ery case by "that motive which as it
stands in the view of the mind is the strongest," and that motive is
strongest which presents in the immediate object of volition the
"greatest apparent good," that is, the greatest degree of
agreeableness or pleasure. What this is in a given case depends on a
multitude of circumstances, external and internal, all contributing to
form the "cause" of which the voluntary act and its consequences are
the "effect." Edwards contends that the connexion between cause and
effect here is as "sure and perfect" as in the realm of physical
nature and constitutes a "moral necessity." He reduces the opposite
doctrine to three assumptions, all of which he shows to be untenable:
(1) "a self-determining power in the will"; (2) "indifference,... that
the mind previous to the act of volition (is) in equilibrio"; (3)
"contingence ... as opposed to ... any fixed and certain connexion (of
the volition) with some previous ground or reason for its existence."
Although he denies liberty to the will in this sense--indeed, strictly
speaking, neither liberty nor necessity, he says, is properly applied
to the will, "for the will itself is not an agent that has a will"--he
nevertheless insists that the subject willing is a free moral agent,
and argues that without the determinate connexion between volition
and motive which he asserts and the libertarians deny, moral agency
would be impossible. Liberty, he holds, is simply freedom from
constraint, "the power ... that any one has to do as he pleases." This
power man possesses. And that the right or wrong of choice depends not
on the cause of choice but on its nature, he illustrates by the
example of Christ, whose acts were necessarily holy, yet truly
virtuous, praiseworthy and rewardable. Even God Himself, Edwards here
maintains, has no other liberty than this, to carry out without
constraint His will, wisdom and inclination.

There is no necessary connexion between Edwards's doctrine of the
motivation of choice and the system of Calvinism with which it is
congruent. Similar doctrines have more frequently perhaps been
associated with theological scepticism. But for him the alternative
was between Calvinism and Arminianism, simply because of the
historical situation, and in the refutation of Arminianism on the
assumptions common to both sides of the controversy, he must be
considered completely