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TOPIC: Edwards, Jonathan - Rational Biblical Theology (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: Chapt 17 cont 2
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2. Infralapsarianism
Edwards’ infralapsarianism comes to clear expression in his most successful sermon on Romans 3:19. *36* When men are fallen “God by his sovereignty has a right to determine about their redemption as he pleases.” Against the Arminians and John Wesley (whom he does not cite), Edwards argues that to suppose that all have forfeited God’s favor and yet God cannot leave them to perish implies a contradiction; because it supposes that such a one has a claim to God’s favour, and is not justly liable to perish; which is contrary to the supposition.” *37*
Nevertheless F. H. Foster thought Edwards was supralapsarian because the fall was like every other event in the world proceeding from the willa volition caused by motives. These motives were in the last analysis presented by God. In that sense God willed the fall. This is High Calvinism, and substantially supralapsarianism - a thing to which Edwards was in another place to give a death-blow. *38* Likewise, the statement of Edwards in M 273, cited above, seems to imply supralapsarianism. If God’s disposition is to love all His creatures and only His wisdom prevents it, this would seem to apply to man as man even more than man as sinner. *39*
However, Edwards was clearly and explicitly infralapsarian in his view of the decrees. First of all, he refutes the fundamental argument of the supralapsarians. They contended that the last thing in execution was always the first in intention. That is, the actual reprobation and salvation of some proved that this was the original intention behind the creation, fall, salvation and damnation. Edwards critiques this. That principle, he contends, is true “with regard to the end and all the proper means, but not with regard to every prerequisite condition” - but only with regard to the “ultimate end.” ** The glory of God is the ultimate end. So man was not created that he should be converted or reprobated: “man’s fall was intended that God might glorify himself this way by manifesting his mercy and just wrath. . . .” More specifically Edwards later wrote, sin is presupposed in vindictive justice (an explicit statement of infralapsarianism). *41* Even more explicitly, four “Miscellanies” later, he states that “God’s decree of the eternal damnation of the reprobate is not to be conceived of as prior to the fall. . . .” *42*
Edwards may seem to be supralapsarian with reference to the decree of election and infralapsarian with reference to the decree of reprobation. In this same M 704, in which he explicitly repudiates the supralapsarian decree of reprobation, he goes on to say that
the decree of election for God’s glorification of his love and communicating his goodness, stands in the place of a near or ultimate end, and therefore, is prior in the mind of the eternal disposer, to the very being of the subject, and to everything but mere possibility. The goodness of God gives the being, as well as the happiness, of the creature and don’t presuppose it. *43*
However, all this means is that God chooses the qualifications before He chooses those on whom He will bestow the qualifications. Edwards’ ordo salutis seems to be:
1. God’s decree to glorify his love, goodness, and holiness, justice and wrath.
2. Decrees of creation and fall.
3. Decrees of gracious election and vindictive justice. *44*
Second, Edwards constantly uses the word “permission” in an infralapsarian way with reference to the fall. “God may permit sin, though the being of sin will certainly ensue . . . and so dispose and order the event.” In his treatise on decrees and election he argues the case more fully. “It is acknowledged that sin is, in itself considered, infinitely contrary to God’s nature; but it does not follow, but that it may be the pleasure of God to permit it, for the sake of the good that he will bring out of it. . . .” Then he cites the crucifixion of Christ as an illustration. And once again he shows the Arminians that they implicitly agree:
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 to permit it . . . 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. *45*
This is, no doubt, what Berkhof had in mind when he wrote: “Jonathan Edwards ruled out the category of efficiency from God’s connection with the fall of man, and used ordinary Calvinistic phraseology.” *46*
In answer to Foster, Fisher, and others who interpreted Edwards as departing from the Westminster Confession of Faith in a supralapsarian direction, I make a brief comment here. *47* In an unpublished “Miscellany” Edwards explicitly stated that unfallen man did have an ability to choose between good and evil that was lost by the fall. This is sufficient to show that Edwards did not think of himself as differing with Westminster even though one may question whether Edwards’ position is consistent at this point. In other words, Fisher may be right in saying Edwards’ view of the will implicitly contradicts the Westminster Confession of Faith, but it is not true that Edwards thought so. We may add that all determinists (which includes all Calvinists and not only Jonathan Edwards) have a problem in saying that Adam and Eve, or any other human beings at any time whatever, had the power of contrary choice. Nevertheless, Edwards not only recognized a difference in Adam’s free-will before and after the fall but explained it:
Man has not so much freedom now as he had before the fall in this respect. Now he has a will against a will an inclination contrary to his reason and judgment which begets a contrary inclination and this latter is often overcome and suppress’d by the former. But before the fall the inclination that arose from reason and judgment never was held down by the inferiour inclination so that in that sense he was more free or as they speak had more freedom of will. *48*
God decreed the fall of man, yet Edwards sees this as an anti-supralapsarian. As we shall show in the Edwardsian doctrine of man, the Holy Spirit was Edwards’ donum superadditum. Adam’s failure to call upon Him was the occasion of the fall. God did not first harden Adam’s heart; this wicked deed was Adam’s own doing.
Whether infra- or supralapsarian the Christian sees all as for the glory of God. Consequently, one’s relation to that glory became a crisis for some including Edwards’ wife. Should (must) the Christian be willing to be damned for the glory of God? Is the answer to that question a test of her true faith? Must she be willing to be damned if she hoped to be saved? Here the reader must wait, for I will consider Edwards’ answer to this difficult question in its proper place later in this chapter.
Jonathan Edwards clearly taught the doctrine of the limited design of the atonement. This is a vital part of the doctrine of decrees, yet more opposition to the decrees seems to arise at this point of application than any other. Calvinists generally are less explicit on this than the other of the “five points”. William Cunningham surveyed the entire corpus of Calvin’s writings and found only two explicit affirmations of limited atonement (though it is implicitly present throughout Calvin’s system). *48a*
Among his far less voluminous writings (which no one has surveyed for this purpose) Edwards has far more than two explicit references. He plainly asserted that, “[it] is certain that God did not intend to save those that he knew from all eternity would not be saved.” *49* In the sermon on Gal_2:20 Edwards stressed the fact that Christ in his death had a particular regard to every believer. *50* While denying that Christ died to save all individuals, Edwards consistently insisted that “Christ did die for all in this sense, that they all by his death have this opportunity of being [saved]; and he had that design in dying, that they should have this opportunity by it. For it was certainly design, that all men should have this opportunity, or else they would not have it, and they have it by the death of Christ.” *51*
The contemporary concern with national versus individual election was not unanticipated by Edwards. In fact, it is a worthy question whether it would seem so feasible had fathers such as Edwards had been listened to. Commenting on Rom_9:18 Edwards preached: “The apostle has not respect merely to the election of the persons of Isaac and Jacob before Ishmael and Esau; but of their posterity. In the passage, already quoted from Malachi, God has respect to the nations, which were the posterity of Esau and Jacob.” *52* Edwards is assuming that election and reprobation are not an either/or (individual or national) but both/and (individual and national) propositions. This seems a much more straight-forward and candid exegesis than our modern predilection, seemingly driven by a desperate need to avoid individual election (which is not avoided, in any case, by a national election/reprobation). The situation is not unlike another modern preoccupation (to which Edwards apparently does not turn his attention) with an election “to service” as if that somehow precluded, rather than included, personal election.
3. Reprobation
If I have satisfactorily shown that, in spite of much opinion to the contrary, Edwards was infralapsarian, it is even easier to prove that he believed in eternal reprobation. The notion that “single” predestination [the vague theory that the Bible teaches only predestination to life (election) and not to death (reprobat by Jonathan Edwards. While believing that the decree of evil is a permissive decree, he argues (as we have seen), that this is most certainly the will of God. *53*
Jonathan Edwards repeatedly asserted the Reformed doctrine of preterition and reprobation. He first shows the difference between election and reprobation *54* and preached that difference as well. In the sermon on Rom_3:19 Edwards shows reprobation implicitly. God was not obliged to keep men from falling and much less obliged to restore them. Nor is their “freedom infringed” in any way. “Christ,” Edwards insists in another sermon, “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.” *55*
In still other sermons he does not merely state the doctrine but argues its necessity. There must be “vessels of wrath” or God is not manifested as He is. Reprobation must be determined or this great end of creation would be uncertain. In M 223 and the sermon on Rom_2:5 double predestination is affirmed. *56* With respect to the non-elect it is said that God has decreed personally those on whom He will execute His just wrath. God has determined whom He will bring to repentance and whom He will leave impenitent and “those are vessels of wrath fitted to destruction.” God lets them now gather their fuel in which to be burned. He lets them ripen to be trodden in the winepress. He lets them dry out for the fire. The heathen are reprobates by circumstantial unbelief.” They never even hear the gospel and thereby are not in any position to believe, but because of their sins of nature and deed are condemned (though not so dreadfully as the “gospel-hardened” who sin against even greater light). In the sermon on Mat_13:23 Edwards preached that it is not possible for heathen to be converted. *57* It was because of God’s wrath that he removed himself as Savior and his ordinances from the world while it perishes. *58*
In the sermon on Psa_106:5 Edwards finds that God chooses some and rejects others. *59* The rest of the world, apart from the elect, is treated by God as “worthless.” For Edwards gaining the whole world is not only not worth losing the soul, but in itself it is actually worthless. All that the world holds dear, God and Jonathan Edwards consider cast-off.
Even Christ’s coming into the world was for the more dreadful condemnation of reprobates (Joh_9:39).” And that though it was designed for the salvation and the happiness of the elect. *60*
Evil does not excuse evil-doers though they be eternal reprobates, Edwards argued in a sermon that was preached in the month before “Uncle Hawley’s” suicide and the end of the first awakening in Northampton. I reproduce it here in full because of its intrinsic significance for Edwards’ understanding of the absolute decree of all sins, as well as evidence of the way he presented it to the world.
Wrath Will Come Upon Them to the Uttermost *61*
1Th_2:16. To fill up their sins alway; for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.
Edwards preached that all that happens to the wicked in this world “prepares ’em” for the pit (Isa_30:33). In his “improvement” of the sermon on Pro_29:25 Edwards warns his people that while they rejoice in their prosperity, they do not all know but that they are being fed for the slaughter. *62* In another sermon, he goes into more poignant detail. Everything in this world is subordinated to their future state, the very purpose for which they were created. The “wrath of God attends all their enjoyments” and “all tends to their hurt.” “Everything is as it were pregnant with hell fire.” “They are kept alive only that they may fill up the measure of their sins.” God has determined the degree of torment of all who perish and they live only till that degree is reached. “Every mouthful of meat that they eat it may well be with terror for they don’t know but that the curse of God goes down with it.” *63* Thus he would awaken his hearers. The Rom_2:5 sermon maintained that God lets the wicked alone because they haven’t yet treasured up the wrath and misery God has decreed for them.
4. Decrees and Necessity
While Edwards used the word “certain” of decrees, he more commonly preferred “necessary.” When he used certainty it was only to argue that it meant necessity. “Metaphysical or philosophical necessity is nothing different from certainty.” *64*
With “necessity” Edwards has a linguistic as well as philosophical problem. He must defend the concept from popular misconceptions and then prove the philosophically exact term to be true. The popular distortion introduced assumed obstacles into the concept of necessity which obstacles are overcome. Thus a necessary act of the will is popularly supposed to be its acting in spite of its own inclination to the contrary. This is not the case, according to Edwards. A thing or an act can be necessary with no presumed opposition. For example, the very eternal existence of God is necessary. Edwards lays down his fundamental proposition in his most fundamental work, Freedom of the Will:
[I]n this sense I use the word “necessity,” in the following discourse, when I endeavor to prove that necessity is not inconsistent with liberty.
The subject and predicate of a proposition, which affirms existence of something, may have a full, fixed, and certain connection several ways.
(1) They may have a full and perfect connection in and of themselves; because it may imply a contradiction, or gross absurdity, to suppose them not connected. Thus many things are necessary in their own nature. So the eternal existence of being generally considered, is necessary in itself: because it would be in itself the greatest absurdity, to deny the existence of being in general, or to say there was absolute and universal nothing; and is as it were the sum of all contradictions; as might be shewn, if this were a proper place for it. So God’s infinity, and other attributes are necessary. So it is necessary in its own nature, that two and two should be four; and it is necessary, that all right lines drawn from the center of a circle to the circumference should be equal. It is necessary, fit and suitable, that men should do to others, as they would that they should do to them. So innumerable metaphysical and mathematical truths are necessary in themselves; the subject and predicate of the proposition which affirms them, are perfectly connected of themselves.
(2) The connection of the subject and predicate of a proposition, which affirms the existence of something, may be fixed and made certain, because the existence of that thing is already come to pass; and either now is, or has been; and so has as it were made sure of existence. And therefore, the proposition which affirms present and past existence of it, may by this means be made certain, and necessarily and unalterably true; the past event has fixed and decided the matter, as to its existence; and has made it impossible but that existence should be truly predicated of it. Thus the existence of whatever is already come to pass, is now become necessary; ’tis become impossible it should be otherwise than true, that such a thing has been.
(3) The subject and predicate of a proposition which affirms something to be, may have a real and certain connection consequentially; and so the existence of the thing may be consequentially necessary; as it may be surely and firmly connected with something else, that is necessary in one of the former respects: as it is either fully and thoroughly connected with that which is absolutely necessary in its own nature, or with something which has already received and made sure of existence. This necessity lies in, or may be explained by the connection of two or more propositions one with another. Things which are perfectly connected with other things that are necessary, are necessary themselves, by a necessity of consequence. *65*
Election, or God’s decree of the salvation of certain persons, is necessary. Election was a thing past. It was an unalterable decree. Thus it would have a necessity of the second order: a fait accompli. But it would also entail a necessity of the third order, things that are “fully and thoroughly connected . . . with something which has already received and made sure of existence.” These things have a “necessity of consequence.” This means, for example, that if the person is elect, he, by this “necessity of consequence,” will necessarily be saved. Such “necessary” salvation implies “willy-nilly” to every Arminian.
Edwards faced that criticism at the outset of his ministry:
[T]o say that all was determined before these prayers and strivings, is a very wrong way of speaking, and begets those ideas in the mind which correspond with no realities with respect to God. His decrees of our everlasting state were not before our prayers and strivings, for these are as much present with God from all eternity, as they are the moment they are present with us. They are present as part of his decree, or rather as the same; and they did as really exist in eternity with respect to God, as much at one time as another. Therefore we can no more fairly argue that these will be vain because God has foredetermined, than we can that they would be in vain if they existed as soon as the decree; for so they do, inasmuch as they are a part of it. *66*
This is a somewhat different way of dealing with the Arminian claim that decrees preclude means than we find in Freedom of the Will. Here Edwards is refuting the charge that the decree existing eternally before any means, such as prayer and striving, makes the latter meaningless. He answers that these means are an integral part of salvation and all parts of which are eternally present with God. In other words, Edwards’ argument answers the charge by redefinition of the subject. The objector is thinking of means as separate from and other than salvation whereas Edwards identifies them.
Whether Edwards lost confidence in this reply, or felt that the Arminians were not perceiving it, he later went over to a more traditional way of speaking in Freedom of the Will where he makes the point that God decrees not only the end (salvation) but the means (striving etc).
So Edwards is saying two ways that the necessity of election does not preclude means. If the means are themselves part of election itself that is a devastating reply: the necessity of election and the necessity of means are the same. The other reply is almost as complete: though the means may be considered as other than election they cannot be considered separate from it, so that the means are as necessary as the end and nothing in the whole matter is unnecessary. Necessity therefore, so far from precluding means, necessitates them.
But Edwards is not finished. He has annihilated the argument that necessity annihilates means. He now proceeds to dust off the spot where the Arminian stood by showing that it is the Arminian attack on necessity which destroys the possibility of means.
In a certain sense, Freedom of the Will was written to show that “free will” was fatal to freedom. It is rather ironical that the short title to this work is Freedom of the Will which leads the reader, at first glance, to suppose the author is a champion of “free will.” A perusal of the full title would make him more cautious: A careful and strict Enquiry into the Modern prevailing Notions of that Freedom of Will, Which is supposed to be essential to Moral Agency, Vertue and Vice, Reward and Punishment, Praise and Blame. Reading the volume will show that this book is the most thorough critique that voluntarism has ever received.
What does Edwards do in Freedom of the Will? In essence, he shows that if choice is by self-determination, from a state of indifference in a contingent or uncaused sequencehis definition of Arminiani. Self-determination would preclude means; indifference would preclude means; and, contingence would preclude means. There could be no means to influence choice and there could be no choice. In brief, this is the conclusion of Part Two of Freedom of the Will.
Part Three applies the same critiques to the realm of moral choices: “Wherein Is Inquired, whether Any Such Liberty of Will as Arminians Hold, Be Necessary to Moral Agency, Vertue and Vice, Praise and Dispraise, etc.” Again it is shown that self-determination admits of no moral means: indifference admits of no moral means; and contingence admits of no moral means. On this view there can be no choice; especially no moral choice. So far from “free-will” being necessary to virtue it necessarily makes virtue impossible.
If, on the other hand, motives necessarily move the will, means are vindicated as the fuel for all our psychological machinery. Causality, the very foundation of all necessaritarianism, is the connective tissue of the web of existence. As George Fisher has well said: “Taking this axiom of cause and effect, they (necessitarians) chase their opponents out of every place of refuge. Edwards is peculiar only in the superior keenness and unsparing persistency with which he carries on the combat, even anticipating defenses against his logic which had not been as yet set up.” *67*
Not only did Edwards vindicate means in a deterministic system; not only did he vindicate human responsibility in the context of divine predestination; the Northampton pastor held some of his parishioners to be the very means of their own and others damnation. “Without doubt there are those here present,” he preached, “who have been in a great measure the means of others’ damnation.” Though it is true that it is determined by God who He will save, and who not, from all eternity, yet “[o]ne man may really be a means of others’ damnation as well as salvation. Christ charges the scribes and Pharisees with this, Mat_23:13. . . . We have no reason to think that this congregation has none in it who are cursed from day to day by poor souls that are roaring out in hell, whose damnation they have been a means of, or have greatly contributed to. . . .” *68* This is all because God may order without forcing *69* and decree with our “freedom not infringed.” *70*
5. Willing to be Damned?
Edwards is interesting on the question whether a true saint is willing to be damned for the glory of God. Luther admired, but did not seem to see beyond, the apparent submissiveness of the Christian in such humbling of himself for the glory of God. *71* Beyond any such attitude of apparent submissiveness to the decree or will of God in the saint’s damnation, Edwards saw, as opposed to Hopkins, *72* that no true saint could willingly part from God who is his highest love. Thus he argued that
’tis impossible for any person to be willing to be perfectly and finally miserable for God’s sake. . . . Love to God, if it be superior to any other principle, will make a man forever unwilling, utterly and finally, to be deprived of that part of his happiness which he has in God’s being blessed and glorified, and the more he loves Him, the more unwilling he will be. So that this supposition, that a man can be willing to be perfectly and utterly miserable out of love to God, is inconsistent with itself. *73*
Edwards’s son saw clearly the significance of his fathers contribution to the discussion of this perplexing but important subject:
1. The important question, concerning the ultimate end of the creation, is a question, upon which Mr. Edwards has shed much light. For ages it had been disputed, whether the end of creation was the happiness of creatures themselves, or the declarative glory of the Creator. Nor did it appear that the dispute was likely to be brought to an issue. On the one hand, it was urged, that reason declared in favour of the former hypothesis. It was said that, as God is a benevolent being, he doubtless acted under the influence of his own infinite benevolence in the creation; and that he could not but form creatures for the purpose of making them happy. Many passages of Scripture also were quoted in support of this opinion. On the other hand, numerous and very explicit declarations of Scripture were produced to prove that God made all things for his own glory. Mr. Edwards was the first, who clearly showed, that both these were the ultimate end of the creation, that they are only one end, and that they are really one and the same thing. According to him, the declarative glory of God is the creation, taken, not distributively, but collectively, as a system raised to a high degree of happiness. The creation, thus raised and preserved, is the declarative glory of God. In other words, it is the exhibition of his essential glory. *74*
Some suppose that the lesson Edwards taught here was not well remembered by those who followed. Joseph Haroutunian observes that Samuel Hopkins’ view that evil is for the “good of the universe” is “one more step in the humanization of Calvinism.” *75* According to Haroutunian, Hopkins sees God’s permitting and then controlling sin as conducive to the “good of the universe and not because it is a manifestation of the glory of God.”
However, that contrast between the good of the universe and the glory of God is Haroutunian’s view, not Hopkins,’ nor Edwards’ own. It is precisely because God’s decreeing anything to come to pass is “wise and good” that sin must have some benevolent purpose:
If the sin and misery which take place in the world are not for the general good of the universe, then they are absolutely evil, or evil in every view and sense, and so God’s will to permit sin and misery is not wise and good, and, therefore, cannot be admitted to. *76*
What scholars such as Haroutunian are never quite capable of adjusting to is the notion that the suffering of some can contribute to the well-being of being in general. Thus the concern for being in general, to the Haroutunian mind, must mean being concerned with the miserable to the exclusion of concern only for the glory of God and thus a “humanization of Calvinism.”
Are the wicked willing to be damned? They may not be deliberately submissive to the divine decree but they are actively choosing damnation for themselves by their sins. Edwards agrees completely with Paul’s statement in Rom_2:4-5 : “Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God?”
6. The Two Wills of God
No advocacy of decrees will be complete - or even adequate - without an introduction and defense of the revealed and secret wills of God. As early as M 7 young Edwards is busy refuting the attack on the two “wills” of God.
2. The Arminians ridicule the distinction between the secret and revealed will of God, or, more properly expressed, the distinction between the decree and law of God; because we say he may decree one thing, and command another. And so, they argue, we hold a contrariety in God, as if one will of his contradicted another. However, if they will call this a contradiction of wills, we know that there is such a thing; so that it is the greatest absurdity to dispute about it. We and they know it was God’s secret will, that Abraham should not sacrifice his son Isaac; but yet his command was, that he should do it. We know that God willed, that Pharaoh’s heart should be hardened; and yet that the hardness of his heart was sin. We know that God willed the Egyptians should hate God’s people: Psal. 105:25. “He turned their heart to hate his people, and deal subtlely with his servants.” We know that it was God’s will, that Absalom should lie with David’s wives; 2Sa_12:11. “Thus saith the Lord, I will raise up this evil against thee, out of thine own house; and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour; and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. For thou didst it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.” We know that God willed that Jeroboam and the ten tribes should rebel. The same may be said of the plunder of the Babylonians; and other instances might be given. The Scripture plainly tells us, that God wills to harden some men, Rom_9:18. That he willed that Christ should be killed by men, &c. *77*
Edwards continued to pay careful attention to the Arminian objection concerning God’s “two wills”. Throughout his writings he provides a thorough defense of the traditional Calvinistic distinction between the decretive, hidden will of God and the preceptive, revealed will. That God would reveal and command His various precepts was, thought Edwards, in no way inconsistent with His decreeing in his secret, unrevealed will that his preceptive will should not be obeyed. The Arminians saw this as a God divided against Himself, giving with one hand what He took back with the other; willing against His will; calling that men should repent and at the same time willing they should not. Edwards not only answered this criticism but, as usual, with his favorite tu quoque argument, showed that if it were an unsound doctrine the Arminians were guilty of it also.
A brief “Miscellany” is as lucid a summary as any Edwards ever gave:
WILL OF GOD. When a distinction is made between God’s revealed will and his secret will, in his will of command and decrees, ‘will’ is certainly in that distinction taken in two sense; his will of decree is not his will in the same sense as his will of command is. Therefore ’tis no difficulty at all to suppose, that one may be otherwise than the other. His will in both senses is his inclination; but when we say he wills virtue or loves virtue, or the happiness of his creatures, thereby is intended, that virtue, or the creature’s happiness, is what, absolutely and simply considered, alone is agreeable to the inclination of his nature. His will of decree is his inclination to a thing, not as to that thing absolutely and simply, but with respect to the universality of things that have been, are, or shall be. So God, though he hates a thing as it is simply, may incline to it with reference to the universality of things. Though he hates sin in itself, yet he may will to permit it for the greater promotion of holiness in this universality, including all things and at all times. So, though he has no inclination to a creatures misery, consider it absolutely, yet he may will it for the greater promotion of happiness in this universality. God inclines to excellency, which is harmony; but yet he may incline to suffer that which is unharmonious in itself, for the promotion of universal harmony, or for the beautifying of the harmony that there is in the universality, and making of it shine the brighter.
And thus it must needs be; and no hypothesis whatsoever will relieve a man, but that he must own these two wills of God. For ’tis [what] all must own, that God wills sometimes not to hinder the breach of his own commands, because he does not hinder [it]; he wills to permit sin, it is evident, because he does permit it. None will say, that God himself does what he don’t will to do.
But you will say, God wills to permit sin, as he wills the creature should be left to his freedom; and if he should hinder it, he would offer violence to the nature of his own creature. I answer, this comes nevertheless to the same thing that I say. You say, God don’t will sin absolutely, but rather than alter the laws of nature, he wills it; he wills what is contrary to excellency in some particulars, for the sake of a more general excellency and order. So that this scheme of Arminians don’t help the matter at all. *78*
7. The Rationality of the Decrees
Thorough-going as are Edwards’ decrees as an expression of the sovereignty of God’s will, their rationality is, nevertheless, carefully established. Edwards preached that “all God’s methods of dealing with men are most reasonable.” *79* In this sermon Edwards argues that God decrees to permit sin (Act_2:23), but he explains that there is a great deal of difference between determining that a thing shall be done and the doing of it. *80* Edwards teaches that evil is not a positive but a “negative thing.” He goes further - he even proves that God is not obliged to prevent this negative thing from occurring. God doesn’t have to prevent a negative thing from happening! He isn’t finished yet. God is not only not obliged to prevent a negative thing from happening, but He can order negative things without any “forcing.” This sermon on Isa_1:18-20 is probably the fullest sermonic development of the decrees ever preached except for the sermon on Rom_3:19.
The rational biblicality of Edwards is never more obvious than this:
There is election.
Therefore there is reprobation. *81*
It is a contradiction to say there is a choosing of some perishing sinners to salvation and not a choosing of others to being left to their damnation. Nothing is more false to the mind of Edwards than that the implicate of a biblical truth can be anything other than true. Edwards agreed with the The Westminster Confession of Faith that plainly and simply states:
The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture. . . . *82*
The greatest Calvinist evangelist of the eighteenth century, George Whitefield, found the preaching of the decrees of God, in which he believed as did Edwards, much more negotiable than did Edwards. Before Whitefield left England John Wesley had threatened to drive John Calvin out of Bristol. *83* In the interests of peace, Whitefield did not preach in favor of election for fear it would divide the evangelical revival. Wesley cast lots and then he published his views claiming a divine direction to do so. When Wesley became enamored of Edwards works on the New England revival he had them published in England, but he had Edwards’ doctrine of the decrees carefully edited out.
For Jonathan Edwards the doctrine was not negotiable, especially not in preaching during revival. On the one hand, it is clear in many of his sermons that men go to hell because all overtures of grace are rejected. But the other side of that sombre doctrine is also maintained: “wicked men answer the end of their being no other way but in their suffering.” *84* In the application of this sermon Edwards notes that this is the reason nothing succeeds with these men. In fact, Edwards argued, some of the non-elect have no awakenings or encounters with God until they go to hell. “There are some persons that are born miserable and live in darkness and die in darkness and when they are dead go into eternal darkness.” *85*
These are hard words, at times hard to understand, at times hard to receive. But they come from a servant faithful to the teachings of his Master. Edwards himself experienced difficulty here, as I noted at the beginning of this chapter. He wrote, “[f]rom my childhood up, my mind had been full of objections against the doctrine of God’s sovereignty. . . . It used to appear like a horrible doctrine to me.” *86* And yet by God’s grace he was brought to submit before the plain teaching of God’s Word:
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. . . . 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 shew mercy, and hardening whom he will. . . . I have often since had not only a conviction, but a delightful conviction. The doctrine has very often appeared exceeding pleasant, bright, and sweet. Absolute sovereignty is what I love to ascribe to God. *87*
Having gone through such a trial, Edwards offers counsel for all who, in struggling with this “high mystery,” are tempted to continue in “cavils and objections”:
To conclude this discourse; I wish the reader to consider the unreasonableness of rejecting plain revelations, because they are puzzling to our reason. There is no greater difficulty attending this doctrine [the Calvinistic doctrine of the decrees] than the contrary, nor so great. So that though the doctrine of the decrees be mysterious, and attended with difficulties, yet the opposite doctrine is in itself more mysterious, and attended with greater difficulties, and with contradictions to reason more evident, to one who thoroughly considers things; so that, even if the Scripture had made no revelation of it, we should have had reason to believe it. But since the Scripture is so abundant in declaring it, the unreasonableness of rejecting it appears the more glaring.