02.15. The Moral Constitution of the Soul, Will, Liberty, Etc.
Chapter 15 The Moral Constitution of the Soul, Will, Liberty, Etc.
1. What general department of theology are we now entering, and what are the principal topics included in it? The general department of ANTHROPOLOGY, and the principal topics embraced in this department, are the moral constitution of man psychologically considered, the moral condition of man when created, and the providential relations into which man was introduced at his creation,—the nature of sin, the sin of Adam, the effects of his sin upon himself and upon his posterity, and the consequent moral condition and legal relations into which his descendants are introduced at birth.
It is obvious that an accurate understanding of the nature of sin, original or actual, of the influence of divine grace, and of the change wrought in the soul in regeneration, of course involves some previous knowledge of the constitutional faculties of the soul, and especially of those faculties which particularly distinguish man as a moral agent. Hence there are certain psychological and metaphysical questions inseparable from theological discussions.
2. What is the general principle which it is always necessary to bear in mind while treating of the various faculties of the human soul? The soul of man is one single indivisible agent, not an organized whole consisting of several parts; and, therefore, what we call its several faculties are rather the capacity of the one agent, for discharging successively or concurrently the several functions involved, and are never to be conceived of as separately existing parts or organs. These several functions exercised by the one soul are so various and complex, that a minute analysis is absolutely necessary, in order to lay open to us a definite view of their nature. Yet we must carefully remember that a large part of the errors into which philosophers have fallen in their interpretation of man’s moral constitution, has resulted from the abuse of this very process of analysis. This is especially true with respect to the interpretation of the voluntary acts of the human soul. In prosecution of his analysis the philosopher comes to recognize separately the differences and the likenesses of these various functions of the soul, and too frequently forgets that these functions themselves are, in fact, never exercised in that isolated manner, but concurrently by the one soul, as an indivisible agent, and that thus they always qualify one another. Thus, it is not true, in fact, that the understanding reasons, and the heart feels, and the conscience approves or condemns, and the will decides, as different members of the body work together, or as the different persons constituting a council deliberate and decide in mutual parts; but it is true that the one indivisible, rational, feeling, moral, self–determining soul reasons, feels, approves, or condemns and decides. The self–determining power of the will as an abstract faculty is absurd as a doctrine, and would be disastrous as an experience; but the self–determining power of the human soul as a concrete, rational, feeling agent. is a fact of universal consciousness, and a fundamental doctrine of moral philosophy and of Christian theology. The real question is not as to the liberty of the will, but as to the liberty of the man in willing. It is obvious that we are free if we have liberty to will as we please, i. e., as upon the whole we judge best, and all things considered desire.
3. How may the leading faculties of the human soul be classified? and which are the seat of our moral nature?
1st. The intellectual. This class includes all those faculties in different ways concerned in the general function of knowing, as the reason, the imagination, the bodily senses, and the moral sense (when considered as a mere source of knowledge informing the understanding).
2nd. The emotional. This class includes all those feelings which attend, in any manner, the exercise of the other faculties.
3rd. The will.
It will be observed that the functions of the conscience involve faculties belonging to both the first and second classes (see below, Question 5).
It is often asked, Which of our faculties is the seat of our moral nature? Now while there is a sense in which all moral questions concern the relation of the states or acts of the will, to the law of God revealed in the conscience, and therefore in which the will and the conscience are preeminently the foundation of man’s moral nature, it is true, nevertheless, that every one of the faculties of the human soul, as above classified, is exercised in relation to all moral distinctions, e. g., the intellectual in the perception and judgment; the emotional in pleasant feeling or the reverse; the will, in choosing or refusing, and in acting. Every state or act of any one of the faculties of the human soul, therefore, which involves the judging, choosing, refusing, or desiring, upon a purely moral question, or the feeling corresponding thereto, is a moral state or act, and all the faculties, viewed in their relations to the distinction between good and evil, are moral faculties.
4. What is the Will? The term “will” is often used to express the mere faculty of volition, whereby the soul chooses, or refuses, or determines to act, and the exercise of that faculty. It is also used in a wider sense, and in this sense I use it here, to include the faculty of volition, together with all of the spontaneous states of the soul (designated by Sir William Hamilton, “Lectures on Metaphysics,” Lect. 11., the faculties of conation, the excitive, striving faculties, possessing, as their common characteristic, “a tendency toward the realization of their end”), the dispositions, affections, desires, which determine a man in the exercise of his free power of volition. It must be remembered, however, that these two senses of the word “will” are essentially distinct. The will, as including all the faculties of conation (the dispositions and desires), is to be essentially distinguished from the single faculty of soul exercised in the resulting volition, i. e., the choosing or the acting according to its prevailing desire. The term “will” is used in the wider sense in this chapter. A man in willing is perfectly free, i. e, he always exercises volition according to the prevailing disposition or desire of his will at the time. This is the highest freedom, and the only one consistent with rationality or moral responsibility.
5. Define the term Volition. By the term “faculty of volition” we mean the executive faculty of the soul, the faculty of choice or self–decision; and by the term “volition” we mean the exercise of that faculty in any act of choice or self–decision.
6. What is Conscience?
Conscience, as a faculty, includes (a) a moral sense or intuition, a power of discerning right and wrong, which combining with the understanding, or faculty of comparing and judging, judges of the right or wrong of our own moral dispositions and voluntary actions, and of the dispositions and voluntary actions of other free agents. (b.) This faculty judges according to a divine law, of right and wrong, included within itself (it is a law to itself, the original law written upon the heart, Romans 2:14), and (c) it is accompanied with vivid emotions, pleasurable in view of that which is right, and painful in view of that which is wrong, especially when our conscience is engaged in reviewing the states or the actions of our own souls. This faculty in its own province is sovereign, and can have no other superior than the revealed word of God.—See M’Cosh, “ Divine Government,” Book 3., chap. 1. sec. 4.
7. What is the true test for determining the moral quality of any mental act or state? The only true tests of the moral quality of any state or act are—
1st. The inspired word of God, and 2nd. The spontaneous, practical, and universal judgments of men. The moral judgments of men, like all our intuitive judgments. are certainly reliable only when they respect concrete and individual judgments. The generalized and abstract propositions which being supposed to be formed by abstraction and generalization from these individual judgments may be true or not, but they cannot be received as a reliable foundation upon which to erect a system of evidence. Very absurd attempts have been often made to demonstrate the moral or non–moral character of any principle, by means of general formularies representing partial truths imperfectly stated, and by means of other—either false, senseless, or irrelevant—a priori considerations.
8. Into what classes are the spontaneous affections of the soul to be distributed, and what are the distinguishing characteristics of each class? The spontaneous desires and affections of the soul are of two distinct biases.
1st. The animal, or those which arise blindly without intelligence, e. g., the appetites and instinctive affections, these have no intrinsic moral quality in themselves, and become the occasion of moral action only when they are restrained or inordinately indulged.
2nd. The rational affections and desires called out by objects apprehended by the intellect.
9. What rational spontaneous affections possess a moral quality, and in what does that quality inherently attach?
Such rational spontaneous affections are intrinsically and essentially either good or bad or morally indifferent, and their quality is discriminated by the quality of the objects by which they are attracted. They are good when their objects are good, evil when their objects are evil, and morally indifferent when their objects are indifferent. Their moral quality, whatever it be, is intrinsic to them. When they are good, all men consider them worthy of approbation, and when they are evil, all men consider them worthy of condemnation and righteous indignation, because of their essential nature as good or as evil, and without any consideration of their origins. When good these spontaneous affections determine the volitions to good, when they are evil they determine the volitions to evil.
10. To what do we apply the designation “permanent principles, or dispositions” of soul? and when do they possess a general character, and what is the source of that character?
There are in the soul, underlying its passing states and affections, certain permanent habits or dispositions involving a tendency to or facility for certain kinds of exercises. Some of these habits or dispositions are innate and some are acquired. These constitute the character of the man, and lay the foundation for all his successive exercises of feeling, affection, desire, volition, or action. As far as these are morally good, the man and his action are good; as far as these are evil, the man and his action are evil; as far as these are morally indifferent, i. e., concern objects morally indifferent, the actions which spring from them are morally indifferent. The moral character of these inherent moral tendencies of the soul is intrinsic and essential. They are the ultimate tendencies of the soul itself, and their goodness or badness is an ultimate fact of consciousness.
11. Show that the state and action of the intellect may possess a moral character. The intellect is so implicated in its exercises with the moral affections and emotions, that its views and judgments on all moral subjects have a moral character also. A man is hence responsible for his moral judgments—and hence for his beliefs as well as for his moral feelings, because the one is as immediately as the other determined by the general moral state or character of the soul. A man who is blind to moral excellence, or to the deformity of sin, is condemned by every enlightened conscience. The Scriptures pronounce a woe upon those “who call evil good and good evil, who put light for darkness and darkness for light.”—Isaiah 5:20. Sin is called in Scripture “blindness,” and “folly.”—1 John 2:11; Ephesians 4:18; Revelation 3:17; Matthew 23:17; Luke 24:25.
12. What are the essential conditions of moral responsibility? To be morally responsible a man must be a free, rational, moral agent (see answer to preceding question).
1st. He must be in present possession of his reason to distinguish truth from falsehood.
2nd. He must also have in exercise a moral sense to distinguish right from wrong.
3rd. His will, in its volitions or executive acts, must be self–decided, i. e., determined by its own spontaneous affections and desires. If any of these are wanting, the man is insane, and neither free nor responsible.
13. Is the conscience indestructible and infallible? The conscience, the organ of God’s law in the soul, may virtually, i. e., as to its effects and phenomena, be both rendered latent and perverted for a time, and in this phenomenal sense, therefore, it is neither indestructible nor infallible. But if the moral sense be regarded simply in itself it is infallible, and if the total history of even the worst man is taken into the account, conscience is truly indestructible.
1st. As to its indestructibility. Conscience, like every other faculty of the soul, is undeveloped in the infant, and very imperfectly developed in the savage; and, moreover, after a long habit of inattention to its voice and violation of its law, the individual sinner is often judicially given up to carnal indifference; his conscience for a time lying latent. Yet it is certain that it is never destroyed—
(1.) From the fact that it is often aroused to the most fearful energy in the hearts of long–hardened reprobates in the agonies of remorse.
(2.) From the fact that this remorse or accusing conscience constitutes the essential torment of lost souls and devils. This is “the worm that never dieth.” Otherwise their punishment would lose its moral character.
2nd. As to its infallibility. Conscience, in the act of judging of moral states or actions, involves the concurrent action of the understanding and the moral sense. This understanding is always fallible, especially when it is prejudiced in its action by depraved affections an desires. Thus, in fact, conscience constantly delivers false decisions from a misjudgment of the facts and relations of the case; it may be through a selfish or sensual or a malignant bias. Hence we have virtually a deceiving as well as a latent conscience. Notwithstanding this, however, the normal sense of the distinction between right and wrong, as an eternal law to itself, lies indestructible even in the most depraved breasts, as it cannot be destroyed, so it cannot be changed; when aroused to action, and when not deceived as to the true state of the case, its language is eternally the same.—See M’Cosh, “Divine Government,” Book 3., chapter 2., section 6, and Dr. A. Alexander, “Moral Science,” chapters 4. and 5.
14. What is the essential nature of virtue?
“Virtue is a peculiar quality of” certain states of the will, i. e., either permanent dispositions or temporary affections of the will, and “of certain voluntary actions of a moral agent., which quality is perceived by the moral faculty with which every man is endowed, and the perception of which is accompanied by an emotion which is distinct from all other emotions, and is called moral.”—Dr. Alexander, “Moral Science,” ch. 26. The essence of virtue is, that it obliges the will. If a thing is morally right it ought to be done. The essence of moral evil is, that it intrinsically deserves disapprobation, and the agent punishment. This point is of great importance, because the truth here is often perverted by a false philosophy, and because this rewards view of moral good is the only one consistent with the Scriptural doctrine of sins, rewards, and punishments, and, above all, of Christ’s atonement. The idea of virtue is a simple and ultimate intuition; attempted analysis destroys it. Right is right because it is. It is its own highest reason. It has its norm in the immutable nature of God.
15. What constitutes a virtuous and what a vicious character?
Virtue, as defined in the answer to the last question, attaches only to the will of man (including all the conative faculties), 1st., to its permanent disposition;
2nd., to its temporary affections; and
3rd., to its volitions. Some of these states and actions of the will are not moral, i. e., they are neither approved nor condemned by the conscience as virtuous or vicious. But virtue or vice belong only to moral states of the soul, and to voluntary acts. A virtuous character, therefore, is one in which the permanent dispositions, the temporary affections and desires, and the volitions of the soul, are conformable to the divine law. A vicious character, on the other hand, is one in which these states and acts of the will are not conformable to the divine law. The acts of volition are virtuous or vicious as the affections, or desires by which they are determined are the one or the other. The affections and desires are as the permanent dispositions or the character. This last is the nature of the will itself, and its character is an ultimate unresolvable fact. Whether that character be innate or acquired by habit, the fact of its moral quality as virtuous or vicious remains the same, and the consequent moral accountability of the agent for his character is unchanged.
It must be remembered that the mere possession of a conscience which approves the right and condemns the wrong, and which is accompanied with more or less lively emotion, painful or pleasurable as it condemns or approves, does not make a character virtuous, or else the devils and lost souls would be eminently virtuous. But the virtuous man is he whose heart and actions, in biblical language, or whose dispositions, affections, and volitions, in philosophical language, are conformed to the law of God.
16. State both branches of the Utilitarian theory of virtue. The first and lowest form is that which maintains that virtue consists in the intelligent desire for happiness. Dr. N. W. Taylor says—“Nothing is good but happiness and the means of happiness, and nothing evil but misery and the means of misery.” The second and higher form of the Utilitarian theory of virtue is that it consists in disinterested benevolence, and that all sin is a form of selfishness. This is shown, Chapters 8., 12., and 18., to be a defective and therefore a false view.
17. What as we mean when we say that a man is a free agent?
1st. That, being a spirit, he originates action. Matter acts only as it is acted upon. A man acts from the spring of his own active power.
2nd. That, although a man may be forced by fear to will and to do many things which he would neither will nor do if it were not for the fear, yet he never can be made to will what he does not himself desire to will, in full view of all the circumstances of the case.
3rd. That he is furnished with a reason to distinguish between the true and the false, and with a conscience, the organ of an innate moral law, to distinguish between right and wrong, in order that his desires may be both rational and righteous. And yet his desires are not necessarily either rational or righteous, but are formed under the light of reason and conscience, either conformable to or contrary to them, according to the permanent, habitual dispositions of the man; i. e., according to his own character.
18. Show that this attribute of human nature is inalienable. A man is said to be free in willing when he wills in conformity with his own prevailing dispositions and desires at the time. A man’s judgment may be deceived, or his actions may be coerced, but his will must be free, because, if it be truly his will, it must be as he desires it to be, in his present state of mind and under all the circumstances of the case at the time.
It hence follows that volition is of its very essence free, whether the agent willing or the act willed be wise or foolish, good or bad.
19. Do not the Scriptures, however, speak of man’s being under the bondage of corruption, and his liberty as lost? As above shown, a man is always free in every responsible volition, as much when he chooses, in violation of the law of God and conscience, as in conformity to it. In the case of unfallen creatures, and of perfectly sanctified men, however, the permanent state of the will, the voluntary affections and desires (in Scripture language, the heart), are conformed to the light of reason and the law, of conscience within, and to the law of God, in its objective revelation. There are no conflicting principles then within the soul, and the law of God, instead of coercing the will by its commands and threatenings, is spontaneously obeyed. This is “the liberty of the sons of God;” and the law becomes the “royal law of liberty” when the law in the heart of the subject perfectly corresponds with the law of the moral Governor. In the case of fallen men and angels, on the other hand, the reason and conscience, and God’s law, are opposed by the governing dispositions of the will, and the agent, although free, because he wills as he chooses, is said to be in bondage to an evil nature, and “the servant of sin,” because he is impelled by his corrupt dispositions to choose that which he sees and feels to be wrong and injurious, and because the threatenings of God’s law tend to coerce his will through fear. The Scriptures do not teach that the unregenerate is not free in his sin, for then he would not be responsible. But the contrast between the liberty of the regenerate and the bondage of the unregenerate arises from the fact that in the regenerate the habitually controlling desires and tendencies are not in conflict with the voice of conscience and the law of God. The unregenerate, viewed psychologically, is free when he sins, because he wills as upon the whole he desires; but viewed theologically, in his relation to God’s law as enforced by reason and conscience and Scripture, he may be said to be in bondage to the evil dispositions and desires of his own heart, which he sees to be both wrong and foolish, but which, nevertheless, he is impotent to change.
20. What is the distinction between liberty and ability?
Liberty consists in the power of the agent to will he pleases, from the fact that the volition is determined only by the character of the agent willing. Ability consists in the power of the agent to change his own subjective state, to make himself prefer what he does not prefer, and to act in a given case in opposition to the coexistent desires and preferences of the agent’s own heart.
Thus man is as truly free since the fall as before it, because he wills as his evil heart pleases. But he has lost all ability to obey the law of God, because his evil heart is not subject to that law, neither can he change it.
21. Give Turretin’s and President Edwards’ definitions of Liberty.
Turretin, 50. 10, Ques. 1.—“As only three things are found in the soul besides its essence, namely, faculties, habits(habitue), acts, so will, (arbitrium) in the common opinion is regarded as an act of the mind; but here it properly signifies neither an act nor a habit which may be separated from an individual man, and which also determines him to one at least of two contraries; but it signifies a faculty, not one which is vegetative nor sensuous, common to us and the brutes, in which there can be no place for either virtue or vice, but a rational faculty, the possession of which does not indeed constitute us either good or bad, but through the states of which and actions, we are capable of becoming either good or bad.”
Ques. 3.—“Since, therefore, the essential nature of liberty does not consist in indifference, it cannot be found in any other principle than in ( lubentia rationali) a rational willingness or desire, whereby a man does what he prefers or chooses from a previous judgment of the reason ( facit quod lubet proevio rationis judicio). Hence two elements united are necessary to constitute this liberty.
(1.)
(2.)
President Edwards “On the Will,” Section 5, defines Liberty as being “the power, opportunity, or advantage, that any one has to do as he pleases.”
290. 22. What are the two senses in which the word motive, as influencing the will., is used? and in which sense is it true that the volition is always as the strongest motive?
1st. A motive to act may be something outside the soul itself, as the value of money, the wishes of a friend, the wisdom or folly, the right or the wrong, of any act in itself considered, or the appetites and impulses of the body. In this sense it is evident that the man does not always act according to the motive. What may attract one man may repel another, or a man may repel the attraction of an outward motive by the superior force of some consideration drawn from within the soul itself. so that the dictum is true, “The man makes the motive, and not the motive the man.”
2nd. A motive to act may be the state of the man’s own mind, as desire or aversion in view of the outward object, or motive in the first sense. This internal motive evidently must sway the volition, and as clearly it cannot in the least interfere with the perfect freedom of the man in willing, since the internal motive is only the man himself desiring, or the reverse, according to his own disposition or character.
23. May there not be several conflicting desires, or internal motives, in the mind at the same time, and in such a case how is the will decided?
There are often several conflicting desires, or impelling affections in the mind at the same time, in which case the strongest desire, or the strongest group of desires, drawing in one way, determine the volition. That which is strongest proves itself. to be such only by the result, and not by the intensity of the feeling it excites. Some of these internal motives are very vivid, like a thirst for vengeance, and others calm, as a sense of duty, yet often the calm motive proves itself the strangest, and draws the will its own way. This, of course, must depend upon the character of the agent. It is this inward contest of opposite principles which constitutes the warfare of the Christian life. It is the same experience which occasions a great part of that confusion of consciousness which prevails among men with respect to the problem of the will and the conditions of free agency. Man often acts against motives, but never without motive. And the motive which actually determines the choice in a given case may often be the least clearly defined in the intellect, and the least vividly experienced in the feelings. Especially in sudden surprises, and in cases of trivial concernment, the volition is constantly determined by vague impulses, or by force of habit almost automatically. Yet in every case, if the whole contents of the mind, at the time of the volition, be brought up into distinct consciousness, it will be found that the man chose, as upon the whole view of the case presented by the understanding at the instant he desired to choose.
24. If the immediately preceding state of the man’s mind certainly determines the act of his will, how can that act be truly free if certainly determined? This objection rests solely upon the confusion of the two distinct ideas of liberty of the will as an abstract faculty, and liberty of the man who wills. The man is never determined to will, by anything without himself. He always himself freely gives, according to his own character, all the weight to the external influences which bear upon him that they ever possess. But, on the other hand, the mere act of volition, abstractly considered, is determined by the present mental, moral, and emotional state of the man at the moment he acts. His rational freedom, indeed, consists, not in the uncertainty of his act, but in the very fact that his whole soul, as an indivisible, knowing, feeling, moral agent, determines his own action as it pleases.
25. Prove that the certainty of a volition is in no degree inconsistent with the liberty of the agent in that act.
1st. God, Christ, and saints in glory, are all eminently free in their holy choices and actions, yet nothing can be more certain than that, to all eternity, they shall always will according to righteousness.
2nd. Man is a free agent, yet of every infant, from his birth, it is absolutely certain that if he lives he will sin.
3rd. God, from eternity, foreknows all the free actions of men as certain, and he has foreordained them, or made them to be certain. In prophecy he has infallibly foretold many of them as certain. And in regeneration his people are made “his workmanship created unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them.”
4th. Even we, if we thoroughly understand a friend’s character, and all the present circumstances under which he acts, are often absolutely certain how he will freely act, though absent from us. This is the foundation of all human faith, and hence of all human society.
26. What is that theory of moral liberty, styled “Liberty of Indifference,”“Self–determining Power of the Will,”“Power of Contrary Choice,”“Liberty of Contingency,” etc., held by Arminians and others? This theory maintains that it is essentially involved in the idea of free agency—
1st. That the will of man in every volition may decide in opposition, not only to all outward inducements, but equally to all the inward judgments, desires, and to the whole coexistent inward state of the man himself.
2nd. That man is conscious in every free volition, that he might have willed precisely the opposite, his outward circumstances and his entire inward state remaining the same.
3rd. That every free volition is contingent, i. e., uncertain, until the event, since it is determined by nothing but the bare faculty of volition on the part of the agent.—Hamilton’s “Reid,” pp. 599–624. The true theory of moral certainty, on the other hand, is that the soul is a unit; that the will is not self–determined, but that man, when he wills, is self–determined; and that his volition is certainly determined by his own internal, rational, moral, emotional state at the time, viewed as a whole. In opposition to the former theory, and in favor of the latter, we argue—
1st. That the character of the agent does certainly determine the character of his free acts, and that the certainty of an act is not inconsistent with the liberty of the agent in his act.—See above, Question 12.
2nd. The Christian doctrines of divine foreknowledge, foreordination, providence, and regeneration. For the scriptural evidence of these, see their respective chapters. They all show that the volitions of men are neither uncertain nor indeterminate.
3rd. We agree with the advocates of the opposite theory in maintaining that in every free act we are conscious that we had power to perform it, or not to perform it, as we chose. “But we maintain that we are none the less conscious that this intimate conviction that we had power not to perform an act is conditional. That is, we are conscious that the act might have been otherwise, had other views or feelings been present to our minds, or been allowed their due weight. A man cannot prefer against his preference, or choose against his choice. A man may have one preference at one time, and another at another. He may have various conflicting feelings or principles in action at the same time, but he cannot have coexisting opposite preferences.”
4th. The theory of the self–determining power of the will, regards the will, or the mere faculty of volition, as isolated from the other faculties of the soul, as an independent agent within an agent. Now, the soul is a unit. Consciousness and Scripture alike teach us that the man is the free, responsible agent. By this dissociation of the volitional faculty from the moral dispositions and desires, the volitions can have no moral character. By its dissociation from the reason, the volitions can have no rational character. If they are not determined by the inward state of the man himself; they must be fortuitous, and beyond his control. He cannot be free if his will is independent alike of his head and his heart, and he ought not to be held responsible.—See “Bib. Rep.,” January, 1857, Article V.
27. What is a man responsible for his outward actions, why for his volitions; why for his affections and desires; and prove that he is responsible for his affections?
“A man is responsible for his outward acts, because they are determined by the will, he is responsible for his volitions, because they are determined by his own principles and feelings (desires); he is responsible for his principles and feelings, because of their inherent nature as good or bad, and because they are his own and constitute his character.”—“Bib. Rep.,” January. 1857, g., 130.
It is the teaching of Scripture and the universal judgment of men, that “a good man out of the good treasures of his heart bringeth forth that which is good,” and that a “wicked man out of the evil treasures of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil.” The act derives its moral character from the state of the heart from which it springs, and a man is responsible for the moral state of his heart, whether that state be innate, formed by regenerating grace, or acquired by himself, because—
1st. Of the obliging nature of moral right, and the ill–desert of sin;
2nd. Because a man’s affections and desires are himself loving or refusing that which is right. It is the judgment of all, that a profane or malignant man is to be reprobated, no matter how he became so.
28. How does Dr. D. D. Whedon state and contrast the position of Arminian and Calvinistic philosophy?
Dr. Whedon, in the “Bibliotheca Sacra,” April, 1862, says, “To this maxim, that it is no matter how we come by our evil volitions, dispositions, or nature in order to responsibility, provided that we really possess them, we (the Methodists) oppose the counter maxim that in order to responsibility for the given act or state, power in the agent for a contrary act or state is requisite. In other words power underlies responsibility.” The only limit which he admits to this principle is the case of an inability induced by the free act of the agent himself. This, he says, is a fundamental maxim by which all the issues between Arminianism and Calvinism are determined.
29. Show that the Arminian view to consequences inconsistent with the gospel, and that the Calvinistic view is true.
Dr. Whedon admits that Adam after his fall lost all ability to obey the law of God, and was responsible for that inability and all its consequences, because, having been created with full ability, he lost it by his own free act. He also admits that every child of Adam is born into the world with a corrupt nature, and without any ability to obey the law of God. But no infant is responsible nor punishable for this want of ability nor for any sinful action which results from it, because it was entailed upon him, without any fault of his own by the sin of another. In the way of just compensation, however, for this their great misfortune of being innocent sinners, God gives to all men in Christ sufficient grace, and hence gracious ability to obey the gospel law. If a man uses this gracious ability he is saved, and faith and evangelical obedience is accounted for perfect righteousness; if he does not use this gracious ability he is condemned as responsible for that abuse of ability, and consequently responsible for all the sinful feelings, actions, and subsequent inability which result from that abuse of power.
We argue that it follows from this Arminian view—
1st. That salvation by Christ is not of free grace, but a tardy and incomplete compensation granted men for undeserved evils brought upon them at their birth in consequence of Adam’s sin.
2nd. The “grace ”given to all men is as necessary to render them punishable sinners, as it is to save their soul. In fact, according to this principle, grace sends more souls to hell by making them responsible through the possession of ability, than it sends to heaven through faith in Christ.
3rd. Those who die in infancy, not being punishable, because not responsible, for original sin, go to heaven as a matter of natural right. On the contrary we maintain that the responsibility of a man for his moral dispositions, affections, and desires, no matter how they may have originated, if he be a sane man, is an ultimate fact of consciousness, confirmed by Scripture, conscience, and the universal judgments of men. An act derives its moral character from the state of the heart from which it springs, but the state of the heart does not acquire its moral character from the action. But the moral quality of the state of the heart itself is inherent, and moral responsibility is inseparable from moral quality. This is so—
1st. Because of the essential nature of right and wrong. The essence of right is that it ought to be—that it obliges the will. The essence of wrong, is that it ought not to be—that the will is under obligation to the contrary.
2nd. Because a man’s moral affections or desires are nothing other than the man himself loving or abhorring goodness. It is the judgment of all men that a profane and malignant man is to be reprobated no matter how he became so. It is the character, not the origin, of the moral disposition of the heart which is the real question. Christ says, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good, and a wicked man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil.”—Luke 6:45