Jonathan Edwards

First published Tue Jan 15, 2002; substantive revision Wed Jul 15, 2020

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) is widely acknowledged to beAmerica's most important and original philosophical theologian. Hiswork as a whole is an expression of two themes — the absolutesovereignty of God and the beauty of God's holiness. The first isarticulated in Edwards' defense of theological determinism, in adoctrine of occasionalism, and in his insistence that physical objectsare only collections of sensible “ideas” while finiteminds are mere assemblages of “thoughts” or“perceptions.” As the only real cause or substanceunderlying physical and mental phenomena, God is “being ingeneral,” the “sum of all being.”

Edwards' second theme is articulated in accounts of God's end increation, and of the nature of true virtue and true beauty. Godcreates in order to manifest a holiness which consists in abenevolence which alone is truly beautiful. Genuine human virtue is animitation of divine benevolence and all finite beauty is an image ofdivine loveliness. True virtue is needed to discern this beauty,however, and to reason rightly about “divine things.”

Edwards' projectedHistory of Redemption would have drawnthese themes together, for it is in his redemptive work in historythat God's sovereignty, holiness, and beauty are most clearlyexhibited.

1. Life

Edwards was born into a family of prominent Congregational ministersin East Windsor, Connecticut in 1703. In 1716 Edwards enrolled in Yalewhere he read Newton and Locke, and began “Notes on theMind” and “Notes on Natural Science.” Locke'sinfluence on his epistemology, philosophy of language, andphilosophical psychology was profound. Edwards' metaphysics, however,appears more strongly influenced by Malebranche and, to a lesserextent, the Cambridge Platonists, and bears little resemblance toLocke's. After briefly serving congregations in New York and Bolton,Connecticut, Edwards returned to Yale where he completed his Mastersof Arts degree and became senior tutor in 1724. In 1725, the church inNorthampton chose Edwards to succeed his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard— the so-called “pope of the Connecticut valley.”The most notable events of his tenure were the revivals of 1734 and1740–41, the latter of which came to be known as the GreatAwakening. Edwards' defense of the revivals and criticisms of itsexcesses culminated in his first major treatise, theReligiousAffections (1746). Worsening relationswith his congregation came to a head in a dispute over qualificationsfor church membership. Rejecting the less rigorous standards of hisgrandfather, Edwards insisted on a public profession of saving faithbased on the candidate's religious experiences as a qualification notonly for Holy Communion but also for church membership. He wasdismissed in 1750 by a margin of one vote. After refusing invitationsto pulpits in North America and Scotland, Edwards retreated to theIndian mission at Stockbridge where he had charge of two difficultcongregations, supervised a boarding school for Indian boys, andcompleted his last major works —Freedom of the Will(1754),Original Sin (1758),End of Creation, andTrue Virtue (both published posthumously in 1765). Edwardsaccepted an appointment as President of the College of New Jersey (nowPrinceton) in 1757. He died from complications arising from a smallpoxinoculation on March 22, 1758, less than five weeks after hisinauguration. Edwards' published works were primarily designed todefend the Puritan version of Calvinist orthodoxy and his influence onCongregational and Presbyterian theology was profound. His extensivenotebooks reveal an interest in philosophical problems for their ownsake, however, and his deployment of philosophical arguments in hisprivate papers and published works are both sophisticated andfrequently original.

2. Metaphysics

2.1 Theological Determinism

Edwards believed that indeterminism is incompatible with ourdependence on God and hence with his sovereignty. If our responses toGod's grace are contra-causally free, then our salvation dependspartly on us and God's sovereignty isn't “absolute anduniversal.”Freedom of the Will defends theologicaldeterminism. Edwards begins by attempting to show that libertarianismis incoherent. For example, he argues that by‘self-determination’ the libertarian must mean either thatone's actions including one's acts of willing are preceded by an actof free will or that one's acts of will lack sufficient causes. Thefirst leads to an infinite regress while the second implies that actsof will happen accidentally and hence can't make someone “betteror worse, any more than a tree is better than other trees because itoftener happens to be lit upon by a swan or nightingale; or a rockmore vicious than other rocks, because rattlesnakes have happenedoftener to crawl over it” (Freedom of the Will, 1754;Edwards 1957–, vol. 1, 327). On the second alternative, acts ofchoosing (volitions) are neither chosen by us nor determined byreasons or our character or by other states of the soul. But if theyare not, then they aren't truly ours and we cannot be held responsiblefor them. Edwards also argues that libertarianism is inconsistent withordinary moral concepts. If, for example, the necessity of sinningwholly excuses, then a bias to sin should partially excuse. But itdoesn't; a person who acts from settled habits of maliciousness isdeemed “so much the more worthy to be detested andcondemned” (Freedom of the Will, 1754; Edwards1957–, vol. 1, 360). Since libertarianism implies that necessityexcuses, it is inconsistent with the way we attribute blame.

In Edwards' opinion, libertarianism's specious aura of plausibility isgrounded in a systematic confusion of “philosophical” and“vulgar” (ordinary) usage. For example, in ordinary usagesomething (e.g., remaining seated) is said to be “necessary tous…when we can't help it, let us do what we will”(Freedom of the Will, 1754; Edwards 1957–, vol. 1,150). Causal necessity doesn't entail “vulgar necessity,”however. Ingrained habits, deeply felt resentment, and the like maycausally necessitate a malicious action. It doesn't follow that theagent wouldn't have refrained from acting maliciously if she hadchosen not to act maliciously. Hence, the fact that she was causallyunable to act other than she did does not imply that she was unable todo so in the “vulgar” or ordinary sense. Libertarians aretherefore mistaken in thinking that because vulgar necessity excuses,so does causal necessity. Again, ‘freedom’ or‘liberty’ in common speech refer only to “that powerand opportunity for one to do and conduct as he will, or according tohis choice,” and contains no reference to the “cause ororiginal” of the act of will (Freedom of the Will,1754; Edwards 1957–vol. 1, 163–64). Hence, that liberty inthe ordinary sense is essential to moral agency does not entail thatcontra-causal freedom is. It is also important to note that action inthe ordinary sense is “some motion or exertion of power, that isvoluntary, or that is theeffect of the will…[the termis] most commonly used to signify outward actions” (Freedomof the Will, 1754; Edwards 1957–, vol. 1, 346). Improperlyextending the term ‘action’ to movements of the will hasled some libertarians to conclude that since external behavior must bepreceded by an act of will to be voluntary, and an appropriate objectof moral appraisal, so too must acts of will. A consequence is thelibertarian's misleading talk of the will's self-determination.

Edwards' principal reasonsfor theological determinism areGod's sovereignty, the principle of sufficient reason (which requiresthat everything that begins to be have a complete cause), the natureof motivation, and God's foreknowledge. The latter two are discussedat length.

The argument from motivation depends upon Edwards' identification ofwilling or choosing with one's strongest inclination or preference.Since choosing justis a prevailing inclination, it islogically impossible to choose in the absence of a prevailing motive.If there is a prevailing motive, however, then the will is necessarilydetermined by it, for if the will were to choose contrary to aprevailing motive, the agent would have two opposed preponderantinclinations at the same time. All choices, therefore, are necessarilydetermined.

Edwards' most impressive arguments from divine foreknowledge are basedon the impossibility of knowing future contingents and on thenecessity of the past. One knows p only if one has evidence for it,and evidence “must be one of…two sorts, eitherself-evidence orproof.” Propositions aboutfuture contingents can't be self-evident, however, because the statesof affairs they represent are neither present to the mind nornecessary. But they can't be proved either, for if the state ofaffairs expressed by the proposition is genuinely contingent,“there is nothing now existent with which the future existenceof the contingent event is [necessarily] connected.” Futurecontingents are thus necessarily unknowable (Freedom of theWill, 1754; Edwards 1957–, vol. 1, 259). Since God'sknowledge of the future is comprehensive, it follows that no futureevent (and so no future human action) is genuinely contingent.

The conclusion also follows from the necessity of the past. Suppose Imake a decisionD at timet. Since God isomniscient, he has always believed thatD occurs att. Since he can't be mistaken, God's believing at someearlier timet_n thatD occurs att entails thatD occurs att. But God'sforebelief is past in relation tot and is therefore“now necessary” in the sense that nothing done att can alter it. What is entailed by a necessary fact isitself necessary, however. Therefore,D could not fail tooccur att. Nor can one evade this conclusion by appealing toGod's timelessness as some do. For even if God's‘forebeliefs’ are timeless and so don't precede the eventsthey are about, divinely inspired prophecies are not. Yet divinelyinspired prophecies, too, are necessarily connected with the humanactions they foretell and they are clearly past (and hence necessary)in relation to them.

Necessity is consistent with moral responsibility, however. We aresaid to be responsible for our actions when we act as we choose anddeterminism does not deny that our actions often spring from ourchoices. Nor is necessity incompatible with praise and blame. Eventhough God and Christ necessarily act for the best, their actions areeminently praiseworthy.

It is worth noting that the aim of Edwards' philosophicallysophisticated arguments is theological. He saw that

if modern divines…can maintain their peculiar notion offreedom, consisting in theself-determining power of thewill, as necessary to moral agency…, then they have animpregnable castle, to which they may repair, and remain invincible,in all the controversies they have with the reformed divinesconcerningoriginal sin, thesovereignty of grace,election…, and other principles of the like kind. (OriginalSin, 1758; Edwards 1957–, vol. 1, 376)

Edwards recognizes that “modern divines” pretend thatdoctrines like these undermine “the very foundation of allreligion and morality” (Freedom of the Will, 1754;Edwards 1957, vol. 1, 422).Freedom of the Will concludes byarguing that, on the contrary, they do a much better job of supportingthem.

2.2 Occasionalism, Idealism, Mental Phenomenalism, and Views on Identity

Edwards' occasionalism, idealism, and mental phenomenalism provide aphilosophical interpretation of God's absolute sovereignty: God is theonly real cause and the only true substance.

Edwards implicitly distinguishes between a real or true cause and acause in the ordinary or “vulgar” sense. The latter is“that, after or upon the existence of which, or the existence ofit after such a manner, the existence of another thing follows”(“The Mind,” no. 26; Edwards 1957–, vol. 6, 350).Vulgar causes aren't real causes, however. In the first place,so-called second causes are spatially or temporally distinct fromtheir effects, and “no [real] cause can produce effects in atime and place on which itself is not” (Original Sin,1758; Edwards 1957–, vol. 3, 400). In the second, real causesnecessitate their effects and second causes do not. “It don't atall necessarily follow,” for example, “that because therewas…color, or resistance,…or thought, or any otherdependent thing at the last moment, that therefore there shall be thelike at the next” (Original Sin, 1758; Edwards1957–, vol. 3, 404). Finally, if second causes were real causesthey would be sufficient to produce their effects. If they weresufficient, however, then God's activity would be redundant and it isnot. Unlike second causes, God's causal activity meets all threeconditions. Since God is not in time or space, there is no temporal orspatial separation between his activity and its effects. Since God isessentially omnipotent, his will is necessarily effective; it islogically impossible for him to will s and s not take place. The thirdcondition is also met. Because God is omnipotent he doesn't need thecooperation of other causal powers to produce his effects. And becausesovereignty belongs to him alone he doesn't share his causal powerwith others. God's decrees are thus fully sufficient for theireffects. God alone, then, is the only real cause. Vulgar causes (e.g.,heating water) are simply the occasions upon which God produceseffects (e.g., the water's boiling) according to “methods andlaws” which express his customary manner of acting.

In an early paper (“Of Atoms”) Edwards pointed out thatthe concept of a material substance is the concept of somethingsubsisting by itself, standing “underneath,” and keeping“up solidity and all other [physical] properties” (Edwards1957–, vol. 6, 215). He then argued that God alone meets theseconditions, and concluded that if the concept of material substancerefers to anything, it refers to God's causal activity.

Edwards also thought that “nothing has existence any whereelse…but either in created or uncreated consciousness.”It follows that “the material universe exists only in themind;” “the existence of all corporeal things is onlyideas” (“Of Being,” “The Mind,” no. 51,and “Miscellanies,” no. 179; Edwards 1957, vol. 6, 204,368, and vol. 13, 327).

Edwards' arguments for idealism are similar to (but apparentlyuninfluenced by) Berkeley's. One of the best examples occurs in“The Mind,” no. 27. Edwards first argues that the idea ofa body can be resolved into ideas of color and resistance. Figure, forexample, is the termination of color or resistance. Solidityis resistance, while motion is “the communication ofthis resistance from space to space.” “Every knowingphilosopher” agrees that colors exist only in minds.‘Resistance’ refers either to instances in which one bodyresists another or to a power, namely, a body's disposition to resistother bodies. The first is a mode or property of ideas; it is ideaswhich are “resisted…move and stop, and rebound.”For example, our observation of a billiard ball's ricocheting from thecushion can be resolved into impressions of a particular configurationof color and figure (the billiard ball) moving closer to another (thecushion), touching it, and then moving away from it. The power ofresistance is no more than a divine “establishment,”namely, “the constant law or method” of “the actualexertion of God's power” producing instances of resistance. Soinstances of resistance are qualities of ideas and thepower of resistance is a stable divine intention to act incertain ways. Resistance, therefore, exists only in relation to minds.Since the idea of a body can be reduced to ideas of color andresistance, and color and resistance have only mental existence,“the world is…an ideal one” (Edwards 1957–,vol. 6, 350–51).

Edwards' mental phenomenalism is a natural extension of hisoccasionalism and views on substance. If God is the only real cause ofspatio-temporal phenomena, he is the only real cause of“thoughts” or “perceptions.” If a substance iswhat “subsists by itself,” “standsunderneath,” and “keeps up” a set of properties,then a mental substance can only be what subsists by itself, standsunderneath, and keeps up mental properties. It follows that theconcept of mental substance either denotes nothing or refers to God'scausal activity. “What we call spirit,” then, “isnothing but a composition and series of perceptions [mentalevents]…connected by…laws” (“Notes onKnowledge and Existence”; Edwards 1957–, vol. 6, 398).

Mental and physical substance are thus identical with God's causalproduction of the mental events constituting minds and the sensibleideas or “sensations” which constitute bodies“according to…methods and laws” which he hasfreely established (“The Mind,” no. 13; Edwards1957–, vol. 6, 344). God is thus the only true substance as wellas the only true cause.

God's sovereignty also extends to criteria of identity.“Species” (kinds or natures) are the ways we classifythings. But our classifications depend on our needs and interests, andthe character of the world we live in. Hence, in determining everyfeature of the spatio-temporal world, God has determined how thingswill be classified, that is, what counts as a “species” orkind. Since a thing's criteria of identity are determined by itsnature or kind, God is their ultimate ground. In short, laws determinekinds and kinds determine criteria of identity. In determining lawsGod has therefore determined criteria of identity (“TheMind”, nos. 41, 43, and 47; Edwards 1957, vol. 6, 359f, 361f.,366f.). (One implication is that God can so arrange things that Adamand his posterity count as one thing for purposes of punishment andreward.)

2.3 God as Being in General

God is “being in general.” He “is the sum of allbeing, and there is no being without his being; all things are in himand he in all” (“Miscellanies,” no. 880; Edwards1957–, vol. 20, 122). Edwards appears to have borrowed thephrase “being in general” from Malebranche. What does hemean by it?

He does not mean that God is the power of being or being as such asearlier commentators like Clyde Holbrook and Douglas Elwood havesuggested. God is neither a power nor a universal but a concreteentity or substance — a necessarily existing “intelligentwilling agent such as our souls, only without our imperfections, andnot some inconceivable, unintelligent, necessary agent”(“Miscellanies,” no. 383; Edwards 1957–, vol. 13,452).

True Virtue associates being with capacity or power, andasserts that “degree of existence” is a function of“greater capacity or power,” of having “everyfaculty and every positive quality in an higher degree. Anarchangel must be supposed to have more existence, and to beevery way further removed fromnonentity than awormor aflea” (True Virtue, 1765; Edwards1957–, vol. 8, 546). Miscellany 94 identifies perfect entity andperfect activity:

God is a pure act…because that which acts perfectly is all act,and nothing but act. There is an image of this in created beings thatapproach to perfect action. [Thus,] the saints of heaven are alltransfigured into love, dissolved into joy, become activity itself,changed into mere ecstasy. (Edwards 1957–, vol. 13, 260f.)

“The Discourse on the Trinity” claims that there is nodistinction between substance and act in the divine essence becauseGod’s essence is both “wholly substance and whollyact” (Edwards 1957, vol. 21, 116). And “The Mind”no. 45 identifies being with consciousness. “Perceiving beingonly is properly being” (Edwards 1957–, vol. 6,363). Although Edwards never systematically developed or integratedthese scattered observations, their drift is toward the identificationof being with mind in act, and of degree of being with degree of mindor consciousness and the comparative perfection of the activity inwhich it is engaged. God's consciousness and power are unlimited, andhis activity is perfect. His being is therefore unlimited.

Why, though, is God being in general? Because finite beings areabsolutely and immediately dependent upon him for both their being andproperties. Indeed, as the only true substance and only true cause,created beings are no more than God's “shadows” or“images.” (While “particular minds” deliberateand choose, and so possess a kind of agency, they lack real power andare thus no more than images of divine agency. Because they lack notonly power but also consciousness and will, bodies are even furtherremoved from real agency and hence are, as Edwards says, mere shadowsof being.) As the only true substance and only true cause, God is the“head” of the system of beings, its “chiefpart,” an absolute sovereign whose power and perfection are sogreat that “all other beings are as nothing to him, and allother excellency…as nothing and less than nothing,…incomparison of his” (End of Creation, 1765; Edwards1957–, vol. 8, 451). “The whole system of created beingsin comparison of him is as the light dust of the balance”(“Miscellanies,” no. 1208; Edwards 1957–, vol. 23,133). ‘Being in general,’ then, refers to the system ofbeings — primarily to God but to “particularbeings,” too, in so far as they depend upon and more or lessadequately reflect him.

The claim that God is the only real substance, the “properentity” of things, has led to accusations of pantheism. Studentsof Edwards have responded by insisting on a distinction in Edwardsbetween God and creatures. The distinction is real but insufficient torefute charges of pantheism. For, historically, pantheisms do notidentify the divine with nature as such but, rather, with nature'ssubstance or essence or inner being or power. Natural phenomena aren'tidentical with the divine. They are its modes or properties or parts.Edwards clearly believes that God is the world's real substance.However, the sense of his assertion is very different from that of thepantheists. In claiming that God is the world's substance Edwardsmeans that God's decrees are the only cause of an entity's being andcharacteristics. He isn't a pantheist because the relation between Godand the world is construed as a relation between a creative volitionand its immediate effects. Edwards' model is not a whole and itsparts, or a substance (a bearer of properties) and its properties, oran essence and its accidents, but agent causality.

2.4 God's End in Creation

Edwards never doubted that God's end is himself. Since true virtueconsists in benevolence to being and “complacence” ordelight in moral excellence, and since God is the “chiefpart” of being and the fount of all excellence, a truly virtuousagent “must necessarily have a supreme love to God, both ofbenevolence and complacence” (True Virtue, 1765;Edwards 1957–, vol. 8, 551). It follows thatGod'srectitude and holiness “chiefly consists in a respect or regardto himself, infinitely above his regard to all other beings” andthat, as a consequence, his works must be “so wrought as to showthis supreme respect to himself” (End of Creation,1765; Edwards 1957–, vol. 8, 422). God's ultimate aim in all hisworks must therefore be himself. Edwards concludes that he creates theworld for his own glory. But Edwards also believed that because theessence of goodness is to communicate good for it own sake,“happiness is the end of the creation”(“Miscellanies,” no. 3; Edwards 1957–, vol. 13,199).

End of Creation reconciles these claims. God's glory isdefined as “the emanation and true external expression of God'sinternal glory and fullness.” It includes (1) “theexercise of God's perfections to produce a proper effect,” (2)“the manifestation of his internal glory to createdunderstandings,” (3) “the communication of the infinitefullness of God to the creature,” and (4) “the creature'shigh esteem of God, love to God, and complacence and joy in God; andthe proper exercises and expressions of these” (End ofCreation, 1765; Edwards 1957–, vol. 8, 527).

There is no ontological distinction between the first and third“parts” of God's glory since the principal effect of God'sexercising his perfections is “his fullness communicated.”Furthermore, the third part includes the second and fourth. For God'sinternal fullness or glory is the “fullness of his understandingconsisting in his knowledge” of himself “and the fullnessof his will consisting in his virtue and happiness.” His“external glory…consists in the communication ofthese,” i. e., in bringing it about that “particularminds” know and love God, and delight in him. The four“parts” are thus “one thing, in a variety of viewsand relations” (End of Creation, 1765; Edwards1957–, vol. 8, 527).

In pursuing his own glory, God thus takes both himselfandthe creature's good as ultimate aims. Happiness consists in theknowledge and love of God, and joy in him. The creature's happiness isan ultimate end because it isincluded in God's ultimate end,namely, the communication of his internal glory “adextra;” rather than being a means to God's glory, it is part ofit.

An apparent consequence is that Godmust create a world todisplay his glory.End of Creation contends both that God'sperfections include “a propensity of nature to diffuse of hisown fullness” and that it isn't “possible for him to behindered in the exercise of his goodness and his other perfections intheir proper effect.” (End of Creation, 1765; Edwards1957–, vol. 8, 447) It follows that God must diffuse his ownfullness, i. e., God must create. Edwards also appears committed tothe claim that God necessarily createsthis world (call itw*). God necessarily does what is “fittest andbest.” It is thus necessarily true that God creates the bestpossible world. Now God has createdw*. Hence,w* isthe best possible world. ‘Being the best possible world’is an essential property of whatever world has it, however. It istherefore necessarily true thatw* is the best possibleworld. It follows that it is necessarily true that God createsw*.

Whether Edwards was aware of these consequences is uncertain. The twomost common objections to them, however, — that they imply thatthere isn't any real contingency and that God isn't free — wouldnot have troubled him. For Edwards thought that our world displaysneither contra-causal freedom nor real indeterminacy. He also believedthat moral agency and freedom are compatible with metaphysicalnecessity. God can only do what is “fittest and best.” Heis nevertheless free in the sense that he is aware of alternatives(the array of possible worlds), has the ability (i. e., the power and“skill”) to actualize any of them, is neither forced,constrained nor influenced by any other being, and does precisely whathe wishes. Edwards believes that this is the only kind of freedom thatis either relevant to moral agency or worth having.

3. Value Theory

3.1 Ethics

True virtue aims at the good of being in general and therefore alsoprizes the disposition that promotes it. Truly virtuous people thuslove two things — being and benevolence. They not only valuebenevolence because it promotes the general good, however; they also“relish” or delight in it for its own sake. Hence, whilevirtue “most essentially consists in benevolence to being”(True Virtue, 1765; Edwards 1957–, vol. 8, 540), in awider sense it includes not only benevolence but also“complacence” in benevolence's intrinsic excellence orbeauty.

God, though, “is infinitely the greatest being,” and“infinitely the most beautiful and excellent.” True virtuethus principally consists “in a supreme love to God, both ofbenevolence and complacence” (True Virtue, 1765;Edwards 1957–, vol. 8, 550–51). It follows that “adetermination of mind to union and benevolence to aparticularperson orprivate system [whether one's self, one'sfamily, one's nation, or even humanity], which is but a small part ofthe universal system of being…is not of the nature of truevirtue” unless it is dependent on or “subordinate to,benevolence toBeing ingeneral” (TrueVirtue, 1765; Edwards 1957–, vol. 8, 554).

One of the principal concerns of Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, et al., wasto refute the contention that action is always motivated by self-love.Edwards' attitude toward these attempts is ambivalent. On the onehand, he denies that thetruly benevolent are motivated byself-love. On the other, Edwards argues (against, e.g., Hutcheson)that most conscientious and other regarding behavior is, indeed, aform of self-love and that, in any case, acts motivated by rationalself-love, conscience, or natural other regarding instincts such asparental affection or pity aren't genuinely virtuous.

Conscience, for instance, is the product of a power of placingourselves in the situation of others (which is needed for any sort ofmutual understanding), a sense of the natural fitness of certainresponses (injury and punishment or disapproval, benefit and reward orapproval), and self-love. Placing ourselves in the situation of thosewe have injured, we recognize that being treated in that way would notmerely anger us but seem unfitting or undeserved, and that we aretherefore inconsistent in approving of our treating others in ways wewould not wish to be treated ourselves. The result is a sense of“inconsistence” or “self-opposition” betweenfeelings of approval and disapproval toward the same action. Thismakes us “uneasy” since “self-love implies aninclination to feel and act as one with ourselves” (TrueVirtue, 1765; Edwards 1957–, vol. 8, 589).

What, though, about instinctual other regarding impulses such asparental affection, “mutual affection between the sexes”(as distinct from simple sexual attraction), and pity? Edwards isinclined to think that all except pity are forms of self-love. Theimportant point, however, is that even if they aren't, actionsmotivated by them aren't truly virtuous. To see why consider pity. Iftruly virtuous actions are motivated by benevolence to beingin general, then actions motivated by other regarding impulses whichare ultimately directed to “some particular persons or privatesystem” aren't truly virtuous (True Virtue, 1765;Edwards 1957–, vol. 8, 601). Now pity is directed to those inextreme distress whose suffering appears undeserved or excessive. Itsobject is therefore restricted to only part of being in general.Furthermore, since instinctual affections aren't“dependent” on “general benevolence,” they arein potential conflict with it. Pity, for example, may motivate a judgeto act unjustly.

We should not conclude that pity or other instinctual affections, oreven rational self-love, are bad. Since they tend toward “thepreservation of mankind and their comfortably subsisting in theworld,” things would be much worse without them (TrueVirtue, 1765; Edwards 1957–, vol. 8, 600). Edwards point(like Kant's) is merely that their goodness isn't a truly moralgoodness. The implication is nonetheless clear. Natural virtues areeither tainted with self-love or fail to extend to being in general.They are therefore counterfeits or simulacra of true virtue. Whilethey prompt us to promote the good of others, and to condemn vice,they fall infinitely “short of the extent of true virtuousbenevolence, both in…nature and object” (TrueVirtue, 1765; Edwards 1957–, vol. 8, 609). Edwardsconcludes that true virtue is a supernatural gift.

3.2 Aesthetics

In Edwards' view, beauty or “excellency” “consistsin the similarness of one being to another — not merely equalityand proportion, but any kind of similarness….This is anuniversal definition of excellency: The consent of being tobeing…” (“The Mind,” no. 1; Edwards1957–, vol. 6, 336). One who loves others, for instance, oractively desires their welfare, “agrees” with them or“consents” to them. Love's scope can be narrower or wider,however. Agreement or consent is “comprehensive” or“universal” only when directed towards being in general.Only true benevolence, therefore, is truly beautiful.

“Secondary” beauty is a mere “image” or“resemblance” of true beauty. It consists in“symmetry,” “harmony,” or“proportion,” or “as Mr. Hutcheson” says, in“agreement of different things in form, manner, quantity, andvisible end or design,” i.e., in “regularity.” Thebeauty of well-ordered societies, of “wisdom…consistingin the united tendency of thoughts, ideas, and particular volitions toone general purpose,” of the natural fitness of actions andcircumstances (having made a promise, for example, and keeping it),“of a building, of a flower, or of the rainbow” areexamples (True Virtue, 1765; Edwards 1957–, vol. 8,561–62).

Since God's benevolence alone is perfect, he is the only thing that is(truly) beautiful without qualification. The fitness of God'sdispensations, the harmony of his providential design, and so on, alsoexhibit the highest degree of secondary beauty. God is thus“infinitely the most beautiful and excellent,” the measureof both primary and secondary beauty. Moreover, he is the“foundation and fountain of all beauty.” “All thebeauty to be found throughout the whole creation is…thereflection of the diffused beams of that being who hath an infinitefullness of brightness and glory” (True Virtue, 1765;Edwards 1957–, vol. 8, 550–51). And God's world is indeedsaturated with beauty — not only the “harmony ofsounds, and the beauties of nature” (which bear the greatestresemblance to true or primary beauty, and to which Edwards wasespecially sensitive) but also (and primarily) the beauty of theGospel, of God's providential work in history, and of the saints (theelect). The saints alone, however, can discern true beauty.

4. Epistemology

4.1 A Sense of the Heart

Because their hearts have been regenerated by the indwelling of theHoly Spirit, the saints love being in general. Their love is the basisof a new “spiritual sense” whose “immediateobject” is “the beauty of holiness” — a“new simple idea” that can't “be produced byexalting, varying or compounding” ideas “which they hadbefore,” and that truly “represents” divine reality(Religious Affections, 1746 andTrue Virtue, 1765;Edwards 1957–, vol. 2, 205, 260, and vol. 8, 622).

Edwards sometimes identifies true beauty with the pleasure that holythings evoke in people with spiritual “frames” or“tempers” or with the tendency they have to evoke it. Atother times he identifies it with the consent of being to being, i.e.,with true benevolence or holiness. His view appears to be this. Truebeauty is identical with benevolence or agreement in somewhat the sameway in which water is identical with H₂O or heat withmolecular motion. But benevolence is also the objective basis of adispositional property, namely, a tendency to produce a new simpleidea in the savingly converted. This idea is a delight or pleasure inbeing's consent to being which somehow “represents” or isa “perception” of it. Edwards' account of true beauty thusresembles some accounts of color or extension. Spiritual delight is asimple idea or sensation like our ideas of color or extension. Thedispositional property is a power objects have to produce these ideasin our understandings. Benevolence is the objective configurationunderlying this power and corresponds to the microstructure of bodiesthat underlie their tendency to excite ideas of color or extension inminds like ours. Like simple ideas of redness, say, or extension, thenew spiritual sensation “represents” or is a“perception” of its object. Just as ‘red’ or‘extension’ can refer to the idea, the power, or thephysical configuration that is the basis of the power, so “truebeauty” can refer to the spiritual sensation, to the relevantdispositional property, or to benevolence.

Edwards calls the new mode of spiritual understanding a“sense” because the apprehension of spiritual beauty is(1) non-inferential and (2) involuntary, and Edwards, like Hutcheson,associates sensation with immediacy and passivity. (3) It alsoinvolves relish or delight, and Edwards followed Locke and Hutchesonin thinking that, like a feeling of tactual pressure or an impressionof redness, being pleased or pained is a kind of sensation orperception. Finally, (4) the new mode of understanding is the sourceof a new simple idea, and Edwards shared Locke's and Hutcheson'sconviction that simple ideas come “from experience.”

The saints alone are in an epistemic position to discern truths ofreligion that are dependent on the “excellency of divinethings”. For example, a conviction of Christ's sufficiency as amediator depends on an apprehension of his beauty and excellency. Or,again, one must see the beauty of holiness to appreciate the“hatefulness of sin,” and thus be convinced of the justiceof divine punishment and our inability to make restitution. The newsense also helps us grasp the truth of the gospel scheme as a whole. Aconviction of its truth is an immediate inference from a perception ofthe beauty or splendor of what it depicts, namely, “God andJesus Christ…the work of redemption, and the ways and works ofGod” (A Divine and Supernatural Light, 1734; Edwards1957–, vol. 17, 413).

Edwards' defense of the objectivity of the new spiritual sense hasfour steps. (1) Benevolence agrees with the nature of things. Theworld is an interconnected system of minds and ideas in which the onlytrue substance and cause is an infinite and omnipotent love. Humanbenevolence is thus an appropriate or fitting response to reality. (2)Benevolence is pleased by benevolence; it relishes it, or delights init, for its own sake. Since benevolence is an appropriate response toreality, so too is benevolence's delight in benevolence. (3) But adelight in benevolence just is a perception of its spiritual beauty.It follows that (4) the redeemed's spiritual perceptions are veridical— “representations” of something “besides what[is] in [their] own minds” (True Virtue, 1765; Edwards1957–, vol. 8, 622).

There is also an implicit theological defense of the spiritual sense'sobjectivity. “True saving grace is no other than the very loveof God; that is, God in one of the persons of the Trinity, unitinghimself to the soul of the creature as a vital principle, dwellingthere and exerting himself by the faculties of the soul of man in hisown proper nature after the manner of a principle of nature.”The saints are thus “not only partakers of a nature that may insome sense be called divine because ‘tis conformed to the natureof God; but the very Deity does in some sense dwell in them”(Treatise on Grace,; Edwards 1957–, vol. 21, 194).(There were Puritan precedents for these claims.)

Edwards is making two claims. First, the new spiritual disposition andtastes which God bestows on the soul are divine. The differencesbetween God's love and joy and the love and joy that he bestows on hissaints is a difference of degree, not of nature or kind. Second, Goddoes not act on the soul from without, but dwells within it “asa principle of a [new] nature,” living, acting, and exertinghimself in the exercise of the soul's faculties. The“mechanism” underlying the new spiritual sense thusultimately turns out to be God himself. Hence, since God in some senseis reality or being itself, it follows that the spiritualsense is necessarily aligned with reality.

4.2 Sanctified Reason

Edwards thinks that reason can prove that God exists, establish manyof his attributes, discern our obligations to him, and mount aprobable case for the credibility of scripture. But he also believesthat grace is needed both to help the natural principles“against those things that tend to stupefy [them] and to hinder[their] free exercise,” and to sanctify “the reasoningfaculty and” assist “it to see the clear evidence there isof the truth of religion in rational arguments”(“Miscellanies,” nos. 626, 628; Edwards 1957–, vol.18, 155, 156f).

His view is briefly this. “Actual ideas” are ideas thatare lively, clear, and distinct. Thought has a tendency to substitute“signs” (i. e., words or images) for actual ideas. Whilethis tendency is useful and normally quite harmless, it impedesreasoning when “we are at a loss concerning a connection orconsequence [between ideas], or have a new inference to draw, or wouldsee the force of some new argument” (“Miscellanies,”no. 782; Edwards 1957–, vol. 18, 457). Since accurate reasoningabout a subject matter requires attending to actual ideas of it, onecan't accurately reason about religion if one lacks the relevant actualideas. To have an actual idea of God, for example, one must haveactual ideas of the ideas that compose it. But most of us don't. Thoseparts of the idea of God that everyone has (ideas of knowledge, power,and justice, for instance) either aren't attended to or, if they are,fail to elicit the appropriate affective reaction. In addition, wecan't fully understand ideas of affections which we haven'texperienced and so can't properly understand God's benevolence if wearen't benevolent ourselves. And without the simple idea of truebeauty, one can understand neither God's holiness nor the facts thatdepend on it.

True benevolence remedies these deficiencies. Because the desires ofthe truly benevolent are properly ordered, they attend to ideas ofreligion and are suitably affected by the ideas of God's attributesand activities that everyone has. (They fear his wrath, for example,and are grateful for his benefits.) Furthermore, they understand God'sbenevolence because their own benevolence mirrors it. Finally, thetruly benevolent delight in the benevolence in which holinessconsists, i.e., they “perceive” or “taste” or“relish” its beauty. Edwards' claim, then, is that toreason accurately about God one must have an actual idea of him, andto have that one must be truly benevolent. Right reasoning aboutreligious matters requires right affections.

Edwards is an evidentialist. Rational religious beliefs are eitherproperly basic or rest on good evidence. A belief that the gospelscheme exhibits true beauty is an example of the former. But mostreligious beliefs depend on evidence. Sometimes this evidence includesthe idea of true beauty. Even when it does not, however, the rightaffections are needed to appreciate its force. In either case, onlythose with properly disposed hearts can read the evidencecorrectly.

5. The History of Redemption

The trustees of the College of New Jersey invited Edwards to becomeits third president in 1753. In his reply Edwards gave a number ofreasons why he hesitated to accept their offer. Among these was thefear that doing so would interfere with the completion of “agreat work” which he had long contemplated “which I call aHistory of the Work of Redemption, a body of divinity in anentire new method, being thrown into the form of an history;considering the affair of Christian theology, as the whole of it, ineach part, stands in reference to the great work of redemption byJesus Christ…” (Edwards 1957–, vol. 16, 727f).Although Edwards' project was aborted by his untimely death, it wouldundoubtedly have been based on a sermon series delivered in 1739 whichtraces the work of redemption “from the fall of man to the endof the world.” The proposed history would have been theculmination of the project begun inTrue Virtue andEndof Creation. For creation and providence are subordinate to aredemption which is itself subordinate only to God's glory. Thehistory of redemption is “thesummum andultimum of all the divine operations and decrees,” themanifestation of God's internal glory in time (Edwards 1957–,vol. 16, 728). Edwards'History would also have provided afitting climax to his intellectual career as a whole. For it is in hiswork of redemption that God's sovereignty, holiness, and splendor aremost fully displayed.

It is doubtful, however, that Edwards' work would have anticipatedmodern historiography as some claim. For one thing, the sermon seriesis essentially adoctrinal work. (The section on Christ'searthly ministry, for instance, is a discussion of the incarnation andatonement, not a life of Jesus.) For another, Edwards' sources includenot only biblical and “profane” histories but biblicalprophecy as well. Finally, Edwards doesn't restrict himself to naturalcauses in explaining events but also appeals to divine decrees andtypology.

Whatever novelty the sermon series possesses is literary andtheological. It partly consists in the rich skein of images Edwardsuses to connect the events of redemption history. These include themodel of a river and its tributaries, a tree and its branches, theconstruction of a building, the conduct of war, and “awheel,” or “a machine composed of wheels” with itsreminiscences both of Ezekiel's vision of the divine throne chariotand of clockwork (“Images of Divine Things,” no. 89;Edwards 1957–, vol. 11, 86). It also consists in Edwards'extension of typology, the practice of interpreting things, persons,or events (the “type”) as symbols or prefigurations offuture realities (the “antitype”). Protestant divines hadtended to restrict typology to figures, actions, and objects in theOld Testament which in their view shadowed forth Christ as theirantitype. Edwards interprets the New Testament typologically as well,arguing that relevant passages prefigure events in the church's laterhistory. Most radically, Edwards construes nature typologically.(Whether this constitutes a step towards Emerson and Thoreau, as someclaim, is a moot point.) Finally, Edwards' emphasis on the objectiveside of God's act of redemption is comparatively rare in a Puritanismwhich tended to stress the redemption's application to individualsouls. (The subjective side is extensively treated in a number ofworks of the 1730s and 1740s, however, the most important of which isReligious Affections.)

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