A Theological Free-for-All

So now we "progress" [very Bunyanesque] forward to freedom. And here it is that Edwards defers to common speech [unlike the Arminians who deconstruct what is the common notion of the word]. Edwards defines the common understanding of liberty in 3 ways:

1. "Power, opportunity, advantage, that anyone has to do as he pleases" [p. 32].
2. "His being free from hindrance or impediment in the way of doing, or conducting, in any respect, as he wills" [p. 32].
3. "Let the person come by his volition or choice how he will, yet, if he is able, and there is nothing in the way to hinder his pursuing and exercising his will [like maybe a sin nature wired to suppress the truth in unrighteousness], the man is fully and perfectly free, according to the primary and common notion of freedom" [p. 33].

Enter the Arminians stage left with their deconstructed meaning of the common notion of freedom. Boo! signs are raised as cringing Calvinists hear the menacing strains of an out of tune barroom/local church piano assaulting their common sensibilities.

The Arminian has an entirely different "signification" of freedom defined by Edwards in 3 ways.

1. "A self-determining power in the will, or a certain sovereignty the will has over itself, and its own acts, whereby it determines its own volitions; so as not to be dependent on any cause" [p. 33]. Perhaps a bit Whitmanesque like: "I am the master of my fate / I am the captain of my soul . . ."
2. The mind is freely indifferent prior to the act of volition or in a state of equlibrio. The mind is [propensity for greatest good cast aside] free of preference before its act of volition [pp. 33-34].
3. The will is opposed to the notion of some previous reason of its existence or [p. 34].

Enter the moral agent [p. 34] stage right who is a being capable of those actions that have a moral quality [good or evil in a moral sense].

And add to that moral agent a moral faculty [p. 34] or a sense of moral good and evil. This moral faculty [not exactly an Arminian notion of freedom] has a capacity of being influenced in his actions by moral inducements [motives] exhibited to the understanding and reason.

e.g. A thief, a moral agent, will act by way of moral inducement [an unguarded wallet full of cash sitting on his roommates desk] according to his moral faculty.

The sun, fire, and brute creatures [our Bichon Kramer] are not moral agents. Kramer is not like the thief, even though he will take food wherever he may find it. The difference is that Kramer is acting on instinct and not from a sense of moral good and evil. That is why Edwards’s 15th resolution reads: "Resolved, never to suffer the least motions of anger towards irrational beings."

We end with God as possessing the "essential qualities of a moral agent in the greatest possible perfection." These lines are simply gorgeous:

"The essential qualities of a moral agent are in God in the greatest possible perfection; such as understanding, to perceive the difference between moral good and evil; a capacity of discerning that moral worthiness and demerit by which some things are praiseworthy, others deserving of blame and punishment; and also a capacity of choice, and choice guided by understanding, and a power of acting according to his choice or pleasure, and being capable of doing those things which are in the highest sense praiseworthy. And herein does very much consist that image of God wherein he made man [Genesis 1.26-17; 9.6], by which God distinguished man from the beasts" [pp. 35-36].