HKB
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Often appears with: will, choice, and freedom · the nature and attributes of God · reason and the intellect · immortality of the soul · fate, destiny, and necessity · conversion and faith · the problem of evil and theodicy · sin, guilt, and repentance · scotch metaphysicians · religious persecution and toleration · prudence and practical wisdom · providence and divine governance
Usually: detachment (8) · argument (5) · reflection (4) · crisis of belief (2) · injustice endured (2) · confronting death (1) · censure (1) · curiosity (1) · exhortation (1) · praise (1)
“I will point out that absolute necessity, which is called also logical and metaphysical and sometimes geometrical, and which would alone be formidable in this connexion, does not exist in free actions” Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Freiherr von, Theodicy · precept
“Most important of all, however, I show that it has been possible for God to permit sin and misery, and even to co-operate therein and promote it, without detriment to his holiness and his supreme goodness” Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Freiherr von, Theodicy · insight
“For to be able to make a mistake and go astray is a disadvantage, and to have control over the passions is in truth an advantage, but one that presupposes an imperfection, namely passion itself, of which God is incapable.” Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Freiherr von, Theodicy · insight
“God before the fall of Adam had reflected upon what he had to do, and that for causes concealed from us.... It is evident therefore that he had just causes for the reprobation of some of mankind, but causes to us UNKNOWN.” Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Freiherr von, Theodicy · insight
“Nay, but show them the error, and you shall see how they will cease from their sins.” Epictetus (trans. T. W. Rolleston), The Teaching of Epictetus · precept
“But if they see it not, they have naught better than the appearance of the thing to them.” Epictetus (trans. T. W. Rolleston), The Teaching of Epictetus · insight
“Because *you* think yourself but one among the many threads which make up the texture of the doublet.” Epictetus, The Golden Sayings of Epictetus, with the Hymn of Cl · insight
Using David Hume and Priestley as examples, Kant explains their motives for undermining religion as part of teaching reason self-knowledge and responding to limits of natural science, while urging fair treatment of both.
it is perfectly permissible to employ, in the presence of reason, the language of a firmly rooted faith, even after we have been obliged to renounce all pretensions to knowledge. If we were to ask the dispassionate David Hume—a philosopher endowed, in a degree that few are, with a well-balanced judgement: What motive induced you to spend so much labour and thought in undermining the consoling and beneficial persuasi…
He argues reason’s ultimate speculative targets—freedom, immortality, and God—are useless for knowing experience, so their true importance lies in their practical role in guiding life.
There exists in the faculty of reason a natural desire to venture beyond the field of experience, to attempt to reach the utmost bounds of all cognition by the help of ideas alone, and not to rest satisfied until it has fulfilled its course and raised the sum of its cognitions into a self-subsistent systematic whole. Is the motive for this endeavour to be found in its speculative, or in its practical interests alone?…
Kant argues that the moral law determines a free will without help from sensible impulses, producing only a negative check on inclinations that yields pain or humiliation linked to the feeling of respect.
{BOOK*1|CHAPTER*3 ^paragraph 5} The essential point in every determination of the will by the moral law is that being a free will it is determined simply by the moral law, not only without the co-operation of sensible impulses, but even to the rejection of all such, and to the checking of all inclinations so far as they might be opposed to that law. So far, then, the effect of the moral law as a motive is only negat…
He promises to resolve these difficulties by denying absolute (logical/metaphysical/geometrical) necessity in free actions, explaining that God always chooses the best without acting through absolute necessity, guided by natural laws.
simultaneously that [61] the damned should be involved in the mass of perdition and should not be delivered: for God and the sage make no resolve without considering its consequences. I hope to remove all these difficulties. I will point out that absolute necessity, which is called also logical and metaphysical and sometimes geometrical, and which would alone be formidable in this connexion, does not exist in free a…
Leibniz argues that creatures have freedom only as an advantage without true imperfection, while God’s will is always determined by the best and never acts without reasons grounded in general principles.
act freely also, in accordance with their original nature, which existed already in the eternal ideas; and lastly, that the motive power of good inclines the will without compelling it. 337. The advantage of freedom which is in the creature without doubt exists to an eminent degree in God. That must be understood in so far as it is genuinely an advantage and in so far as it presupposes no imperfection. For to be abl…
Epictetus instructs learners to praise God and accept that their true freedom depends on their own will, not on external events like exile, imprisonment, death, or reputation.
IV But I have one whom I must please, to whom I must be subject, whom I must obey:—God, and those who come next to Him. He hath entrusted me with myself: He hath made my will subject to myself alone and given me rules for the right use thereof. V Rufus used to say, _If you have leisure to praise me, what I say is naught_. In truth he spoke in such wise, that each of us who sat there, though that some one had accus…
He defines the “prevailing system of metaphysics” as associated with Locke and argues its doctrines are tied to orthodox religious teaching, making them hard to question and obstructing clear spiritual distinctions.
unfolded in the Work. But this also is an evil which I saw no means of avoiding without incurring a greater, and writing a book instead of a brief essay. Let it be understood, then, without further preface, that by the prevailing system of metaphysics, I mean the system, of which in modern times Locke is the reputed author, and the leading principles of which, with various modifications, more or less important, but …
He points to ongoing debate on the nature and origin of sin, cites the 1829 “Christian Spectator,” and endorses a writer’s doubts about motives, cause and effect, and freedom of the will as matching his own view.
difficulties; and that then it is only by a vague belief that, though we cannot see how, there must be some method of reconciling what seems to be so contradictory. If examples were wanting to prove that serious and trying difficulties are felt to exist here, enough may be found, as it has appeared to me, in the controversy respecting the nature and origin of sin, which is at this moment interesting the public mind.…
Epictetus argues we should not be indignant at robbers and adulterers but pity them for misjudging good and evil, since the only true loss is deprivation of the proper will.
HOW WE SHOULD BEAR OURSELVES TOWARDS EVIL MEN. 1. If that which the philosophers say is true--that there is one principle in all men, as when I assent to something, the feeling that it is so; and when I dissent, the feeling that it is not so; yea, and when I withhold my judgment, the feeling that it is uncertain; and likewise, when I am moved towards anything, the feeling that it is for my profit, but it is impossib…