2

the second dude i have to know about is John Edwards. he sucks in relation to Franklin, it must be forewarned. there are two separate things i have to know about Edwards!

the first is that he wishes to prove his doctrine that there is such a thing as a spiritual & divine light immediately imparted to the soul by God Himself.

he starts out by telling us what the divine light isn't:
the divine light is not:
.an impression on the mind
(ain't no phenomenal phenomenon)
.anything other than the word of God
.a mere affection for the Word of God

instead, the divine light is:
.a real sense and apprehension of the divine excellency of things revealed through the word of God.

this is split up into two notions that Edwards wants to define! 1, the true sense and 2, the conception of the truth and reality of the aforementioned sense.

a true sense of the divine and superlative excellency of things of religion are revealed to us by God in a twofold knowledge of good:
1 a notional notion of good. (thanks for the clarity, Edwards) these are the notions that men generally agree on to be good.
2 the sense of heart, i.e., the good that is felt by the heart as pleasurable and delightful.

this is best characterized by an analogy that Edwards so kindly provides!:
an opinion that God is holy:the sense of the loveliness and beauty of God's holiness and grace::rational judgment that honey is sweet:experiencing the true sense of sweetness.
(analogies back in 1734 were evidently not required to be concise)

the conception of the sense can happen in one of two ways:
.indirectly
.directly

indirectly prejudices against divine truth are removed and the mind is allowed to be susceptive to the rational arguments in favor of divine truths. this makes speculative notions more lively and clearer, and we end up dwelling upon those notions with delight, awakening powers of the soul that enliven us to employ the contemplation thereof.
directly an actual discover of this beauty leads to an immediate revelation of intuitive and immediate evidence.

via either of these, we attain a sense of excellency!

how does God go about revealing the sense of excellency to us?
1 our natural faculties! i mean, he gave them to us, but keep in mind that they are used as a subject, not a cause. God is the cause. always, duh.
2 the gospel!
3 notions that operate by their own natural force outside of ours.

how does Edwards know he is right?
1 scripture
2 rationality
it is rational to suppose that:
.we can see the divine light
.minds of spiritual pollution will be unable to see the divine light
.knowledge is given immediately by God
.it is beyond man's power to obtain this divine light by mere strength of reason. we need heart, too!

but wait, Reason is necessary!
by reason we:
.become the subjects of the means of the divine light
.understand subjects of divine light and knowledge
.trust Christ


the second is Edwards' notion of Free Will, and that he is a determinist who eschews the "Armenian View of Liberty," which is basically the idea that free will is self-defining, indifferent, and contingent.

he defines a lot a terms!
will: that by which the mind chooses anything
faculty of the will: the principle of mind capable of choosing
act of will: an act of choosing
choose: active volition
refuse: to choose the negation of something
motive: the whole of that which moves and excites and invites the mind to volition
strength: the degree of the tendency or advantage to move or excite the will
blameworthiness: a person being or doing wrong with his own will and pleasure OR a person having his heart wrong and doing wrong from his hear

every act of will contains an act of choice. where there is no choice or preference, there is no volition!
the will is determined when its choice is fixed upon an object, so the determination of the will must have a determiner! that determiner is the strongest motive that stands in the view of the mind. to Edwards, the thing viewed and the mind that views and the degree and manor of the view all lead to "the good," because the strongest motive is that which seems the best.

there is a distinction between moral necessity and natural necessity! this is imperative, says Edwards!
moral necessity a sure and perfect connection between moral causes & effects
natural necessity necessity that men are under through natural causes (feeling pain when the body is wounded, seeing objects when presented with light, etc)

after all this, he gets to the refutation of free will:

Refutation #1:
an infinite regress of choices leads the will to be determined by consequent acts, rendering acts of will not self-determining. nothing ever comes to pass without a Cause! (except that which is self-caused, which does not include "things that begin," but rather only really includes God, but only insofar as that we don't actually possess the mental capacity to understand how God can Be. our inferiority only grants us knowledge that he Is. says Edwards, that is)
the first tenet of Armenian Liberty says that the will is self-determined! nope! that implies that things may come to pass with no cause! to say that an Event can come into existence without a cause is to give an account of some ground of existence of a thing and simultaneously maintain that there is no ground for its existence.
therefore, the will is not self-determined!
Refutation #2:
for free will to be indifferent, it is essential to be performed in a state of indifference and a time of indifference. but wait, Virtue, or even a tendency or an inclination toward Virtue, lies contrary to indifference! the stronger an Inclination, the further it is from Indifference, right? indifferent actions cannot be determined by a preceding act of choice because then it is not executed in a state of indifference and is thus not virtuous by the Armenian standard. but if the action isn't determined by a preceding action, it is still not virtuous because the action is supposed to be self-determining. which was just refuted.

take that, Armenian View of Liberty!
contingency is refuted in there somewhere, but i am currently incapable of teasing it out, so hopefully i won't be tested on it.

then he talks about blameworthiness and the common folk! the common folk don't rely on reflections & abstractions of the metaphysical to form the idea of blameworthiness! it comes from:
.experience
.natural sensation of a certain fitness of agreeableness

these things form a conscience!
common folk assume blameworthiness because of the person's own act and deed. they have no notion of liberty consisting in the will first acting (so causing its own acts), or determining (choosing and causing its own choice). they have no notion of indifference, rather they see a notion of freedom as less agreeable the more indifferent the act. the common sense notion of free will, the natural sense of man, show that virtuous acts are worthy of commendation and vicious acts are worthy of condemnation.

by talking about this, Edwards somehow proves that moral necessity is consistent with praise and blame.

o.. okay
i can't stand your 18th century vernacular, Edwards.