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Gerstner on Jonathan Edwards
The Doctrine of Regeneration
Review of Man’s Inclination and Will.
Jonathan Edwards distinguishes emphatically between the power of will
and the inclination of will but not enough, apparently, to head off a
host of contemporary scholars from confusing them. Even in his own day
Edwards had his confusers, as he complains in M 710.
Perry Miller finds Edwards’ determinism not only essentially the same
as that of Augustine, Leibniz and Turretin, and "almost all the
Calvinistic writers of Geneva and Holland, during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries," but also in Hobbes and Anthony Collins as well.
(Perry Miller, Jonathan Edwards (New York: William Sloan Associates,
1949), p. 224.)
The late B. F. Skinner, on the other hand, according to the following
statement, must never have read Jonathan Edwards’ Freedom of the Will
or any of those philosophers mentioned above:
Prevailing philosophy of human nature recognizes an internal
‘will’ which has the power of interfering with causal relationships
and which makes the predictions and control of behavior impossible.
To suggest that we abandon this view is to threaten many cherished
beliefs — to undermine what appears to be a stimulating and
productive conception of human nature. (B. F. Skinner, Science
and Human Behavior (New York: Free Press, 1965), p. 7.)
Rational as man by nature is, it is, according to Edwards, the
affections that move him. He can know what he might do but it is his
feelings that produce action good or evil. (Works (Yale), 2:passim.)
A disposition is the inclination of the soul. It tends, in Edwards,
to equate with the will as we have seen. More than once, especially in
Freedom of the Will, he claims that to will and to incline are
the same thing. (Works (Yale), 1:passim.) A disposition by its
very nature is a created (or re-created) entity or faculty of the soul.
Following Aristotle, Edwards thought that the soul’s generating a
disposition is an absurd notion. Rather:
This is the general notion, not that principles derive their
goodness from actions, but that actions derive their goodness from
the principles whence they proceed; and so that the act of choosing
that which is good, is no further virtuous than it proceeds from a
good principle, or virtuous disposition of mind. Which supposes,
that a virtuous disposition of mind may be before a virtuous act of
choice; and that therefore it is not necessary that there should
first be thought, reflection and choice, before there can be any
virtuous disposition. If the choice be first, before the existence
of a good disposition of heart, what signifies that choice? There
can, according to our natural notions, be no virtue in a choice
which proceeds from no virtuous principle, but from mere self-love,
ambition, or some animal appetite. And therefore a virtuous temper
of mind may be before a good act of choice, as a tree may be before
the fruit, and the fountain before the stream which proceeds from
it. (Works (Yale), 3:224, see Original Sin Part II, Chapter I,
Sect. I.)
"When God first made man he had a principle of holiness." (Unpublished
MS sermon on 2 Pet. 1:19 (4), "When God first made man he had a
principle of holiness in his heart," p. 1, to the Mohawks at the treaty,
August 16, 1754. The text reads "We have also a more sure word of
prophecy." Edwards begins: "These honorable gentlemen speak in the name
[of the government] . . . . I in the name of Jesus Christ.")
But now "man is born with no other principle but self-love to direct his
powers." In the application, Edwards says that Adam, too, had the
self-love principle but it was subject to the love of God, and,
therefore, good. (Unpublished MS sermon on Mat. 10:17, “That the
nature of man is so corrupted that he is become a very evil and hurtful
creature,” p. 3, before 1733.)
Preaching on 1 John 4:12 Edwards tells us that holiness was a
supernatural principle in Adam but even then it did not properly
belong to human nature. (Unpublished MS sermon on 1 John 4:12, “True
grace in the hearts of the saints is something divine,” p. 5, Dec.
1738.) Human nature as such can exist apart from a principle of
holiness. The unregenerate are true, though utterly evil, men.
The sermon, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever"
leads to an oblique reference to the mutability of mere man.
I. We learn from the truth taught in the text, how fit Christ was
to be appointed as the surety of fallen man. Adam, the first surety
of mankind, failed in his work, because he was a mere creature, and
so a mutable being. Though he had so great a trust committed to him,
as the care of the eternal welfare of all his posterity, yet, not
being unchangeable, he failed, and transgressed God’s holy covenant.
He was led aside, and drawn away by the subtle temptation of the
devil. He being a changeable being, his subtle adversary found means
to turn him aside, and so he fell, and all his posterity fell with
him. It appeared, therefore, that we stood in need of a surety that
was unchangeable, and could not fail in his work. Christ, whom God
appointed to this work, to be to us a second Adam, is such an one
that is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and therefore was
not liable to fail in his undertaking. He was sufficient to be
depended on as one that would certainly stand all trials, and go
through all difficulties, until he had finished the work that he had
undertaken, and actually wrought out eternal redemption for us.
(MS sermon on Heb. 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same now that he ever
has been and ever will be,” p. 3, April 1738, printed as “Jesus
Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever,” Works, II:949-954.
The quotation is on p. 951. See Application.)
According to Medieval theology, the Holy Spirit originally dwelt in
the original righteous man who would be pulled apart by the tension
between body and soul were it not for the super-added gift (donum
superadditum) to hold him in harmony. When man failed to control the
tension by failing to use this special gift, he fell into sin. Why man
as created did not use this gift was the scholastics’ problem as it was
Augustine’s before them.
Edwards’ problem is far more difficult. His super-added gift was none
other than the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit could not fail to keep
changeable man from changing from good to evil, and man could not
overpower Him if he were tempted to do so. So though never spelled out,
this divine super-added "gift" must have been a mere offer. If the Holy
Spirit were resident in the first man, he would never have fallen, as it
is now with persevering saints, and as will be the case later in heaven
where the perfected saint never can even sin because the Spirit fully
indwells. If the Spirit were not resident but merely offering to reside
within man it still remains difficult to understand why unfallen man
would ever reject such a Gift.
Man was made with a holiness principle but this was not essential to
human nature. It was lost by the Fall without humanity ceasing to be. As
a matter of fact, all the motivation that is necessary to human nature
is self-interest, not God-interest. Yet man would know from his
rational nature that it is to man’s self-interest to be controlled by
God-interest. He was at first aided toward this by the "supernatural"
principle of holiness and the presence of the Holy Spirit Himself in
Adam, but being deceived by the devil he let his self-interest overthrow
God-interest.
Zechariah 7:5-6 teaches "that no religion is acceptable to God but
that which is done from a true respect to him." (Unpublished MS
sermon on Zech. 7:5-6.) This is because that is not "true" which
springs from self-love. That only is true which has its foundation in
the high esteem of God and a sense of His "excellency." Consequently,
true worship "aims" at the glory of God and pleasing Him and enjoying
Him and His promises by faith. The rationale against self-interest and
in favor of the divine is that there is no goodness in anything not for
the glory of God. God does not command anything for need of it but only
as occasion for the creature to respect Him and live. Other-motivated
deeds have no "suitableness" to the nature of God and are essentially
lies. (Unpublished MS sermon on Zech. 7:5-6.)
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