Archive for December 9th, 2011
But while the Bible, throughout, ascribes the occurrence of all events, of every kind, to the will of God; yet, it as uniformly represents man as a free, accountable agent; yea, it represents him as acting most wickedly, in those very transactions which are most expressly declared to be determined by the counsel of God. It would seem from this, that the inspired writers perceived no inconsistency between a purpose of God, that a certain event should occur, and that it should be brought about by the free and accountable agency of man. And it is believed, also, that men of sound minds, who have never heard of any objections to this doctrine, are not apt to be perplexed with any apparent inconsistency between these two things. And, we are persuaded, that were it not for the ambiguity of certain words, and the artful sophistry with which truth and error are confounded by those who oppose the doctrine, very few persons would experience any difficulty on this subject. If a man of plain sense should be informed by prophecy, that he would certainly kill a fellow creature the next day or year, and that in perpetrating this act he would be actuated by malice, it would never be likely to enter his mind, that he should not be guilty of any crime, because the action was certain before it was committed. But if you change the terms, and say, that he would be under a necessity to perform this act; that it being absolutely certain, he could not possibly avoid it; immediately the subject becomes perplexed, and involved in difficulty; for every man of common sense feels that he cannot justly be accountable for what he could not possibly avoid; and that for what he does from absolute necessity he cannot, in the nature of things, be culpable. Here, the whole difficulty is produced by the use of ambiguous and improper terms. While nothing was presented to the mind, but the certainty of the event, coupled with voluntary action, no relief from responsibility was felt: but the moment we speak of the act as produced by necessity, and as being unavoidable, the judgment respecting its nature is changed. These terms include the idea of a compulsory power acting upon us, not only without, but in opposition to our own will. A necessary event is one which cannot be voluntary or free; for if it were spontaneous, it could not be necessary; these two things being diametrically opposite. So, an unavoidable action is one which takes place against our wishes and will. But a voluntary action may be as certain as any other; and by one who knows futurity, may be as certainly predicted. Even a man may often be certain beforehand, how a voluntary agent will act in a given circumstances, provided he knows the moral character of the agent. As if a being actuated by no other feeling towards another but malice, should be placed in such circumstances, that he has the choice of performing a benevolent action towards that individual or omitting it, he will most certainly neglect to do it, or, if he may with impunity injure such an one, or do him good, he will most certainly choose the former; yet is such a malignant agent perfectly free, and perfectly accountable. These things are agreeable to the common feelings of all men, and depend on no metaphysical niceties. And there can be no doubt, but that a large share of the difficulty which perplexes honest minds, in the contemplation of the divine purpose, which fixes the certainty of events, arises from the confounding of things totally distinct, by the use of ambiguous terms.