Doctrine of the Will

by Asa Mahan

[GOD CONTROLS ALL INFLUENCES UNDER WHICH CREATURES DO ACT.]

3. While the existence and continuance of our powers of moral agency depend wholly upon the Divine Will, and while the Most High knows, with entire certainty, in what direction we shall exert our powers, under all influences, and systems of influences, brought to bear upon us, all these influences are entirely at his disposal. What tendency have such convictions, together with the consciousness of Liberty, and ability to exercise, or not to exercise, the spirit of dependence, but to induce us, in the exercise of that spirit, to throw our whole being into the petition, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil?” If God knows perfectly under what influences action in us shall be in the direction of the right, or the wrong, and holds all such influences at his own control, what attitude becomes us in the presence of the “High and lofty One,” but dependence and prayer?

[DEPENDENCE ON ACCOUNT OF THE MORAL SERVITUDE OF THE WILL.]

4. Finally, a consciousness of a state of Moral Servitude, together with the conviction, that in the exercise of the spirit of dependence, we can rise to the “Glorious Liberty of the Sons of God;” that in the absence of this spirit, our Moral Servitude is perfectly certain; all these, together with the conviction which the belief of the doctrine of Liberty induces (to wit: that the exercise of the spirit of dependence is always practicable to us), tends only to one result, to induce the exercise of that spirit, and to the total annihilation of the opposite spirit.

While, therefore, the doctrine of Liberty sanctifies, in the mind, the feeling of obligation to do the right and avoid the wrong, a feeling which the doctrine of Necessity tends to annihilate, the former (an effect which the latter cannot produce) tends only to the annihilation of the spirit of pride and self-confidence, and to induce that spirit of filial dependence which cries “Abba, Father!”

[CHAPTER XVI.]

FORMATION OF CHARACTER.

ELEMENT OF WILL IN FORMATION OF CHARACTER.

CHARACTER COMMONLY HOW ACCOUNTED FOR.

In accounting for the existence and formation of peculiarities of character, individual, social, and national, two elements only are commonly taken into consideration, the natural propensities, and the circumstances and influences under which those propensities are developed and controlled. The doctrine of Necessity permits us to take nothing else into the account. Undoubtedly, these elements have very great efficacy in determining character. In many instances, little else need to be taken into consideration, in accounting for peculiarities of character, as they exist around us, in individuals, communities, and nations.