite to the throwing of it; and so the cause had not been sufficient. In the like manner it may be proved that every other accident, how contingent soever it seem, or how voluntary soever it be, is produced necessarily; which is that J. D. disputes against. The same also may be proved in this manner. Let the case be put for example, of the weather. It is necessary, that to-morrow it shall rain or not rain. If therefore it be not necessary it shall rain, it is necessary it shall not rain. Otherwise it is not necessary that the proposition, it shall rain or it shall not rain, should be true. I know there are some that say, it may necessarily be true, that one of the two shall come to pass, but not singly, that it shall rain or it shall not rain. Which is as much as to say, one of them is necessary, yet neither of them is necessary. And therefore, to seem to avoid that absurdity, they make a distinction, that neither of them is true determinate, but indeterminate. Which distinction either signifies no more than this: one of them is true, but we know not which, and so the necessity remains, though we know it not: or if the meaning of the distinction be not that, it has no meaning. And they might as well have said, one of them is true tytyrice, but neither of them tupatulice.

J. D. (a) “His former proof, that all sufficient causes are necessary causes, is answered before (No. XXXI). (b) And his two instances of casting ambs-ace, and raining to-morrow, are altogether impertinent to the question now agitated between us, for two reasons. First, our present controversy is concerning free actions, which proceed from the liberty of man’s will: both his instances are of contingent actions, which proceed from the indetermination or contingent concurrence of natural causes. First, that there are free actions which proceed merely from election, without any outward necessitation, is a truth so evident as that there is a sun in the heavens; and he that doubteth of it, may as well doubt whether there be a shell without the nut, or a stone within the olive. A man proportions his time each day, and allots so much to his devotions, so much to his study, so much to his diet, so much to his recreations, so much to necessary or civil visits, so much to his rest; he who will seek for I know not what causes of all this without himself, except that good God who hath given him a reasonable soul, may as well seek for a cause of the Egyptian pyramids among the crocodiles of Nilus. (c) Secondly, for mixed actions which proceed from the concurrence of free and natural agents, though they be not free, yet they are not necessary. As, to keep my former instance, a man walking through a street of a city to do his occasions, a tile falls from a house and breaks his head. The breaking of his head was not necessary, for he did freely choose to go that way without any necessitation; neither was it free, for he did not deliberate of that accident; therefore it was contingent, and by undoubted consequence, there are contingent actions in the world which are not free. Most certainly by the concurrence of free causes, as God, the good and bad angels, and men, with natural agents, sometimes on purpose and sometimes by accident, many events happen, which otherwise had never happened; many effects are produced, which otherwise had never been produced. And admitting such things to be contingent, not necessary, all their consequent effects, not only immediate, but mediate, must likewise be contingent, that is to say, such as do not proceed from a continued connexion and succession of necessary causes; which is directly contrary to T. H.’s opinion.

(d) “Thirdly, for the actions of brute beasts, though they be not free, though they have not the use of reason to restrain their appetites from that which is sensitively good by the consideration of what is rationally good, or what is honest, and though their fancies be determined by nature to some kinds of work; yet to think that every individual action of theirs, and each animal motion of theirs, even to the least murmur or gesture, is bound by the chain of unalterable necessity to the extrinsical causes or objects, I see no ground for it. Christ saith, one of these sparrows doth not fall to the ground without your heavenly Father, that is, without an influence of power from him, or exempted from his disposition; he doth not say, which your heavenly Father casteth not down. Lastly, for the natural actions of inanimate creatures, wherein there is not the least concurrence of any free or voluntary agents, the question is yet more doubtful. For many things are called contingent in respect of us, because we know not the cause of them, which really and in themselves are not contingent, but necessary. Also many things are contingent in respect of one single cause, either actually hindered, or in possibility to be hindered, which are necessary in respect of the joint concurrence of all collateral causes. (e) But whether there be a necessary connexion of all natural causes from the beginning, so as they must all have concurred as they have done, and in the same degree of power, and have been deficient as they have been in all events whatsoever, would require a further examination, if it were pertinent to this question of liberty; but it is not. It is sufficient to my purpose, to have showed that all elective actions are free from absolute necessity: and moreover, that the concurrence of voluntary and free agents with natural causes, both upon purpose and accidentally, hath helped them to produce many effects, which otherwise they had not produced, and hindered them from producing many effects, which otherwise they had produced: and that if this intervention of voluntary and free agents had been more frequent than it hath been, as without doubt it might have been, many natural events had been otherwise than they are. And therefore he might have spared his instance of casting ambs-ace and raining to-morrow. And first, for his casting ambs-ace: if it be thrown by a fair gamester with indifferent dice, it is a mixed action; the casting of the dice is free, but the casting of ambs-ace is contingent. A man may deliberate whether he will cast the dice or not; but it were folly to deliberate whether he will cast ambs-ace or not, because it is not in his power, unless he be a cheater that can cog the dice, or the dice be false dice; and then the contingency, or degree of contingency, ceaseth accordingly as the caster hath more or less cunning, or as the figure or making of the dice doth incline them to ambs-ace more than to another cast, or necessitate them to this cast and no other. Howsoever, so far as the cast is free or contingent, so far it is not necessary: and where necessity begins, there liberty and contingency do cease to be. Likewise his other instance of raining or not raining to-morrow, is not of a free elective act, nor always of a contingent act. In some countries, as they have their stati venti, their certain winds at set seasons; so they have their certain and set rains. The Ethiopian rains are supposed to be the cause of the certain inundation of Nilus. In some eastern countries they have rain only twice a year, and those constant; which the Scriptures call the former and the later rain. In such places not only the causes do act determinately and necessarily, but also the determination or necessity of the event is foreknown to the inhabitants. In our climate, the natural causes celestial and sublunary do not produce rain so necessarily at set times; neither can we say so certainly and infallibly, it will rain to-morrow, or it will not rain to-morrow. Nevertheless, it may so happen that the causes are so disposed and determined, even in our climate, that this proposition, it will rain to-morrow or it will not rain to-morrow, may be necessary in itself; and the prognostics, or tokens, may be such in the sky, in our own bodies, in the creatures, animate and inanimate, as weather glasses, &c., that it may become probably true to us that it will rain to-morrow, or it will not rain to-morrow. But ordinarily, it is a contingent proposition to us; whether it be contingent also in itself, that is, whether the concurrence of the causes were absolutely necessary, whether the vapours or matter of the rain may not yet be dispersed, or otherwise consumed, or driven beyond our coast, is a speculation which no way concerns this question. So we see one reason why his two instances are altogether impertinent; because they are of actions which are not free, nor elective, nor such as proceed from the liberty of man’s will.

“Secondly, our dispute is about absolute necessity; his proofs extend only to hypothetical necessity. Our question is, whether the concurrence and determination of the causes were necessary before they did concur, or were determined. He proves that the effect is necessary after the causes have concurred, and are determined. The freest actions of God or man are necessary, by such a necessity of supposition, and the most contingent events that are, as I have showed plainly, No. III, where his instance of ambs-ace is more fully answered. So his proof looks another way from his proposition. His proposition is, ‘that the casting of ambs-ace was necessary before it was thrown’. His proof is, that it was necessary when it was thrown. Examine all his causes over and over, and they will not afford him one grain of antecedent necessity. The first cause is in the dice: true, if they be false dice there may be something in it; but then his contingency is destroyed: if they be square dice, they have no more inclination to ambs-ace, than to cinque and quatre, or any other cast. His second cause is ‘the posture of the party’s hand’: but what necessity was there that he should put his hands into such a posture? None at all. The third cause is ‘the measure of the force applied by the caster’. Now for the credit of his cause let him but name, I will not say a convincing reason nor so much as a probable reason, but even any pretence of reason, how the caster was necessitated from without himself to apply just so much force, and neither more nor less. If he cannot, his cause is desperate, and he may hold his peace for ever. His last cause is the posture of the table. But tell us in good earnest, what necessity there was why the caster must throw into that table rather than the other, or that the dice must fall just upon that part of the table, before the cast was thrown: he that makes these to be necessary causes, I do not wonder if he make all effects necessary effects. If any one of these causes be contingent, it is sufficient to render the cast contingent; and now that they are all so contingent, yet he will needs have the effect to be necessary. And so it is when the cast is thrown; but not before the cast was thrown, which he undertook to prove. Who can blame him for being so angry with the Schoolmen, and their distinctions of necessity into absolute and hypothetical, seeing they touch his freehold so nearly?

“But though his instance of raining to-morrow be impertinent, as being no free action, yet because he triumphs so much in his argument, I will not stick to go a little out of my way to meet a friend. For I confess the validity of the reason had been the same, if he had made it of a free action, as thus: either I shall finish this reply to-morrow, or I shall not finish this reply to-morrow, is a necessary proposition. But because he shall not complain of any disadvantage in the alteration of his terms, I will for once adventure upon his shower of rain. And first, I readily admit his major, that this proposition, either it will rain to-morrow or it will not rain to-morrow, is necessarily true: for of two contradictory propositions, the one must of necessity be true, because no third can be given. But his minor, that ‘it could not be necessarily true, except one of the members were necessarily true’, is most false. And so is his proof likewise, that ‘if neither the one nor the other of the members be necessarily true, it cannot be affirmed that either the one or the other is true’. A conjunct proposition may have both parts false, and yet the proposition be true; as, if the sun shine it is day, is a true proposition at midnight. And T. H. confesseth as much, No. XIX. ‘If I shall live I shall eat, 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’. And so T. H. proceeds: ‘I do not use to fortify my distinctions with such reasons’. But it seemeth he hath forgotten himself, and is contented with such poor fortifications. And though both parts of a disjunctive proposition cannot be false; because if it be a right disjunction, the members are repugnant, whereof one part is infallibly true; yet vary but the proposition a little to abate the edge of the disjunctions, and you shall find in that which T. H. saith to be true, that it is not the necessity of the thing which makes the proposition to be true. As for example, vary it thus: I know that either it will rain to-morrow or that it will not rain to-morrow, is a true proposition: but it is not true that I know it will rain to-morrow, neither is it true that I know it will not rain to-morrow; wherefore the certain truth of the proposition doth not prove that either of the members is determinately true in present. Truth is a conformity of the understanding to the thing known, whereof speech is an interpreter. If the understanding agree not with the thing, it is an error; if the words agree not with the understanding, it is a lie. Now the thing known, is known either in itself or in its causes. If it be known in itself as it is, then we express our apprehension of it in words of the present tense; as the sun is risen. If it be known in its cause, we express ourselves in words of the future tense; as to-morrow will be an eclipse of the moon. But if we neither know it in itself, nor in its causes, then there may be a foundation of truth, but there is no such determinate truth of it that we can reduce it into a true proposition. We cannot say it doth rain to-morrow, or it doth not rain to-morrow; that were not only false but absurd. We cannot positively say it will rain to-morrow, because we do not know it in its causes, either how they are determined or that they are determined. Wherefore the certitude and evidence of the disjunctive proposition is neither founded upon that which will be actually to-morrow, for it is granted that we do not know that; nor yet upon the determination of the causes, for then we would not say indifferently either it will rain or it will not rain, but positively it will rain, or positively it will not rain. But it is grounded upon an undeniable principle, that of two contradictory propositions the one must necessarily be true. (f) And therefore to say, either this or that will infallibly be, but it is not yet determined whether this or that shall be, is no such senseless assertion that it deserved a tytyrice tupatulice, but an evident truth which no man that hath his eyes in his head can doubt of.

(g) “If all this will not satisfy him, I will give one of his own kind of proofs; that is, an instance. That which necessitates all things, according to T. H. (No. XI), is the decree of God, or that order which is set to all things by the eternal cause. Now God himself, who made this necessitating decree, was not subjected to it in the making thereof; neither was there any former order to oblige the first cause necessarily to make such a decree; therefore this decree being an act ad extra, was freely made by God without any necessitation. Yet nevertheless this disjunctive proposition is necessarily true: either God did make each a decree, or he did not make such a decree. Again, though T. H.’s opinion were true, that all events are necessary, and that the whole Christian world are deceived who believe that some events are free from necessity; yet he will not deny, but if it had been the good pleasure of God, he might have made some causes free from necessity; seeing that it neither argues any imperfection, nor implies any contradiction. Supposing therefore that God had made some second causes free from any such antecedent determination to one; yet the former disjunction would be necessarily true: either this free undetermined cause will act after this manner, or it will not act after this manner. Wherefore the necessary truth of such a disjunctive proposition doth not prove that either of the members of the disjunction singly considered, is determinately true in present; but only that the one of them will be determinately true to-morrow.

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE ANSWER TO NO. XXXIV.

(a) “His former proof, that all sufficient causes are necessary causes, is answered before (No. XXXI).” When he shall have read my animadversions upon that answer of his, he will think otherwise, whatsoever he will confess.

(b) “And his two instances of casting ambs-ace, and of raining to-morrow, are altogether impertinent to the question, for two reasons.” His first reason is, “because”, saith he, “our present controversy is concerning free actions, which proceed from the liberty of man’s will; and both his instances are of contingent actions, which proceed from the indetermination, or contingent concurrence of natural causes”. He knows that this part of my discourse, which beginneth at No. XXV, is no dispute with him at all, but a bare setting down of my opinion concerning the natural necessity of all things; which is opposite, not only to the liberty of will, but also to all contingence that is not necessary. And therefore these instances were not impertinent to my purpose; and if they be impertinent to his opinion of the liberty of man’s will, he does impertinently to meddle with them. And yet for all he pretends here, that the question is only about liberty of the will; yet in his first discourse (No. XVI), he maintains that “the order, beauty, and perfection of the world doth require that in the universe should be agents of all sorts, some necessary, some free, some contingent”. And my purpose here is to show by those instances, that those things which we esteem most contingent are nevertheless necessary. Besides, the controversy is not whether free actions which proceed from the liberty of man’s will, be necessary or not; for I know no action which proceedeth from the liberty of man’s will. But the question is, whether those actions which proceed from the man’s will, be necessary. The man’s will is something, but the liberty of his will is nothing. Again, the question is not whether contingent actions which proceed from the indetermination or contingent concurrence of natural causes, (for there is nothing that can proceed from indetermination), but whether contingent actions be necessary before they be done; or whether the concurrence of natural causes, when they happen to concur, were not necessitated so to happen; or whether whatsoever chanceth, be not necessitated so to chance. And that they are so necessitated, I have proved already with such arguments as the Bishop, for aught I see, cannot answer. For to say, as he doth, that “there are free actions which proceed merely from election, without any outward necessitation, is a truth so evident as that there is a sun in the heavens”, is no proof. It is indeed as clear as the sun, that there are free actions proceeding from election; but that there is election without any outward necessitation, is dark enough.

(c) “Secondly, for mixed actions, which proceed from the concurrence of free and natural agents, though they be not free, yet they are not necessary, &c.” For proof of this he instanceth in a tile, that falling from a house breaks a man’s head, neither necessarily nor freely, and therefore contingently. Not necessarily, “for”, saith he, “he did freely choose to go that way without any necessitation”. Which is as much as taking the question itself for a proof. For what is else the question, but whether a man be necessitated to choose what he chooseth? “Again”, saith he, “it was not free, because he did not deliberate whether his head should be broken or not”; and concludes “therefore it was contingent; and by undoubted consequence, there are contingent actions in the world which are not free”. This is true, and denied by none; but he should have proved, that such contingent actions are not antecedently necessary by a concurrence of natural causes; though a little before he granteth they are. For whatsoever is produced by a concurrence of natural causes, was antecedently determined in the cause of such concurrence, though, as he calls it, contingent concurrence; not perceiving that concurrence and contingent concurrence are all one, and suppose a continued connection and succession of causes which make the effect necessarily future. So that hitherto he hath proved no other contingence than that which is necessary.

(d) “Thirdly, for the actions of brute beasts, &c, to think each animal motion of theirs is bound by the chain of unalterable necessity, I see no ground for it.” It maketh nothing against the truth, that he sees no ground for it. I have pointed out the ground in my former discourse, and am not bound to find him eyes. He himself immediately citeth a place of Scripture that proveth it, where Christ saith, one of these sparrows doth not fall to the ground without your heavenly Father; which place, if there were no more, were a sufficient ground for the assertion of the necessity of all those changes of animal motion in birds and other living creatures, which seem to us so uncertain. But when a man is dizzy with influence of power, elicit acts, permissive will, hypothetical necessity, and the like unintelligible terms, the ground goes from him. By and by after he confesseth that “many things are called contingent in respect of us, because we know not the cause of them, which really and in themselves are not contingent, but necessary”; and errs therein the other way; for he says in effect, that many things are, which are not; for it is all one to say, they are not contingent, and they are not. He should have said, there be many things, the necessity of whose contingence we cannot or do not know.

(e) “But whether there be a necessary connexion of all natural causes from the beginning, so as they must all have concurred as they have done, &c, would require a further examination, if it were pertinent to this question of liberty; but it is not. It is sufficient to my purpose to have showed, &c.” If there be a necessary connexion of all natural causes from the beginning, then there is no doubt but that all things happen necessarily, which is that that I have all this while maintained. But whether there be or no, he says, it requires a further examination. Hitherto therefore he knows not whether it be true or no, and consequently all his arguments hitherto have been of no effect, nor hath he showed anything to prove, what he purposed, that elective actions are not necessitated. And whereas a little before he says, that to my arguments to prove that sufficient causes are necessary, he hath already answered; it seemeth he distrusteth his own answer, and answers again to the two instances of casting ambs-ace, and raining or not raining to-morrow; but brings no other argument to prove the cast thrown not to be necessarily thrown, but this, that he does not deliberate whether he shall throw that cast or not. Which argument may perhaps prove that the casting of it proceedeth not from free will, but proves not anything against the antecedent necessity of it. And to prove that it is not necessary that it should rain or not rain to-morrow; after telling us that the Ethiopian rains cause the inundation of Nilus: that in some eastern countries they have rain only twice a year, which the Scripture, he saith, calleth the former and the latter rain; (I thought he had known it by the experience of some travellers, but I see he only gathereth it from that phrase in Scripture of former and latter rain); I say, after he has told us this, to prove that it is not necessary it should rain or not rain to-morrow he saith that “in our climate the natural causes, celestial and sublunary, do not produce rain so necessarily at set times, as in the eastern countries; neither can we say so certainly and infallibly, it will rain to-morrow, or it will not rain to-morrow”. By this argument a man may take the height of the Bishop’s logic. “In our climate the natural causes do not produce rain so necessarily at set times, as in some eastern countries. Therefore they do not produce rain necessarily in our climate, then when they do produce it”. And again, “we cannot say so certainly and infallibly, it will rain to-morrow or it will not rain to-morrow; therefore it is not necessary either that it should rain, or that it should not rain to-morrow”: as if nothing were necessary the necessity whereof we know not. Another reason, he saith, why my instances are impertinent, is because “they extend only to an hypothetical necessity”, that is, that the necessity is not in the antecedent causes; and thereupon challengeth me for the credit of my cause to name some reason, “how the caster was necessitated from without himself to apply just so much force to the cast, and neither more nor less; or what necessity there was why the caster must throw into that table rather than the other, or that the dice must fall just upon that part of the table, before the cast was thrown”. Here again, from our ignorance of the particular causes that concurring make the necessity he inferreth, that there was no such necessity at all; which indeed is that which hath in all this question deceived him, and all other men that attribute events to fortune. But I suppose he will not deny that event to be necessary, where all the causes of the cast, and their concurrence, and the cause of that concurrence are foreknown, and might be told him, though I cannot tell him. Seeing therefore God foreknows them all, the cast was necessary; and that from antecedent causes from eternity; which is no hypothetical necessity.

And whereas to my argument to prove, that ‘raining to-morrow if it shall then rain, and not raining to-morrow if it shall then not rain’, was therefore necessary, because ‘otherwise this disjunctive proposition, it shall rain or not rain to-morrow, is not necessary’, he answereth that “a conjunct proposition may have both parts false, and yet the proposition be true; as, if the sun shine it is day, is a true proposition at midnight”: what has a conjunct proposition to do with this in question, which is disjunctive? Or what be the parts of this proposition, if the sun shine, it is day? It is not made of two propositions, as a disjunctive is; but is one simple proposition, namely, this, the shining of the sun is day. Either he has no logic at all, or thinks they have no reason at all that are his readers. But he has a trick, he saith, to abate the edge of the disjunction, by varying ther proposition thus, “I know that it will rain to-morrow, or that it will not rain to-morrow, is a true proposition”; and yet saith he, “it is neither true that I know it will rain to-morrow, neither is it true that I know it will not rain to-morrow”. What childish deceit, or childish ignorance is this; when he is to prove that neither of the members is determinately true in a disjunctive proposition, to bring for instance a proposition not disjunctive? It had been disjunctive if it had gone thus, I know that it will rain to-morrow, or I know that it will not rain to-morrow; but then he had certainly known determinately one of the two.

(f) “And therefore to say, either this or that will infallibly be, but it is not yet determined whether this or that shall be, is no such senseless assertion that it deserved a tytyrice tupatulice”. But it is a senseless assertion, whatsoever it deserve, to say that this proposition, it shall rain or not rain, is true indeterminedly, and neither of them true determinedly; and little better, as he hath now qualified it, “that it will infallibly be, though it be not yet determined whether it shall be or no”.

(g) “If all this will not satisfy him, I will give him one of his own kinds of proof, that is, an instance. That which necessitates all things, according to T. H. is the decree of God, &c.” His instance is, “that God himself made this necessitating decree, and therefore this decree, being an act ad extra, was freely made by God, without any necessitation”. I do believe the Bishop himself believeth that all the decrees of God have been from all eternity, and therefore he will not stand to this, that God’s decrees were ever made; for whatsoever hath been made, hath had a beginning. Besides, God’s decree is his will; and the Bishop hath said formerly, that the will of God is God, the justice of God, God, &c. If therefore God made a decree, according to the Bishop’s opinion God made himself. By which we may see, what fine stuff it is that proceedeth from disputing of incomprehensibles. Again he says, “if it had been the good pleasure of God, he might have made some causes free from necessity; seeing that it neither argues any imperfection, nor implies any contradiction”. If God had made either causes or effects free from necessity, he had made them free from his own prescience; which had been imperfection. Perhaps he will say, that in these words of his, the decree, being an act ad extra, was freely made by God, I take no notice of that act ad extra, as being too hot for my fingers. Therefore now I take notice of it, and say that it is neither Latin, nor English, nor sense.

NO. XXXV.

T. H. The last thing, in which also consisteth the whole controversy, namely, that there is no such thing as an agent, which, when all things requisite to action are present, can nevertheless forbear to produce it, or (which is all one) that there is no such thing as freedom from necessity; is easily inferred from that which hath been before alleged. For if it be an agent, it can work; and if it work, there is nothing wanting of what is requisite to produce the action; and consequently the cause of the action is sufficient; and if sufficient, then also necessary, as hath been proved before.

J. D. “I wonder that T. H. should confess, that the whole weight of this controversy doth rest upon this proposition: ‘that there is no such thing as an agent, which, when all things requisite to action are present, can nevertheless forbear to act’; and yet bring nothing but such poor bullrushes to support it. (a) ‘If it be an agent’, saith he, ‘it can work’; what of this? A posse ad esse non valet argumentum: from can work to will work, is a weak inference. And from will work to doth work upon absolute necessity, is another gross inconsequence. He proceeds thus: ‘if it work, there is nothing wanting of what is requisite to produce the action’. True, there wants nothing to produce that which is produced; but there may want much to produce that which was intended. One horse may pull his heart out, and yet not draw the coach whither it should be, if he want the help or concurrence of his fellows. ‘And consequently’, saith he, ‘the cause of the action is sufficient’. Yes, sufficient to do what it doth, though perhaps with much prejudice to itself; but not always sufficient to do what it should do, or what it would do. As he that begets a monster, should beget a man, and would beget a man if he could. The last link of his argument follows: (b) ‘and if sufficient, then also necessary’. Stay there; by his leave, there is no necessary connexion between sufficiency and efficiency; otherwise God himself should not be all-sufficient. Thus his argument is vanished. But I will deal more favourably with him, and grant him all that which he labours so much in vain to prove, that every effect in the world hath sufficient causes; yea more, that supposing the determination of the free and contingent causes, every effect in the world is necessary. (c) But all this will not advantage his cause the black of a bean: for still it amounts but to an hypothetical necessity, and differs as much from that absolute necessity, which he maintains, as a gentleman who travels for his pleasure, differs from a banished man, or a free subject from a slave.”

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE ANSWER TO NO. XXXV.

(a) “‘If it be an agent,’ saith he, ‘it can work’. What of this? A posse ad esse non valet argumentum; from can work to will work, is a weak inference. And from will work to doth work upon absolute necessity, is another gross inconsequence.” Here he has gotten a just advantage; for I should have said, if it be an agent it worketh, not it can work. But it is an advantage which profiteth little to his cause. For if I repeat my argument again in this manner: that which is an agent, worketh; that which worketh, wanteth nothing requisite to produce the action or the effect it produceth, and consequently is thereof a sufficient cause; and if a sufficient cause, then also a necessary cause: his answer will be nothing to the purpose. For whereas to these words, ‘that which worketh, wanteth nothing requisite to produce the action or the effect it produceth,’ he answereth, “it is true, but there may want much to produce that which was intended”, it is not contrary to any thing that I have said. For I never maintained, that whatsoever a man intendeth, is necessarily performed; but this, whatsoever a man performeth, is necessarily performed, and what he intendeth, necessarily intended, and that from causes antecedent. And therefore to say, as he doth, that the cause is sufficient to do what it doth, but not always sufficient to do what a man should or would do, is to say the same that I do. For I say not, that the cause that bringeth forth a monster, is sufficient to bring forth a man; but that every cause is sufficient to produce only the effect it produceth; and if sufficient, then also necessary.

(b) “‘And if sufficient, then also necessary’. Stay there; by his leave, there is no necessary connexion between sufficiency and efficiency; otherwise God himself should not be all-sufficient.” All-sufficiency signifieth no more, when it is attributed to God, than omnipotence; and omnipotence signifieth no more, than the power to do all things that he will. But to the production of any thing that is produced, the will of God is as requisite as the rest of his power and sufficiency. And consequently, his all-sufficiency signifieth not a sufficiency or power to do those things he will not. But he will deal, he says, so favourably with me, as to grant me all this, which I labour, he saith, so much in vain to prove: and adds, (c) “But all this will not advantage his cause the black of a bean; for still it amounts but to an hypothetical necessity”. If it prove no more, it proves no necessity at all; for by hypothetical necessity he means the necessity of this proposition, the effect is, then when it is; whereas necessity is only said truly of somewhat in future. For necessary is that which cannot possibly be otherwise; and possibility is always understood of some future time. But seeing he granteth so favourably that sufficient causes are necessary causes, I shall easily conclude from it, that whatsoever those causes do cause, are necessary antecedently. For if the necessity of the thing produced, when produced, be in the same instant of time with the existence of its immediate cause; then also that immediate cause was in the same instant with the cause by which it was immediately produced; the same may be said of the cause of this cause, and so backward eternally. From whence it will follow, that all the connexion of the causes of any effect from the beginning of the world, were altogether existent in one and the same instant; and consequently, all the time from the beginning of the world, or from eternity to this day, is but one instant, or a nunc stans; which he knows by this time is not so.

NO. XXXVI.

T. H. And thus you see how the inconveniences, which he objecteth must follow upon the holding of necessity, are avoided, and the necessity itself demonstratively proved. To which I could add, if I thought it good logic, the inconvenience of denying necessity; as that it destroys both the decrees and prescience of God Almighty. For whatsoever God hath purposed to bring to pass by man as an instrument, or foreseeth shall come to pass, a man, if he have liberty, such as he affirmeth from necessitation, might frustrate and make not to come to pass: and God should either not foreknow it and not decree it, or he should foreknow such things shall be as shall never be, and decree that which shall never come to pass.

J. D. “Thus he hath laboured in vain to satisfy my reasons, and to prove his own assertion. But for demonstration, there is nothing like it among his arguments. Now he saith, (a) he could add other arguments, if he thought it good logic. There is no impediment in logic, why a man may not press his adversary with those absurdities which flow from his opinion; argumentum ducens ad impossibile or ad absurdum, is a good form of reasoning. But there is another reason of his forbearance, though he be loath to express it. Hæret lateri læthalis arundo. The arguments drawn from the attributes of God do stick so close in the sides of his cause, that he hath no mind to treat of that subject. By the way, take notice of his own confession, that ‘he could add other reasons, if he thought it good logic’. If it were predetermined in the outward causes, that he must make this very defence and no other, how could it be in his power to add or subtract any thing: just as if a blind man should say in earnest, I could see if I had mine eyes? Truth often breaks out whilst men seek to smother it. (b) But let us view his argument: ‘if a man have liberty from necessitation, he may frustrate the decrees of God, and make his prescience false’. First, for the decrees of God, this is his decree that man should be a free agent; if he did consider God as a most simple act, without priority or posteriority of time, or any composition; he would not conceive of his decrees, as of the laws of the Medes and Persians, long since enacted and passed before we were born, but as coexistent with ourselves, and with the acts which we do by virtue of those decrees. Decrees and attributes are but notions to help the weakness of our understanding to conceive of God. The decrees of God are God himself, and therefore justly said to be before the foundation of the world was laid: and yet coexistent with ourselves, because of the infinite and eternal being of God. The sum is this, the decree of God, or God himself eternally, constitutes or ordains all effects which come to pass in time, according to the distinct natures or capacities of his creatures. An eternal ordination is neither past nor to come, but always present. So free actions do proceed as well from the eternal decree of God, as necessary; and from that order which he hath set in the world.

“As the decree of God is eternal, so is his knowledge. And therefore to speak truly and properly, there is neither fore-knowledge nor after-knowledge in him. The knowledge of God comprehends all times in a point, by reason of the eminence and virtue of its infinite perfection. And yet I confess, that this is called fore-knowledge in respect of us. But this fore-knowledge doth produce no absolute necessity. Things are not therefore, because they are foreknown; but therefore they are foreknown, because they shall come to pass. If any thing should come to pass otherwise than it doth, yet God’s knowledge could not be irritated by it; for then he did not know that it should come to pass, as now it doth. Because every knowledge of vision necessarily presupposeth its object, God did know that Judas should betray Christ; but Judas was not necessitated to be a traitor by God’s knowledge. If Judas had not betrayed Christ, then God had not fore-known that Judas should betray him. The case is this: a watchman standing on the steeple’s-top, as it is the use in Germany, gives notice to them below, who see no such things, that company are coming, and how many; his prediction is most certain, for he sees them. What a vain correction were it for one below to say, what if they did not come, then a certain prediction may fail. It may be urged, that there is a difference between these two cases. In this case, the coming is present to the watchman; but that which God fore-knows, is future. God knows what shall be; the watchman only knows what is. I answer, that this makes no difference at all in the case, by reason of that disparity which is between God’s knowledge and ours. As that coming is present to the watchman, which is future to them who are below: so all those things which are future to us, are present to God, because his infinite and eternal knowledge doth reach to the future being of all agents and events. Thus much is plainly acknowledged by T. H. No. XI: that ‘fore-knowledge is knowledge, and knowledge depends on the existence of the things known, and not they on it’. To conclude, the prescience of God doth not make things more necessary than the production of the things themselves; but if the agents were free agents, the production of the things doth not make the events to be absolutely necessary, but only upon supposition that the causes were so determined. God’s prescience proveth a necessity of infallibility, but not of antecedent extrinsical determination to one. If any event should not come to pass, God did never foreknow that it would come to pass. For every knowledge necessarily presupposeth its object.