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TOPIC: Edwards, Jonathan - Rational Biblical Theology (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: Chapt 06 Necessity and Mystery of Revelation
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For Edwards, there is a demonstrable need for revelation. He contended that necessity and divine benevolence equally suggested revelation. It was an inevitable conclusion that what concerned man most would not find God unconcerned. *1*
Although Edwards had found a very rich and almost full revelation of God in nature, there is still need for special revelation because of three facts: (1) Though God through nature reveals so much of Himself, men do not really “know” God from nature. (2) Even if they did know God from nature, nature does not reveal whether God will damn or save them. (3) Even if nature did reveal God’s intention, that would not change man’s hostile attitude toward God and Rev_1:1-20. Though God through nature reveals much of Himself, men do not really “know” God from nature.
This is why in spite of man’s knowledge of God from nature, “natural” men remain “blind” in the things of religion. “Man’s Natural Blindness in the Things of Religion” *2* is one of Edwards’ best known anthropological sermons. His “doctrine” founded on his interpretation of Psa_94:8-11 is “that there is an extreme and brutish blindness in things of religion, which naturally possesses the hearts of mankind.” *3* This does not mean that there is any fault to be found with man’s “natural faculties” but “there is a principle in his heart, of such a blinding and besotting nature, that it hinders the exercises of his faculties about the things of religion.” *4* In spite of their knowledge of God, men have fallen off to the worship of spirits and devils, worshipping them with loud and unnatural obscenities and to the torment of themselves and their children. Delusion has prevailed almost everywhere, especially in Roman Catholic lands and often after special light has come to a people, such as at the time of the Reformation. It happens in spite of great learning and privilege even under the gospel. *5* This blindness is so universal, that one would know apart from the Bible that ours is a fallen world. Concluding, Edwards writes, “from what has been said, plainly appears the necessity of divine revelation.” *6* “If human reason alone was sufficient it is strange that no one people were found, in any corner of the land, who were helped by it, in the chief concern of man.” *7* As a matter of fact, “all the right speculative knowledge of the true God, which the Deists themselves have, has been derived from divine revelation.” *8*
2. Even if they did know God from nature, nature does not reveal whether God will damn or save them.
Edwards argues that even if this knowledge from nature did become real to men, thus removing their natural blindness in the midst of light, it would still not reveal whether God will save or damn them. The heathen die in “circumstantial unbelief,” *9* notwithstanding all that nature utters from day to day and night to night. The gospel whereby men may be saved is simply not found in nature even if men were receptive to what is found there. The gospel may contain the power of God to salvation but nature’s revelation amounts to the light of God to damnation. It leaves men “inexcusable,” so that if men “will not be convinced for salvation, they shall be convinced by damnation.” *10*
3. Even if nature did reveal God’s intention, that would not change man’s hostile attitude toward God and revelation.
What most convincingly demonstrates the need for special revelation is the condition in which men are left by mere natural revelation. Not only do they not find saving knowledge there, but also they are left devoid of any information whereby they may be sanctified. Nature leaves them in character worse than a “pack of wild beasts.”
I am persuaded that there is no one doctrine of that which we call natural religion [but] would, notwithstanding all philosophy and learning, forever be involved in darkness, doubts, endless disputes, and dreadful confusion. . . . ’Tis one thing to prove a thing after we are showed how and another to find it out of ourselves. . . . I am of the mind that mankind would have been like a parcel of beasts, with regard to their knowledge in all important truths, if there never had been any such thing as revelation in the world, and that they never would have risen out of their brutality. None ever came to tolerable notions of divine things, unless by the revelation contained in the Scriptures. *11*
Therefore, if there is anything that natural revelation reveals, it is that natural revelation is not sufficient. Far from Christianity being as “old as creation,” it is the need for Christianity that is as old as creation and shown by creation’s light. Even in what nature does teach - such as the doctrine of immortality - it is the Bible which persuades man of its truth. “The light of reason convinces the world it is so; the Word of God puts it past doubt.” *12* Nature, apart from the Bible, leads to “grossest theological error.” *13* Left to general revelation, there are ten thousand wrong ways in which men can get lost, *14* and the learned Greeks were certainly lost when they offered two hundred different definitions of the greatest good.
The fact that special revelation is necessary for salvation does not prove that it will be forthcoming. But it does imply that men should be looking for it, hoping for it, at least open to the possibility of it. That is the theme of an early sermon: “It is true nobleness of mind readily and sincerely to entertain Christianity.” *15* Again, “the doctrines of Christianity are in themselves most rational, exceeding . . . men’s natural reason.” *16* (Here Edwards lists some items of natural theology.) The Christian religion itself is evidence that the Bible is the Word of God because no other religion shows any rational way of peace with God. Furthermore, it is confirmed by miracles. Therefore, “they that receive the gospel act most rationally.” *17* It shows a man how to live and “dwell above the clouds” and practice “universal benevolence” in the world. *18*
Thus Edwards has essentially a twofold case for Christianity: its inherent rationality; and its harmony with natural revelation and external confirmation.
4. Necessary as revelation is, it is mysterious.
However, before considering the two lines of evidence for revelation, Edwards addresses an initial difficulty - mystery in revelation. He warns, as we intimated above, that it may be expected that revelation may and will appear paradoxical. It is reasonable to expect the apparently unreasonable in revelation. Commenting on Joh_3:12, Edwards remarks that “the more persons or beings are, in themselves, and in their own nature, above us; the more that the doctrines or truths concerning them are mysterious to us . . . the more do those things that are really true concerning them, contain seeming inconsistencies and impossibilities.” *19*
But Edwards adds that real absurdity cannot come from God. What is genuinely true in philosophy will be seen to be genuinely true in revealed theology. Of course, there will be mysteries which are not, however, real contradictions.
In a concluding footnote, we can see that Edwards considered the failure to understand and acknowledge the proper relation of reason and revelation to be the source of all the heresies of his time and, a fortiori, of ours.
Seeing that men’s own reason blind as it is has of late been so much set up as man’s highest rule in judging of divine things . . . no wonder that Arminianism and Arianism and deism and atheism have come in like a deluge. *20*
As a footnote to the footnote I remind the reader again that Edwards alludes to “man’s natural blindness in the things [excellencies] of [true, rational] religion” and the limits of pure reason that make it unreasonable for it to be the “highest rule in judging of divine things” once God himself has revealed them.
Consider the best, most comprehensive, single statement that Jonathan Edwards ever made on the relation of reason and revelation:
When men receive things as truth purely because God has revealed ’em yet reason is remotely concerned as ’tis by the faculty of reason that men know it to be a revelation and by that faculty that they know that a divine revelation is to be depended on. . . . *21*
For Jonathan Edwards, as we have seen, natural revelation is the power of God to damnation but never to salvation. Far from being another gospel, it merely revealed the necessity for the one and only gospel. Edwards wrote:
I am persuaded if it were [researched] the result of the inquiry would be this: that he that thinks to prove that the world ever did, in fact, by wisdom know God, that any nation upon the earth or any set of men ever did, from the principles of reason only without any assistance from revelation, find out the true nature and the true worship of the deity, must find out some history of the world entirely different from all the accounts which the present sacred and profane writers do give us. . . . *22*
This point was, of course, made especially for the Deist. What real light the heathen may possess comes from tradition, and if they are devoid of this real light they most clearly show the need of it. We have seen Edwards’ demonstration of the necessity and probability of special Revelation *23* We have also seen that as certainly as revelation could be anticipated, just so certainly it could be anticipated that coming directly from God to man it would appear mysterious and paradoxical in its form of communication. The mathematicians who are often convinced of surd numbers illustrate this truth. *24* At the same time, the heart can never be set on an object of which there is no idea at all. *25* In Christ’s discourse with Nicodemus, He showed him that the mysteriousness of earthly things should prepare for greater mystery in heavenly things. *26*
While mystery is to be expected, it is further aggravated by our using ordinary language for religious ideas. Such language cannot explain religious concepts except analogically. This is where apparent contradictions necessarily arise.
And it is for want of distinguishing thus in the meaning of words in divinity from what is intended by them in their ordinary use that arise most of the jangles about religion in the world. And to one who is not much [used] to elevated thought, many things, that are themselves as easy and natural as the things we every day converse with, seem like impossibility and confusion. ’Tis so in every case: the more abstracted the science is, and by how much the higher nature those things are of which that science is, and by how much the higher nature those things are of which that science treats by so much the more [will] our way of thinking and speaking of the things of that science be beside our way of thinking and speaking of ordinary things, and by so much the more will that science abound with paradoxes and seeming contradiction. *27*
The paradoxical form, as Edwards used the term, referred to mystery or to apparent contradiction but not to real contradiction. Man was made in the divine image so that God could communicate with him not confuse him. *28* The most perfect harmony exists between right reason and the Bible. All that God reveals, therefore, is agreeable to reason *29* and suited to man’s finite capacities. “Men are reasonable. . . . The Bible does not ask [them] to believe things against reason.” *30* It calls for no crucifying of the intellect or believing something demonstrably absurd. It merely requires an intelligent use of the intelligence; a reasonable use of reason. The way to the heart is only through the door of the understanding. What is true in theology is true in philosophy. *31*