Jonathan Edwards Collection: Edwards, Jonathan - Rational Biblical Theology: Chapt 07 Arguments for Revelation

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Jonathan Edwards Collection: Edwards, Jonathan - Rational Biblical Theology: Chapt 07 Arguments for Revelation



TOPIC: Edwards, Jonathan - Rational Biblical Theology (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: Chapt 07 Arguments for Revelation

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Chapter VII

Arguments for Revelation



Whatever the foundation, however great the anticipation, and however mysterious, the coming revelation must be proved. This is where the rational biblical theology of Jonathan Edwards really begins in earnest.

I consider briefly here (remembering that these already anticipated arguments appear throughout Edwards’ rational-biblical theology), three arguments: first, the basic theistic proofs, ontological, and cosmological; second, teleology, chance, and probability; and third, “the amiable simplicity of (inspired) truth” combined with miracles as attesting agents of revelation.

Before studying the three arguments let me state what may be the most important argument of all and underlying all. It was keenly noted by Wallace Anderson, while analyzing Edwards’ epistemology and not thinking particularly of apologetics, that



Edwards recognizes that in admitting our self-conscious intellectual inabilities and our “invincible inclination to a connection” of ideas as evidence sufficient to justify belief, he is making a profound and fundamental departure from Locke’s theory of knowledge, and indeed from the whole rationalist tradition. In “The Mind” No. 71 he specifically lays aside Locke’s definition of knowledge: “Knowledge is not the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas, but rather the perception of the union or disunion of ideas, or the perceiving whether two or more ideas belong to one another.” (p. 385) The perception of union or disunion, as Edwards speaks of it, is not the recognition of a relation among the ideas themselves, but a recognition of the mind’s own inability to act otherwise with regard to them. Hence he adds, “Perhaps it cannot properly be said that we see the agreement of the ideas unless we see how they agree, or we may perceive that they are united and know that they belong to one another, though we do not know the manner how they are tied together.” Accordingly, we may know the truth even of propositions that we cannot understand, on the basis of our fixed inclination to believe them and our inability to believe the contrary.

Thus the mysteries of faith become evident to the saint through a divine influence which alters the disposition of his mind and affords him a view of divine things that convinces him of their truth. In his attack upon the Deists Edwards repeatedly argues that our ordinary and scientific convictions about the natural world are no more founded upon absolutely indisputable argument than the doctrines of religion; but on the other hand, he maintained, the saint’s convictions about God rest upon evidence as compelling for him as the evidence of scientific or philosophical truths is for one whose beliefs are governed by natural dispositions of the mind. In M 1297 he takes note of Hume’s treatment of the causal argument for God’s existence, an argument to which Edwards himself was committed. Hume undertakes, he writes, “to shew that there is no real connection between cause and effect, and that there can be no certain or even probable reasoning from one to the other. He endeavors to subvert all proofs of a particular providence, of a future state, and of an intelligent cause of the universe.” Edwards himself supposes that our belief in the causal relation and the necessity of a cause does not rest upon intuition or proof of that connection, but only on a fixed propensity of the mind. But in “The Mind,” No. 54 he argues that this propensity underlies a rational belief about God’s existence and nature.” *1*



I consider this the most fundamental of all arguments because it is incapable of refutation. All arguments are designed to make an idea acceptable to the mind. If all arguments favor something and nothing opposes, it the mind is “compelled” - logically compelled - to accept it. Yet we know such demonstrated ideas that are not accepted. The person refusing recognizes reasons to justify not accepting. However, as long as he is refusing the “compelling” idea and is seeking reasons for not being compelled by the idea, no matter how powerfully supported by cogent and irrefutable arguments, it has not gained the mind. To that degree, or in that sense, the arguments have failed, (though, as with Oscar Wilde’s play, the play was a success but the audience was a failure). The arguments were irrefutable but the mind “refuted,” that is refused them.

If an idea cannot be refused, that is surely the greatest of all arguments for its acceptance. If one must think that way, that way has won the mind. That way never loses an argument or fails to gain entrance.

I think that Anderson was right. Edwards argued that way and in so doing Edwards was right. Here Edwards succeeded where Anselm failed. Anselm proved to Gaunilo that the idea of a being than which none greater can be conceived must exist or such an idea that did exist would be a greater idea. Anselm showed that such an idea must exist. Edwards shows that being must be - not the idea of being, but being.

In one, but only one sense this is Edwards’ form of the ontological argument to which I now come.



1. Ontological and Cosmological Arguments.

We have already seen in the discussion of Edwards’ metaphysics that he has his own particular use of ontological and cosmological arguments. Now we are more interested in their cogency as arguments for God than their comparison with one another though that cannot be lost sight of entirely and thus we discuss them together.

There has been considerable debate whether Jonathan Edwards was the last of the medievalists or the first of the modern philosopher-theologians. The advocates of the former position point especially to his view of biblical authority, God and devils, heaven and hell. The latter are impressed with his development of avant-garde Newtonian and Lockean thought.

Both views are correct. Jonathan Edwards was a medievalist; he was also a “Lockean” idealist with Newtonian overtones. Vincent Tomas is quite right: Edwards “took orders” from the Bible as truly as and indeed more so than any scholastic of the Middle Ages. *2* But Perry Miller cannot be faulted in noting that Edwards even extended the Englishman’s ideas to homiletics so that in this technical sense Edwards was a “sensationalistic preacher.” *3* On the other hand, Faust insists that even Edwards’ scientific studies were but a subtle form of grinding his theological axe, *4* while Hornberger shows that Edwards employed the most modern philosophical means to save science from materialism and points out the use of Newton’s view of atoms in his argument against Arminianism. *5* Further, Elwood sees Edwards as a Neoplatonist panentheist, *6* while Whittemore points out that the Neo-platonists were not panentheists, and Edwards was really a mystic. *7*

Each of these views is incorrect if considered mutually exclusive. The gratuitous assumption that a medievalist could not be a rational biblicist is based on a misconception of medievalism or traditional Christian orthodoxy. It tacitly supposes that orthodox Christianity is fideistic. It also wrongly fancies that Lockean thought is “rationalistic” in such a sense as to exclude orthodox Christianity. Locke was, to be sure, the author of The Reasonableness of Christianity, *8* but to make a rationalistic deist or Unitarian out of Locke because he thought of Christianity as rational only shows how little orthodoxy is understood. P. T. Forsyth once wrote somewhere that the orthodox are more rational than the rationalists. Rational the orthodox are; rationalists they are not.

Edwards was as orthodox in his view of reason as in everything else. Even Douglas Elwood, who by no means does justice to this element in Edwardsian thought, admits in a massive understatement, “there are places where Edwards sounds like any other eighteenth century apologist.” *9* The truth about Edwards is, as his son Jonathan boasted, that he was more rational than most of his fellow Calvinists. *10* That is, he tended to explain rationally what most other Reformed theologians were inclined to leave in “mystery” (though it should be remembered that mystery for the orthodox was not the irrational but simply the partially understood; they always assumed that it was capable of being understood and some day, in heaven, would be). Edwards believed in mystery, too, as seen, and was quite content to await heaven for the perfect explanation, but he was more inclined to go further in that direction now than most others. For example, the difference between him and Luther in the matter of human freedom in relation to divine sovereignty was characteristic. Both believed the two doctrines; but Luther believed them though they seemed inconsistent. Edwards believed them while refuting charges of their real inconsistency. *11*

However, as we have seen, Peter Gay, a specialist on the Enlightenment, thinks that Edwards had no place in that movement of the human mind. If a thinker were enlightened, he was rational, and if he were rational, he would be “enlightened.” Edwards, for him, was not a son of the Enlightenment or a genuine disciple of Locke. Locke, as seen by Gay, precisely because he believed in the “reasonableness” of Christianity, reduced it to a belief in Jesus as the Messiah. He even gives the impression that the celebrated English empiricist had no use for miracles. *12*

How a reader of The Reasonableness of Christianity and other religious writings of Locke could maintain such a position is difficult to understand. Locke, to be sure, was indisposed to overmuch mystery and liked clear definitions (as did Descartes, who was an orthodox Roman Catholic), but he believed far more than the doctrine that Jesus was the Messiah, though this was all that was essential to salvation. Furthermore, he regarded miracles as establishing the “credit of the proposer” of doctrine. *13* Locke was an Anglican though he argues about some of its doctrines. In Anglican England, the books of deists were burned and their very lives were endangered. But that was not true of Locke. Indeed Edwards, incidentally, reveals the status of deists in his own mind when in an unpublished sermon preached in 1731 he referred to “robbers, pirates, and deists,” *14* with implied apologies to the robbers and pirates for putting them in such company. Locke’s own intimate friend and disciple, Anthony Collins, moved from deism to a rejection of Christianity. But Locke himself never did. The doctrines he continued to affirm included the theistic proofs, miracles, Adam, the fall, the divinity of Christ, justification by faith, and many others. It is significant that Jonathan Edwards not only read Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding but also was quite at home with his A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul to the Galatians, Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians. Locke, as Newton, spent his latter days pouring over the pages of Scripture whose authority he recognized. Edwards’ “taking orders” from Scripture, therefore, does not disprove him to be a child of the Enlightenment in some of its aspects. Of course, if being enlightened must mean being unorthodox and/or unchristian, then Edwards must be denied that classification along with Newton, Locke, Leibnitz, and the Cambridge Platonists, to mention only a few.

This work intends to show that Jonathan Edwards was an eighteenth-century apologist in that classical age of apologetics. More idealistic, comprehensive, and demonstrative in his argumentation than the Westminster divines, Bishop Butler or William Paley, Edwards, there can be no doubt, belonged in that tradition which is the general tradition of the Bible and the church.

In considering the apologetics of Edwards, this discussion begins with his fundamental argument for being. Jonathan Edwards has given us in his greatest work, Freedom of the Will, a programmatic statement of the movement of theology based on an empirical observation of nature. In presenting his own natural theology, we can do no better than follow this pattern sentence which reads as follows:



We first ascend, and prove a posteriori, or from effects, that there must be an eternal cause; and then secondly, prove by argumentation, not intuition, that this being must be necessarily existent; and then thirdly, from the proved necessity of his existence, we may descend, and prove many of his perfections a priori. *15*



Therefore, I will first consider his doctrine of the Eternal Cause and how he finds that Cause from an empirical a posteriori observation of the universe. Then the discussion will follow his argumentation from that doctrine that the Eternal Being must necessarily so be, and some of the a priori deductions of the perfections of this necessarily existing Eternal Cause will be indicated briefly. That will be followed by a study of Edwards’ argument that this eternally and necessarily existing perfect Being has revealed Himself in the inspired Bible.



(1) Eternal Being

In his programmatic statement Edwards makes the first step in theology that “we first ascend and prove a posteriori, or from effects, that there must be an eternal Cause. . . .”; actually he proves far more than that. Far more than an Eternal Cause is observed by a posteriori investigation. Causality is not foremost. In fact, it is really incidental. Edwards far more obviously thinks that the Eternal Being is what is discovered by reflection “on effects.” Probably the reason he emphasized cause in this comprehensive statement is that in the context he is dealing with causality, and that is the central theme of Freedom of the Will. As a metaphysician, however, Edwards seems far more concerned with being than causality, with existence than with power.

His first philosophico-theological work, “Of Being,” shows by its very title where his interest was centered from the beginning. His opening sentence is as follows: “That there should absolutely be nothing at all is utterly impossible.” Showing the absurdity of the idea that nothing is, he argues, “It is necessary some being should eternally be.” Later in “Of Being,” he develops this doctrine more fully. In one comprehensive argument our brilliant teenager is showing not only that there is an Eternal Being but that there must be because its denial involves the contradiction that Nothing is. So at one stroke he proves Eternal Being and its necessity - items one and two in the programmatic statement. Incidentally, no mention is made of causality.

Early in the youthful work on “The Mind,” Edwards writes:



It seems strange sometimes to me that there should be being from all eternity; and I am ready to say, What need was there that anything should be? I should then ask myself, Whether it seems strange that there should be either something or nothing? If so, it is not strange that there should be, for that necessity of there being something or nothing implies it. *16*



Likewise, in the Miscellanies, Edwards argues the existence and necessity of God in terms of Nothing.



The only reason why we are ready to object against the absolute, indivisible, unconditional necessity of God’s being is that we are ready to conceive as if there were some second. . . . But ’tis because of the miserableness of our conceptions that we are ready to imagine any such supposition. ’Tis but talk whether there be any such supposition or no, except we knew what nothing was; but we can’t have any such knowledge because there is no such thing. *17*



(2) Eternal Cause

Edwards has observed the Eternal Cause as stated in the programmatic outline. As already indicated, this is not his first or final observation about Eternal Being. Nevertheless, he sees this Eternal Being as the eternal cause. Edwards considers the matter from this perspective in his unpublished sermon on Rom_1:20 : “Some understanding Being is the Cause of the world.” He attempts to prove his doctrine in a brilliant development of the cosmological or causal *18* and teleological *19* arguments. The empirical causal argument he indicates by three points: the fading nature of the world, *20* the gradual increase of parts, *21* and the impossibility of eternal succession wholly past. *22* The teleological argument, which occupies most of the space in this lengthy sermon-lecture, is drawn from the form, order, and contrivances of the world, *23* the agreement in the most distant parts of the universe, *24* the subserviency of parts to one another, *25* and the appearance of the same laws of nature in all ages. *26*

In Freedom of the Will, Edwards describes cause as “this dictate of common sense,” “the mind of mankind,” “this grand principle of common sense.” *27* So too in the Miscellanies, this causality doctrine is found.



’Tis acknowledged by all to be self-evident that nothing can begin to be without a cause. . . . When understood, ’tis a truth that irresistibly will have place in the assent. Thus, if we suppose a time wherein there was nothing, a body will not of its own accord begin to be; ’tis what the understanding abhors, that it would be when there was no manner of reason why it was. . . . *28*



Cause is traced to a “habit” of reasoning from effect to cause. *29* Edwards examines a specific instance of causality and its implication for eternal causality:



Being of God. ’Tis evident that none of the creatures, none of the beings that we behold, are the first principle of their own action, but all alterations follow in a chain from other alterations. Now, therefore, there must necessarily be something in itself active so as that it is the very first beginning of its own actions, or some necessary being that has been the cause of all the rest, which cannot be matter as it don’t have the nature of matter. *30*



Perhaps the ultimate form of this argument is that even if the world were considered to be eternal, it still would need a cause.



If we should suppose that the world is eternal, yet the beauty, contrivance, and useful disposition of the world would not less strongly conclude for the being of an intelligent authority. It will appear in this question: whether or no, if we should see such a poem as Vergil’s Aeneid, it would be any more satisfying to us if we were told that it was from eternity, transcribed from copy to copy (though we supposed that a succession of men had actually existed from eternity), I say, would it be at all more satisfying than if we were told that it was made by the casual falling of ink on paper? *31*



So for Jonathan Edwards, that there is a Causal Eternal Being is the inescapable conclusion as “we first ascend, and prove a posteriori, or from effects, that there must be an eternal cause. . . .”

It would seem that Edwards takes his first two steps simultaneously. At the same time that he sees there exists an Eternal Being, he sees this because the alternative “Nothing” is impossible. This fact not only reveals an Eternal Being but proves its necessity. It is impossible to conceive of Eternal Being not existing because that immediately would involve Nothing, which is impossible to conceive as existing. It would be a contradiction. Therefore, as soon as one realizes that Eternal Being exists, Edwards argues that it must necessarily exist. Edwards calls this “argumentation not intuition” but the argument is presented as so evident that it is virtually an intuition.

The second response is that Something is and it came from Nothing. If we admit that that which is cannot be accounted for in terms of itself, we must look elsewhere for its explanation. And there are only two other places to look - to Nothing or to God. In other words, either that which is has come from Nothing or from God. The choice is between God and Nothing.

It seems self-evident that if everything came from God or Nothing, it must have come from God. God or Nothing leaves only one choice - God. It would seem that if God has no competitor but Nothing, He has nothing for a competitor. “God or Nothing” and “only God” are synonymous expressions.

Nevertheless, lest someone say this is not giving Nothing its due, it should be explained why Nothing is no answer - none at all - absolutely nothing for an answer.

Nothing is nothing at all. That is, we cannot form a notion of Nothing. If we think we have an idea of Nothing, then we think we know what Nothing is. Nothing has become an existent entity; Nothing then is Something. It is impossible to say what Nothing is without absurdity. “Nothing,” wrote young Edwards in “Of Being,” “is the same that the sleeping rocks dream of.” *32* He would say that if one thinks he knows what Nothing is, he has rocks in his head. He also called it the “dreadful contradiction.” *33*



(3) Perfections of Eternal Being

That Jonathan Edwards’ Eternal Being is the one whom we call God is apparent. Nevertheless, in his third step, Edwards will “from the proved necessity of his existence . . . descend and prove many of his perfections a priori.

The MS sermon(s) on Rom_1:20, “The being and attributes of God are clearly seen by the works of creation” *34* is undoubtedly the most comprehensive apologetic statement Jonathan Edwards made in any one place published or unpublished. It is a long address in rather poor manuscript condition and apparently a long way from publication.

Here I will list a selection of the arguments from this sermon merely to suggest its fulness. Edwards shows how his “doctrine” is “evident” first from the very being of the world, and then from its “form, order and contrivances,” all the while keeping his eye on human nature as well as nature in general.

Edwards lists no less than eleven ways the “clearness” of this evidence is seen. It is demonstrable, even obvious in multiplied ways. Each of these ways is multiplied and universally conspicuous. Everything that exists demonstrates God many ways. It is inconceivable how God could have given clearer evidence. The effect of this evidence has been felt in all nations putting man well above animals and making the futility of any argument for atheism also clearly evident.

The second part of the sermon would show that it appears from the nature and form of the world that its Maker is one. The sermon concludes triumphantly that the Eternal cause revealed by the creation of the world is such that we are “wont to suppose God to be.” Never forgetting the practical purpose of all sermons, two “applications” are found in this manifestly multiple preaching unit.

The sermon is a perfect blending of the two apologetic features we have found throughout Edwards’ empirical noumenalism. The argument begins with an observation of the sheer being of the world which cannot be from nothing, but must be from God. It also has a close examination of the many “contrivances” of the world (universe) showing the infinite wisdom of its Creator. One cannot but wonder if Charles Darwin had ever read this address his Origin of the Species a century later might not have been even more “empirical” without any tendency toward atheism but its opposite. Jonathan Edwards would charge evolutionists not with being too “this worldly” but not this worldly enough. This cosmological argument is absolutely fundamental not only to Rom_1:20 but to the Freedom of the Will as well. It is in no sense peripheral to Edwards’ system as Elwood would suggest. *35* Edwards is proceeding here as elsewhere as a “typical eighteenth century apologist” but how could he do so - here or ever? We assume it is ad hominem reasoning and expression.

We note that Edwards argues causally whether “second causes” exist or not. He argues cosmologically, however exclusive his ontology. As he said in the early Mind *36* he was able to express himself traditionally in metaphysics however untraditional he may have been. So he could express himself traditionally in apologetics however un-eighteenth-centurish he may have been.

“Eternity cannot be denied,” he had argued earlier, “without affirming it in so doing.” Denying eternality is tantamount to saying there never was duration, and according to Edwards, “‘never’ implies eternity.” *37* Nothing else but the eternality of God is supposable because there is no disjunction, eternal or not eternal, as shown. Later, along this line it is argued that we cannot think of God properly because we cannot think of him without duration though duration admits of a disjunction and God does not. It is impossible to think that being itself should not be because there cannot be nothing. *38*

Nevertheless, the cosmological argument goes on. *39* In the opening paragraphs Edwards alerts his readers that he includes two things in his definition of cause that are not always included. These are causes consisting in the absence of something such as the sun’s absence in winter causing water to freeze. Second, there are moral causes, which he has earlier discussed. ** He is now ready to present his definition of the vital concept:



Therefore I sometimes use the word “cause,” in this inquiry, to signify any antecedent, either natural or moral, positive or negative, on which an event, either a thing, or the manner and circumstance of a thing, so depends, that it is the ground and reason, either in whole, or in part, why it is, rather than not; or why it is as it is, rather than otherwise; or, in other words, any antecedent with which a consequent event is so connected, that it truly belongs to the reason why the proposition which affirms that event, is true. . . . *41*



This is a very careful, comprehensive definition of causality. Edwards has included positive and negative cause (causa efficiens and causa deficiens); cause proper and mere occasion; natural cause and moral; partial cause and complete; ground or reason as well as cause proper. He was aware that much debate was occasioned by using cause in different senses and he would obviate such confusion. *42* Many objections to cause rested on a confusion of occasion with cause.

We note that Edwards seems to restrict cause to “external” events. That is not to say that these events are external to the mind but that they are not conceived as categories of the mind (Kant) or mere habits of the mind (Hume).

Following the careful definition of cause comes the grand assertion:



[T]hat nothing ever comes to pass without a cause. What is self-existent must be from eternity, and must be unchangeable: but as to things that begin to be, they are not self-existent, and therefore must have some foundation of their existence without themselves. That whatsoever begins to be, which before was not, must have a cause why it then begins to exist, seems to be the first dictate of the common and natural sense which God hath implanted in the minds of all mankind, and the main foundation of all our reasonings about the existence of things, past, present, or to come. *43*



Edwards seemed to feel, at least a quarter century before the writing of Freedom of the Will, that he must prove causality if he would disprove “freedom of the will.” “Axiom: Let this be laid down first as a postulate before treating of those doctrines concerning freedom of the will that whatever is there is some cause or reason why it is and prove.” *44* If he could prove one he could easily, he seemed to feel, disprove the other. The establishment of causality was the destruction of “free will.” In the paragraph from Freedom of the Will which we have cited above he lays down the postulate. In the paragraphs that follow he will attempt to prove it.

In that cited paragraph he also mentions his two basic arguments which he will develop in the following paragraphs: namely, common sense’s affirmation of causality and its being “the main foundation of all our reasoning about the existence of things. . . .”

Edwards continues in Freedom of the Will:



And this dictate of common sense equally respects substances and modes, or things and the manner and circumstances of things. Thus if we see a body which has hitherto been at rest, start out of a state of rest, and begin to move, we do as naturally and necessarily suppose there is some cause or reason of this new mode of existence, as of the existence of a body itself which had hitherto not existed. *45*



Having just said that apart from causality there was no “proof” of the being of God he now mentions a tentative one:



I do suppose there is a great absurdity, in the nature of things simply considered, in supposing that there should be no God, or in denying being in general, and supposing an eternal absolute, universal nothing. . . . *46*



Coming from Edwards this is surprising. Here he “supposes” in an utterly hypothetical casual manner that there is a great absurdity in supposing God not to exist and an eternal nothing to exist. But this conviction was the very starting point. Again, we note this very first entry in the youthful “Of Being”:



That there should absolutely be nothing at all is utterly impossible. The mind can never, let it stretch its conceptions never so much, bring itself to conceive of a state of perfect nothing. It puts the mind into mere convulsion and confusion to endeavor to think of such a state. And it contradicts the very nature of the soul to think that it should be.



Nor did Edwards ever give up sublime confidence in this most fundamental of all his arguments for God (apart from this programmatic statement in Freedom of the Will). We have already seen it present in the 1743 sermon. In the next year after the writing of Freedom of the Will we find him writing a Dissertation Concerning and End for Which God Created the World. If at the beginning of his intellectual odyssey he was moving from being to God, at the end it was from God to being.

This does not sound like any mere supposing, or an afterthought argument, as he seems to present it in Freedom of the Will. This argument comes before any causal argument for eternal being, is more fundamental, and seems to be completely independent of any argument from causality. As Elwood *47* observes, speaking generally, Edwards’ way is the way of ontology rather than the way of causality - perhaps he should say “more than” and not “rather than.”

Furthermore, Edwards in Freedom of the Will represents the being argument as if it were a matter of intuition of which mankind (including himself who states it) is not capable.



But we have not that strength and extent of mind, to know this certainly in this intuitive independent manner: but the way that mankind comes to the knowledge of the being of God, Isaiah . . . *48*



Only in the sense that all argumentation is ultimately intuitive is this argument from being intuitive. In the ordinary usage of language it is a purely rational discursive argument: “Nothing” is inconceivable; therefore, being always is, and is everywhere. Thus we have the eternal and infinite One. Edwards does not even mention the causal argument in Of Being. If anything was an afterthought it was not the argument from being but from cause.

Is it possible that Edwards, realizing that the Bible does not resort to argument from being but from cause (as in the cited Rom_1:20) felt constrained to do the same? Could he also have been afraid of appearing pantheistic? The causal argument also has the ad hominem value of being acknowledged by the Arminians as well and all Christians; in fact, virtually all theists.

Notwithstanding, causality is foundational for all of Edwards’ thinking. In an early Miscellany *49* he had asserted that nothing can begin to be without a cause. Why? It is self-evidently so, is his reply. When the statement is understood it will inevitably find assent. According to Freedom of the Will, as we have seen, it is a dictate of the common sense. When Edwards addressed the question whether the idea of God’s existence came from some new thought, he answers in terms of causality. The new thought must have a cause. Since this cause could not be the previous thought which is gone before it could be a cause; nor, the soul itself for it has not substance and, therefore, cannot be a cause; Edwards concludes that God must be the cause. *50* In M 880 he infers the necessity of cause from the nature of matter.



(4) Necessary Being

In the programmatic statement Edwards next states the necessity of the eternal cause. He does not argue it here, possibly because in Of Being he had argued that eternal being must be because nothing cannot be. So the very fact of being proves its necessity. We simply cannot think that is-ness is not; nor that no-thing is some-thing.

Another way that Edwards argues the necessity of eternal being is by contrast with creaturely or contingent existence.

Creatures are not the first principle of their own actions which follow contingently on other alternations. Therefore, there must be necessary being. We are puzzled by some who claim that Edwards felt the weakness of his movement from contingency to necessity. We have not noticed it, nor has anyone proven it.

The third step in the programmatic argument is the a priori or deductive - “from the proved necessity of his existence, we may descend, and prove many of his perfections a priori.” We will not try to read Edwards’ intention in that remark here for two reasons. First, we are not in this chapter so concerned with the nature of the God proven as the way He is proven. Second, in later chapters when we consider the attributes of God according to Edwards we will take notice of this statement as well as his direct biblical evidence for the nature of God and His attributes.

In summary: Edwards’ form of the ontological argument is not from God to existence but from existence (being) to God. This is an inductive rather than deductive argument. Being in general has no disjunction (or has Nothing for its disjunction). Being, therefore, necessarily and eternally exists and Being in general is God. God must necessarily and eternally exist. Nothing else is thinkable.

Hobbes, the materialist, had been refuted by Henry More before Edwards using a similar ontological argument concerning being and nothing. After Edwards, Hegel was to establish it so thoroughly that, according to Collingwood, no one has seriously challenged it since. *51* Edwards provided what must be considered the most clearly a posteriori statement of the ontological argument.

The question arises whether the ontological argument is compatible with the more traditional empirico-theistic argumentation for which Aquinas is famous and to which Edwards also appeals in Freedom of the Will *52* and his sermons. Is he suggesting there that the ontological argument is incapable of being understood by normal human intelligence?

I think not, but it poses two questions: why did he not use the ontological argument as the most fundamental of all theistic evidence and why did he use the more traditional-sounding argument at the most basic place in the most basic work he ever produced? Is there a difference between Edwards in his fifties and the Edwards in his twenties? I think we have shown that he really does assume the ontological argument throughout his life and writing but at times for various reasons he puts more emphasis on the cosmological which he always sees as confirmatory of the ontological. Also, most fundamentally, for Edwards they are inseparable if not the same argument (different sides of the same coin). If Edwards closed his eyes and thought of being per se he would think of it as eternal, infinite, independent, necessary and all possible created being as altogether dependent on it necessarily. Thus he would move from the ontological to cosmological. If he opened his eyes to the world he would know it could not proceed from nothing but must proceed from eternal being, moving from the cosmological to ontological arguments.



2. Teleology, Chance and Probability.

Often, if not usually, theistic proofs for God’s existence are presented as probability arguments. Not so, with Edwards. As we noted, in the Rom_1:20 MS sermon-lecture he presents eleven proofs to show the extreme “clearness” of the theistic evidence against any notion of mere probability.

M 880 is Edwards’ most thorough critique of chance. He attempts to reduce to absurdity the notion that creation’s order might happen in an infinite number of fortuitous changes of the positions of the parts of the matter of which the universe is composed. First, matter could not be eternal because there is no reason it should be. *53* Furthermore, the eternality of matter would suppose it always to be in motion for which there is no cause *54* and even in that case it would not explain order in the universe. *55* There follows a comprehensive analysis showing that infinite duration, as such, could never produce order. *56*



For it has been demonstrated from things that have been observed that the addition of the minutest particle that goes to the making up the complex frame adds infinitely more to the improbability than an eternity of opportunity diminishes it. *57*



So, Edwards concludes:



the objection made from the eternity of opportunity against the force of the argument from the wonderful contrivance of the world to prove the being of God is but a mere amusement. *58*



If blind chance could account for the universe it could, he argues in the Job_21:19-21 sermon, *59* do more without reason than man can do with it. Blind chance produces diversity because it is blind. *60*

The causal argument is associated with the teleological. For example, the creatures who are contrivers have purposes and are themselves contrivances arguing purpose in their divine cause. *61* Moles have poor eyes and therefore live in the dark. Camels are likewise adapted to their environment. From this teleological angle, Edwards sees man needing God. *62*

The universe is “one great machine.” “There is not the least particle or atom in the universe but what affords clear and demonstrative evidence of the being of God.” And “not only everything demonstrates but demonstrates many ways.” In fact, the “body of the least fly is greater than all the works of men from the beginning of the world.” *63* Jonathan Edwards anticipates the Bridgewater Treatises with a vengeance. All these strivings for goals which must have preceded them argue a divine mind. *64* While Kant could write that teleology cannot raise us above nature



because the data, and so the principles, for determining that concept of an intelligent World Cause (as highest artist) are merely empirical, they do not enable us to infer any of its properties beyond those which experience reveals in its effects. . . . *65*



Edwards saw in this denial only evidence of a blind heart:



There is no one thing whatsoever more plain and manifest, and more demonstrable, than the being of a God. It is manifest in ourselves, in our own bodies and souls, and in every thing about us wherever we turn our eye. . . . And yet how prone is the heart of man to call this into question! So inclined is the heart of man . . . to even atheism itself. *66*



In spite of overwhelming theistic evidence the heart of fallen man is inclined to atheism. Edwards disagrees, therefore, with Locke’s view that we know ourselves by direct consciousness but know God only through his works. Edwards remarks that:



If we could imagine the first men brought into the world in this manner, we must . . . conceive them to be but very poor, sorry creatures. The invisible things of God are indeed to be understood by the things that are made. But men, in this state would be for a many generations considering the things of the world in lower views, in order to provide themselves the conveniences of life from them before they would reflect upon them in such a manner as should awaken up in their minds any thoughts of God. *67*



Even when men do think of God through natural revelation “it don’t seem real to ’em.”

In a somewhat similar vein Edwards comments in Miscellanies, M 1100 and M 1170; but, in 1297 he draws this devastating conclusion:



[if men] are not led by revelation and direct teaching into a right way of using their reason, in arguing from effects to causes, etc., they would forever remain in the most woeful doubt, and uncertainty concerning the nature and the very being of God.



He goes on to give us object lessons illustrating this effect: Hobbes, Chubb, Dodwell, Hume, and Shaftsbury when they refused to accept special revelation and were thrown on natural revelation alone ended in heresy and unbelief. Likewise in the Miscellany on Human Government, Edwards claims that apart from revelation men would not even know that there was a God much less what He wanted them to believe and do.

In many ways the most interesting - and puzzling - miscellany of all where, as we saw, Edwards asserts dogmatically that “nothing is more certain than that there must be an unmade and unlimited being,” but this is what immediately follows:



and yet, the very notion of such a being is all mystery, involving nothing but incomprehensible paradoxes, and seeming inconsistencies. It involves the notion of a being, self-existent and without any cause, which is utterly inconceivable, and seems repugnant to all our ways of conception. . . . And so innumerable other such like mysteries and paradoxes are involved in the notion of an infinite and eternal intelligent being. . . . *68*



It would seem that God is plainly known to the mind of all men yet that mind suffers from an incurable “natural blindness in the things of religion.” What is the reconciliation of such views of the human mind according to Jonathan Edwards?

Our reconciliation of these two apparently divergent lines of thinking we have offered in detail in Chapter V. Speaking summarily, the reconciliation between the absolute proofs of God’s existence and the inspiration of His Word and fallen man’s absolute “blindness to the things of religion” is as follows: The natural man cannot help but see the rational truth of these things but will not have God in his thinking. He therefore denies the light, which he hates, and plunges himself further into the darkness he loves. The mind has reasons the heart “knows” not of.



3. “Amiable Simplicity of Truth” Coupled With Miraculous Attestation.

So, for Edwards, there is no chance there is not a God for the only other option is Nothing. If there is no chance that there is not a God, neither is there any chance God would not reveal Himself. And if God reveals Himself it must be the Bible that is that revelation because if it is not the Bible there is no revelation (which, as shown, there cannot not be).

We have already seen something of that “amiable simplicity of truth” that characterizes the Bible. Educated readers can recognize this inherent beauty of simplicity but dare not draw the inevitable and frightening conclusion that they are in the presence of the God they know, hate and fear. Their rationality makes them see the insignia of deity but their moral turpitude makes them deny it. A thief can never “find” an honest cop. Because they have this fear of the Bible sinners never really get to know it and see its obvious divinity throughout. Someone said: There are two kinds of taste - good and bad. That is certainly true with reference to the Bible. It has a bad taste for the bad and a good taste for the good. I will develop this Edwardsian topic more fully under the “interpretation” of the Bible.

The Scripture is “surer than a voice from heaven” because it has established the worldwide church which has a glory compared to which Moses' church (Israel) had none. *69* Though miracles ceased with the apostolic age, the good obtained by the Bible lasts forever, and God never fails His Word. *70* Though the internal evidence for the Scriptures’ divinity is overwhelming, God gave corroborating miracles also to prove that men wrote the Bible under supernatural inspiration. The Scriptures



prove themselves by their own powerful light to be of divine authority, as the meridian light of the sun proves it to be in our hemisphere. *71*



And what about the man Jesus?



How came he to tell so exactly about the immortality of the soul and the future state (what is now demonstrable by reason, but was never found out before); how came all his doctrines to be so very rational, such as the resurrection, the day of judgment, God’s eternal decrees and predestination, original sin, reconciliation by the death of the Son of God, [justification] by faith of mere grace, regeneration, etc.? *72*



When God does reveal Himself, He does not leave us to decide His presence from the inadequacy of His human instruments of revelation in themselves. He certifies them by miraculous attestation. It is especially clear that Jesus’ miracles attest a divine messenger. In the raising of Lazarus, Jesus addressed God before all, saying He is beloved of His Father and calling on Him to attest the same by raising the man from the dead. *73* God would never have done that for an imposter. *74* Christ’s miracles are not only a divine attestation of Him but their very manner attests His own deity for they show that all nature is at His command. Furthermore, He does miracles in His own name. *75* Incidentally, Edwards entertained the belief that there was miraculous attestation of revelation from heathen sources. Pagans such as the ‘wise men’ bore miraculous witness to revelation. Although their testimony was incapable of external proof, it nevertheless served a significant subsidiary purpose. *76*

The scope of Edwards’ labors in the field of prophecy is little suspected by those unfamiliar with the range of his writings. Many of his sermons, sermon notebooks, “Miscellanies,” and treatises deal with the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy in general, *77* and messianic predictions especially. *78* The fall of Jerusalem *79* and the history of the Jews are adduced as evidence of a miraculous power of prediction on the part of biblical writers. Jer_10:11 is a particular prophecy which may be noted as an example. *80* In addition, he writes frequently about the Book of Revelation and the millennium, but these are not generally used apologetically because fulfillment is still future, at least in part.

Edwards’ argument from experience, not developed directly as such, has two aspects. First, scriptural revelation presents the only religious message on the basis of which a man can overcome the fear of death with his eyes open. *81* Its doctrine provides a theoretically sound foundation for genuine religious experience. Second, this is confirmed by those who believe. Their experience authenticates Christianity. It is not thinkable that God would give peace and joy to those who are still unreconciled enemies. *82* Edwards is arguing that Christianity has never, in spite of unceasing attempts, been proven wrong by anyone. *83* If this revelation, therefore, has not been disproved, a person ought to seek to meet its terms even if he is not entirely convinced it has been proven right. *84*



4. The Subjective Problem

What is the response of fallen reason to this array of overwhelming evidence for the “case” for Christianity? The response, Edwards says, is unbelief. The case for Christianity succeeds only in being a “savor of death to death” to the fallen heart of men. In fact, the Bible’s greater light elicits even greater opposition than natural theology. The last condition of “gospel sinners” is incomparably worse than that of pagan idolators. While the gospel is the power of God to salvation to all who believe, it is the power of God to still greater damnation to those who disbelieve. Men in hell will wish that they had never heard the name of Jesus. *85*

Edwards is so far removed from the deists that he not only denies the sufficiency of natural revelation and education based on it but of special revelation also. If salvation is to come to men, there must be not only a gospel message to understand but also a new heart and mind to acquiesce in what is understood. This he calls the “divine and supernatural light,” referring to the illumination of the elect whereby they truly understand and believe what God communicates.

This internal illumination may be studied at three points: regeneration, sanctification, and glorification.

It is clear that a new “heart” rather than a new brain is needed. An assent of the mind to revealed truth will not come with more truth, because the heart is indisposed to divine truth. A new disposition, a new principle, a new foundation for action is needed.

What Perry Miller calls the “holy rape of the soul” will not take place without previous rational apprehension of revelation. It is this illumination and not the grasping of the truths themselves that distinguishes a true saint from hypocrites and devils. This is clearly stated in Edwards’ sermon on Jam_2:18 entitled, “Nothing in the mind of man, that is of the same nature with what the devils experience or are the subjects of, is any sure sign of saving grace.” *86* But at the same time the means of grace are indispensable to the bestowing of grace. *87*

The “Treatise on Grace” is a minute analysis of the transition from darkness to light, *88* as are various unpublished sermons on Joh_3:1-36 and 1Co_2:1-16. This new heart, given in conjunction with the preaching of the gospel, is bestowed on those whom God has eternally chosen, at the moment eternally designated, in the manner eternally intended. *89*

The revelation itself does not change in illumination, but the way in which it is seen does change. *90* The “divine and supernatural light” does not convey new truths but gives a divine apprehension of things taught in the Scriptures. Illumination also causes the mind to be open to the arguments. Thus the theology of the unregenerate need not be different from the theology of the regenerate. However, while the unregenerate resist, hate, and suppress as repugnant the revelation which they see, the regenerate welcome, love, and cultivate what in the divine and supernatural light they see to be beautiful. It is not surprising, Edwards argues, that there should be such glory with illumination of truth in view of the fact that God is infinitely exalted above men. Nor on the other hand is it surprising that God’s glory should be withheld from the eye of sinful, unreconciled men.

The truth now is self-evident:



The being of God is evident by the Scriptures, and the Scriptures themselves are evidence of their own divine authority, after the same manner as the existence of a human thinking being is evident by . . . motions and behavior and speech. . . . *91*



Again Edwards says, “it seems to me an unaccountable dullness that when intelligent men read David’s psalms . . . they [are not] at once convinced that the Jews had the true worship.” *92* It is important to remember that this self-evidence attested by Edwards is not a substitute for external evidence but a confirmation of it. One cannot but believe that it is true. It is like the taste of honey. Edwards considers this pointedly:



Many say truth must be known to be before it can be known to be excellent. Yes, if this means things must be known really to exist before they can be known to exist excellent. No, if thereby be intended that a thing must be known to have a real existence before the person has a clear understanding, idea, or apprehension of the thing proposed. *93*



Man first has some view of the thing in its qualities before he knows its existence. He sees the sun before he actually knows there is a sun.

Here is the virtuous circle. God gives illumination of the excellency of sound doctrinal knowledge, which knowledge, in turn, creates the need for further illumination. Sanctification follows. Inner light creates a relish for outer light. Grace and truth work together. Grace seeks the light, love rejoices in the truth, and the light is the occasion for more life, more grace. This is Edwards’ view of the mechanics of sanctification. The sight of God changes man into the image of God.

Finally, the total person, body and soul, shall be perfected in heaven. The very pinnacle of perfection is reached in the beatific vision where the light and ardor are one, where faith and sight merge, where understanding and feeling are melted together, where the light is perfectly burning and perfectly bright.



The saints in heaven shall see God. They shall not only see that glorious city, and the saints there, and the holy angels, and the glorified body of Jesus; but they shall see God Himself. . . . This is what is called by divines, “the beatific vision,” because this is that in which the blessedness of the saints in glory does chiefly consist. . . . The infinite fountain of their blessedness . . . is no sight of anything with the bodily eyes; but it is an intellectual view. . . . The beatific vision of God is . . . with the eyes of the soul. . . . This highest blessedness of the soul does not enter in at the door of the bodily sense; this would be to make the blessedness of the soul dependent on the body, or the happiness of man’s superior part to be dependent on the body, or the happiness of man’s superior part to be dependent on the inferior. . . . [Instead] it is seeing God, who is a spirit, spiritually, with the eyes of the soul. . . . The soul shall be inflamed with love, and satisfied with pleasure. *94*



5. Summary and Conclusion

The apologetics of America’s greatest theological thinker may be summarized as follows: Beginning with Being which must be eternal and infinite because Nothing (no being) cannot exist, he deduces a full panoply of virtues which belong to this Being-in-general. Glorious as is this general revelation, however, man’s “natural blindness in the things of religion” leaves him as unperceiving of its desirable excellence as a pack of wild beasts. Only in connection with that fully and miraculously accredited special revelation which culminates in Jesus Christ are elect man’s eyes so opened that he can “see” the natural revelation, as well. The following paraphrase epitomizes Jonathan Edwards’ view on general and special revelation: To him who has (special revelation) it shall be given (general revelation); but, from him who has not (special revelation) shall be taken even that which he has (general revelation).