1.1.4 Outline of the Steps of Examination

In the corpus of Edwards material we have three basic types or genres of writings from which we may gain understanding of his trinitarian views. The first are the so-called Miscellanies, which were musings in which Edwards read and thought with his pen. These are a treasure trove of rich research material. See the helpful introductions to the four volumes of the “Miscellanies” in the Yale edition of The Works of Jonathan Edwards. These are The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 13: The “Miscellanies” a-500 (Edited by Thomas A. Schafer. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 18: The “Miscellanies” 501 - 832 (Edited by Ava Chamberlain. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 20: The “Miscellanies” 833-1152 (Edited by Amy Plantinga Pauw. New Haven: Yale University, 2002), and The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 23: The “Miscellanies” 1153-1360 (Edited by Douglas A. Sweeney. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004). It should be noted that there is some debate among Edwards scholars as to how much “weight” should be given to the “Miscellanies” since they were never meant to be published by Edwards himself (from a personal conversation with Dr. Samuel Logan, president of Westminster Theological Seminary, Fall 2000). However, a careful reading of the “Miscellanies” will reveal that a fair amount of the material from these notebooks made its way into Edwards’s published treatises and sermons. So the best description of the “Miscellanies” is that they were semi-private.
These should generally be given chronological priority since we find Edwards ruminating on various philosophical and theological issues long before they appear for public consumption. However, they are provisional.¹ The second type of material from which we may draw are his treatises or discourses, such as his “The End for Which God Created the World.”“The End for Which God Created the World,” Ethical Writings, 405 - 536. See Paul Ramsay’s helpful remarks regarding Edwards’s use of the concept of “emanation.” According to Ramsay emanation can be read in one of two ways, as either a biblical notion regarding God’s will or communication or in a Neo-Platonic sense regarding correlation with creation, 433 note 5. Interestingly, Stephen R. Holmes, in his God of Grace & God of Glory, takes the “Two Dissertations,” comprised of “The End for Which God Created the World” and “True Virtue” as his programmatic outline in discerning the key to understanding Jonathan Edwards’s thought as a whole.
In fact, we will use this essay as a sort of metaphysical/theological outline or programmatic statement into which we will “plug” various elements from his other materials. Doing this will highlight the inherent coherence of Edwards’ overall thought. Another discourse we will look at is the Essay on the Trinity and the Treatise on Grace . Finally, there are also appropriate sermons from Edwards’ preaching ministry, the most important of which is the series of sermons that was posthumously published under the title, A History of the Work of Redemption. Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 9: A History of the Work of Redemption (Edited by John F. Wilson. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989). Tantalizingly, Edwards initially turned down the offer of the presidency of (now) Princeton University because he wanted to work on a new type of systematic theology written in an historical mode, presumably based in some measure upon his series of sermons by the same name. Unfortunately he died from a small pox vaccination shortly after arriving at Princeton, NJ in 1758. See Edwards’s letter to the Princeton trustees in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 16: Letters and Personal Writings (Edited by George S. Claghorn. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 727.

(Continue Reading…)

1. For instance, Edwards’ grandson, Sereno Dwight, thought that Edwards had written his Freedom of theWill (Edited by Paul Ramsay. The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 1. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959) in a miraculously short period of a few months following his deposition from the pulpit of the Congregational church in Northampton, MA and his removal to the Indian missionary outpost of Stockbridge. An examination of the “Miscellanies” reveals that Edwards had been wrestling with various aspects of the freedom of the will long before the publication of the treatise on the subject. Additionally, Edwards often reworked issues with which he had publicly dealt but with which wasn’t fully satisfied, for example see his dissatisfaction with his treatment of the first sin of Adam. See Holmes, God of Grace & God of Glory, 33-45, for the developing or provisional nature of Edwards’s Miscellanies.↩

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Research Question & Thesis

1.1.1 Preliminary Remarks

Jonathan Edwards’ trinitarian theology forms the bedrock of his theological endeavors.¹ This has not always been recognized, as Amy Plantinga Pauw states,

…these estimates of the centrality and originality of Edwards’ trinitarian thought have not won universal acceptance. Edwards A. Park insists that Edwards ‘paid a general, occasional, incidental attention to [trinitarian theories], but never made them the theme of his minute, thorough, prolonged investigation.’ Harvey Townsend claims to find nothing extraordinary about Edwards’ views on the subject. And John Gerstner declares that anyone ‘familiar with the history of the doctrine of the Trinity will see nothing aberrant in the Edwardsean formulation’.²

We would have to generally agree with Pauw. Having examined the materials that touch upon the subject of the Trinity, we believe Edwards might not be “extraordinary” or “aberrant” in his formulation of trinitarian doctrine. However, he does offer a unique expression of Reformed trinitarianism nonetheless.³ Given the wealth of material on Edwards in general and on his trinitarianism in particular, our goal in this series is to concentrate on one, albeit major, aspect of his trinitarian theology.
(Continue Reading…)

1. This assessment is confirmed by the amount of secondary literature that is currently available on Edwards’ trinitarianism. Among the vast literature, see George P. Fisher’s introduction to An Unpublished Essay of Edwards on the Trinity (New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1903), 3 - 74. See also Amy Plantinga Pauw, The Supreme Harmony of All: The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002) and her “Heaven is a World of Love: Edwards on Heaven and the Trinity” (Calvin Theological Journal 35 1995): 392 - 401; Herbert Warren Richardson, The Glory of God in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards: A Study in the Doctrine of the Trinity (Ph. D. diss. Harvard University, 1962); Krister Sairsingh, Jonathan Edwards and the Idea of Divine Glory: His Foundational Trinitarianism and Its Ecclesial Import (Ph. D. diss. Harvard University, 1986); Steve Studebaker, Jonathan Edwards’ Social Augustinian Trinitarianism: A Criticism of and an Alternative to Recent Interpretations (Ph.D. diss., Marquette University, 2003); Stephen R. Holmes’ God of Grace & God of Glory: An Account of the Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Grand Rapids, Ml: Eerdmans, 2001) and Sang Hyun Lee, ed. The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 21: Writings on the Trinity, Grace and Faith (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002).↩
2. Pauw, Supreme Harmony, 15.↩
3. Pauw, Supreme Harmony, 15-21. It is interesting to note that Edwards had an essay on the Trinity that did not get published until 1903 and that his “Miscellanies” which dealt with the subject were not published until the last few years. Interestingly there was much conjecture in the nineteenth century about the orthodoxy of Edwards’ trinitarian views.↩