Edwards Jonathan (1703–58), American philosopher and theologian. He was educated at Yale, preached in New York City, and in 1729 assumed a Congregational pastorate in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he became a leader in the Great Awakening. Because of a dispute with his parishioners over qualifications for communion, he was forced to leave in 1750. In 1751, he took charge of congregations in Stockbridge, a frontier town sixty miles to the west. He was elected third president of Princeton in 1757 (but died shortly after inauguration).
Edwards deeply influenced Congregational and Presbyterian theology in America for over a century, but had little impact on philosophy. Interest in him revived in the middle of the twentieth century, first among literary scholars and theologians and later among philosophers. While most of Edwards’s published work defends the Puritan version of Calvinist orthodoxy, his notebooks reveal an interest in philosophical problems for their own sake. Although he was indebted to Continental rationalists like Malebranche, to the Cambridge Platonists, and especially to Locke, his own contributions are sophisticated and original.
The doctrine of God’s absolute sovereignty is explicated by occasionalism, a subjective idealism similar to Berkeley’s, and phenomenalism. According to Edwards, what are ‘vulgarly’ called causal relations are mere constant conjunctions. True causes necessitate their effects. Since God’s will alone meets this condition, God is the only true cause. He is also the only true substance. Physical objects are collections of ideas of color, shape, and other ‘corporeal’ qualities. Finite minds are series of ‘thoughts’ or ‘perceptions.’ Any substance underlying perceptions, thoughts, and ‘corporeal ideas’ must be something that ‘subsists by itself, stands underneath, and keeps up’ physical and mental qualities. As the only thing that does so, God is the only real substance. As the only true cause and the only real substance, God is ‘in effect being in general.’ God creates to communicate his glory. Since God’s internal glory is constituted by his infinite knowledge of, love of, and delight in himself as the highest good, his ‘communication ad extra’ consists in the knowledge of, love of, and joy in himself which he bestows upon creatures. The essence of God’s internal and external glory is ‘holiness’ or ‘true benevolence,’ a disinterested love of being in general (i.e., of God and the beings dependent on him). Holiness constitutes ‘true beauty,’ a divine splendor or radiance of which ‘secondary’ (ordinary) beauty is an imperfect image. God is thus supremely beautiful and the world is suffused with his loveliness. Vindications of Calvinist conceptions of sin and grace are found in Freedom of the Will (1754) and Original Sin (1758). The former includes sophisticated defenses of theological determinism and compatibilism. The latter contains arguments for occasionalism and interesting discussions of identity. Edwards thinks that natural laws determine kinds or species, and kinds or species determine criteria of identity. Since the laws of nature depend on God’s ‘arbitrary’ decision, God establishes criteria of identity. He can thus, e.g., constitute Adam and his posterity as ‘one thing.’ Edwards’s religious epistemology is developed in A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (1746) and On the Nature of True Virtue (1765). The conversion experience involves the acquisition of a ‘new sense of the heart.’ Its core is the mind’s apprehension of a ‘new simple idea,’ the idea of ‘true beauty.’ This idea is needed to properly understand theological truths. True Virtue also provides the fullest account of Edwards’s ethics – a moral sense theory that identifies virtue with benevolence. Although indebted to contemporaries like Hutcheson, Edwards criticizes their attempts to construct ethics on secular foundations. True benevolence embraces being in general. Since God is, in effect, being in general, its essence is the love of God. A love restricted to family, nation, humanity, or other ‘private systems’ is a form of self-love. See also BERKELEY , CALVIN, FREE WILL PROBLEM , MORAL SENSE THEORY , OCCASION – ALIS. W.J.Wa.