Freedom of the Will

Author’s Preface

Many people strongly object to giving distinct names to professing Christians who differ in matters of opinion. They object especially to naming them after particular men who have distinguished themselves by defending and promoting those opinions: calling some Arminians after Arminius, others Arians after Arius, others Socinians after Socinus, and so on. They consider this unjust because it seems to suggest that the people given these names have accepted their doctrines out of regard for, and reliance on, the men whose names they bear. It makes those men appear to be their standard, just as Christ’s followers are called Christians after him because they regard and depend on him as their great Head and standard.

Yet this, they say, is an unjust and groundless charge against those who bear these names. There is no reason to suppose that the leading theologians who accept the system many call Arminianism believe it any more firmly because Arminius believed it. We have every reason to think that they sincerely and impartially study the Holy Scriptures and seek to know the mind of Christ, with as much judgment and sincerity as those who give them these names. They seek the truth without concern about whether they think exactly as Arminius did; indeed, they actually differ from him on some points.

This practice is also considered harmful because it naturally leads people to imagine that the difference between those given such names and others is greater than it really is, as though they were almost a different species of beings. Its critics object that it springs from an uncharitable, narrow spirit. Such a spirit, they say, commonly leads people to confine everything good to themselves and their own party, draw a wide distinction between themselves and others, and stigmatize those who differ from them with hateful names. They add that maintaining these distinctions in name directly promotes distance and hostility. It keeps mutual hatred alive among Christians, who ought to be united in friendship and love even though they cannot agree on everything.

I admit that these arguments are very plausible. I do not deny that distinguishing people by these names has some unfortunate consequences, or that human weaknesses and evil dispositions often turn the practice to bad use. Still, I humbly think these objections go far beyond what is reasonable. People in general are quite inclined, and far too inclined, to be uncharitable, judgmental, and bitter toward those who differ from them in religious opinion. This evil disposition will find opportunities to express itself through many things that are innocent, useful, and necessary in themselves.

Yet we need not suppose that distinguishing people of different opinions by different names arises chiefly from an uncharitable spirit. It may arise from the human inclination to make good use of language. God has given us both the ability and the inclination to speak, and names serve their proper purpose when they let us express our thoughts quickly and easily about things we often need to discuss, without obscure and cumbersome descriptions. Distinguishing people who hold different religious opinions may imply no more than that a difference exists and that we often have occasion to notice and mention it. Whatever gives us frequent occasion to speak about something, that thing needs a name. In such cases, having to use a description instead of a name is always a deficiency in language.

For example, we often need to speak of the descendants of the ancient inhabitants of France, who are subjects or rulers of that country and speak its language, in distinction from the descendants of the inhabitants of Spain, who belong to that community and speak its language. We therefore find a great need for distinct names for these different peoples. The distinguishing words French and Spaniards are very convenient. They let us express our thoughts quickly and easily, freeing our speech from the burden of continually repeating the lengthy descriptions that would otherwise encumber it.

The practice of those who generally agree with Arminius itself acknowledges that we often need to discuss the differences between their theological system and that of those who generally agree with Calvin. In their speeches and writings, they frequently draw attention to what they consider the absurd and harmful opinions of the latter group. Using different names in this case therefore cannot reasonably be condemned as necessarily arising from the bad motive they assign to it. The practice is easily explained by the needs and natural tendencies of the situation. God has given people the ability and inclination to express things they often need to mention by using distinct names. We see similar effects in countless parallel cases where the cause deserves no blame at all.

Nevertheless, I first considered carefully avoiding the name Arminian in this treatise. I soon found, however, that doing so would create great difficulty. My discussion would be burdened by continually repeating a lengthy description in place of a name that expressed the intended meaning just as well, or better. I therefore changed my intention. I must ask those who are easily offended by such things to excuse my free use of Arminian in the discussion that follows. I declare that I have no intention of stigmatizing any group with a reproachful name or making them appear more hateful.

If, when speaking of theologians commonly called by this name, I had called them these men instead of Arminians, as Dr. Whitby does when speaking of Calvinistic theologians, it probably would have been received no better. Nor would it have been thought to show a better spirit or better manners. In this matter I have treated others as I would wish to be treated. Although most people today consider Calvinistic a more reproachful term than Arminian, I would take no offense at being called a Calvinist for the sake of distinction. I utterly disclaim any dependence on Calvin, or any belief in the doctrines I hold because he believed and taught them. Nor can I justly be charged with believing everything exactly as he taught it.

To avoid actually wronging anyone, however, I wish to make this clear. Although I generally call the doctrine of free will and moral agency that I oppose an Arminian doctrine, I do not mean that every theologian or author I mention as maintaining it was properly an Arminian, or belonged to the group commonly known by that name. Some went far beyond Arminians. I would by no means charge Arminians in general with all the corrupt doctrines these men maintained. It would be very unjust, for instance, to place Arminian theologians in general in the same category as authors such as Mr. Chubb. I have no doubt that many of them abhor some of his doctrines, although he agrees for the most part with Arminians in his understanding of freedom of the will.

On the other hand, although I regard this understanding as a leading article of the Arminian system, one whose consequences, if followed through, truly imply or naturally lead to all the rest, I do not charge everyone who has held it with being an Arminian. Whatever the doctrine’s actual consequences may be, some who hold it may neither acknowledge nor see them. In many cases it would be unjust to charge an author with believing and maintaining every actual consequence of the doctrines he openly professes.

I especially ask readers to notice that I often have occasion in the following discussion to mention the author of An Essay on the Freedom of the Will, in God and the Creature as holding the view of freedom of the will that I oppose. I do not mean to call him an Arminian, although on this doctrine he agrees with Arminians and departs from the prevailing general opinion of Calvinists. If the essay’s author is the person to whom it is commonly attributed, he certainly was not someone who ought to bear that name. However good a theologian he was in many respects, this particular Arminian doctrine is no better because such a man held it. Nor does that make opposition to it less necessary. Rather, if the doctrine is wrong and harmful in its own tendency, opposition becomes more necessary, since the name and character of the theologian teaching it are likely to make its harmful influence greater.

I have nothing further to add by way of preface except to ask readers to approach what I have written fairly and with calm attention. The subject is important enough to demand attention and the most thorough consideration. Of all the kinds of knowledge we can obtain, knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves are the most important. Religion is the great task for which we were created, and our happiness depends on it. It consists in a relationship between ourselves and our Maker, and therefore rests on God’s nature, our own nature, and the relation in which we stand to each other. True religion therefore requires a true knowledge of both.

Knowledge of ourselves consists chiefly in a right understanding of the two principal faculties of our nature, the understanding and the will. Both are very important. Yet the study of the latter must be acknowledged as the more important, because virtue and religion have their more immediate seat in the will. They consist especially in the right acts and habits of this faculty. The great question of freedom of the will is the central issue in the study of the will. The subject’s importance therefore greatly demands the attention of Christians, especially theologians.

As for my way of treating the subject, however, I would not presume to say that it demands readers’ attention to what I have written. I readily admit that in this respect I depend on their courtesy. I may have some grounds for making a claim only this far: if readers are inclined to criticize what I have written, I should be heard fully and patiently, with careful attention, before being condemned. This is what I humbly ask of my readers. I also ask all sincere lovers of truth to pray that I may have much of that spirit which Christ promised his disciples, which guides into all truth, and that the blessed and powerful influence of this spirit may make truth victorious in the world!

Part 1: The Will and Its Principal Terms

1. The Nature of the Will

It may seem unnecessary to define or describe the will, since this word is generally as well understood as any words we might use to explain it. Perhaps that would be true if philosophers, metaphysicians, and theologians engaged in controversy had not obscured the subject by what they have said about it. Since they have, I think a few observations may be useful and make the following discussion clearer.

Without entering into fine metaphysical distinctions, the will is simply that by which the mind chooses anything. The faculty of the will is the faculty, power, or principle of the mind that enables it to choose. An act of the will is the same as an act of choosing, or choice.

If anyone considers it a more complete definition to say that the will is that by which the soul either chooses or refuses, I am content with that. Still, I think it is enough to say that it is that by which the soul chooses. In every act of will, the mind chooses one thing rather than another. It chooses something rather than its opposite, or rather than its absence or nonexistence.

In every act of refusal, then, the mind chooses the absence of the thing refused. The positive and the negative are presented to the mind for its choice, and it chooses the negative. The mind’s choosing in that case is properly an act of the will. The will’s decision between the two is a voluntary decision, but that is the same as making a choice. Whatever names we give an act of the will, whether choosing, refusing, approving, disapproving, liking, disliking, embracing, rejecting, deciding, directing, commanding, forbidding, inclining, or being averse, pleased, or displeased, they can all be reduced to choosing. For the soul to act voluntarily is always to act by choice.

Mr. Locke says, “The will signifies nothing but a power or ability to prefer or choose.” Earlier he says, “The word preferring seems best to express the act of volition.” But he adds that “it does not precisely; for (says he) though a man would prefer flying to walking, yet who can say he ever wills it?”

The example he gives does not prove that willing involves anything beyond preferring. We must consider the nearest and immediate object of the will when a man walks or performs any other outward action. It is not his movement from one place to another, whether along the earth or through the air. These are more distant objects of preference. The immediate object is a particular exertion of his own powers. When a man wills to walk, what he immediately chooses or prefers is not being transported to the place where he wishes to be. It is a particular exertion and movement of his legs and feet, and so on, in order to reach it. His willing a particular change in his body at the present moment is simply his choosing or preferring that change at that moment, or liking it better than refraining from it.

God has so made and established human nature that, when the soul is united to a body in a suitable condition, its preference or choice for such an immediate exertion or change in the body is instantly followed by that change. While I walk, I am conscious of nothing else in my mind’s activity beyond my preference or choice, from moment to moment, for particular changes in my outward sensations and movements. Along with this, I have a habitual expectation that they will occur. Experience has always shown me that these sensations and movements actually arise immediately and consistently upon such an immediate preference.

Flying is different. A man may be said to choose or prefer flying as a distant object. Yet, in the circumstances he has in view, he does not choose or prefer, feel inclined toward, or desire any immediate exertion of his bodily members to achieve it. He has no expectation that any such exertion will achieve the desired end. When he understands that a bodily exertion or effort would be entirely fruitless, he neither prefers it nor feels inclined toward it.

If we carefully distinguish the proper objects of the several acts of the will, this and similar examples therefore show no difference between volition and preference. They do not show that choosing something, liking it best, or being most pleased with it differs from willing it. These seem to be the same according to the general and more natural understandings on which human language is formed. Thus, people commonly express an act of will by saying that it pleases a man to do this or that. In ordinary speech, doing as one wills and doing as one pleases mean the same thing.

Mr. Locke says, “The will is perfectly distinguished from desire; which in the very same action may have a quite contrary tendency from that which our wills lead us to. A man (says he) whom I cannot refuse, may oblige me to use persuasions to another, which at the same time I am speaking, I may wish may not prevail on him. In this case it is plain the will and desire run counter.”

I do not suppose that will and desire mean precisely the same thing. Will seems to have a more general meaning, extending to both present and absent things. Desire concerns something absent. I may prefer my present situation or posture, such as sitting still or having my eyes open, and thus may will it. Yet I cannot think the two are so entirely distinct that they can ever properly be said to run counter to each other. A man never wills anything contrary to his desire, or desires anything contrary to his will.

Locke’s example does not prove otherwise. For some reason or other, a man may will to speak words that tend to persuade another person, while still desiring that they should not persuade him. Yet his will and desire do not conflict at all. He desires the very thing he wills. In no particular respect does he will something and desire its opposite. The example does not carefully distinguish the thing willed from the thing desired. If it did, we would find no conflict whatever between will and desire.

What the man wills, for some reason, is to speak those words. Certainly that same reason influences him so that he does not desire the opposite. All things considered, he chooses to speak the words and does not desire to refrain from speaking them. As for what Locke describes as desired, namely, that the words should not achieve their persuasive purpose, the man’s will is not opposed to this. He does not will that they should succeed. Rather, he wills that they should not, just as he desires.

To prove that will and desire can run counter to each other, we would need to show that they can oppose each other concerning the same thing, or the very same object of will or desire. Here, however, there are two objects, and will and desire agree concerning each one taken separately. It is no wonder that they should differ concerning different things, however little they differ in their nature. Will may disagree with will, and desire with desire, concerning different things.

In this very example from Locke, a person may, for some reason, desire to make persuasive arguments and at the same time desire that they should not succeed. Yet no one would say that desire runs counter to desire, or that this proves desire to be an entirely distinct thing from desire. The same observation applies to Locke’s other example of a man’s desiring relief from pain, and so on.

I will not dwell any longer on whether desire and will, or preference and volition, are precisely the same thing. I trust everyone will allow, however, that every act of will includes an act of choice. Every volition includes a preference, or a prevailing inclination of the soul, by which the soul at that moment is not in a state of perfect indifference toward the direct object of the volition. In every act or exercise of the will, then, the mind or inclination leans in one direction rather than another. The soul would rather have or do one thing than another, or than not have or do that thing. Where there is absolutely no preferring or choosing, but a continuing state of perfect balance, there is no volition.

2. What Determines the Will

If the phrase determining the will has any meaning, it must mean causing the act of will, or choice, to be one way rather than another. The will is said to be determined when some action or influence directs its choice toward a particular object and fixes it there. Similarly, when we speak of determining a motion, we mean causing a body to move in one way or direction rather than another.

To speak of the will’s determination is to suppose an effect that must have a cause. If the will is determined, something determines it. Even those who say that the will determines itself must mean this. If their claim is true, the will both determines and is determined. It is a cause that acts on itself and produces effects in itself, as well as the object of its own influence and action.

As for the great question, What determines the will?, it would be tedious and unnecessary at present to list and examine all the opinions advanced on this subject. Nor do I need to investigate every point debated in disputes about whether the will always follows the understanding’s final direction. For my present purpose, it is enough to say: The will is determined by the motive that is strongest as the mind views it. But I may need to explain a little what I mean.

By motive, I mean everything that moves, stimulates, or invites the mind to an act of will, whether it is one thing alone or several things together. Many particular things may combine their strength to move the mind. When they do, together they form, as it were, one complex motive. When I speak of the strongest motive, I mean the strength of everything operating to induce a particular act of will, whether that strength belongs to one thing alone or to several together.

Anything that is a motive in this sense must be present to the understanding, or faculty of perception. Nothing can induce or invite the mind to will or do anything except insofar as it is perceived or in some way comes into the mind’s view. What is wholly unperceived and entirely outside the mind’s view cannot affect the mind at all. Clearly, nothing can be in the mind, reach it, or take hold of it except by being perceived or thought of.

I think everyone must also acknowledge that anything properly called a motive, stimulus, or inducement for an agent who perceives and wills has some degree of tendency, or power, to move or stimulate the will before the effect occurs, before the act of will is produced. This prior tendency is what I call the strength of the motive. A motive with less prior power or tendency to move the will, or one that appears less inviting as the mind views it, is what I call a weaker motive. Conversely, what appears most inviting, and has the greatest prior tendency to stimulate and induce choice because of what the understanding perceives about it, is what I call the strongest motive. In this sense, I hold that the will is always determined by the strongest motive.

Things present to the mind derive their strength, tendency, or power to move its will from many features of the nature and circumstances of the thing viewed, the nature and circumstances of the mind viewing it, and the degree and manner of its view. It might be difficult to give a complete account of these features. But I think we can establish this much in general without controversy: whatever an intelligent, willing agent perceives that has the nature and influence of a motive to an act of will or choice is viewed as good. It has no tendency to invite or engage the soul’s choice beyond the degree to which it appears good.

To say otherwise would mean that things, through the appearance they present, tend to make the mind choose them in some way other than by appearing worth choosing. That is absurd. Therefore, in some sense, the will always accords with the greatest apparent good. But to understand this correctly, we must observe two things carefully and distinctly.

1. The Meaning of Good. We must observe the sense in which I use the term good: it has the same meaning as agreeable. As I use the phrase, to appear good to the mind means to appear agreeable, or to seem pleasing, to it. Certainly, nothing appears inviting or worth choosing, or tends to engage the mind’s inclination and choice, when it is considered evil or disagreeable. Nor does it do so when considered indifferent, neither agreeable nor disagreeable. If something draws the inclination and moves the will, it must be viewed as something that suits the mind.

Therefore, what has the greatest tendency to attract and engage the mind must be what suits it best and pleases it most as it views the thing. In that sense, this is the greatest apparent good. To say otherwise is little, if anything, short of a direct and plain contradiction.

The word good, in this sense, includes removing or avoiding evil, or anything disagreeable and distressing. Avoiding what is disagreeable and displeasing, and removing uneasiness, is agreeable and pleasing. This includes what Locke supposes determines the will. When he speaks of uneasiness as determining the will, we must understand him to suppose that the end or aim governing the act of will, or preference, is to avoid or remove that uneasiness. This is the same as choosing and seeking what is more comfortable and agreeable.

2. The Immediate Object of Choice. When I say that the will accords with the greatest apparent good, or, as I have explained it, that an act of will always has as its object what appears most agreeable, we must carefully observe something to avoid confusion and needless objections. I am speaking of the direct and immediate object of the act of will, rather than an object to which it relates only indirectly and remotely.

Many acts of will have some remote relation to an object different from what is most immediately willed and chosen. For example, when a drunkard has liquor before him and must choose whether to drink it, the actual, immediate objects of his present act of will are his own actions: drinking the liquor or leaving it alone. His choice now decides between these, and it will certainly follow what is most agreeable to him in the whole of his mind’s present view. If he chooses or wills to drink rather than leave it alone, that action, with everything belonging to its appearance in his mind, is more agreeable and pleasing to him than leaving it alone.

But the objects to which this act of will may relate more remotely, and between which his choice may decide more indirectly, are the present pleasure he expects from drinking and the future misery he judges will result. He may judge that this future misery, when it comes, will be more disagreeable and unpleasant than refraining from drinking would be now. Yet these two things are not the immediate objects of the act of will in question. That act concerns drinking now or refraining from drinking.

If he wills to drink, drinking is the actual object of his act of will. For some reason or other, drinking now appears most agreeable to him and suits him best. If he chooses to refrain, refraining is the immediate object of his will and is most pleasing to him. If his choice prefers a present pleasure to a future benefit that he judges will be greater when it comes, then a smaller present pleasure appears more agreeable to him than a greater benefit at a distance. If, instead, he prefers a future benefit, that appears most agreeable and suits him best. Thus, in every case, his present act of will accords with the greatest apparent good at present.

I have chosen to express myself by saying the will always accords with the greatest apparent good, or with what appears most agreeable, rather than saying the will is determined by the greatest apparent good, or by what seems most agreeable. This is because appearing most agreeable or pleasing to the mind, and the mind’s preferring and choosing, seem hardly to be properly and completely distinct. If we insist on strict precision in language, it may be more accurate to say that the voluntary action, which immediately follows from the mind’s act of will or choice, is determined by what appears most agreeable, rather than saying this about the preference or choice itself.

But the act of will itself is always determined by whatever, in or about the mind’s view of the object, causes it to appear most agreeable. I say in or about the mind’s view because what makes an object agreeable is not only what appears in the object viewed. It also includes the manner in which it is viewed, and the state and circumstances of the mind viewing it. To list every feature of the mind’s view of the objects of its will that influences their agreeableness would be very difficult. It might require a treatise of its own and is unnecessary for my present purpose. I will therefore mention only some general points.

I. The Object’s Apparent Nature and Circumstances

One thing that makes an object offered for choice agreeable is its apparent nature and circumstances. Various features of this kind help make the object more or less agreeable.

1. What appears in the object that makes it beautiful and pleasant, or ugly and burdensome, to the mind viewing it in itself.

2. The apparent degree of pleasure or distress accompanying the object or resulting from it. When these accompanying features and consequences are viewed as circumstances of the object, we must consider them as belonging to it. They are, as it were, parts of the object as it appears to the mind as something to choose.

3. The apparent nearness or remoteness in time of the pleasure or distress in view. It is in itself agreeable to the mind to have pleasure soon and disagreeable to have it delayed. Thus, if two equal degrees of pleasure appear to the mind, and everything else is equal except that one is viewed as near and the other as far off, the nearer will appear most agreeable and will be chosen. Although the objects are exactly equal in agreeableness when viewed in themselves, they are not equal when viewed in their circumstances. One has the additional agreeableness of being near.

II. The Manner in Which the Object Is Viewed

Another thing that contributes to an object’s agreeableness as it appears to the mind for choice is the manner in which it is viewed. If the object appears connected with future pleasure, the degree of apparent pleasure is not the only influence. The way it is viewed also matters, especially in two respects.

1. The degree of judgment, or firmness of assent, with which the mind judges that the pleasure will occur. It is more agreeable to have certain happiness than uncertain happiness. With everything else equal, pleasure viewed as more probable is more agreeable to the mind than pleasure viewed as less probable.

2. The degree of the idea of future pleasure. Among the things we think about, whether past, present, or future, we have a much fuller idea or apprehension of some than of others. Our idea of them is much clearer, more vivid, and stronger. Thus, our ideas of things perceived through the senses are usually much more vivid when we sense them directly than when we merely imagine them or contemplate them in their absence. My idea of the sun is more vivid when I look at it than when I only think of it. Our idea of the sweet flavor of a delicious fruit is usually stronger when we taste it than when we merely imagine it.

Sometimes, too, our ideas of things we contemplate are much stronger and clearer than at other times. For example, at one time a man has a much stronger idea of the pleasure of eating a food he loves than he does at another. Now, the degree or strength of people’s idea or sense of future good or evil greatly influences their minds in stimulating choice or an act of will.

Suppose the mind considers two kinds of future pleasure presented for choice. Its judgment regards them as exactly equal, both are equally certain, and everything else is equal, except that the mind has a much more vivid sense of one than of the other. The former has a far greater power to affect and attract the mind and move the will. It is now more agreeable to the mind to take the pleasure of which it has a strong and vivid sense than the one of which it has only a faint idea. Its view of the former is accompanied by the strongest appetite, and lacking that pleasure brings the greatest uneasiness. Removing uneasiness and satisfying its appetite is agreeable to the mind.

Suppose, instead, that several future enjoyments are presented together as competitors for the mind’s choice. It judges some to be greater and others smaller. It also has a fuller sense and more vivid idea of the good in some, and a fainter one of the good in others. Some appear more certain or probable than others. The enjoyments that appear most agreeable in one respect appear least agreeable in others. In this case, with everything else equal, the agreeableness of an object offered for choice will depend on some combination of the degree of good the judgment supposes it contains, that good’s apparent probability or certainty, and the fullness or vividness of the mind’s view, sense, or idea of that good. All these together determine the degree to which the object now appears agreeable, and the act of will will be determined accordingly.

I might further observe that the state of the mind viewing an object offered for choice is another thing contributing to that object’s agreeableness or disagreeableness. This includes the mind’s particular disposition, whether natural or introduced and established by education, example, habit, or some other means. It also includes the frame or state of mind on a particular occasion. An object that appears agreeable to one person does not appear so to another. Nor does the same object always appear equally agreeable to the same person at different times.

Some people find it most agreeable to follow their reason, others to follow their appetites. Some find it more agreeable to resist a vicious inclination than to gratify it; others find it most suitable to gratify the vilest appetites. Acting against a previous resolution is more disagreeable to some than to others. In these and many other respects that could be mentioned, different things will be most agreeable to different people, and even to the same people at different times.

But perhaps it is unnecessary and inappropriate to mention the mind’s frame and state as a basis for the agreeableness of objects distinct from the two already mentioned: the apparent nature and circumstances of the objects viewed, and the manner in which they are viewed. If we consider the matter strictly, perhaps differences in the mind’s disposition and state change the agreeableness of objects only by changing how the objects themselves appear: more or less beautiful or ugly, and accompanied by apparent pleasure or pain. They also change the way the objects are viewed, making the idea of beauty or ugliness, pleasure or uneasiness, more or less vivid.