Foreknowledge by Joel Hayes - Library of Theology

is indissoluble--that there cannot be a change in the one without a corresponding change in the other. Now,
why did Dr. Whedon use the word necessary instead of indissoluble? Do the two words mean precisely the
same thing? Certainly not. Then why was the change made? Of course we have no means of knowing. But
we do know that the change was a very convenient one for Dr. Whedon. He could not so well have
announced that the indissolubility lies not upon the free act, but upon the foreknowledge. Neither could he
have so readily denied the major premise of the argument, and called it the weak point. The indissoluble
connection assumed by President Edwards is not in the least contradicted in Dr. Whedon's reply. Indeed,
the former seems rather to follow from the latter; for, if the knowledge must conform itself to the fact, the fact
cannot be different while the knowledge remains the same. Dr. Whedon, therefore, replies not to the
argument of President Edwards, but to a miserable caricature thereof presented by himself.
We now leave the argument of President Edwards and proceed to consider the relation of
foreknowledge to the thing foreknown. It has been said that foreknowledge is not the cause of the event,
but that the event is the cause of the knowledge. If this were true, we should have a very short and easy path
to our conclusion that God cannot foreknow free volitions. We should only have to take as our other premise
the admitted and self-evident proposition that an effect cannot exist before its cause. We should then
conclude that the knowledge of a free volition cannot exist before the free volition which is its cause. This,
however, would prove too much. It would prove that not only cannot free volitions be foreknown, but that
there cannot be foreknowledge of any thing.
It is strange that writers on this subject have not been able to see that this position altogether
destroys the possibility of foreknowledge, whether human or divine. Yet it is assumed and taught by such
thinkers as Bledsoe, Whedon, Ralston, and others. Thus Dr. Ralston says, "The truth is, the prediction
depends on the foreknowledge, and the foreknowledge on the event itself. The error of the necessitarians
on this subject is, they put the effect for the cause, and the cause for the effect. They make the
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foreknowledge the cause of the event, whereas the event is the cause of the foreknowledge." Says Dr.
Whedon, "Origen is quoted by Edwards as saying `God's PRESCIENCE is NOT the CAUSE OF things
FUTURE, but their being FUTURE is the CAUSE of God's PRESCIENCE that they will be.' To this view of
the matter, which has been commended by Arminians, (and we endorse it with them,) Edwards furnishes
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two answers," etc. This is not exactly the same thing as to say that the event is the cause of the
prescience, but Dr. Whedon evidently so understands it; for he says, "Nor, assuming that the foreknowledge
is the effect of which the free act is the cause, does the fixedness of the eternal effect, namely, the
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foreknowledge, prove the fixed necessity of the cause, namely, the act." And Dr. Bledsoe says, "If this
argument proves any thing in regard to human actions, it only proves that a volition has an effect, and not
that it has a cause. Indeed, it has been said, that the knowledge of an event is the effect of its existence; and
the same remark has been extended to the foreknowledge of God with respect to the future volitions of
human beings. This argument, then in regard to human volitions, only proves that they are indissolubly
connected with their effects, and are necessarily implied by them; just as every cause is implied by its
effects." 152
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I think this a mistake. The doctrine of necessitarians is that motives, not foreknowledge, are the
cause of volitions.
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But did these writers mean by such language to deny the self-evident principle that a cause must
Elements of Divinity, Part I., Chapter XV., p. 184.
Will, p. 287.
Will, p. 288.
Southern Review, July, 1874, p. 95.
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