A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory

by Albert Taylor Bledsoe

Section I.

The scheme of necessity is based on a false psychology.

There are three great leading faculties or attributes of the human mind; namely, the intelligence, the sensibility, and the will. By means of these we think, we feel, and we act. Now, the phenomena of thinking, feeling, and acting, will be found, on examination, to possess different characteristics; of which we must form clear and fixed conceptions, if we would extricate the philosophy of the will from the obscurity and confusion in which it has been so long involved. Let us proceed then to examine them, to interrogate our consciousness in relation to them.

Suppose, for example, that an apple is placed before me. I fix my attention upon it, and consider its form: it is round. This judgment, or decision of the mind, in relation to the form of the apple, is a state of the intelligence. It does not depend on any effort of mine, whether it shall appear round to me or not: I could not possibly come to any other conclusion if I would: I could as soon think it as large as the globe as believe it to be square, or of any other form than round. Hence this judgment, this decision, this state of the intelligence, is necessitated. The same thing is true of all the other perceptions or states of the intelligence. M. Cousin has truly said: “Undoubtedly different intellects, or the same intellect at different periods of its existence, may sometimes pass different judgments in regard to the same thing. Sometimes it may be deceived; it will judge that which is false to be true, the good to be bad, the beautiful to be ugly, and the reverse: but at the moment when it judges that a proposition is true or false, an action good or bad, a form beautiful or ugly, at that moment it is not in the power of the intellect to pass any other judgment than that it passes. It obeys laws it did not make. It yields to motives which determine it independent of the will. In a word, the phenomenon of intelligence, comprehending, judging, knowing, thinking, whatever name be given to it, is marked with the characteristic of necessity.”[101]

Once more I fix my attention on the apple: an agreeable sensation arises in the mind; a desire to eat it is awakened. This desire or appetite is a state of the sensibility. Whether I shall feel this appetite or desire, does not depend upon any effort or exertion of my will. The mind is clearly passive in relation to it; the desire, then, is as strongly marked with the characteristic of necessity, as are the states of the intelligence. The same is true of all our feelings; they are necessarily determined by the objects in view of the mind. There is no controversy on these points; it is universally agreed that every state of the intelligence and of the sensibility is necessarily determined by the evidence and the object in view of the mind. It is not, then, either in the intelligence or in the sensibility that we are to look for liberty.

But once more I fix my attention on the apple: the desire is [pg 134] awakened, and I conclude to eat it. Hitherto I have done nothing except in fixing my attention on the apple. I have experienced the judgment that it is round, and felt the desire to eat it. But now I conclude to eat it, and I make an effort of the mind to put forth my hand to take the apple and eat it. It is done. Now here is an entirely new phenomenon; it is an effort, an exertion, an act, a volition of the mind. The name is of no importance; the circumstances under which the phenomenon arises have called attention to it, and the precise thing intended is seen in the light of consciousness. Let us look at it closely, and mark its characteristic well, being careful to see neither more nor less than is presented by the phenomenon itself.

We are conscious, then, of the existence of an act, of a volition: everybody can see what this is. We must not say, as the advocates of free-agency usually do, that when we put forth this act or volition we are conscious of a power to do the contrary; for this position may be refuted, and the foundation on which we intend to raise our superstructure undermined. We are merely conscious of the existence of the act itself, and not even of the power by means of which we act; the existence of the power is necessarily inferred from its exercise. This is the only way in which we know it, and not from the direct testimony of consciousness. Much less if we had refused to act, should we have been conscious of the power to withhold it; much less again are we conscious of the power to withhold the act, as we do not in the case supposed exercise this power. But certainly we are conscious of the act itself; all men will concede this, and this is all our argument really demands.

Here then we are conscious of an act, of an effort, of the mind. Look at it closely. Is the mind passive in this act? No; we venture to answer for the universal intelligence of man. If this act had been produced in us by a necessitating cause, would not the mind have been passive in it? In other words, would it not have been a passive impression, and not an act, not an effort of the mind at all? Yes; we again venture to answer for the unbiassed reason of man. But it is not, we have seen, a passive impression; it is an act of the mind, and hence it is not necessitated. It is not necessitated, because it is not stamped with the characteristic of necessity. The universal reason of man declares that the will has not necessarily yielded [pg 135] like the intelligence and the sensibility, to motives over which it had no control. It does not bear upon its face the mark of any such subjection “to the power and action” of a cause. It is marked with the characteristic, not of necessity, but of liberty.

We would not say, with Dr. Samuel Clarke, that “action and liberty are identical ideas;” but we will say, that the idea of action necessarily implies that of liberty; for if we duly reflect on the nature of an act we cannot conceive it as being necessitated. This consideration furnishes an easy and satisfactory solution of a problem, by which necessitarians are sadly perplexed. They endeavour in various ways to account for the fact that we believe our volitions to be free, or not necessarily caused. Some resolve this belief and feeling of liberty into a deceitful sense; some imagine that we are deceived by the ambiguities of language; and some resort to other methods of explaining the phenomenon. “It is true,” says President Edwards, “I find myself possessed of my volitions before I can see the effectual power of any cause to produce them, for the power and efficacy of the cause is not seen but by the effect; and this, for aught I know, may make some imagine that volition has no cause, or that it produces itself.” But this is not a satisfactory account of the imagination, as he would term it. We also find ourselves possessed of our judgments and feelings before we perceive the effectual power of the cause which produces them. Why then do we refer these to the operation of a necessary cause, and not our volitions? If the power and efficacy of the cause is seen only by the effect in the one case, it is only seen in the same manner in the other. Why then do we differ in our conclusions with respect to them? Why do we refer the judgment and the feeling to necessary causes, and fail to do the same in relation to the volition? The reason is obvious. The mind is passive in judging and feeling, and hence these phenomena necessarily demand the operation of causes to account for them; but the mind is active in its volitions, and this necessarily excludes the idea of causes to produce them. The mind clearly perceives, by due reflection, and at all times sees dimly, at least, that an act or volition is different in its nature from a passive impression or a produced effect; and hence it knows and feels that it is exempt from the power and efficacy of a producing cause in its volitions. This fact of [pg 136] our consciousness it is not in the power of sophistry wholly to conceal, nor in the power of human nature to evade. Hence we carry about with us the irresistible conviction that we are free; that our wills are not absolutely subject to the dominion of causes over which we have no control. Hence we see and know that we are self-active.