I think Pauw is mistaken when she reads Edwards as, at points, holding to a social trinitarian model. Steven Studebaker has, in my opinion, thoroughly dispatched her handling of JE. Part of what causes her to read JE this way is a faulty understanding of the doctrine of divine simplicity. This doctrine denies that God is made up of parts as to his nature. When properly construed (and it CAN be properly construed) this stress on the unity of the divine nature does not negate or interfere with a thoroughly orthodox understanding of the three persons of the Trinity. Only if one assumes that holding to the doctrine of divine simplicity requires one to embrace a neo-platonic undifferentiable monad does the doctrine entail problems for Trinitarianism. This assumption is faulty. Unfortunately it is an assumption many Christian analytical philosophers share. Studebaker also points out that Pauw has accepted a faulty taxonomy where the East is pitted against the West in Trinitarian thinking. I really suggest you try to read his work. It is listed in my endnotes.

Thanks for asking a good question.

Jeff

Thanks for these posts. I enjoyed them very much.

What do you think of Pauw’s assessment of Edwards’s use of the social model of the Trinity in The Supreme Harmony of All? I think she may have overstated its importance in Edwards’s thought.

In my own study of Edwards, he seems to work mostly from the Augustinian Psychological (AP) model as you have said. What is particularly convincing to me is the implicit AP model underlying all of his thought in the Two Dissertations.

Thanks again,

MJB

I think the University of Potchefstroom in South Africa has a correspondence PhD program, and I think the University of Gloucestershire in the UK as well.