The substance of this reasoning is this. That inasmuch as a contingent future event is uncertain from its very nature and definition, it cannot be called an object of certain knowledge, to any mind, not even to the divine mind, without a manifest contradiction. “It is the same as to say, he now knows a proposition to be of certain infallible truth, which he knows to be of contingent uncertain truth.”
We have here again an error arising from not making a proper distinction, which I have already pointed out,—the distinction between the certainty of a future volition as a mere fact existent, and the manner in which that fact came to exist.
The fact of volition comes to exist contingently; that is, by a power which in giving it existence, is under no law of necessity, and at the moment of causation, is conscious of ability to withhold the causative nibus. Now all volitions which have already come to exist in this way, have both a certain and contingent existence. It is certain that they have come to exist, for that is a matter of observation; but their existence is also contingent, because they came to exist, not by necessity as a mathematical conclusion, but by a cause contingent and free, and which, although actually giving existence to these volitions, had the power to withhold them.
Certainty and contingency are not opposed, and exclusive of each other in reference to what has already taken place. Are they opposed and exclusive of each other in reference to the future? In the first place, we may reason on probable grounds. Contingent causes have already produced volitions—hence they may produce volitions in the future. They have produced volitions in obedience to laws of reason and sensitivity—hence they may do so in the future. They have done this according to a uniformity self-imposed, and long and habitually observed—hence this uniformity may be continued in the future.
A future contingent event may therefore have a high degree of probability, and even a moral certainty.
But to a being endowed with prescience, what prevents a positive and infallible knowledge of a future contingent event? His mind extends to the actual in the future, as easily as to the actual in the past; but the actual of the future is not only that which comes to pass by his own determination and nibus, and therefore necessarily in its relation to himself as cause, but also that which comes to pass by the nibus of constituted wills, contingent and free, as powers to do or not to do. There is no opposition, as Edwards supposes, between the infallible divine foreknowledge, and the contingency of the event;—the divine foreknowledge is infallible from its own inherent perfection; and of course there can be no doubt but that the event foreseen will come to pass; but then it is foreseen as an event coming to pass contingently, and not necessarily.
The error we have just noted, appears again in the corollary which Edwards immediately deduces from his third position. “From what has been observed,” he remarks, “it is evident, that the absolute decrees of God are no more inconsistent with human liberty, on account of the necessity of the event which follows such decrees, than the absolute foreknowledge of God.” (page 118.) The absolute decrees of God are the determinations of his will, and comprehend the events to which they relate, as the cause comprehends the effect. Foreknowledge, on the contrary, has no causality in relation to events foreknown. It is not a determination of divine will, but a form of the divine intelligence. Hence the decrees of God do actually and truly necessitate events; while the foreknowledge of God extends to events which are not necessary but contingent,—as well as to those which are pre-determined.
Edwards always confounds contingency with chance or no cause, and thus makes it absurd in its very definition. He also always confounds certainty with necessity, and thus compels us to take the latter universal and absolute, or to plunge into utter uncertainty, doubt, and disorder.
Prescience is an essential attribute of Deity. Prescience makes the events foreknown, certain; but if certain, they must be necessary. And on the other hand, if the events were not certain, they could not be foreknown,—for that which is uncertain cannot be the object of positive and infallible knowledge; but if they are certain in order to be foreknown, then they must be necessary.
Again: contingence, as implying no cause, puts all future events supposed to come under it, out of all possible connexion with anything preceding and now actually existent, and consequently allows of no basis upon which they can be calculated and foreseen. Contingence, also, as opposed to necessity, destroys certainty, and excludes the possibility even of divine prescience. This is the course of Edwards’s reasoning.