Suppose you came across the work of a long dead theologian which included the following summary statement of what he believed regarding the divine nature and God's relationship to the created order:
God is a simple pure act, by which I mean God is essentially without composition and is such that there is no real distinction between his being (that he is) and his act (what he does). Indeed, God is the only entirely realised entity. In this respect, God is entirely distinct from his creation. He exists a se, which is to say he exists independently of that which he has created. And he is supremely free in all his acts, constrained only by his own nature in bringing about what he does. He is infinitely beautiful, infinitely glorious and perfect in his nature and in all his ways. He is excellent. But excellency is an attribute which pertains only to those things which are beautiful, and beauty is something which implies an internal structure or set of relations within an entity. To be beautiful is to have ‘parts’ or ‘relations’ which, taken together, make the thing in question more complete, and therefore more excellent, than it would be without these relations. Although a simple, internally undifferentiated entity might have a certain austere beauty in virtue of its mereological simplicity, it is less wondrous and less excellent than something which includes symmetry, proportion and parts or relations which consent with one another in a regularity. Such an excellent entity is greater than one without such relations because such an entity is beautiful in a much more complex manner than the mereological simple, in virtue of the aesthetic relations it bears and the internal structure of its being.
God is a maximally excellent being. He is triune in his very nature. The three divine persons of the Godhead share a common divine essence. Yet there are real distinctions in God pertaining to the individuation of the divine persons. The Father is uncreated being; the Son or Logos is the divine idea of wisdom; the Holy Spirit is the bond of love, the agape of God, God in act. These distinctions are predicated on the so-called relations of origin, that is, those relations which distinguish one person from another. These comprise: ‘being the source of the Trinity’, which is an attribute of the Father alone; ‘being eternally begotten of the Father before all ages’, which belongs to the Son; and ‘being eternally spirated by the Father and the Son’, the distinguishing attribute of the Holy Ghost.
Thus, God is a simple pure act; a being of superlative excellence; and essentially triune. He is eternal, existing outside of time and space. Yet he brings time and space into existence ex nihilo. Indeed, God's creation is not merely the product of his free eternal decision, but the necessary output, even overflow or emanation, of his nature. For God has an essential disposition to create. What is more, since he is a being perfect in every respect, it would be inconceivable for him to create a world which was an inferior product. For the ultimate end of all God's works is to bring himself glory. In creatures such an attribute would be a vice rather than a virtue, for placing the glorification of a limited being at the head of all one's works rather than the exaltation of a perfect being is vanity and pride. But placing the glorification of the most perfect being as the conclusion of all one's ways is a virtue, since there is nothing greater, and nothing better at which one may aim. It would be unfitting and inappropriate for God to direct himself to the glorification of anything other than himself in all his ways. Hence, God's ultimate end in creation is the glorification of himself. God's essential disposition to create is an eternal disposition which can only find its realisation in the creation of a world ad extra. Hence, God eternally creates a world with time, and this is an essential product of the creativity of God. Indeed, God's perfect nature dictates that he creates the best possible world, since it would be a dereliction of his perfection for him to create a world less than perfect and there is an axiologically structured hierarchy of possible worlds including a best of all possible worlds. This world is just such a product of the divine agency.
The world comprises all created minds and their ideas, which exist ‘in’ God. ‘Matter’ is a fiction; there are no material objects strictly speaking, though there are objects which have properties such as ‘being hard’, ‘being extended in space’, etc. But these are no more than sensations, percepts, ideas – there is nothing over and above such ideal entities which must be taken account of in metaphysics. The world exists in God as a set of stable ideas. But the world is not an entity which persists through time upon being created by God. Rather, God creates a four-dimensional set of numerically distinct world-stages which exist across time, and which he segues together seriatim, according to his good pleasure and will. This means that the world is created whereupon it immediately ceases to exist, to be replaced by a second momentary facsimile world created ex nihilo. This too immediately ceases to exist and is replaced by another facsimile . . . and so on, each world-stage being succeeded by another seriatim, in the divine mind. Thus the ‘world’ (i.e. the created order as it exists across space and time) is in reality a collection of world-stages. What is more, God causes these world-stages to obtain in the sequence they do, giving them the appearance of continuity through apparently stable laws and principles of operation. But God is the sole cause of the obtaining of these world-stages as well as being the causal agent responsible for all that obtains in these world stages. Creatures are merely the occasions of God's action.
Such a picture of God's relation to the creation is undoubtedly striking, combining as it does aspects of classical theism, theological aesthetics, panentheism, and the doctrines of continuous creation and occasionalism (about which, more presently). Far from being the product of some febrile imagination, however, this summary represents the views of the eighteenth-century colonial British New England puritan, Jonathan Edwards. Those enamoured of the more practical and pastoral of Edwards’ writings may find this a rather different thinker from the author of the Religious Affections, the hagiographical Life of David Brainerd, or sermons like ‘God Glorified in Man's Dependence’. But Edwards was a man of many parts, like a number of early modern thinkers.
Several recent treatments of Edwards’ philosophical theology have argued that the sort of view given in the summary statement above represents Edwards’ considered position on the relationship between God and creation – an important theme in his work.Footnote 1 However, this does raise a concern regarding the orthodoxy of Edwardsian theology that students of the Northampton Sage must face.
Edwards’ thought has had a mixed reception in the two hundred and fifty years since his death. Although in recent times he has been hailed as ‘America's Theologian’ and lauded as a thinker of the first rank, in the past he has also been the subject of several attempts to impugn his orthodoxy. Edwards himself was a staunch supporter of the theological status quo despite the fact that the metaphysics he used to underpin his theology was far from conventional, and led to the development of the New England Theology – a movement not known for its attention to tradition and creed.
In fact, it is this strange Edwardsian combination of high Calvinism and early Enlightenment philosophy which yields the concern of this article. It seems to me that, on the basis of the cameo of his philosophical theology just given, Edwards is caught on the horns of a dilemma. Call it, the Edwardsian Dilemma. It can be phrased like this: Either Edwards must admit that his theology proper implies that God is not metaphysically simple, or he must embrace pantheism. Neither of these two options would have been particularly palatable for a theologian of his pedigree, since puritans were nothing if not classical and traditional in the theistic conception of God that they espoused.
However, from the perspective of contemporary constructive theology, the lesser of two evils would be to embrace the idea that God is not metaphysically simple in the classical sense. There are, of course, modern theologians who would be delighted to find in Edwards a precursor to their own predilection for a species of panentheism along with the denial of a classical conception of the divine. However, for those who look to Edwards in support of the classical, orthodox doctrine of God this is cold comfort. Nevertheless, both contemporary panentheists and classical theists will probably unite in their conviction that if Edwards was faced with a dilemma of the sort envisaged here, he ought to embrace a less than absolutely simple God over pantheism. For that way leads beyond the bounds of orthodox Christian doctrine, whereas a less than absolutely simple God means only that, all things considered, Edwards’ was not strictly a theologian in the classical theistic mould, which is a much less controversial outcome, though an important one nonetheless.Footnote 2
The argument proceeds in three parts. In the first, I show that, on one plausible interpretation of his work, Edwards cannot consistently hold that God is absolutely metaphysically simple in a traditional sense. Then, in a second part, I argue that given a slightly different construal of Edwardsianism, pantheism obtains. In a third part I offer an analysis of which alternative is less damaging for the integrity (and orthodoxy) of Edwards’ thought.
I presume throughout the not uncontroversial assumption that if Edwards’ work does contain the sort of structural tensions – even inconsistencies – maintained here, he must embrace one or other of the horns of this dilemma to avoid incoherence. Given Edwards’ habits of mind and theological temperament, this line of approach is, I think, a charitable rather than a critical one. Edwards was, after all, a theologian deeply concerned to ensure his work was coherent and aimed at truth. It might be argued that the dilemma outlined here fails to capture other options which were open to Edwards – that is, that it is not a forced dilemma, strictly speaking. In which case, he is not necessarily faced with a choice between two equally unpleasant alternatives. A third option may be available to him. However, for reasons which will become clear in what follows, I do not think this is plausible. The deep structures of his metaphysics appear to present him with a real difficulty which he cannot escape without embracing significant theological revision to his doctrine of God in a manner incompatible with the classical theism of his heritage and schooling. Thus, I shall argue, Edwards is faced with a forced dilemma. Although he does not appear to have been aware of this particular implication of his work, it is an implication, and a hard decision must be made in order to stave off incoherence or unorthodoxy. Happily, however, much of Edwardsian doctrine can be preserved by opting for a more modest account of the unity of the divine nature. This does constitute a departure from Edwards’ stated views. But such revision is needed in order to ‘repair’ or ‘amend’ Edwards’ thought so as to avoid the problem raised by the dilemma.
Divine simplicity, occasionalism and panentheism
Let us begin by briefly outlining what divine simplicity, occasionalism and panentheism are. I take it that the doctrine of divine simplicity is, minimally, the view according to which God is essentially non-composite. There may be different strains of this doctrine in the history of Christian theology.Footnote 3 But even if it is regarded as primarily an apophatic doctrine, designed to anchor Christian trinitarianism within monotheism (thereby preventing it from drifting towards tritheism) but offering much less by way of positive content when it comes to predication, it is usually thought to include certain cataphatic elements. One of these is that each of the divine attributes implies all the others. Another is that each divine attribute implies the divine essence. This is certainly how it has been understood in the recent literature, and even amongst the majority of those who have sought to defend it against contemporary revisionists.
Edwards clearly endorses this doctrine. He does not elaborate upon it, or offer a detailed account of it. But he accepts it as part of the theological heritage bequeathed to him by his forebears. His references to the doctrine are just what one would expect of someone for whom the doctrine in question is a given, something uncontroversial, part of the warp and weave of his doctrine of God. Thus, in Freedom of the Will, he speaks of God's ‘perfect and absolute simplicity’,Footnote 4 whilst in Religious Affections he says that ‘A love to God for the beauty of his moral attributes, leads to, and necessarily causes a delight in God for all his attributes; for his moral attributes cannot be without his natural attributes: for infinite holiness supposes infinite wisdom, and an infinite capacity and greatness; and all the attributes of God do as it were imply each other.’Footnote 5 This idea that the attributes of God imply one another is a constituent of the traditional doctrine of divine simplicity. In his unpublished work on the Trinity he says similar things. Take, for instance, his Discourse on the Trinity. This begins with Edwards saying, ‘there are no distinctions to be admitted of faculty, habit and act, between will, inclination and love’ in God, ‘but that it is all one simple act’.Footnote 6 What is more, in speaking of the Second Person of the Trinity as the Divine Idea, Edwards says that the perfect view God has of his own essence is one ‘in which there is no distinction of substance and act, but it is wholly substance and wholly act’ such that the ‘idea God hath of himself is absolutely himself’.Footnote 7
The claim that Edwards upheld divine simplicity has been disputed in recent studies of his thought.Footnote 8 However, what is interesting is that where he does refer to it in his mature published works, it is to endorse the doctrine. What is more, in the place in which some scholars have found him to be distancing himself from the doctrine, that is, in the unpublished Discourse on the Trinity, his opening gambit is to reiterate the doctrine. This presents very strong prima facie evidence for the conclusion that he held the doctrine – something that a number of Edwards’ scholars now recognise.Footnote 9
Next, we come to occasionalism. This is the doctrine according to which God is the sole causal agent in the world, creatures being merely the occasions of God's action. So, on this way of thinking, when I raise my arm I intend to raise my arm, but the cause of the raising of my arm is not my bringing about that intention in the actual raising of my arm. Nor is it that I am a necessary but insufficient cause of the bringing about of the raising of my arm, where God is a concurrent cause of my action – as is the case in traditional Thomist accounts of God's causal activity in the world. God does not work in conjunction with secondary causes like created agents in order to bring actions about, on this view. Instead, God brings the action about directly. I may intend to raise my arm. But, says the occasionalist, that basic action does not cause the non-basic action of the raising of my arm. God does that. As my arm is raised, it appears that I have caused this via my intention to raise my arm. But, in fact, my intention was merely the occasion of a divine action which brought about the raising of my arm. Hence, I am not the cause of the raising of my arm.
Were this the whole story, occasionalism would be a thesis about how the actions of creaturely agents are brought about by God, not a thesis about how God brings about what appear to be creaturely actions simpliciter. But, in fact, it appears that matters are slightly more complicated than this straightforward picture of occasionalism would suggest. For it transpires that occasionalism does entail that God is the sole causal agent of all creaturely actions, not merely of non-basic creaturely actions. Intentions are actions of a basic sort, that is, they are actions I perform without using some other means by which to bring the action about. I simply and immediately form the intention to do a particular thing. But, given the central claim of occasionalism that God is the sole causal agent, it looks like my intention to raise my arm is not an action I cause. It is the occasion of God's causing me to form an intention to raise my arm, which results in God causing the raising of my arm. But then it looks like occasionalism is not merely a thesis about how the realisation of my intentions in action is directly caused by God, contrary to first appearances. It is a much more radical thesis which implies no mundane action is caused by moral agents other than God. But, of course, this more radical thesis jeopardises the very idea that there are moral agents other than God.
Evidence that Edwards held a doctrine of occasionalism is not hard to come by. He explicitly endorses the doctrine in his treatise on Freedom of the Will where he says that the relation which exists between the antecedent and its consequent, ‘is perhaps rather an occasion than a cause, most properly speaking’.Footnote 10 Similar sentiments are expressed elsewhere. Consider, for example, his comments in ‘Of Atoms’, one of his early philosophical works:
the substance of bodies at last becomes either nothing, or nothing but the Deity acting in that particular manner in those parts of space where he thinks fit. So that, speaking most strictly, there is no proper substance but God himself. . . . Since . . . solidity or body is immediately from the exercise of divine power, causing there to be resistance in such a part of space, it follows that motion also, which is the communication of body, solidity, or this resistance, from one part of space to another successively . . . is from the immediate exercise of divine power so communicating that resistance, according to certain conditions which we call the laws of motion. . . . Hence we see what's that we call the laws of nature in bodies, to wit: the stated methods of God's acting with respect to bodies, and the stated conditions of the alteration of the manner of his acting.Footnote 11
Here, as with the doctrine of divine simplicity, it is not insignificant that both in his early unpublished philosophical works and in his mature published works, Edwards can be found to endorse the same view of causation as occasionalism.Footnote 12
Panentheism is not so much a particular view as it is a family of views about the relationship between God and creation.Footnote 13 Nevertheless, all panentheists agree that God and creation are not distinct entities as the classical theist thinks. Instead (so it is often reported) God is to the world as the soul is to the body. The world is contained ‘within’ God, but God is not exhausted by the world; he is greater than the world.
Although (as previously noted) the attribution of a doctrine of divine simplicity and occasionalism to Edwards is not uncontroversial, ascribing panentheism to him is perhaps the most contested of these three claims. Nevertheless, there are a number of reputable Edwards scholars who maintain he does hold to some version of this doctrine, and there is evidence of it in his work.Footnote 14 Sometimes he says rather unguarded things which border on pantheism (roughly, the idea that God and the world are identical). For instance, his comment that ‘being includes in it all that we call God, who is, and there is none else besides him’.Footnote 15 Or again, ‘God is the sum of all being and there is no being without his being; all things are in him, and he in all’.Footnote 16 But his more measured remarks are consistent with panentheism, not pantheism. The clearest indication comes from his dissertation, Concerning the End for Which God Created the World. There he says things like, ‘This propensity in God to diffuse himself may be considered as a propensity to himself diffused, or to his own glory existing in its emanation.’ Or again, ‘God looks on the communication of himself, and the emanation of the infinite glory and good that are in himself to belong to the fullness and completeness of himself, as though he were not in his most complete and glorious state without it.’Footnote 17 What is more, ‘that a disposition in God, as an original property of his nature, to an emanation of his own infinite fullness, was what excited him to create the world; and so that the emanation itself was aimed at by him as a last end of the creation’.Footnote 18 In the last section of this dissertation, Edwards even goes as far as to say this:
In the creature's knowing, esteeming, loving, rejoicing in, and praising God, the glory of God is both exhibited and acknowledged; his fullness is received and returned. Here is both an emanation and remanation. The refulgence shines upon and into the creature, and is reflected back to the luminary. The beams of glory come from God, and are something of God, and are refunded back again to their original. So that the whole is of God, and in God, and to God; and God is the beginning, middle and end in this affair.Footnote 19
This Neoplatonism (for that is what it amounts to) is something Edwards picked up from his voracious reading, particularly in the writings of Cambridge Platonists like Henry More, an early influence on Edwards.Footnote 20 But like Plotinus, Edwards is a kind of idealist, and his Neoplatonism, baptised into the Reformed faith, implies the doctrine that the world exists ‘in’ God and that it is ‘emanated’ by God. The precise shape of Edwards’ panentheism need not detain us here.Footnote 21 The fact that he is a panentheist should be evident, however.
It should be clear even from this sketch of these three doctrines that finding some state of affairs where they are compossible is a tall order. Let us set the doctrine of occasionalism to one side for the present and focus on the conjunction of divine simplicity with panentheism. If God is metaphysically non-composite in the strong sense implied in most classical, orthodox Christian theology then he is absolutely without parts. But panentheism seems to imply that the creation is a ‘part’ of God, though not identical to God, for that would be pantheism. In which case, creation is a ‘part’ of God which is somehow contained ‘within’ the Godhead. It is not difficult to see the problem this generates: the panentheistic God cannot be non-composite in any strong sense since he appears to have (at least) two ‘parts’: that aspect of his nature independent of the creation; and the creation which is the necessary product of his creative nature.
This is worrisome enough. But there are even deeper problems for Edwards. Suppose God is simple in the absolute sense. Then, all his attributes imply each other and imply the divine nature. Indeed, there appears to be no distinction between the divine attributes and the divine nature. In keeping with a number of other Reformed and Western Catholic theologians, this appears to be the doctrine Edwards adopts. Now, conjoin this strong doctrine of divine simplicity to panentheism. If there are no real distinctions in God and if the creation exists ‘within’ the divine nature, then it appears that creation is identical to the divine nature. But then pantheism obtains.
However, perhaps Edwards is only committed to some weaker account of God's relation to the world? Suppose the creation is a set of ‘stable’ divine ideas which are communicated by God, or emanated by him ad extra, so that the world is the ‘overflow’ of the divine nature in some shadowy existence outside God. Even if this is right it is still the case that God has a set of ideas about the creation which are identical to each other and to the divine nature. This alone would be a serious concern for the integrity of Edwards’ doctrine. Taken together with occasionalism, this would mean that the creation has an attenuated existence as a series of numerically distinct shadowy world-stages which exist across space-time. Although this is not unorthodox, strictly speaking, it is surely an impoverished doctrine of creation and one that will probably have little appeal to contemporary theologians unsympathetic to Christian appropriations of Neoplatonism.
There is another avenue open to the defender of a broadly Edwardsian account of these things. This is to revise his doctrine of absolute divine simplicity. If God was simple but not absolutely simple, then it would be possible for him to have distinct states, including distinct mental states, and then he could have a set of ideas of the created order which would not imply one another or the divine nature. Given the foregoing, it would appear that Edwards stands firmly within the Reformed and Western Catholic tradition and would have almost certainly not have been willing to entertain this as a viable alternative.
I think that is right; it is certainly represents the preponderance of Edwards’ scattered remarks about divine simplicity. However, it is worth noting Miscellany 135 where Edwards says this:
Many have wrong conceptions of the difference between the nature of the Deity and created spirits. The difference is no contrariety, but what naturally results from his greatness and nothing else, such as created spirits come nearer to, or more imitate, the greater they are in their powers and faculties. So that if we should suppose the faculties of a created spirit to be enlarged infinitely, there would be the Deity to all intents and purposes, the same simplicity, immutability, etc.Footnote 22
Taken at face value, this does not imply a traditional doctrine of divine simplicity, since were we able (mirabile dictu) to enlarge the powers and capacities of a human soul so as to become a divine soul the net result would not be an absolutely simple being but a metaphysically simple super-soul. It would be non-fissile, since it would not be composed of more fundamental parts – in that sense it would be a metaphysical simple. But it would not be absolutely simple (i.e. without any parts or composition whatsoever) because it would have distinct mental states and properties. Since this would undermine his otherwise apparently staunch support for a traditional-sounding doctrine of divine simplicity, and since this is a thought experiment, I think we can charitably assume Edwards did not mean readers of this Miscellany to think that God's simplicity is exactly the same as the simplicity of a human soul. Nevertheless, it is interesting that, in this Miscellany, what he has to say is more metaphysically capacious, namely allowing for a more modest account of divine simplicity, than his other scattered comments on this doctrine might lead one to expect.Footnote 23
Since taking this modest account of divine simplicity in Miscellany 135 at face value is one way in which his doctrine could be rendered coherent, we might sketch out how this would help the advocate of such a refashioned Edwardsianism.
Imagine that God is simple in this modest sense: he is a metaphysically simple substance, like a soul. I take it that souls are non-composite because they are not composed of any more fundamental elements. They are mereological simples or primitives. Bodies, by contrast, are not mereological simples because they are composed of more fundamental elements, e.g. quarks, electrons, and so on. Whereas bodies are in principle fissiparous because they are composed of parts, souls are not. They cannot be divided; they have no location; they are not extended in space. God is like a soul in this regard. He is not fissiparous, indeed, it is a necessary truth that he is not fissiparous. Nor does he have location; and he is not extended in space. So he is simple in a strong sense, but – importantly for present purposes – not a sense which compromises his having distinct mental states and, therefore, distinct properties. Were Edwards to adopt this modest account of simplicity, then he could claim that God is simple (i.e. a metaphysical primitive); that the world exists as a set of divine ideas ‘in’ the divine mind; and that God emanates the created order as a shadowy ideal work which exists ad extra. With the exception of this revision to our understanding of divine simplicity and its metaphysical implications this would require no other substantive changes to Edwardsian doctrine.
This represents one way (taken together with a Neoplatonic construal of his panentheism) that Edwards could avoid the Edwardsian Dilemma, with which we began. There is a cost to such revision. But the Edwardsian might think it a cost worth bearing given the more pressing need for some sort of theological resolution to the Edwardsian Dilemma. This revision to Edwards’ doctrine does preserve the internal consistency of his overall metaphysical vision of reality, given a Neoplatonic interpretation of his panentheism. But it does leave intact the moral problems raised by his doctrine of occasionalism. However, there appears to be little which can be done to aid Edwards in that particular regard.Footnote 24 For the Edwardsian occasionalist appears to be committed to the following inconsistent claims:
1. God is the only causal agent. The actions of created ‘agents’ are the occasions of divine action, strictly speaking.
2. God is the only moral agent. Created agents do not persist whole and complete from one moment to the next. They are composed of an infinite number of temporal stages which are aggregated by divine fiat into one temporally extended individual across time. But this means no created agent exists for long enough to be the cause of moral actions, which means, in turn, that no created agent is capable of being a moral agent.
3. God is causally but not morally responsible for evil. God is the agent by means of which wickedness obtains in the creation (since he is the only causal agent, this follows trivially from (1)). But God is not morally responsible for the wicked actions of created agents. Created agents are responsible for their wicked actions.
The problem is that there appears to be no moral ‘wiggle room’ for the Edwardsian here. If God is the only causal agent (because occasionalism obtains) and if God is the only moral agent (because occasionalism + continuous creation obtains), then it looks as if no created agent causes anything to obtain. Indeed no created agent exists for long enough to be morally responsible for actions which are temporally extended. Since almost all significant moral actions are temporally extended (i.e. they take time to commit), this means that almost all – perhaps all – moral actions are not actions which can be ascribed to created agents. If God is the only causal agent, it looks as if he is the only moral agent too.
Someone may object to the accuracy of this portrait of Edwards. For instance, Michael Rea characterises Edwards (I think rightly) as an early modern thinker who conceives of human beings along the lines of stage theory.Footnote 25 This view states that objects which are extended through time, like human beings, are four-dimensional. That is, they exist across time in virtue of possessing different momentary temporal stages (i.e. numerically distinct temporal counterparts) which, when aggregated, form one temporally extended life. The Rea of noon yesterday and the Rea of noon today are two numerically distinct stages which are aggregated in one temporally extended life which comprises the sum of such stages. Through immanent causal relations one stage is linked to the next such that a later stage may be the successor or closest continuer of the earlier stage, though they are numerically distinct. Suppose Edwards believes this (and I think Rea mounts a strong argument for the claim that this is indeed the Edwardsian positionFootnote 26), then it looks like the Rea of noon yesterday and the Rea of noon today are stages of one four-dimensional entity and the crime of Rea yesterday may be attributed to the Rea of today. In other words, we can tell some story based on this ontology, according to which numerically distinct stages may compose a single temporally extended life, such that we may attribute moral properties which obtain at one stage to the later stages of the life of such an entity as it exists across time.
However, setting to one side the strangeness of such an ontology, it will not work in Edwards’ favour because there are no immanent causal relations between different stages of a single four-dimensional entity which are not directly and immediately caused by God. Edwards is, after all, an occasionalist. Since almost no moral action obtains in an instant, it would appear that Edwards is faced with at least this very significant moral problem: God is causally and morally responsible for the vast majority of creaturely evil. That is a very serious drawback to his position.
It would seem that, in order to avoid the conclusion that God is morally as well as causally responsible for all events which take place in the world, the Edwardsian must distance herself from occasionalism, despite the fact that it is an integral part of the Edwardsian account of the transmission of original sin.Footnote 27 So, even if we can provide an account of Edwards’ metaphysics which is able to accommodate panentheism and a weak version of divine simplicity, occasionalism provides a significant – indeed, fatal – objection to the consistency of Edwards’ position. Or, more precisely, if we factor occasionalism and continuous creation into the equation, then Edwards must embrace the unpleasant and unorthodox consequence that God is the cause of (at least) the overwhelming majority of creaturely evil. Thus, if he grasps the first horn of the dilemma, he will be skewered on it.
God, the world and pantheism
But what about the other horn of the dilemma, that is, the worry that if Edwards embraces absolute divine simplicity his view collapses into pantheism? We have already noted this prospect in passing. The concern can be put like this. Suppose God is absolutely simple. Add to this the claim that panentheism is true. Then, God's attributes all imply each other and all imply the divine nature. The divine nature contains the created order, which exists as set of divine ideas. So (minimally) each fundamental element of the created order implies every other and implies the divine nature. But then there is no metaphysical wiggle room between God and creation – the creation is either numerically or qualitatively identical to God, and pantheism obtains.
This is not a new criticism of Edwards. In the nineteenth century there were grumblings about the implications of Edwardsian metaphysics. Perhaps the best-known critic of the Edwardsian position along these lines was the Old Princetonian, Charles Hodge. In his Systematic Theology he writes this in criticism of Edwards:
It necessarily follows that if God is the only substance He is the only agent in the universe. All things out of God being every moment called into being out of nothing, are resolved into modes of God's efficiency. If He creates the soul every successive instant, He creates all its states, thoughts, feelings, and volitions. The soul is only a series of divine acts. And therefore there can be no free agency, no sin, no responsibility, no individual existence. The universe is only the self-manifestation of God. This doctrine, therefore, in its consequences, is essentially pantheistic.Footnote 28
As we have already noted, the problem is that Hodge's objection can only go through if God and the world are identical. But Edwards explicitly denies that this is the case – he is a panentheist, not a pantheist. Nevertheless, Hodge is onto something. Edwards’ position could be construed in a way which yields pantheism. For, in addition to the aspects of his metaphysics we have already considered, Edwards is also an idealist who speaks of God ‘communicating’ himself in his act of continuously creating world stages which he segues together according to his good purpose and will. As William Schweitzer has recently put it, ‘For Edwards, the content of what God communicates to his intelligent beings is, ultimately, himself.’Footnote 29 The idealism which Edwards defended meant that ‘[a]ll ideas have their origin and substance in God's idea he has of himself, which is indeed the Second Person of the Trinity.. . . All reality resides in the divine mind, and there can be nothing in creation that did not come from, and forever remains grounded in, the Trinity.’Footnote 30 Finally, ‘[n]ot only do our ideas necessarily originate from God's idea, they are also “immediately” communicated to us by God while our bodies “passively receive” them’.Footnote 31 Although he does not plumb the depths of Edwardsian idealism, Schweitzer's comments are salutary. God continuously communicates himself to his creatures as he continuously creates world-stages, segued together in the divine mind. Creatures are passive recipients of God's communications, not just in the sense that God communicates the whole of reality from himself at each moment, but also in the sense that all that is created, human creatures included, are mere momentary stages which exist temporarily, flitting, as it were, across the divine mind from whence they originate as divine communications.
When this picture of God's immediate communicativeness in the continuous creation of an ideal world is placed alongside his views about divine simplicity, it is difficult to escape Hodge's conclusion that Edwards is a pantheist in spite of himself. For an ideal world which exists in the divine mind, that is a series of world-stages immediately communicated by God, and which comprises a set of divine ideas which are identical to one another and to the divine nature, entails pantheism. For what is pantheism but the thesis that God and the created order are identical? As per traditional versions of divine simplicity, and in keeping with Edwards’ published views in Religious Affections that ‘all the [divine] attributes of God do as it were imply each other’,Footnote 32 it would appear that Edwards is hoist by his own petard. The creation is a set of momentary divine ideas; divine ideas are identical to one another; and divine ideas are identical to God. But this is just pantheism. As Hodge puts it, ‘the universe is only the self-manifestation of God’.
Forcing the choice
Faced with this dilemma, what is the Edwardsian to do? These are deep waters and it is always a rather tricky thing to begin suggesting ways in which the metaphysics of a particular thinker might be ‘amended’ or ‘corrected’ in order to avoid certain perceived pitfalls. Nevertheless, given the seriousness of the position the Edwardsian finds himself in, there may be good reason to attempt just this. (It should be noted that there is a long tradition of Edwards’ disciples ‘amending’ his ideas, as a cursory glance at the history of the New England Theology will tell.) The obvious change has already been suggested, namely, embracing a less stringent concept of divine simplicity. This would avoid the second horn of the dilemma. Edwards (or the Edwardsian) would not then be committed to pantheism. For a God who has distinct mental states and distinct properties could presumably have an infinite number of divine ideas which are not identical to one another or to the divine nature. Note, this does nothing to ameliorate the strangeness of Edwardsian metaphysics. But we were concerned not with the fact that Edwardsian philosophical theology is exotic, but with the fact that it appeared to generate the Edwardsian Dilemma. By adopting a weaker account of divine simplicity, the Edwardsian avoids the second horn of the dilemma.
But the cost is embracing the first horn. As we have seen, this means holding to occasionalism and continuous creation and the moral consequences of the conjunction of these two views. Thus, even if the Edwardsian avoids the second horn of the dilemma by means of a weaker doctrine of divine simplicity, the first horn cannot be avoided without further revision to Edwards’ stated views. In other words, the Edwardsian must jettison occasionalism, as well as a strong doctrine of divine simplicity, in order to avoid both horns of the dilemma. This means that as it stands Edwards’ theistic metaphysics is fatally flawed. Any attempt to salvage aspects of Edwards’ understanding of the relationship between God and creation must end up modifying or amending central aspects of his thought. But only in doing so can Edwardsianism (or its salvageable vestiges) be preserved from the charges which have – to some extent, rightly – dogged the theological legacy of the Northampton Sage. For only by means of such revision can the Edwardsian Dilemma be avoided.
