The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards

Expanded Edition

Sang Hyun Lee

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780691049427
  9780691073255
• eBook ISBN:
  9780691222127
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Religion

This book demonstrates the originality and coherence of Jonathan Edwards' philosophical theology using his dynamic reconception of reality as the interpretive key. The author argues that what underlies Edwards' writings is a radical shift from the traditional Western metaphysics of substance and form to a new conception of the world as a network of dispositions: active and abiding principles that possess reality apart from their manifestations in actions and events. Edwards' dispositional ontology enables him to restate the Augustinian-Calvinist tradition in theology in a strikingly modern philosophical framework.


A prime example of Edwards' innovative reconstruction in philosophical theology is his conception of God as both eternal actuality and a disposition to repeat that actuality within God and also through creation. This view is a compelling alternative to the traditional Western doctrine of God as changeless actuality, on the one hand, and the recent process theologians' excessive stress on God's involvement in change, on the other. Edwards' achievement was that he saw dynamic movement as essential to God's own life without compromising the traditional Christian tenets of God's prior actuality and transcendence. The author of this volume also explicates the way in which Edwards' dynamic reconception of reality informs his theories of imagination, aesthetic perception, the knowledge of God, and the meaning of history.


This expanded edition includes a new preface and a new appendix titled "Jonathan Edwards on Nature."

CHAPTER VII

The Increasing Fullness of the Divine Being

THE BOLD RESHAPING that Edwards gave to traditional Western conceptions of reality and knowledge presupposed an equally bold reconception of the very nature of God. I have argued that Edwards thought of the nature of reality no longer in terms of substance and form but rather in terms of disposition and habit, thereby introducing a dynamic element into the very fabric of being. Now, if this interpretation is correct, and if ontological categories are to some extent applicable to God, is the divine being himself essentially dispositional and thus inherently dynamic? Does God in some sense comprehend in God’s own being an element of becoming?

I have also argued that the sanctified imagination of the mind’s habit adds to being and beauty through a multiplication of relations, and that the activity of the imagination is the focal point or medium through which the being of the created world is moved from virtuality to full actuality and also continually increased. Now, it is the Holy Spirit indwelling in the saints as the divine disposition that makes possible the ontological productivity of the imagination. If this is so, is God’s own being in some way affected by what happens in time?

Up to this point, I have cursorily indicated that Edwards answered both of these questions in the affirmative. It is the burden of this chapter to take a closer look at Edwards’ conception of the dynamic character of the divine being with the particular focus on the function of disposition in that conception.

The question of exactly what sort of dynamic movement Edwards intends to attribute to God’s own being is a critical issue in understanding Edwards’ thought. This is so because Edwards speaks about God as at once eternally complete and perfect and also as inherently creative, self-communicating, and even self-enlarging. If there is one thing about which Edwards scholars have agreed, it is his deep personal conviction in the absolute sovereignty of God and the fundamental role this principle plays in his philosophical theology.¹ My own analysis up to this point has also shown that although the created reality is granted a dependent but real permanence, its actuality is constantly and directly dependent upon the creative and sustaining activity of God. God, for Edwards, is absolutely prior to the world in completeness and perfection. “God is infinitely, eternally, unchangeably, and independently glorious and perfect,” and “stands in no need of, cannot be profited by, or receive anything from the creature.”²

This absolutely perfect God, however, is also described by Edwards as inherently creative. “It is God’s essence to incline to communicate Himself,” writes Edwards.³ Further, in and through his self-communication, God “as it were enlarges himself in a more excellent and divine manner.”⁴ In short, God is both completely perfect and also creatively self-expansive.

When the matter is put in this way, the natural question is, How can God be both completely perfect and also self-enlarging? How could a perfectly complete God be moved to create the world and even to enlarge God’s own life? Interpreters of Edwards have usually found the answer to this question in the idea of creativity as self-communication—that is, an activity of giving rather than receiving, and thus an activity of an already complete and perfect being.⁵ Since God only gives of himself out of “fullness,” God’s completeness and actuality presumably are not compromised. Scholars have also shown that this self-giving God of Edwards is an inherently self-communicating being, which would imply that God’s self-communicating act in creating the world is consistent with God’s own internal being. Roland Delattre has further strengthened this point by arguing that God’s being for Edwards is essentially beauty that by virtue of its own nature must “appear, shine forth, manifest, and communicate itself.” God is an inherently beautifying” and not just a beautiful being.⁶

This answer to the question I have posed is correct as far as it goes and is faithful to Edwards’ own view. These discussions of Edwards’ dynamic idea of God as self-communicating have also served well in correcting some previous portrayals of Edwards’ doctrine as primarily static.⁷ However, the question needs to be pushed further in order to get to the inner logic of idea of the self-communication of God. One must inquire, How does Edwards conceive of God’s self-communication so that it is not only an overflowing out of fullness but also in some sense self-expansive?

The interpretation of God’s self-communication in terms of the idea of God’s self-giving out of his eternal fullness does indeed protect God’s perfection and self-sufficiency. But this analysis still does not explain the sense in which Edwards believes God is “enlarged” and “increased” by divine activity in time. The idea of self-communication, which Edwards often describes in such emanationistic metaphors as “overflowing,” “diffusing,” and “shining forth,” lends itself to a thoroughly Neoplatonic interpretation of Edwards. But, contrary to “the One” of Plotinus, the God of Edwards has “the more delight and pleasure” in self-communication.⁸ Further, Edwards mixes his emanationistic language with a teleological one in his discussion of God’s self-communication. Edwards’ God aims at a goal or an end in creating the world. Therefore, the movement of human history has a real meaning to God. The urgent question is, What is the inner logic of Edwards’ notion of the self-communication of God, a logic according to which God is seen as both perfectly sufficient and also really involved in history, and as both possessing an absolute prior actuality and also capable of self-enlargement?

My thesis is that one does not fully understand the dynamic character of Edwards’ conception of God unless it is seen in the light of Edwards’ dispositional ontology. God, for Edwards, is the absolutely sovereign disposition of true beauty that is in an eternally complete exercise. Dispositions, as was shown, are abiding principles the reality of which is not exhausted by its exercise. Thus, God, conceived as essentially a disposition, is capable of being a perfect actuality and an eternal disposition to repeat this actuality through further exercises. God, for Edwards, is at once both actual and dispositional.

It is within the framework of the doctrine of the Trinity, as I shall discuss in detail below, that Edwards articulates the implications of his dispositional conception of God’s essence. And it is Edwards’ central concern to view the divine being as inherently dynamic without compromising God’s absolute prior actuality and aseity. The First Person of the Trinity is seen as essentially actual as well as essentially dispositional. God the Father is where both God’s absolute aseity and his inherently dynamic character are located. Through the ontologically productive exertion of the Father’s dispositional essence, the Father’s primordial actuality is repeated in the Son and the Holy Spirit. Thus, the immanent Trinity is the eternal exertion of God’s dispositional essence and, therefore, the eternally perfect increase or the fullness of God’s primordial actuality.

The inner-Trinitarian fullness of the divine being, however, does not exhaust the divine disposition. The exercise of this disposition ad extra, according to Edwards, constitutes God’s creation of the world. Created existence, then, is the spatiotemporal repetition of God’s inner-Trinitarian fullness, a process which, as shall be seen, will be everlasting in duration. In this way, God is really involved in time and space without being in any way deficient or in need. And God’s creative activity in time and space has its foundation in the dynamic life of the immanent Trinity.

In this way, God’s self-communication, both within himself and ad extra, according to Edwards, is to be analyzed in terms of the ontological productivity of the divine disposition. Disposition is ontologically productive or communicative since it is an active tendency toward a movement from virtuality to actuality and toward a multiplication or repetition of this movement. In God’s case, the disposition is ontologically productive or communicative in a sovereign and self-sufficient way—that is, God brings about more of what is already completely actual, and he does this in such a way that he does not depend upon any other being for the exercise of the divine disposition. In short, for God, the disposition is properly the principle of self-communication, both internally and also ad extra.

In a nutshell, the above is the thesis I shall elaborate upon in the remainder of this chapter. I may note here, however, that what is found in Edwards is nothing less than a basic re-conception of the Western philosophical theism that was heavily dependent upon the categories of Greek philosophy. For Edwards, God is no longer Plato’s timeless “Idea,” Aristotle’s “Unmoved Mover,” or Plotinus’ “the One.” Edwards does continue the Western philosophical and theological stress upon God’s aseity or ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Preface to the Expanded Edition
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• I. Introduction: The Idea of Habit and Edwards’ Dynamic Vision of Reality
• II. The Idea of Habit
• III. Being as Habit
• IV. Being as Relational and Dynamic
• V. Imagination as the Habit of Mind
• VI. Imagination as Aesthetic Sense
• VII. The Increasing Fullness of the Divine Being
• VIII. God and the Becoming of the World
• Appendix: Jonathan Edwards on Nature
• Index