Those who argue from foreknowledge in favour of necessity, usually admit that there is neither before nor after with God. This is emphatically the case with the Edwardses. Hence, foreknowledge infers necessity in no other sense than it is inferred by present or concomitant knowledge. This is also freely conceded by President Edwards. In what sense, then, does present knowledge infer necessity? Let us see. I know a man is now walking before me; does this prove that he could not help walking? that he is necessitated to walk? It is plain that it infers no such thing. It infers the necessary connexion, not between the act of the man in walking and the causes impelling him thereto, but between my knowledge of the fact and the existence of the fact itself. This is a necessary connexion between two ideas, or propositions, and not between two events. This confusion is perpetually made in the “great demonstration” from foreknowledge in favour of necessity. It proves nothing, except that the greatest minds may be deceived and misled by the ambiguities of language.
This argument, we say, only shows a necessary connexion between two ideas or propositions. This is perfectly evident from the very words in which it is often stated by the advocates of necessity. “I freely allow,” says President Edwards, “that foreknowledge does not prove a thing necessary any more than after-knowledge; but the after-knowledge, which is certain and infallible, proves that it is now become impossible but that the proposition known should be true.” Now, here we have a necessary connexion between the certain and infallible knowledge of a thing, and the infallible certainty of its existence! What has this to do with the question about the will? If any man has ever undertaken to assert its freedom, by denying the necessary connexion between two or more ideas, propositions, or truths, this argument may be applied to him; we have nothing to do with it.
Again: “To suppose the future volitions of moral agents,” says President Edwards, “not to be necessary events; or, which is the same thing, events which are not impossible but that they may not come to pass; and yet to suppose that God certainly foreknows them, and knows all things, is to suppose God's [pg 227] knowledge to be inconsistent with itself. For to say, that God certainly, and without all conjecture, knows that a thing will infallibly be, which at the same time he knows to be so contingent that it may possibly not be, is to suppose his knowledge inconsistent with itself; or that one thing he knows is utterly inconsistent with another thing he knows. It is the same thing as to say, he now knows a proposition to be of certain infallible truth which he knows to be of contingent uncertain truth.” Now all this is true. If we affirm God's foreknowledge to be certain and at the same time to be uncertain, we contradict ourselves. But what has this necessary connexion between the elements of the divine foreknowledge, or between our propositions concerning them, to do with the necessary connexion among events?
The question is not whether all future events will certainly come to pass; or, in other words, whether all future events are future events; for this is a truism, which no man in his right mind can possibly deny. But the question is, whether all future events will be determined by necessitating causes, or whether they may not be, in part, the free unnecessitated acts of the human mind. This is the question, and let it not be lost sight of in a cloud of logomachy. If all future events are necessitated, then all past events are necessitated. But if we know anything, we know that all present events are not necessitated, and hence, all future events will not be necessitated. We deem it always safer to reason thus from the known to the unknown, than to invert the process.
But suppose that foreknowledge proves that all human volitions are under the influence of causes, in what sense does it leave them free? Does it leave them free to depart from the influence of motives? By no means. It would be a contradiction in terms, according to this argument, to say that they are certainly and infallibly foreknown, and yet that they may possibly not come to pass. Hence, if the argument proves anything, it proves the absolute fatality of all human volitions. It leaves not a fragment nor a shadow of moral liberty on earth.
If this argument prove anything to the purpose, then Luther was right in declaring that “the foreknowledge of God is a thunderbolt to dash the doctrine of free-will into atoms;” and [pg 228] Dr. Dick is right in affirming, “that it is as impossible to avoid them” (our volitions) “as it is to pluck the sun out of the firmament.”[158] It either proves all the most absolute necessitarian could desire, or it proves nothing. In our humble opinion it proves the latter.
On this point the testimony of Dr. Dick himself is explicit: “Whatever is the foundation of his foreknowledge,” says he, “what he does foreknow will undoubtedly take place. Hence, then, the actions of men are as unalterably fixed from eternity, as if they had been the subject of an immutable decree.”[159] But to dispel this grand illusion, it should be remembered, that the actions of men will not come to pass because they are foreknown; but they are foreknown because they will come to pass. The free actions of men are clearly reflected back in the mirror of the divine omniscience—they are not projected forward from the engine of the divine omnipotence.
Since the argument in question proves so much, if it proves anything, we need not wonder that it was employed by Cicero and other ancient Stoics to establish the doctrine of an absolute and unconditional fate. “If the will is free,” says he, “then fate does not rule everything, then the order of all causes is not certain, and the order of things is no longer certain in the prescience of God; if the order of things is not certain in the prescience of God, then things will not take place as he foresees them; and if things do not take place as he foresees, there is no foreknowledge in God.” Thus, by a reductio ad absurdum, he establishes the position that the will is not free, but fate rules all things. Edwards and Dick, however, would only apply this argument to human volitions. But are not the volitions of the divine mind also foreknown? Certainly they are; this will not be denied. Hence, the very men who set out to exalt the power of God and abase the glory of man, have, by this argument, raised a dominion, not only over the power of man, but also over the power of God himself. In other words, if this argument proves that we cannot act unless we be first acted upon, and impelled to act, it proves no less in relation to God; and hence, if it show the weakness and dependence of men, it also shows the weakness and dependence of God. So apt are men to adopt arguments which defeat [pg 229] their own object, whenever they have any other object than the discovery of truth.
It is frequently said, as we have seen, that it is a contradiction to affirm that a thing is foreknown, or will certainly come to pass, and that it may possibly not come to pass. This position is at least as old as Aristotle. But let it be borne in mind, that if this be a contradiction, then future events are placed, not only beyond the power of man, but also beyond the power of God itself; for it is conceded on all hands, that God cannot work contradictions. This famous argument entirely overlooks the question of power. It simply declares the thing to be a contradiction, and as such, placed above all power. In other words, if it be absurd or self-contradictory to say, that a future event is foreknown, and, at the same time, might not come to pass, this proposition is true of the volitions of the divine no less than of the human mind; for they are all alike foreknown. That is to say, if the argument from foreknowledge proves that the volitions of man might not have been otherwise than they are, it proves precisely the same thing in regard to the volitions of God. Thus, if this argument proves anything to the purpose, it reaches the appalling position of Spinoza, that nothing in the universe could possibly be otherwise than it is. And if this be so, then let the Calvinist decide whether he will join with the Pantheist and fatalist, or give some little quarter to the Arminian. Let him decide whether he will continue to employ an argument which, if it proves anything, demonstrates the dependency of the divine will as well as of the human; and instead of exalting the adorable sovereignty of God, subjects him to the dominion of fate.