An Examination of President Edwards' Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will

In Short

Albert Taylor Bledsoe presents a rigorous philosophical critique aimed at dismantling Jonathan Edwards’s famed defense of theological determinism. Writing in nineteenth-century America, Bledsoe dissects the logic of moral necessity, arguing that Edwards confounds the conditions of choice with its actual producing cause. By examining consciousness, language, and the nature of passivity, Bledsoe attempts to free human agency from mechanical causation without falling into traditional scholastic paradoxes. The work endures as a notable American contribution to the free will debate, demonstrating how inductive observation can challenge entrenched metaphysical systems.

The Story

Bledsoe opens his critique by declaring that he began his study of Jonathan Edwards’s Inquiry without preconceived bias, intending only to test the strength of its arguments through rigorous self-disputation. He quickly isolates the core vulnerability in Edwards's system: the unexamined assumption that every volition is an effect, and that every effect must be produced by a cause, specifically the strongest motive.

Tracing the logic of the Inquiry, Bledsoe shows how Edwards and his defenders define "motive" so broadly—encompassing every internal bias, reason, and external circumstance—that their central proposition degenerates into a tautology. To claim that the will is determined by the strongest motive amounts to saying nothing more than that volition is caused by whatever causes it. When necessitarians measure the strength of a motive solely by its ultimate prevailing, they reduce their grand philosophical principle to a circular truism.

Bledsoe shifts the investigation from abstract syllogisms to psychological observation, drawing heavily on Baconian inductive principles. He insists that instead of constructing world-models out of definitions, thinkers must examine volition directly as it presents itself in human consciousness. A true effect, Bledsoe argues, implies absolute passivity in its subject, as when one physical object imparts motion to another. Human choices do not fit this passive dynamic. Desires and feelings may serve as necessary antecedents or occasions for an action, but they possess no inherent force to command the will. Confusing an invariable antecedent for an efficient cause is a fundamental error, reinforced by common linguistic metaphors about "ruling passions" and "ungovernable desires."

Addressing the famous argument from divine foreknowledge, Bledsoe demonstrates that God’s infallible foresight of future events does not impose necessity upon them. Certainty of existence is not the same as causal compulsion; an event foreknown remains contingent in its underlying nature.

Finally, Bledsoe evaluates traditional defenses of free agency, including the doctrine of indifference and the self-determining power of the will. He rejects the traditional assertion that the will determines itself through prior acts of choice, admitting that Edwards successfully exposed the infinite regress inherent in that view. Instead, Bledsoe offers his own resolution: a free agent is simply one who can act in view of motives without being efficiently caused to do so. The search for an efficient cause of volition has failed because no such cause exists; volition is an ultimate, uncaused mental activity.

How It Unfolds

The logical trap Bledsoe outlines how Edwards defines motive so broadly that the necessitarian argument becomes a mere tautology, asserting only that the strongest influence is whatever happens to prevail.

The call to observation Rejecting pure scholastic logic, the author demands an empirical approach based on consciousness, insisting that philosophers must observe how volition actually functions rather than reasoning it out from abstract definitions.

The passive mistake The text distinguishes between active mind and passive matter, arguing that feelings and desires are merely antecedents to action rather than active physical forces that push the will into motion.

Foreknowledge dismantled Bledsoe addresses the argument from divine prescience, proving that God's infallible knowledge of future acts establishes their certainty but does not constitute the mechanical cause that produces them.

The false alternative The author critiques traditional free-will defenders who claim the will determines itself by previous acts of choice, showing how this position succumbs to Edwards's objection of an infinite regress.

The core resolution Bledsoe settles the debate by redefining the free agent as a being capable of acting without an efficient cause, concluding that volition is an uncaused mental action rather than a passive effect.

The People

Jonathan Edwards The famed eighteenth-century theologian whose Inquiry serves as the primary subject of critique. Edwards seeks to demonstrate that human volitions are strictly determined by the strongest motive, rendering the human mind passive to causal necessity. His logical system is portrayed as a brilliant but trapped dialectical apparatus that mistakes abstract definitions for psychological realities.

Jonathan Edwards the Younger The son and defender of the elder Edwards. He attempts to protect his father's system by clarifying definitions of cause and motive, arguing that motives act as necessary conditions. In Bledsoe's analysis, the younger Edwards merely exposes the circular reasoning of the necessitarian position.

President Jeremiah Day A contemporary defender of Edwardsian determinism. Day asserts that the will obeys the strongest motive while defining motive strength by its actual success in prevailing. Bledsoe uses Day's writings to illustrate how nineteenth-century necessitarians rely on ambiguous language and mechanical metaphors to maintain their claims.

Albert Taylor Bledsoe The author and inquiring editor of the debate. He approaches the inquiry as a rigorous investigator seeking truth through self-disputation, attempting to construct a viable middle way between mechanical determinism and self-contradictory free-will theories.

In Its Own Voice

"If we would really understand its nature, we must not undertake to reason it out; we must open our eyes, and look, and see."

— Bledsoe appeals to direct psychological observation rather than abstract syllogisms when evaluating the nature of human volition.

"The true idea of a free-agent: it is one who, in view of circumstances, both external and internal, can act, without being efficiently caused to do so."

— The author summarizes his central resolution to the problem of free agency.

"Edwards did not observe the intellectual world just as it has been constructed by the Almighty, and narrowly watch it in its workings; he only reasoned about it and about it; and hence, he was necessarily devoted to blindness."

— Bledsoe offers his final estimate of Edwards's methodology, comparing it to pre-Baconian scholasticism.

What It's Really About

The book addresses the fundamental conflict between theological determinism and human moral responsibility. At its heart, the work asks whether human choices are the passive outcomes of prior mental states or genuine initiations of action. Bledsoe argues that western philosophy has suffered from a deep-seated linguistic and conceptual confusion, treating active mental events as though they were passive physical effects governed by mechanical laws.

By challenging both Edwardsian necessity and the flawed traditional defenses of free will, Bledsoe seeks to liberate human agency from causal determinism without denying divine sovereignty or foreknowledge. The underlying argument asserts that human freedom requires no complex engine of prior self-determination, but simply the inherent, God-given capacity of a conscious mind to act without being pushed by an external efficient cause.

Why Read It Today

This volume appeals to readers interested in the history of American philosophy, 19th-century theology, and the enduring debate over free will. Bledsoe writes with clear, energetic prose that avoids dense academic jargon while maintaining high analytical rigor. Reading the work offers an illuminating look at how 19th-century thinkers attempted to apply Baconian scientific principles to the human mind, using empirical psychology to break open theological stalemates that had lingered since the Enlightenment.

The book does present challenges typical of mid-nineteenth-century philosophical prose. It engages in detailed, section-by-section textual analysis, expecting the reader to follow fine-grained distinctions regarding terminology, cause, and logical validity. At times, the tone turns sharply polemical as Bledsoe exposes what he considers the sophistries and circular logic of his opponents. Yet for those willing to follow its sustained argumentation, the treatise provides a lucid, historically significant attempt to rescue human volition from mechanical necessity.