Note 103 — Chapter VI · THE OPINION OF NECESSITY, CONSIDERED AS INFLUENCING PRACTICE.

[The student should learn to distinguish between the kinds of necessity. There is—1. “Logical necessity,” which requires the admission of a consequent to a premise 2. “Moral necessity,” which requires means in order to ends. “Physical necessity,” which is the compulsory connection of sequences to antecedents, in the material world. 4. “Metaphysical necessity,” which belongs to God only, as existing eternally and immutably. All these exist and operate, and by them we govern ourselves.But there are various other kinds of necessity, erroneous and pernicious, which may be grouped under two heads:—1. “Atheistic,” sometimes called the Democritic, which ascribes all things to the mechanical laws of matter. 2. “Theistic,” which admits the existence of God, but denies to him moral character, and makes him the arbitrary and only agent in the universe, and creatures not responsible. See Collings on Providence, Price’s Dissertations, Rutherford on Providence, Charnock’s Sermons, and Whately’s Logic.]