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TOPIC: Edwards, Jonathan - Rational Biblical Theology (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: Chapt 17 The Decrees of God
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“Christ teaches in his word that God decrees all things from all eternity, that he has absolutely determined who shall be saved and who shall be damned.” *1*
Every orthodox Christian believes that; but, many do not realize it, others will not admit it, and fewer still preach it. The Baptist hymn writer, however, has people singing:
Fixed was the eternal state of man,
Ere time its rapid course began:
Appointed by God’s firm decree,
To endless joy or misery. *2*
The apostle Paul warns that only those are innocent of the blood of their hearers who do not shrink from declaring the whole counsel (or will) of God. “Wherefore I testify unto you this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men; for I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God” (Act_20:26-27).
Introduction
The “rational biblical” character of Edwards’ theology is clear even where he presented “unconditional” election. There is a sense in which reason is even elevated above revelation. God has reasons for choosing some to eternal life rather than others. These reasons, however, are above us. God does not seek our counsel.
This does not mean that God’s good pleasure is not the ground of bestowing divine favor on the elect. But good pleasure is rational rather than arbitrary. Or, rather, it is rational with God though arbitrary (“mere” good pleasure) so far as its beneficiaries are concerned, as we shall see.
We have already seen in our discussion of God that He is absolutely sovereign in general. “God unalterably determines the limit of mens life.” *3* There may be some things certain in advance that we do not know, our “Puritan sage” opines, but “we know this” - that our days are exactly numbered, precisely decreed to the hour, minute, second. We ourselves have no knowledge of this and can do nothing to change it. Edwards was fond of the Ecclesiastes statement, How dieth the wise man? Even as the fool. (Ecc_2:16) His hearers were often reminded that the children as well as oldsters could be nailed in their coffins” in a very short time. They should awaken, therefore, immediately, and begin seeking the Lord during the only “now” they certainly have. Sleepers in church as well as out, could wake up in hell.
In this chapter on the decrees we follow the application of the divine sovereignty to His decrees dealing with the destiny of mankind.
1. Divine Election
“Jesus Christ is the great medium and head of union in whom all elect creatures in heaven and earth are united to God and to one another.” *4* Again, “The saints are those that God has chosen out of all the world to be for him as his part and portion.” *5* “True Christians are a chosen generation,” Edwards insisted in an early sermon on 1 Peter 2:9. *6*
At the same time Edwards declared that as truly as God appointed the elect to show forth the glory of His grace, just so deliberately did He appoint the damnation of the wicked on purpose to show forth this glory. . . .” *7* This has the effect on the godly of their prizing God’s favor to them all the more. Hell makes heaven all the happier. *8*
Edwards’ own happiness turned on the decrees of God. The oft-cited “Personal Narrative” of his conversion tells how from an horrid doctrine the decrees became everlasting bliss for him:
From my childhood up, my mind had been full of objections against the doctrine of God’s sovereignty, in choosing whom he would to eternal life; and rejecting whom he pleased; leaving them eternally to perish, and be everlastingly tormented in hell. It used to appear like a horrible doctrine to me. But I remember the time very well when I seemed to be convinced, and fully satisfied, as to this sovereignty of God, and his justice in thus eternally disposing of men, according to his sovereign pleasure. But never could give an account how, or by what means, I was thus convinced, not in the least imagining at the time, nor a long time after, that there was any extraordinary influence of God’s Spirit in it; but only that now I saw further, and my reason apprehended the justice and reasonableness of it. However, my mind rested in it; and it put an end to all those cavils and objections. And there has been a wonderful alteration in my mind, with respect to the doctrine of God’s sovereignty, from that day to this; so that I scarce ever have found so much as the rising of an objection against it, in the most absolute sense, in God showing mercy to whom he will show mercy, and hardening whom he will. God’s absolute sovereignty and justice, with respect to salvation and damnation, is what my mind seems to rest assured of, as much as of any thing that I see with my eyes; at least it is so at times. But I have often, since that first conviction, had quite another kind of sense of God’s sovereignty than I had then. I have often since had not only a conviction, but a delightful conviction. The doctrine has very often appeared exceedingly pleasant, bright, and sweet. Absolute sovereignty is what I love to ascribe to God. But my first conviction was not so.
The first instance, that I remember, of that sort of inward, sweet delight in God and divine things, that I have lived much in since, was on reading those words, 1Ti_1:17. Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen. As I read the words, there came into my soul, and was as it were diffused through it, a sense of the glory of the Divine Being; a new sense, quite different from any thing I ever experienced before. Never any words of Scripture seemed to me as these words did. I thought with myself, how excellent a Being that was, and how happy I should be, if I might enjoy that God, and be rapt up to him in heaven; and be as it were swallowed up in him for ever! I kept saying, and as it were singing, over these words of Scripture to myself; and went to pray to God that I might enjoy him; and prayed in a manner quite different from what I used to do; with a new sort of affection. But it never came into my thought, that there was any thing spiritual, or of a saving nature, in this.
From about that time I began to have a new kind of apprehensions and ideas of Christ, and the work of redemption, and the glorious way of salvation by him. An inward, sweet sense of these things, at times, came into my heart; and my soul was led away in pleasant views and contemplations of them. And my mind was greatly engaged to spend my time in reading and meditating on Christ, on the beauty and excellency of his person, and the lovely way of salvation by free grace in him. I found no books so delightful to me, as those that treated of these subjects. Those words Son_2:1 used to be abundantly with me, I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. The words seemed to me sweetly to represent the loveliness and beauty of Jesus Christ. The whole book of Canticles used to be pleasant to me, and I used to be much in reading it, about that time; and found from time to time an inward sweetness, that would carry me away in my contemplations. This I know not how to express otherwise, than by a calm, sweet abstraction of soul from all the concerns of this world; and sometimes a kind of vision, or fixed ideas and imaginations, of being alone in the mountains, or some solitary wilderness, far from all mankind, sweetly conversing with Christ, and wrapt and swallowed up in God. The sense I had of divine things, would often of a sudden kindle up, as it were, a sweet burning in my heart, an ardor of soul, that I know not how to express.
Not long after I first began to experience these things, I gave an account to my father of some things that had passed in my mind. I was pretty much affected by the discourse we had together; and when the discourse was ended, I walked abroad alone, in a solitary place in my father’s pasture, for contemplation. And as I was walking there, and looking upon the sky and clouds, there came into my mind so sweet a sense of the glorious majesty and grace of God, as I know not how to express. - I seemed to see them both in a sweet conjunction; majesty and meekness joined together: it was a sweet, and gentle, and holy majesty; and also a majestic meekness; an awful sweetness; a high, and great, and holy gentleness. *9*
Jonathan Edwards taught that all theists had to admit the doctrine of divine decrees. It is in the published sermon on Rom_9:18 that Edwards gives his most fundamental survey of the decrees at least in popular presentation. *10* We may glance at this before examining the decrees more closely. Edwards lists the absolute sovereignty of God in choosing to favor some nations in particular with respect to individuals and not others. He gives salvation to some with few advantages while passing by the richly endowed. God saves some sinners without their seeking and does not save others who seek diligently. He saves some and not other seekers.
Edwards also explained in this very comprehensive message that God’s absolute sovereignty in the salvation of men was not inconsistent with any of His attributes. God’s holiness was honored because none were saved with God countenancing sin nor damned without their deserving it. The majesty of God was maintained because salvation repaired the injuries done to Him while damnation vindicated Him by the judgment on the offenders. Justice shone as salvation was by a mercy that did not violate justice and it was honored in the merited destruction of the wicked. Truth is honored as the redeemed die and live in Christ and sinners received their earned wages. Goodness is especially visible in salvation and damnation. Goodness withheld means that it is a voluntary attribute.
The creation and decrees were for the happiness of God’s elect. Were they not for the happiness of God Himself?
The decrees were not for God’s happiness but for His glory. He possessed all happiness perfectly and unchangeably so that no creature could ever add to it.
However, the decrees were for the glorification or manifestation of the divine happiness (among all other attributes). God is happy with the glorification of His happiness but was not made more happy thereby. Saying He was made happier would not make Him unhappy but angry and He would continue happy punishing those who said He could be made happier.
All things were made for His glory, but even that was not for God’s sake but for the creature’s. God always perfectly appreciated His own excellence and its glory. So God’s glorification was for the good of the creature.
From the very beginning of Edwards’ thought there was no tension between the glory of God and the good of the creature. There was no tension because these were not two things to be opposed. There was no choice between the glory of God and the good of man. The glory of God was solely for the good of man. It was not for God’s good but for the creature’s. The creature’s only good was in the glorification of God. Therefore, God glorified Himself and therefore He commanded man to glorify Him. God would not die for lack of it but man would. God would not be happier because of it but man’s only happiness was in his glorifying of God.
The decrees sometimes seem a theme for the mind not the heart. Though God elected a multitude no man could number, Edwards insists that “he loves everyone with as particular a love as if there were none but he.” That was from his sermon on Romans 8:29 *11* not from the one on Gal_2:20, though the latter cannot avoid the same theme. *12* Surely the glory of God was for the blessedness of each one of His chosen individually, intimately and intensively.
Though the decrees of God were not for the happiness of God, His perfect happiness implies that all His decrees were perfectly in accord with His will.
1. That God is a perfectly happy Being, in the most absolute and highest sense possible.
2. That it will follow from hence, that God is free from every thing that is contrary to happiness; and so, that in strict propriety of speech, there is no such thing as any pain, grief or trouble in God.
3. When any intelligent being is really crossed and disappointed, and things are contrary to what he truly desires, he is the less pleased, or has less pleasure, his pleasure and happiness is diminished, and he suffers what is disagreeable to him, or is the subject of something that is of a nature contrary to joy and happiness, even pain and grief. *13*
From this last axiom it follows, that if no distinction is to be admitted between God’s hatred of sin, and his will with respect to the event and the existence of sin, as th through the whole compass and series of things; I say, then it certainly follows, that the coming to pass of every individual act of sin is truly, all things considered, contrary to his will, and that his will is really crossed in it; and this in proportion as he hates it. And as God’s hatred of sin is infinite, by reason of the infinite contrariety of his holy nature to sin; so his will is infinitely crossed, in every act of sin that happens. Which is as much as to say, he endures that which is infinitely disagreeable to him, by means of every act of sin that he sees committed. And therefore, as appears by the preceding positions, he endures truly and really, infinite grief or pain from every sin. And so he must be infinitely crossed, and suffer infinite pain, every day, in millions of millions of instances: he must continually be the subject of an immense number of real, and truly infinitely great crosses and vexations. Which would be to make him infinitely the most miserable of all beings. *14*
Following the contention that it was necessary that there should be evil to reveal the wrath of God which was an essential part of His glory, Edwards shows that it was good that there were bad actions. However God’s part was the good and man’s the bad.
It implies no contradiction to suppose that an act may be an evil act, and yet that it is a good thing that such an act should come to pass. A man may have been a bad man, and yet it may be a good thing that there has been such a man. This implies no contradiction; because it implies no contradiction to suppose that there being such a man may be an occasion of there being more good in the whole, than there would have been otherwise. So it no more implies a contradiction to suppose that an action may be a bad action, and yet that it may be a good thing that there has been such an action. God’s commands, and calls, and counsels, do imply another thing, viz. that it is our duty to do these things; and though they may.
And if there be any difficulty in this, the same difficulty will attend the scheme of the Arminians; for they allow that God permits sin. Therefore, as he permits it, it cannot be contrary to his will. For if it were contrary to his will as he permits it, then it would be contrary to his will to permit it; for that is the same thing. But nobody will say that God permits sin, when it is against his will to permit it; for this would be to make him act involuntarily, or against his own will. *15*
Though it is good that there be evil, it is for the sake of the elect and not the reprobate. “Those that are Christ’s and belonging to him, ’tis of God that they are so.” *16* It is of God’s will that Christians are brought to Christ. And being brought to Christ is being brought from sin. Sin or evil - deliverance from it - brings to Jesus Christ. Without that sin which was seen as destroying His people, Jesus Christ would never have come into the world to save them. How profoundly grateful they will ever be that sin entered this world without which tragedy they would never have known everlasting blessedness in God. Of this wonderful truth they are perpetually reminded as the flames of hell arise into their vision.
The dispute whether God hates some men more than merely for their sins is considered. The doctrine of the Gen_27:39 text reads: “Those that God hates he is notwithstanding oftentimes willing to give ’em a plenty of these earthly things and the choicest of them.” *17* Edwards surely cuts through the popular saying that God loves the sinner but hates the sin. God “abhors their persons for their sins” even while He showers them with many earthly benefits. Edwards tries to awaken those who have no portion with God but earthly gifts which God despises as He casts them to dogs.
However necessary decreed evil may be, it does not excuse evil-doers, just as it does not make God the author of sin. Edwards responds to such objections as follows:
§ 25. Their other objection is, that God’s decrees make God the author of sin. I answer, that there is no more necessity of supposing God the author of sin, on this scheme, than on the other. For if we suppose, according to my doctrine, that God has determined, from all eternity, the number and persons of those that shall perform the condition of the covenant of grace; in order to support this doctrine, there is no need of maintaining any more concerning God’s decreeing sin, than this, viz. that God has decreed that he will permit all the sin that ever comes to pass, and that upon his permitting it, it will certainly come to pass. And they hold the same thing; for they hold that God does determine beforehand to permit all the sin that does come to pass; and that he certainly knows that if he does permit it, it will come to pass. I say, they in their scheme allow both these; they allow God does permit all the sin to come to pass, that ever does come to pass; and those that allow the foreknowledge of God, do also allow the other thing, viz. that he knows concerning all the sin that ever does really come to pass, that it will come to pass upon his permitting it. So that if this be making God the author of sin, they make him so in the very same way that they charge us with doing it. *18*
But first let us see that Jonathan Edwards surely does insist “that all the sins of men are foreordained and ordered by a wise Providence.”
§ 12. The sin of crucifying Christ being foreordained of God in his decree, and ordered in his providence, of which we have abundant evidence from the nature of the thing, and from the great ends God had to accomplish by means of this wicked act of crucifying Christ; it being, as it were, the cause of all the decrees, the greatest of all decreed events, and that on which all other decreed events depend as their main foundation; being the main thing in that greatest work of God, the work of redemption, which is the end of all other works; and it being so much prophesied of, and so plainly spoken of, as being done according to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God; I say, seeing we have such evidence that this sin is foreordained in God’s decrees, and ordered in providence, and it being, as it were, the head sin, and representative of the sin of men in general; hence is a clear argument, that all the sins of men are foreordained and ordered by a wise Providence. *19*
Driving home his point that sinners are guilty of foreordained sins, Edwards asks why all men resent injurious and ungrateful acts towards them? By this they show that they do believe that there is no necessity in mens acts from divine decrees that is not consistent with blame. Though God knows and decrees whatever happens, men know that never excuses the faults of their neighbors:
But every such objector as would argue from hence, that there is no fault at all in sin, confutes himself, and shows his own insincerity in his objection. For at the same time that he objects, that mens acts are necessary, and that this kind of necessity is inconsistent with faultiness in the act, his own practice shows that he does not believe what he objects to be true: otherwise why does he at all blame men? Or why are such persons at all displeased with men, for abusive, injurious, and ungrateful acts towards them? Whatever they pretend, by this they show that indeed they do believe that there is no necessity in men’s acts that is inconsistent with blame. And if their objection be this, that this previous certainty is by God’s own ordering, and that where God orders an antecedent certainty of acts, he transfers all the fault from the actor on himself; their practice shows, that at the same time they do not believe this, but fully believe the contrary: for when they are abused by men, they are displeased with men, and not with God only. *20*
Elsewhere, Edwards is more explicit:
§ 30. God decrees all things, and even all sins. Act_2:23. “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain;” 4:28. “For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.” If the thing meant, be only that Christ’s sufferings should come to pass by some means or other; I answer, they could not come to pass but by sin. For contempt and disgrace was one thing he was to suffer. Even the free actions of men are subject to God’s disposal. Pro_21:1. “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord; he turneth it as the rivers of water, whithersoever it pleaseth him.” See Jer_52:3. “For through the anger of the Lord it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, till he had cast them out from his presence, that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.” The not complying with the terms of the covenant of grace is decreed, 1Pe_2:8. “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to them that stumble at the word, being disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed.” What man determines, never comes to pass, unless God determines it, Lam_3:37. “Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, and the Lord commandeth it not?” By commanding is here meant willing; and God is elsewhere said to speak, and it was done; to command, and it stood fast. God determines the limits of mens lives. This is exceeding evident. Job_7:1. “Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? Are not his days also like the days of a hireling?” Days of a hireling signify an appointed, certain, limited time; as Isaiah 16:14. and 21:16. If the limits of men’s lives are determined, mens free actions must be determined, and even their sins; for their lives often depend on such acts. See also Job 14:5. *21*
One incidental proof that Edwards did not believe God to be the author of sin is his infralapsarianism. According to the supralapsarian view, God rejects the reprobate when considered as unfallen, homo creabilis. Edwards will have none of this, as it seems to make God the author of sin in a sinless creature. Edwards, realizing the vital importance of this point, goes into great detail:
Hence God’s decree of the eternal damnation of the reprobate is not to be conceived of as prior to the fall, yea, and to the very being of the persons, as the decree of the eternal glory of the elect is. For God’s glorifying his love, and communicating his goodness, stands in the place of a mere or ultimate end, and therefore is prior in the mind of the eternal Disposer to the very being of the subject, and to every thing but mere possibility. The goodness of God gives the being as well as the happiness of the creature, and does not presuppose it. Indeed, the glorifying of God’s mercy, as it presupposes the subject to be miserable, and the glorifying his grace, as it presupposes the subject to be sinful, unworthy, and ill deserving, are not to be conceived of as ultimate ends, but only as certain ways and means for the glorifying the exceeding abundance and overflowing fulness of God’s goodness and love; therefore these decrees are not to be considered as prior to the decree of the being and permission of the fall of the subject. And the decree of election, as it implies a decree of glorifying God’s mercy and grace, considers men as being cursed and fallen; because the very notion of such a decree supposes sin and misery. Hence we may learn, how much in the decree of predestination is to be considered as prior to the creation and fall of man, and how much as posterior; viz. that God’s decree to glorify his love and communicate his goodness, and to glorify his greatness and holiness, is to be considered as prior to creation and the fall of man. And because the glory of God’s love, and the communication of his goodness, necessarily imply the happiness of the creature, and give both their being and happiness; hence the design to communicate and glorify his goodness and love eternally to a certain number, is to be considered as prior, in both those mentioned respects, to their being and fall. For such a design, in the notion of it, presupposes neither. But nothing in the decree of reprobation is to be looked upon as antecedent in one of those respects to man’s being and fall; but only that general decree that God will glorify his justice, or rather his holiness and greatness, which supposes neither their being nor sinfulness. But whatsoever there is in this decree of evil to particular subjects, it is to be considered as consequent on the decree of their creation, and permission of their fall. And indeed, although all that is in the decree of election, all that respects good to the subjects, be not posterior to the being and fall of men, yet both the decree of election and rejection or reprobation, as so styled, must be considered as consequent on the decrees concerning the creation and fall. For both these decrees have respect to that distinction or discrimination that is afterwards actually made amongst men in pursuance of these decrees. Hence effectual calling, being the proper execution of election, is sometimes in Scripture called election; and the rejection of men in time is called reprobation. Therefore the decrees of election and reprobation must be looked upon as beginning there, where the actual distinction begins, because distinction is implied in the notion of those decrees. And therefore, whatsoever is prior to this actual distinction, the foresight of it, and decree concerning it, or that state that was common, or wherein they were undistinguished, the foresight of that, or decree concerning it, must be considered, in some respect, as prior to the decree concerning the distinction. Because all that is before is supposed or looked upon as already put in the decree. For that is the decree, viz. to make such a distinction between those that were before in such a common state. And this is agreeable to the scripture representations of those decrees, Joh_15:19. “Ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” See also Eze_16:1-8.
The decrees of God must be conceived of in the same order, and as antecedent to, and consequent on, one another, in the same manner, as God’s acts in the execution of those decrees. If this will not hold, with regard to those things that are the effects of those acts, yet certainly it will hold with respect to the acts themselves. They depend on one another, and are grounded on one another, in the same manner as the decrees that these are the execution of, and in no other. For, on the one hand, the decrees of God are no other than his eternal doing what is done, acted, or executed by him in time. On the one hand, God’s acts themselves, in executing, can be conceived of no otherwise, than as decrees for a present effect. They are acts of God’s will. God brings things to pass only by acts of his will. He speaks, and it is done. His will says, let it be, and it is. And this act of his will that now is, cannot be looked upon as really different from that act of will that was in him before, and from eternity, in decreeing that this thing should be at this time. It differs only relatively. Here is no new act of the will in God, but only the same acts of God’s will, which before, because the time was not come, respected future time; and so were called decrees. But now the time being come, they respect present time, and so are not called by us decrees, but acts executing decrees. Yet they are evidently the same acts in God. Therefore those acts, in executing, must certainly be conceived of in the same order, and with the same dependence, as the decrees themselves. It may be in some measure illustrated by this - The decree of God, or the will of God decreeing events, may be represented as a straight line of infinite length, that runs through all past eternity, and terminates the event. The last point in the line, is the act of God’s will in bringing the event to pass, and does not at all differ from all the other points throughout the infinite length of the line, in any other respect but this, that this last point is next to the event. This line may be represented as in motion, but yet always kept parallel to itself. The hither end of the line, by its motion, describes events in the order in which they come to pass; or at least represents God’s acts in bringing the events to pass, in their order and mutual dependence, antecedence, and consequence. By the motion of all the other points of the line, before the event or end of the line, in the whole infinite length of it, are represented the decrees in their order; which, because the line in all its motions is kept parallel to itself, is exactly the same with the order of the motions of the last point. For the motion of every point of the whole line, is in all respects just like the motions of that last point wherein the line terminates in the event; and the different parts of the motion of every point, are in every respect precisely in the same order. And the maxim, that what is first in intention, is last in execution, does not in the least concern this matter. For, by last in execution, is meant only last in order of time, without any respect to the priority or posteriority that we are speaking of; and it does not at all hinder, but that in God’s acts, in executing his decrees, one act is the ground or reason of another act, in the same manner precisely as the decree that related to it was the ground or reason of the other decree. The absolute independence of God no more argues against some of God’s decrees being grounded on decrees of some other things that should first come to pass, than it does against some of God’s acts in time, being grounded on some other antecedent acts of his. It is just the same with God’s acts in executing, as has been said already of his decreeing. In one respect, the end that is afterwards to be accomplished, is the ground of God’s acting; in another respect, something that is already accomplished, is the ground of his acting, as it is the ground of the fitness or capableness of the act to obtain the end. There is nothing but the ultimate end of all things, viz. God’s glory, and the communication of his goodness, that is prior to all first acts in creating the world, in one respect, and mere possibility in another. But, with respect to after-acts, other ends are prior in one respect, and other preceding acts are prior in another, just as I have shown it to be with respect to God’s decrees. Now, this being established, it may help more clearly to illustrate, and fully to evince, what we have insisted on concerning the order of the decrees, and that God’s decrees of some things that are accomplished first in order of time, are also prior in the order, so as to be the proper ground and reason of other decrees. For, let us see how it is in God’s acts in executing his decrees. Will any deny, that God’s act in rewarding righteousness, is grounded on a foregoing act of his in giving righteousness? And that he regards righteousness in such a person, because he hath given righteousness to such a person; and that because this latter act necessarily supposes the former act foregoing? So, in like manner, God’s decree, in determining to reward righteousness, is grounded on an antecedent decree to give righteousness, because the former decree necessarily supposes the latter decree, and implies it in the very notion of it. So, who will deny, but that God’s act in punishing sin is grounded on what God hath antecedently done in permitting sin, or suffering it to be, because the former necessarily supposes the latter, and therefore that the actual permission of sin is prior, in the order of nature, to the punishment of it? So that whatever foregoing act of God is in any respect a ground and reason of another succeeding act, so far is both the act and decree of the act prior to both that other act and decree. *22*
The eternity of the election decree Edwards uses as a fundamental argument against Arminian evangelism. The love of God is “self-moved” because it is eternal. Being eternal it cannot depend on the creature before the creature exists (Rom_8:29). Furthermore, if it did depend on the creature, as the Arminian supposes, it would be left uncertain, which eternal love cannot be. “Otherwise it would be left uncertain still whether he (the creature) should perish or not and so one that is loved from eternity and will be to eternity might eternally perish which is a great inconsistency.” Thus runs the “rational biblical theology of Jonathan Edwards.”
The most fascinating thing about Jonathan Edwards on the decrees of God is that he combines the profoundest, unflinching declaration of the doctrine conceivable with the most evangelistic and practical application imaginable. After describing the doctrine of decrees with minutest Calvinistic detail as noted above come sentences like these: “There is danger that you will provoke him (God) that he’ll resolve (?) never to give you conversion, if he han’t done it already.” *23*
Contingency, for Edwards, was one of Arminianism’s major errors. Strictly speaking, the term means that events touch on each other or are inter-connected one leading to the next that causally follows. But under the very term “contingency” that concept was denied by the Arminians. For them, volitional events were independent of each other, such events being resolved by the will free (free will) without any anterior cause. This Edwards opposed with all the force of his Freedom of the Will under the heading of contingency meaning Arminian contingency that was really a denial of the meaning of contingency. Effects, according to Edwards, follow antecedent causes and do not arise by spontaneous generation.
God determined things “harmoniously” Edwards insisted in M 29. God decreed prayers because he decreed rain or rain because He decreed prayers. God “decrees the latter because of the former no more than the former because of the latter.” It is improper to say that one is the condition or the other. All are simply harmonious.
Concerning this “foreknowledge” of faith, Edwards wants only to ask: “’tis owned that God did choose men to eternal life upon a foresight of their faith. But then here is the question, Whether God decreed that faith and chose them that they should believe.” *24* That is the complete “Miscellany” because Edwards considers the question to be rhetorical. Of course, he maintains throughout his system, that God decreed faith and chose some to believe and on that ground foresaw their faith. “Whom he foreknew” means, for Edwards, whom he fore-ordained. The word, should be translated “fore-owned” or “fore-loved.” “The love of God to the creature is self-moved.” *25* This is argued from the fact that it is eternal and therefore not dependent on the will of the creature, as Arminians imagine.
We have seen the poignant first person account of Edwards’ change of mind and heart concerning election and reprobation at his conversion, but the rationale is given in a brief M 273:
ELECTION. God’s loving some and not others antecedent to any manner of difference in them why he should love one more than the other; may appear reasonable thus. God of his own natural disposition really loves his reasonable creatures. Therefore his love to us before the foundation of the world is not merely an act of his wisdom pleasing to make some happy, and not others, as some have seemed to suppose but real love, such as ours but only infinitely more sweet and pure, and void of all imperfection. Now God in his wisdom sees it best that all should not be loved . . . which is the same thing as to God as an absolute impossibility. Now we find by experience, that, however our natural disposition would lead us to love these or those, as to any qualification in them, yet if circumstances are such, that we never in the least conciev’d that there could be any possibility of there [sic] being ours we find no disposition to love them. Tho divine things bent like human yet comparison from one to the other may in some cases help us to conceive. [finis]
This succinct statement shows that however unconditional election may have been so far as men were concerned, and however much a matter of arbitrary divine choice as well, God’s wisdom dictated it. God chose and God chose whom He chose because it was wise to do so. Edwards is on the side of the determinists of the ages against the voluntarists. God chooses because it is right (Aquinas) rather than it being right because God chooses (Scotus). For us creatures, of course, anything is right that God chooses and because He chooses; but with God, He chooses because it is right (that is, according to His own holy nature).
In a sense, even we choose because it is right. First, it is right to choose what God decrees and second we know that God chooses only what is right. When Edwards preached that all God’s methods of dealing with men are most “reasonable,” he included the decrees. God, he insisted, has “reasons for choosing some rather than others. These reasons are far above us” of whom He asks no counsel, Isaiah 40:13. *26. *26. *26* This sermon on Act_9:13 also reminds us that God’s good pleasure is not the highest ground of bestowing pleasure. Again, in the Rom_9:18 sermon Edwards insists that election does not rest in the flat will of God. “But the expression implies that it is God’s mere will and sovereign pleasure, which supremely orders this affair. It is the divine will without restraint, or constraint, or obligation.” *27*
Although Edwards says more about the wisdom and rationality behind unconditional election than most Calvinists, he is as insistent as any of them on its unconditionality. *28* If election were conditional, then, he argues, Christ did all his redemptive work with no assurance that anyone would benefit or that there would be a mediatorial kingdom. *29* To say that God predestined that those who have faith should have eternal life is absurd, because those who have faith necessarily have Christ and have eternal life. Would God eternally pick those to be free of guilt whom He saw would be free of guilt? Edwards asks: What do Arminians
mean by an election of men to that which it is in its own nature impossible that it should not be, whether they are elected to it or not. . . . What sense is it to say, that a creditor chooses out those of his debtors to be free from debt, that owe him nothing? *30*
Edwards continues with the traditional Calvinistic critique that Arminian election is an election of qualifications not persons (“God does from all eternity, choose to bestow eternal life upon those that have a right to it. . . .”).
Edwards showed that the foreknowledge of God could not do the work of the decrees. *31* Foreknowledge could prove future things certain; it could not make them so. Arminians admitted foreknowledge by which they acknowledged the certainty of future events that, the Calvinists maintained, must imply foreordination. Who else but God could meet the job description: one who can make things certain?
§1. Whether God has decreed all things that ever came to pass or not, all that own the being of a God own that he knows all things beforehand. Now, it is self-evident, that if he knows all things beforehand, he either doth approve of them, or he doth not approve of them; that is, he either is willing they should be, or he is not willing they should be. But to will that they should be, is to decree them. *32*
So to decree is to will. To will is to permit things to be which will be. God permits all things that are, to be. Therefore, God decrees all things. Edwards has the Arminians on the hook from which he never permits them to escape, and that hook is their fatal but inescapable admission that God knows all things “beforehand” or is omniscient. To grant that, is to grant all. That is the point at which every Arminian, willy-nilly, is a Calvinist or he cannot be even an Arminian. To him that has not the decrees even the foreknowledge that he does have shall be taken away from him.
Edwards’ grandson, Timothy Dwight, was to observe later that even if God had not decreed, foreknowledge would be fatal to Arminian freedom. If God had no influence over creatures at all, yet, since he would have foreseen their actions, these actions would be certain. *33* Arminianism has always tried, however, to interpret certainty (unlike necessity) as consistent with freedom. Thus Fletcher in his Answer to Toplady had affirmed “certain futurity” but rejected Toplady’s “infallible futurity” as fatalistic. Certain futurity would seem to be infallible futurity, but according to Fletcher it allowed freedom where the latter precluded it. *33a* This is the “middle knowledge” of the Jesuits that Francis Turretin had critiqued thoroughly. *34*
The futility of attempting to reconcile certainty and contingency is shown in painful detail by Edwards, not in the Freedom of the Will but, in essence, he stated the matter at the very outset of his career:
This is most certain, that if there are any things that are so contingent that there is an equal possibility both of their being or not being, so that they may be or they may not be; God foreknows from all eternity that they may be, and also that they may not be.... And furthermore, if God knows all things that arthings will come to pass or no, at the same time that they are contingent and that they may or may not come to pass.
But what a contradiction is this, to say that God knows a thing will come to pass, and yet at the same time knows that it is contingent whether it will or no! That is, he certainly knows it will come to pass, and yet certainly knows it may not come to pass. What a contradiction is it, to say that God certainly foreknew that Judas would betray his Master or Peter deny him, and yet certainly knew that he might be deceived! I suppose it will be acknowledged by all, that for God certainly to know that a thing will be, and yet certainly to know that it may not be, is the same as certainly to know that he may be deceived. I suppose it will also be acknowledged, that certainly to know a thing, and also at the same time to know that we may be deceived in it, is the same thing as certainly to know it and certainly to know that we are uncertain of it, or that we do not certainly know it; and that that is the same thing as certainly to know it and not certainly to know it at the same time. Which we leave to be considered, whether it ben’t a contradiction. *35*