HKB
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Often appears with: will, choice, and freedom · sin, guilt, and repentance · power to the contrary · original sin debate · contracts, oaths, and obligation · cause and effect
Usually: argument (1) · censure (1)
“But whenever it thus yielded, there was power to the contrary”; otherwise there could be no freedom of moral action.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to Reflection; and, The Confessions of an Inqui · observation
Coleridge criticizes editors’ claim of a “power to the contrary,” arguing that if will is determined by causes then no such power exists, and if there is a true power then the will is self-determined rather than externally determined.
doubts and conclusions which every one will entertain, who lays aside authority, and reflects upon the goings-on of his own mind, and the dictates of his own reason and conscience. But let us look for a moment at the remarks of the editors in reply to the letter above quoted. They maintain, in relation to original sin and the perversion of the will, that from either the *original* or the *acquired* strength of certa…