Honoring Jonathan Edwards

In this response to the papers on Jonathan Edwards's ethical thought by Stephen A. Wilson, Gerald R. McDermott, William C. Spohn, and Roland A. Delattre, I comment on their efforts to show that ideas drawn from Edwards can be successfully appropriated for use in contemporary ethics. I conclude that the four authors build a strong cumulative case for the view that some elements of Edwards's thought can serve as resources for our ethical reflections. But I also argue for a deflationary view of how much of Edwards we will find it feasible to take on board when we engage in the task of working out a religious ethics we might accept.     

The Trinitarian Metaphysics of Jonathan Edwards and Nicolas Malebranche

This paper explores both the striking similarities and also the differences between Jonathan Edwards and Nicolas Malebranche's philosophical views on the Holy Trinity and, in particular, the ways in which they both gave important roles to specific Persons of the Trinity in the various different branches of their respective metaphysical systems—ontological, epistemological and ethical. It is shown that Edwards and Malebranche were in very close agreement on ontological questions pertaining to the Trinity, both with respect to the internal, triune nature of the divine substance (characterising the Three Persons as the divine power, as the consubstantial idea of God which was generated as He eternally reflected on Himself, and as the mutual love which proceeded between the Father and this idea), and also with respect to the various roles these Three Persons played in the creation of the world. In epistemology, Malebranche postulated an illuminating union between the mind of man and the divine Word, insisting on an absolutely direct involvement of the Second Person in all human cognition, both intellectual and sensible. On this point Edwards did differ, endorsing instead an empiricist epistemology which left no room for such a direct union with the Word. However, when it came to ethics, Edwards and Malebranche both gave the Third Person an utterly central role, postulating much the same kind of union as Malebranche alone had postulated in the epistemological case, only now between the will of man and the Holy Spirit.     

Jonathan Edwards,Anselmic Satisfaction and God's Moral Government

Jonathan Edwards' doctrine of atonement has recently become a source of interest amongst some contemporary systematic theologians. This article sets out to redress two longstanding and historically strident claims regarding Edwards' doctrine of the nature of atonement: first, that Edwards espoused an Anselmic satisfaction theory of atonement; second, that Edwards also laid the theological foundation for the moral government theory of atonement, popularized in nineteenth‐century America by those of his intellectual tradition. In this article, I lay out the conceptual core of both Anselm's satisfaction theory and the moral government theory of atonement. I argue that the claims noted above lack the explanatory resources needed to account accurately for Edwards' understanding of the nature of the atonement.     

Ignatius of Loyola,Jonathan Edwards,and Indifference

The aim of this paper is threefold: First, I provide a brief account of Ignatian indifference as contained in the Spiritual Exercises. I distinguish between two senses of ‘indifference’ and apply them to an imaginary Regina who is faced with the decision about whether to give an inheritance to UNICEF or use the funds to finance her daughter’s college education. Second, I argue that Jonathan Edwards’s polemic, in Freedom of the Will, against Isaac Watts’s account of indifference, is open to the ‘straw man objection’ when applied to the Ignatian concept. Finally, I put forth a Kantian based critique of Ignatian indifference. I claim that while indifference is a logically consistent notion it may very well be psychologically problematic. If it is an open question whether Regina can ever know with certainty that she has acted from the pure motive of duty, then it is also an open question whether she can ‘find’ herself indifferent in the Ignatian senses of the term.     

Nature and Grace: Two Participations in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards

Christian theologians are increasingly interested in both ontological and soteriological forms of participation theology. Paul Gavrilyuk challenges scholars to be more precise in how these relate to each other. This article contributes to the need for further precision by engaging with the thought of Jonathan Edwards. Edwards employed both types of participation, but did not embed one within the other. Ontological participation, dubbed ‘common participation’, undergirds created nature and is a methexis in God for being. Soteriological participation, dubbed ‘special participation’, explains special grace and is a relational koinonia in the love between the Father and the Son. These two participations are complementary and facilitate a clear distinction between nature and grace.     

Focus Introduction: Taking the Measure of Jonathan Edwards for Contemporary Religious Ethics

The Journal of Religious Ethics marks the tercentenary of Edwards's birth with the following collection of essays. In keeping with the overall mission of the journal, this tribute takes the form of historical and constructive reflection, in which diverse perspectives on Edwards's work and diverse forms of engagement with it supplement and correct one another. Our hope is that these essays will serve both to generate interest in Edwards's work among those who are unfamiliar with him, and to advance the discussion of central issues in theological and religious ethics. In this introductory essay, we will offer some reflections on Edwards's general significance for contemporary ethics, followed by a closer examination of his main texts and a brief summary of the essays collected here.     

Poverty, Patriotism, and National Covenant: Jonathan Edwards and Public Life

In this essay I address three ways in which Edwards can inform Christian understanding of public life. First I show how Edwards provides both philosophical and theological rationales for social engagement and thereby resists the separation of religion from public life, and use his consideration of poverty as an illustration. Part II examines Edwards's dialectical treatment of patriotism, demonstrating both its importance to the Christian life and its susceptibility to deceptive accommodation to culture. Finally, in Part III I discuss Edwards's use of national covenant, which despite its temptation to chauvinism Edwards used to undermine national pride. In the conclusion I assess what we can use from Edwards for contemporary Christian understandings of public life.     

Edwards on the Will

Jonathan Edwards' The Freedom of the Will advances an ethical argument concerning the nature of the freedom that a person must have to be considered morally culpable. The view he opposes, that free decisions must be uncaused, is shown to be now common in Western culture, and the results he predicted of that are displayed. His own view, whereby a free decision is one constrained only by moral causes, is shown to be theologically grounded and consistent with ethical responsibility. Mention is made of the virtue ethic he relied upon, and of the predestinarian nature of the account.     

A Unified Theory of the Atonement

Abstract:  Following Aulén, three broad, and competing, models of the atonement are outlined in this article, and an argument is offered to suggest that the mediatorial model should be considered normative. The argument proceeds through discussion with N.T. Wright's adoption of the victory model as normative in his expositions of Pauline theology. It is here suggested that the victory model is inherently unsuitable as a paradigm for the soteriology of Romans, and argued that the assertion that it can explain the process of reconciliation lacks foundation. Further, there is indication as to how the occasional language of victory in the New Testament can often be incorporated naturally within a mediation framework.     

Christ, Spirit and Atonement

The Christian doctrine of the atonement is complex, not least in part because it must hold together the integrity of both divine and human being. Too often attempts to expound theologies of atonement have foundered because they have pitted divine and human action in competition one with the other. This article addresses itself to this problematic by suggesting three minimum conditions which must be met if this doctrine is to a give a theologically plausible account of salvation: first, that divine and human activity not be identified; second, that divine and human activity not be co-ordinated so as to complete or complement each other; and third, that neither divine nor human activity be rendered superfluous. The article elaborates upon these conditions by taking as its test case the Christian claim: God was in Christ.     

Evolution, Sociobiology, and the Atonement

This essay views Christian doctrines of the atonement in the light of evolution and sociobiology. It argues that most of the doctrines are false because they use a false premise, the historicity of Adam and the Fall. However, two doctrines are not false on those grounds: Abelard's idea that Jesus' life is an example and Athanasius' concept that the atonement changes human nature. Employing evolution's and sociobiology's concepts of the egocentric and ethnocentric nature of humanity and the synergy between genes and environments to produce a "nature," this essay shows that these two doctrines can be amalgamated to make sense of the atonement in the late twentieth century.