It is contended by Edwards, that it is just as absurd to say, that a volition can come into existence without a cause, as it is that a world should do so. It is true, that a world cannot arise out of nothing, and come into existence of itself; and this is also equally true of a volition. But is the mind nothing? Is the will nothing? Is a free, intelligent, designing cause nothing?
The mind is something; and it is capable of acting in order to fulfil its own designs, though it be not impelled to act. Is this idea absurd? Is it self-contradictory? Is it any thing like the assertion, that an effect has no cause? It is not. It implies no contradiction;—it is a possible idea. How does it act, then? I do not know. This is a mystery. Indeed, every ultimate fact in man’s nature, and every simple exercise of his intellectual powers, is a mystery. An exercise of the power of conception, by which the past is called up, and made to pass in review before us; an exercise of the imagination, by which the world is made to teem with wonders of our own creation; and an exercise of the will, by which we produce changes in, the external world; are all mysteries? Now, shall we fly from these mysteries? Shall we strive to make the matter plain, in a single instance, by assigning an efficient cause to an act of the will? If so, whether we escape the mystery or not, we shall certainly plunge into absurdity. We shall embrace a doctrine, which denies the nature of action, and which is necessarily involved in the great absurdity of an infinite series of causes. For my part, I prefer a simple statement of the fact of volition, with its attendant circumstances, how much soever of mystery it may seem to leave around the subject, to any explanation which involves it in absurdity.
The philosophers of all ages have sought for the efficient cause of volition; but who has found it? Is it in the will? The necessitarian has shown the absurdities of this hypothesis. Is it in the power of motive? This hypothesis is fraught with the very same absurdities. Is it in the uncaused volition of Deity? The younger Edwards could do nothing with this hypothesis. In truth, the efficient cause of volition is nowhere. It has never been found, because it does not exist; and it never will be found, so long as an action of mind continues to be what it is.
This, then, is the true idea of a free-agent: it is one who, in view of circumstances, both external and internal, can act, without being efficiently caused to do so. This is the idea of a free-agent which God has realized by the creation of the soul of man. It may be a mystery; but it is not a contradiction. It may be a mystery; but then it solves a thousand difficulties which we have unnecessarily created to ourselves. It may be a mystery; but then it is the only safe retreat from self-contradiction, absurdity, and atheism.
It is no reason for disbelieving a thing, that we cannot conceive how it is. This will be readily admitted; but this principle, like every other, may be misapplied and abused. If any thing is possible in itself considered, that is, if it implies no contradiction, we should not refuse to believe it, because we cannot conceive how it is. When confined within these limits, the principle or maxim in question is one of immense importance; and to disregard it betrays one of the greatest weaknesses to which the human mind is exposed. If we do not adhere to it, there is no resting-place for us this side of the most unqualified atheism: we shall be compelled to renounce, not only the stupendous facts and mysteries of revelation, but also all the great truths of natural religion. The very being and attributes of God can find no place in our minds, if we expunge this principle from them; and insist upon seeing how every thing is, before we consent to receive it as an object of belief.
We should find no difficulty, therefore, in believing that the mind of man acts, without being efficiently caused to act. This implies no contradiction; and hence the creative power of God can produce such a being—a being that acts freely, without labouring under any necessity, either natural or moral, in its accountable and moral agency. A being, the end of whose action is found in the sensibility; the intention, the design, and the plan of whose action is formed in the intelligence; and the power by which this intention is executed, and this plan accomplished, is in the will alone. It is in this triunity of the sensibility, the intelligence, and the will, that the glory of man’s nature, as a free and accountable being, consists. The relation between them is most intimate,—is inconceivably intimate; but the relation is not the same in nature and kind as that which subsists between an effect and its efficient, or producing cause. The only relation of this kind, which is to be found in the case, is that which subsists between the action of the will, or the volition, and the corresponding change which it produces in the external part of our being. I say, we can very easily believe all this, as it implies no contradiction; and yet not feel ourselves bound, by a regard for consistency, to believe that a world may rise up out of nothing, and come into being of itself, without any cause of its existence. These things are blended together, in the philosophy of the necessitarian, by a most convenient use of an ambiguous phraseology; but they are, indeed, as widely different from each other as mystery is from absurdity,—as light is from darkness.
But the above maxim, as I have already said, may be grievously misapplied; and thus the garb of intellectual humility may be thrown over the greatest absurdities. We may be told, for example, that the same body may be wholly in one place, and wholly in a far distant place, at one and the same time; and, if we object to this doctrine, the murmurings of reason are sought to be silenced, by reminding us, that it is exceedingly weak and presumptuous for poor blind creatures like ourselves, to reject a truth because we cannot conceive how it is. In like manner, we are informed that a volition, or an act of the will, may be produced in the mind, may be necessitated, by the action of an extraneous cause; or, if you please, of an intrinsic cause; and if we ask how this can be, without interfering with our free-agency, it is frequently replied, that we cannot tell; but that it is exceedingly absurd and presumptuous to disbelieve a thing because we cannot conceive how it is. That God operates upon the mind, not to rectify and elevate its powers, but to produce a volition in it; not to cleanse and purify the whole stream and current of our natures, but merely to throw up a bubble upon the surface thereof, for which effect he holds us accountable: that he does this, we are told, is a great mystery, which we should not presume to call in question. For my part, I had rather believe the doctrine of transubstantiation itself, than such a mystery as this.
There is some difference, I have supposed, between disbelieving a thing because we cannot see how it is, and disbelieving it, because we very clearly see that it cannot possibly be any how at all. It is upon this distinction that I stand, when I receive the great mysteries of the Godhead, and reject the absurdities of transubstantiation. And it is upon the same ground, that I most freely and fully recognize and embrace the great mysteries of our being, whilst I reject the absurdities of an efficiently caused and accountable agency.
Is not this distinction properly applied? If the action or influence of any thing produces an effect upon the mind, is not that effect merely a passive impression? Is it not absurd to suppose, that it is a passive impression, produced by the action of something else, and yet that it is an action of the mind itself? If so; and so I think it has been made to appear, then we not only should, but must, reject it. We must reject it, unless we suffer ourselves to be blinded by false analogies, and verbal ambiguities.
This is not to deny the divine influence, as has been so often imagined. The regeneration, the new creation, of the soul, by the power of God, is no more inconsistent with free and accountable agency, than was the original creation of it with all its powers; but this cannot be said of the production of our acts or volitions by a divine influence. Those must take an exceedingly narrow and superficial view of the great work of regeneration; who suppose that it is altogether denied, unless we admit that the Spirit produces our volitions; who suppose that the divine agency can in no way cleanse and purify our powers, unless it can superinduce a volition, or an act, upon our depraved natures. How many persons have laboured in vain, to reconcile the free-agency of man with the reality of a divine influence; just because they have laboured under the superficial notion, the grand illusion, that the Spirit of God cannot act upon the mind at all, unless it acts to produce a volition! It is no wonder that they have laboured in vain, and abandoned the task in despair; because what they have taken for a seeming difficulty, is, when narrowly inspected, seen to be a real absurdity. Lay this aside, and there will be a mystery in the case, it is true; but there will not be even a seeming contradiction.