Will, freedom of the

WILL, FREEDOM OF THE

I. Biblical	Medieval Catholicism �4	III. Analysis of the problem
II. Historical	The Reformation Period �5	The Nature of Freedom �1
Classical Antiquity �1	Modern Philosophy �6	The Avoidability of Sin �2
Greek Patristics �2	The Nineteenth Century �7	Omniscience and Freedom �3
Latin Patristics; Pelagian Controversy � 3		IV. Supplement

I Biblical: The Old Testament as a Biblical theological basis is favorable to the assumption of the freedom of the human will. The will of God always appeals to the autonomy of man. Nothing happens without the divine will (Job vii 17-21; Isa. xlv 17-21; Jer. x 23, xxxi 18); . on the other hand, the autonomous decision of the human will, whether in relation to enticing sin (Gen. iv 7) or to grace (Jer. xxix 13-14), is asserted more frequently and positively. The law makes its appeal to free choice (Deut. xxx 15 sqq.); the relation of man and God adapts itself to the free inclination of the human heart (Pa. xviii 26-29). In view of this parallelism striking antitheses and paradoxical symbolisms are inevitable (Ex. xxxiv 6-7; Hos. xiii; cf. Deut. xxx, xxxi; Jer. xviii). The tradition of the Mosaic idea of hereditary guilt gives way to that of personal accountability (Jer. xxxi; Ezek. xviii). A distinction between hereditary guilt and original sin would not resolve the contradiction: because (1) it would exceed the simple Old-Testament representation; (2) the same figures applied to ordinary human weaknesses are also referred to man's proneness to sin; (3) a development of the idea of freedom appears in prophecy (Isa. xxix, xlv; Jer. xviii). Western thought first laid open the logical alternative between these two trains of religious and ethical thought aeries, which lie in the Old Testament in embryo: Is the good such because God wills it or vice versa? (Plato.) Must man will the good because God works within him to do so? (Augustine.) Or, is the willing of man good because of voluntary adaptation to the divine will? (Duns Scotus.) This dilemma gave rise to a theological antinomy and became the principal point of controversy between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants; and the cleavage was present already between the free-will Sadducees, the deterministic Essenes, and the Pharisees holding to a general dependence upon divine omnipotence, with free choice to the individual. The synoptical discourses of Jesus emphasize sometimes the moral freedom of the individual (Matt. vii 24, xii 27, 37, xix 14, xxiii 37); at other times the causal connection of character with education, heredity, or divine descent (Matt. xii 34, xv 13, xviii 7, xxiii 32). Paul, too, emphasizes the idea of freedom. Although everything good, especially forgiveness, is a gift of God and sanctification the work of God, yet there is the direct appeal (Rom. vi 12); damnation is just (iii 7-8), and every one is accountable (II Cor. v 10). To the contrary is the fact of experience that conduct does not result from perception of the good and corresponding willing (Rom. vii 20; Gal. v 17) ; much less may the natural man sold under sin (Rom. vii 14) be called free (vii 23, viii 7). Grace has broken the bond of sin (vi 18), but the new state is another servitude (vi 19), and God performed the act of transformation (iii 21 sqq.; Eph. ii 8). The descent of sin according to the law may be traced back to the progenitor of the race (Rom. v 12 sqq.), and the growth of sin falls into unison with the purpose of grace (v 20-21). Formal freedom may seem implied at least for the reason (vii 16); but free deliberation is expressly denied the arbitrament (iii 19, ix 20; II Cor. x 5); and beside the duality of "mind" and "flesh", is pictured the monism of the absolute dependence on God (Rom. xi 32). The contrast is yet sharper in the Johannine writings. The knowledge of truth and the reception of eternal life depend on the will of the individual (John v 40, vii 17; cf. viii 45-46). I John betrays a strong undertone sounding an appeal to faithfulness and brotherly love, and casually calls for the duty of self-sacrifice (iii 16). On the other hand, the Christian state of grace appears so exclusively the work of divine omnipotence that the believer is designated as the offspring of God, as the product of a divine "seed," even incapable of sinning (iii 9, iv 4-5).. The Gospel, too, teaches this dualism (viii 34, 44, 47). God wills the salvation of all men (II Pet, iii 9), and voluntary surrender to corruption results in the inevitable doom (ii 9). On the other side, unbelievers are appointed to stumble (I Pet. ii 8). The New-Testament doctrine teaches freedom as well as constraint. There is no theoretical contradiction, since there is no thematic discussion, but a multiplicity of particular expressions bear upon the various sides of the problem in the vivid, Oriental symbolical fashion. The individual is now God's planting, offspring, elect, and now self-determining: partly fundamentally one with God, and partly distinct and different. Dualism applies now to the antithesis of God and man, now of God and Satan, and again of good and evil. The only difference between the Old and New Testaments is that in the latter the duty of moral volition and the sense of natural impotence have been intensified (Mark xiii 37; I Cor. xvi 13; Gal. v; Rom. vii).

II. Historical: �1 The Old Hellenic theory of the will was predominantly deterministic, partly in the metaphysical, religious sense of fate (Heraclitus, the Pythagoreans, and the Eleatics), and partly in the psychological, ethical sense that the will is governed by the degree of understanding (the Socratic school).

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Epicurus, in spite of his atomic philosophy and his doctrine of blind fortuity, advocated the sense of freedom, perhaps as a postulate of happiness; and Aristotle consented to the preponderance of free moral practise to mere understanding. The doctrine of the Sophists that man is the measure of all things favored freedom. The Stoics emphasized the independence of man from external influences, but at the same time held to the fixedness of the basic character. The problem how to reconcile freedom and necessity they tried to solve by the use of the Socratic conception of providence and by moral education for voluntary submission to the cosmic purpose. The Neoplatonists distinguished between the servitude of the sensuous life with its imagined freedom and the contemplative transport of the soul to participation in the divine life. Plato taught that virtue uncoerced was free to every one. Whoever chooses it, chooses life, to which he then is attached of necessity; and not God but the individual is responsible for an evil destiny. This became the basis for the predeterminism of Origen. Interesting were the distinctions of Aristotle: (1) between the free and the necessary; (2) the indifferent mean, not perceived as necessity and not taking place by design; (3) the free act under involuntary circumstances; (4) the purpose ripening from rational premeditation; (5) the future subject to decision in contrast with the past as apparently the result of necessity; and (6) in double contrast with necessity the contingent and the free volitional, both involving alternative possibilities. An ascending series is thus formed as follows: (1) necessity to nature, (2) partial freedom, (3) entire freedom but with unripe judgment, and (4) deliberate design with ripened judgment. Enlightened freedom is a goal, only to be reached by practise, and every man is responsible for his own acts. Plato and Aristotle coined the terminology for the future. From the time of Boethius the Christian influence prevails in speculative philosophy. Only the personal God is free; man's reason thinks in terms of time and the human will is complicated with temporal change.

�2 According to the Greek Fathers freedom of will formed the central characteristic of the divine image in man. But between this divine gift of the good and human independence there is only a formal difference: on the one hand, the incipient freedom of choice is to be considered a gift of God by creation, and the goal or complete conscious conformity with the divine will, as a purposive human object; on the other hand, the beginning in moral development seems more a matter of human freedom, and the providential consequence more a matter of divine concern. The human subject, exercising the primal gift of God in choosing the good, happens to choose, at the same time, in conformity with the will of the giver, God. According to Chrysostom (q.v.), choice and decision belong to man, the fulfilment to God. According to Clement of Alexandria (q.v.) Adam was only "adapted for virtue", not "perfect"; without free consent there is no salvation; self-determination is the nature of the soul. Cyril of Jerusalem (q.v.) remarks that grace needs a willingness to believe as the stylus requires the hand that writes. Gregory Nazianzen (q.v.) comments on Rom. ix 16, stating that "not merely human willing" was of more importance than "willing and running." The Antiochians (see Antioch, School of) taught that faith and faithfulness were wholly matters of self-resolution, in spite of the grace of providence. Gregory of Nyssa strongly emphasizes objective purpose as independent volition. Origen's predeterminism, the doctrine of the pretemporal fall, only offers a peculiar expression to the conviction of individual self-determination. The typical representative of extreme indeterminism was Isaac of Antioch (c. 450). According to him the whole struggle of life rests upon freedom; even regeneration is the personal act of man. Man in his freedom ranks higher than the angels and is more free than Satan who lacks the power of execution, although his will is capable of taking up every concept of evil. On the contrary man, by moral dietetics, may intensify his moral power to a godlike perfection. However, this virtue of moral independence, by which man resembles God, is not by nature but grace. The Greek position transmits itself to the Pelagian controversy, except that it blunts the assertion of freedom by emphasis on grace. The analogy of the physician and the free acceptance of his remedies by Origen and Clement returns in SemiPelagianism (q.v.).

�3 In the West other motives enter with the Biblical, corresponding to the stern sense of Roman law, the Stoic basic necessity, and the Platonic-Manichean dualism with the consequence of the doctrine of the hereditary corruption of Patristrics; man, of the exclusiveness of grace, and the necessity of a vicarious atonement. The line of thought becomes more soteriological than anthropological. Tertullian (q.v.) admits, beside the omnipotent freedom of God, limited human freedom; but holds that human volition, in so far as it is good, is the work of God. Cyprian (q.v.) accedes that grace is received in proportion to the "capacity of faith" offered by man, but presupposes everything, even the latter, as determined in God's will. Ambrose perceived that the idea of freedom lies in the conception of obedience as well as in that of transgression, but emphasized that the efficient work of redemption demands the initiative of God. The first scientific discussion of the problem of the will within the history of the development of the Christian dogma was occasioned by the Pelagian controversy (see PELAGIUS, PELAGIAN CONTROVERSIES). Pelagius and Celestius were offended by Augustine's formula of prayer: "Give what thou commandest and command what thou wilt"; because of the apparent elimination of all human freedom. The Council at Ephesus (431) consented to the rejection of the Pelagian doctrine ac cording to which man also after the fall retained the capacity to choose the good, since man has kept some commandments while Adam kept none; and without the freedom of good or evil there can be no imputation of guilt. Conscience, it maintained, shows a certain sanctity of the nature made by God, from which issues responsibility. Sin is not nature, for man shall do the good; therefore he can: but it is a

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"contingency," which consequently may disappear according as the will decides. Man has a free will, which Pelagius estimated merely as a divine gift, not an ideal factor of the good. In the judgment of Pelagianism, in its first stage, the excess of Augustine should be borne in mind which served as an irritant and was the product of three unsound motives; namely, survivals of Platonism and Stoicism, Manicheistic views, and the overmastering interest of the Church upon his mind. While Pelagius dwells upon the logical side of formal freedom, Augustine naturally takes the religious side of real freedom (power to do good), without, however, keeping clear of the other. Semi-Pelagianism distinguished between the acts, more or less free, of the inclination toward the good; one person seizes with conscious longing the grace not yet effective in him, another is suddenly overtaken and possessed by prevenient grace without his own action. Each is free to resist grace; and no one is (according to Augustine) morally dead, no one (according to Pelagius) morally sound, but all are morally diseased, and as the diseased must turn to the physician, the sinner must, of his own free will, offer himself to grace.

Medieval theology on the whole did not materially advance beyond the patristic state of the problem. According to Bernard of Clairvaux (q.v.), free will remains also after the fall, wretched, to be sure, but intact. Only with volition itself its freedom would cease. "Remove grace, and you have nothing whereby to be saved; remove 4. Medieval free will and you have nothing that Catholicism. could be saved." Anselm (q.v.) rejects the judgment that the depraved are free only to do evil (Augustine), but censures also the presumption that the freedom to do good was as unbiased as that to do evil. True freedom is a divinely given power to preserve divinely given virtue. Prevenient grace gives the power, subsequent grace aids the will to keep it; but also this will is a gift. Thomas Aquinas (q.v.), in an antiPelagian manner, declares, that not only the perfection, but the very beginning of virtue is the work of God. Duns Scotus (q.v.) reverts decidedly to the Pelagian mode of thought. As God the type is free, so also man, his image; it was the purpose of the Creator that man as will should be absolutely free; that the deed only, not the volition, should be subject to external necessity. Willing is the original essence, he teaches, like Schelling and Schopenhauer; to go back further to a causality beyond will, would be absurd. Albert the Great (see Albertus Magnus) held that by grace virtue is established in the believer, but the decision whether to follow virtue or its opposite, belongs to the hegemony of the will. The greatest opponent of the nominalistic doctrine of freedom by Duns was the wholly deterministic Thomas Bradwardine (q.v.), seconded.by Albert of Halberstadt. The mystics produced the dual consequences, the logical result of such a determinism; namely, that sin is willed of God and therefore not really sin; and that the will of man and the will of God merge into a mystic unity. A revolutionizing influence on the doctrine was the secular philosophy since Descartes, especially of Spinoza, Leibnitz, and Kant. In spite of its new points of view, the pre-

Kantian philosophy does not get beyond the older forms of conceptual construction and analysis of problems. The contentions of Luther 5. The Ref- and Erasmus (q.v.), the synergistic

ormation controversies (see Synergism), and the Period. variance between Luther and Melanchthon, did not move the problem, inasmuch as the interest was soteriological. Vital for Luther was it, in throwing all weight upon trust in divine grace, to emphasize the impotence of the natural will. Salvation depends wholly upon the will of God. Although this pronouncement of the death of free will prevailed even until the adoption of the Formula of Concord (q.v.), yet the open problem revived from time to time, and in reaction against the hyper-Lutherans, Matthias Flacius and Nikolaus von Amsdorf (qq.v.), the orthodox Lutherans put forth the doctrine of the "foreknowledge of faith," mediating between the demands of faith and the moral consciousness, which if not proof against logical metaphysical objections was yet psychologically true. God predestinated for salvation those whose faith he foresaw. All salvation is of God, but faith conditions its appropriation, and in faith the submission of the will is more essential than the knowledge of grace and of being passively apprehended by it. The Socinians (see Socinus, Faustus, Socinians) presented such a combination of omniscience and human freedom, that God seemed like a wise pedagogue not willing to scrutinize free human activity too closely. According to Calvin, omnipotence is absolute. Adam had to succumb to the "hidden decree"; he was free only from external constraint. Also in evil men God effects to will and to do according to his pleasure, and it is inherent in this universal purpose that the large majority should perish to glorify his justice. In order not to make God the author of evil, the Augsburg Confession (q.v.) removed the cause of sins into the "will of evil men, which, if God will not aid, turns from God." The question, why God, by not aiding the will, permits the victory of the evil propensities, remained unanswered. A certain freedom to do good was, however, submitted by postulating "civil justice" over against "spiritual justice." The synergistic controversy gave rise to the opinion that the will might contribute a minimum to salvation. In the later editions of his Loci Melanchthon had declared that three causes cooperate in conversion; the Word, the Holy Spirit, and human will, in so far as it does not resist, but assent. The Formula of Concord concluded with a mediating position, that will has a certain "locomotive power" such as going to church to hear the Gospel, but in the reception of grace it is absolutely inactive, since in consequence of universal sinfulness there is left "not even a spark of spiritual powers," so that man from himself and by himself can not even take the offered grace. The only thing that he can do is reject grace.

Rene Descartes (q.v.) declared that nothing is so evident as the certainty that human thought and action rest upon free will, and that freedom belongs to the nature of the will, since will is nothing else but' freedom of choice. This freedom means the non-determination by external [secondary] causes; from the view-point of God, everything must be de-

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pendent upon him. Human reason is influenced by will; its judgments are muffled acts of will. Error of reason must be ascribed to the vol-

6. Modern untary affirmation of ideas which are Philosophy. as yet problematical. The capacity to affirm or deny, however, is merely cate gorical; the will amenable to reasons is higher. The former, or merely unbiased vacillation between mo tives, is really lack of freedom since it rests upon de ficient power of judgment. Clear insight into the practical enables weaker subjects to independence from passions. Nicolas Malebranche (q.v.) called will the natural inclination of the mind toward the good; it is always without compulsion, spontaneous, but not always capable of indifferently taking the alternative. Impression and motive, receptivity and spontaneity, are respectively identified. Spinoza (q.v.) represented absolute determinism; free will is a delusion due to a failure to comprehend the abso lute cause. Leibnitz (q.v.) defines freedom as self determination in accordance with understanding, the product of which is inclination, not necessity. Free will is to be compared to the magnetic needle obeying its own inherent laws. A freedom of neu trality would not be free will but wilfulness. To apply the law of causation to the will would be to insert in volitional subjectivity a retrogressive infin ity. The English and French empiricism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries culminated in absolute materialism, most pronounced in the De la nature (1744) of J. B. R. Robinet. David Hume, theoretically concerned with a destructive criticism of the idea of causation, acknowledged an antipathy against the judgment that human willing is deter mined. On the other hand, conduct can not be the necessary resultant of the ego, since the unity of the ego is only concluded from a series of reciprocal functions. The solution is resolved in skepticism: if accidental, then conduct is irrational; if causally determined, then it is not one's own but another's, a thesis which is untenable. Joseph Priestley (q.v.), following David Hartley, represented the physio logical determinism, deriving all psychical phenom ena from physiological neural antecedents; yet in consistently he maintained the immortality of the soul. According to Kant, causal necessity issues a priori from pure reason, which legislates upon nature. In his practical philosophy, he proceeds to demonstrate that what was before considered free dom, the capability on the part of the empirical ego of alternative choice, was only an apparent freedom. Empirically, as sensual beings belonging to the world of phenomena, men are determined in their future actions the same as everything that is causally determined, because the empirical ego belongs not to the world of reality but of phenomena, which is sub ject to the d priori law of causation. This is predi cated of the transcendental ego or soul noumenon, which also affords in practical ethical deductions, by synthetic judgment, the categorical imperative "thou shalt." With this also freedom is absolutely given; "thou canst, for thou shah." Logically the conscience or moral law is primarily given; but ethi cally and metaphysically this freedom is the first implication, since by a "practical syllogism" it is deduced as the adequate ground of the moral imperative. Since the time of Kant there is therefore no longer any contradiction between identification with the causal complexity of nature and the consciousness of ethical, religious freedom; and the value and instructiveness of later treatments depend upon their attitude positively or negatively toward Kant's system.

In the philosophical development of the idea of freedom after Kant four different types may be distinguished: (1) According to F. W. J. Schelling (q.v.); Ueber das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit, 1809; 1834), freedom of the will proceeds from the separable coexistence of light and darkness, i.e., from the possibility of good and evil, in distinction from the inseparable divine identity.

7. The From it results the contradiction beNineteenth tween necessity and freedom, as well as

Century. their unity, which is the subordination of the finite to the infinite, and which will resolve the despair of the practical reason by personal recourse in the divine, or the incarnation of God. (2) J. F. Herbart strictly distinguishes between the metaphysical "fiction" of freedom which he denies, and the idea of "inner freedom." Schleier macher's position approximates that of Herbart, making the will a mode of thought, and freedom independence over against causality as collectivity, without the subordination of effect to cause. (3) The Hegelian school maintained that freedom is implied in the rational will. But more important than formal free will is moral freedom, which, according to the degree of its development and per fection, is determined by the truth of its content: and in its last stage, where it, as the absolute rational knowledge of the absolute rational purpose, is identical with the will of God; where will and its object, volition and duty are one, freedom and necessity are no longer distinct. (4) Arthur Schopenhauer taught that "necessity is the kingdom of nature, freedom the kingdom of grace." Grace comes im mediately from outside and has not the least in common with the law of cause and effect. The em pirical man can do what he would, but he can not will what he would; he can not change himself; he is determined. Only by the total, radical negation of the will to live, salvation may be attained. This negation, however, does not result from philosophi cal reflection, but, momentarily, upon an intuitive technical vision; permanently, only upon the mir acle of the rupture of the intellect from its root in the will, by means of a transcendental process of super mundane passivity. Refined by Eduard von Hartmann (q.v.) and his adherents, and subjected to thorough criticism by others. Schopenhauer's doc trine has remained the most remarkable type after the time of Hegel. Positivistic naturalism and materialistic historiography have found a psycho logical counterpart in the deterministic mechanization of the life of the will and the denial of will itself. More recently individual apologists, ushering in a new appreciation of the Fichtian egoism (Lieb mann), have revived belief in the freedom of the will, with an unsurpassed intensity; while the school of the consciousness theory and the psychomonism, directly or indirectly, reassert the verity of the sense of freedom. Liebmann teaches that the man is free

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who is not diverted by other motives to act contrary to valid maxims, which reminds of Goethe's dictum: "Freedom is the possibility to perform the rational under all circumstances." Such freedom may be proved only individually, by the voice of conscience, repentance, and the sense of responsibility. A. Bolliger teaches that the rational will is a potency transcending time; it is accordingly a reflection and image of the divine freedom. The free act consists in the original act of the representative power of the subject in representing a consequent and antecedent in their causal relation. C. E. Luthardt teaches a formal freedom, consisting in the capability of alternative choice and a real material freedom of the power to execute. Real experience of necessity comes first with the consciousness of sin. All persons begin morally determined in a respective degree and real freedom results with the self-determination of man according to his divinely patterned nature.

III. Analysis of the Problem: The theological interest has as its object how to reconcile with religious faith in the omniscience and omnipotence of divine providence the moral duty to shun evil and the conscious capability to fulfil moral obligation. Cosmic necessity, or divine omnipotence, is apparently in conflict with individual responsibility. God being good and not coercing the ego to sin; therefore man must be free. God being perfectly good, omniscient, and almighty, the origin of sin becomes inexplicable, but if placed in free human will, the omnipotence and omniscience are jeopardized. The plan of salvation presupposes the moral reality and possibility of sinning and at the same time contradicts with the possibility also its reality. If everything depends upon human responsibility, man is too weak to bear the responsibility for the coming of the kingdom of God. If everything depends upon the sole effect of prevenient grace, man's most positive feeling and most sacred certainty, that he is free and that naught is good in the world but to will the good, is delusion. Above all, the sense of guilt would be selfdeception. Not only would the origin of evil be an insoluble riddle, but evil itself would be an illusion. While bias lay with the opposite tendency from Augustine to Schopenhauer, the interest of modern psychology, introduced by the methods of Kant and Fichte, swings the balance in favor of the defense of the internal validity of the consciousness of freedom.

In all human action there is an incalculable and incontrollable element that awakens the impression that the action was exempt from the law of cause and effect. This impression is created by the belief in freedom, which is merely negative; but more im portant is the comparison of different representa tions of possibilities of conduct in the consciousness of the agent. This capacity of choice subsisting in the sense of spiritual ability and accom-

i. The panied by the representation of the Nature of alternative possibility, is called formal

Freedom. freedom or decision. The moral char acter is sensible of the impulse to do good by inner necessity, especially when numerous and strong external inducements urge it to the con trary. The more the character is ordered morally,

i.e., the more the individually necessary is in accord with the universal objective good, the more urgent the bidding of the conscience to pursue the law of the good. The precept "I can" completes and lifts itself with, "I will what I shall." This power to perform the morally necessary that has been willed is called real freedom. The moral will feels free even if it is capable only of the good; i.e., if the alternative possibility is merely hypothetical. The apparent limitation to the necessary good is amply compensated for by the consciousness of mastery. Exemption from, or superiority over, the law of causality, at first but seeming, is now positive reality; the mightiest and most irresistible of all causes is the wholly ethicized will in its constancy. Time may be discounted by a pledge for the future absolutely certain of fulfilment. This consciousness of freedom is a reality of psychological experience which can not be encroached upon by any metaphysical law of causality, which itself is a mere product of the nominative understanding. From this law it only follows that also the human will is part of the universe; man did not create himself; over him rules eternal necessity. But, on the contrary, of everything that is, this part of the universe is the freest. Only the world-ruling and worldcreating power lias greater freedom than human will, which is not only most efficient, but feels most free when harmoniously obedient to the divine will. As long, therefore, as in consequence of natural imperfection and, still more, in consequence of the proportionate growth of sin and its gross effects, the standpoint of that perfect and conscious self-adaptation to God's universal will and his plan of salvation is not attained by all, nobody has a right to take to account the wisdom and omnipotence of God, for defects which proceed from sin. Sin should and could be avoided; otherwise the consciousness of God would disappear to make way for a debased sense of causal, legal necessity. Its avoidableness follows immediately from the moral consciousness and the ethically qualified faith in God; and its unconditioned presupposition is the elementary consciousness of freedom. In explaining the morally evil, there must be no crossing beyond the boundaries of the conception of the freedom of the will. This derivation, however, suffices, making the idea of the freedom of the will of the utmost significance for dogmatic theology. The question of the origin of sin is no easier of explanation in the time of Adam than now, but is more important within the later ethical, psychological field. The old Evangelical resort of referring it to self-love is scarcely tenable, for Christ places this as the measure of love of neighbor, and it is the basic function of the neutral will, developing later into ethical bloom even to love of God. Will in its freedom is itself the possibility of sin; what is still necessary to its realization lies outside of the sphere of that which can be explained by cause and effect. For actual facts of the will the law of sufficient reason applying to things never suffices, because the innermost value of the personality of one can not be observed by another, not even by self. The best explanation of sin proves to be the psychologically true description after the actual fact. Fundamentally the problem of solution is an indi-

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vidual one in the history of each person, and a universal generalization is impracticable.

The orthodox anti-Pelagian doctrine regards man not only in need of salvation, but also the saved one as being so addicted to original sin that it is permanently inherent throughout. the whole life. This doctrine is objectively sustained by the observance of the actual transmission and progress-

2. The ive propagation of sinful propensities Avoidabil- and tendencies and subjectively by the ity of Sin. consciousness of the servitude of sin and the exclusive effectiveness of grace. The doctrine is supplemented by the faith confirmed in experience that God is able to utilize also the evil for his purposes. A correlate of this faith is the ineradicable peculiarity of mind to think under the category of cause and effect. It apparently follows that the individual sin is neither avoid able nor condemnable. On the contrary, Kant taught a "causality by freedom" which must be thought as quite different from mechanical causality. The will of man, as self-conscious, self-determining being, is determined by no external power. The Church, too, teaches that God from the beginning gave man freedom and returned it to those who are saved in Christ; and that the servant of sin, and still more the believer, chooses what line of conduct he will follow, so as to attain to respectable character, ai, least in civil virtues. This doctrine is supplemen ted by the ideal of a high degree of sterling solidity and godlike-eminence, to be emulated by identifica tion with lofty virtues (cf. Schleiermacher's "per severance," and Calvin's "gift of perseverance"). The deterministic theology answers that the man in sin "was able if he willed," but he "could not will to be able." This objection maybe answered that the divine law is addressed to this very ability, and its truth can be maintained only by the presupposition of the real possibility that man can fulfil the will of God. Only thus can individual responsibility stand. Therefore every past sin, because condemnable, might have been altogether avoided; and every future sin must be judged as condemnable because it is avoidable. Sins not avoidable are at most the "unconscious faults," which, however, do not escape aggregate condemnation. It may next be asked whether specific sinful acts apparently having their setting in the complexity of life were unavoidable, and to what limit the sinful state, which gave rise to specific sins, is condemnable; or more properly whether the antithesis between the avoidable and unavoidable, between responsibility and causal in fluence, is religious and ethical, psychological and metaphysical, or only philological, esthetic, and ped agogical. The problem affects the theory of "natural selection," and is pertinent to the consequences of the theory of heredity, but is vital to penology and pedagogy, and is determinative in palliation and criticism. From an analysis of social ethics, the fundamental characteristic of freedom, i.e., avoid ableness of individual conduct, must be defended on two grounds; because it is a moral duty to respect the independent decision of the will in a fellow man as a particular good, which is preempted from the causal mechanism of nature, and because it is impos sible to prove the unavoidableness by the practical

calculation of future actions. Experience attests the comparison of different representations of the possibility of an action of which the one executed was in no way accompanied by the consciousness of singularity.

The reconciliation of omniscience and freedom is vital to theology; namely, the fact of being eternally known of ,God, or how in the creation of the individual he appoints its conditions of development, preforms its character, and imparts a potential selfdetermination which may divert to hostile conduct and in the aggregate with others challenge his universal plan. The fundamental harmony in the divine will of grace anal the aspiration to redemption do not provide a solution; in part, because such aspiration is the work of grace-in part, because grace has a preference, amidst natural differences, for the most fitted for improvement. There thus results a reciprocation between divine determination, which at the same time produces the differences of the tend-

encies of will and penetrates them in 3. Omnis- their attitude by omniscience (Isa. xfiii.

cience and 1, xlv. 3-4), and responsible human Freedom. self-activity. If this free attitude it-

self were a work of omnipotence, the value of human personality might be considered problematical. On the threshold of free personality determining omnipotence voluntarily resigns; but not omniscience, the all-effective justice and wisdom. Of extreme theories, the doctrine of predestination annihilates human freedom; the doctrine of total depravity, also of the spiritual nature, deprives the pedagogical effect of providence of its starting-point. On the other hand, the theories which favor the idea of freedom, at the expense of omniscience, also err; like that of the Socinians, R. Rothe, and C. F. Cafsen, who maintained that God foresees the various conditions and circumstances subject to which man must act, and he adapts his counsels to man's various possible transactions. J. A. L. Wegscheider (q.v.) proposed that the human spirit rising above the order of things is led to secure its freedom by colliding with the limits of nature divinely appointed. Heinrich Lang (q.v.) maintained that, God being the immanent ground of all being, to be determined by him means to be determined by one's own being, thus representing pantheism of personality. Johann Gerhard (q.v.) correctly says: "God is not the author of the evil tendency of will, but he orders it in harmony with his universal purpose." The fewness of the elect able to perceive this theodicy might bring the plan of providence into question; but the Biblical basis of faith in the final victory of the kingdom of God, or the realization of the universal plan of redemption, is indisputable. While the thought of predestination is repugnant to the feeling of freedom, faith, on the contrary, in the fact of being eternally known by God is not at all disturbing, if only beforehand the truth of the microcosmic feeling of independence is securely implied. As regards the total organism of humanity, providential determination is unassailable. Empirical statistics rises only to a generalization revealing that order prevails in freedom, law amidst free choice, and reason in the causal; it imposes no law of nature or teleological law of reason inevitably upon the

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individual will. The problem defies solution. Ethics as well as logic evades a psychological deduction, for it is not possible by observation and experiment to dismember the free subject, in order to ascertain what is the active unanalyzable principle in every act of ethical volition or attentive cognition, be coming the more mysterious the more intensively the reflecting subject is itself made the object of in spection. An intellectual perception is precluded. fn the free self-disclosure of the soul the individual ego, in and with its freest special existence, knows itself absolutely conditioned by the universal supreme Ego; and no less the fascination of the consciousness of freedom will always remain precisely for the pious heart.

(G. Runze.)

IV. Supplement: The problem of freedom is com plicated by two other interests: (1) theological, de rived from early Christian thought, involving the reconciliation of omniscience and omnipotence with moral acts; and (2) moral, arising from the conflict of ethical presuppositions with psychology axed sci entific notions of mechanical causation. For two centuries and a half (1600-1850) in England and America the discussion continued along lines traced above in continental thought. Indeterminism was advocated by S. Clarke (q.v.) in A Collection of Papers which passed between Dr. Clarke and Mr. Leibnitz (London, 1717), by T. Reid, who claimed that free will was proved by universal consciousness of active power and of accountability (Essays on the Active Powers of Man, 1788), and this general position has been characteristic of Socinian and Arminian writers since that date. The most recent upholder of free will in the interest of a pluralistic universe asserts that "free will means nothing but real novelty; so pluralism accepts the notion of free will " (W. James, Some Problems of Philosophy, New York, 1911; cf. idem, The Will to Believe, " The Dilemma of Determinism," pp. 145 sqq., ib. 1897). Until the last third of the nineteenth century deterministic theories of the will were influenced by Locke, who provided the mold in which the theo logical considerations of Calvinism as related to the will were run. According to him, the will is always moved by the greatest present uneasiness. Jona than Edwards held that although the will is guided by the last dictate of the understanding, yet this dictate depends upon the prevailing inclinations, these upon the moral necessity of habits and dis positions, while habits and dispositions in turn are caused by the providential disposing of the sovereign will of God (Works, vol. ii., New York, 1830; cf. W. G. T. Shedd, Calvinism, Pure and Mixed, ib. 1893). This doctrine received its first serious mod ification at the hand of N. W. Taylor (q.v.), who sought to guard both divine foreordination and abil ity to obey God by the formula that moral action is characterized by " certainty with power to the contrary." The sinner can, if he will, and " he can if he won'tl " (cf. G. P. Fisher, Discussions in History and Theology, p. 313, ib. 1880). Determinism has received support from a mate rialistic basis of the mind (cf. J. Priestley, A Free Discussion of the Doctrine of Materialism, Birming ham, 1'T82; H. Maudsley, Body and Will, New York, 1884; A. Bain, Mind and Body, ib. 1887). Two other forms of determinism have received wide attention, the first of which has been asso ciated with T. H. Green: one is free in his choices so far as his action is determined by nothing but himself. The man himself and his circumstances being what they are at a stated juncture, the deter mination of the will is already given-a different determination would require a different man. Choice expresses one's character, interest, attention, motive; action has its roots in character (Works, ii. 318 sqq., London, 1893; cf. J. S. Mackenzie, Man ual of Ethics, p. 94, New York, 1901). The. second of these views, in the interest of monistic personal idealism, maintains that every individual will is free so far as its life is unique, in some respect unde rivable from all other wills, or so far as it is a self and not mere temporal phenomenon and different from the Absolute. It is conceived as an act of at tention, occurring only at the moment, never be fore, never afterward, individual, yet incapable.of complete causal explanation (J. Royce, The World and the Individual, ii. 337 sqq., New York, 1901; M. W. Calkins, Persistent Problems of Philosophy, ib. 1911). C. A. BECXWITH.

Br$rirOGnApiry: Among the works on the history of the doctrine may be named: F. Keller, Spinoza and Leibwia über Willensfreiheit, Erlangen, 1847; C. E. Luthardt, Die Lehre vom freaen Willen . . . in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwickelung, Leipsic, 1863; O. Liebmann, Ueber den individuellen Beweis für die Freiheit des Willens, Stuttgart, 1866; H. T. Buckle, Hist. of Civilization, new ed., 3 vols., London, 1869; T. Wildauer, Die Psychologie des Willens bei Sokrates, Platon and Aristoteles, 2 parts, Innsbruck, 1877-79; W.. Gass, Geschichte der christlichen Ethik, 3 vols., Berlin, 1881-87; L. Brautigam, Leibniz and Herbart, über Willensfreiheit, Heidelberg, 1882; H. Sidgwick, Outlines of the History of Ethics, London, 1886, 2d ed., 1888; J. Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, pt. 2, bk. I., eh. i., §§ 1, 5, 3d ed., Oxford, 1891; idem, Study of Religion, bk. III., ch. ii.,-2 vols., ib., 1888; H. Alexander, Theories of Will in the History of Philosophy, New York, 1898; M. Krieg, Der Wille und die Freiheit in der neuern Philosophie, Freiburg, 1898; K. Dunkmann, Das Problem der Freiheit in der gegenwartigen Philosophie, Halle, 1899; J. A. Froehlieh, Freiheit and Notwendigkeit als Element einer tinheitlichen Weltanschauung, Leipsic, 1908; J. Verweyen, Das Problem der Willensfreiheit in der Scholastik, Heidelberg, 1909; K. Zickendraht, Der Streit zwischen Erasmus and Luther über die Willensfreiheit, Leipsic, 1909.

Works of epochal importance are: The Ethica of Aristotle (see the article for editions and translations); Augustine's De gratia et labero arbitrio, Eng. transl. in NPNF, 1 ser.; v. 443 sqq.; Isaac of Antioch, Prcadestinatus; B. Spinoza, Die Ethica, e.g., Leipsic, 1875; D. Hume, Treatise on Human Nature, 3 vols., London, 1739-40, ed. Selby-Bigge, Oxford, 1888; J. Edwards, A Careful arid Strict Enquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions of the Freedom of the Will, Boston, 1754, new ed., London, 1856 (discussed by J. Dana, An Examination of Pres. Edwards' Inquiry on Freedom of the Will, New Haven, 1773; J. Day, An Examination of Pres. Edwards' Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will, New Haven, 1821; T. T. Crybaee, An Essay on Moral Freedom, etc., Edinburgh, 1829; H. P. Tappan, A Treatise on the Will containing a Review of Edward's " Inquiry, &c.," New York, 1839, Glasgow, 1857; A. T. Bledsoe, An Examination of President Edwards' Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will, Philadelphia, 1845; W. B. Greene, Remarks in Refutation of the Treatise of J. Edwards on the Freedom of the Will, West Brookfield, Mass., 1848; J. G. Stewart, Freedom of the Will Vindicated; or, Pres. Edwards' Necessarian Theory Refuted, Glasgow, 1876); G. W. Leibnitz, Nouveaux essais, book II., eh. xxi., in tEuvres philosophiques, Amsterdam, 1765; J. Priestley, The Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity, London, 1777; I. Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunlt, Riga, 1781; J. F. Herbart, Freiheit des menschlichen Willens, Göttingen 1836; A. Schopenhauer Die beiden Grund-

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Problems der Ethik, pt. 1, Ueber die Freiheit der menschlichen Freiheit, 4th ed., Frankfort, 1891; R. Cudworth, A Treatise on Freewill, ed. J. Allen, London, 1838; F. W. J. von Schelling, Ueber das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit, in his Werke, Stuttgart, 1856-61; A. Bolliger, Die Willensfreiheit, Berlin, 1903.

Discussions from a philosophical or more strictly theological standpoint are: L. Creuzer, Skeptische Betrachtungen caber die Freiheit des Willem, Giessen, 1793; J. P. Romang, Willensfreiheit and Determinismus, Bern, 1835; H. C. W. Sigwart. Das Problem van der Freiheit und der Unfreiheit des menschlichen Wollens, Tübingen, 1839; W. Cairns, Treatise on Moral Freedom, London, 1844; J. P. Espy, The Human Will, Cincinnati, 1860; D. D. Whedon, The Freedom of the Will, New York, 1864; T. Hughes, The Human Will, London, 1867; P. P. Alexander, Freedom or Moral Causation, Edinburgh, 1868, rev. ed., 1875; A. de Gasparin, La Libartg morale, 2 vols., Paris, 1868; P. Dupuy, Du libre arbitre, Paris, 1870; J. C. Fischer, Ueber die Freiheit des menschlichen Willem, 2d ed., Leipsic, 1871; F. W. Otto, Die Freiheit des Menschen, ihr Wesen und ihre Schrdnke, Gütersloh, 1872; F. KSmer, Inslinkt and freier Wills, Leipsic, 1875; W. B. Carpenter, Principles of Mental Physiology, §§ 333-339, London, 1876; R. Schellwien, Der Wills, die Lebensgrundmacht, Berlin, 1879; L. A. Wiese, Die Bildung des Willem, 4th ed., Berlin, 1879; P. Le Blois, Ptude scar la volonte et libre arbitre, Paris, 1881; G. Renard, L'Homme est-il libre8 4th ed., Paris, 1881; L. Michel, Libre arbitre et libertE, Paris, 1882; G. H. Schneider, Der memchliche Wills vom Standpunkte der neueren Entwickelungstheorien, Berlin, 1882 J. H. Witte, Ueber die Freiheit des Willem: das sittliche Leben und seine Gesetze, Bonn, 1882; P. Janet, La Morale, Bk. III., eh. vi.-vii., Paris, 1874, Eng. transl., New York, 1883; H. Maudsley, Body and Will, London, 1883; A. Fouill6e, La Liberte et Is determinisme, 2d ed., Paris, 1884; W. G. Ward, Philosophy of Theism, 2 vols., London, 1884; G. Friedrich, Die Krankheiten des Willem, Munich, 1885, 2d ed., 1886; L. Dieffenbach, Der menschliche Wills und seine (»~' undlagen, Darmstadt, 1886; W. Meyer, Die Wahlfreiheit des Willem in ihrer Nichtigkeit dargelegt, Gotha, 1886; G. L. Fonsegrive, Essai scar Is litre arbitre: sa théorie et son histoire, Paris, 1887, 2d ed., 1896; A. Bain, Emotions and the Will, ch. ii., 4th ed., New York, 1887; idem, Mental and Moral Science, bk. IV., ch. ii., 3d ed., Aberdeen, 1892; C. F. Heman, Zur Ge schichte der Lehre von der Freiheit des menschlichen Willem, Leipsic, 1887; O. K. Notowich, La Liberte deja volont~, Paris, 1888; N. Kurt, Willensfreiheit, Leipsic, 1890; idem, Die Willensprobleme, Weimar, 1902; C. Berger, Das Problem der Willensfreiheit, Leipsic, 1891; J. Dewey, Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics, pt. 1, eh. iii., Ann Arbor, 1891; H. C. Hiller, Against Dogma and Free-Will, London, 1892; C. Gutberlet, Die Willensfreiheit und ihre Gegner, Fulda, 1893; C. Klein, Die Freiheitslehre des Origenes, Strasburg, 1894; F. J. Mach, Die Willensfreiheit des Menschen, Paderborn, 1894; G. B. Milesi, La negazione del libero arbitrio, Milan, 1894; B. Wille, Philosophie der Befreiung durch das reins Mittel, Berlin, 1894; W: Baumm, Die Willensfreiheit, Kreuzburg, 1895; H. Gayraud, Saint Thomas et Is pr6determinisme, Paris, 1895; G. Cimbali, La volontie umana, 2d ed., Rome, 1897; W. James, The Will to Believe, New York, 1897; A. Lovell, Volo; or the Will, London, 1897; P. Moriaud, La Question de la libertg et la conduite humaine, Paris, 1897; E. W. Scripture, Thinking, Feeling, Doing, London, 1897; E. Naville, Le litre arbitre, Paris, 1890, 2d ed., 1898; C. Biuso, Del libero arbitrio, Florence, 1899; L. Noel, La Conscience du libre arbitre, Paris, 1899; J. Rehmke, Trieb and Wills im menschlichen Handeln, Langensalza, 1899; D. J. Snider, The Wall and its World, St. Louis, 1899; T. Gollwitzer, Plotins Lehre von der Willensfreiheit, Kempten, 1900; J. Royce, The World and the Individual, New York, 1900-01; M. Wentscher, Das Problem der Willensfreiheit bei Lotze, Halle, 1901; P. Lapie, Logique de la volonte, Paris, 1902; F. Paulhan, La Volont6, Paris, 1902; A. Seitz, Willensfreiheit and moderner psycholoCischer Determinismus, Cologne, 1902; A. Marucci, La Volonta secondo i progressi della biologia a della filosofca, Rome, 1903; K. Fahrion, Dos Problem der Willensfreiheit, Heidelberg, 1904; G. Graue, Selbstbewusstseinund 1Villensfreiheit, Berlin, 1904; O. Pfister, Die Willensfreiheit, ib., 1904; G. Torres, WMensfreaheit and wahre Freiheit, Munich, 1904; W. Windelband, Ueber Willenafreiheit, Tübingen, 1904; K. Joel, Der freie Wills. Eine Entwicklung in Gesprtichen, Munich, 1908; L. Poehhammer, Zum Problem der Willensfreiheit, Stuttgart, 1908; R. Beschoren, Das Problem der Willensfreiheit in theorelischer and praktischer Beziehung, Hanover, 1910; E. Pfennigsdorf, Der religibse Wills. Bin Beitrag zur Psychologie and Praxis der Religion, Leipsic, 1910; E. Wentscher, Der Wills. Versuch einer psychologischen Analyse, Leipsic, 1910; A. Messer, Das Problem der Willensfreiheit, Göttingen, 1911; C. Surbled, La Volonte, Paris, 1911; the article on Predestination and the literature under it, as also the articles and bibliographies there referred to; and the works of Windelband, Erdmann, and Ueberweg-Heinze on the history of philosophy.