Conclusion

How Plantinga Misses the Point

So how, then, does this apparent lack of historical context effect Plantinga’s use of Edwards? Plantinga seems to be unaware of Edwards’ effort to transcend faculty psychology with its hierarchical valuation or gradation of the faculties. He seems to not know that Edwards was trying to walk a middle road between the two extremes of rationalism and enthusiasm that valued one of the powers to the detriment of the other. Or, if he is aware of it, perhaps he disagrees with Edwards or finds him unconvincing or misguided. How would Edwards come across that way if he isn’t already being read through the lens of faculty psychology, as he surely was in the eyes of Charles Chauncey?

Plantinga does seem to read Edwards as a sort of intellectualist with the priority of the intellect in the workings of true affections. That would be true, after a fashion, as long as it is understood that Edwards was trying to move away from faculty psychology although not away from making legitimate distinctions of the powers of the human soul. We can speak of a “priority” of the intellect as long as that priority is understood in terms of taxis or functional order and not primacy of importance. Plantinga also seems to equate the affections with emotions, although this connection is not always clear or hard-and-fast. On the related matter, Plantinga recognizes that sin, for instance, can be understood as blindness, as a not seeing God or the great things of the gospel as the truly lovely things they are. But sin is also a willful blindness. It is a hatred of the loveliness of God and his attributes. We are responsible for our failure to see. We can distinguish the powers of the soul, but we can’t separate them. Nor ought we to consider the intellect or the will more important than the other. After all. God made us with both. Admittedly sin has wreaked its havoc in this area just as it has in others. We sinful human beings tend to prize one power of the soul over another. We still struggle with the same extremes Edwards faced.

So What?

So what is the difference between Edwards and Plantinga? If I have been correct in my assessment of both Plantinga and Edwards, the difference may be minimal in practical effect. Nevertheless, it may be significant in that Plantinga’s discussion would have benefited from the historical awareness of the context of the Great Awakening and Edwards’ desire to transcend faculty psychology, and from a correction of what might be a misunderstanding of the affections themselves. The way he asks the question, “which comes first” suggests to me that he doesn’t realize that for Edwards, the affections involved both the intellect and will. Yes, the intellect precedes the occurrence of the affections or is simultaneous with them. Either option is possible for Edwards as long as both are understood to be involved in the exercise of true religious affections.

Is there much difference between Plantinga the concurrentist and Edwards? Sometimes I get the impression that he thinks Edwards should have been a voluntarist given his emphasis on the affections and is then surprised with Edwards’ functional priority of the intellect. But, given that Edwards did admit that even he could not always distinguish the acts of the intellect and will in the sense of the heart, I would have to say that he and Plantinga come within a hair’s breadth. So is there much significant difference between Plantinga and Edwards? I think not. Is there any difference at all? Yes. When all is said and done, Plantinga appears to come to a position close to, if not exactly identical with Edwards, through exhausting all the possible angles as he sees them.

Plantinga is closer to Edwards than he appears to realize. That may be the result of his lack of familiarity with, or at the least his failure to mention his awareness of, the historical context in which Edwards formulated his thoughts on the relation of the intellect and will with his concern to stress the unity of the powers of the human dispositional complex as expressed in his doctrine of the affections. While Alvin Plantinga has offered a fascinating discussion of the relation of the intellect and will, I can’t help but think that he could have saved himself much effort had he been fully aware of the trajectory of Edwards’ thought and the historical context in which that was articulated.