Freewill as to Inclination and Choice

J. N. Darby.

 

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(Notes and Comments Vol. 1.)

 

All men speak about freewill is nonsense - free and will do not go together - there is no will till a person is decided and determined. Man is perfectly free to will, as far as constraint by another goes; in truth, as far as man's faculties go, he cannot be otherwise, i.e., it is his own will where he has one - his body, his acts may be constrained, and fear may make him will as other inclinations would not have led him, but his will as will is always his own. The moral part of the matter does not lie there, save as having one's own will is sin, i.e., determining without reference to God, instead of obeying - the claim of independency to have a right to act supremely, without reference to another having authority over us - it is what determines the will, and makes it what is called "free," i.e., our own, in which sin lies - the power of such and such things over the heart. I admit this alleged freedom, i.e., the pretension to be independent of God, to be the very principle of sin - it is rejection of God and His authority, but the ally of this is "pleasant to the eyes, good for food, a tree to be desired," etc. - confidence in God making us happy lost, and so objects desired, and then will in activity. only, lust having thus come in when will is set right, the lusts remain as a hindrance, and power is needed to deliver. Does not this amount to the will not being a proper faculty of the soul at all? Something existing, even when inert? Will is "I" in the determination of activity - there is none when it is not determined; when choice is made, then there is will (i.e., may be), the lust or desire, which has gained the mastery over "I," leads "I" to intentional activity towards the object desired. And it is the same in God, only the objects of intentional activity are not, of course, any desire which moves Him in the object - save Christ - but the creatures of His own wisdom. He is Author from Himself.

A creature could not be a creature and not imperfect, and hence liable to fall - I add could not be in the truth; hence, in a glorious state he "abode not in the truth." As to man he fell tempted, when something above and out of his state was presented, having lost sinfully his confidence in God.

269 Perfectness, in good, belongs to God - all else must be imperfect because it is not God.

As regards indifference, i.e., absence of preference, foreknowledge does not imply the direct appointment of the fact, but it does suppose a necessary consequence, though it may be necessary if - thus, if a creature, being imperfect, be exposed to temptation, he will certainly fall; I may act on it, as a certainty, i.e., God may, who perfectly knows the bearing of all things, without the smallest compulsion on the person - He may have seen it right to leave the creature exposed to it, and have this moral trial. There was way to escape, no necessity, no predisposition to evil - it was the necessary imperfection of the creature, a question whether there should be any free creature at all, and moral condition exist in the world; if there were, it could not be otherwise, issuing in the bringing about the previous purpose of redemption, purposed before, not based upon the fall of man.

But "free" needs to be examined; willkuhr (absolute will) and wahl (choice) are given as the elements of freedom or freewill, but it is said it is not an indifference which supposes no inclination more to one than another. Freedom, it is said, is in not being compelled, and in taking counsel and choosing. Now the absence of compulsion is clear, but choice is another thing.

First, what is will? I believe nothing more than the exclusion of other inclinations by one predominate one. This exclusion may come from strength of passion, or a superior motive - there may be an abnegation of will to obey another, recognising his authority, but will is only a predominant inclination; but it has no moral character where there is not the knowledge of good and evil. Thus, an animal gratifying its lusts - there is no relation violated, though violence may now be come in. How far then has arbitrary self originated choice? It is said it is not indifference - there must be inclination - this is not then simple self-originated choice. I choose within a sphere subjected to me - out of it, I cannot; I may desire, which may prove my moral state, but I cannot actually choose. But in that order of things, mentally subjected to me, at least, either it is rightly subjected or not; if rightly, I am a creature - it is by the will of another. So it was in Adam's case in innocence - he was set to dress the garden, and keep it, he did so freely, but according to the order of his mind, and the garden's order - so that self-will, i.e., a determination or desire was not in exercise - he did what had to be done according to the perfect order of his own mind, and it was delight because it was the order of his mind, in which it worked freely without a craving of desire. Now that tests have come in, it is another thing; will is now desire appropriating something to self, at least mentally.

270 Now to have will free, clearly there must be no compulsion - I say, I need not do it, I am not obliged; but when we speak of will or choice (willkuhr) I have clearly cast off God - am not subject to Him, i.e., the sole, true, determining motive for creature will is wanting, and all is really evil. But if I am already inclined, I am on the way to a determination, and in fact determined, unless some other inclination, more powerful, comes in - ease, or passion, or pleasing some one. If I have only the first inclination, my will goes that way - my will is formed, not self-originated. I may by conscience see I ought to do so, and intend to do it, when the predominant motive is not there (for I admit conscience - knowledge of right and wrong in all), but when the motives come to act, then the will is formed - if I am absolutely indifferent, no will takes place; if I am not, the will is determined, saving a more powerful motive; thus choice and self-originated will is a mistake. When I say "he has a very strong will," it is another thing - it is carrying out my will by firmness of purpose against other men's opposition. Take three objects, A., B. and C. I do not understand why it should be said that if we are equally inclined to A., B. and C., we cannot be to A. and not A. It is not so, if inclined only to A. and B., for in that case I am equally inclined to take A., and B. that is not A. But this supposes that I am forced to take one or another as incompatible, else the inclination would be to both. If I must choose, the A., and not A. have equal power - not in A. by itself, for if I am inclined to A., I cannot be inclined at all to not A.; but when another thing I am inclined to involves not A., I am not directly or positively, but as a mere consequence equally disposed to not A. Now if it is A. or B. or C. it is the same thing, because each is compared with each, and one loses the other two in any case, and my positive will can only be governed by one. But if it is A. or B. and C., and I am inclined to each individual equally, my will is formed by the two at once, because the predominant inclination is two to one - yet it fixes on no particular two, so that it comes to the same thing, unless accidentally determined.

271 I admit therefore liberty of will as far as freedom from compulsion - I am free to will; my will is never free - will is a determined purpose. But to say that an inclined will is not formed by what inclines it, is false upon the face of it. If nothing acts upon it to incline it there is no will at all - there is indifference, i.e., no will. A nature inclined to good is perfectly free in obeying - it is what is called the law of liberty; but a nature indifferent to good and evil, or inclined to the latter, cannot choose the good - it is indifferent to it, or inclined the other way. If personal persuasion, or terror lead it to the good, it has not chosen the good, but been formed by the influencing motive - you cannot say indifferent, for then there can be no choice - if you say preference, or inclination one way, the choice is already made.

I may be told that I may be inclined to a given thing, and conscience arrests me. Very right; but then I am not free* to choose, but bound and rightly bound. Man being governed by motives, all may be and is foreknown, he being perfectly free, constrained to nothing - if absolutely originated, it would be hard to say so - but I do not believe man capable of originating anything.

{*This is right, but not sufficiently explicit. "Free" is ambiguous - I am always free as regards external forcing; but conscience recognises an obligation, and, save Atheism, also obligation to divine authority. In either case, choice or will becomes simply sin. I admit the difference of conscience and authority, but, in either case, will is simply evil, rather choice, for it denies the obligation. I am free, but not free to choose, save as free from compulsion.}

Inclination without necessity, is not tenable ground. Absolute indifference, to make man free, is absurd, for then will cannot be determined, but is a partially determined will - determined to good or evil; if to evil, it is a hard case to set it so, and make it responsible as a free person; nor is it more so if to good. It is not simple probation. Besides, if there be already an inclination, it shows that such inclination is a nature, not a will, and hence the whole ground taken is false.

But further, choice has nothing to do with freedom. A nature in perfect accordance with the order in which I am set, is free - such is called, morally, the law of liberty, when I will in nature what God wills in authority - so Adam, setting aside the forbidden fruit, was free in the garden, but had no choice to make; God chose to put a matter of choice before him, as a probation or test, but His doing it specially, and by this ordinance, proved it was not so otherwise. Nor is there any difficulty in God's full foreknowledge, only it supposes what is - our nature - and He supplies the occasion in which man shows himself without any influencing at all, and then God shows Himself in grace.

272 Then the imperfection and fall of the creature, if tested in this state, exists - the forbidden tree is there to test it - perfectly free as far as any influence of God is concerned, but, because so, showing what it was. God knew perfectly well the result, but it was the effect of creature-nature, it is only when we really see this, we get free from it. So God knew human nature, and all its details under certain influences, and in certain positions, and presents Christ. It is free, but shows in freedom what it is. The independence of the unfallen creature, and the enmity of the creature, with a will and lusts, who had separated from God, would not have been shown without these things. But it was display of what the creature was, not choice, or, if you please, display of what choice in the creature, when tried, was, i.e., will without God, and will against God - separation from God; distrust of His goodness began it, but will and disobedience followed - I speak of man.

But choice, to make out righteousness, is all a blunder, because if man had not gone wrong, there was no righteousness to make out - if he had gone wrong, in heart and will, choice was no good to make out righteousness, to say nothing of setting aside Christ. Return to God - faith - is alone the path of it that became perfect in its object - the Father revealed in the Son, in Christ, and in the revealed purpose of God, when, as Man, He has taken the place of Glory, Head over all. The responsibility came in by-the-bye, however real, as it is, and its reality the basis of the bringing out of the other, in the first Adam, the perfect purpose in the Second.

But I think there is some confusion between choice between good and evil, and a judgment as to what is good and evil. Take the instance of the ass between two bundles of hay; this does not meet the case of choice at all - the supposition is that the two bundles are equally attractive, and there is only one desire - to eat - on the part of the ass. It was not choice between bundles, but equal attraction hindering action. I admit it could not happen, for if he turned his head for something else, the object would attract on one side, and it would eat - but the question is not met, for it is no indifference in the nature of the animal as to good and evil, or even as to objects having contradictory power in their nature, so as to act on different inclinations in the mind, and this is where the insoluble difficulty for all the philosophical class is. If there be good and evil, or mixed so as to require moral determination - if there be motive producing will - if all things are not alike - it must be on some disposition in man that the object acts, i.e., the inclination; the good and evil is there already.

273 It is complicated because there is conscience, and in general some sense of the authority of God, which is not an inclination affecting the decision of the question; hence, though the state be important, it is not all, for it is clear that the will of God ought to determine me, i.e., I ought not to be free to choose. "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work."

But further, with regard to freewill, man's likeness to God is an important point, for man was set to have a will and to exercise it; Angels were not. This leads us to a double sense of will.

First, the mere energy of nature which sets our practical powers in motion; this all active beings have, even animals - so Angels, only their activities, and what they will flows from the will of another, even God. But there is another sense of will, where I determine for myself from some motive; this Adam had in innocence, independent of the test of obedience which exercised him on the point whether his will was at any rate subject to God's, or what man is pleased to call "free." He was put into the garden to dress and to keep it; he dressed it as he pleased; he pleased himself in it - was meant to please himself - and, though in a little finite sphere, was in the image of God in this, which Angels are not. But he was in God's image in doing as he pleased simply; being governed by motives (which man calls being free, because it is not obedience to another), is a far lower state than the spirit of obedience, and so indeed in itself was Adam's, for Christ took the place of simple obedience and doing God's will.

No doubt we can have elevated motives, and so far our character will be elevated, but an undetermined will is clearly weakness; for it has not simply delight in good nor, by love of good, freedom from evil. To be undecided between good and evil, and to be determined by motives extrinsic to oneself is clearly a feeble and infirm, yea, an evil state. That God can act on us, in this state, by motives which elevate us, is true, but that is another thing, and is grace, and indeed connected with the gift of a new life; but, as to the condition, it is an evidently infirm and evil condition, to have to choose between good and evil, for it shows my will to be not morally determined for good - that I have not a will in good, not obedient in love - but a will to be governed, to be created, formed by some motive, perhaps a bad one.

274 Now I refer to an absolute will, as an image of God, though exercised in a subordinate sphere, and a contrast with a perfectly blessed state, such as Angels. It may be a title to have one without restraint from another, but till I have chosen, I have no will - what gives me one? If God and good, it is grace; if not, it is something else that is evil and self. Freewill belongs to God only, in its true sense - the right to please Himself identified, as it is, with the essential goodness of His nature; it belonged to man, in a finite way, within the limits of obedience. To say he was free to do evil, save as not outwardly hindered, is an abomination; now he is certainly inclined to sin, to say he is free to continue in it, equally so. He is bound to turn to good, but finds hindrance in an evil nature.

As regards God's choosing, out of all possible worlds, the best, it is a weak and foolish thought it seems to me, as the world must in thought be created to compare, and He who could think a good world and consequently approve of it by His thought, had no need to think a bad one to compare with it. His own thought, which in thought created it, could do so for His own glory, according to the perfectness natural to His own thought - I do not create by my thoughts, nor am I perfect to do so, and I compare; save as mercy and in gracious condescension to us, God does not think - we think, because we do not know. I do not admit that this created world is of God's counsels at all - it is a fallen one; besides it results in something, and the result must be the object of counsel, not the probationary productive process, though He may order all in it towards that result, but what is perfectly to the purpose, as means, may be utterly inadequate as an ultimate object of purpose, and if we attempt to justify it, as such, we must be wrong. The Christian has no doubt of this, because God has revealed the mystery of His will - the gathering together in one of all things in Christ.

275 NOTE. - The completeness of God's love, its perfectness, was shown in a double way - He could not give more, He would not give less. It is infiniteness in the fact and perfectness of the will - I mean of the will in love.

NOTE. - It is a blessed thing to see that what saves us - the death and resurrection of Christ - takes our affections also clean out of this world, and places them wholly, as to the very nature of them, in life and object elsewhere.

Dependence

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It is evident that no creature can subsist in truth, save in absolute dependence on God. It must be kept to be in the truth - cannot subsist without it - for, if it is not dependent, and if dependence is real, it must be kept. It has lost its place of creature, if it is not in the truth of it. The first principle of its being, as such, is that dependence; it is in virtue of creation, i.e., it subsists in relationship with the Creator, and with the Creator as such, and does not exist if the Creator has not created it - exists in virtue of His power as Creator, and of His will too; hence, the moment it has made itself, in will, independent (in fact it cannot) it has falsified its existence - its existence, morally, is a lie in opposition to the truth of its necessary condition, that by which alone it exists. Thus dependence is alone the truth of any creature.

But, if this be so, there must be an active process of sustainment by Him who creates, otherwise the dependence is in vain; hence, whenever the creature is left to its responsibility, free to the action of its own will, its first act in will is its fall - it has gone out of dependence - it has left God - and the truth of its position with God, its subsistence, if it subsists, is a lie, and will becomes, not a mere part of nature, setting the rest in activity, but a will of its own, i.e., rebellion against God.

A creature, not positively sustained, necessarily falls; and if there is to be responsibility, and moral trial, in whatever shape, this must be gone through. Christ is just the contrary of all this - He was dependent and obedient - came, when in the form of God, having no independent place to seek, in the form of a servant to do God's will. When good and evil are known in a state of things grown up away from God, besides the conscious disposition itself, the Word and prayer are the ｅxpression of the two sides of this relationship.

But what an immense thing it is, after all, to have perfect good come into the midst of evil - perfect good in our nature; and, tempted, preserving itself in the midst of evil, and perfect good victorious over the effects of evil. This we have in the blessed Jesus. But we have more, not evil put away by power - that will come, but evil put away by righteousness - God dealing in righteousness with sin, so that sin being, as to the moral nature of God, put away, i.e., God perfectly glorified as to it in judgment, righteousness is made good in Him, and in glorifying Christ. The result will be, sin gone out of the world before God; but now by the Holy Ghost, union with Him who is glorified, who put it away - He is God's Lamb and baptises us.

277 The result of sin in death is set aside too; so, as good has been manifested, kept itself, triumphed - so, righteousness is exalted - hence justification a judgment for - and death annihilated and Man glorified. We have more than the reign of good - union with Him who is the centre of it, and who has glorified God. In the work, both parts of it, He was alone, only now we are to manifest the good in the midst of the evil. But perfect good in the midst of evil, where only it could be in grace and in this perfection, is the divine riddle; hence, a way, as we have seen elsewhere, heretofore - in the two Paradises there is no way.

But I have another remark to make. It is important that we hold fast the sense of the victory of good over evil by faith now, while evil has the upper hand, or our thoughts of God will be wrong - falsely characterised, I do not say false. We cannot, ought not, to hide the evil or palliate it. A world that has rejected the good that came into it, is in itself an evil and judged world; its works too are evil - there is no good in palliating evil. But then I ought to be so with God, according to the perfection and work of Christ, as to be able to come in according to His mind into the scene of evil, i.e., with a sense and consciousness of perfect good. This gives a different tone to my having to say to the world; I shall find evil to say to, evil to know - morally speaking it is all evil, man's mind being in a lie and false - enmity against God. Nor am I to deceive myself as to it; I know it in knowing myself, but I come into and approach it with the sense of good in my soul - I think no evil - I see in the very creation around me proofs of goodness, see God's creation in it, and by faith look at it, and enjoy it as such, though I know evil is in it - as Christ who knew all the evil, yet could notice the beauty of a flower, and tell us that God fed the ravens. And so it should be with us - we ought not to let the sense of evil around us shut out God. Christ has entitled us to see good in the midst of evil, though that good has made us conscious of the evil.

278 NOTE - The presence of God keeps everything in its place - nothing else - else the human mind works. John does not worship up in heaven, when others did, his place was to see and record. The living creatures celebrate, and the elders worship - when John saw the Angel, he was going to worship him. What a difference the presence of God makes!

Religion is a dependent bond, connecting us with God, or a bond by which we are consciously dependent on God, i.e., a Being we look up to as having power over us.

The old consciousness is not capable of being applied to this new object, because the new object has qualities and rights which that consciousness cannot admit. Faculty is not a mode of action, but a capacity to conceive or act. But I deny all capacity, or potential energy to apprehend the infinite; man would cease to be mentally finite. It is in our mind, only the negation of finite, the moment "measure" comes in.

Miracles

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What is said, by some, of the suspension or reversal of known laws, in miracles, is a blunder; if it be suspension or reversal really, it must be of a law known or not known, and increase of knowledge cannot change it. That, I judge, is not the point, but exercise of divine will, so that, that takes place which, by the ordinary course of known laws, would not have happened, although the operation of known laws may be, by that will, set in activity. Thus, if a strong east wind dry a passage in the Red Sea for the Israelites, just at that moment natural causes are in operation - produce their natural effect, i.e., their effect according to known laws, only divine will sends the east wind.

There are miracles in which divine will produces immediate effects, independent of known laws - eminently resurrection. The effect of the miracle may vary according to the knowledge or ignorance of men, and men may pretend to miracles falsely, when ignorance is great; and Satan can work them by second causes and appearances, so that a sign or a wonder may come to pass. All this refers to the ways of God, and what He permits; but the fact of a miracle is the divine will being the immediate cause (causans) of what happens, even if natural causae causatae be employed. The devil may be allowed to use causas causatas in a way to deceive, by producing effects by them which, by the course of natural causes in themselves, would not happen.

The only other supposition is, that God ordered all the course of natural causes, wind, quails, etc., so as to produce, at a given moment, the miracles, say of the Red Sea, or flesh for Israel. But this is only a cumbrous miracle, making all nature work for one miracle, because then will that God should not have a will. It is, so to speak, a greater miracle than an immediate interposition, and is just as much the effect of God's particular will. The account in Exodus is much more simple and natural - states the use of natural means, "And the Lord God caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind," etc.

As with God there is no time, the difference is really nothing after all; it is an unusual effect which is the direct effect of the intervention of God. If it be said that an effect of natural causes, which never happened before nor since, was known by God to be coming, and that He brought the Israelites there, just at right place and time, it is only a more cumbrous way of accomplishing the work, and (for now intelligent purpose on God's part is recognised) God's making Moses "go through the pantomime" of lifting up his rod, etc., an explanation I should leave to the taste of those who give it.

280 A miracle is the direct intervention of God, whatever means He uses, with a purpose to be attained. An interference with nature's own course, by combining the direct interference of God in the order of nature, is what we mean by a miracle, when it is a particular intervention as a testimony.

If it be an arrangement of the moral laws themselves, to produce a particular event at a particular moment, in favour of a given people, say dividing the sea, it is, as we have seen, a cumbrous miracle; having nature as a servant is not the point at all.

A miracle that has to be proved is folly; its use is, as a proof, its own evidence, being itself to the apprehension - though other corrections may come in, as a safeguard, but not things to prove it a miracle. I do not at all accept the idea, that that which is the effect of natural laws is a miracle in the time when these laws are not known; because it then comes about by the operation of those laws, without any intervention or purpose of God. If God sets these agents in motion on the demand of an individual, or for any specific cause, there is a miracle for all times - the acting of God's will, in producing a result in power, is the essence of a miracle. It may not be suited to such or such an age - that is a matter of God's wisdom; His purpose is to reveal His judgments, and He will do that most proper for that end.

We may ask how far the devil can work miracles; I know of no limit, if God allow it (as in Egypt, etc.) in the use of natural laws or producing appearances, and they have the primary effect of miracles on those who cannot account for them. The criterion is amply given in Scripture, but beyond nature or deception they cannot go - create a louse, and Satan's instruments are at hand (Exodus 8: 16-18); natural agencies he can use, if allowed - changes to any extent as far as I know; God alone can create, or by His own will, of itself, produce or cause what is to accomplish His purpose. He disposes of nature as its Master, and does what He pleases; Satan uses power by inferior power, within the created scene, but cannot go beyond its modification, nor do it when he wills. Up to a certain point there may be the same apparent effects; but they accomplish God's purpose, even if Satan's present object be obtained by it. Jannes and Jambres helped to harden Pharaoh's heart, but it only occasioned the display of God's own power and government or judgment; Satan's are all lying wonders, even if power beyond ours be exercised.

281 The purpose of the miracle enters largely into our means of judging, if a question arises. It is essentially a power above, over, and independent of the laws of nature; Satan may have power over them, if permitted to use it, which we have not, but not above or independent of them - man's will can set aside many of them, but by the use of them; of course Satan may have much greater power - I raise my hand which would, without will, fall, but I use muscles, nerves, magnetism. I do not a bit know, none know how more than I do, how the Magicians' rods were turned into serpents to the eyes of men, only the power is comparatively to me greater, i.e., I could not do it; hence, power beyond my capacity - evident power - does not necessarily control me morally, even if I admit it to be power beyond me - I must know its author, i.e., who is its author.

True miracles must be to demonstrate God, and reveal Him in some way; if a miracle does not do that, it either produces no effect, or sets me against its author - a being who has power but is not God, in whom I confide, whose goodness I know - for a miracle is always a testimony of or to something.

Useless miracles (not useless merely to man's selfish profit - no true ones are simply such) cannot be true, i.e., miracles done which are not a testimony of God.

If power be entrusted, and be so used, as in tongues, it is to be expressed; it may be a witness of government, as in Egypt, and generally in Israel; it may be bounty, and deliverance from evil power, as the Lord's and the Apostles', but, while they are their own evidence as to power, they have always a meaning when they are divine. They bear testimony to something which God is operating; they are dunameis (powers), and terata (wonders), but they are semeia (signs). Hence, "if a sign comes to pass saying, Serve other gods," the sign is not denied as power, but it is judged as permitted, and testing evil - it is evidently not of God, save as a permitted test.

282 But while they may be confirming signs to the Word, and missions of God's servants, they are of the utmost importance as signs of a living, acting God who intervenes, and abidingly so; we profit by them, i.e., as revealing God's ways more by them now than when they were wrought. They might be convinced of them then - they may be now; but the intervention of God is more clearly seen in its character and purpose, when we have them collectively. They verify themselves a posteriori (from the latter) not merely historically, and richly inform the soul. Have the Lord's miracles no character? And note, He conferred power on others to work them - "healing all that were possessed of the devil, for God was with him."

I quite understand that one who knows mere material laws, and gives freewill to man (not morally, but will, I mean) but none to God - who is in a horrible state enough to be content with this world, or to pretend he is, for he is not - will reject any living God, any thing above these laws, because he has no idea above them; material sequence of facts is all he can apprehend - conceives no moral action on man, nor perhaps by him.

But to one who is not thus debased, a miracle is not merely a wonder, which de facto has its evidence of power to him who sees or experiences it, but has its meaning and character in the ways of God, of God intervening amongst men - Moses did not do Christ's miracles, nor Christ those of Moses; the prophets in Judea did none - Elijah and Elisha did.

When God's covenant truth was among His people, miracles were not wrought as by the prophets in Judah - they were in setting up Judaism, in a measure in re-setting up in Samuel, and when away from covenant relationship by Elijah and Elisha, i.e., when they were the needed ｅxpression of mercy and power towards His people.

No man can deny the power of God to work a miracle at any time, if we admit He works them at all, but we may learn from Him, His way and what is fitting in it; one who can compare the miracles of Popery, or even of the earlier ages, with those of the New Testament, must have lost moral instinct, and have no scripturally formed discernment. The latter were goodness going about doing good, healing all that were possessed of the devil - the sign that a Saviour God had come into the world - and never for self; Mediaeval were the gratification of self and hierarchical power - miracles of passions, and a destroyer God, if any; they were wrought where the system in which they were enacted universally prevailed, and had power and persecuted, and to sustain it, not to make good a testimony in grace where evil power prevailed - they were the opposite of all divine miracles. Christendom had, as prophesied, gone clean away from its own standing in grace.

283 Any particular miracle of goodness I would examine in the second or third century - nay, even now, what would be called miracles, but which are mere answers to prayer. For miracles were a special, personal gift - effectual prayer was open to all.

I do not deny either the credulity or the incredulity of theologians, both are man - one, imagination, the other reasoning - but neither have anything to do with faith. Witchcraft subsists, in a gentle form, to this day, and is prevalent in England; spiritualism has come in, a necessary reaction against the folly of rationalism, and its degradation of man, in pretending to exalt him. Rationalism takes reason - half, a very poor half of man, because reason can know nothing beyond itself, and yet pretends to limit all to itself; imagination takes another half, with equal folly is more liable to be deceived by Satan, because it has no measure but terror or fancy, but is more false than reason. Neither have God, or God's revelation - the truth which puts all in its place. Imagination without God opens man to every kind of delusion, and to the power of Satanic spirituality - there it works.

Man is formed to have to say to a world beyond him, he must have it without God or with Him - imagination, Satan, or the truth, that is Christ. Now rationalists do not refer to truth, and hence it is a mere question between reason and imagination - the power of the powers of darkness, if there be such, and the power of darkness if it be only reason, for that is, necessarily, the denial of all beyond man's present apprehension; and beyond that, hopes, fears, desires, cravings, imagination will go, in spite of all the rationalists in the world.

But further, the system of reasoning and argument that all is appointed beforehand excludes miracles, because if all is appointed beforehand there could be none, but they are appointed too; the only effect this argument produces in me is, the total absence of all ground and proof. It makes the present state and order of things, the best possible on choice - this as a fixed, subsisting state is monstrous. It may be the best to bring about something, and I believe it is, but to say it is the best, and is so in itself is monstrous - it would suggest, I speak with reverence, incompetency in God. It is all very well for a philosopher writing a book in his study, but for one who has visited the wretchedness of man, and felt for it, thought on the heathen, it comes like ice to the heart - it leaves out Christ and any brighter hope to which this state refers. It excludes God, but a fixed and appointed set of events, all certain beforehand, not fatalism, but brought about by free, uncompelled agents, who have an inclination calculated upon.

284 The reducing miracles to a foreseen part of all the fore-appointed events is very poor in character; they are not more miracles so than another thing, besides it is no answer, but denying miracles, because these fixed events are by causes producing them, and so all foreseen and certain beforehand. But if miracles are the effects of causes, so that with adequate knowledge we may foresee them, they are not miracles at all, for a miracle is the intervention of divine power by divine will, but a man-caused event is not that.

If it be said, a certain state of things will necessarily cause God to interfere in that way, then cause is used for motive, and the whole nature of God brought in as moved by certain states of things. Now I believe that "known unto God are all his works from the foundation of the world"; but if I am to take in all events, I must take in Christ's coming in grace, or deny it - His coming again in judgment. I must believe in the setting aside of whole systems as Judaism - a world, as by the flood. This seems to me to take the course of the world not out of the foreseen and fixed events, but of a mere succession of causes which give a certainty, as being withal the best world it could, looked at as now a result of counsel (comparing, as they say, every possibility of worlds), that all results in God's glory.

That if I had God's mind I should have done the same, that there is no doubt of, but that says nothing; but, concluding from the state of things as a course of events, I could not have concluded to the sending the Son of God to die on the cross for sinners. Now it is done, I see divine and infinite glory in it; and most surely it was determined, and a certain truth. But no divine foreknowledge could have looked at that as one of a course of events - divine wisdom could not have known it but as from itself as a source. The free act of God's love, according to wisdom, I grant - the moment I get the acting of God, I get not merely foreseen events and disposing things, but a will. I am sure what God does is the very best, but I cannot take it as a deduction but as the fruit of will.

Law

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Law is an imposed rule. But there is a difference, a law imposed on material objects which have no will - they go on without will, i.e., in themselves, in the manner imposed upon them; where there is a will the law is outside it, even if the will coincides with it, and it is obligatory, even if the will resists, if there is authority to impose it. It does not follow that it is arbitrary, because it may be the perfect rule of the relations in which the person bound by its exists. But further, the constant action of motive will is not inconsistent with an imposed rule; nay, more, that law or imposed rule may exist where the motive will only is in operation, when external power acts. I have a tube, so and so perforated, or a stringed instrument, so and so tuned; if I play, it gives necessarily, being so tuned, a given sound, but gives no sound at all if power from without does not move it. But matter does not move of itself, without something we call "force." It is moved; this force, therefore, must always act, otherwise the constancy of action, i.e., the law, is not there.

I am aware it is held by physicists, that motion once imparted, goes on (save resistance), but this is only mystification; what makes it do so? It is force - let it turn to heat or anything you please; it is a force producing an effect, which is not in the matter, as it may act differently on it - move, produce heat, light, etc.

Nature is the property or quality of any being or thing; His nature and His name is Love - man has a depraved nature - it is the nature of iron to rust linen. "Natural" is somewhat different, it is used for the sequence of the property or quality, in relationship with other things, which, when constant, we call a law; how it has it has nothing to do with what the word means - but in fact, we only know that sequence experimentally, this, experience gives us the knowledge of - what is natural.

Testimony is another source of knowledge, and, in moral things, conscience, but in what is subject to man (testimony may reveal what is not, conscience has nothing to do with it). We learn what is natural by experience, because the constancy of sequence is only so known by human knowledge - that is Science; God even has been pleased so to subject Himself, not to mind, but to human knowledge - not a law, or sequence, any such inference may fail - "hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us"; so that law, or an imposed uniform rule, is only so known.

287 In this sense, what is supernatural is not knowable, is unthinkable. We cannot know a priori the nature of a thing - they say Adam did in giving names - at any rate we do not. But that there are other sources of knowledge is evident; there is testimony, not to what is law, or must be according to nature while it subsists - for I cannot say it always will - but to facts, which may be more important than sequence by a law; that my father died yesterday, though according to a law of nature, I know by testimony, not by the law that produced it.

Knowledge of what must be, if nature continues as it is, or as long as it does, cannot be separated from law; calling it a law is that knowledge - the knowledge of constancy of sequence. Hence, saying a thing beyond the natural is unthinkable, is tautology, merely repeating that, what is natural is natural, i.e., a constant sequence, whose constancy is known by observing it, and is only true, assuming that it continues; sufficient for ordinary purposes of life, but not real knowledge. In fact, Science, it appears, shows the contrary - that the state of things carries its dissolution with it, as it proves a beginning. But this kind of knowledge cannot apply where will is exercised. I may judge how a person will act, from long acquaintance with him probably pretty certainly, if my apprehension is at the height of his nature morally, not otherwise, i.e., consciousness of what it is in myself, makes me know how it will work in him; but that is not in knowledge, save in abstract as to perfect nature, when I am competent to estimate the perfection. But per se, knowledge cannot judge of will, and to say will does not exist is folly; it can judge of motives, or nature which operate in producing a positive action of will, but it cannot, by experience, judge of what is not yet in operation.

Now I admit that God acts from nature, but then I must have the power to apprehend that nature, and therefore possess it - "he that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love" - man acts from motives; one has a Sovereign will, in which, however, He acts from His own nature; man, under influences; matter, by its given nature or imposed influences. Knowledge and the facts or state of things are confounded. As far as I know it, I know how God will act, from His nature - this known by testimony and facts - though by His dwelling in us by the Christian - I know how man will act, who has a will subordinated, by knowing his motives as far as I do so - I know how matter will act, which has no will, by fixed laws which govern it, which therefore, as far as exact knowledge goes, is, assuming its continuance, certain, because there is no will.

288 Science knows, alone knows, this lowest kind of knowledge - the sequence of facts where there is no will; all else is unknowable to it, because it is necessarily for man thinkable, flowing from the natural conclusion innate in man, and necessary to govern his conduct naturally, i.e., in material things (but no further) - that, if one thing has followed another ten times, it will the eleventh, I conclude to a law of nature from natural effects, but it is only a conclusion thinkable - practical, not absolute certainty; quite sufficient for action, but no absolute certainty - that is only by testimony, assuming the testimony to be absolutely true. It is not the question whether it cannot be false, but of the nature of the certainty. If true, it is absolutely true, there is no thinkableness nor conclusion about it.

Reason tells me what must be, testimony what is, hence reason can never go beyond the scope of its own powers, never really tells me what is, never gives me certainty. It is not its business to tell me what is, but from what is to draw a conclusion, necessarily, consequently, within the limit of its own powers. It cannot say yes or no beyond them. Miracles have nothing to do with the use of means or not, the character of the miracle may. Where will puts the powers of nature in motion when they would not be, or in a way they would not otherwise be, by divine will, there is a miracle, as dividing the Red Sea. Jehovah sent a strong east wind. That was a miracle (assuming the fact on testimony, we speak of its nature). The resurrection of the Lord, again a fact resting on testimony - here was no use of natural means, but experimental knowledge upset by a fact, not denying the general law of death, but reversing it in the fact, but a fact which confirmed the law; but was no law at all.

Miracle is God's intervention as above and independent of law. Man acts by will, but is not independent, or above it - hence his action is not supernatural, is not a miracle, though his will acts independently in it as will; he can use natural means by will, as subject to the laws that govern them, above their own experimental action when there is no will, not by the known divine machinery of nature going on, but set in motion by his will, on which therefore I cannot count as a necessary consequence; I melt iron, set wood on fire - the sequence of that is a natural law, but I set in motion the quality or activity in the given instance; I raise my hand - but there is no natural sequence of hand-raising, only that when will so acts, the consequence will follow - how, we cannot say, further than material means. Bushnell's definition: "a process from itself according to a uniform law," though nearest the mark is, I think, fatally wrong in the word "from" - say "within" only, and it is right then; also "by mere nature could not" is defective, read "by mere nature would not."

289 The unbeliever rejects the intervention of God, His will being at work above all means, even if He work by them - he would no more believe God's immediate will divided the Red Sea, than that the blessed Lord rose from the dead. It is God's intervention of His own will, that unbelief does not like; because it does not like God, and would exalt man, whom he reduces to the very lowest kind of knowledge, and that abstractedly uncertain, for reason knows no facts, but draws conclusions.

As to mathematics, there is no conclusion really from reasoning, but the ascertainment of facts. The demonstration that certain forms or ｅxpression of quantity are equal or not - equivalent in value; there is no law in the matter, no sequence, nothing to experiment.

Revelation deals with nothing subject to law, nor of its reign. Revelation is of facts, or it may be nature; certain things follow necessarily but not as by a law. It deals with conscience and heart, putting God in His place - not with reason at all, in its nature it does not. Of the power of reason as absolutely incapable of knowing God I have spoken elsewhere; here I speak of the nature of revelation, that it deals with facts, reveals them, not with reasoning - it is testimony.

The mere fact that the revealed thing does not come in any sequence or law, proves nothing, because the assumption that nothing can be but what I know by experience is perfectly groundless. Admitting all in the system, subject to reason, to be governed by law, that cannot prove there is nothing outside it - that is not a subject of reasoning, but of testimony.

290 This is the glory of the resurrection, that it stands out a matter of pure power, and no sequence of any thing, nor by any law. This may be added. How far is there a reign of law in moral things? There can be none; in consequence of moral things - government - there may be. I may see that to a certain course of conduct consequences are attached, but, in itself, each moral act is by itself, acting up to or inconsistently with the relationships in which we stand, or allowing will or lusts to govern us; it may have sequences in government, but the act is what it is, without anything to do with what follows.

As to revealed things, if we had absolutely the mind and nature of God, the things revealed to us might be known as necessarily flowing from that nature. But this is not the reign of law, but the moral fruit of a nature which acts spontaneously, according to itself, and cannot be known experimentally until learned, and then not as a law but as acts which display it. But to know this a priori would be to be God, to have the nature and being, and there is but God who is God; when He has acted we learn what He is by it, if our eye is morally open; and if I have learned His ways in part as we may, it is not a sequence of cause and effect in the creature, but the ｅxpression of a nature which expresses itself, morally by will (the reign of law is without will) or by motives which govern it.

The actings of a living nature, which expresses itself, are spontaneous, or do not express the nature. There are in creatures passions which may be roused by what acts on them, as fierce anger or passion as it is therefore called, a kind of emotion of spontaneity and subjection to external excitement.

Christianity rests specifically, while recognising the reign of law in its own sphere, on that which is outside and above it - the resurrection, i.e., the natural reign of law. It was morally impossible that Christ could be left under the power of death; he who believes He was the Son of God knows He could not be holden of it. But when I say "morally," it takes it out of the category of natural sequences, and means impossible, God being what He is, and Christ what He was.

As to Creation, it is a matter of testimony - we cannot really conceive a form existing without a maker; but we cannot conceive now, for if we could it would not be creation - productive means would exist which correspond to the capacity of my nature, which is not that of a creator, ex nihilo nihil fit (out of nothing nothing comes) only expresses the extent of human capacity, both intrinsic and experimental - of this I have spoken elsewhere. Not the idea, which is nowhere right naturally, but the consciousness of God is everywhere in man; as to ideas, what proves there must be a Creator, proves we can have no idea of Him - we cannot tell what creation is, or it would not be creation, and as the reign of law applies to the order of what is, what is objectively thinkable cannot apply to creation, which as an idea is not thinkable as to what, though necessary to formal being, which is thinkable, i.e., subject to reason. Creation, i.e., what is created is thinkable; creating is not. The causa causata of schoolmen is law; causa causans is God.