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TOPIC: Edwards, Jonathan - Rational Biblical Theology (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: Chapt 36 cont 2
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The Rationale of Hell
“Sin against God in God’s idea is infinite, and the punishment is infinite.”
The basic proof for hell is the Bible. We have shown in chapter VII how Edwards argues that it is rational to believe that the Bible is the revelation of God. We need not re-examine the biblical evidence that hell is true since it is a part of our entire discussion above and below. Edwards also argued rationally that if there is a God he would reveal himself and that the Bible is the only such revelation. Likewise, if God intended to judge the world he would reveal that fact and so the Bible does.
The rationalization for hell is in terms of harmony or proportion. “According to thy fear (terribleness) so is thy wrath.” (Psa_90:11) Because of this proportion the suffering of offenders must be infinite as is the majesty of the offended one. Even present suffering is in proportion to the manifestation of the divine majesty.
As God’s favour is infinitely desirable son ’tis a part of his infinite awful majesty that his displeasure is infinitely dreadful which it would not be if it were contrary to the perfection of his nature to punish eternally. If God’s majesty were not infinite and his displeasure were not infinitely dreadful he would be less glorious. *180*
An offense against an infinite being is greater than any finite degree of badness and is therefore an infinite degree of badness. *181* If one adds greatness to a being he adds greatness to an offense against him. Thus he adds infinite badness since the offense is against an infinite being.
Here a criticism arises: a finite person does not have a complete idea of the infinite excellence and therefore cannot be guilty of infinite offense. Edwards answers that “eternal punishment is just in the same respects infinite as the crime, and in no other.” So, the crime is infinite though not in the one committing it; and the punishment is accordingly administered: “it is itself infinite, but is never suffered infinitely. Indeed if the soul was capable of having at once a full and complete idea of the eternity of misery, then it would properly be infinite suffering.” The soul being incapable of this, “eternity is suffered as an infinite God is offended, that is, according to the comprehension of the mind. . . . Sin against God in God’s idea is infinite, and the punishment is infinite no otherwise but in the idea of God. . . .” *182*
There are rational arguments for hell as well. *183* Some lie in plain view - namely, the pain and suffering of men in this present world. This itself shows that God is “not averse to have them suffer.” If God were, Edwards seems to be supposing, he would not have so ordained. He could have prevented suffering and he could terminate it, if he pleased. Empirical facts settle one point indisputably: God and creature-pain are not mutually exclusive. The usual form of the problem of evil (evil proves that God is either not omnipotent or not good) is false. God is omnipotently good and he ordains evil. It is therefore good that there should be evil. This theodicy is a foundation for the possibility of hell, which, when justice and wisdom are added, becomes the necessity for hell.
That brings us to the argument for hell from moral government. “Wicked men have no reason to doubt the truth of anything that is said in the word of God, concerning the future punishment of the ungodly, or to suspect whether it be true.” *184* God made this world and must regulate it, as a moral creator would, according to some rule by which it must ultimately be judged and sentenced. *185*
While Edwards does not usually populate hell with named individuals, as Dante does, he is quite specific about Antiochus Epiphanes, who persecuted the Jewish church in the intertestamental period. Acting apparently on his own moral inclinations Edwards would not have wanted Antiochus ever to be delivered from his endless, indescribable tortures of body and soul because of what he did to the bodies of men. Some of the brutal Roman Catholic persecutors seemed to Edwards to deserve endless suffering: “the extremity of hell torments don’t seem too much for them.” *186* He defends himself: it is our insensitivity to sin that prevents our realizing how hell-deserving sin is. Our “devilish dispositions” make sin not appear “horrid.” Is Edwards speaking for himself? Does he really think and feel in his own heart that Antiochus and certain popes should endlessly suffer for sins that ended long ago, or is he unconsciously returning to his role as defender of the ways of God? We think that for Edwards these were one and the same.
If a righteous God must punish wicked men, Edwards argues, this punishment must be eternal. Sin, he says, in enmity against the giver of all being. It is rational to suppose that this would incur the hatred of this great Being, and this Being’s hatred and wrath would be as infinite as he is. The sermon on Rom_3:19 enters somewhat thoroughly into this difficult theme. We will summarize this preachment because it catches up in one statement virtually all the lines of Edwards’ reasoning that show the necessity of eternal punishment.
Sereno Dwight wrote that the discourses that, beyond any others Edwards preached, had an immediate saving effect were several from Rom_3:19.
The sermon . . . literally stops the mouth of every reader, and compels him, as he stands before his Judge, to admit, if he does not feel, the justice of his sentence. I know not where to find, in any language, a discourse so well adapted to strip the impenitent sinner of every excuse, to convince him of his guilt, and to bring him low before the justice and holiness of God. According to the estimate of Mr. Edwards, it was far the most powerful and effectual of his discourses; and we scarcely know of any other sermon which has been favoured with equal success. *187*
This is the only sermon on Romans which was published in Edwards’ lifetime (apart from those on Rom_4:5, which were, however, printed as the treatise on Justification by Faith). Its popular title is “The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners.” *188* Edwards’ actual doctrine is: “’Tis just with God eternally to cast off, and destroy sinners.”
The sermon begins with a review of the first part of the Epistle to the Romans. Edwards reminds us that his text was written to show that all men, Gentiles and Jews alike, stood condemned. The words of Rom_3:29 sum it all up: “That every mouth may be stopped.” He moves to his doctrine which he develops by two considerations: man’s sinfulness and God’s sovereignty.
First, the “infinitely evil nature of all sin” is shown. This is argued by saying that a “crime is more or less heinous, according as we are under greater or less obligations to the contrary,” *189* and the preacher maintains that our “obligation to love, honour, and obey any being, is in proportion to his loveliness, honourableness, and authority. . . .” *190* From this it is quickly apparent that there is an infinite obligation to obey God and that disobedience is infinitely heinous and, if infinitely heinous, deserves infinite punishment. In answer to an objection against such punishment on the ground of the certainty of sin, Edwards presents a principle that is a major thesis in his great work on The Freedom of the Will: “The light of nature teaches all mankind, that when an injury is voluntary, it is faulty, without any consideration of what there might be previously to determine the futurition of that evil act of the will.” *191*
The sovereignty of God in the punishment of sinners is considered next. *192* First, God’s sovereignty relieved God of any obligation to keep men from sinning *193* in the first creation. Second, it was also God’s right to determine whether every man should be tried individually or by a representative. *194* After the Fall, God had a sovereign right to redeem or not to redeem, and to redeem whom he pleased if he pleased. *195* The rest of the sermon, approximately three times the length of the development, is given over to a probing application which, it is not surprising, found many out. Much of it is an unfolding of the doctrine that it would be “just and righteous with God eternally to reject and destroy you.” *196* After showing how proper it would be for God to destroy them since they have despised his mercy, (“there is something peculiarly heinous in sin against the mercy of God more than his other attributes”), *197* he also accused them of being unwilling to come even if they could. *198* Edwards ends pastorally with great encouragement to the redeemed, arguing that it was a much greater thing that Christ died than that all the world should burn in hell. *199*
If this is the rationale for hell, hell is the rationale for much of Edwards’ preaching, in spite of its appearing imprecatory. Speaking of the imprecations of the Bible, he observes:
We cannot think that those imprecations we find in the Psalms and Prophets, were out of their own hearts; for cursing is spoken of as a very dreadful sin in the Old Testament; and David, whom we hear oftener than any other praying for vengeance on his enemies, by the history of his life, was of a spirit very remote from spiteful and revengeful. . . . And some of the most terrible imprecations that we find in all the Old Testament, are in the New spoken of as prophetical, even those in the 109th Psalm; as in Act_1:20. . . . They wish them ill, not as personal, but as public, enemies to the church of God. *200*
Apparently, therefore, although Edwards regarded himself as the spokesman of God in these sermons, he was still issuing warnings, in God’s name, of what would happen to the impenitent. He was not himself invoking judgment or issuing anathemas.
As a matter of fact, all the evidence tends to indicate that his fervent preaching of hell stemmed hardly more from his obedience to God than from his deep love to mankind. Believing in the reality of hell for the sinner, what would a benevolent man do but everything in his power to warn against such an awful retribution? Some of the exhortations of Edwards are the most drawn out, pathetic appeals to the unconverted than can be found in the history of the Christian pulpit. This is not the spirit of sadism. Ironically, if Edwards, believing as he did, had been a sadist, he would never have said a word about perdition.
If it be granted that Edwards preached these minatory sermons because he believed that God appointed his preachers to warn men about perdition, we would still expect him to probe the purpose of God in this. And indeed he has much to say about the strategy of preaching perdition. In a word, his reasoning appears to be: hell is about all of spiritual reality that can affect most unconverted men. Self-interest, their motivating principle, would concern them to avoid such a doom. Natural men cannot see God’s excellency, but they can hear his thunders. One is reminded of a character in a Hemingway novel being asked if he ever thought of God and answering that he did sometimes when wakened in the middle of the night by a thunderstorm.
Most wicked men that have heard of hell have these internal uneasinesses, arising from the thoughts of their unsafeness. . . . They don’t manifest it outwardly. . . . Though other men cannot perceive it yet he himself feels it. . . . The most bold, and daring of sinners, are the most fearful and timorous upon a death-bed. How do they fear and tremble. How do they shrink back. How do their proud hearts tremble at the sight of his ghastly visage. *201*
On the other hand, a principal means of being lost is thinking that there will be no punishment. *202*
Many of Edwards’ sermons illustrate his use of this doctrine in evangelistic preaching. The sermon on Jud_1:3 (1) is an example: “The wicked in another world shall eternally be overwhelmed with the most dismal and perfect gloominess of mind.” *203* This theme is followed by a searching application, after which the preacher has his people asking, “What shall we do?” His answer is “You must be born again.” *204* Unlike most modern evangelists who would either let the matter rest once they had advised men to be born again or would assure them, in Arminian fashion, that they would be born again if they would believe, Edwards tells his hearers to repair to God for the sovereign gift of the new birth. “In order to that [new birth] you must seek it in the first place.” *205* Our evangelist does not believe that faith is a potentiality of corrupt natures. Until God gives the disposition to believe, men remain unbelieving. There is, therefore, nothing that men can do to produce regeneration. But they can seek God (and Edwards always encourages them) in order that God may, if it is his sovereign pleasure, bestow this gift upon them.
On other occasions, Edwards does not proceed from the fear of hell to the topic of the new birth. Rather, he sometimes dilates on the necessity of fleeing the wrath that is to come. Of course, there is only one main end in fleeing, and that is being born again. But in some sermons the preacher is intent merely on having his people flee. No doubt they understood what was involved in fleeing and why they were advised to do it.
To those who protested against Edwards’ preaching in his own day he vindicated his “scare theology” in the following manner:
Some talk of it as an unreasonable thing to fright persons to heaven, but I think it is a reasonable thing to endeavour to fright persons away from hell. They stand upon its brink, and are just ready to fall into it, and are senseless of their danger. Is it not a reasonable thing to fright a person out of a house on fire? *206*
Edwards never entertained the notion that anyone could be scared into heaven (but only into thinking about it and “seeking” for it). Constantly he speaks as in the sermon on Job_14:5 : “There is no promise in the whole Word of God that prayings and cries that arise merely from fear and an expectation of punishment shall be heard especially if they have been willfully negligent till then.” *207* He goes further in the sermon on Luk_16:31, “Scripture Warnings Best Adapted to the Conversion of Sinners,” *208* by pointing out that sinners are not scared into heaven but that total fear would make them all the more the children of hell. This is the reason he does not believe it would be salutary for men to have a preview of actual hell, as awakening as that might appear to be: “It would make them more like devils; and set them a blaspheming as the damned do. For while the hearts of men are filled with natural darkness, they cannot see the glory of the divine justice appearing in such extreme torments.” *209*
This remark about the inadvisability of showing a sinner the actual hell, reveals, incidentally, that Edwards sought to avoid engendering a wrong kind of fear. The sermon on Jer_5:21-22 affords a good discussion of the two varieties of fear. The doctrine is that “’tis a sottish and unreasonable thing for men not to fear God and tremble at his presence.” *210* In the course of defining what this fear is, Edwards finds occasion to reflect that “those that have a sinful fear of God fear God as evil, but a right fear fears him as great and excellent.” *211* Thus there is a right and wrong fear of God. This wrong fear of God, fearing him as an evil and dreadful being, drives men from God. “A sinful fear makes men afraid to come to God.” *212*
But, on the other hand, there is a proper fear of God, as the good and holy being that he is, and this right fear makes men afraid to go from him. If men fear God as they fear the devil, they flee from him, but if they fear him as the being he really is, they will flee to him. It is this wrong fear or “servile fear” which is cast out by love. But love does not cast out this dread of displeasing and offending God, for this holy fear does not only dread the fruits of God’s displeasure but the displeasure itself.
Putting the picture together, we get this Edwardsean rationale for the preaching of hell. First, God commands it and it is essential for a steward to be found faithful to his charge. But, second, God ordains such preaching because the sottish sinner is not interested in the fruits of the Spirit. Therefore, third, he must be shown the danger of his present condition and the impending doom that is hanging over his head. However, fourth, the actual sight of hell would be more than frail man could stand, so only the dim pictures found in the biblical warnings are suitable to awakening. But, fifth, awakening to a state of fear does not take a man out of his natural condition, and though he be desperately frightened, as the devils are, his most importunate prayers (if motivated merely by a sinful self-interest) still offend God, but not so much as their absence. Sixth, and this is the crucial point, in this awakened condition, operating only from self-interest, the sinner may (and the preacher encourages him) ask, “What must I do to be saved?” The answer to that question is not, “Be scared straight” but, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” But, finally, true faith in Christ is not a mere desperate or nominal acceptance of him, as a ticket out of hell, but a genuine, affectionate trust in him for the very loveliness and excellency of his being. This true faith, to be sure, is not in man’s present disposition, but he may and must seek for a new birth from above.
It would be a great mistake, I note in conclusion, to suppose that Edwards preached hell and nothing but hell to unawakened sinners. While he thought that this was the doctrine most likely to awaken them from their corruptions, he also appealed to their love of pleasure. All men want to cultivate pleasure as well as avoid pain. They can be appealed to from either angle. There is no doubt that Edwards believed there was more likelihood of success awakening sottish sinners to their danger from where they were going than from what they were missing.
The Objections to Hell
“[N]otwithstanding the plausibility of . . . objections, the principle of such thoughts . . . is a want of a sense of the horrible evil of sin.”
Edwards has said that the only way men can endure even the thought of hell in this world is to deny hell in the hereafter. But man cannot live by denials. He must put out the future fires even for present peace of mind. This is, to use R. C. Sproul’s expression, “the psychology of atheism.” *213*
At one time or another, Edwards faces virtually every objection ever raised against endless punishment. How could God have created men destined for such an awful end? Does not the extremity of the punishment violate the elemental principle of justice, not to mention mercy? Does not this behavior - God inflicting eternal torture on his enemies - run contrary to the ethical law he impresses on his creatures of loving their enemies?
How could God create men destined for endless suffering? When Edwards addresses this objection he acknowledges its cogency and then proceeds not really to answer it.
It is much to be suspected, that notwithstanding the plausibleness of such an objection, the very principal reason of such thoughts arising in the mind is a want of a sense of the horrible evil of sin. This disposes us to pity the damned wretch and that disposes [us] to look back and reflect upon the Author of his being and orderer of his misery because we haven’t sense enough of the evil of sin to stir up indignation enough in us against it to balance the horror that arises from a sense of the dreadfulness of his suffering. This makes us pity the sufferer and this raises objections against God. . . . *214*
Edwards is answering the objection in terms of what man has become - a sinner - rather than the terms in which the objection was raised - why would God create a person destined to become a sinner deserving eternal suffering? God, in Edwards’ theology, could have avoided creating such - why didn’t he? God could have prevented sin entering the world - why didn’t he? God could have redeemed these suffering sinners at no extra redemptive cost - why didn’t he? Strange that Edwards misses the point here while he answers it elsewhere when the question is not being asked. He makes it very plain that the purpose hell serves is to gladden heaven. Suffering sinners serve the purpose of contributing to the bliss of redeemed sinners by glorifying the justice of God, as we have seen. Edwards seems not to be able quite to say that God originally decreed their creation for that purpose. “All things are yours [elect],” he had observed in reference to hell. Hell would never have been, apart from the divine purpose. Implicitly, therefore, Edwards is saying that God ordained, by permissive decree, reprobates for misery for the greater happiness of the elect. He seems unable to state the grim facts that harshly. So he points out the suitableness of sinners for suffering rather than why God created them and ordained them to that dread, though deserved, end.
Does not the extremity of an infinite punishment for finite sinners not violate the elemental principle of justice? Here again though he deals with this as a rationale for hell, Edwards fails to answer the objection (as stated) which he dealt with often elsewhere. Note here in M 491 his phrasing of the objection followed by an answer to a different question, so uncharacteristic of our meticulous theologian.
Some may be ready to think that it’s incredible that God should bring miseries upon a creature that are so extreme and amazing and also eternal and desperate. But the dreadfulness and extremity of it is no argument against it, for those that are damned are entirely lost and utterly thrown away by God. As to any sort of regard that he has to their welfare their existence is for nothing else but to suffer.
This amounts to saying that God punishes them because he has no use for them - he could not care less for them. Even so, the question asks, Is God not unfair in punishing them so inordinately, so extremely? This answer does not refute that charge; if anything, it substantiates it. For Edwards’ real answer we must go back to his proof cited above that infinite punishment is really finite as apprehended by the creature and that the finite creature deserves all he receives because of his sin against an infinitely excellent and divine person.
The most excruciating question rising against endless torment is, of course, how it could come from a being of infinite mercy. Here Edwards is woefully inadequate. How can hell consist with the merciful nature of God? he asks. Responding without answering, he says that the saints in heaven will not be shocked by the sufferings of hell. They have a livelier apprehension of the guilt of these sinful sufferers and their great enmity against God. Therefore, “it will seem no way cruel in God to inflict such extreme sufferings on such extremely wicked creatures.” *215* What has become of the question, not to mention the mercy of God? Sin and suffering is the occasion for mercy, not an explanation of its absence. Sin has been as great and greater in many of the elect on whom God has exercised mercy than in some of the reprobates, as Edwards often observes. Why does the presence of such obnoxiousness explain why mercy is impossible? Edwards is so obviously irrational in answering these questions that one wonders if he was so torn apart himself that it boggled his own usually clear mind. Normally, Edwards gives a straightforward and traditional answer that God is sovereign in his mercy, as we have seen, having mercy on whom he will have mercy according to his great wisdom and purpose. If mercy were not sovereign, God would be at the mercy of sinners. But gazing right into the fires of hell must have blinded Edwards himself.
Edwards returns to his clear-headedness when he deals with the objection that God behaves differently in hating and punishing his enemies than when he commands his followers to love and befriend their enemies. Five solid reasons are given for the resolution of this apparent ethical paradox.
Edwards has one basic answer to the objectors to eternal hell: They do not understand the infinite sinfulness of sin; the infinity of heinousness in wickedness.
The Accursed Vision
“God will be hell.”
Is there anything in Edwards’ doctrine of hell that corresponds to the beatific vision of heaven? That is difficult to say.
If there is the counterpart of the beatific vision it would obviously have to be its mirror image or opposite. In the beatific vision the saints see God in himself, as he is, so far as they are capable. The veil is drawn aside for a moment and man for that moment “sees God.” “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”
Is the exact opposite the case with sinners? Not really. In fact, the exact same is the case with sinners! They too, at times, see God in his essence. But what they see is God’s essence as a consuming fire. The same God whom the saints see as their supreme lover, sinners see as the enemy of their souls. The divine and supernatural light of the saint is the divine and supernatural darkness of the sinner. One is the vision that beatifies indeed; the other curses. As the redeemed see God as the source of every blessing that heaven affords, the impenitent see God as the source of every curse of hell. He is behind the enmity of their former friends. It is he who does not incite, but does direct, the malice of the devils toward the wicked victims. The sinner’s own conscience, the internal tormentor, is but God pushing outward. For the saint, heaven is God. For the wicked, hell is God. Cursed are the impure in heart for they too shall see God!
Conclusion
Modern Christian theology has tended to take either the pain out of eternity or the eternity out of pain. Perhaps the best way to show this gradual departure from Jonathan Edwards (and Jesus Christ!) is to note the theology of A. H. Strong. This eminent scholar was one of the three greats of the turn of our century along with Charles Hodge and W. G. T. Shedd (all of them reformed theologians). The concluding section of his incredibly learned three-volume Systematic Theology deals with hell.
While calmly and firmly avowing adherence to the orthodox doctrine, though in conscious pain because of its sensed unpopularity, Strong does essentially and possibly unconsciously take the suffering out of eternity or the eternity out of the suffering. Affirming hell he denies its hellishness. This avowed friend of the doctrine is the actual enemy. And there can be no doubt that advocates of hell like this did more to put out its fires than all its real enemies could do.
“Summing it all up,” Strong writes, “we may say, it [hell] is the loss of all good, whether physical or spiritual, and the misery of an evil conscience banished from God and from the society of the holy, and dwelling under God’s positive curse forever.” After listening to Edwards one would ask: This is hell? One must remember again that Strong was one of the biblical doctrine’s major champions a century and a half after Edwards’ death.
The implications of Strong’s position are quite obvious, but he does not leave us to implications.
We freely concede: 1. that future punishment does not necessarily consist of physical torments. . . . 2. that the pain and suffering of the future are not necessarily due to positive inflictions of God, - they may result entirely from the soul’s sense of loss, and from the accusations of conscience; and 3. that eternal punishment does not necessarily involve endless successions of suffering, - as God’s eternity is not mere endlessness, so we may not be forever subject to the law of time. *216*
There is the doctrine of hell with hell left out.
As a footnote to this essential regression from the orthodox doctrine by an orthodox man, several lesser items are worth noticing. In this discussion God’s permissive decrees are never related to damnation, though Strong was a Calvinist. Edwards’ conversion turned on this point. The fewness of the lost is conspicuous as Strong approvingly cites the other two great Calvinists of the time, Shedd and Hodge (who say that the lost compare in number as the inmates of a prison to the general community). Edwards shows throughout that the relative fewness of numbers describes not the lost but the saved. Again, Strong falls far below Edwards in the role he gives to fear: “The fear of future punishment, though not the highest motive, is yet a proper motive. . . .” *217* We have shown that that kind of fear is not a proper motive at all except to awaken people to their need for the only proper motive, which is love. In his earnest effort to avoid “scare theology” Strong falls into it while it was Edwards who avoided it. The treatment of God’s relation to hell is the saddest of all Strong’s defections. For Edwards, God’s presence was the real torment of hell (just as his presence was the blessing of heaven) while for Strong “the pains and suffering of the future are not necessarily due, to the positive inflictions of God.” Of course, Strong and others would no doubt say, “We do not mean that God is absent except in his love.” This will not do, because when one equates God’s absence with the absence of God’s love, one is defining God exclusively as love. Therein is the greatest error of our times into which Jonathan Edwards never fell. God is love but he is more than love and he is other than love. God is holiness; God is justice; God is wisdom; God is wrath. God is God.
It is no wonder that one of the most outstanding conservative theologians of our own day (who may be the contemporary A. H. Strong in his vastness of learning and acumen, Bernard Ramm, in his Handbook of Contemporary Theology has no entries at all under hell (or even heaven). *218* How Edwards would weep if he were not in the place where all tears are wiped away.
Edwards never tired of describing, proving, demonstrating, and preaching endless heaven, endless hell. But there can be no doubt where his heart was. Even as he defended “the justice of God in the damnation of sinners” he triumphantly extoled the divine and everlasting mercy in the salvation of saints. Jonathan Edwards was in his truest element not as the faithful, fiery preacher of “sinners in the hands of an angry God” - though this he ever was and ever remained - but as the rhapsodic seer of the “beatific vision.”