Faith vindicated from possibility of falshood, or, The immovable firmness and certainty of the motives to Christian faith asserted against that tenet, which, denying infallibility of authority, subverts its foundation, and renders it uncertain

Third Eviction. (Book 3)

§ 1. THus far Logick: Let's see next * 1.1 what Nature and Metaphy∣sicks say to the Point, in which Quest yet we must not leave Logick's Assist∣ance. And, first, these Sciences assure us, that as all Capacity of different Be∣ings springs from First Matter, so all Capacity of contrary Determinations arises from what we call Potentiality or Indifferency in the Subject. Now the Subject in our present case is not so much our meer Faculty of Understanding, as the Points of Faith it self in our Soul, or the judging Power of our Soul con∣sider'd precisely as affected with these Points; for, 'tis these, or our judging

Power taken meerly as conversant about These, that is, our Judgments, which our Opponents must affirm True, yet Pos∣sible to be False. Since therefore both the Points themselves and our Judgments consist formally in Affirmation and Ne∣gation, that is, in is and is not, which are indivisible, and constituted such by a Formality the most formal and actual that can be, (as hath been shown) they can have, as such, no Indifferency or Po∣tentiality in them to the contrary, nei∣ther Natural nor Metaphysical; nor, con∣sequently, Possibility of Falshood.

§ 2. The Position of our Adversaries * 1.2 is still render'd more absurd by this Con∣sideration, that even in Nature where there is the greatest Potentiality that is, viz. First Matter, the Subject is not yet capable of opposit Qualities at once, but successively; at least in the same part: Whereas, their Position is not that Faith which is now True is possible to be False af∣terwards upon the Alteration of some Contingent Matter; but, that 'tis Possible now to be False, or possible to be now False, for any thing any man knows; that is, the understanding may have possibly Truth and Falshood in it at once,

and as to the same Part or Point.

§ 3. But 'tis still far more irrational, * 1.3 in regard these seeming Contraries, (True) and (False,) apply'd to the Pro∣positions we speak of, have in them the perfect nature of Contradictories; it be∣ing necessary that in those which speak de praesenti, one should be exprest by [is existent] the other by [is not existent] as 'tis in those which speak preteritly and futurely, that one should be exprest by (hath been) or (shall be,) the other by (hath not been) or (shall not be:) To think then they can at once be True and False, is to judg that Contradictories may be veri∣fied of the same, or that both sides of the Contradiction may be true.

§ 4. Again, Truth being a Confor∣mity * 1.4 of the mind to the Thing, and Fals∣hood a Disconformity; to say, a Propo∣sition is True, and yet possible to be False, is to say, that the mind, consider'd as judgingly conversant about that Pro∣position, may be at once Conformable and Disconformable to the same thing. Too wild a Position to be introduc'd in∣to a rational nature, by any thing but such a wilful and blind passion, as must first actually corrupt, and, in fine, tend

to destroy the very nature it self.

§ 5. And, to void this Thesis from all * 1.5 possible evasion, here can be no different Respects according to which these Af∣firmations and Negations may be made, so to avoid Contradiction; but all such Respects are excluded, both out of the nature of the Predicate in most of those Propositions, as hath been shewn (Evict. 1. § 5.) as also out of the nature of the Points of Faith; which, standing in the abstract, descend nor to, nor meddle with subsuming Respects, but have their No∣tions compleated in the common words which express them. And, lastly, be∣cause Truths and Falshoods are not capable of Distinctions and Respects: For, however a Proposition taken into Con∣sideration and scanning whether it be true or no, may admit Respects and Di∣stinctions, and so be affirm'd to be in this regard True, in that False; yet, what is once accepted to be True, cannot in any Respect afterwards be affirm'd possible to be not True, or False. For example, this Proposition [An Ethiopian is white] is distinguish'd by Respects to several parts, and in regard to his Teeth 'tis true; to his skin, 'tis false: But after those

Respects have distinguish'd the Ambi∣guity of it, and so, by dividing it into two Propositions, settled one to be True, the other to be False, there can be no fur∣ther use of Respects or Distinctions, which are to antecede to Truth and Fals∣hood by clearing the doubtfulness of Propositions, and can have no place after the Truth is once acknowledg'd, or su∣pervene to it. He then that once ac∣knowledges Points of Faith to be Truths, can have no Assistance from recourse to this and the other Respect, to evade a Contradiction when he affirms they may be False.

§ 6. Again, 'tis particularly opposite * 1.6 to the nature of a Soul to have such an Act in her as to judg a thing True yet possible to be False at the same time. For, our Soul as to her Judging Power is es∣sentially a Capacity of Truth; whence the First Principles which ground all Truths are so connatural to her, that she cannot but embrace them and judg them true. Nothing therefore being more opposit to Truth than a Contradiction, it follows that nothing is more impossi∣ble to be receiv'd or subjected in the Soul according to her Judging Power

than a Contradiction; that is, no im∣plicatory or contradictory Act can settle there. Now, to judg a Proposition or Point to be true, is to judg the thing to exist just as it affirms; and, to judg it Possible to be False, is to judg it Possible not to exist as it affirms; and this, not in or∣der to different times but the same; that is, to judg a Proposition or Point true yet possible to be false, is the same, as to judg the thing actually is, and yet per∣haps is not at the same time; and this, as appears by our former Discourse, not to be avoided in our case by difference or diversity of Respects. Wherefore, since such an Act is not possible to be in the Judging Power of the Soul, 'tis most manifest, that he who holds one side of the Contradiction, cannot possibly hold the other; that is, he who holds Faith may be False, cannot hold that 'tis True; and that, if it be held and profest to be True, it ought also to be held and pro∣fest Impossible to be false.

§ 7. Moreover, the Soul, antecedent∣ly, * 1.7 to its being inform'd by the Object, was indifferent and undetermin'd to judg it True or False, that is, to be or not to be; but, when it came afterwards through consi∣deration

of the Thing or Object to judg it True, it became determin'd; and how, but by a Notion the most determinative of any other, viz. that of being or is: wher∣fore, since to put in her at the same time a Judgment of its possibility to be False, puts her to be indetermin'd, and this in or∣der to the same, This Position puts the Soul to be at once determinate and inde∣terminate as to the same; which states are as vastly distant as actual Being and not-actual Being can remove them. Nay, this monstrous Thesis makes the Soul In∣determinate to either side, that is to Truth as well as to Falshood, even after it had suppos'd her determin'd to Truth; For, to judg a Point possible to be False, puts the Judgment Potential or Indetermin'd as to the Falshood of it; and False signi∣fying not-true, possible to be False must sig∣nifie possible to be not True, and so include Potentiality or Indetermination to Truth also: in regard, were it actually True, it could not be Possible to be not True, or not it self. The Soul must then be Indeterminate to either, that is, neither judg it true nor false, even after she was supposed to judg it true, in case she can then judg it possible to be false: and, con∣sequently,

this Position of Faith's possi∣bility to be false, cannot, without high∣est contrad••ction, stand with a hearty conceit that Faith is True. To think to escape the force of this Argument by al∣leadging the respect to different Motives, or, that the Understanding was not per∣fectly but partly determin'd, is in our case frivolous. For I ask, was it determin'd enough by any Intellectual or Rational Motives to judg the thing is? if not, what made it judg so when those Mo∣tives could not? Is it not evident it must be some weakness or some blind motive in the Will, not Light of Understand∣ing? But, if it were determin'd enough to judg the thing is or is true, 'tis also enough for my Argument and Pur∣pose.

§ 8. Especially the force of this Ar∣gument * 1.8 will be better penetrated when it shall be well consider'd in what Truth and Falshood formally consist; and that, taken rightly, they are certain Affections or Dispositions of our Understanding. For, that is not to be called True by me which is not True to me; not is any thing True to me, but when 'tis seen by me to be so in the Object; and to be thus

seen by me, is the Object to inform and actuate my Understanding Power as 'tis Judicative; whence that Power, as 'tis thus actuated, gains a Conformity to the thing it self, in which consists the pre∣cise nature of Truth. However then Truth come from the Object which is the ground or cause of it, yet 'tis formal∣ly no where but in the Understanding or Judgment; as appears evidently from this, that Truth is found in Propositi∣ons: now Propositions are not in the thing formally, (though, when true, they are deriv'd hence) but in the mind only, and significatively in words. Truth then is that whereby I am true or veracious when I say interiourly, the Thing is, or is thus and thus; wherefore the Truth of any Point is not had till this Actuation or Determination of my Power by the Object, which as it's Formal Cause makes this Conformity to it, be put: And, this put, to think that at the same time or at once the mind can be unactuated, unde∣termin'd, potential or disconformable to it, is too gross a conceit to enter into the head of any man endued with the com∣mon Light of Reason. Whoever then af∣firm's Faith or those Propositions which

express Faith possible to be false, he is convinc't by the clearest Light of Rea∣son (in case the desperation of maintain∣ing the Truth of Faith, for want of grounds, drives him not to say any thing, but that he speaks candidly what he thinks) not to judg or say from his heart, His Faith is indeed True, having never ex∣perienc't in his Soul, for want of Prin∣ciples to put it there, that the Object or Ground of his Faith hath wrought in it that Conformity to the thing, in which Truth consists; and, consequent∣ly, that, when he professes Points of Faith to be Truths, he either by a fortu∣nate piece of folly understands not what he sayes, or collogues and dissem∣bles with God and the world for honour or some other Interest.

§ 9. 'Tis hence farther demonstrated that the Position we impugn destroys * 1.9 the Notion of Metaphysical Unity, con∣sisting in an Indivision or Indistinction of any Notion, Nature or Thing in it self, and a Division or Distinction of it from all other: For, according to this Tenet, Truth or the Conformity of our Understanding to the Object, put by our joynt supposition that the Proposi∣tion

of Faith is true, may possibly be Disconformity or Falshood, and this Determinate State, Indeterminate; which makes the mind as having in it One No∣tion, that is indeed that One Notion, ca∣pable to admit into its bowels Another, not only disparate, but Opposit, that is, One possible to be not One, but Another.

§ 10. The same is demonstrated con∣cerning * 1.10 Metaphysical Verity. For this Position makes the self-same mental Proposition or Disposition of the Un∣derstanding we call Truth, possible to be Falshood; that is, Possible not to be the same with it self, which subverts all Me∣taphysical Verity; that is, the Foundation or ground of all Formal Verity or Truth in the World.

§ 11. The same injury demonstrative∣ly * 1.11 accrues to Metaphysical Bonity or Goodness. For, it makes that Con∣formity of the mind to the thing which is Truth, and so the Good or Perfection of the Understanding, to be at once possible to be Falshood, that is, possible to be not good but harmful and destructive to it.

§ 12. I make no question but my Ad∣versaries will think to elude the force of these three last Demonstrations, and per∣haps

of some others by alleadging that they deny absolutely Truth can possi∣bly be Falshood, and that they mean only that though the Points of Faith ap∣pear now upon considerable Motives to be True, yet those Motives secure it not from being absolutely False; but not so that they can really be both. And I grant this would be a good Answer, in case they did not affirm Points of Faith to be really True, (upon which Suppositi∣on taken from the common Language and Sentiments of all that profess Christi∣anity, even theirs too as Christians I proceed) but only profest they were Likely to be True; for then it would be so far from following that Truth could be Falshood, or that the same Points could be both true and not true at once, that, in that case, it would follow they ought to affirm they were neither True nor False; since likely to be True and True indeed are no more the same, than a Sta∣tue which is like a man is the same with a man. But, if all Christians be bound to profess, and themselves actually do so, that their Faith is indeed True, then let us see how they will avoid the consequen∣ces of my former discourse, when they

assert it withall Possible to be False. For it is that very individual judgment they make concerning a Point of Faith, or an Act of Faith, which they must affirm to be True or a Truth, that is conformable to the thing; and 'tis of the self-same Judgment, though call'd by them a Truth, of which they affirm that 'tis pos∣sible to be False, or disconformable to the Object: And, this is not so meant as if it should become so afterwards, either by some Alteration of that Judgment into another, or of the thing to which it is Conformable; but that even that very self-same Judgment, while they speak and hold it after their Fashion True, may even then possibly be False; from which 'tis evident, that for want of solid Grounds to settle Poin••s of Faith in their Soul as Truths, they hold them indeed only Likelihoods, whose Nature 'tis to be Possible to be F••lse; and yet, forc't by the natural sense and language of Christianity, which 'tis dishonour∣able to them too palpably to contradict, they become oblig'd to profess them Truths, whose firm Grounds make them Impossible to be False; though at the same time they affix to them the proper

badg of Likelihoods, Possibility of Falshood. Whence by confounding the purest and solidest nature of Truth's Gold, with other Notions of so base an alloy that it cannot admit any mixture with them, all Principles which are to support the true Natures or Beings of things, are by consequence attacqu't; and, could their Position stand, would quite be over∣thrown.

Notes

• * 1.1

  The main Thesis de∣monstra∣ted from the want of Potenti∣ality in the Subject.
• * 1.2

  From the, otherwise, necessity of putting a consisten∣cy of Truth with Falshood.
• * 1.3

  From the, otherwise, necessity of putting Contradi∣ctories to be true.
• * 1.4

  From the, otherwise, necessity of putting it possible the minde should be at once conform∣able and discon∣formable to the thing.
• * 1.5

  From the Impossibi∣lity of dif∣ferent Re∣spects here so to avoid a Contra∣diction.
• * 1.6

  From the nature of the Soul.
• * 1.7

  From the necessity of putting the Soul at once de∣termin'd and inde∣termin'd in order to the same Point.
• * 1.8

  From the Formal Natures of T••uth and Fals∣hood.
• * 1.9

  From the notion of Metaphy∣sical Unity
• * 1.10

  From the notion of Metaphy∣sical Veri∣ty.
• * 1.11

  From the notion of Metaphy∣sical Bo∣nity or Goodness.