A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory

by Albert Taylor Bledsoe

But President Edwards has excelled Descartes, and every other adept in the syllogistic art, except Aristotle in his physics, in his ability to render the light of perfect day clearer by a few masterly strokes of logic. He has furnished the reason why some persons imagine that volition has no cause of its existence, or “that it produces itself.” Now, by the way, would it not have been as well if he had first made sure of the fact, before he undertook to explain it? But to proceed: let us see how he has proved that volition does not produce itself; that it does not arise out of nothing and bring itself into existence.

He does this in true logical form, and according to the most approved methods of demonstration. He first establishes the general position, that no existence or event whatever can give rise to its own being,[109] and he then shows that this is true of volition in particular.[110] And having reached the position, that volition does not arise out of nothing, but must “have some antecedent” to introduce it into being; he next proceeds to prove that there is a necessary connexion between volition and the antecedents on which it depends for existence. This completes the chain of logic, and the process is held up by his followers to the admiration of the world as a perfect demonstration. Let us look at it a little more closely, and examine the nature and mechanism of its parts.

If the huge frame of the earth, with all its teeming population and productions, could rise up out of nothing, he argues, [pg 144] and bring itself into being without any cause of its existence, then we could not prove the being of a God. All this is very true. For, as he truly alleges, if one world could thus make itself, so also might another and another, even unto millions of millions. The universe might make itself, or come into existence without any cause thereof, and hence we could never know that there is a God. But surely, if any man imagined that even one world could create itself, it is scarcely worth while to reason with him. It is not at all likely that he would be frightened from his position by such a reductio ad absurdum. We should almost as soon suspect a sane man of denying the existence of God himself, as of doubting the proposition that “nothing taketh beginning from itself.”

Having settled it to his entire satisfaction, by this and other arguments, that no effect whatever can produce itself, he then proceeds to show that this proposition is true of volitions as well as of all other events or occurrences. “If any should imagine,” says he, “there is something in the sort of event that renders it possible to come into existence without a cause, and should say that the free acts of the will are existences of an exceeding different nature from other things, by reason of which they may come into existence without previous ground or reason of it, though other things cannot; if they make this objection in good earnest, it would be an evidence of their strangely forgetting themselves; for it would be giving some account of the existence of a thing, when, at the same time, they would maintain there is no ground of its existence.”[111] True, if any man should suppose that a volition rises up in the world “without any ground or reason of its existence,” and afterward endeavour to assign a ground or reason of it, he would certainly be strangely inconsistent with himself; but we should deem his last position, that there must be a ground or reason of its existence, to be some evidence of his coming to himself, rather than of his having forgotten himself. But to proceed with the argument. “Therefore I would observe,” says he, “that the particular nature of existence, be it never so diverse from others, can lay no foundation for that thing coming into existence without a cause; because, to suppose this, would be to suppose the particular nature of existence to be a thing prior to existence, [pg 145] without a cause or reason of existence. But that which in any respect makes way for a thing coming into being, or for any manner or circumstance of its first existence, must be prior to existence. The distinguished nature of the effect, which is something belonging to the effect, cannot have influence backward to act before it is. The peculiar nature of that thing called volition, can do nothing, can have no influence, while it is not. And afterward it is too late for its influence; for then the thing has made sure of its existence already without its help.”[112] After all this reasoning, and more to the same effect, we are perfectly satisfied that volition, no matter what its nature may be, cannot produce itself; and that it must have some ground or reason of its existence, some antecedent without which it could not come into being.

We shall not do justice to this branch of our subject, if we leave it without laying before the reader one or two more specimens of logic from the celebrated Inquiry of President Edwards. He is opposing “the hypothesis,” he tells us, “of acts of the will coming to pass without a cause.” Now, according to his definition of the term cause, as laid down at the beginning of the section under consideration, it signifies any antecedent on which a thing depends, in whole or in part, for its existence, or which constitutes the reason why it is, rather than not.[113] His doctrine is, then, that nothing ever comes to pass without some “ground or reason of its existence,” without some antecedent which is necessary to account for its coming into being. And those who deny it are bound to maintain the strange thesis, that something may come into existence without any antecedent to account for it; that it may rise from nothing and bring itself into existence. It is against this thesis that his logic is directed.

“If it were so,” says he, “that things only of one kind, viz., acts of the will, seemed to come to pass of themselves; and it were an event that was continual, and that happened in a course whenever were found subjects capable of such events; this very thing would demonstrate there was some cause of them, which made such a difference between this event and others. For contingency is blind, and does not pick and choose a particular sort of events. Nothing has no choice. This no-cause, which causes no existence, cannot cause the existence which [pg 146] comes to pass to be of one particular sort only, distinguished from all others. Thus, that only one sort of matter drops out of heaven, even water; and that this comes so often, so constantly and plentifully, all over the world, in all ages, shows that there is some cause or reason of the falling of water out of the heavens, and that something besides mere contingence had a hand in the matter.”[114] We do not intend to comment on this passage; we merely wish to advert to the fact, that it is a laboured and logical effort to demolish the hypothesis that acts of the will do not bring themselves into existence, and to show that there must be some antecedent to account for their coming into being. We shall only add, “it is true that nothing has no choice;” but who ever pretended to believe that nothing puts forth volitions? that there is no mind, no motive, no ground or reason of volition? Is it not wonderful that the great metaphysician of New-England should thus worry himself and exhaust his powers in grappling with shadows and combatting dreams, which no sane man ever seriously entertained for a moment?

“If we should suppose non-entity to be about to bring forth,” he continues, “and things were coming into existence without any cause or antecedent on which the existence, or kind or manner of existence depends, or which could at all determine whether the things should be stones or stems, or beasts or angels, or human bodies or souls, or only some new motion or figure in natural bodies, or some new sensation in animals, or new idea in the human understanding, or new volition in the will, or anything else of all the infinite number of possibles,—then it certainly would not be expected, although many millions of millions of things were coming into existence in this manner all over the face of the earth, that they should all be only of one particular kind, and that it should be thus in all ages, and that this sort of existences should never fail to come to pass when there is room for them, or a subject capable of them, and that constantly whenever there is occasion.”[115] Now all these words are put together to prove that non-entity cannot bring forth effects, at least such effects as we see in the world; for if non-entity brought them forth, that is, to come to the point in dispute, if non-entity brought forth our volitions, they would not be always of one particular sort of effects. But they are of one [pg 147] particular sort, and hence there must be some antecedent to account for this uniformity in their nature, and they could not have been brought forth by nonentity! Surely if anything can equal the fatuity of the hypothesis that nonentity can bring forth, or that a thing can produce itself, it is a serious attempt to refute it. How often, while poring over the works of necessitarians, are we lost in amazement at the logical mania which seems to have seized them, and which, in its impetuous efforts to settle and determine everything by reasoning, leaves reason itself neither time nor opportunity to contemplate the nature of things themselves, or listen to its own most authoritative and irreversible mandates.

But lest we should be suspected of doing this great metaphysician injustice, we must point out the means by which he has so grossly deceived himself. According to his definition of motive, as the younger Edwards truly says, it includes every cause and condition of volition. If anything is merely a condition, without which a volition could not come to pass, though it exerts no influence, it is called a cause of that volition, and placed in the definition of motive. And if anything exerts a positive influence to produce volition, this is also a cause of it, and is included in the same definition. In short, this definition embraces every conceivable antecedent on which volition in any manner, either in whole or in part, either negatively or positively, depends. Thus the most heterogeneous materials are crowded together under one and the same term,—the most different ideas under one and the same definition. Is it possible to conceive of a better method of obscuring a subject than such a course? When Edwards merely means a condition, why does he not say so? and when he means a producing cause, why does he not use the right word to express his meaning? If he had carried on the various processes of his reasoning with some one clear and distinct idea before his mind, we might have expected great things from him; but he has not chosen to do so. It is with the term cause that he operates, against the ambiguities of which he has not guarded himself or his reader.

“Having thus explained what I mean by cause,” says he, “I assert that nothing ever comes to pass without a cause.” We have seen his reasoning on this point. He labours through page after page to establish his very ambiguous proposition, in [pg 148] a sense in which nobody ever denied it; unless some one has affirmed that a thing may come into being without any ground or reason of its existence,—may arise out of nothing and help itself into existence. Having sufficiently established his fundamental proposition in this sense, he proceeds to show that every effect and volition in particular, is necessarily connected with its cause. “It must be remembered,” says he, “that it has been already shown, that nothing can ever come to pass without a cause or a reason;”[116] and he then proceeds to show, that “the acts of the will must be connected with their cause.” In this part of his argument, he employs his ambiguous proposition in a different sense from that in which he established it. In the establishment of it he only insists that there must be some antecedent sufficient to account for every event; and in the application of it he contends, that the antecedent or cause must produce the event. These ideas are perfectly distinct. There could be no act of the mind unless there were a mind to act, and unless there were a motive in view of which it acts; but it does not follow that the mind is compelled to act by motive. But let us see how he comes to this conclusion.

“For an event,” says he, “to have a cause and ground of its existence, and yet not be connected with its cause, is an inconsistency. For if the event be not connected with its cause, it is not dependent on the cause: its existence is, as it were, loose from its influence, and may attend it or may not.”[117] “Dependence on the influence of a cause is the very notion of an effect.”[118] Again, “to suppose there are some events which have a cause and ground of their existence, that yet are not necessarily connected with their cause, is to suppose that they have a cause which is not their cause. Thus, if the effect be not necessarily connected with the cause, with its influence and influential circumstances, then, as I observed before, it is a thing possible and supposable that the cause may sometimes exert the same influence under the same circumstances, and yet the effect not follow.”[119] He has much other similar reasoning to show that it is absurd and contradictory to say that motive is the cause of volition, and yet admit that volition may be loose from the influence of motive, or that “the cause is not sufficient to produce the effect.”[120] In all this he uses the term in its most narrow [pg 149] and restricted sense. It is no longer a mere antecedent or antecedents, which are sufficient to account for the existence of the phenomena of volition; it is an efficient cause which produces volitions. Thus he establishes his ambiguous proposition in one sense, and builds on it in another. He explains the term cause to signify any antecedent, in order, he tells us, to prevent objection to his doctrine, when he alleges that nothing ever comes to pass without some cause of its existence; and yet, when he applies this fundamental proposition to the construction of his scheme, he returns to the restricted sense of the word, in which it signifies, “that which has a positive efficacy or influence to produce a thing.” It is thus that the great scheme of President Edwards is made up of mere words, having no intrinsic coherency of parts, and appearing consistent throughout, only because its disjointed fragments seem to be united, and its huge chasms concealed by means of the ambiguities of language.