lation to human volitions.

But fortunately the assumption of the necessitarian is not true. By the
fundamental laws of human belief, we know that our acts are not
necessitated; and hence, we infer that as God foresees them all, he may do
so without proceeding from cause to effect, according to the method of
finite minds. We thus reason from the _known_ to the _unknown_; from the
clear light of facts around us up to the dark question concerning the
possibility of the modes in relation to the divine prescience. We would
not first settle this question of possibility, we would not say that God
cannot foreknow except in one particular way, and then proceed to reason
from such a postulate against the clearest facts in the universe. No
logic, and especially no logic based upon so obscure a foundation, shall
ever be permitted to extinguish for us the light of facts, or convert the
universal intelligence of man into a falsehood.

Those who argue from foreknowledge in favour of necessity, usually admit
that there is neither _before_ nor _after_ with God. This is emphatically
the case with the Edwardses. Hence, foreknowledge infers necessity in no
other sense than it is inferred by present or concomitant knowledge. This
is also freely conceded by President Edwards. In what sense, then, does
present knowledge infer necessity? Let us see. I know a man is now walking
before me; does this prove that he could not help walking? that he is
necessitated to walk? It is plain that it infers no such thing. It infers
the necessary connexion, not between the act of the man in walking and the
causes impelling him thereto, but between my knowledge of the fact and the
existence of the fact itself. This is a necessary connexion between two
ideas, or propositions, and not between two events. This confusion is
perpetually made in the "great demonstration" from foreknowledge in favour
of necessity. It proves nothing, except that the greatest minds may be
deceived and misled by the ambiguities of language.

This argument, we say, only shows a necessary connexion between two ideas
or propositions. This is perfectly evident from the very words in which it
is often stated by the advocates of necessity. "I freely allow," says
President Edwards, "that foreknowledge does not prove a thing necessary
any more than after-knowledge; but the after-knowledge, which is certain
and infallible, proves that it is now become impossible but that the
proposition known