New Approaches to Religion and the Enlightenment by McInelly Brett C.;Kerry Paul E.;

Author:McInelly, Brett C.;Kerry, Paul E.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781683931621
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

Clarke’s “Moral Agent” Position

Clarke’s argument contains neither of these extremes. Rather, Clarke was earnestly seeking the harmony that ought to be possible between a free agent and a law. For example, Clarke stated that if the argument rested solely on the assumption that it was “unworthy” of God’s power “to do anything ineffectually or to permit Any Act of His to be resisted by the power of frail and mortal Men,” without question such an assumption would indeed be correct. However, Clarke claimed an exception to this assumption, for “in Moral matters, where whatever is not done voluntarily and without Compulsion, is not done at all; the case is very different.”40 Morality, Clarke taught, is inextricably linked to autonomy in choice:

For in these matters, to influence a Moral Agent with such an Efficacy as cannot be resisted, is entirely to destroy the Morality of the Action, to take away the whole Nature of Virtue and Vice, and to make all Reward or Punishment impossible or unjust. . . . It would altogether be unworthy of [God] to exercise That Power; because it would be a subverting of his whole Design, in creating rational and intelligent Beings at all.41

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