Jonathan Edwards’s (1703-1758) doctrine of freedom of the will is notoriously troublesome. Both old and recent scholarship argue that his doctrine was deterministic. [1] And if his view was truly deterministic, Edwards would have come to a deadlock regarding the authorship of Adam’s sin. Edwards argued, however, that God was not the author of sin. Thus, it seems that Edwards’s view was inconsistent. This issue has attracted the interest of many scholars; [2] consensus holds that Edwards fails to provide an adequate account of the origin of sin. [3] For example, James Dana charged that Edwards’s God actually introduced sin by “positive energy and action” because “the creature cannot be answerable for more than he hath received.” [4] A century later, Charles Hodge argued that Edwards got into trouble when he presumed too easily that his metaphysics could explain God’s relation to our choices. Clyde Holbrook, in his editorial introduction to the Yale edition of Original Sin, claimed that according to Edwards’s conception of divine influence, “God is most certainly the efficient and morally responsible cause of the transgression.” [5]
More recently, Samuel Storms repeated Holbrook’s opinion. [6] When reviewing Storms’s book, Samuel T. Logan Jr. maintained that “Edwards’ scheme fails to answer definitely the problem of the origin of Adam’s original sin.” [7] Gerstner holds that Edwards’s position on this question represented “a total abandonment of the Christian religion, as understood by almost the entire catholic tradition.” [8] In an analytical approach, Alvin Plantinga argues that Jonathan Edwards’s argument for theological fatalism reduces to logical fatalism. [9] Paul Helm and Oliver Crisp also comment that even though Edwards criticized Arminianism to defend the absolute sovereignty of God, his view also faced “familiar complaints: that it destroys moral authenticity, makes God the author of sin, and delivers each creature to a fate which is undeserved.” [10] Along a similar line, Oliver Crisp charges that Edwards’s occasionalism makes God not only the ultimate but also the proximate cause of sin. Crisp assesses that this occasionalism undermines “any distinction between permission and positive agency.” [11] He argues that, for Edwards, causal determination entails moral responsibility. [12] Thus, with Edwards’s theological determinism, the distinction between causal and moral responsibility cannot hold. Crisp concludes that in Edwards’s doctrine of freedom of the will, “God is the causal and moral agent responsible for that action, and therefore, for sinful actions.” [13] Edwards is a victim of his own relentless thoroughness in his dealings with the authorship of sin. [14]
By contrast, some scholars support Edwards’s view. John Kearney argues that “Edwards’ account of the origin of Adam’s first sin is coherent and adequate.” [15] He emphasizes Edwards’s distinction between the expression of God’s will as an action and the expression of God’s will in Adam’s sinful choices. He writes, “Edwards claims that Adam sinned because his rational will became ‘perverted.’” [16] In so doing, Kearney justifies Edwards’s argument and contends that his theological determinism does not entail that God is morally responsible in this respect. Michael McClymond and Gerald McDermott expound on Edwards’s doctrine of the authorship of sin and argue that Edwards underlines both teleological and moral differences. They cite from Edwards’s work, “God does not decree actions that are sinful as sinful, but decrees [them] as good.” [17] They claim, “[T]here was a difference in purpose between permitting sin and decreeing goodness.” [18]
This essay outlines and assesses Edwards’s resolution to the problem of the authorship of sin. The primary focus will be to demonstrate that Edwards’s arguments firmly stand within the lines of orthodox Christian tradition. I will defend Edwards’s argument both philosophically and theologically. My interest is not to show Edwards’s influence from the tradition, but his affinity with orthodoxy; whether or not Edwards actually read those works from the tradition is outside of my current scope. [19] I will develop the thesis in chronological order: from patristic thought, through medieval theology, to the Reformation tradition.
Edwards’s Arguments In Relation With Patristic Theology
Similarity With Augustine
The first sentence of Augustine’s On the Free Choice of the Will (De libero arbitrio voluntatis) begins with a request from his friend, Evodius: “Please tell me whether God is the author of evil” (Dic mihi, quaeso te, utrum deus non sit auctor mali). [20] In Book I and II, Augustine argues that God is not the author of sin, but that sin results from the perverted free choice of humanity. For Augustine, free choice is an intermediate good (bonum medium), superior to goods of the body but inferior to the highest goods. In Book III, Augustine attempts to demonstrate that God is not to be blamed for evil in the world. He denies outright that “there is, or can be, any way, to impute to God whatever must occur in his creature by reason of its sinful will” (III.vi.18). [21]
In the same vein, Edwards maintains that God is not the author of sin. He holds, “If by ‘the author of sin,’ be meant the sinner, the agent, or actor of sin, or the doer of a wicked thing; so it would be a reproach and blasphemy, to suppose God to be the author of sin. In this sense, I utterly deny God to be the author of sin; rejecting such an imputation on the Most High.” [22] Edwards, however, concedes that God can be the author of sin in a certain sense. He writes:
But if by “the author of sin,” is meant the permitter, or not a hinderer of sin; and at the same time, a disposer of the state of events, in such a manner, for wise, holy and most excellent ends and purposes, that sin, if it be permitted or not hindered, will most certainly and infallibly follow: I say, if this be all that is meant, by being the author of sin, I don’t deny that God is the author of sin (though I dislike and reject the phrase, as that which by use and custom is apt to carry another sense), it is no reproach for the Most High to be thus the author of sin. This is not to be the actor of sin, but on the contrary, of holiness. What God doth herein, is holy; and a glorious exercise of the infinite excellency of his nature. [23]This idea is in harmony with Augustine’s view of God’s providence. In his Enchiridion, Augustine argues that “nothing happens but by the will of the Omnipotent, He either permitting it to be done, or Himself doing it.” [24] He also contends that when God permits evil, He does that for a good purpose. “Nor can we doubt that God does well even in the permission of what is evil. For He permits it only in the justice of His judgment…. For if it were not a good that evil should exist, its existence would not be permitted by the omnipotent God, who without doubt can as easily refuse to permit what He does not wish, as bring about what He does wish.” [25] Thus, both Augustine and Edwards believed that God is not the author of sin as the actor of sin, but that He can be called the permitter of sin. [26]
Augustine was the first Western theologian to ascribe the origin of sin to God rather than fate. In so doing, he tried to overcome fatalism in relation to the problem of evil. Likewise, Edwards asks whether all the events would be disposed by wisdom or by chance. If chance was the disposer, every event in the world would “be disposed by blind and undesigning causes.” [27] Edwards continues:
Is it not better, that the good and evil which happens in God’s world, should be ordered, regulated, bounded and determined by the good pleasure of an infinitely wise Being, who perfectly comprehends within his understanding and constant view, the universality of things, in all their extent and duration, and sees all the influence of every event, with respect to every individual thing and circumstance, throughout the grand system, and the whole of the eternal series of consequences; than to leave these things to fall out by chance, and to be determined by those causes which have no understanding or aim? [28]Both Augustine and Edwards suggest that if evil does exist, it is better to view it as lying under the superintendence of God in His wisdom. [29] Notably, Edwards regarded Augustine as the most “Calvinistic” of the patristic Fathers. [30]
Similarity With Athanasius And Gregory Of Nyssa
Edwards introduces one illustration, other than those from the Bible, when he deals with the authorship of sin. It is the illustration of the sun. He writes:
As there is a vast difference between the sun’s being the cause of the lightsomeness and warmth of the atmosphere, and brightness of gold and diamonds, by its presence and positive influence; and its being the occasion of darkness and frost, in the night, by its motion whereby it descends below the horizon. The motion of the sun is the occasion of the latter kind of events; but it is not the propel cause, efficient or producer of them; though they are necessarily consequent on that motion, under such circumstances: no more is any action of the Divine Being the cause of the evil of men’s wills. [31]The sun is the positive agency that brings about heat and light on the earth. But when it is withdrawn during the night, the cold and darkness that result are not brought about by the positive agency of the sun; this occurs as the sun descends below the horizon. Edwards uses the sun as an example to explain the “great difference between God’s being concerned thus, by his permission…and his being concerned in it by producing it and exerting the act of sin.” [32] He argues that there is a big difference between God’s being the orderer of its certain existence, “by not hindering it,” and his being the proper actor or author of it, “by a positive agency or efficiency.” [33]
If the sun was the cause of cold and darkness, as Edwards explains, it would be the fountain of these things. But the sun cannot be the cause of cold and darkness just as it cannot be the fountain of them. In the same way, sin is not the result of any positive agency of God, but on the contrary, “arises from the withholding of his action and energy, and under certain circumstances.” [34]
The metaphor of the sun has a long history. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335/340-394), one of the three Cappadocians, endorsed the metaphor in An Address on Religious Instruction (Logos katēchētikos). [35] In section 5 of this address, Gregory of Nyssa asks, “If humanity is a work of God, how can humans fall? Is God the author or father of evil?” He argues that the evil of humanity in some way arises from within. The evil has its origin in the will of human beings when their soul withdraws from the good. He continues:
For as sight is an activity of nature and blindness is a privation of natural activity, so virtue is in this way opposed to vice. For the origin of evil is not otherwise to be conceived than as the absence of virtue. Just as darkness follows the removal of light and disappears in its presence, so, as long as goodness is present in a nature, evil is something nonexistent. But when there is a withdrawal from the good, its opposite arises. [36]In section 8, Gregory argues that as the privation of light engendered darkness, so the absence of virtue brought in wickedness. [37]
But does this illustration stand? Oliver Crisp avers that this analogy will not yield the result Edwards needs. He points out that “the sun, unlike God, is not a moral agent. If it were, then it would be the author of the resulting cold and dark, since it would be acting as a voluntary agent in bringing about the state of affairs where darkness obtains.” [38]
Edwards’s view, however, can be expounded in relation to the idea that evil is the privation of good. [39] When Edwards holds that God permitted Adam’s fall, he means that God withheld His positive efficiency from the event. Thus, his argument is still valid. The idea that evil is the privation of good can be found in Athanasius’s De incarnatione 4, where Athanasius argues that “what is evil is not, but what is good is.” Similarly, Gregory of Nyssa argues, “nonbeing is opposed to being” (section 6), and “evil gets its name from the absence of the good” (section 7). Augustine also argues that evil is not a reality, but only a privation of good (privatio boni). [40] In his Confessions, Augustine contends that evil has no “substance” or ultimate source of its own, but results from the distortion of the order and power given by God. Thus, to say that evil is merely a privation of good is to say that evil consists in a distorting of the God-given goodness. [41] Therefore, Edwards’s argument can be explained as follows: Adam’s fall results from the privation of God’s active efficiency and the distorting of Adam’s will.
Edwards’s Arguments In Relation With Medieval Theology
Similarity With Thomas
Medieval Catholic theologians are largely absent in Edwards’s theological books. Even though New England Puritans were accustomed to the scholastic method, the greatest scholastic theologian, Thomas Aquinas, appears nowhere in the “Catalogue” or the “Account Book.” [42] Edwards’s evaluation of medieval theologians is usually pejorative. When he criticizes the English lay deist writer Thomas Chubb, Edwards claims that “there is none more unintelligible, and void of distinct and consistent meaning, in all the writings of Duns Scotus, or Thomas Aquinas.” [43] Even though the expression is very radical, his note shows that Edwards read Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas. The 1742 catalogue of Yale Library includes the Summa Theologiae, and Solomon Stoddard is known to have owned several Thomistic works. Some modern scholars argue that there are close affinities between Edwards’s thought and that of Thomas. For example, Anri Morimoto contends that Edwards’s soteriology is a well-balanced combination of “Protestant Principle” (i.e., the Holy Spirit) and “Catholic Substance” (i.e., the new disposition). [44] He adds that the writings of Edwards “hardly show any effort to differentiate or contrast his thought to Roman Catholic understandings of salvation…. On Edwards’s theological horizon, Roman Catholicism did not present itself as something to be confronted or to be reconciled with.” [45] Thus, it will not be as surprising to find a similarity between Edwards and medieval theologians.
In fact, replying to the question of whether the supreme good, God, is the cause of evil, Thomas offers a very similar view with Edwards’s argument:
The effect of the deficient secondary cause is reduced to the first non-deficient cause as regards what it has of being and perfection, but not as regards what it has of defect; just as whatever there is of motion in the act of limping is caused by the motive power, whereas what there is of obliqueness in it does not come from the motive power, but from the curvature of the leg. And, likewise, whatever there is of being and action in a bad action, is reduced to God as the cause; whereas whatever defect is in it is not caused by God, but by the deficient secondary cause. [46]Thomas argues that the effect of the deficient secondary cause is reduced to the first non-deficient cause. However, he adds a limitation to the proposition. The proposition is applied to the results of being and perfection, but not to the results of defect. Thus, one can ascribe only perfection to the first non-deficient cause.
In order to attack Calvinists, Whitby argues, quoting from philosophers, that “in things necessary, the deficient cause must be reduced to the efficient” (causa deficiens, in rebus necessariis, ad causam per se efficientem reducenda est). [47] Whitby’s assertion is very similar to Thomas’s above-stated proposition. At one point, however, they differ. Whitby applies his assertion to the necessary cause regardless of the characteristic of the effect of the secondary cause. Contrarily, Thomas cautiously distinguishes the characteristic of the effect that the secondary cause brings about. Strikingly, Edwards’s argument follows the lines of Thomas.
Edwards contends that if Whitby’s argument is consistently applied, not only the Edwardsian Calvinistic doctrine of freedom of the will but also the Arminian doctrine has trouble in the issue of the authorship of sin. Edwards points out that some Arminians also allow God’s certain foreknowledge of all events making God the author of sin. [48] If they hold Whitby’s argument rigorously, the Arminians share a difficulty with Calvinists. [49]
In his Original Sin, Edwards himself evades the difficulty by differentiating the effects of the secondary causes. He assumes that when God created human beings, he implanted in them two kinds of principles. Edwards proceeds:
There was an inferior kind, which may be called natural, being the principles of mere human nature; such as self-love, with those natural appetites and passions, which belong to the nature of man, in which his love to his own liberty, honor and pleasure, were exercised: these when alone, and left to themselves, are what the Scriptures sometimes call flesh. Besides these, there were superior principles, that were spiritual, holy and divine, summarily comprehended in divine love; wherein consisted the spiritual image of God, and man’s righteousness and true holiness; which are called in Scripture the divine nature. These principles may, in some sense, be called supernatural…. [50]Edwards’s arguments are so nuanced that a careful analysis is worthwhile. First, Edwards divides two kinds of principles: natural and supernatural. The natural or inferior principles are related to human nature. The supernatural or superior principles are related to the work of God; they are an addendum, or a gift from God, to humanity. The supernatural principles “immediately depend on man’s union and communion with God, or divine communications and influences of God’s Spirit.” [51] If humans fail to communicate with God, their supernatural principles will be withdrawn. By contrast, the natural principles of human beings remain unmoved, even if they forsake their relationship with God. [52]
Second, Edwards presents a phenomenological explanation for the Fall. When human beings sinned and broke God’s covenant, these superior principles left their heart. [53] God then left them and communion with God, on which these principles depended, entirely ceased. The Holy Spirit forsook the house, so immediately the superior divine principles wholly discontinued. As light ceases in a room when the candle is withdrawn, thus humanity was left in a state of darkness. From that time, the inferior principles of self-love and natural appetite were left to themselves and became reigning principles without any superior principles to regulate them. They became absolute masters of the heart. This state of postlapsarian humanity, as Edwards puts, was “a fatal catastrophe.” [54]
Edwards argues, “These inferior principles are like fire in an house; which, we say, is a good servant, but a bad master.” [55] They became bad masters of humanity and are the origin of sin. He holds:
Thus ’tis easy to give an account, how total corruption of heart should follow on man’s eating the forbidden fruit, though that was but one act of sin, without God’s putting any evil into his heart, or implanting any bad principle, or infusing any corrupt taint, and so becoming the author of depravity. Only God’s withdrawing, as it was highly proper and necessary that he should, from rebel-man, being as it were driven away by his abominable wickedness, and men’s natural principles being left to themselves, this is sufficient to account for his becoming entirely corrupt, and bent on sinning against God. [56]Based on his distinction between the natural and supernatural principles, Edwards attempts to prove that God is not to blame for original sin. Edwards endorses his reasoning of the Freedom of the Will and develops the argument of the permission language. The author of sin is human beings, in whom the natural principles dominate.
Third, Edwards discloses the author of sin. He does not attribute Adam’s fall to God. The cause of Adam’s original sin is not God’s positive agency or efficiency, but the sole effect of the remaining natural principles. In his reasoning, Edwards follows Thomas’s proposition: “The effect of the deficient secondary cause is reduced to the first non-deficient cause as regards what it has of being and perfection, but not as regards what it has of defect.”
When he expounds on the Fall, Thomas argues that Adam sinned when the lower powers of his soul were not subject to his rational mind. [57] One can match Edwards’s natural/supernatural distinction with Thomas’s distinction of the lower powers and the rational mind. Thomas holds that the privation of the favor of God is not the cause of Adam’s sin but a punishment of his fault. As a result of Adam’s sin, a great rebellion of the carnal appetite against the reason followed. [58]
In fact, Thomas and Edwards’s idea has close affinity to Augustine’s view. In his On the Free Choice of the Will, Augustine maintains that even though every nature can become less good, it is still a good nature. The nature becomes less good when it undergoes corruption. If it is incorrupt, it remains good. [59] From a similar perspective, Edwards argues that the natural principles are good as long as they remain under the control of the supernatural; when they escape the dominion of the supernatural principles, they become the cause of corruption. Augustine argues that libido, which indicates the disorderly and perverse passion in human lower nature, is the sole ruling factor in every kind of wrongdoing. [60] It is notable that against the Stoics, Augustine defends the view that the passions (libido) in se are both good and necessary for humans. [61] The dominion of libido over human reason is the cause of sin.
To summarize, Edwards’s reasoning regarding the authorship of sin in Original Sin resembles Thomas’s account of the issue. Both distinguish between two kinds of principles in human nature, and argue that the distortion of the two caused the first sin of humanity. Both elaborate on the idea that God is not the author of sin. When Adam sinned, God was just withdrawing His favor or the supernatural principles. Both Edwards and Thomas stand with Augustine in the treatment of this issue. They claim that Adam sinned because his rational will became perverted. [62]
Similarity With Scotus
Scotus’s Lectura II. dist. 34-37, deals with the question: If God is the source of our factual existence, does this imply that He is also the author of sin? Scotus makes use of his doctrine of causality in this text to make clear that to “determine” is to be taken in a non- deterministic sense. [63]
Scotus distinguishes between three types of co-causality. The first is co-causality according to accidental ordering. For example, imagine two mules that are pulling a cart. Although neither mule is sufficient by itself to pull the cart, conceivably, an intensification of the power already present in one mule would enable it to pull the whole load by itself. This is due to accidental differences of quantity. The second type of co-causality is essentially ordered and participative. For instance, the hand moves the stick to move the ball: the stick cannot move unless it is moved by the hand. A first cause moves a second cause without the second cause being able to move itself. The third type of co-causality is essentially ordered “autonomous” causation. One example of this is a husband and a wife having children. This type is different from the first because a person will be not able, by some kind of intensification, to bring forth children by himself or herself alone. Both are needed. This type is different from the second type because an autonomous co-cause is not a participative co-cause. A man does not cause the causality of his wife in having children.
In his doctrine of freedom of the will, Eef Dekker argues that Scotus regards God and man as autonomous co-causes. When Adam ate the forbidden fruit, God was the co-cause of Adam’s volition. In other words, neither cause was the cause of the other; both co-causes were free and contingent. In his Lectura, Scotus argues:
God does not foreknow that this will happen unless he knows the determination of his will, as has been said in I (dist. 39, n. 64). But if the created will were the complete cause of its volition and of contingent human acts, to whichever extent God knew the determination of his [own] will, he would not know that that would happen. Proof of this: since this will not happen unless by a created will which is the complete cause, the created will is neither determined by the divine knowledge nor by his will. Therefore, if God knew a volition of the [human] will, he could be mistaken, for the will can have an opposite [volition], since God does not move the [human] will…. [64]Scotus contends that God’s determination of one component is not the complete causation of that component. Likewise, Adam was not the complete, autonomous cause of his own volition. When Adam sinned, God conserved the will in existence but let it have its own volition. Scotus maintains that creaturely volition, as the complete cause, would mean an infringement on divine foreknowledge.
Edwards’s argument is not as elaborate as that of the Subtle Doctor. However, when he expounds on the relationship between God’s sovereignty and human freedom, his account has some similar aspect with the argument of Scotus.
Therefore the sovereignty of God doubtless extends to this matter; especially considering, that if it should be supposed to be otherwise, and God should leave men’s volitions, and all moral events, to the determination and disposition of blind and unmeaning causes, or they should be left to happen perfectly without a cause; this would be no more consistent with liberty, in any notion of it, and particularly not in the Arminian notion of it, than if these events were subject to the disposal of divine providence, and the will of man were determined by circumstances which are ordered and disposed by divine wisdom; as appears by what has been already observed. But ’tis evident, that such a providential disposing and determining men’s moral actions, though it infers a moral necessity of those actions, yet it does not in the least infringe the real liberty of mankind; the only liberty that common sense teaches to be necessary to moral agency, which, as has been demonstrated, is not inconsistent with such necessity. [65]
Edwards argues that human freedom can coincide with God’s sovereignty. For him, common sense teaches that human beings as moral agents have freedom. Even though God’s sovereignty necessarily extends to Adam’s fall, Adam still had freedom of volition. Edwards is convinced that the notion of God’s sovereignty can be harmonized with the idea of human freedom.
Oliver Crisp argues that, as an occasionalist, Edwards cannot distinguish between permission and positive agency. He contends that Edwards believes God is the only causal agent. “If there are no real causes apart from God’s causal agency, then God’s permission of x cannot mean anything less than his bringing x to pass, since any agent other than God has no ability to act as a cause whatsoever.” [66]
However, his assumption about Edwards’s beliefs is incorrect. Edwards believes the following two statements are true at the same time: God is the ultimate cause of every event, and humans still have liberty for moral action. Edwards’s argument can be explained with Scotus’s notion of co-causality. Even though he argues that God is the ultimate cause, he does not mean that this ultimate cause is the complete causation of an event. Edwards leaves room for human liberty in moral action. In his sermon on Genesis 3:11, he emphasizes that before Adam committed sin, he possessed freedom. [67] Thus, Edwards, like Scotus, believes in co-causality in relation to the authorship of sin. When the conception of co-causality is applied to the Fall, God’s action was only to conserve the will of humanity to exist, but Adam’s action was sin of the will.
Edwards’s Arguments In Relation With Reformed Theology
Voluntas Dei
The most brilliant aspect of Edwards’s theodicy consists in his combining the Reformed view of voluntas Dei (the will of God) and the cross of Christ. Reformed and Post-Reformation theology produced a much nuanced and detailed discussion on the will of God. One of the deliberations is the distinction between the hidden will of God (voluntas arcane Dei) and the revealed will of God (voluntas revelata Dei). [68] According to early modern Reformed theology, God’s free will (voluntas libera Dei) is distinguished between the will of decree or good pleasure (voluntas decreti vel beneplaciti) and the will of the sign or precept (voluntas signi vel praecepti). The former is the ultimate, effective, and absolutely unsearchable will of God which underlies the revealed will of God (voluntas revelata Dei); it is also called the hidden or secret will of God (voluntas arcana Dei).
Reformed theologians argue that the hidden will of God, which irresistibly bestows special saving grace upon the elect, is more ultimate than the revealed will of God, which offers salvation to all by means of universal grace. The Reformed make the will of decree the ultimate, effective will of God. The will of the sign or precept is the revealed will of God as well as the moral will (voluntas moralis), according to which God reveals His plan for mankind both in the law and in the gospel. The distinction between the hidden and revealed will of God is noted by Calvin, Thomas Aquinas, and scholastic theologians. [69]
Edwards notes this distinction when he writes:
The consideration of these things may help us to a sufficient answer to the cavils of Arminians concerning what has been supposed by many Calvinists, of a distinction between a secret and revealed will of God, and their diversity one from the other; supposing, that the Calvinists herein ascribe inconsistent wills to the Most High: which is without any foundation. God’s secret and revealed will, or in other words, his disposing and preceptive will may be diverse, and exercised in dissimilar acts, the one in disapproving and opposing, the other in willing and determining, without any inconsistence. Because, although these dissimilar exercises of the divine will may in some respects relate to the same things, yet in strictness they have different and contrary objects, the one evil and the other good. [70]Edwards argues that the same event can be both evil and good. From the perspective of the revealed will of God, Adam’s sin is evil. It can, however, have a good purpose in the dimension of the secret will of God.
Edwards proves his proposition by offering the cross of Christ as an example. The crucifixion of Christ was contrary to the revealed or preceptive will of God; it was infinitely contrary to the holy nature of God and the holy inclination of His heart revealed in His law. [71] However, this did not hinder the crucifixion of Christ. Rather, within the view of divine omniscience, the Godhead considered it with all its glorious consequences. The cross of Christ appeared to God to be a glorious event, and consequently, it was agreeable to His secret will (voluntas arcana). Thus, Edwards concludes that “the crucifixion of Christ was not evil, but good.”
At this point, one could wonder whether God’s will is divided. Edwards replies as follows:
If the secret exercises of God’s will were of a kind that is dissimilar and contrary to his revealed will, respecting the same, or like objects; if the objects of both were good, or both evil; then indeed to ascribe contrary kinds of volition or inclination to God, respecting these objects, would be to ascribe an inconsistent will to God: but to ascribe to him different and opposite exercises of heart, respecting different objects, and objects contrary one to another, is so far from supposing God’s will to be inconsistent with itself, that it can’t be supposed consistent with itself any other way. For any being to have a will of choice respecting good, and at the same time a will of rejection and refusal respecting evil, is to be very consistent: but the contrary, viz. to have the same will towards these contrary objects, and to choose and love both good and evil at the same time, is to be very inconsistent. [72]Edwards does not think that God is inconsistent in His secret and revealed will. He argues that permitting sin differs from decreeing goodness. First, God decreed goodness for itself in His revealed will. Second, God permitted sin only because of its use for a further good in His secret will. Edwards contends that both the secret will and the revealed will of God are morally good. [73]
In the same vein, Edwards argues that evil itself is bad, but permitting evil for a good purpose can be good. He holds, “Men do will sin as sin, and so are the authors and actors of it.” [74] By contrast, God never wills sin as sin but decrees sin “for the sake of the great good.” [75] When God permits evil, He does so not because He wills evil as evil, but because He has a good purpose in His secret will. Edwards is convinced that Calvinists intended this idea in “their distinction of a secret and revealed will.” [76]
Edwards supports his reasoning with illustrations from Scripture. For example, God permitted Joseph’s brothers to sell him to Egypt. This event was evil with respect to their views and aims, “but it was a good thing, as it was an event of God’s ordering, and considered with respect to his views and aims which were good.” [77] Edwards holds that Joseph understood this when he told his brothers, “As for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good” (Gen. 50:20). Thus, the will, decree, or permission of God in this story is “not an immoral or unholy, but a perfectly holy act.” [78] Edwards argues that the crucifixion of Christ has the same connotation. For Christ’s murderers, His crucifixion is “the most horrid of all acts.” But considering it from the perspective of the will and decree of God, “it manifests the moral excellency of the Divine Being” as “the most admirable and glorious of all events.” [79]
It is worth noting that Edwards presents the crucifixion of Christ four times in order to warrant his argument regarding the authorship of sin. [80] Just as the Apostle Paul compared Adam and Christ in Romans 5:12-21, so Edwards offers the cross of Christ as proof in his treatment of Adam’s sin. Both cases were contrary to the revealed will of God, but they were decreed for a great purpose in the secret will of God. [81] Edwards masterfully combines the Reformed doctrine of the will of God with the event of Christ’s crucifixion. In Edwards’s argument, biblical exegesis and appropriation of the tradition complement each other in mutual dependence.
Causal Language
Medieval scholastics and Reformed theologians of the early modern era articulated the theory of causality when they expounded on the relationship between divine and human action. They held a basic four- fold schema of causality, as suggested by Aristotle. [82] The efficient cause (causa efficiens) is the productive agent of the motion or mutation in any sequence of causes and effects. The material cause (causa materialis) is the substantial basis of the motion or mutation of the matter (materia) on which the efficient cause operates. The formal cause (causa formalis) is the essence, or “whatness” (quidditas) of the thing, and is determinative of what the thing caused is to be. The final cause (causa finalis) is the ultimate purpose for which a thing is made or an act is performed. Reformed theologians applied this fourfold causality to the election of believers. Here the efficient cause is the good pleasure of God; the material cause is Christ; the formal cause is the preaching of the gospel; and the final cause is the praise and glory of God. This logic of causality was also used by the supralapsarians to argue against the infralapsarian position. According to supralapsarians, election and reprobation were considered ends, manifesting the final glory of God, standing prior in the order of the decrees to the establishment of creation and fall as means to those ends.
Early modern Reformed theologians also claimed that proximate causes would produce only proximate or closely related effects. Ultimate ends can be appointed only by the first cause. The realm of finite agents can produce only finite results and effects, whereas an infinite agent or cause (i.e., God) is needed for the ordination of ends or goals beyond the finite order.
Edwards seems to be familiar with causal language. In his Dissertation Concerning the End for Which God Created the World, he distinguishes between “ultimate end” and “chief end.” He argues that the only ultimate end of the creation of the world is “the glory of God.” [83] That said, Edwards concludes that the reason for God’s creation of the world was not human happiness but the magnification of His own glory and name.
In dealing with the authorship of sin, Edwards articulates the causality language. Whitby argues that “the doctrine of the necessity of men’s volitions, or their necessary connection with antecedent events and circumstances, makes the First Cause, and Supreme Orderer of all things, the author of sin.” [84] For Whitby, the Calvinistic doctrine of free will gives no room for theodicy because in it God has constituted the state and course of things so that sinful volitions become necessary as the consequences of humans’ disposal. Edwards, however, argues that Whitby mistook the Calvinistic doctrine by assuming it considers only the efficient cause in the issue, which he proves was not the case. [85]
Edwards has set in sharp relief the entire scheme of God’s decree. He introduces the final cause to untangle the issue, and repeatedly uses the phrases “considering all consequences” or “all things considered.” [86] Edwards argues that it is not inconsistent to suppose that God hates evil in itself but permits it, considering all consequences. [87] He argues that even the Arminians should accept the Calvinistic distinction between the secret and revealed will of God.
The Arminians themselves must be obliged, whether they will or no, to allow a distinction of God’s will, amounting to just the same thing that Calvinists intend by their distinction of a secret and revealed will. They must allow a distinction of those things which God thinks best should be, considering all circumstances and consequences, and so are agreeable to his disposing will, and those things which he loves, and are agreeable to his nature, in themselves considered. [88]
Edwards elaborates on the Reformed idea that the secret will of God is His will after considering all circumstances and consequences, and that the revealed will of God is His will about a specific action in itself considered.
Edwards summarizes Whitby’s reasoning as a sort of syllogism: (1) God is a perfectly happy Being; (2) He distances Himself from anything that is contrary to His happiness; (3) if God permitted sin, it would decrease His happiness; (4) thus, God cannot permit sin. Refuting Whitby’s assertion, Edwards points out that there should be a distinction between “God’s hatred of sin and his will with respect to the event and the existence of sin.” [89] If this distinction is annulled, Edwards argues that “it certainly follows, that the coming to pass of every individual act of sin is truly, all things considered, contrary to his will, and that his will is really crossed in it; and this in proportion as he hates it.” In other words, if one does not admit the distinction between God’s hatred of sin and His permission of sin, there is no room for the notion of final cause. That is why Edwards mentions Whitby’s lack in thinking of the efficient cause only. [90]
Edwards is convinced that God’s permission of sin and evil can be understood from the perspective of final cause.
We need not be afraid to affirm, that if a wise and good man knew with absolute certainty, it would be best, all things considered, that there should be such a thing as moral evil in the world, it would not be contrary to his wisdom and goodness, for him to choose that it should be so. ’Tis no evil desire, to desire good, and to desire that which, all things considered, is best. And it is no unwise choice, to choose that that should be, which it is best should be…. On the contrary, it would be a plain defect in wisdom and goodness, for him not to choose it…. If it would be a plain defect of wisdom and goodness in a being, not to choose that that should be, which he certainly knows it would, all things considered, be best should be (as was but now observed), then it must be impossible for a being who has no defect of wisdom and goodness, to do otherwise than choose it should be; and that, for this very reason, because he is perfectly wise and good…. If his will be good, and the object of his will be, all things considered, good and best, then the choosing or willing it is not willing evil that good may come. [91]
Edwards stresses the entire scheme of the decree of God in which He disposes evil. For him, God’s permission of Adam’s sin was a perfectly wise and holy decision because a perfectly wise and good Being can permit evil for a good purpose. Adam’s fall was an instrumental cause for the ultimate, holy purpose of God. [92] It would have been very unfit, unsuitable, and neglectful for God to act otherwise. [93]
Edwards’s view is actually the same as Calvin’s view. Calvin conceded that “God’s secret predestination” was responsible for Adam’s fall. [94] Augustine also holds that God is able to use evil to achieve a greater good. [95] Along these similar lines, Edwards was not hesitant to claim that Adam’s first sin, however evil, reflects the goodness of God by occasioning a much closer relationship between God and humanity through the cross of Christ. If humans had never fallen, they could not have known Christ’s salvific love. In his sermon, Edwards boldly asserts:
If man had never fallen, God would have remained man’s friend; he would have enjoyed God’s favor, and so would have been the object of Christ’s favor, as he would have had the favor of all the persons of the Trinity. But now Christ becoming our surety and Savior, and having taken on him our nature, occasions between Christ and us a union of a quite different kind, and a nearer relation than otherwise would have been. The fall is the occasion of Christ’s becoming our head, and the church his body…. There never would have been any such testimony of the love of God, if man had not fallen. Christ manifests his love, by coming into the world, and laying down his life. This is the greatest testimony of divine love that can be conceived…. Here will be a delightful theme for the saints to contemplate to all eternity which they never could have had, if man had never fallen, viz., the dying love of Christ. [96]Among all the things that Edwards considered, the dying love of Christ was the most important factor. Based on his “cross theodicy,” Edwards believes that Adam’s sin was the felix culpa (“fortunate fall”). [97]
Conclusion
Edwards’s arguments are summed up as follows: [1] When Adam sinned, God was not the author of sin. God permitted Adam’s sin; Adam had free will. [2] All the events in the universe are decreed by wisdom, not by chance. [3] Adam’s fall results from the privation of God’s active efficiency. [4] The perverted free choice of humanity is the cause of sin. [5] The effect of the secondary cause is reduced to the first cause in regards to being and perfection, but not in regards to defect. [6] The notion of co-causality admits both God’s preserving the existence of the will and Adam’s sinning. [7] In the revealed will of God, sin is not permitted. In the secret will of God, however, Adam’s sin is permitted. Both the first sin of Adam and the crucifixion of Christ are explained with the same logic. [8] Those who consider all things, especially the final cause of the Fall, can concede that it was decreed by God for a perfectly wise and holy purpose. [9] The Fall is the occasion of Christ’s becoming the head of believers. [10] Arminian arguments cannot solve this problem.
Edwards’s reasoning has a very close affinity with great Christian traditions: with Augustine in [1], [2], [3], [4], [8]; with Calvin in [1], [2]; with Athanasius/Gregory of Nyssa in [3], [4]; with Thomas in [4], [5]; with Scotus in [6]; and with Reformed theology in [7], [8]. The originality of Edwards shines in [9] and [10]. Many scholars argue that Edwards failed in this issue, but critics should remember that he attempted to solve the problem standing along the lines of the orthodox Christian tradition.
Edwards notes that evil does exist in the world and emphasizes that Scripture itself says that God permits evil, as is evidenced by Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, and, most of all, the cross of Christ. [98] God decreed Adam’s sin, but He is not blamable for it. Only human beings are accountable for their sin; they are the authors of sin. [99] This view of free will may be deterministic, but regarding the authorship of sin, Edwards was no determinist. This seeming inconsistency offers a crux to interpret his doctrine of free will from a new perspective.
Edwards’s strongest point in his theodicy is his emphasis on the cross of Christ. God allowed the Fall according to His perfectly wise and holy purpose. For Edwards, that perfectly wise and holy purpose was none other than the cross of Christ. Where God permitted sin, He permitted grace all the more. Edwards’s theodicy accents the grace of Christ’s cross as the final cause rather than God’s deterministic will as the first cause. Any who explore the cause of Adam’s sin are turned to the cross of Christ.
Notes
- Oliver Crisp, Jonathan Edwards and the Metaphysics of Sin (Burlington: Ashgate, 2005), 55, 71, 78, n. 56. Crisp argues that Edwards’s Calvinism involves a version of theological determinism. For Crisp, however, determinism means “that God determines all human actions, but that all humans are free to the extent that they are not prevented from or coerced into some action” (13). Some scholars regard this definition as that of compatibilism. Thus, even though Crisp contends that Edwards’s view is a version of theological determinism, it can also mean that Edwards’s view aligns with compatibilism. In his recent book, Crisp writes, “Edwardsian determinism is a species of compatibilism.” Oliver Crisp, Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 70. Thus, in his books, Crisp seems to think that one could be a theologically soft determinist and a compatibilist, and that soft determinism is just compatibilism. He speaks of Edwards as a theological determinist in this sense, not in the sense that requires hard determinism.
- Directly related literature is as follows: James Dana, The “Examination of the Late Rev’d President Edwards’s Enquiry on Freedom of the Will” Continued (New Haven: Thomas & Samuel Green, 1773); Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 229; Rufus Suter, “The Problem of Evil in the Philosophy of Jonathan Edwards,” The Monist 44 (1934): 280-95; Clyde A. Holbrook, “Editor’s Introduction,” Original Sin, by Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 3 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), 60-64; C. Samuel Storms, Tragedy in Eden: Original Sin in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1985); Alvin C. Plantinga, “On Ockham’s Way Out,” Faith and Philosophy 3, no. 3 (1986): 235-69; John H. Gerstner, The Rational Biblical Theology of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 2 (Powhatan, Va.: Berea Publications, 1991), 149ff; John Kearney, “Jonathan Edwards’ Account of Adam’s First Sin,” Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 15 (1997): 127-41; William J. Wainwright, “Theological Determinism and the Problem of Evil: Are Arminians Any Better Off?,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 50 (2001): 81-96; John Piper and Justin Taylor, eds., “The Will: Fettered Yet Free,” in A God Entranced Vision of All Things: The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2004), 201-20; Crisp, Jonathan Edwards and the Metaphysics of Sin, ch. 3; Michael J. McClymond and Gerald R. McDermott, “Free Will and Original Sin,” in The Theology of Jonathan Edwards (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 339-56. The following articles also touch on the issue: F. B. Sanborn, “The Puritanic Philosophy and Jonathan Edwards,” The Journal of Speculative Philosophy 17, no. 4 (1883): 401-21; Frederic I. Carpenter, “The Radicalism of Jonathan Edwards,” The New England Quarterly 4, no. 4 (1931): 629-44; Conrad Wright, “Edwards and the Arminians on the Freedom of the Will,” The Harvard Theological Review 35, no. 4 (1942): 241-61; Charles A. Rogers, “John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards,” Duke Divinity School Review 31, no. 1 (1966): 20-38; Allen C. Guelzo, “From Calvinist Metaphysics to Republican Theory: Jonathan Edwards and James Dana on Freedom of the Will,” Journal of the History of Ideas 56, no. 3 (1995): 399-418; Todd L. Adams, “Tappan vs. Edwards on the Freedom Necessary for Moral Responsibility,” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 40, no. 2 (2004): 319-33; Kathleen Verduin, “Dante’s Inferno, Jonathan Edwards, and New England Calvinism,” Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society, no. 123 (2005): 133-61; Sebastian Rehnman, “An Edwardsian Theodicy,” in Scholasticism Reformed: Essays in Honour of Willem J. Van Asselt, ed by. Maarten Wisse, Marcel Sarot, and Willemien Otten (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2010), 303-21; Richard A. Muller, “Jonathan Edwards and the Absence of Free Choice: A Parting of Ways in the Reformed Tradition,” Jonathan Edwards Studies 1, no. 1 (2011): 3-22. Hereafter, the Yale edition of the works of Jonathan Edwards is abbreviated as WJE.
- Kearney, “Jonathan Edwards’ Account of Adam’s First Sin,” 127.
- Dana, The “Examination of the Late Rev’d President Edwards’s Enquiry on Freedom of the Will” Continued, 59-60.
- Holbrook, “Editor’s Introduction,” in WJE 3:51.
- In his book, Tragedy in Eden, Storms writes, “God is most certainly the efficient and morally responsible cause of the transgression” (223).
- Samuel T. Logan Jr., “Book Review,” Westminster Theological Journal 48 (1986): 402.
- Gerstner, The Rational Biblical Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 2:322.
- Robert Kane, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 61; Plantinga, “On Ockham’s Way Out.” Plantinga’s article was reprinted in Thomas V. Morris, ed., The Concept of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 171-200.
- Paul Helm and Oliver D. Crisp, eds., Jonathan Edwards: Philosophical Theologian (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), xii. Wainwright supports the validity of Edwards’s criticism of the Arminians in this issue. Wainwright, “Theological Determinism and the Problem of Evil.” Crisp seems to agree with Wainwright at this point. Crisp, Jonathan Edwards and the Metaphysics of Sin, 58.
- Crisp, Jonathan Edwards and the Metaphysics of Sin, 64. Here, occasionalism means the metaphysical understanding that all things are directly created by God each moment.
- Oliver Crisp, “The Authorship of Sin,” in Jonathan Edwards and the Meta- physics of Sin (Burlington: Ashgate, 2005), 71.
- Crisp, “The Authorship of Sin,” 74. Crisp adds, “Of course, this is not to say that a species of theological compatibilism might not be able to overcome this problem; only that Edwards’s version appears not to be able to” (78, n. 56).
- Crisp, “The Authorship of Sin,” 56. Thus Crisp opts for a deterministic interpretation regarding Edwards’s theodicy. See note 1 of this essay.
- Kearney, “Jonathan Edwards’ Account of Adam’s First Sin,” 140.
- Kearney, “Jonathan Edwards’ Account of Adam’s First Sin,” 134.
- WJE 13:250.
- McClymond and McDermott, “Free Will and Original Sin,” 354. Emphasis theirs.
- For Edwards’s theological study and reading, see Jonathan Edwards, “Catalogues of Books,” WJE.
- The translation is mine. Except when noted otherwise, all English translations from the Greek and Latin texts in this essay are mine. For the Latin text and English translation of Augustine’s De libero arbitrio, see Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. 74 (Vienna: Tempsky, 1956); Augustine, The Teacher: The Free Choice of the Will: Grace and Free Will, trans. Robert P. Russell, Fathers of the Church, vol. 59 (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1968).
- Augustine, The Teacher: The Free Choice of the Will: Grace and Free Will, 181.
- Jonathan Edwards, Freedom of the Will, ed. Perry Miller, WJE 1:399, author’s emphasis.
- WJE 1:399.
- Augustine, The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love, trans. Henry Paolucci (South Bend: Regnery/Gateway, 1961), ch. 95.
- Augustine, The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love, ch. 96.
- Thomas Aquinas also concedes that God is the author of sin in two senses: when a relative defect of things depends on God and when God wills death as a penalty of sinners. See Summa Theologiae, I, Q 49. Thomas’s view, however, seems to have nothing to do with that of Edwards regarding this issue.
- WJE 1:405.
- WJE 1:405.
- Cf. McClymond and McDermott, “Free Will and Original Sin,” 356; WJE 1:405, 410.
- WJE 26:65. It is notable that actual mentions of Augustine are rare in Edwards’s works. In fact, Calvin himself did not like the permission language. Francis Turretin (1623-1687), however, defends Calvin against Bellarmine. He argues that Calvin never contended that God is the author of sin, and that he rightly understood the ways in which God permits evil to occur and uses the wicked as His instruments. For Turretin, Calvin’s denials of God’s permission are denials only of an unwilling or “idle permission” (otiosa permissio). Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed. James T. Dennison (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R Publishing, 1992), 6.8.8 (auctor peccati), 10 (otiosa permissio), 11, 13, 14; Richard A. Muller, “Reception and Response: Referencing and Understanding Calvin in Seventeenth-Century Calvinism,” in Calvin and His Influence, 1509-2009 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 193. Cf. Calvin, Institutes, 3.23.8. Bullinger, Vermigli, Beza, and Perkins also used the permission language regarding Adam’s fall. Richard A. Muller, Christ and the Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology from Calvin to Perkins (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 39-47 (Bullinger), 57-67 (Vermigli), 86 (Beza), 162 (Perkins).
- WJE 1:404.
- WJE 1:403, author’s emphasis.
- WJE 1:403, author’s emphasis.
- WJE 1:404.
- For the Greek text and translation, see E. Mühlenberg ed., Discours Catéchétique, Sources Chrétiennes 453 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2000); C. Richardson’s translation in Edward Rochie Hardy, Christology of the Later Fathers (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1954), 268-325.
- Hardy, Christology of the Later Fathers, 278.
- Hardy, Christology of the Later Fathers, 286.
- Crisp, “The Authorship of Sin,” 64.
- From this perspective, Sebastian Rehnman argues that the theodicy of Edwards is not a consequentialism. He writes that “[for Edwards] there is no such thing as evil or badness; only the lack of goodness in evil things.” Rehnman, “An Edwardsian Theodicy,” 318-21, cited from 321.
- This idea can be traced back to Platonism. Plato and subsequent philosophers had depicted evil as a privation because, as Plato put it, “no one does wrong on purpose” (Hippias minor, 376b). See Allan Fitzgerald, ed., Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 208, 656.
- Fitzgerald, Augustine through the Ages, 97, 199.
- WJE 26:63.
- WJE 1:228.
- Anri Morimoto, Jonathan Edwards and the Catholic Vision of Salvation (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), 8.
- Morimoto, Jonathan Edwards and the Catholic Vision of Salvation, 9.
- Summa Theologiae, I, Q.49, A.2. With some alterations to bring the text closer to the Latin, Thomas’ Summa Theologiae will be cited according to Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Bros., 1948).
- WJE 1:397, 404. Edwards cited from Whitby, Discourse on the Five Points, Dis. IV, ch. 1, no. 4, 486.
- WJE 1:398.
- WJE 1:399.
- WJE 3:381, author’s emphasis.
- WJE 3:382.
- WJE 3:382.
- WJE 3:382. Edwards describes the prelapsarian relationship between God and humans as a “covenant.” He endorses, like the Westminster Confession, the distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. See WJE 8:346.
- WJE 3:382.
- WJE 3:382-83.
- WJE 3:383, author’s emphasis. This argument is similar to that of God’s “giving over” in Romans 1:24, 26, 28.
- Thomas, Summa Theologiae, II–II, q.164, ad 1.
- Thomas, Summa Theologiae, II–II, q.164, ad 1.
- Augustine, The Teacher: The Free Choice of the Will: Grace and Free Will, 199-200.
- Augustine, The Teacher: The Free Choice of the Will: Grace and Free Will, 78.
- Augustine, The Teacher: The Free Choice of the Will: Grace and Free Will, 78 n. 1. See Augustine, The City of God (De Civitate Dei), XIV.viii–ix.
- Kearney, “Jonathan Edwards’ Account of Adam’s First Sin,” 134.
- For the following interpretation of Scotus, I referred to Eef Dekker, “Does Duns Scotus Need Molina? On Divine Foreknowledge and Co-causality,” in John Duns Scotus: Renewal of Philosophy: Acts of the Third Symposium Organized by the Dutch Society for Medieval Philosophy Medium Aevum (May 23 & 24 1996), ed. Egbert P. Bos (Atlanta, Ga.: Rodopi, 1998), 105-6.
- Scotus, Lectura II, dist. 34-37, n. 129. Cited from Dekker, “Does Duns Scotus Need Molina? On Divine Foreknowledge and Co-causality,” 106.
- WJE 1:405-6, emphasis mine.
- Crisp, “The Authorship of Sin,” 64.
- Sermon #504. Gen. 3:11 from February 1738. Cited from WJE online, vol. 54.
- For the distinction and definition of the will of God, see Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn from Principally Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1985), 331-32; Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725 (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2006), 3:432-75.
- Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, 331-32; Crisp, “The Authorship of Sin,” 56.
- WJE 1:406-7, author’s emphasis. Here one can recognize that Edwards uses the word “disposing” to signify the divine “decree.” Thus, for Edwards, “disposal” means “decree” in this context (WJE 1:406).
- WJE 1:407.
- WJE 1:407, author’s emphasis.
- For a different explanation, see McClymond and McDermott, “Free Will and Original Sin,” 354-55. They write, “[For Edwards] there was a difference in purpose between permitting sin and decreeing goodness. The first God decreed only because of its use for a further good, while the second he decreed for itself. Morally, the two kinds of decrees were also distinct. The first was a violation of his moral will, while the second was a fulfillment of that will. These distinctions may seem obvious, but for Edwards and other philosophical theologians they are critical to a nuanced understanding of God’s ways and purposes.” (Authors’ italics; bolds mine) It should be noted, however, that Edwards himself does not think that God’s permitting sin is a violation of his moral will (WJE 1:407, cf. 406, 411-12).
- WJE 1:408.
- WJE 1:409.
- WJE 1:409.
- WJE 1:406.
- WJE 1:406.
- WJE 1:406.
- WJE 1:398-99, 402-3, 406-7, 412.
- WJE 1:406-7.
- For the distinction and definition of the four causes, I referred to Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, 61-62; Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 3:465-73.
- WJE 8:526-27.
- WJE 1:397.
- WJE 1:398.
- WJE 1:407 (“considering all consequences”), 409 (“considering all circumstances and consequences”), 410 (“all things considered”), 411 (“all things considered”).
- WJE 1:407.
- WJE 1:409, author’s emphasis in first sentence; my emphasis in second sentence.
- WJE 1:409-10.
- WJE 1:398.
- WJE 1:411-12, emphasis mine.
- Richard Muller defines the instrumental cause (causa instrumentalis) as “the means, or medium, used to bring about a desired effect.” Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, 62.
- WJE 1:405.
- Calvin, Institutes, 1.15.8. Calvin also contends that the first man sinned because God did not give Adam “constancy to persevere.”
- On the Free Choice of the Will, III.ix.28. Augustine argues that Christ took the mortal character of humans so that He might liberate them from sin.
- Edwards, “Wisdom Displayed in Salvation,” reprinted in The Works of President Edwards, vol. IV (New York: Robert Carter & Bros., 1881), 154-55. Cited from Kearney, “Jonathan Edwards’ Account of Adam’s First Sin,” 141.
- I coined the term “cross theodicy” to emphasize the main characteristic of Edwards’s theodicy. Alvin Plantinga presents a very similar argument of theodicy. See Alvin Plantinga, “Supralapsarianism or ‘O Felix Culpa,’” in Christian Faith and the Problem of Evil, ed. Peter Van Inwagen (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 1-25; Kearney, “Jonathan Edwards’ Account of Adam’s First Sin,” 140-41. Plantinga argues that Augustine also endorses the greater good argument. He writes, “Augustine tries to tell us what God’s reason is for permitting evil. At bottom, he says, it’s that God can create a more perfect universe by permitting evil. A really top-notch universe requires the existence of free, rational, and moral agents; and some of the free creatures He created went wrong. But the universe with the free creatures it contains and the evil they commit is better than it would have been had it contained neither the free creatures nor this evil” (Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil, 27). The Latin expression felix culpa is derived from Augustine’s writing: “God judged it better to bring good out of evil, than to allow no evil to exist” (Enchiridion, xxvii). The phrase in its exact form appears in the Paschal candle: “O felix culpa quae talem et tantum meruit habere redemptorem” (O happy fault that merited such and so great a Redeemer). Thomas Aquinas cited this expression when he explained the principle that “God allows evils to happen in order to bring a greater good therefrom” (Summa Theologiae, III, q.1, a.3, ad 3). Yet, the greater good argument of Edwards should not be misunderstood as a consequentialism. See Rehnman, “An Edwardsian Theodicy,” 318-21.
- WJE 1:400-403.
- WJE 1:408.
