## 1. Life



Edwards was born into a family of prominent Congregational ministers
in East Windsor, Connecticut in 1703. In 1716 Edwards enrolled in Yale
where he read Newton and Locke, and began "Notes on the
Mind" and "Notes on Natural Science." Locke's
influence on his epistemology, philosophy of language, and
philosophical psychology was profound. Edwards' metaphysics, however,
appears more strongly influenced by Malebranche and, to a lesser
extent, the Cambridge Platonists, and bears little resemblance to
Locke's. After briefly serving congregations in New York and Bolton,
Connecticut, Edwards returned to Yale where he completed his Masters
of Arts degree and became senior tutor in 1724. In 1725, the church in
Northampton chose Edwards to succeed his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard
-- the so-called "pope of the Connecticut valley."
The most notable events of his tenure were the revivals of 1734 and
1740-41, the latter of which came to be known as the Great
Awakening. Edwards' defense of the revivals and criticisms of its
excesses culminated in his first major treatise, the
*Religious* *Affections* (1746). Worsening relations
with his congregation came to a head in a dispute over qualifications
for church membership. Rejecting the less rigorous standards of his
grandfather, Edwards insisted on a public profession of saving faith
based on the candidate's religious experiences as a qualification not
only for Holy Communion but also for church membership. He was
dismissed in 1750 by a margin of one vote. After refusing invitations
to pulpits in North America and Scotland, Edwards retreated to the
Indian mission at Stockbridge where he had charge of two difficult
congregations, supervised a boarding school for Indian boys, and
completed his last major works -- *Freedom of the Will*
(1754), *Original Sin* (1758), *End of Creation*, and
*True Virtue* (both published posthumously in 1765). Edwards
accepted an appointment as President of the College of New Jersey (now
Princeton) in 1757. He died from complications arising from a smallpox
inoculation on March 22, 1758, less than five weeks after his
inauguration. Edwards' published works were primarily designed to
defend the Puritan version of Calvinist orthodoxy and his influence on
Congregational and Presbyterian theology was profound. His extensive
notebooks reveal an interest in philosophical problems for their own
sake, however, and his deployment of philosophical arguments in his
private papers and published works are both sophisticated and
frequently original.


## 2. Metaphysics


### 2.1 Theological Determinism



Edwards believed that indeterminism is incompatible with our
dependence on God and hence with his sovereignty. If our responses to
God's grace are contra-causally free, then our salvation depends
partly on us and God's sovereignty isn't "absolute and
universal." *Freedom of the Will* defends theological
determinism. Edwards begins by attempting to show that libertarianism
is incoherent. For example, he argues that by
'self-determination' the libertarian must mean either that
one's actions including one's acts of willing are preceded by an act
of free will or that one's acts of will lack sufficient causes. The
first leads to an infinite regress while the second implies that acts
of will happen accidentally and hence can't make someone "better
or worse, any more than a tree is better than other trees because it
oftener happens to be lit upon by a swan or nightingale; or a rock
more vicious than other rocks, because rattlesnakes have happened
oftener to crawl over it" (*Freedom of the Will*, 1754;
Edwards 1957-, vol. 1, 327). On the second alternative, acts of
choosing (volitions) are neither chosen by us nor determined by
reasons or our character or by other states of the soul. But if they
are not, then they aren't truly ours and we cannot be held responsible
for them. Edwards also argues that libertarianism is inconsistent with
ordinary moral concepts. If, for example, the necessity of sinning
wholly excuses, then a bias to sin should partially excuse. But it
doesn't; a person who acts from settled habits of maliciousness is
deemed "so much the more worthy to be detested and
condemned" (*Freedom of the Will*, 1754; Edwards
1957-, vol. 1, 360). Since libertarianism implies that necessity
excuses, it is inconsistent with the way we attribute blame.



In Edwards' opinion, libertarianism's specious aura of plausibility is
grounded in a systematic confusion of "philosophical" and
"vulgar" (ordinary) usage. For example, in ordinary usage
something (e.g., remaining seated) is said to be "necessary to
us...when we can't help it, let us do what we will"
(*Freedom of the Will*, 1754; Edwards 1957-, vol. 1,
150). Causal necessity doesn't entail "vulgar necessity,"
however. Ingrained habits, deeply felt resentment, and the like may
causally necessitate a malicious action. It doesn't follow that the
agent wouldn't have refrained from acting maliciously if she had
chosen not to act maliciously. Hence, the fact that she was causally
unable to act other than she did does not imply that she was unable to
do so in the "vulgar" or ordinary sense. Libertarians are
therefore mistaken in thinking that because vulgar necessity excuses,
so does causal necessity. Again, 'freedom' or
'liberty' in common speech refer only to "that power
and opportunity for one to do and conduct as he will, or according to
his choice," and contains no reference to the "cause or
original" of the act of will (*Freedom of the Will*,
1754; Edwards 1957-vol. 1, 163-64). Hence, that liberty in
the ordinary sense is essential to moral agency does not entail that
contra-causal freedom is. It is also important to note that action in
the ordinary sense is "some motion or exertion of power, that is
voluntary, or that is the *effect* of the will...[the term
is] most commonly used to signify outward actions" (*Freedom
of the Will*, 1754; Edwards 1957-, vol. 1, 346). Improperly
extending the term 'action' to movements of the will has
led some libertarians to conclude that since external behavior must be
preceded by an act of will to be voluntary, and an appropriate object
of moral appraisal, so too must acts of will. A consequence is the
libertarian's misleading talk of the will's self-determination.



Edwards' principle reasons *for* theological determinism are
God's sovereignty, the principle of sufficient reason (which requires
that everything that begins to be have a complete cause), the nature
of motivation, and God's foreknowledge. The latter two are discussed
at length.



The argument from motivation depends upon Edwards' identification of
willing or choosing with one's strongest inclination or preference.
Since choosing just *is* a prevailing inclination, it is
logically impossible to choose in the absence of a prevailing motive.
If there is a prevailing motive, however, then the will is necessarily
determined by it, for if the will were to choose contrary to a
prevailing motive, the agent would have two opposed preponderant
inclinations at the same time. All choices, therefore, are necessarily
determined.



Edwards' most impressive arguments from divine foreknowledge are based
on the impossibility of knowing future contingents and on the
necessity of the past. One knows p only if one has evidence for it,
and evidence "must be one of...two sorts, either
*self-evidence* or *proof*." Propositions about
future contingents can't be self-evident, however, because the states
of affairs they represent are neither present to the mind nor
necessary. But they can't be proved either, for if the state of
affairs expressed by the proposition is genuinely contingent,
"there is nothing now existent with which the future existence
of the contingent event is [necessarily] connected." Future
contingents are thus necessarily unknowable (*Freedom of the
Will*, 1754; Edwards 1957-, vol. 1, 259). Since God's
knowledge of the future is comprehensive, it follows that no future
event (and so no future human action) is genuinely contingent.



The conclusion also follows from the necessity of the past. Suppose I
make a decision *D* at time *t*. Since God is
omniscient, he has always believed that *D* occurs at
*t*. Since he can't be mistaken, God's believing at some
earlier time *t**n* that *D* occurs at
*t* entails that *D* occurs at *t*. But God's
forebelief is past in relation to *t* and is therefore
"now necessary" in the sense that nothing done at
*t* can alter it. What is entailed by a necessary fact is
itself necessary, however. Therefore, *D* could not fail to
occur at *t*. Nor can one evade this conclusion by appealing to
God's timelessness as some do. For even if God's
'forebeliefs' are timeless and so don't precede the events
they are about, divinely inspired prophecies are not. Yet divinely
inspired prophecies, too, are necessarily connected with the human
actions they foretell and they are clearly past (and hence necessary)
in relation to them.



Necessity is consistent with moral responsibility, however. We are
said to be responsible for our actions when we act as we choose and
determinism does not deny that our actions often spring from our
choices. Nor is necessity incompatible with praise and blame. Even
though God and Christ necessarily act for the best, their actions are
eminently praiseworthy.



It is worth noting that the aim of Edwards' philosophically
sophisticated arguments is theological. He saw that 



> 
> if modern divines...can maintain their peculiar notion of
> freedom, consisting in the *self-determining power* of the
> will, as necessary to moral agency..., then they have an
> impregnable castle, to which they may repair, and remain invincible,
> in all the controversies they have with the reformed divines
> concerning *original sin*, the *sovereignty* of grace,
> election..., and other principles of the like kind. (*Original
> Sin*, 1758; Edwards 1957-, vol. 1, 376)
> 



Edwards recognizes that "modern divines" pretend that
doctrines like these undermine "the very foundation of all
religion and morality" (*Freedom of the Will*, 1754;
Edwards 1957, vol. 1, 422). *Freedom of the Will* concludes by
arguing that, on the contrary, they do a much better job of supporting
them.


### 2.2 Occasionalism, Idealism, Mental Phenomenalism, and Views on Identity



Edwards' occasionalism, idealism, and mental phenomenalism provide a
philosophical interpretation of God's absolute sovereignty: God is the
only real cause and the only true substance.



Edwards implicitly distinguishes between a real or true cause and a
cause in the ordinary or "vulgar" sense. The latter is
"that, after or upon the existence of which, or the existence of
it after such a manner, the existence of another thing follows"
("The Mind," no. 26; Edwards 1957-, vol. 6, 350).
Vulgar causes aren't real causes, however. In the first place,
so-called second causes are spatially or temporally distinct from
their effects, and "no [real] cause can produce effects in a
time and place on which itself is not" (*Original Sin*,
1758; Edwards 1957-, vol. 3, 400). In the second, real causes
necessitate their effects and second causes do not. "It don't at
all necessarily follow," for example, "that because there
was...color, or resistance,...or thought, or any other
dependent thing at the last moment, that therefore there shall be the
like at the next" (*Original Sin*, 1758; Edwards
1957-, vol. 3, 404). Finally, if second causes were real causes
they would be sufficient to produce their effects. If they were
sufficient, however, then God's activity would be redundant and it is
not. Unlike second causes, God's causal activity meets all three
conditions. Since God is not in time or space, there is no temporal or
spatial separation between his activity and its effects. Since God is
essentially omnipotent, his will is necessarily effective; it is
logically impossible for him to will s and s not take place. The third
condition is also met. Because God is omnipotent he doesn't need the
cooperation of other causal powers to produce his effects. And because
sovereignty belongs to him alone he doesn't share his causal power
with others. God's decrees are thus fully sufficient for their
effects. God alone, then, is the only real cause. Vulgar causes (e.g.,
heating water) are simply the occasions upon which God produces
effects (e.g., the water's boiling) according to "methods and
laws" which express his customary manner of acting.



In an early paper ("Of Atoms") Edwards pointed out that
the concept of a material substance is the concept of something
subsisting by itself, standing "underneath," and keeping
"up solidity and all other [physical] properties" (Edwards
1957-, vol. 6, 215). He then argued that God alone meets these
conditions, and concluded that if the concept of material substance
refers to anything, it refers to God's causal activity.



Edwards also thought that "nothing has existence any where
else...but either in created or uncreated consciousness."
It follows that "the material universe exists only in the
mind;" "the existence of all corporeal things is only
ideas" ("Of Being," "The Mind," no. 51,
and "Miscellanies," no. 179; Edwards 1957, vol. 6, 204,
368, and vol. 13, 327).



Edwards' arguments for idealism are similar to (but apparently
uninfluenced by) Berkeley's. One of the best examples occurs in
"The Mind," no. 27. Edwards first argues that the idea of
a body can be resolved into ideas of color and resistance. Figure, for
example, is the termination of color or resistance. Solidity
*is* resistance, while motion is "the communication of
this resistance from space to space." "Every knowing
philosopher" agrees that colors exist only in minds.
'Resistance' refers either to instances in which one body
resists another or to a power, namely, a body's disposition to resist
other bodies. The first is a mode or property of ideas; it is ideas
which are "resisted...move and stop, and rebound."
For example, our observation of a billiard ball's ricocheting from the
cushion can be resolved into impressions of a particular configuration
of color and figure (the billiard ball) moving closer to another (the
cushion), touching it, and then moving away from it. The power of
resistance is no more than a divine "establishment,"
namely, "the constant law or method" of "the actual
exertion of God's power" producing instances of resistance. So
*instances* of resistance are qualities of ideas and the
*power* of resistance is a stable divine intention to act in
certain ways. Resistance, therefore, exists only in relation to minds.
Since the idea of a body can be reduced to ideas of color and
resistance, and color and resistance have only mental existence,
"the world is...an ideal one" (Edwards 1957-,
vol. 6, 350-51).



Edwards' mental phenomenalism is a natural extension of his
occasionalism and views on substance. If God is the only real cause of
spatio-temporal phenomena, he is the only real cause of
"thoughts" or "perceptions." If a substance is
what "subsists by itself," "stands
underneath," and "keeps up" a set of properties,
then a mental substance can only be what subsists by itself, stands
underneath, and keeps up mental properties. It follows that the
concept of mental substance either denotes nothing or refers to God's
causal activity. "What we call spirit," then, "is
nothing but a composition and series of perceptions [mental
events]...connected by...laws" ("Notes on
Knowledge and Existence"; Edwards 1957-, vol. 6, 398).



Mental and physical substance are thus identical with God's causal
production of the mental events constituting minds and the sensible
ideas or "sensations" which constitute bodies
"according to...methods and laws" which he has
freely established ("The Mind," no. 13; Edwards
1957-, vol. 6, 344). God is thus the only true substance as well
as the only true cause.



God's sovereignty also extends to criteria of identity.
"Species" (kinds or natures) are the ways we classify
things. But our classifications depend on our needs and interests, and
the character of the world we live in. Hence, in determining every
feature of the spatio-temporal world, God has determined how things
will be classified, that is, what counts as a "species" or
kind. Since a thing's criteria of identity are determined by its
nature or kind, God is their ultimate ground. In short, laws determine
kinds and kinds determine criteria of identity. In determining laws
God has therefore determined criteria of identity ("The
Mind", nos. 41, 43, and 47; Edwards 1957, vol. 6, 359f, 361f.,
366f.). (One implication is that God can so arrange things that Adam
and his posterity count as one thing for purposes of punishment and
reward.)


### 2.3 God as Being in General



God is "being in general." He "is the sum of all
being, and there is no being without his being; all things are in him
and he in all" ("Miscellanies," no. 880; Edwards
1957-, vol. 20, 122). Edwards appears to have borrowed the
phrase "being in general" from Malebranche. What does he
mean by it?



He does not mean that God is the power of being or being as such as
earlier commentators like Clyde Holbrook and Douglas Elwood have
suggested. God is neither a power nor a universal but a concrete
entity or substance -- a necessarily existing "intelligent
willing agent such as our souls, only without our imperfections, and
not some inconceivable, unintelligent, necessary agent"
("Miscellanies," no. 383; Edwards 1957-, vol. 13,
452).



*True Virtue* associates being with capacity or power, and
asserts that "degree of existence" is a function of
"greater capacity or power," of having "every
faculty and every positive quality in an higher degree. An
*archangel* must be supposed to have more existence, and to be
every way further removed from *nonentity* than a *worm*
or a *flea*" (*True Virtue*, 1765; Edwards
1957-, vol. 8, 546). Miscellany 94 identifies perfect entity and
perfect activity:



> 
> God is a pure act...because that which acts perfectly is all act,
> and nothing but act. There is an image of this in created beings that
> approach to perfect action. [Thus,] the saints of heaven are all
> transfigured into love, dissolved into joy, become activity itself,
> changed into mere ecstasy. (Edwards 1957-, vol. 13, 260f.)
> 



"The Discourse on the Trinity" claims that there is no
distinction between substance and act in the divine essence because
God's essence is both "wholly substance and wholly
act" (Edwards 1957, vol. 21, 116). And "The Mind"
no. 45 identifies being with consciousness. "Perceiving being
only is properly being" (Edwards 1957-, vol. 6,
363). Although Edwards never systematically developed or integrated
these scattered observations, their drift is toward the identification
of being with mind in act, and of degree of being with degree of mind
or consciousness and the comparative perfection of the activity in
which it is engaged. God's consciousness and power are unlimited, and
his activity is perfect. His being is therefore unlimited.



Why, though, is God being in general? Because finite beings are
absolutely and immediately dependent upon him for both their being and
properties. Indeed, as the only true substance and only true cause,
created beings are no more than God's "shadows" or
"images." (While "particular minds" deliberate
and choose, and so possess a kind of agency, they lack real power and
are thus no more than images of divine agency. Because they lack not
only power but also consciousness and will, bodies are even further
removed from real agency and hence are, as Edwards says, mere shadows
of being.) As the only true substance and only true cause, God is the
"head" of the system of beings, its "chief
part," an absolute sovereign whose power and perfection are so
great that "all other beings are as nothing to him, and all
other excellency...as nothing and less than nothing,...in
comparison of his" (*End of Creation*, 1765; Edwards
1957-, vol. 8, 451). "The whole system of created beings
in comparison of him is as the light dust of the balance"
("Miscellanies," no. 1208; Edwards 1957-, vol. 23,
133). 'Being in general,' then, refers to the system of
beings -- primarily to God but to "particular
beings," too, in so far as they depend upon and more or less
adequately reflect him.



The claim that God is the only real substance, the "proper
entity" of things, has led to accusations of pantheism. Students
of Edwards have responded by insisting on a distinction in Edwards
between God and creatures. The distinction is real but insufficient to
refute charges of pantheism. For, historically, pantheisms do not
identify the divine with nature as such but, rather, with nature's
substance or essence or inner being or power. Natural phenomena aren't
identical with the divine. They are its modes or properties or parts.
Edwards clearly believes that God is the world's real substance.
However, the sense of his assertion is very different from that of the
pantheists. In claiming that God is the world's substance Edwards
means that God's decrees are the only cause of an entity's being and
characteristics. He isn't a pantheist because the relation between God
and the world is construed as a relation between a creative volition
and its immediate effects. Edwards' model is not a whole and its
parts, or a substance (a bearer of properties) and its properties, or
an essence and its accidents, but agent causality.


### 2.4 God's End in Creation



Edwards never doubted that God's end is himself. Since true virtue
consists in benevolence to being and "complacence" or
delight in moral excellence, and since God is the "chief
part" of being and the fount of all excellence, a truly virtuous
agent "must necessarily have a supreme love to God, both of
benevolence and complacence" (*True Virtue*, 1765;
Edwards 1957-, vol. 8, 551). It follows that *God's*
rectitude and holiness "chiefly consists in a respect or regard
to himself, infinitely above his regard to all other beings" and
that, as a consequence, his works must be "so wrought as to show
this supreme respect to himself" (*End of Creation*,
1765; Edwards 1957-, vol. 8, 422). God's ultimate aim in all his
works must therefore be himself. Edwards concludes that he creates the
world for his own glory. But Edwards also believed that because the
essence of goodness is to communicate good for it own sake,
"happiness is the end of the creation"
("Miscellanies," no. 3; Edwards 1957-, vol. 13,
199).



*End of Creation* reconciles these claims. God's glory is
defined as "the emanation and true external expression of God's
internal glory and fullness." It includes (1) "the
exercise of God's perfections to produce a proper effect," (2)
"the manifestation of his internal glory to created
understandings," (3) "the communication of the infinite
fullness of God to the creature," and (4) "the creature's
high esteem of God, love to God, and complacence and joy in God; and
the proper exercises and expressions of these" (*End of
Creation*, 1765; Edwards 1957-, vol. 8, 527).



There is no ontological distinction between the first and third
"parts" of God's glory since the principal effect of God's
exercising his perfections is "his fullness communicated."
Furthermore, the third part includes the second and fourth. For God's
internal fullness or glory is the "fullness of his understanding
consisting in his knowledge" of himself "and the fullness
of his will consisting in his virtue and happiness." His
"external glory...consists in the communication of
these," i. e., in bringing it about that "particular
minds" know and love God, and delight in him. The four
"parts" are thus "one thing, in a variety of views
and relations" (*End of Creation*, 1765; Edwards
1957-, vol. 8, 527).



In pursuing his own glory, God thus takes both himself *and*
the creature's good as ultimate aims. Happiness consists in the
knowledge and love of God, and joy in him. The creature's happiness is
an ultimate end because it is *included* in God's ultimate end,
namely, the communication of his internal glory "ad
extra;" rather than being a means to God's glory, it is part of
it.



An apparent consequence is that God *must* create a world to
display his glory. *End of Creation* contends both that God's
perfections include "a propensity of nature to diffuse of his
own fullness" and that it isn't "possible for him to be
hindered in the exercise of his goodness and his other perfections in
their proper effect." (*End of Creation*, 1765; Edwards
1957-, vol. 8, 447) It follows that God must diffuse his own
fullness, i. e., God must create. Edwards also appears committed to
the claim that God necessarily creates *this* world (call it
*w*\*). God necessarily does what is "fittest and
best." It is thus necessarily true that God creates the best
possible world. Now God has created *w*\*. Hence, *w*\* is
the best possible world. 'Being the best possible world'
is an essential property of whatever world has it, however. It is
therefore necessarily true that *w*\* is the best possible
world. It follows that it is necessarily true that God creates
*w*\*.



Whether Edwards was aware of these consequences is uncertain. The two
most common objections to them, however, -- that they imply that
there isn't any real contingency and that God isn't free -- would
not have troubled him. For Edwards thought that our world displays
neither contra-causal freedom nor real indeterminacy. He also believed
that moral agency and freedom are compatible with metaphysical
necessity. God can only do what is "fittest and best." He
is nevertheless free in the sense that he is aware of alternatives
(the array of possible worlds), has the ability (i. e., the power and
"skill") to actualize any of them, is neither forced,
constrained nor influenced by any other being, and does precisely what
he wishes. Edwards believes that this is the only kind of freedom that
is either relevant to moral agency or worth having.


## 3. Value Theory


### 3.1 Ethics



True virtue aims at the good of being in general and therefore also
prizes the disposition that promotes it. Truly virtuous people thus
love two things -- being and benevolence. They not only value
benevolence because it promotes the general good, however; they also
"relish" or delight in it for its own sake. Hence, while
virtue "most essentially consists in benevolence to being"
(*True Virtue*, 1765; Edwards 1957-, vol. 8, 540), in a
wider sense it includes not only benevolence but also
"complacence" in benevolence's intrinsic excellence or
beauty.



God, though, "is infinitely the greatest being," and
"infinitely the most beautiful and excellent." True virtue
thus principally consists "in a supreme love to God, both of
benevolence and complacence" (*True Virtue*, 1765;
Edwards 1957-, vol. 8, 550-51). It follows that "a
determination of mind to union and benevolence to a *particular
person* or *private system* [whether one's self, one's
family, one's nation, or even humanity], which is but a small part of
the universal system of being...is not of the nature of true
virtue" unless it is dependent on or "subordinate to,
benevolence to *Being in* *general*" (*True
Virtue*, 1765; Edwards 1957-, vol. 8, 554).



One of the principal concerns of Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, et al., was
to refute the contention that action is always motivated by self-love.
Edwards' attitude toward these attempts is ambivalent. On the one
hand, he denies that the *truly* benevolent are motivated by
self-love. On the other, Edwards argues (against, e.g., Hutcheson)
that most conscientious and other regarding behavior is, indeed, a
form of self-love and that, in any case, acts motivated by rational
self-love, conscience, or natural other regarding instincts such as
parental affection or pity aren't genuinely virtuous.



Conscience, for instance, is the product of a power of placing
ourselves in the situation of others (which is needed for any sort of
mutual understanding), a sense of the natural fitness of certain
responses (injury and punishment or disapproval, benefit and reward or
approval), and self-love. Placing ourselves in the situation of those
we have injured, we recognize that being treated in that way would not
merely anger us but seem unfitting or undeserved, and that we are
therefore inconsistent in approving of our treating others in ways we
would not wish to be treated ourselves. The result is a sense of
"inconsistence" or "self-opposition" between
feelings of approval and disapproval toward the same action. This
makes us "uneasy" since "self-love implies an
inclination to feel and act as one with ourselves" (*True
Virtue*, 1765; Edwards 1957-, vol. 8, 589).



What, though, about instinctual other regarding impulses such as
parental affection, "mutual affection between the sexes"
(as distinct from simple sexual attraction), and pity? Edwards is
inclined to think that all except pity are forms of self-love. The
important point, however, is that even if they aren't, actions
motivated by them aren't truly virtuous. To see why consider pity. If
*truly* virtuous actions are motivated by benevolence to being
in general, then actions motivated by other regarding impulses which
are ultimately directed to "some particular persons or private
system" aren't truly virtuous (*True Virtue*, 1765;
Edwards 1957-, vol. 8, 601). Now pity is directed to those in
extreme distress whose suffering appears undeserved or excessive. Its
object is therefore restricted to only part of being in general.
Furthermore, since instinctual affections aren't
"dependent" on "general benevolence," they are
in potential conflict with it. Pity, for example, may motivate a judge
to act unjustly.



We should not conclude that pity or other instinctual affections, or
even rational self-love, are bad. Since they tend toward "the
preservation of mankind and their comfortably subsisting in the
world," things would be much worse without them (*True
Virtue*, 1765; Edwards 1957-, vol. 8, 600). Edwards point
(like Kant's) is merely that their goodness isn't a truly moral
goodness. The implication is nonetheless clear. Natural virtues are
either tainted with self-love or fail to extend to being in general.
They are therefore counterfeits or simulacra of true virtue. While
they prompt us to promote the good of others, and to condemn vice,
they fall infinitely "short of the extent of true virtuous
benevolence, both in...nature and object" (*True
Virtue*, 1765; Edwards 1957-, vol. 8, 609). Edwards
concludes that true virtue is a supernatural gift.


### 3.2 Aesthetics



In Edwards' view, beauty or "excellency" "consists
in the similarness of one being to another -- not merely equality
and proportion, but any kind of similarness....This is an
universal definition of excellency: The consent of being to
being..." ("The Mind," no. 1; Edwards
1957-, vol. 6, 336). One who loves others, for instance, or
actively desires their welfare, "agrees" with them or
"consents" to them. Love's scope can be narrower or wider,
however. Agreement or consent is "comprehensive" or
"universal" only when directed towards being in general.
Only true benevolence, therefore, is truly beautiful.



"Secondary" beauty is a mere "image" or
"resemblance" of true beauty. It consists in
"symmetry," "harmony," or
"proportion," or "as Mr. Hutcheson" says, in
"agreement of different things in form, manner, quantity, and
visible end or design," i.e., in "regularity." The
beauty of well-ordered societies, of "wisdom...consisting
in the united tendency of thoughts, ideas, and particular volitions to
one general purpose," of the natural fitness of actions and
circumstances (having made a promise, for example, and keeping it),
"of a building, of a flower, or of the rainbow" are
examples (*True Virtue*, 1765; Edwards 1957-, vol. 8,
561-62).



Since God's benevolence alone is perfect, he is the only thing that is
(truly) beautiful without qualification. The fitness of God's
dispensations, the harmony of his providential design, and so on, also
exhibit the highest degree of secondary beauty. God is thus
"infinitely the most beautiful and excellent," the measure
of both primary and secondary beauty. Moreover, he is the
"foundation and fountain of all beauty." "All the
beauty to be found throughout the whole creation is...the
reflection of the diffused beams of that being who hath an infinite
fullness of brightness and glory" (*True Virtue*, 1765;
Edwards 1957-, vol. 8, 550-51). And God's world is indeed
*saturated* with beauty -- not only the "harmony of
sounds, and the beauties of nature" (which bear the greatest
resemblance to true or primary beauty, and to which Edwards was
especially sensitive) but also (and primarily) the beauty of the
Gospel, of God's providential work in history, and of the saints (the
elect). The saints alone, however, can discern true beauty.


## 4. Epistemology


### 4.1 A Sense of the Heart



Because their hearts have been regenerated by the indwelling of the
Holy Spirit, the saints love being in general. Their love is the basis
of a new "spiritual sense" whose "immediate
object" is "the beauty of holiness" -- a
"new simple idea" that can't "be produced by
exalting, varying or compounding" ideas "which they had
before," and that truly "represents" divine reality
(*Religious Affections*, 1746 and *True Virtue*, 1765;
Edwards 1957-, vol. 2, 205, 260, and vol. 8, 622).



Edwards sometimes identifies true beauty with the pleasure that holy
things evoke in people with spiritual "frames" or
"tempers" or with the tendency they have to evoke it. At
other times he identifies it with the consent of being to being, i.e.,
with true benevolence or holiness. His view appears to be this. True
beauty is identical with benevolence or agreement in somewhat the same
way in which water is identical with H2O or heat with
molecular motion. But benevolence is also the objective basis of a
dispositional property, namely, a tendency to produce a new simple
idea in the savingly converted. This idea is a delight or pleasure in
being's consent to being which somehow "represents" or is
a "perception" of it. Edwards' account of true beauty thus
resembles some accounts of color or extension. Spiritual delight is a
simple idea or sensation like our ideas of color or extension. The
dispositional property is a power objects have to produce these ideas
in our understandings. Benevolence is the objective configuration
underlying this power and corresponds to the microstructure of bodies
that underlie their tendency to excite ideas of color or extension in
minds like ours. Like simple ideas of redness, say, or extension, the
new spiritual sensation "represents" or is a
"perception" of its object. Just as 'red' or
'extension' can refer to the idea, the power, or the
physical configuration that is the basis of the power, so "true
beauty" can refer to the spiritual sensation, to the relevant
dispositional property, or to benevolence.



Edwards calls the new mode of spiritual understanding a
"sense" because the apprehension of spiritual beauty is
(1) non-inferential and (2) involuntary, and Edwards, like Hutcheson,
associates sensation with immediacy and passivity. (3) It also
involves relish or delight, and Edwards followed Locke and Hutcheson
in thinking that, like a feeling of tactual pressure or an impression
of redness, being pleased or pained is a kind of sensation or
perception. Finally, (4) the new mode of understanding is the source
of a new simple idea, and Edwards shared Locke's and Hutcheson's
conviction that simple ideas come "from experience."



The saints alone are in an epistemic position to discern truths of
religion that are dependent on the "excellency of divine
things". For example, a conviction of Christ's sufficiency as a
mediator depends on an apprehension of his beauty and excellency. Or,
again, one must see the beauty of holiness to appreciate the
"hatefulness of sin," and thus be convinced of the justice
of divine punishment and our inability to make restitution. The new
sense also helps us grasp the truth of the gospel scheme as a whole. A
conviction of its truth is an immediate inference from a perception of
the beauty or splendor of what it depicts, namely, "God and
Jesus Christ...the work of redemption, and the ways and works of
God" (*A Divine and Supernatural Light*, 1734; Edwards
1957-, vol. 17, 413).



Edwards' defense of the objectivity of the new spiritual sense has
four steps. (1) Benevolence agrees with the nature of things. The
world is an interconnected system of minds and ideas in which the only
true substance and cause is an infinite and omnipotent love. Human
benevolence is thus an appropriate or fitting response to reality. (2)
Benevolence is pleased by benevolence; it relishes it, or delights in
it, for its own sake. Since benevolence is an appropriate response to
reality, so too is benevolence's delight in benevolence. (3) But a
delight in benevolence just is a perception of its spiritual beauty.
It follows that (4) the redeemed's spiritual perceptions are veridical
-- "representations" of something "besides what
[is] in [their] own minds" (*True Virtue*, 1765; Edwards
1957-, vol. 8, 622).



There is also an implicit theological defense of the spiritual sense's
objectivity. "True saving grace is no other than the very love
of God; that is, God in one of the persons of the Trinity, uniting
himself to the soul of the creature as a vital principle, dwelling
there and exerting himself by the faculties of the soul of man in his
own proper nature after the manner of a principle of nature."
The saints are thus "not only partakers of a nature that may in
some sense be called divine because 'tis conformed to the nature
of God; but the very Deity does in some sense dwell in them"
(*Treatise on Grace,*; Edwards 1957-, vol. 21, 194).
(There were Puritan precedents for these claims.)



Edwards is making two claims. First, the new spiritual disposition and
tastes which God bestows on the soul are divine. The differences
between God's love and joy and the love and joy that he bestows on his
saints is a difference of degree, not of nature or kind. Second, God
does not act on the soul from without, but dwells within it "as
a principle of a [new] nature," living, acting, and exerting
himself in the exercise of the soul's faculties. The
"mechanism" underlying the new spiritual sense thus
ultimately turns out to be God himself. Hence, since God in some sense
*is* reality or being itself, it follows that the spiritual
sense is necessarily aligned with reality.


### 4.2 Sanctified Reason



Edwards thinks that reason can prove that God exists, establish many
of his attributes, discern our obligations to him, and mount a
probable case for the credibility of scripture. But he also believes
that grace is needed both to help the natural principles
"against those things that tend to stupefy [them] and to hinder
[their] free exercise," and to sanctify "the reasoning
faculty and" assist "it to see the clear evidence there is
of the truth of religion in rational arguments"
("Miscellanies," nos. 626, 628; Edwards 1957-, vol.
18, 155, 156f).



His view is briefly this. "Actual ideas" are ideas that
are lively, clear, and distinct. Thought has a tendency to substitute
"signs" (i. e., words or images) for actual ideas. While
this tendency is useful and normally quite harmless, it impedes
reasoning when "we are at a loss concerning a connection or
consequence [between ideas], or have a new inference to draw, or would
see the force of some new argument" ("Miscellanies,"
no. 782; Edwards 1957-, vol. 18, 457). Since accurate reasoning
about a subject matter requires attending to actual ideas of it, one
can't accurately reason about religion if one lacks the relevant actual
ideas. To have an actual idea of God, for example, one must have
actual ideas of the ideas that compose it. But most of us don't. Those
parts of the idea of God that everyone has (ideas of knowledge, power,
and justice, for instance) either aren't attended to or, if they are,
fail to elicit the appropriate affective reaction. In addition, we
can't fully understand ideas of affections which we haven't
experienced and so can't properly understand God's benevolence if we
aren't benevolent ourselves. And without the simple idea of true
beauty, one can understand neither God's holiness nor the facts that
depend on it.



True benevolence remedies these deficiencies. Because the desires of
the truly benevolent are properly ordered, they attend to ideas of
religion and are suitably affected by the ideas of God's attributes
and activities that everyone has. (They fear his wrath, for example,
and are grateful for his benefits.) Furthermore, they understand God's
benevolence because their own benevolence mirrors it. Finally, the
truly benevolent delight in the benevolence in which holiness
consists, i.e., they "perceive" or "taste" or
"relish" its beauty. Edwards' claim, then, is that to
reason accurately about God one must have an actual idea of him, and
to have that one must be truly benevolent. Right reasoning about
religious matters requires right affections.



Edwards is an evidentialist. Rational religious beliefs are either
properly basic or rest on good evidence. A belief that the gospel
scheme exhibits true beauty is an example of the former. But most
religious beliefs depend on evidence. Sometimes this evidence includes
the idea of true beauty. Even when it does not, however, the right
affections are needed to appreciate its force. In either case, only
those with properly disposed hearts can read the evidence
correctly.


## 5. The History of Redemption



The trustees of the College of New Jersey invited Edwards to become
its third president in 1753. In his reply Edwards gave a number of
reasons why he hesitated to accept their offer. Among these was the
fear that doing so would interfere with the completion of "a
great work" which he had long contemplated "which I call a
*History of the Work of Redemption*, a body of divinity in an
entire new method, being thrown into the form of an history;
considering the affair of Christian theology, as the whole of it, in
each part, stands in reference to the great work of redemption by
Jesus Christ..." (Edwards 1957-, vol. 16, 727f).
Although Edwards' project was aborted by his untimely death, it would
undoubtedly have been based on a sermon series delivered in 1739 which
traces the work of redemption "from the fall of man to the end
of the world." The proposed history would have been the
culmination of the project begun in *True Virtue* and *End
of Creation*. For creation and providence are subordinate to a
redemption which is itself subordinate only to God's glory. The
history of redemption is "the *summum* and
*ultimum* of all the divine operations and decrees," the
manifestation of God's internal glory in time (Edwards 1957-,
vol. 16, 728). Edwards' *History* would also have provided a
fitting climax to his intellectual career as a whole. For it is in his
work of redemption that God's sovereignty, holiness, and splendor are
most fully displayed. 



It is doubtful, however, that Edwards' work would have anticipated
modern historiography as some claim. For one thing, the sermon series
is essentially a *doctrinal* work. (The section on Christ's
earthly ministry, for instance, is a discussion of the incarnation and
atonement, not a life of Jesus.) For another, Edwards' sources include
not only biblical and "profane" histories but biblical
prophecy as well. Finally, Edwards doesn't restrict himself to natural
causes in explaining events but also appeals to divine decrees and
typology.



Whatever novelty the sermon series possesses is literary and
theological. It partly consists in the rich skein of images Edwards
uses to connect the events of redemption history. These include the
model of a river and its tributaries, a tree and its branches, the
construction of a building, the conduct of war, and "a
wheel," or "a machine composed of wheels" with its
reminiscences both of Ezekiel's vision of the divine throne chariot
and of clockwork ("Images of Divine Things," no. 89;
Edwards 1957-, vol. 11, 86). It also consists in Edwards'
extension of typology, the practice of interpreting things, persons,
or events (the "type") as symbols or prefigurations of
future realities (the "antitype"). Protestant divines had
tended to restrict typology to figures, actions, and objects in the
Old Testament which in their view shadowed forth Christ as their
antitype. Edwards interprets the New Testament typologically as well,
arguing that relevant passages prefigure events in the church's later
history. Most radically, Edwards construes nature typologically.
(Whether this constitutes a step towards Emerson and Thoreau, as some
claim, is a moot point.) Finally, Edwards' emphasis on the objective
side of God's act of redemption is comparatively rare in a Puritanism
which tended to stress the redemption's application to individual
souls. (The subjective side is extensively treated in a number of
works of the 1730s and 1740s, however, the most important of which is
*Religious Affections*.)