The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nathan Dilliner

REL 319: 18th Century Theology

Prof. Don Westblade

May 1, 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the 18th century, the doctrine of the Trinity in the Christian church faced threats proportionate to those found in Arianism in the time of Augustine. Unitarianism was seeping into the American church from English Enlightenment influence, and the vital concern to uphold the authority of Scripture within the Protestant church spawned the criticism that was held toward Trinitarian theology. Such reformers as Calvin and Zwingli merely adopted the creedal language to describe the perichoresis but ceased to develop it further or add a scriptural basis for the divine oneness.[1] In the early reformation, accepting and encouraging the doctrine of the Trinity laid out by the church fathers was typical, but growing pockets of European Christians began questioning the authority on which this doctrine was truly based. They called for consistency of Sola Scriptura in all spheres of doctrine, including the Trinity. H. John McLachlan wrote on this rising sentiment saying, “The rejection of scholastic theology and attachment to a purely scriptural basis of belief is characteristic of all who in the seventeenth century made their protest against the accepted doctrines of the Trinity and the atonement.”[2]

            Despite coming under its heaviest attack after Edwards’s death, even New England was affected by the tide of English antitrinitarianism. Jonathan Mayhew, a contemporary preacher of Edwards and a famed liberal, stoutly proclaimed to Massachusetts church leaders that “my Bible saith not… that there is any other true God, besides ‘[Jesus’] Father and our Father, his God and our God.’”[3] The rising Unitarian and antitrinitarian doctrine was a growing concern for Edwards. He faced an oncoming storm of heresy through the American church and was thus compelled to lay out the doctrine of the Trinity so that it not only conformed to Scripture, like that of Calvin but was planted in and built upon the Holy Word.

            Edwards’s assessment of Scripture and its presentation of the Trinity rested on two central tenets. His understanding of the necessity of the Trinity was rooted in his theory of excellence, while his philosophical idealism influenced the construction of that Trinity. In his essay on “The Mind,” Edwards wrote,

This is an universal definition of excellency: The consent of being to being, or being’s consent to excellency…. One alone, without any reference to any more, cannot be excellent; for in such case there can be no manner of relation no way, and therefore, no such thing as consent…. But in a being that is absolutely without plurality there cannot be excellency, for there can be no such thing as agreement. [4]

 

To Edwards, relational ontology was core to his trinitarianism. There must be plurality in God; otherwise, there could be no consent. It is observable that God is excellent, and thus, He must contain plurality.

            Edwards uses this theory of excellence as the driving force in his exposition of the Trinity. Here his philosophical idealism defines the structure of the plurality and the relation between the Persons within. Edwards asserts that if there is an idea of a non-material substance, that substance subsequently comes into existence. Moreover, such is the nature of the relationship between the Father and the Son. His doctrine of the Father and the Son relies on his idealism to warrant the eternal process which occurs to beget the Son.

            In An Unpublished Essay on the Trinity, Edwards sets up his entire argument by establishing the source of God’s happiness, Himself. He writes that the Divine happiness is found in “the enjoyment of Himself, in perfectly beholding and infinitely loving, and rejoicing in, His own essence and perfection…” [5] He immediately uses this definition to justify the necessity of a “perpetually and eternally” perfect idea of Himself in which He enjoys. That idea is entirely and perfectly Himself and is of the same essence and divinity as the Father. Edwards argues that this essence is the second Person of the Trinity, the Son. Edwards’ argument for the eternal generation of the Son is bold in its use of conception causing existence. This idealism, together with his theory of excellence, is the basis for the ontological argument he presents of the Trinity. He summarizes by saying, “If God has an idea of Himself, there really is duplicity; because if there is no duplicity, it will follow that Jehovah thinks of Himself no more than a stone.”[6]

 Edwards argues that there can be no other explanation of the Trinity that can agree more with Scripture and its account of “the Son of God, His being in the form of God, and His express and perfect image and presentation.”[7] He presents two primary texts to support his argument. First, II Cor. 4:4, “Lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ Who is the image of God should shine unto them.” and second, Phil. 2:6, “Who being in the form of God did not find it robbery to be equal with God.” Together the verses, Edwards argues, may present the imagery of a mirror into which the Father eternally looks, and it is the form of the Son that appears to the Father. To Edwards, II Cor. 4:4 and I Cor. 1:24 present two distinct but inseparable attributes of the second Person of the Trinity. First, the Son is the image of God the Father. Second, the Son is wisdom and knowledge of the Father. Together these texts present the logical conclusion that the knowledge of the Father is the very image of Himself.[8] God’s knowledge of Himself is the eternal conception of the image of Himself, the Son.

Edwards then distinguishes the Holy Spirit as the Love that the Divine essence thereby subsists. He presents first 1 John 4:8 “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” He pairs this with 1 John 4:12-13, “if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us,” and “By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.” It follows then that this Love which dwells within the believer is the Spirit and that the Spirit ultimately is the Father’s Love. 1 John 3:23-24 reinforces this view: the indwelling of Love is a reliable sign the Spirit is present in the believer.[9] Edwards believes it worth noting that the term “spirit” throughout Scripture often means “disposition, inclination or temper of the mind.” So when the Spirit of God is discussed in Scripture, it may be interpreted as the temper of the divine Mind, which is Love. This also is God’s perfect Love for His image, the Son. To Edwards, the Love that binds Christians to each other and God is the same Love that unites the Father to His Son. Edwards succinctly presents his doctrine as such,

And this I suppose to be that blessed Trinity that we read of in the Holy Scriptures. The Father is the Deity subsisting in the prime, unoriginated and most absolute manner, or the Deity in its direct existence. The Son is the Deity generated by God’s understanding, or having an idea of himself, and subsisting in that idea. The Holy Ghost is the Deity subsisting in act or the divine essence flowing out and breathing forth, in God’s infinite Love to and delight in himself. And I believe the whole divine essence does truly and distinctly subsist both in the divine idea and divine Love, and that therefore each of them are properly distinct persons.[10]

 

The Persons of the Trinity are distinct in their roles but equal in essence and honour, and by the plurality, they are found excellent in the Trinity.

Jonathan Edwards’s approach to the Trinity through philosophical idealism and his theory of excellence, though not contrary, is relatively unprecedented to the church fathers before him. Describing the Son as the idea that the Father has of Himself does not break the boundaries of orthodoxy but finds itself controversial among many Bible scholars. Three issues have been posited regarding this approach, two of which are identified by Paul Helm regarding Edwards’s philosophical idealism. First, Edwards’s theory falls short of deducing Trinity and finds itself inherently tri-theistic: “If a perfect idea of x entails that x exists then Edwards’s has proved too much—not the second person of a trinity of person but a second theos.”[11] Helm argues that Edwards’s claim that the Father’s perfect idea of the Son generates the Son implies that a second God is generated rather than a person within God. Second, if such is the case, then philosophical idealism ultimately leads to the generation of an infinite number of divinities. Ralph Cunnington writes, “It is not clear why the Father’s perfect idea of Himself generates a second person while the Son’s perfect idea of Himself does not. Edwards’s argument that the Son is Himself the essence of the Father and therefore His idea is of Himself does not follow since exactly the same could be said about the Father’s perfect idea of Himself—after all they are both of the same divine essence.”[12]

            In approaching Edwards’s doctrine of the Trinity, it is necessary to look deeper at Edwards’s philosophical idealism applied to the Father. Helm argues that the very idea of the Son generates a second being divorced from the true essence and figure of God the Father—a second God altogether. However, Edwards does not argue in favour of the Father’s idea of the Son but instead of the Father’s idea of Himself and, thus, the generation of the Son. The seemingly subtle distinction divides the Son from being a second God and being a second person. By being expressly the idea the Father has of Himself, the Son is of the same essence. Edwards himself reaffirms that the Son “is another infinite, eternal, almighty, and most holy and the same God, the very same divine essence.”[13]

            The notion that it follows from Edwards’s idealism that the Son, being of the same essence as the Father, ought to look at Himself and form another person just as the Father does ignores a fundamental part of Edwards’s doctrine on the Trinity altogether. Namely, if the Father looks at Himself and sees Himself in the form and Person of the Son, thereby eternally begetting the second Person of the Trinity in the same perfect essence, then when the Son sees Himself, what He sees is the Father. The Son does not generate another person by His self-aware nature but instead sees the Person from which was begotten. Father looks upon Himself and sees the Son, the Son looks upon Himself and sees the Father, for He truly is the image of God and at the same time one with Him. Edwards writes, “After you have in your imagination multiplied understandings and love never so often, it will be the understanding and loving of the very same essence, and you can never make more than these three: God, the idea of God, and the love of God.”[14] The Son’s idea of Himself is the Father who has begotten Him.

            This third Person of Jonathan Edwards’s Trinity has also found itself controversial. Edwards wrote his doctrines in a climate of growing antitrinitarianism and, as such, was keen to emphasize the personhood of the third Person of the Trinity. The difficulty, however, was to give distinct deity to the Holy Spirit when Edwards’s definition found Him to be the Person of God in act. As Cunnington points out, “His understanding of the Holy Spirit as the bond of love between the Father and the Son or ‘the personal energy… divine love and delight [that] proceeds from both’ presented difficulties here because it gives the impression that the Spirit is an abstract quality rather than a distinct person.”[15] G.T. Shedd’s point that “no psychology, ancient or modern, has ever maintained that the agencies of a spiritual entity or substance are themselves spiritual entity or substances.”[16] expresses Edwards’s most significant difficulty to overcome in his argument, especially considering two-thirds of his Discourse of the Trinity is devoted to the Person of the Holy Spirit.

            Edwards foresees this criticism in his Discourse: “One principle objection that I can think of against what has been supposed is concerning the personality of the Holy Ghost, that this scheme of things don’t seem well to consist with that, [that] a person is that which hath understanding and will.” He offers two primary explanations. The first is a comparison between the human will and God’s will. Man’s will cannot be said to be the same as the understanding included in it. In God’s will, however, it “may truly and properly [be] said so in God by reason of God’s infinitely more perfect manner of acting.”[17] Here, Cunnington makes an important point, “It is unclear why the perfection of an action renders that action a substance or infuses it with personality… If Edwards’s response is simply that God’s manner of acting is completely unlike our, then the analogy is rendered nugatory”[18] Further, Edwards rightfully concludes his explanation of the Holy Spirit by explaining that he does not “pretend to fully explain how these things are” or to present “the Trinity so as to render it no longer a mystery.”[19] But, as Cunnington points out, this conclusion does not justify the mysterious missing links in Edwards’s doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

            The final objection raised against Edwards and all who try to dive into understanding the Trinity and setting it forth in human terms is that such explanations can have inherent dangers and may be deficient and misleading. Theologians such as Augustine were very fond and prone to using such examples as the sun for describing in simple terms the Trinity. The Father, being the head of the Trinity, is the substance of the sun, the Son is its brightness, and the Spirit is its rays. However, such an analogy may be taken to understand that only the Father has substance and exists in actual presence—the brightness and rays are entailed in the sun, but they are not distinct from it, merely aspects of it. To say this would void all personhood of the second and third Persons of the Trinity. For this reason, Gregory of Nazianzus writes, “I resolved this is best to say ‘goodbye’ to images and shadows, deceptive and utterly inadequate as they are to express the reality.”[20]

Edwards and Augustine, however, do not set forth such analogies to be held as infallible doctrines. They are meant to explain particular aspects of the Trinity. Just as any metaphor will break down, so will any Trinitarian analogy be found lacking at a certain point, but this does not prevent the theologian from using metaphors or analogies. Augustine’s use of the sun was to illustrate the eternal nature of the Son. The brightness is borne by the sun, and the rays proceed from both, but there was never a time when there was the sun, and there was not the brightness. So too, there was never the Father without the Son. The analogy may fail to represent the substance of all three persons, but that was never the purpose of the metaphor in the first place. The same argument has been posed against Edwards’s analogy of the mind, understanding, and Love. The mind is the only substantial element of the three, but in discussing this analogy, Edwards makes no mention of substance, only of relation. These analogies must be taken in the context of the lesson they seek to put forth. Edwards’s ontological argument was not based on the analogy he presented but on the Scripture that he incorporated into his arguments.

The doctrine of the Trinity that Edwards fleshes out in his works was intended to bolster the orthodox church in its defense of the oneness of God. Even with its flaws in reconciling the nature of activity and the personhood of the Holy Spirit, this defense remains a strong observation of the relationship between the persons of the Trinity and their relation to creation. For Edwards, the Trinity plays a central role in the Gospel and the salvation of men.[21] He writes, “When man was first created, there was a consultation among the persons of the Trinity… So it is in the work of redemption.” The covenant of grace between the Father and the Son is evidence of the Love that God has for creation, this Love being the Holy Spirit. And through the Love of the Spirit towards His creation, God’s ultimate desire to bring glory to Himself is met through this insurmountable work of grace. For this reason, Edwards fiercely and with Scripture on his side defends the doctrine of the triune God.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

Amy Plantinga Pauw. 2002. The Supreme Harmony of All : The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards. Grand Rapids (Mich.): W.B. Eerdmans.

Cunnington, Ralph . n.d. “A Critical Examination of Jonathan Edwards’s Doctrine of the Trinity.” The Gospel Coalition 39 (2). Accessed May 1, 2023.

Edwards, Jonathan. 1994a. Discourse on the Trinity. Thomas A. Schafer. Vol. 13. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

———. 1994b. Miscellany 94. The Works of Jonathan Edwards. Vol. 13. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Edwards, Jonathan . 1980. “‘The Mind’ in the Works of Jonathan Edwards.” Scientific and Philosophical Writings 6: 336–37.

Edwards, Jonathan, and George Park Fisher. 1903. An Unpublished Essay of Edwards on the Trinity.

Edwards, Jonathan, and Paul Helm. 1988. Treatise on Grace. James Clarke Company.

Gregorios Av Nazianzos, Helgon, and Lionel Wickham. 2002. On God and Christ : The Five Theological Orations and Two Letters to Cledonius. Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.

Herbert John Mclachlan. 1951. Socinianism in Seventeenth Century England. London: Oxford University Press.

Mayhew, Jonathan. 2012. Sermons upon the Following Subjects. Hardpress Publishing.

Shedd, G.T. 1892. Lectures on the History of Philosophy. Scholar Select.

 


[1]  Amy Plantinga Pauw. The Supreme Harmony of All : The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards. Grand Rapids (Mich.), W.B. Eerdmans, 2002.

[2]  Herbert John Mclachlan. 1951. Socinianism in Seventeenth Century England. London: Oxford University Press.

[3]  Mayhew, Jonathan. 1755. Sermons upon the Following Subjects. Hardpress Publishing.

[4]  Edwards, Jonathan . 1980. “‘The Mind’ in the Works of Jonathan Edwards.” Scientific and Philosophical Writings 6: 336–37.

[5]  Edwards, Jonathan, and George Park Fisher. 1903. “An Unpublished Essay of Edwards on the Trinity.”

[6] Edwards, Jonathan. 1994. Miscellany 94. The Works of Jonathan Edwards. Vol. 13. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

[7]  Edwards, Jonathan “An Unpublished Essay on the Trinity.”

[8]  Edwards holds the term “idea”which he uses to describe the conception of the Son to be synonymous with the term “knowledge” that is presented throughout the New Testament. He further fleshes this out in his work “The Mind” in which he asserts that God the Father is the Mind, the Son is the knowledge, and the Spirit is the love.

[9]  Edwards presents six other verses to support his view that the Spirit of God is the same as the love that Christians have for each other. (Phil. 2:1, II Cor. 6:6, Romans 15:30, Col. 1:8, Rom. 5:5, Gal. 5:13-16)

[10]  Edwards, Jonathan. 1994a. “Discourse on the Trinity.” Thomas A. Schafer. Vol. 13. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. p135

[11]  Edwards, Jonathan, and Paul Helm. 1988. Treatise on Grace. James Clarke Company.

[12]  Cunnington, Ralph . n.d. “A Critical Examination of Jonathan Edwards’s Doctrine of the Trinity.” The Gospel Coalition 39 (2)

[13]  Edwards, Jonathan. 1994a. “Discourse on the Trinity.” Thomas A. Schafer. Vol. 13. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. p131

[14]  Edwards, Jonathan. Msc. 308, 393

[15]  Cunnington, Ralph . n.d. “A Critical Examination of Jonathan Edwards’s Doctrine of the Trinity.” The Gospel Coalition 39 (2)

[16]  Shedd, G.T. 1892. Lectures on the History of Philosophy. Scholar Select.

[17]  Edwards, Jonathan. 1994a. “Discourse on the Trinity.” Thomas A. Schafer. Vol. 13. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

[18]  Cunnington, Ralph . n.d. “A Critical Examination”

[19]  Edwards, Jonathan. “Discourse on the Trinity.”

[20]  Gregorios Av Nazianzos, Helgon, and Lionel Wickham. 2002. On God and Christ : The Five Theological Orations and Two Letters to Cledonius. Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.

[21]   Amy Plantinga Pauw. The Supreme Harmony of All : The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards. Grand Rapids (Mich.), W.B. Eerdmans, 2002.