Renewing Spiritual Perception with Jonathan Edwards

Contemporary Philosophy and the Theological Psychology of Transforming Grace

Ray S. Yeo

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317066217
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Religion

Jonathan Edwards' theologically sophisticated psychology of grace remains one of the deepest and most fertile theological psychologies in the Protestant tradition. The heart of his account lies in his foundational doctrine of spiritual perception where he locates the psychological core of the engraced Christian life. This work revisits Edwards' doctrine from the perspective of recent work in the philosophy of emotions and other related philosophical sub-disciplines. The aim is to recover this often neglected theme in contemporary theology and renew it by bringing Edwards' theological insights into conversation with various spheres of contemporary philosophical discussion. The account of spiritual perception that emerges from this interdisciplinary dialogue is one that seeks to revise, update and deepen Edwards' own thinking on the matter in five major ways. The book concludes by arguing that the capacity for spiritual and emotional perception of the supreme good is grounded upon a wisdom-like seminal virtue centred upon the incarnate Christ (i.e., Christocentric wisdom). Such wisdom, on the renewed account, is considered the psychological core of transforming grace and the foundational basis upon which all other Christian virtues are formed.

1 Renewing Jonathan Edwards’ theory of spiritual perception

Locating the topic of the study

Purpose

Central to the thought of Jonathan Edwards is his theologically sophisticated psychology of grace or what is sometimes called his “religious psychology of the heart”.^{1, 2} Discussion of this important subject can be found not only in his famous Treatise Concerning Religious Affections but also throughout his vast corpus of writings, including his sermons and Miscellanies entries. Edwards’ understanding of the psychological functioning of grace may not be entirely original; much of what he says can be found in some form in his Puritan and Protestant predecessors.³ Nevertheless, his treatment of the subject is unsurpassed in the Puritan literature in terms of the level of precision, thoroughness and systematic sophistication.⁴ Hence, it remains one of the deepest and most fecund theological psychologies of grace in the Protestant tradition. The heart of his account comes down to his theory of spiritual perception where he locates the core and source of the engraced Christian life and true virtue.⁵

Edwards’ conception of spiritual perception has been enormously influential historically. It was observed by John E. Smith that “no idea in all of Edwards’ works is more original and no doctrine was more far reaching in its influence upon the course of Puritan piety.”⁶ However, despite its theological fecundity and influence, his account is nevertheless close to three hundred years old and is hence unable to benefit from the insights gained from contemporary research in philosophical psychology, especially the influx of interest in the philosophy of emotions in the last thirty years.

The aim of this monograph is to revisit Edwards’ theory of spiritual perception from the perspective of recent developments in the philosophy of emotions and other related philosophical sub-disciplines with the purpose of providing a renewed and updated account of spiritual perception. The intention here is not to merely retrieve or present an aspect of Edwards’ theology for the world today. By ‘renewing’ spiritual perception, I mean to present a contemporary conception of spiritual perception by updating, deepening, expanding and even correcting aspects of Edwards’ original theory. The resultant account may not be strictly Edwardsean⁷ in nature, nor does it promise to be one that Edwards would have endorsed. The study is hence not an exercise in historical theology but an attempt at a constructive proposal for a contemporary understanding of spiritual perception that brings together the insights of recent research and the characteristic features of Edwards’ original account. The eventual aspiration of the book is to articulate a contemporary theological psychology of spiritual perception that could help us better understand the philosophical, psychological and theological nature of transforming grace.⁸

Motivation

Having located the subject of our study, perhaps it is appropriate to explain what the motivation behind the project is. Despite the recent dramatic growth of scholarly interest in the separate fields of Jonathan Edwards’ studies and the philosophy of emotions, there has been little attempt to bring the two discussions together for a deeper understanding of spiritual perception in contemporary scholarship. While there have been a sizable number of historical studies on Edwards’ theory of spiritual perception and a handful of works on Edwardsean spiritual perception and modern epistemology, there has been no major book-length attempt to significantly update, revise or deepen Edwards’ original theory in light of developments in contemporary philosophy of emotions.⁹

Mark Talbot’s article-length essay “Godly Emotions” perhaps comes the closest to the aims of this monograph.¹⁰ In the essay, Talbot attempts to further develop Edwards’ notion of religious affections by explaining the relationship between beliefs, concerns and emotions. In this way, he is trying to expand upon Edwards’ account of spiritual perception by integrating it into a psychological model based loosely upon Robert Roberts’ recent work on the emotions. However, even then, Talbot’s essay remains limited in scope and depth. The integrative work with contemporary insights remains largely superficial and is only three pages long. Moreover, the understanding of the emotions presented lacks the sophistication of Roberts’ own account. Talbot actually misunderstood Roberts’ conception of the emotions and views them as “products of our beliefs and concerns” rather than Roberts’ own understanding of emotions as concern-based construals which are not necessarily derived from beliefs and concerns.¹¹

Besides Talbot’s essay, the work of Paul Lewis and Mark Wynn are also worth noting for their attempt to bring Edwards’ doctrine of spiritual perception into conversation with contemporary philosophy of emotions. Nevertheless, the integrative work done by the two authors is also limited in depth and scope. The discussion by Lewis comes in at only three pages long and is more of an exploration on the possibilities of integrating Robert Solomon’s theory of emotion with Edwards’ doctrine than an actual attempt at integrating them together.¹² Wynn’s constructive discussion is a little longer at four pages and also did not delve too deeply into the richness of Edwards’ theology.¹³

The dearth of scholarship at the intersection of Edwards’ doctrine of spiritual perception and contemporary emotion research is rather surprising given the striking apparent affinities between Edwards’ highly influential work on the religious affections and recent scholarly interest in religious emotions.¹⁴ This is especially so considering that his original account is more than two hundred and fifty years old by now and there must be ways in which it could be updated and deepened in some aspects through insights gained via the explosion of modern psychological and philosophical research in the last century. Hence, part of the motivation in writing this monograph is to fill that lacuna and bring the two disciplines into dialogue.

A dialogue between the two disciplines is much needed not only because Edwards’ original theory could benefit from contemporary insights, but also because modern philosophical disciplines are often ignorant of the categories and concerns of theology. Contemporary philosophical attempts to understand the nature of Christian spiritual formation often lack the theological sensitivity and depth that are characteristic of theological psychologies within the Christian tradition. For instance, Roberts’ recent work on “spiritual emotions”, while an insightful philosophical treatment on the nature of emotions and their bearing on the Christian life, is however rather bare on the theological description of spiritual emotions.¹⁵ Little connection is made to the central theological categories of Christology, pneumatology, soteriology and Trinitarian theology. Contrast this with Edwards’ theologically rich and nuanced treatment of the ‘holy affections’ in The Religious Affections or Augustine’s theological psychology in De Trinitate. More significantly, Roberts’ work does not make the kind of distinctions that are important to the theological tradition, such as distinctions between natural and supernatural emotions, finite and transcendent good, created and eschatological ends, common and regenerative grace. He seems to impose his philosophical model of emotions too hastily on the theological terrain without due consideration and reworking of his model in light of theological categories of thought. Roberts’ work is not an isolated case in the literature. Other recent philosophically sophisticated works that address the issue of Christian religious psychology and transformation suffer from similar deficiencies.¹⁶ Hence, it seems that there remains a need in contemporary scholarship for a treatment of the theological psychology of transforming grace that is both philosophically and theologically sensitive. The hope of this study is that by renewing Edwards’ sophisticated account of spiritual perception it can go some way to meeting that lack.

Method for renewing spiritual perception

The method employed for the task of renewing spiritual perception is to examine the three fundamental components of Edwards’ theory – infusion of grace, Scripture and spiritual delight – and consider how they could be further developed or revised in light of contemporary work in analytic philosophy, especially that of Robert Roberts. Despite our earlier criticism of Roberts’ work, it cannot be denied that his groundbreaking discussion on the emotions remains highly influential and illuminating. Moreover, he is also one of the few academics who is not only immensely influential within contemporary philosophy of emotions but is also actively applying the fruits of his philosophical labour to understanding the psychology of Christian spirituality. In this regard, there is a significant convergence between his work and Edwards’ thought on the holy affections that allows them to be natural conversational partners. With this in mind, the majority of the study would hence be focused on an in-depth conversation between Edwards and Roberts with the aim of articulating a contemporary and renewed account of spiritual perception. In addition to Roberts, we will also engage with other secondary interlocutors whose work bears significance for our purpose. Of particular note are the writings of Nicholas Wolterstorff and William Alston which highlight some important aspects of spiritual perception that are not explicitly addressed by our two primary interlocutors. Therefore, the method adopted for the study can be considered part of the ‘analytic theology’ approach rather than a strictly historical or exegetical one. That is to say, it seeks to bring the resources, tools and rhetorical style prevalent in contemporary analytic philosophy to bear on theological issues.¹⁷

It should be noted upfront that there are of course differing accounts on the nature of emotions in the current philosophical literature, and the purpose of this study is not to defend Roberts’ account against its rivals. That in itself would be a major undertaking and has already been ably done elsewhere.¹⁸ Instead, our focus here is to utilise his account of emotions and the insights it provides to renew Edward’s doctrine of spiritual perception. Nevertheless, our choice of Roberts as the main conversational partner is not arbitrary either. One of the main reasons for utilising the work of Roberts is that his writings are probably the most developed and thorough reflection on Christian emotions within contemporary philosophy of emotions and would thus make a thoughtful dialogue partner with Edwards’ treatment of the religious affections and its closely related notion of spiritual perception. In addition, there is also a great amount of compatibility and potential synergy between their thinking. They both argue for a kind of perception in religious affectivity and share a common emph...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Renewing Jonathan Edwards’ theory of spiritual perception
• 2 Spiritual perception and the theological psychology of converting grace
• 3 Spiritual perception and the infusion of grace
• 4 Spiritual perception and the normative divine address in Scripture
• 5 Spiritual perception and the transformative understanding of Scripture
• 6 Spiritual delight
• 7 Christocentric wisdom and spiritual perception of the supreme good
• 8 Spiritual perception renewed
• Appendix: The interpretation of divine discourse
• Bibliography
• Index