Involved with this is the question of God's foreknowledge. It is obvious that this involves his pre-determination of events, as otherwise he would foreknow what was never to happen, or was to happen outside his will; and there can be no change in the predestined order, since any change in a sequence must itself be part of the predestination and foreknowledge.
Alone of all metaphysical questions not in cident to the claims of religious founders, this has always been a fierce battle-ground, the dividing line of great religious sects. The rea son is that the possibility of sanctions for moral law, and consequently of a decent basis for human society, is believed to depend upon it. Determinism seems to cut the roots of moral obligation, by removing the possibility of obedi ence to it. If we are without will except as a consciousness of preference resulting from causes outside our control, we are automata; and preaching obligation of any sort to us seems as irrational as preaching it to a doll, for our action will not be influenced by it, nor are we responsible for disobedience. In this ex treme form, the fallacy is easily apparent. The will, as Edwards has put it, always follows the greatest seeming good: but its estimate of good is not an unvarying thing, but constantly changing with experience and reason. Now moral rules, apprehended and accepted by the mind, form a part of this good, and therefore become new causes which determine the will: and whatever may have been the causation which has determined the evolving and enforc ing of the moral law, it is nevertheless a por tion of the environment which acts on the mind. As to responsibility, the question is irrelevant. An automaton which runs into a fire or the sea perishes none the less than if the act were a conscious volition. Punishment waits not on responsibility, but on violation of the laws of its being, and blame and excuse are alike imperti nent to the result. We do not blame a child who burns its fingers, but the fingers are in the same condition as if we did.
Back of this, however, lies a contradiction of fact. So far from determinism making moral law impossible, free will makes it impos sible. If volition can perpetually nullify the action of motive, there is a fatal breach in the continuity of cause and effect; there can be no calculable sequence of action and therefore no law. The most, perverse defiance of natural order is no more independent of cause than the steadiest Obedience, for that perversity is itself due to causes precedent. Whence then come
the invariable consciousness of freedom to act, its universal recognition, its embodiment into the framework of society, the obvious fact that there can be no society except on this basis? Why, here again, do consciousness and practice oppose themselves unalterably to invincible ar gument? Edwards explains that though we have not liberty of willing, we have liberty of action; which taken literally would imply that the will has no necessary connection with the act, and that we may voluntarily do a thing we have involuntarily willed not to do. Of course Edwards does not in fact maintain this, but only that God has given a choice of action by fur nishing experience and reason and illumination by which to frame correct determinations. Waiving discussion of the difference between these determinations and will, the real explana tion probably lies in the confusion between the abstract and concrete will, between its de pendence on causes and, as above said, our own power to determine or change those causes. In struction, example, appeals to self-interest or fear, or vanity, or affection, or honor, etc., pro duce an environment and modify the view taken by each of the supreme immediate good, cal culably enough to base coherent society upon; where their effect is grossly miscalculated the society goes to pieces. Metaphysics and the general consciousness are both right, each in its own sphere: the will must have motives, but those motives are furnished in great measure externally. Furthermore, subject to the inex orable limitation, it can furnish by its own ac tion motives to change itself ; and constantly does so, attributing to its independent action what is really due to the influence of the new causes it has made to operate in altering its estimate of relative good. For the purposes of human life, volition is absolute and there is no injustice in enforcing responsibility.
Consult Edwards, Jonathan, 'Freedom of the Will' (London 1754); Bennett, W., 'The Religion of Freewill' (Oxford 1913); James, W., The Will to Believe' (New York 1897); and 'Principles of Psychology' (New York 1899) ; Levy, P. E., 'The Rational Education of the Mind' (Boston 1914); Martineau, J, 'A Study of Religion' (2 vols., Oxford, 1888); Mill, J. S., 'Logic' (London 1856); Rashdall, H., 'Theories of Good and Evil' (Oxford 1907); Stewart, D., 'Moral Philosophy' (Edin burgh 11354); Ward, J., 'The Realm of Ends' (Cambridge 1911).