Idealism and Christian Theology: Idealism and Christianity Volume 1 9781628924022, 9781501318160, 9781628924046

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Idealism and Christian Theology
1. The Theological Orthodoxy of Berkeley’s Immaterialism
2. Berkeley, Edwards, Idealism, and the Knowledge of God
3. Idealistic Panentheism: Reflections on Jonathan Edwards’s Account of the God-World Relation
4. Berkeley, Realism, Idealism, and Creation
5. Edwardsian Idealism, Imago Dei , and Contemporary Theology
6. On the Corruption of the Body: A Theological Argument for Metaphysical Idealism
7. Idealism and the Resurrection
8. Jonathan Edwards, Idealism, and Christology
9. Jonathan Edwards’s Dynamic Idealism and Cosmic Christology
10. Idealism and Participating in the Body of Christ
11. Idealistic Ethics and Berkeley’s Good God
Notes on Contributors
Index

Citation preview

Idealism and Christian Theology

Idealism and Christianity General Editor: James S. Spiegel Volume 1: Idealism and Christian Theology Edited by Joshua R. Farris and S. Mark Hamilton Volume 2: Idealism and Christian Philosophy Edited by Steven B. Cowan and James S. Spiegel

Idealism and Christian Theology Edited by

Joshua R. Farris and S. Mark Hamilton

Idealism and Christianity Volume 1

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc 1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2016 Paperback edition first published 2017 © Joshua R. Farris, S. Mark Hamilton, James S. Spiegel, and Contributors, 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Farris, Joshua Ryan, editor. | Hamilton, S. Mark., editor. | Spiegel, James S., 1963– editor. Title: Idealism and Christian theology / edited by Joshua R. Farris, S. Mark Hamilton, and James S. Spiegel. Description: New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. | Series: Idealism and Christianity ; volume 1 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015030699 | ISBN 9781628924022 (hardback : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Idealism. | Philosophy and religion. | Philosophical theology. | Berkeley, George, 1685–1753. | Edwards, Jonathan, 1703–1758. Classification: LCC BR100 .I36 2016 | DDC 261.5/1–dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015030699 ISBN: HB: PB: ePub: ePDF:

978-1-6289-2402-2 978-1-5013-3585-3 978-1-6289-2403-9 978-1-6289-2404-6

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To our Theological Mentors: Jonathan Edwards Oliver Crisp Stephen Wellum Robert Caldwell Doug Sweeney Greg Welty John Foster

Contents Acknowledgments

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Introduction: Idealism and Christian Theology Joshua R. Farris and S. Mark Hamilton

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1 The Theological Orthodoxy of Berkeley’s Immaterialism James S. Spiegel

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2 Berkeley, Edwards, Idealism, and the Knowledge of God William J. Wainwright

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3 Idealistic Panentheism: Reflections on Jonathan Edwards’s Account of the God-World Relation Jordan Wessling

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4 Berkeley, Realism, Idealism, and Creation Keith E. Yandell

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5 Edwardsian Idealism, Imago Dei, and Contemporary Theology Joshua R. Farris

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6 On the Corruption of the Body: A Theological Argument for Metaphysical Idealism S. Mark Hamilton

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7 Idealism and the Resurrection Marc Cortez

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8 Jonathan Edwards, Idealism, and Christology Oliver D. Crisp

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9 Jonathan Edwards’s Dynamic Idealism and Cosmic Christology Seng-Kong Tan

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10 Idealism and Participating in the Body of Christ James M. Arcadi

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11 Idealistic Ethics and Berkeley’s Good God Timo Airaksinen

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Notes on Contributors Index

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Acknowledgments We owe a monumental debt of gratitude to the following friends and colleagues for their support in producing this volume: Ryan Brandt, Steve Cowan, Paul Helm, Marc Hight, Madison Grace, David McGaugh, Hud Hudson, Kyle Strobel, Jordan Wessling. A thank you to the late John Foster for his careful work, which helped keep Berkeleyan Idealism alive in contemporary philosophy. We would like to thank all those at Bloomsbury publishing. A special thank you to Haaris Naqvi and Mary Al-Sayed of Bloomsbury whose diligence with and enthusiasm for the project carried us through in the final stages of editing. We also want to offer a special thanks to Oliver Crisp whose work on Edwards’s philosophical theology provided much inspiration for this volume. Our families were an immeasurable source of support throughout this project. To them we owe far more thanks than could possibly be expressed here. Finally, thank you to all the contributors who make the volume the success that it is. We would also like to express our thanks to Ashgate Publishing and The Society of Christian Philosophers for permission to use material from the following essays: Oliver D. Crisp, “Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), Idealism and Christology” in Revisioning Christology: Theology in the Reformed Tradition (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011), 43–67 and James S. Spiegel, “The Theological Orthodoxy of Berkeley’s Immaterialism,” Faith and Philosophy 13:2 (April, 1996), 216–235. Joshua R. Farris, S. Mark Hamilton, and James S. Spiegel Ad maiorem dei gloriam. Summer 2015

Introduction: Idealism and Christian Theology Joshua R. Farris and S. Mark Hamilton

Matter is a fiction. There is no material substance. No substratum. No extended unthinking substance. There are only minds and ideas. To think this way about the world, about persons, indeed, about every created and uncreated thing, is to be an “idealist.” Little else in philosophy provokes as many quizzical, browraising looks and sometimes outright ridicule, as one who claims to be an idealist. For contemporary philosophers of religion as well as theologians, idealism is peculiar, to say the least. Yet idealism and its main thesis, that minds are most real and the physical world is mind-dependent, has proven to be extraordinarily resistant to refutation. Still, many contemporary philosophers regard idealism as an unpalatable metaphysical approach to the world. In the recent history of philosophy, few works have appeared that favorably portray idealism as a plausible philosophical perspective. Considerably less has been written about idealism as a viable framework for doing theology. While the most recent and significant works on idealism, such as those composed by the late John Foster,1 have put this theory back on the philosophical map, no such attempt has been made to reintroduce idealism to contemporary Christian theology. Idealism and Christian Theology proposes to be such a work, retrieving ideas and arguments from its most significant modern exponents, especially George Berkeley and Jonathan Edwards, in order to assess its value for present and future theological consideration. As a piece of constructive theology itself (i.e., an approach to both systematic and philosophical theology, which draws from analytic resources for the purpose of clarifying, analyzing, developing, and extending theology as it is situated in particular traditions), this volume considers the explanatory power an idealist ontology has for a variety of issues in contemporary Christian theology.

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The relevance of Idealism to Christian theology Among the most historically significant proponents of the idealist philosophical tradition are the Irish philosopher and Anglican Bishop, George Berkeley (1685– 1753) and the American Reformed theologian and congregational minister, Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758). Despite their philosophical significance, it may not be immediately obvious to contemporary Christian theologians at large why either Berkeleyan or Edwardsian idealism is important to any theological program or, in some cases, why any philosophical engagement is important to theology at all. As such, we are faced with two fundamental questions: Why a book on idealism and Christian theology? And why a book on idealism and Christian theology? One answer to the first question is that there are conceptually profitable grounds for regarding idealism with more metaphysical seriousness in contemporary philosophy, some of which are explored in volume 2 of this Idealism and Christianity series.2 Idealism offers innovative alternative ways to deal with a variety of contemporary philosophical problems, from the mind-body problem to the nature of causation and the existence of the physical world. To answer the second question, there are equally profitable reasons that idealism—and metaphysics in general—ought to be taken more seriously by contemporary Christian theologians. At one level, this ought to be self-evident. For in one way or another every subject in theology touches some substantive philosophical issue. How can Christian theologians defend the two-natures doctrine of Christ without necessarily making a case for what it means to be a human person? How can Christian theologians rejoice in God’s love for humanity, without at some point making some metaphysical claims regarding God’s relation to that which he created? How can Christian theologians speak of the apostolic teaching that believers somehow participate in the divine nature without at some point defining what it might mean for the church to be “in Christ”? Investigation into ontology is necessary for the task of Christian theology, something that each of the following chapters is concerned to explore. Organized according to a traditional dogmatic theological categorization of Christian doctrine, Idealism and Christian Theology considers the viability of both the historic and contemporary idealist philosophical tradition for contemporary theological construction. Specifically, the authors retrieve both philosophical and theological ideas from the distinctive views found in Berkeleyan and Edwardsian idealism to solve problems, provide clarity, and

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otherwise improve our understanding of a variety of theological issues. Another reason for systematic attention to the traditional doctrinal categorization is that if idealism is to succeed as a philosophical and theological thesis it must be shown that it has the metaphysical resources to offer a coherent accounting for Christian theology and its particulars.

Aims of the book and some terminological distinctions The chief aims of this collection of essays are as follows. First, as a piece of constructive analytic theology, it is our intent to show the conceptual wealth that idealism affords various historic and contemporary theological issues, in terms of its potential to offer substantive and compelling explanations of particular doctrines and to refine certain controversial theological claims. Secondly, we set out to clarify what is meant by idealism. In so doing, this will establish a greater conceptual baseline for the reader’s general understanding of idealism and so-called Berkeleyan and Edwardsian idealism more specifically. This will be quite important, as there remain various conflicting opinions about the precise relationship of these two species of idealism; distinctions we anticipate will be made clear by a few of the chapters contained in this volume. Finally, we expect that the reader will see, across all ten essays, something of the elasticity and adaptability, perhaps also the appeal, of idealism for engaging in more constructive theological enterprises. For, while each of the contributors to this volume are committed by varying degrees to the support and suspicion of idealism, each author is committed to exploring and giving voice to the theological virtues of idealism. As it pertains to terminological distinctions, it should be clear by this point that this volume is interested in different perorations of Berkeleyan and Edwardsian idealism. Generally speaking, each of the authors will make interchangeable use of such terms as “idealism,” “immaterialism,” “philosophical idealism,” and “metaphysical idealism.” This will provide the reader with a measure of continuity from chapter to chapter. However, as there is perhaps no other philosophical concept as elusive of definition as “idealism,” in those essays that deal with both species of idealism, Berkeleyan and Edwardsian, great care has been taken to distinguish one from the other, where relevant and possible. We shall leave the precise definition of any additional terms or concepts related to properly defining one species of idealism from another to the care of the authors.

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Chapter previews The following ten essays were composed by theologians and philosophers of diverse theological traditions and philosophical points of view who, despite their differences, set out to explore the significance of idealism for Christian theology. What follows are brief synopses of each chapter. James S. Spiegel offers the inaugural essay in this volume as a reprint entitled, “The Theological Orthodoxy of Berkeley’s Immaterialism.” Through a careful reading of Berkeley’s key texts, he defends Berkeleyan idealism from the charge of theological unorthodoxy. Fitting for the purposes of this volume, Spiegel’s careful defense sets the tone of the volume that Berkeley, while affirming a unique and in some ways exotic metaphysic, is committed to the creedal Christian doctrines. Moreover, Spiegel argues, Berkeleyan idealism is not only consistent with basic Christian theology but certain aspects of Scripture actually recommend Berkeley’s metaphysical perspective. In his “Berkeley, Edwards, Idealism, and the Knowledge of God,” William J. Wainwright offers a comparison of Berkeleyan and Edwardsian idealism, or a particular way of reading them, which is both historically informed and philosophically sophisticated. Given the prominence of both Berkeley and Edwards as idealists committed to Christian theology, such a comparison is not only a unique contribution to the contemporary literature but also useful in terms of the constructive contributions found in the present volume. As Wainwright shows, Edwards and Berkeley had similar views regarding God’s immediate presence in the world and the nature of bodily substance. But they also had their differences, concerning such issues as God’s relation to the world and human free agency. Jordan Wessling’s “Idealistic Panentheism: Reflections on Jonathan Edwards’s Account of the God-World Relation” takes up a subject of some recent and considerable interest in the Edwards’s secondary literature—panentheism (the notion that created minds are somehow in God). Wessling argues that Edwards’s commitment to the view that created minds are radically dependent on God as ideas in the mind of God, and thus not independent substances, lends itself to a variant of panentheism. This is not to be confused with pantheism (the view that God is identical to the cosmos), yet it is nonetheless a renovation within classical theism. Wessling concludes that Edwards’s idealist panentheism has the resources to maintain a robust Creator-creature distinction in keeping with classical theism.

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In “Berkeley, Realism, Idealism, and Creation,” Keith Yandell constructs a Berkeleyan doctrine of creation. Moving through a controversial account of Berkeley’s understanding and use of the concept of “ideas” and divine omniscience, Yandell advances a sympathetic reading of Berkeley’s idealism as a viable option for making sense of God’s relationship to the physical world. Along the way, he explains Berkeley’s understanding of the physical world, why it is that Berkeley rejects the notion of material substance, and Berkeley’s distinction between ideas and “notions.” While Yandell has difficulty with Berkeley’s imagist theory of meaning, he finds Berkeley’s view of perceptual content and his doctrine of creation to be compelling. Yet, part of its success, according to Yandell, depends upon its ability to account for other Christian doctrines, as we find in other chapters of the volume. Joshua R. Farris’s “Edwardsian Idealism, Imago Dei, and Contemporary Theology” explores an Edwardsian view of the imago Dei. He explains that while some might be tempted to interpret Edwards as affirming a substantive dualist account of the imago, in fact Edwards is a monist of a peculiar sort. According to Farris, monism is a more appropriate categorization because on Edwards’s understanding the physical world excludes any kind of substantial existence, and souls or spirits (i.e., minds) are ephemeral substances while also being ideas in the mind of God. After Farris situates the Edwardsian imago in a broader metaphysics of idealism, he considers some of the ways in which Edwards, in view of his unique brand of idealism, renovates or revises aspects of the Reformation tradition. He concludes by noting some benefits following from Edwards’s constructive development of the imago. In his essay, “On the Corruption of the Body: A Theological Argument for Metaphysical Idealism” S. Mark Hamilton argues that Reformed hamartiology has traditionally construed human ontology along the lines of mind-body dualism, which in turn has significantly shaped the development of the doctrine of human moral corruption, according to which disordered human desires have deleterious effects on a person’s body. Pointing to certain problems related to the mind-body interaction problem implicit in many versions of mind-body dualism, Hamilton lays out several reasons for thinking that a metaphysical idealist notion of persons offers a theologically superior—because it is a theoretically simpler and generally less problematic—account of the doctrine of corruption. Marc Cortez, in his “Idealism and the Resurrection,” offers an Edwardsian idealist account of bodily resurrection. Cortez argues that Edwards presents a unique approach, according to which the body is not substantial (as with all

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other physical objects). Following a close and quite careful reading of Edwards’s discussion of bodily resurrection, Cortez advances a constructive case for the plausibility of an idealist account of physical resurrection by using Edwards’s unique brand of idealism as a test case. One of the most interesting questions that has received little attention in the contemporary literature is whether the resurrection body is necessary on an idealist account. Moving beyond what Edwards himself states, Cortez tells a coherent story as to how the idealist can sustain the necessity of physical resurrection. In “Jonathan Edwards, Idealism, and Christology,” Oliver D. Crisp measures some of the far-reaching theological implications of Edwards’s various metaphysical commitments, specifically those that impact his Christology. He moves methodically through several key, though controversial, components in Edwards’s thinking, such as his supposed commitment to the doctrines of continuous creation, four-dimensionalism, and panentheism, as well as, of course, Edwards’s immaterialism and antirealism. Despite these few “exotic” commitments, Edwards affirmed a creedal Christology. Crisp points to Edwards’s idealism as a coherent way to make sense of the Chalcedonian Christological standards. In a related essay, Seng-Kong Tan considers “Jonathan Edwards’s Dynamic Idealism and Cosmic Christology.” Tan fixes upon the pneumatic aspect of Edwards’s trinitarianism and more specifically, his Christology. Tan, with Crisp, recognizes Edwards’s unique metaphysical contribution, which is distinct from Berkeley’s, while distinguishing his interpretation of Edwards’s idealist Christology from Crisp’s. Tan innovatively develops the pneumatic aspect of idealism and Christology. Along these lines, he highlights Edwards’s idealism as being more dynamic than what we find in Crisp’s interpretation in that the objectivity of Edwards’s idealism is rooted in the Spirit’s action of effecting the ideal (i.e., Christ). In this way, Tan contributes to a small, yet growing, body of Edwardsian Christological literature. James M. Arcadi, in “Idealism and Participating in the Body of Christ,” offers one of the more ambitious constructive treatments of idealism in the volume. Arcadi develops and defends the coherence of idealism as a metaphysical way to carve out a novel theory of the Eucharist. He advances a variation of an “impanation” theory of the eucharist (i.e., the theory that the body and blood of Christ are somehow present in the physical elements without excising the elements) using an idealist metaphysic. While such a theory might remain unpalatable to the Roman Catholic, such a theory, Arcadi suggests, becomes a promising option for others within the Christian tradition.

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Finally, in “Idealistic Ethics and Berkeley’s Good God,” Timo Airaksinen takes up the topic of Berkeley’s idealism in relation to his ethical theory where God is and must be central. By situating Berkeley’s moral theory historically and philosophically, Airaksinen carefully explicates Berkeley’s ethics in a way that shows how God and his ideas are central to Berkeley’s case against atheists and the “freethinkers” of Berkeley’s day. Finally, Airaksinen develops Berkeley’s ethical theory in relation to eschatology where Berkeley’s “idealistic optimism” is a “transferred optimism” to heaven where virtue and happiness exist eternally—an appropriate topic to end on.

Notes 1 See Foster’s Case for Idealism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Books, 1982) and A World for Us: The Case for Phenomenological Idealism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). 2 James S. Spiegel and Steve Cowan, eds. Idealism and Christian Philosophy, Idealism and Christianity, vol. 2 (New York: Bloomsbury, forthcoming).

Bibliography Foster John. Case for Idealism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982. Foster John. A World for Us: The Case for Phenomenological Idealism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Spiegel, James S., and Steve Cowan (eds.). Idealism and Christian Philosophy, Idealism and Christianity, vol. 2. New York: Bloomsbury, forthcoming.

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The Theological Orthodoxy of Berkeley’s Immaterialism James S. Spiegel

It is well known that the chief end of Berkeley’s philosophical labors was to defend the Christian religion. He says as much in the closing section of the Principles, where he states that that work was calculated to “better dispose [his readers] to reverence and embrace the salutary truths of the Gospel, which to know and to practice is the highest perfection of human nature.”1 This being Berkeley’s aim, it is no surprise that he is careful to insist that his metaphysics is fully consistent with biblical principles. Indeed, in the Philosophical Commentaries, he proclaims “there is nothing in scripture that can possibly be wrested against me, but, perhaps, many things for me.”2 Here Berkeley’s claim is two-fold. On the one hand, he boldly asserts that his immaterialism implies nothing that in any way contradicts scripture; on the other hand, he suggests that in scripture there are to be found some passages that in fact favor his immaterialism. For the sake of brevity, let us call the above two claims Berkeley’s “consistency” thesis and the “endorsement” thesis, respectively. In this chapter I shall assess these two theses, investigating, first, Berkeley’s defense of the biblical soundness of his immaterialism and, second, the degree to which, if at all, his immaterialism is recommended by scripture.

Berkeley’s immaterialism and the consistency thesis Before proceeding to an examination of these two theses, let us review the essential features of Berkeley’s metaphysics, which earn him the title “immaterialist” and which his Christian opponents have on occasion found offensive. The central

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thesis of Berkeley’s system is the principle esse est percipi aut percipere (to be is to be perceived or to perceive). Nothing that is not itself a mind exists independently of perception by some mind. In the Principles Berkeley arrives at this conclusion by arguing as follows: Since an object is nothing more than a collection of sensible qualities, and sensible qualities are ideas, an object is just a collection of ideas. Now since ideas are mind dependent, existing only when perceived, it follows that objects exist only when perceived. Their esse is percipi. In Berkeley’s ontology, then, there are two categories of being: minds and ideas. There exist only ideas perceived and minds perceiving them. Ideas are entirely passive, having “nothing of power or agency included in them,” while minds are “simple, undivided, active substance[s].”3 Only mind possesses the power to produce and perceive ideas. Insofar as it does the former, it is called will; as it does the latter it is called the understanding. Implicit in Berkeley’s principle that to be is to be perceived is a denial of material substance, the inert, qualitiless “I know not what” of which Locke spoke and in which, according to him, all of the sensible qualities of bodies subsist.4 This doctrine is repudiated by Berkeley as unintelligible, since it is impossible to conceive of something that is unperceived, and Locke’s material substance, itself possessing no sensible qualities, is unperceivable. These are, in a nutshell, Berkeley’s philosophical reasons for rejecting material substance. But, as we shall see in evaluating his consistency thesis, his objections are not entirely philosophical but theological as well. Berkeley’s consistency thesis, once again, is that his immaterialism in no way implies anything that is inconsistent with scripture. I want to explore those doctrines or issues that the orthodox Christian might think to be threatened by a Berkeleyan metaphysics. That is, I shall discuss those issues where inconsistency between Berkeley’s immaterialism and scripture might be (and in some cases has been) alleged. In both the Principles and the Three Dialogues Berkeley anticipates objections from scripture. In the former he proposes the objection that although no rational demonstration of the existence of bodies can be made, the Holy Scriptures are so clear in the point as will sufficiently convince every good Christian that bodies do really exist, and are something more than mere ideas, there being in Holy Writ innumerable facts related which evidently suppose the reality of timber and stone, mountains and rivers, and cities, and human bodies.5

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Berkeley’s reply, of course, is to deny that his principles in any way conflict with the scriptures or “the right use and significance of language.” He is prepared to abide by the “vulgar acceptation” of words such as “timber,” “stone,” “body,” and so on, which denote tangible objects and to distinguish between real and imaginary objects. And, reiterating his central thesis, he reminds us that it is only “matter,” as some philosophers use the term, which he denies. In the Three Dialogues, through Philonous, he presents us with this challenge: As for solid corporeal substances, I desire you to shew where Moses makes any mention of them; and if they should be mentioned by him, or any other inspired writer, it would still be incumbent upon you to show those words were not taken in the vulgar acceptation, for things falling under our senses, but in the philosophic acceptation, for Matter, or an unknown quiddity, with an absolute existence.6

Until then, Berkeley urges, the authority of the scriptures is irrelevant to the discussion, for they are neutral on the issue of material substance. In this way Berkeley shifts the burden of proof onto the matterist, convinced that he has already fully demonstrated the truth of esse est percipi aut percipere. But with regard to the propriety of God’s use of material substance, Berkeley has yet another argument—from the principle of parsimony. In section 61 of the Principles he argues that the use of material substance in creating the world would be unnecessary and superfluous for an omnipotent deity. That is, Berkeley in effect asks, why should God use material substance in doing that which “might have been effected by the mere command of His will without all that apparatus”? To posit the existence of matter, then, when God can accomplish all that he has accomplished without it, is to violate Ockham’s razor (or, at least, the theological principle that a being of perfect wisdom and power will always effect his ends by the simplest and most expeditious means). The existence and operations of the universe are entirely explicable by God’s will and are needlessly explained with the addition of corporeal substance. Theologically Berkeley considers the doctrine equally repugnant, because it implies that “God has created innumerable beings that are entirely useless and serve no manner of purpose.”7 Belief in material substance, then, amounts to the highest irreverence, for it suggests divine frivolity in the creation of the physical world. A second potential objection from scripture pertains to Berkeley’s doctrine of mind or spirit. His view, we will recall, is that there exist only two kinds of

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things, spirits and ideas, or respectively, perceiving subjects and that which is perceived. So, Berkeley tells us, we have no idea of spirit. Now the problem is this. The Old and New Testaments, especially the latter, are replete with hundreds of discussions of and references to the human soul or spirit that clearly presuppose that we have some ideas of these entities. Numerous particular attributes are predicated of the human soul or spirit, for example, that it can be “downcast,”8 “steadfast,”9 “broken,”10 “joyful,”11 “contrite,”12 “lowly,”13 and “strong.”14 How is Berkeley’s professed ontology to be reconciled with this biblical language? He seems to have glimpsed the seriousness of the problem, for he deals with the matter explicitly in the Principles as follows: Spirit, being an active substance that perceives, cannot itself be perceived, for this implies passivity, a characteristic of ideas only. He says of spirit that it is an active being. So “there can be no idea formed of a soul or spirit; for all ideas whatever, being passive and inert, they cannot represent unto us, by way of image or likeness, that which acts.”15 Therefore, spirit “cannot be of itself perceived, but only by the effects which it produces.”16 Berkeley’s position here in no way precludes him from describing spirits using the same sorts of ascriptions employed by the biblical writers, for these do not require the having of an idea of spirit, in the strict sense. The technical distinction Berkeley makes in this context to allow for knowledge of spirit is between “ideational” and “notional” knowledge. He writes, “We may be said to have some knowledge or notion of our own minds, of spirits and active beings, whereof in a strict sense we have not ideas.”17 Unfortunately, Berkeley says little more in the way of explicating this distinction.18 This much we know, that notional knowledge has an active being as its object rather than a passive being, which is the object of ideational knowledge. Furthermore, the object of notional knowledge is perceived indirectly, through its effects, whereas the object of ideational knowledge is directly perceived.19 It seems that Berkeley is suggesting that notional knowledge is best (or only) understood as knowledge, which is non-ideational. At any rate, his doctrine of notions, cryptic though it is, is certainly motivated by his concern to preserve the possibility of genuine knowledge of spirits, which in turn can be seen as an attempt to reconcile his immaterialism with the basic scriptural presumption of this possibility.20 A third objection from scripture comes from Berkeley’s associate Samuel Johnson. He argues that given Berkeley’s view of bodies as collections of ideas the perception of which is not really dependent upon sense organs, the doctrine of bodily resurrection seems to be undermined, since upon death it is conceivable that “we should still be attended with the same ideas of bodies as we have now.”21

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The result is that the wonder of physical resurrection is diminished by the ease of its explicableness under Berkeley’s principles. Johnson’s ironic conclusion is that immaterialist metaphysics explains too much and that therefore Berkeley’s ontology “seems to have no place for any resurrection at all, at least in the sense that word seems to bear in St. John 5:28, 29.”22 Berkeley’s reply to Johnson is that his principles imply no exotic view of bodily death and resurrection but that they may be conceived as easily with as without corporeal substance. He writes, “it seems very easy to conceive the soul to exist in a separate state . . . and to exercise herself on new ideas, without the intervention of these tangible things we call bodies.”23 Berkeley’s response here is again indicative of his assumption that the burden of proof is not upon him to show the consistency of his principles with the doctrine of bodily resurrection but rather rests upon critics such as Johnson to demonstrate their inconsistency.24 However, in replying as he does, Berkeley focuses on the possibility of disembodied existence rather than on the possibility of physical resurrection, and the former does not imply the latter. But since Berkeley does not deny the existence of bodies in the usual sense of the term, it is not clear from Johnson’s objection why this should be a particularly troublesome point for Berkeley. For as Berkeley reminds Johnson, it is sufficient for him to account for physical resurrection that “we allow sensible bodies, i.e. such as are immediately perceived by sight and touch; the existence of which I am so far from questioning.”25 Now it might be the case that Johnson’s point rather is that Berkeley cannot adequately distinguish between physical resurrection and disembodied existence. But if this is his point then, again, Berkeley’s reply is appropriate when he describes the disembodied state as a condition in which the soul perceives without the intervention of sense organs. A fourth potential source of contention between Berkeley and his theologically orthodox26 critics concerns the matter of common sense. In his notebooks Berkeley makes the following candid remark, which many commentators have since found incredible, or at least paradoxical, considering the novelty of his metaphysics: “All things in the Scripture wch side with the Vulgar against the Learned side with me also. I side in all things with the Mob.”27 Later, through Philonous in the Three Dialogues, this claim is uncompromised. He declares “I am content, Hylas, to appeal to the common sense of the world for the truth of my notion.”28 Whether in fact Berkeley is properly considered a defender of common sense is still an open question and an issue that is today widely disputed. Commentators

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such as Luce, Jessop, Grayling, and Pappas have argued in defense of this claim, while Bennett, Pitcher, and Tipton among others have maintained that Berkeleyan immaterialism opposes common sense. Because of the complexity of this issue I will refrain from entering into this debate here. Nor do I believe that demonstrating Berkeley’s metaphysics to be consistent with common sense is necessary to vindicate it against the charge of theological heterodoxy. Our present concern is to evaluate immaterialism in light of scripture, not to determine whether it is amenable to all the common sense convictions of ordinary folk. Our focus, then, is restricted only to the first claim Berkeley makes in entry 405 of his notebooks: “All things in the Scripture wch side with the Vulgar against the Learned side with me also.” The question as to whether Berkeley’s subsequent claim is correct, that he does “side in all things with the mob,” is outside the scope of this chapter. I should note, nevertheless, that I believe the claim that his immaterialism is consistent with common sense to be defensible.29 In defending Berkeley’s first assertion in notebook entry 405, it is important to make two observations. First, as has already been noted, the scriptures and the Genesis story in particular are neutral on the topic of material substance. The biblical writers simply do not take a clear side on the issue (though, as I shall try to show later, some passages seem to suggest a Berkeleyan immaterialism). Thus, even if one concedes that belief in corporeal substance is commonsensical, immaterialism remains unthreatened until it is also shown that the scriptural position supports this conviction, a claim that Berkeley defies his antagonists to justify. Someone, of course, might object that although the scriptures make no explicit reference to matter, their consistent support of common sense generally serves as an indirect defense of realism (i.e., the thesis that (a) the objects we seem to perceive are real and (b) objects continue to exist when not perceived). Immaterialism is, in contrast, an esoteric doctrine, not readily comprehended, let alone accepted, by ordinary folk. Therefore, the scriptures implicitly side with the vulgar against Berkeley on the question of corporeal substance. This objection leads us to the second observation, namely that scripture itself does not consistently side with common sense. Quite the contrary, the Bible is replete with stories, doctrines, and moral rules that fly in the face of common sense. Historical accounts of abominable Egyptian plagues, partings of the Red Sea and Jordan river, spontaneously crumbled city walls at Jericho, and scores of miracles; metaphysical tenets of a triune godhead, divine incarnation, and justification by faith; and moral imperatives such as “love your enemies” and “bless those who

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curse you,” to sample just a few, are admittedly opposed to common sense beliefs. Theologically sensitive rivals of Berkeleyan immaterialism who base their critique on common sense are wont to overlook this crucial consideration. The point here is that even if it is granted that matterism has common sense as an advocate, this fact alone does not show that it is supported by scripture. Immaterialism, as it turns out, just might be one of the many non-commonsensical doctrines which is either allowed by or, as I shall suggest, actually recommended by the scriptures. The final, and perhaps most serious, objection to Berkeley’s immaterialism I want to address regards the problem of evil. By all indications it is a complaint that Berkeley himself took very seriously, for he addresses the matter in several of his works. Let us look to the Principles first where, in his typical fashion, he states the objection both convincingly and eloquently: monsters, untimely births, fruits blasted in the blossom, rains failing in desert places, miseries incident to human life, and the like, are so many arguments that the whole frame of nature is not immediately actuated and superintended by a spirit of infinite wisdom and goodness.30

What Berkeley outlines here is the problem of “natural” evil, as distinct from the problem of moral evil. To this objection Berkeley offers in reply the Leibnizian “aesthetic” theodicy.31 “Blemishes and defects of nature,” he asserts, serve to contribute to the beauty and goodness of the whole just as in a painting shadows are necessary to complement the brighter parts.32 But since we are finite beings we are able to glimpse but a small portion of the whole, whereupon we impugn God on the basis of our ignorance. In the Three Dialogues, Berkeley again treats the problem of evil, but this time the subject is moral evil rather than natural evil. With regard to immoral actions performed by human beings he notes first that “the imputation of guilt is the same, whether a person commits such an action with or without an instrument,” where in this context the “instrument” on the matterist’s account is understood to be material substance. In this way, Berkeley argues that his immaterialism is, for good or ill, on equal footing with realism when it comes to the problem of moral evil. If given his principles, the benevolence of God must be denied because of the presence of moral evil in the world, then the same follows for the philosopher who assumes the principles of matterism. Interposing material substance between God and human misconduct provides no buffer against divine responsibility. Just as a murderer is equally culpable for his act whether he

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uses a gun or his fist, God is culpable (if culpable at all) for natural evil whether or not he created the world using corporeal substance. Thus, Berkeley’s intention here is simply to show that any theodicy that works here for the matterist works equally well for the immaterialist. There is no difference between them on this issue. But Berkeley has an additional reply. He writes, sin or moral turpitude doth not consist in the outward physical action or motion, but in the internal deviation of the will from the laws of reason and religion . . .therefore . . . the making God an immediate cause of all such actions is not making Him the Author of sin.33

However, one might object, to cause such action is tantamount to willing it. For God, to cause an event is to will it, since he presumably knows what he is doing whenever he undertakes an action. Thus, it seems, the distinction Berkeley draws here fails to exonerate God from responsibility for human sin, for obviously God must will or intend whatever he brings to pass. He does not ordain blindly. Berkeley does indeed face a serious problem here. However, as with the objection above, it is not immaterialism specifically that is indicted here but the more general doctrine of the immediate providence of God. Berkeley’s principles place him squarely within a much larger tradition of Christian theology that affirms the divine foreordination of all things. Anyone within this tradition, including those of the matterist stripe, must grapple with the thorny problem of reconciling divine determinism, human responsibility, and the goodness of God. There is much more to be said (and has been said) about this issue, but this is not the place for it. The point here is that Berkeley’s immaterialist metaphysics does not subject him to any more formidable problem of evil than that which confronts certain other matterists. For both the task of forging a satisfactory theodicy in light of the sovereignty of God is equally onerous.

The endorsement thesis and scriptural recommendations of Berkeley’s immaterialism Now that we have shown how Berkeley deflects criticism of his system for theological impropriety, let us look into his bolder “endorsement” thesis, which maintains, we will recall, that the scriptures actually testify on behalf of his metaphysics. Although, as we have seen, Berkeley offered repeated defenses of

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the consistency thesis, he was not so explicit in his support of the endorsement thesis. Rather, he was mostly content with merely appending to his arguments biblical texts, leaving to the reader the task of embellishing a specific application. His favorite passage is found in the book of Acts where the apostle Paul, speaking at a meeting on Mars Hill, remarks that in God “we live and move and have our being.”34 (The context of this passage is especially noteworthy, considering that the audience of Paul’s discourse very likely included Stoic and Epicurean philosophers.) But what exactly is the significance of this passage as it pertains to Berkeley’s immaterialism? Why is he so confident that it is relevant to, let alone that it serves to bolster, his position? The answer becomes clear when we note a particular implication of his denial of material substance. Since sensible qualities do not inhere in matter, their subsistence can only be explained by the divine mind. The world has no existence independent of a perceiving spirit but continues to exist only because God perceives it. Thus, a notion entertained by Descartes three quarters of a century earlier,35 Berkeley also defends as true, asserting that “the divine conservation of things is equipollent to, and in fact, the same thing with a continued repeated creation; in a word, that conservation and creation differ only in the terminus a quo.”36 If one carefully examines the creation account given in the book of Genesis, I believe there is to be found a possible recommendation of Berkeley’s brand of immaterialism. But before doing so, I want to spell out in greater detail the precise relationship between God and the world that is entailed by a Berkeleyan metaphysics. Let me first briefly characterize the theologically conscious matterist interpretation of the Genesis creation account, specifically the sort of narrative that Hylas might have provided had he obliged when Philonous pressed him for such an explanation, saying, “as for solid corporeal substances, I desire you to shew where Moses makes any mention of them.”37 Hylas, as it turns out, offers no such evidence, nor does he bother to present even the contours of an interpretation of the creation story from the perspective of a matterist. However, we might imagine that it would go something like this: In the beginning God created matter, solid corporeal substance, which he subsequently formed into various shapes, for example, the earth, sun, moon, living creatures, and so on. Of course, his creation of matter and his giving it particular forms need not have been temporally distinct acts, but they are at least conceptually distinct. It is important to note that on the matterist account we really have no conception as to how God created matter ex nihilo. We only know that he

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did so. This is a metaphysical mystery to us finite beings. Moreover, there is nothing in human experience analogous to what God did in creation. It is true, human beings do create objects in a sense, but our creativity is more precisely a reformation or modification of objects that already exist. What we make is always out of preexisting material. This is not the case with God’s creative acts, however, for he requires no preexisting material. He created out of nothing. Now on the matterist conception, the existence of the world independently of the perception of any particular spirit, including God, is conceivable, even granting God’s initial creation of the world.38 Nonetheless, a theologically sensitive matterist such as Hylas would insist that the world is ruled by God, for it is governed by his laws, that is, the laws of nature. In fashioning the world, the creator built into it certain fixed, physical principles such as the laws of thermodynamics, the ideal gas law, the laws of gravity, inertia, action and reaction, and so on. These ensure that the physical world remains uniform, which in turn works to the benefit of God’s creatures, for we learn what to expect and hence are better equipped to get along in the world. Still, despite the uniformity of nature, God does intervene miraculously at times, suspending or holding in abeyance some law or laws of nature, to perform a deed to assist his creatures, such as parting the Red Sea or transforming a staff into a snake. Now having looked at a matterist understanding of the Mosaic creation account and God’s continued governance of the cosmos, let us see what Berkeley has to say about these things. In the third Dialogue, Hylas objects as follows to Philonous’ principles: The scripture account of the creation is what appears to me utterly irreconcilable with your notions. Moses tells us of a creation: a creation of what? of ideas? No certainly, but of things, of real things, solid corporeal substances. Bring your principles to agree with this, and I shall perhaps agree with you.39

In the face of this challenge Philonous makes a distinction between two senses of the word “ideas.” What Philonous does not intend by this term when speaking of the created order is “fictions” or “fancies of the mind.” Instead, he understands the proper denotation of ideas to be “immediate objects of the understanding, or sensible things which cannot exist unperceived, or out of a mind”40 Yet, he reminds Hylas that in everyday parlance sense objects are called “things” rather than ideas. Hence, Philonous is able to conclude that in creation God made real things. Thus having defended his allegiance to the “vulgar acceptation” of the Genesis creation account, Philonous takes the offensive, noting that neither

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Moses nor any other inspired writer refers to “solid corporeal substance,” or matter in its philosophic sense, as an “unknown quiddity, with an absolute existence.” Therefore, Philonous concludes, his own principles are no more repugnant to the Mosaic creation account than are those of Hylas. Still Hylas is unmoved and presses him for a fuller explanation. Of course, Philonous is happy to comply with his request: When things are said to begin or end their existence we do not mean this with regard to God, but His creatures. All objects are eternally known to God, or, which is the same thing, have an eternal existence in His mind: but when things, before imperceptible to creatures, are, by a divine decree of God, perceptible to them, then are they said to begin a relative existence, with respect to created minds. Upon reading therefore the Mosaic account of the creation, I understand that the several parts of the world became gradually perceivable to finite spirits, endowed with proper faculties; so that, whoever such were present, they were in truth perceived by them. This is the literal obvious sense suggested to me by the words of the Holy Scripture.41

There are then two kinds of divine ideas: (1) those that are eternal archetypes existing solely in the mind of God and (2) those that are temporal and relative ectypes, perceived not only by the mind of God but by other spirits as well.42 The former may be said to be “private” with regard to the divine mind, while the latter are “public,” that is, accessible by minds other than God’s. Now the act of creation, according to Philonous, involves essentially making ectypes from certain divine archetypes, or publicizing what once was private, known only to God. About this Jonathan Dancy writes, On this view, the world we live in, our world, is nothing other than (part of) the contents of the mind of God. It is not just that God causes us to have ideas like his; when we open our eyes and see what is there, we are having ideas which are God’s.43

In short, the world consists of God’s public ideas. And the creation of the world was simply the process in which these ideas first became public, perceivable by finite spirits. With this understanding of Berkeley’s conception of the creation of the world, we are prepared to look closely at the opening chapter of Genesis to test his immaterialistic account of creation for ourselves. Recall that in the narrative each of God’s creative acts in the first chapter of Genesis is prefaced with the phrase “And God said.” This is the refrain through the first 24 verses of Genesis. “And

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God said”: “Let there be light” (v. 3), “Let there be an expanse between the waters” (v. 6), “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place and let dry ground appear” (v. 9), “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees” (v. 11), “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night” (v. 14), “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth” (v. 20), “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds” (v. 24). At every juncture of creation, God speaks things into existence. He creates “by the word of his mouth.” To use the vocabulary of immaterialism, this is the means by which he makes his private, archetypal ideas public and ectypal. Now it is also plain from the Genesis story that we as human beings mirror God’s nature in some significant way: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”44 When one considers the mystery and superlativeness of the divine being, this is a very cryptic passage indeed. What does it mean to say that we are created in God’s image? The full implications of this passage we will leave to theologians to debate, but in the present context we are led to inquire as to whether we mirror the divine being in the way Berkeley’s creation account would seem to suggest we do. That is, if it is the case from scripture that we are created in God’s likeness and it is also the case that God creates by speaking things into existence, wherein lies any similarity between God and us on this score? Is there evidence to suggest a Berkeleyan interpretation here? I would answer this question in the affirmative and submit that we need look no further than ordinary experience to find all the confirmation we need of Berkeley’s account. Let us simply examine the way we humans speak. In short, to speak is, among other things, to make one’s thoughts public. For example, I am now thinking about my cat, Simon, specifically that he has a bushy tail. This is a private thought of mine to which no person other than myself has access. But when I utter the words, say, “My cat, Simon, has a bushy tail,” I publicize these thoughts. They are still my thoughts, in a sense, but having expressed them in audible words, other persons may become privy to them. I have made my ideas public. What I am suggesting is that there is a fruitful analogy between the manner in which God created the world and the ordinary human experience of sharing ideas through speech. God created, that is, made his ideas public, through the spoken word.45 Likewise, we who are made in his image publicize our ideas by speaking. Hence, in this way Berkeley’s immaterialist interpretation of the Genesis story of creation offers us a sense in which human beings are divine image bearers and that the usual matterist conception does not.46

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Let me draw out the analogy in further detail. First, speaking, we should note, is not necessarily tantamount to making one’s ideas known to another mind but rather only to make them perceivable to or accessible by some other mind (at least in principle). When I say “My cat, Simon, has a bushy tail,” there may or may not be anyone else within earshot to hear my utterance and so to access my verbalized ideas. But if someone who understands English were present, they would hear me and, hence, perceive those thoughts of mine, which I had just made public. This sort of state of affairs in human speaking parallels Berkeley’s account of unperceived objects when he writes, for example, “The table I write on I say exists, that is I see and feel it; and if I were out of my study I should say it existed—meaning thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it.”47 Thus, there need not actually be some finite mind now perceiving my desk for me to be able to say properly that it now exists. Similarly, when I utter some statement when no one else is present to hear me, it is nevertheless the case that I have made my thoughts public, for if someone had been listening, he or she would have perceived my objectified ideas. Both of these cases are comparable to the Genesis creation account insofar as we may say properly that God made his ideas public even if there were no other spirits present to perceive his objectified ideas, for if some being, say, an angel, were present it would have perceived them. Notice as well that whatever oddity or awkwardness there is in saying that God’s unperceived but perceivable ideas (to finite minds) are nonetheless public, it is equally odd or awkward to refer to our spoken but unheard (except by ourselves) words as nonetheless public. In either case, this awkwardness might be thought to reveal a limitation to the account. Consequently, even with regard to the potential weakness of these accounts, there seems to be an analogy between human speaking and divine creation. I should note in passing that I do not without good reason use the terms “publicize” and “objectify” when speaking of God’s ideas, which are perceived or perceivable. I do so to preserve what I believe is an accurate rendering of Berkeley’s construal of the creation account and to avoid certain problems into which some commentators needlessly run. Jonathan Dancy, for example, in the passage quoted earlier, is misleading, for he might be construed as suggesting that when God creates he makes his ideas known to someone. We have seen that for Berkeley, given his alternative conditions for existence, this is not necessarily the case. If divine creation did entail for Berkeley that God makes his ideas known to someone (as opposed to knowable), then the question arises, “who was there

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to perceive God’s public ideas during creation?” From a theological perspective, the best reply here for someone such as Dancy is to appeal to the prior existence of angels. The creation of the world might be understood as God’s private ideas48 becoming publicized to some cherubim, seraphim, or other angelic being(s). This line of response, however, is troubled with the further complication that it does not account for the possibility, acknowledged by Berkeley, that the world might have been created before any finite mind. Thus far, then, Berkeley’s account of creation, if it occurred in time, seems incomplete, or at least awkward. For if the Berkeleyan picture is accurate, on what grounds can it be meaningfully said that at time T1 prior to creation it was true, while at time T2 it was false that were a finite mind present it would have perceived something? Charles McCracken has dealt incisively with this issue.49 In so doing, he adumbrates key passages from the Three Dialogues such as this: [T]hings, with regard to us, may properly be said to begin their existence, or be created, when God decreed they should become perceptible to intelligent creatures, in that order and manner which He then established, and we now call the laws of nature.50

and this one quoted earlier: All objects are eternally known by God, or, which is the same thing, have an eternal existence in His mind: but when things, before imperceptible to creatures, are, by a decree of God, perceptible to them, then are they said to begin a relative existence, with respect to created minds.51

According to McCracken, it is apparent from passages such as these that the key to understanding Berkeley’s explanation as to how we are to make sense of the problem identified above lies in God’s decrees. Thus, McCracken says that for Berkeley the creation of the visible world is identical God’s freely making a certain decree: the decree, that is, that certain sense qualities will be perceived in a certain order and connection by such spirits as do exist, or that those qualities would be perceived in that arrangement, were any spirits in existence.52

Now such decrees, McCracken explains, differ from God’s powers in that the former involve an act of divine will, while the latter do not. Divine decrees are to be understood as “ideas in the mind of God.” They are analogous to the “plan or program” of any human being who determines in his mind what actions he will take, given certain contingencies.

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Another analogy between human speaking and divine creation according to the Berkeleyan account is revealed when we consider that what a person says when he or she speaks tells us something about who he or she is. Through verbal communication, one displays his or her intelligence, creativity, interests, moral convictions, and so on. In short, by listening to what a person says we can learn a great deal about him or her. Similarly, for Berkeley, through observing the creator’s visual language, we are able to infer much about the author of the world. As Philonous says in the second dialogue, “from the variety, order, and manner of [sensible impressions] I conclude the Author of them to be wise, powerful, and good, beyond all comprehension.”53 Hence, for Berkeley, inferring God’s nature from his “language” (i.e., the created world) is in principle done in the same way we infer the attributes of other persons from the things they say. The inferrability of God’s nature is suggested in various places in scripture. For instance, the psalmist proclaims that “the heavens declare the glory of God.”54 And Paul writes: “Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.”55 Biblical texts such as these are perfectly consonant with a Berkeleyan metaphysic that suggests the sort of unmistakable nearness of God about which the psalmist and the apostle are so confident. This leads us to a further analogy. The person who speaks controls and determines everything he or she says. In the case of the “divine speaker,” this is known as “providence,” the absolute and immediate control that the creator exercises over his creation. Berkeley was careful to point out that the doctrine of providence is implied by his metaphysics, specifically his conception of the world as a divine visual language. He explains: This visual language proves, not a creator merely, but a provident governor, actually and intimately present, and attentive to all our interests and motions, who watches over our conduct, and takes care of our minutest actions and designs throughout the whole course of our lives, informing, admonishing, and directing incessantly, in a most evident and sensible manner.56

By all biblical accounts God is intimately related to, though ontologically distinct from, the world.57 Furthermore, the creator is said to exercise complete dominion over his creation, a conviction evident in the words of Jeremiah: “Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?”58 (Note again the speech metaphor.) In the book of Isaiah this same conviction is echoed by God himself

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through the prophet: “I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.”59 And the apostle Paul proclaims that God “is before all things and in him all things hold together,”60 again suggesting the determination of all things by God.61 Divine foreknowledge of future events, a concomitant of the deity’s control over all things, also has its parallel in human experience. God’s knowledge of future events is similar to a person’s knowledge of the words he or she is prepared to speak. In both cases the agent has decided privately what he or she will do publicly. A fourth parallel between human and divine “speech” is to be found in what Berkeley refers to as “divine conservation” or “constant creation.”62 Since the world consists of God’s public ideas, it must persist only because he continues to publicize his thoughts. That is, unlike the matterist who asserts that God can “step back” from his creation or even, at least in principle, stop thinking about the world without its ceasing to exist, since matter is mind independent, Berkeley must hold that were God to cease perceiving the world, it would vanish altogether. For apart from God, there remains nothing, that is, no material substratum, to sustain nature. The analogue to be found in human experience of divine conservation of the world consists in the fact that if the interlocutor stops speaking, the conversation ceases, for there are no new public ideas to access. Of course previously accessed ideas may remain in the mind of the audience and these may continue to be accessible (in a sense) so long as they are recalled, but they are not public in the way they were formerly, for they are no longer accessible to new interlocutors, because there are no more “new” sensible signs for them to perceive. Note that even here the parallel with Berkeley’s divine discourse is preserved, for were God to cease sustaining the sensible world, finite spirits might retain memories of the sensed ideas even upon its vanishing, though they would have no “new” sense impressions. Another analogy between human and divine speech is pointed out by Colin Turbayne.63 Under Berkeleyan immaterialism, he observes, the laws of nature are analogous to rules of grammar. In verbal communication we humans are constrained to abide by certain grammatical conventions, rules of syntax, punctuation, and so on. In short, we must be consistent if we are to be intelligible and meaningful. Similarly God’s ideas (i.e., the phenomena of nature), if they are to be intelligible, must remain consistent, operating in accordance with certain general rules. Berkeley defines the laws of nature as “the set rules or established methods wherein the mind we depend on excites in us the ideas of sense.”64 What we

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call nature’s “laws” then are in actuality the sovereign will of God that remains constant and uniform for the welfare of his creatures (except in the case of the miraculous where deviation from the rule works to our benefit). As in the case of syntactical rules, then, the laws of nature are conventional rather than necessary, being devised solely for the effective communication between speaker and hearer. Just as irregularity in linguistic forms would result in confusion among interlocutors, in the absence of uniformity in nature “we should be all in uncertainty and confusion, and a grown man no more know how to manage himself in the affairs of life than an infant just born.”65 Lastly, the immaterialist’s linguistic metaphor provides an analogue in human experience to God’s creation ex nihilo. When we speak we make our thoughts public, which were themselves created out of nothing. This is probably Berkeley’s thinking when he writes, “Why may we not conceive it possible for God to create out of Nothing. Certainly we our selves create in some wise whenever we imagine.”66 On Berkeley’s principles, then, the verbal expression of our thoughts as well as thinking itself are some very familiar ways in which humans mirror God’s creation of the world out of nothing.67 Before closing, I want to make a side observation about an additional point of interest in Berkeley’s thought from the perspective of Christian orthodoxy. A. D. Ritchie has called the eighteenth century “the period of maximum substance idolatry” where the deity was demoted from the position of creator to a mere artificer of preexisting material.68 Whether or not this estimation of the centrality of substance in the metaphysics of the age is overstated, Berkeley certainly seems to have sensed the urgency in eradicating the notion of corporeal substance from cosmology. In sections 92–96 of the Principles Berkeley asserts that the doctrine of matter has served as the principle support for atheists, skeptics, fatalists, the irreligious, and the impious. Moreover, he maintains, on the same principle does idolatry likewise in all its various forms depend. Did men but consider that the sun, moon, and stars, and every other object of the senses are only so many sensations in their minds, which have no other existence but barely being perceived, doubtless they would never fall down and worship their own ideas, but rather address their homage to that Eternal Invisible Mind which produces and sustains all things.69

This passage represents Berkeley’s turn from defender of the mere theological consistency of immaterialism with scripture to the much stronger contention that his metaphysical system is actually superior to matterism theologically

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because of its avoidance of heretical implications. Berkeley may or may not be correct in his claim that matterism spawns idolatrous religious belief and practice, however the practical effects, harmful or beneficial, of a metaphysical doctrine are not properly a philosophical consideration in judging its truth. But surely Berkeley must have known this. So why does he bother to devote long sections of his Principles and the Three Dialogues to the project of explaining how his immaterialism is amenable to scripture and how the practical effects of its acceptance would edify adherents to the Christian religion? The short answer is that he assumed his audience to be largely sympathetic, though not necessarily devotees, to the faith and therefore likely to be responsive to arguments based on points of primarily theological interest. This explanation accounts for the fact that Berkeley’s chief motivations in even constructing his philosophical system were theological in character. Now to return to the issue at hand, does immaterialism really provide a defense against idolatry? Berkeley was convinced to the point of near dogma, and I believe part of the reason has already become evident in the foregoing explication of his metaphysics. Everything in the universe, whatever its nature, is continually sustained by the deity, utterly dependent upon him for its existence. Therefore, to worship any created item would amount to worshipping the ideas of the creator rather than the creator himself. To understand this, Berkeley suggests, is sufficient to discourage one from succumbing to the temptation. To realize the omnipresence of God such that “in him we live and move and have our being” is to conceive at once the worthiness of this being to be worshipped and the foolishness of preferring to worship some infinitely inferior being. Substance ontology, on the other hand, allowing for the mind-independence of objects, in no such way demands that God be conceived as so intimately related to his creation and therefore permits the mind to stray from God in its meditation on physical objects. Something like this seems to be Berkeley’s thinking. Whether he is correct is a question that might as well be left to empirical testing as to philosophical disputation.

Conclusion To sum up, the linguistic metaphor plays a central role in Berkeley’s immaterialism and, as we have seen, its role is also significant in the scriptures. My defense of Berkeley’s endorsement thesis has consisted largely in showing

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how his metaphysics acknowledges and exploits this biblical convention. One of the objectives of this chapter has been to argue that Berkeleyan immaterialism enjoys at least as much and perhaps more explanatory power than matterism when approaching key biblical passages such as the Genesis account of creation. For the former is much better prepared than the latter to attach a substantive, concrete meaning to the speech imagery pervading the Old and New Testaments. It seems to me the matterist’s sole explanation for these expressions is that they are entirely metaphorical. A Berkeleyan, on the other hand, while acknowledging their metaphorical dimension, may also take these expressions to some extent literally, counting them as veritable insights into the nature of God as well as humans who on the Mosaic account are made in his image. Most of the philosophical problems facing the Christian theist, such as the problems of evil and free will, the logic of the nature of God, and the authority of the Old and New Testaments, do still confront Berkeley. This chapter ought not to be construed as claiming otherwise. What I have tried to show here is that commitment to Berkeleyan immaterialism does not entail theological heterodoxy or heresy (at least concerning the issues discussed in this chapter). On the contrary, I have argued that Berkeley’s principles are perfectly compatible with orthodox Christian theology and, furthermore, that they afford the believer conceptual tools practical for deepening rather than distorting the “salutary truths of the Gospel,” a conclusion that would undoubtedly please a theologically conservative Anglican so sensitive to heresy.

Notes 1 George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, ed. Colin Turbayne (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957), 104. 2 Philosophical Commentaries, section 281 in The Works of George Berkeley, vol. 1, ed. A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop (London: Thomas Nelson, 1955), 35. 3 Berkeley, Principles, 35. 4 John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Peter H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), 295. 5 Berkeley, Principles, 62. 6 George Berkeley, Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, ed. Eugene Freeman (Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 1969), 120. 7 Berkeley, Principles, 32. 8 Psalm 42:11 and Lamentations 3:20.

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James S. Spiegel Psalm 51:10. Psalm 51:17. Psalm 94:19. Isaiah 57:15. Ibid. Luke 1:80. Berkeley, Principles, 35–36. Ibid., 36. Ibid., 66. This unusual reticence on Berkeley’s part has led Charles McCracken to suggest that his negligence was willful rather than a mere oversight, owing to Berkeley’s recognition of the problems inherent in his account of notions. See “Berkeley’s Notion of Spirit,” The History of European Ideas 7 (1986): 597–602. For a good discussion of this distinction of Berkeley’s, see Phillip Cummins’ “Hylas’ Parity Argument” in Berkeley: Critical and Interpretive Essays, ed. Colin Turbayne (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1982), 283–294. This discussion leads to the further question, “How does a Berkeleyan account for the acquisition of notional knowledge of attributes of spirits?” With regard to attributes of minds other than one’s own, Berkeley asserts that we know them “by means of our own soul” (Berkeley, Principles, 94). Here his appeal is to the sort of analogical reasoning he expounds upon in Alciphron IV and that would gain preeminence at the hands of John Stuart Mill a century later.As for knowledge of one’s own spirit, I see nothing in Berkeley’s doctrine preventing him from affirming a direct grasp of one’s own mind and its attributes. From Johnson’s letter to Berkeley, September 10, 1729, in Berkeley’s Philosophical Writings, ed. David M. Armstrong (New York: Collier MacMillan Publishers, 1965), 230. Ibid. From Berkeley’s letter to Johnson, November 25, 1729, in Berkeley’s Philosophical Writings, 237. Note that in the last quoted passage he is content to point out that the separate existence of the soul is conceivable. Keeping in mind that for Berkeley and many of his contemporaries, conceivability is tantamount to (logical) possibility, we can see why Berkeley did not feel compelled to engage in much elaboration on this point. This case provides a clear example of the tone pervading Berkeley’s replies to critics, including Johnson, that there is at the start a presumption in favor of his immaterialism, in particular that esse est percipi aut percipere (because he thinks he has demonstrated its truth) so that when it comes to comparatively peripheral matters, such as the metaphysics of death and resurrection, he need only reveal the

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25 26

27 28 29

30 31

32 33 34

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possibility of an explanation showing their consistency with his views or give the contours of such an explanation in order to preserve this presumption. Of course, it was often the case that Berkeley did do more than this and in fact went to great lengths to show how with regard to explanatory power his immaterialism was not merely as good as matterist metaphysics but was in fact superior in explaining certain phenomena and providing solutions to problems hitherto unsolved. We shall discuss examples arising in the context of Christian theology when we turn to an examination of Berkeley’s endorsement thesis later. Berkeley’s Philosophical Writings, 237. By “theologically orthodox” I intend consistency with the central Christian doctrines affirmed by all or most mainstream theological traditions and articulated in such ecumenical creeds as the Apostles’ creed and the Nicene creed. As a devout Anglican, Berkeley undoubtedly acknowledged the authority of these confessions of faith and recognized the constraints implicit in them for both scholarly and practical pursuits. Philosophical Commentaries, 405 in Works, 51. See also sections 368, 408 and 751. Berkeley, Three Dialogues, 96. See also pp. 70, 90, 100, 110, 136, and 96. For an excellent defense of this position, see George Pappas’ “Berkeley, Perception, and Common Sense” in Berkeley: Critical and Interpretive Essays, ed. Colin Turbayne (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1982). Berkeley, Principles, 100. I borrow this terminology from John Hick, who traces this particular theodicy as far back as Plotinus, specifically Enneads, III, 2, 17. See Hick’s “The Problem of Evil” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 3, ed. Paul Edwards (New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1967), 136–141. Berkeley, Principles, 101. Berkeley, Three Dialogues, 100. Acts 17:28. Berkeley might just as readily have chosen any of a number of passages as his text of choice, including Ephesians 4:6 where Paul asserts that there is “one God and father of all, who isover all and through all and in all,” Colossians 1:17 where he writes that Christ “is before all things and in him all things hold together,” and Hebrews 2:10, which states that it is God “for whom and through whom everything exists.” In the third Meditation Descartes suggests that there is no real difference between divine conservation and creation. He argues that because of the infinite divisibility of the duration ofhis life into independent parts, “it does not follow from the fact that I have existed a short while before that I should exist now, unless at this very moment some cause produces and creates me, as it were, anew.” (Philosophical Essays [New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1964], 105).

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36 Letter to Johnson, November 25, 1729, in Berkeley’s Philosophical Writings, 236. Of course Berkeley does deny that “things are every moment annihilated and created anew” (Berkeley, Principles, section 45), but this is because, he maintains, for any object that exists, there is always some mind perceiving it. 37 Berkeley, Three Dialogues, 120. 38 It should be noted that some matterists might hold that it is impossible for the world to exist without being perceived by God, given that God exists necessarily, is essentially omniscient, and all created being is essentially dependent upon him. However, the key point here is that a matterist need not affirm all (or any) of these attributes of God that are needed to lead one to the conclusion that the existence of the world hinges on God’s perception. One may (as did the deists in Berkeley’s day and many physicalists do today) affirm the world’s existence and deny the existence of God. 39 Ibid., 119. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid., 121. 42 See Jonathan Dancy’s Berkeley: An Introduction (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1987), chapter 4. 43 Dancy, Berkeley, 50. 44 Genesis 1:27. 45 And, Berkeley maintains, God continues to do so, as all of nature is properly to be conceived as a “divine visual language.” For Berkeley’s full elucidation of this doctrine, see Towards a NewTheory of Vision, sections 147–152; Principles, sections 44, 65–66, 106–109; Alciphron part IV, section 7–15; and The Theory of Vision Vindicated and Explained, sections 38–40. 46 It might be objected that the matterist could accept this analogy with human discourse and maintain that God’s ideas are conveyed via material substance as the sounds and marks of discourse convey our own ideas. Such an analogy has a basic flaw however. Sounds and marks are perceived, while material substance ex hypothesi, is never perceived. For further discussion on this point, and some elaboration on the parallel between divine and human discourse, see “Berkeley’s Metaphysical Grammar” by Colin Turbayne in Berkeley: Principles of Human Knowledge, Text and Critical Essays, ed. Colin Turbayne (Indianapolis: BobbsMerrill, 1970), 3–36. 47 Berkeley, Principles, 24. 48 Someone might object that Berkeley’s account seems unbiblical because there is no scriptural reference to God’s “private ideas.” I know of at least one passage that suggests otherwise. In 1Corinthians 2:11 Paul writes “no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.”

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49 “What Does Berkeley’s God See in the Quad?” in Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie 61 (1979): 283–284. 50 Berkeley, Three Dialogues, 123. 51 Ibid., 121. 52 McCracken, “Berkeley’s Notion of Spirit,” 288. All emphases are his. 53 Three Dialogues, 69. 54 Psalm 19:1. 55 Romans 1:20. 56 Alciphron, part IV, section 14 in Alciphron: Or the Minute Philosopher in Works, vol. 3, 160. 57 Among orthodox Christian theologians, this intimate relation between God and his creation is perhaps expressed most emphatically by John Calvin who writes, “I confess, of course, that it can be said reverently, provided that it proceeds from a reverent mind, that nature is God; but because it is a harsh and improper saying, since nature is rather the order prescribed by God, it is harmful in such weighty matters, in which special devotion is due, to involve God confusedly in the inferior course of his works” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Ford L. Battles [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960], bk I, ch. 6). Notice that Calvin’s position here makes much better theological sense under a Berkeleyan conception of nature as God’s thoughts (since God, like we humans, is, in a sense, his thoughts) than from the perspective of a theologically orthodox matterist, for whom the notion of identifying God with corporeal substance would be heretical. 58 Lamentations 3:37–38. 59 Isaiah 45:7. 60 Colossians 1:17. 61 The determinism implicit in Berkeley’s immaterialism leads him headlong into the problem of the freedom of the will, a problem that he never saw fit to address directly except for some short passages in Siris and his notebooks. This lacunae, however, does not present a difficulty peculiar to Berkeley’s metaphysics, but is shared by all proponents of theological determinism. On this matter J. O. Urmson notes that “Berkeley himself would have admitted that he had no clear answer to [the problem of freedom] but that it, too, was one that was common to all and in no way a special problem for him.” See Urmson’s Berkeley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 64–66. 62 See, for example, Alciphron IV, 14 where he remarks that the language of the deity “is equivalent to a constant creation, betokening an immediate act of power and providence.” 63 Turbayne, “Berkeley’s Metaphysical Grammar,” 25–31. 64 Berkeley, Principles, 37.

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65 Ibid. 66 Philosophical Commentaries, section 830, Works, vol. 1, 99 67 A. D. Ritchie illustrates Berkeley’s doctrine of perpetual creation with the analogy of a symphony conductor. He writes, “for Berkeley God is now and everywhere actively creating. The harmony which a conductor can produce by means of his orchestra and their instruments is not produced instantaneously nor once only, nor once and for all, but is being produced anew during each performance . . . [This analogy] could be slightly improved if we assumed that the conductor was also a composer and also could leave the players to improvise occasionally. Thus no performance would be a repetition but each one a new work.” Berkeley: A Reappraisal (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1967), 126. Ritchie’s analogy surely provides an accurate and instructive simile for Berkeley’s metaphysics, but like Turbayne I prefer the metaphor of speech, for it affords less strained parallels and it is Berkeley’s own metaphor of choice. 68 Ibid., 128–129. 69 Berkeley, Principles, 69.

Bibliography Berkeley, George. Berkeley’s Philosophical Writings, edited by David M. Armstrong. New York: Collier MacMillan Publishers, 1965. Berkeley, George. Philosophical Commentaries. In The Works of George Berkeley, vol. 1, edited by A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop. London: Thomas Nelson, 1955. Berkeley, George. Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, edited by Eugene Freeman. Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 1969. Berkeley, George. A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, edited by Colin Turbayne. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957. Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion, translated by Ford L. Battles. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960. Cummins, Phillip. “Hylas’ Parity Argument.” In Berkeley: Critical and Interpretive Essays, edited by Colin Turbayne. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1982. Dancy, Jonathan. Berkeley: An Introduction. New York: Basil Blackwell, 1987. Descartes, Rene. Philosophical Essays. New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1964. Hick, John. “The Problem of Evil.” In The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 3, edited by Paul Edwards. New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1967. Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, edited by Peter H. Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975. McCracken, Charles. “Berkeley’s Notion of Spirit.” In The History of European Ideas 7 (1986): 597–602.

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McCracken, Charles. “What Does Berkeley’s God See in the Quad?” In Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie 61 (1979): 283–284. Pappas, George. “Berkeley, Perception, and Common Sense.” In Berkeley: Critical and Interpretive Essays, edited by Colin Turbayne. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1982. Ritchie, A. D. Berkeley: A Reappraisal. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1967. Turbayne, Colin. “Berkeley’s Metaphysical Grammar.” In Berkeley: Principles of Human Knowledge, Text and Critical Essays, edited by Colin Turbayne. Indianapolis: BobbsMerrill, 1970. Urmson, J. O. Berkeley. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.

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Berkeley, Edwards, Idealism, and the Knowledge of God William J. Wainwright

George Berkeley and Jonathan Edwards were both idealists. In the first section of his Principles of Human Knowledge, Berkeley, for example, claimed that as various sensory ideas are observed to accompany each other, they come to be marked by one name, and so to be reputed as one thing. Thus, for example, a certain colour, taste, smell, figure and consistence having been observed to go together, are accounted one distinct thing, signified by the name apple. Other collections of ideas constitute a stone, a tree, a book, and the like sensible things: which as they are pleasing or disagreeable, excite the passions of love, hatred, joy, grief, and so forth.1

Edwards’s views were similar. In his early essay “Of Being,” he asserted that “nothing has any existence anywhere else . . . but either in created or uncreated consciousness.”2 His Miscellany 179 claimed that “the existence of all corporeal things is only ideas” and in “Notes on Knowledge and Existence,” which were written toward the end of his life, Edwards said “there is no such thing as material substance truly and properly distinct from all those that are called sensible qualities . . . a body is nothing but a particular mode of perception.”3 Berkeley’s and Edwards’s motives were in many ways alike. Both believed that God is immediately present to his creation and that their arguments could show this to any properly disposed intellect. At the conclusion of Principles, Berkeley says that he will not deem his labors useless if he has inspired his “readers with a pious sense of the Presence of God” and in his third Dialogue, his spokesperson (Philonous) asserts that the new principles being defended

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serve to enforce the conviction that the Deity is not “distant” but ‘immediately present, and acting.”4 Similarly, in an early attack on contemporary philosophers’ conception of material substance, Edwards concludes that “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 . . . How truly then, is he said to be ens entium” “or, if there was nothing else in the world but bodies, the only real being: so that it may be said in a stricter sense than hitherto, ‘Thou art and there is none else beside Thee.’”5 Berkeley and Edwards also share two important assumptions as well as a common suspicion of the concept of matter. The first is that ideas are the immediate or direct object (the objectum quod) of perception and thought. (Both inherit this assumption from Locke.) It follows from this assumption that if we directly or immediately perceive real things (as common sense believes), then real things are ideas. The second assumption is that it is impossible to analyze perceptual sensations “into two factors, viz., an act or process of sensing and a particular which is sensed . . . that . . . might conceivably exist without being the object of the former.” A perceptual sensation is “a completely unitary occurrence” with “different but inseparable aspects.”6 If this is correct, then the contents of visual, tactual, auditory, and other sensory ideas (namely color, resistance, figure, sound, and so on) cannot be separated from the mental acts that apprehend them. But since the process of sensing is irreducibly mental, its objects, too, must be mind dependent. The physical world is nothing but figure, resistance, motions, and the like, however. The physical world is therefore mind dependent. Finally, both Berkeley and Edwards independently arrived at the conclusion that it is impossible to form a coherent and nonempty conception of matter or bodily substance if by “matter” or “bodily substance” we mean something distinct from ideas of color, figure, resistance, motion, and the like. Since these qualities are mind dependent, a mind-independent matter or bodily substance cannot have them. Nor is there any reason to believe that the mind-independent substance we are postulating has properties that are like our ideas or correspond to them. For because we have no independent access to the alleged substance, we cannot compare our ideas with it to determine whether it is or is not like our ideas or somehow corresponds to them. We have no idea, then, of what our alleged independent material substance would be like. It is thus nothing more than a mere je ne sais quoi.

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Berkeley and the existence of God Berkeley had no use for ontological and cosmological arguments for God’s existence. He had no use for ontological arguments because they rested on an “abstract idea” (the idea of an infinitely perfect being) that was not abstracted from sensory particulars.7 He had no use for cosmological arguments because they postulated a chain of intermediate causes extending from God to sensible objects and was therefore incompatible with God’s immediate presence to his creation.8 He believed that his arguments, on the other hand, were free from both defects.

The passivity argument Physical objects are clusters of sensory ideas of color, shape, solidity, and the like. Ideas are passive or inert, however. They cause nothing and so cannot be the cause of other ideas. Nor can ideas be caused by material substance. Since the concept of material substance is either incoherent or empty, it cannot be meaningfully employed in an explanation. Ideas can be caused by willing them, though. (I cause ideas of physical objects, for instance, when I imagine them.) Perceptual ideas of physical objects are not caused by my willing them, however, for I have no direct power over them. If a tree is before me, for example, and my eyes are open, I perceive the sensory ideas that compose the tree whether I wish to or not. By parity of reasoning, other finite minds cannot be their cause either. I must therefore postulate the existence of “some other will or spirit which produces them.” Moreover, because these ideas “are not excited at random as those of human wills often are, but in a regular train or series—the admirable connexion of which sufficiently attests the wisdom and benevolence of [their] author,” we are entitled to conclude the existence of an all encompassing creative mind or spirit.9

The continuity argument Berkeley takes for granted the truth of the common sense view that objects continue to exist when no finite minds perceive them. How, though, can he account for this? It is sometimes suggested that Berkeley thinks that the continued existence of an unobserved physical object such as the desk in my study consists in the fact that God would, for example, produce the appropriate desk ideas in me if I were to enter my study and open my eyes. The problem with this is that Berkeley believes that to be is to be perceived, and “the unperceived desk

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does not exist, despite the fact that it would be perceived and thus would exist if someone opened” the door, and looked around. Another possibility is that even though no finite minds perceive the desk, God does, and so the desk continues to exist when no finite minds perceive it. The problem with this suggestion is, first, that Berkeley does not think that God has sensory ideas. And, second, while “God’s ideas are eternal . . . physical objects typically have a finite duration.” A potentially more viable solution, however, is to identify the “continued existence of ordinary objects” with God’s decrees, that is, his unchanging will to produce, for example, desk ideas in “finite perceivers under the right circumstances.”10

The visual language argument “It seems to be a general pretence of the unthinking herd that they cannot see God. Could we but see him, say they, as we see a man, we should believe that he is, and believing obey his commands. But,” says Berkeley, “we need only open our eyes to see” him “with a more full and clear view than we do of any of our fellow creatures.”11 His argument is briefly this. Our best evidence for the existence of other human minds is that men and women speak to us. But visual data, too, constitute a language. Visual sense data, like words, are signs of other things with which they are arbitrarily connected (other visual data, tactual sense data, and so on). As Berkeley says in his Alciphron, The proper objects of sight are light and colours, with their several shades and degrees; all of which being infinitely diversified and combined, form a language wonderfully adapted to suggest and exhibit to us the distances, figures, situations, dimensions, and various qualities of tangible objects, not by similitude, nor yet by inference of necessary connexion, but the arbitrary imposition of providence, just as words suggest the thing signified by them.12

Moreover, “this Visual language proves, not a creator merely, but a provident Governor, actually and intimately present, and attentive to all our interests [who] takes care of our minutest actions and designs throughout the whole course of our lives, informing, admonishing, and directing incessantly, in a most evident and sensible manner.”13

Jonathan Edwards and the existence of God Berkeley secured God’s immediacy by employing his idealism. Jonathan Edwards secured it through a combination of occasionalism, idealism, and

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mental phenomenalism. Edwards implicitly distinguishes between a real or true cause and a cause in the ordinary or “vulgar” sense. The latter is “that, after or upon the existence of which, or the existence of it after such a manner, the existence of another thing follows.”14 Vulgar causes are not real causes, however. In the first place, so-called second causes are spatially or temporally distinct from their effects, and “no [real] cause can produce effects in a time and place on which itself is not.” In the second, real causes necessitate their effects and second causes do not. “It don’t at all necessarily follow,” for example, “that because there was . . . color, or resistance . . . or thought, or any other dependent thing at the last moment, that therefore there shall be the like at the next.”15 Finally, if second causes were real causes they would be sufficient to produce their effects. If they were sufficient, however, then God’s activity would be redundant and it is not. Unlike second causes, God’s causal activity meets all three conditions. Since God is not in time or space, there is no temporal or spatial separation between his activity and its effects. Since God is essentially omnipotent, his will is necessarily effective; it is logically impossible for him to will something, S, and for S not to take place or occur. The third condition is also met. Because God is omnipotent he does not need the cooperation of other causal powers to produce his effects. And because sovereignty belongs to him alone he does not share his causal power with others. God’s decrees are thus fully sufficient for their effects. God alone, then, is the only real cause. Vulgar causes (e.g., heating water) are simply the occasions upon which God produces effects (e.g., the water’s boiling) according to “methods and laws,” which express his customary manner of acting. In an early paper, “Of Atoms”, Edwards pointed out that the concept of material substance is the concept of something subsisting by itself, standing “underneath,” and keeping “up solidity and all other [physical] properties.”16 If Edwards’s occasionalism is correct, then God alone meets these conditions. It follows that if the concept of material substance refers to anything, it can only refer to God’s causal activity. Edwards’s arguments for idealism are similar to (but uninfluenced by) Berkeley’s. One of the best examples occurs in Edwards’s notebook called “The Mind.” Edwards first argues that the idea of a body can be resolved into ideas of color and resistance. Figure, for example, is the termination of color or resistance. Solidity is resistance, while motion is “the communication of this resistance from space to space.” “Every knowing philosopher” agrees that colors exist only in minds. “Resistance” refers either to instances in which one body resists another or to a power, namely, a body’s disposition to resist other bodies. The first is a mode or property of ideas; it is ideas that are “resisted . . .

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move and stop, and rebound.” For example our observation of a billiard ball’s ricocheting from the cushion can be resolved into impressions of a particular configuration of color and figure (the billiard ball) moving closer to another (the cushion), touching it, and then moving away from it. The power of resistance is no more than a divine “establishment,” namely, “the constant law or method” of “the actual exertion of God’s power” producing instances of resistance. So instances of resistance are qualities of ideas and the power of resistance is a stable divine intention to act in certain ways. Resistance, therefore, exists only in relation to minds. Since the idea of a body can be reduced to ideas of color and resistance, and color and resistance have only mental existence, “the world is . . . an ideal one.”17 Edwards’s mental phenomenalism is a natural extension of his occasionalism and views on substance. If God is the only real cause of spatiotemporal phenomena, he is the only real cause of “thoughts” or “perceptions,” something that he discusses in another early notebook entitled, “Notes on Knowledge and Existence.” If a substance is what “subsists by itself,” “stands underneath,” and “keeps up” a set of properties, then a mental substance can only be what subsists by itself, stands underneath, and keeps up mental properties. It follows that the concept of mental substance either denotes nothing or refers to God’s causal activity. “What we call spirit,” then, “is nothing but a composition and series of perceptions [mental events] . . . connected . . . by laws.”18 Mental and physical substance are thus identical with God’s production of the mental events constituting minds and the sensible ideas or “sensations” that constitute bodies “according to . . . methods and laws,” which God has freely established.19 God is thus the world’s only true substance as well as its only true cause. God is thus truly the one in whom we live and move and have our being.

Differences There are significant differences between Berkeley and Edwards as well as significant resemblances. Berkeley believed that we have a “notion” (although not an idea in the strict sense20) of finite mental substances, that is, of finite perceiving and willing (and hence active) beings. Edwards, by contrast, was a mental phenomenalist like Hume. An early entry in Edwards’s notebooks purports to show that mental states or occurrences are not produced by past states or occurrences, or by some unknowable finite substance, but by God.

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The implication is that a “particular mind” is nothing more than a series of “thoughts”21 immediately produced by God.22 That Edwards retained his mental phenomenalism is settled by a late entry in which he said that “what we call spirit is nothing but a composition and series of perceptions [thoughts], or an universe of coexisting and successive perceptions connected by . . . wonderful methods and laws.”23 One factor underlying this difference may have been Berkeley’s and Edwards’s differing views on free agency. Edwards, like Calvin and other Reformed theologians, was a theological determinist. Because Anglicans, like Berkeley, were not, he may have assumed that humanity’s contra-causal freedom required the existence of relatively independent and autonomous choosing substances. (Note that on Berkeley’s view, God creates finite minds, which in turn create ideas of the imagination. His account, therefore, doesn’t eliminate all intermediaries between God and finite reality—as his rejection of cosmological arguments for God’s existence implied he wished to do.) A second major difference between Berkeley and Edwards was that Edwards was a thoroughgoing occasionalist and Berkeley was not. On the latter’s view, for example, a human act of imagining presumably does not involve a human act of willing providing the occasion on which God produces the imagined idea. Perhaps the most striking difference between Berkeley and Edwards, however, is found in their respective accounts of divine language. For Berkeley, God’s language is purely visual, its “signs” are arbitrary, and its primary function is to tell us how to comport ourselves in the everyday affairs of life. For Edwards, on the other hand, the signs God employs are natural objects, human artifacts, institutions and practices, historical events, and the like. Moreover, the connections between the signs of God’s language and their objects are not arbitrary but depend on likeness and analogy. And because the “words” of God’s language signify “divine things,” their primary use is to assist us in comporting ourselves properly in relation to God and his plan of redemption rather than in succeeding in the ordinary affairs of this life. Finally, whereas Berkeley deploys his account of God’s language to establish God’s existence, Edwards’s strikingly different account presupposes it. Typology is the practice of interpreting things, persons, or events (the “type”) as prefigurations of future realities (the “antitype”). Protestant divines had tended to restrict typology to figures, actions, and objects in the Old Testament, which in their view shadowed forth Christ as the antitype. Edwards extended their practice in three ways.

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In the first place, he “saw even more import in the Old Testament than did many of his predecessors.”24 “Thus almost every thing that was said or done that we have recorded in scripture from Adam to Christ was typical of gospel things. Persons were typical persons; their actions were typical actions; the cities, typical cities; the nations . . . were typical nations . . . God’s providences were typical providences . . . their houses were typical houses; their magistrates, typical magistrates: their clothes, typical clothes, and indeed the [biblical] world was a typical world.”25 Particularly important were “institutional types,” “providential types,” and personal types. The greatest institutional type is the practice of sacrifice, the greatest providential type is the “Exodus; and the greatest personal type is David.”26 In the second place, Edwards interpreted the New Testament typologically as well, arguing that its persons, actions, and objects prefigure things in the church’s later history. But in the third place, and most radically, Edwards extended the doctrine of typology to nature and to secular history. Thus, meadows and gentle breezes are images “of the sweet benevolence of Jesus Christ,” “the blue sky of his mildness and gentleness,” and comets and thunders, rocks and mountains, of “his awful majesty.”27 “Children’s coming into the world naked and filthy, and in their blood, and crying and impotent, is to signify the spiritual nakedness and pollution of nature and wretchedness of condition with which they are born.” “The sun’s so perpetually . . . sending forth his rays in such vast profusion, and without any diminution of his light and heat, is a bright image of the all-sufficiency and everlastingness of God’s bounty and goodness.”28 The pains and travail of childbirth “represent the great preparations and sufferings of the Church in bringing forth Christ . . . and [are] a type of those spiritual pains that are in the soul when bringing forth Christ.”29 “The waves and billows of the sea in a storm” represent “the terrible wrath of God.”30 The rising of the sun represents Christ’s resurrection through which the world is brought from darkness into light.31 And so on. But nonbiblical types are not only found in nature, they are found in secular history as well, including even its false religious systems. Roman military triumphs were a type of Christ’s Ascension, for example. “Pagan idolatry—in which deities were believed to inhabit material forms—was a type of the . . . Incarnation,” and “the near universal practice of human sacrifice was divinely intended as a type of the perfect sacrifice of God’s Son.”32 In short, for Edwards, the world in its entirety, and not just the world of the Bible, was a “typical world.”

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How did Edwards justify these novelties? He believed that physical facts are images of mental or moral facts, and quotes Turnbull with approval: “All words being originally expressive of sensible qualities, no words can express moral ideas, but so far as there is an analogy betwixt the natural and moral world, that objects in the latter may be shadowed forth, pictured, or imaged to us by some resemblances to them in the former.”33 It is therefore not unreasonable to “suppose that [God] makes the inferior in imitation of the superior, the material of the spiritual,” and that “the corporeal and visible world” is “designedly made and constituted in analogy to the more spiritual, noble, and real world.”34 Moreover, Edwards thought that natural or “secondary” beauty is an image of spiritual or “primary” beauty. Creation is saturated with secondary beauty—not only the “harmony of sounds and the beauties of nature” to which Edwards was especially sensitive but also the beauties of human kindness and affections, just institutions, artistic and intellectual creations, and the like. As a consequence, the world shadows forth a God who, because he is preeminently great and holy, is beauty itself, the pattern, fountain, and source of all beauty.35 Finally, Edwards believed that the world is God’s speech. His “works . . . are but a kind of voice or language of God, to instruct intelligent beings in things pertaining to himself.”36 While the views just cited do not entail that our world is a “typical world,” they do make it more likely. For a doctrine of typology like Edwards’s fits together or coheres with his broadly Platonic picture of the world in a way in which it would not fit together or cohere with a more mechanistic or reductive metaphysics. But if God’s works are a kind of speech or language that he uses to instruct us, what sort of speech or language is it? Both allegory and symbolism use concrete images to express moral or spiritual facts. While there is no hard and fast line between the two, they can be roughly distinguished as follows. First, allegories and emblems are consciously invented. The artist (e.g., Spenser or Bunyan or Hawthorne) perceives a spiritual or moral fact, which he then consciously and deliberately represents or typifies by choosing sensible images. He may express the struggle between our darker passions and our yearning for purity and order by personifying the passions and virtues, and depicting the struggle as warfare. Or jealousy may be concretely expressed as a serpent in the bosom. Symbols, on the other hand, are typically produced by processes that are not fully conscious. Second, while the meaning of an allegory or emblem can be expressed conceptually, the meaning of a symbol cannot be fully or adequately expressed in nonsymbolic terms. A perception of the moral and spiritual facts that symbols express is inextricably bound up with their use and cannot be adequately grasped

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apart from them. Literal accounts of the things suggested by Melville’s white whale, for example, inevitably seem reductive. Good symbols are, as Tillich said, “inexhaustible in meaning.” What they say cannot be reduced to a set of literal statements. Are Edwards’s types emblems or are they symbols? Everything other than God is a product of his conscious intentions. So if objects of the natural or human world shadow forth or picture or image the things of God or the mysteries of faith, God has designed them to do so. The images or types are thus consciously invented. Their meaning can also be more or less adequately or fully expressed conceptually. An examination of Edwards’s typological writings clearly attests to the fact that he believes that the images he discusses contain decipherable meanings. Nor does Edwards say anything that would suggest that he thinks that his conceptual accounts of their meaning are in principle inadequate, or that ultimately their meaning cannot be expressed without the help of further images.37 Edwards’s types, then, are emblems, not symbols. Why would God choose to speak to us by using images and types, though, rather than by employing a more literal or conceptual language? For two reasons: First, because types have “pedagogical value.” Many types are pictures of a sort, and a picture is worth a thousand words; Edwards wrote that “temple of the spirit” expresses in three words what would otherwise take a hundred. “By such similitudes a vast volume is presented to our minds in three words, and things that we are not able to behold directly are represented before us in lively pictures.”38 Second, because “types also have affective value . . . [F]allen human beings . . . are more affected ‘by those things [they] see with [their] eyes and hear with [their] ears and have experience of.’”39 People also delight in mimesis as they can infer from their enjoyment of the “imitative arts,” and types, too, “use the principle of mimesis” and thus, like the arts, “fulfill human desires for the dramatic and beautiful.” By engaging our affective capacities, the “subjects taught by types are more easily remembered, and moral [and spiritual] lessons taught are received with deeper impression and greater conviction.”40 While nothing like this is found in Berkeley’s better-known works, he does gesture toward a position a bit more like Edwards’s in Siris, a late work that is heavily influenced by Platonism. At one point, for example, Berkeley observes that “the phenomena of nature . . . form not only a magnificent spectacle but also a most coherent, entertaining and instructive discourse.”41 “If we carry our thoughts from the corporeal world to the moral world” when examining gravitational attraction, for instance, “we may observe in the Spirits or Minds

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of men a like principle of attraction, whereby they are drawn together in communities.”42 In any case, Siris as a whole deserves more attention than it usually receives. G. J. Warnock’s and J. O. Urmson’s dismissals of the work are typical. Warnock says, for example, that while Siris is not seriously at variance with the views more temperately set forth in Berkeley’s earlier works . . . in his earlier years [he] would not have indulged in such a disorderly display of quaint lore and learning; he would not have admired its air of mystery and profundity, and he would have attempted to present his “chain of reflexions” as linked by arguments, not by haphazard suggestion and association . . . So Gothic a piece would seem to have strayed from some later [?] or much earlier period; it seems not to belong to the age of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume.43

And Urmson’s judgment is similar: “Though Berkeley certainly maintains the immaterialism of his earlier philosophy” in Siris, “there is now a strain of speculative metaphysics which seems quite alien to the earlier Berkeley.”44 The upshot is that Siris is most often treated as an anomaly or aberration like the long years Newton spent studying alchemy or calculating the date of the apocalypse. But this, I believe, would be a mistake. First, many philosophically acute and scientifically informed English-speaking divines were strongly influenced by Platonism. Henry More, Ralph Cudworth, and Jonathan Edwards are noteworthy examples. Moreover, as the work of More and Edwards in particular attests, their commitment to Platonism was by no means incompatible with austere analysis and careful argumentation. Second, the philosophical portions of Siris are far from involving a significant retreat from Berkeley’s earlier work. What he admires in the “ancient philosophers,” and especially in the Platonists, is their insistence that (1) bodies are less real than minds (2) intelligence is the only real cause (3) nature is as if it were animated by soul, that is, a living organism,45 (4) all things are directed toward the Good and (5) their doctrine of emanation or procession. All but the fifth are clearly expressed in Berkeley’s earlier and more purely philosophical writings, and the fifth is closely related to Berkeley’s longstanding belief in the Trinity, a belief only to be expected in an orthodox Christian clergyman. Moreover, in at least two cases, Berkeley radically reinterpreted Platonic notions in a way that aligned them with his more familiar philosophical views. The first is his identification of the Platonists’ “One” with the “person or mind

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of all created beings.” Just as human “personality is the indivisible centre of the soul or mind; which is a monad so far forth as she is a person,” its “self-same self or very self,” so “the person or mind of all created being seems alone [truly] indivisible and to partake most of unity.”46 The second is Berkeley’s creative reinterpretation of Plato’s doctrine of forms. As he notes in Siris 306, Plato’s ontology includes “a form or species that is neither generated or destroyed, unchangeable, invisible, and altogether imperceptible to the senses.” The ungenerated and unchageable ideas or forms that interest Berkeley, however, are those of “being, beauty, goodness, likeness, [and] parity,” or “goodness, beauty, virtue, and such like.”47 “They are not archetypes of natural objects in any sense that connects them with the [alleged] archetypes of [his] earlier works” such as “perspective-free representations of natural objects . . . if Berkeley endorses the existence of [any] forms or species . . . they are the forms or species of spiritual [or mental] objects, not natural ones.”48 “They are, in other words, not ideas at all [in Berkeley’s philosophical sense], but notions or aspects of notions.”49 “Plato . . . held original ideas in the mind; that is notions which never were nor can be in the sense, such as being, beauty,” and the like. “Some perhaps [and presumably Berkeley himself] may think the truth to be this: that they are properly no ideas, or passive objects in the mind which were derived from sense, but that there are also besides these her own acts or operations; such are notions.”50 What Berkeley has in mind is clarified where he says that the notions of “wisdom, order, law . . . goodness,” and the like are not mere “inert, inactive object[s] of the understanding but . . . cause[s] and principle[s]’” and are thus active. As such they are associated with minds rather than their objects, “as a guide to govern” their operations.51 Berkeley thus “does speak with approval of abstract entities” in Siris, “But they are said to be abstract in a way that is deliberately contrasted with the abstraction attacked in the Principles,” namely, “an abstract idea compounded of inconsistencies, and prescinded from all real things.”52 They are abstract in being “separable from corporeal beings and sensible qualities.”53 Winkler plausibly suggests that having “the divine idea of being,” for example, is nothing more than “considering or attending to the being of a spirit . . . The divine idea of being, so understood, is as unobjectionable as selective attention to a figure ‘merely as triangular,’ or to Peter, ‘so far forth as man.’”54 In his brief discussion of Siris, Warnock said that “the change we certainly find in” it is essentially “in attitudes of mind, not doctrine.”55 I believe that this is correct. The question, of course, is “Why?” The answer, I think, lies in Berkeley’s

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increasing concern with the infidelity of his age. “Sensible appearances . . . having first occupied the mind,” and being “more suited to the vulgar uses and mechanical arts of life . . . easily obtain a preference” to non-sensible realities and principles, which by “not affecting the corporeal sense are thought to be so far deficient in point of solidity and reality,” that “sensible and real to common apprehensions” are thought to be the same.56 Moreover, because “the objects of sense more forcibly affect us,” they “are [also] too often accounted the chief good.” The remedy, as the ancients and especially the Platonists saw, was to awaken our understanding and thereby give us “a glimpse of another world superior to the sensible.”57 “In these free thinking times,” though, “many an empty head is shook at Aristotle and Plato, as well as the Holy Scriptures.”58 Berkeley’s preoccupation with Plato and other ancient philosophers in Siris is arguably rooted in his recognition of the fact that he and they shared similar concerns and interests—concerns and interests that were under increasing attack by his freethinking contemporaries. Siris must be read against the background of these concerns. While Berkeley was aware that some readers would be displeased, he hoped that “others . . . may be pleased to find a dry subject varied by digressions traced through remote inferences, and carried into ancient times, whose hoary maxims . . . scattered in this Essay, are not proposed as principles, but barely as hints to awaken and exercise the inquisitive reader on points not beneath the attention of the ablest man,” namely, “God, the human mind and the summum bonum.”59 When our epistemic faculties are working properly “sense supplies images to memory,” which then “become objects for fancy [i.e., imagination] to work upon. Reason,” next, “considers and judges of the imaginations. And these acts of reason,” in turn, “become new objects to the understanding. In this scale each lower faculty is a step that leads to one above it. And the uppermost naturally leads to the Deity; which is rather the object of intellectual knowledge than even of the discursive faculty, not to mention the sensitive.”60 Siris, in short, is a call to its readers to attend to the possibility and desirability of reorienting their cognitive, affective, and volitional capacities toward “a world superior to the sensible” in an age that had increasingly ignored or denied the possibility or desirability of doing so. Jonathan Edwards’s concerns were by no means dissimilar. He was “acutely concerned”—and toward the end of his life “more deeply than ever before—with the lack of faith among the ranks of European intellectuals.”61 “The humor of the Deists,” he thought, was “to reject everything that they have had from supposed revelation, or any tradition whatsoever, and to receive nothing but what they can clearly see, and draw out of the demonstrable evidence of, from the fountain of

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their own, unassisted reason . . . The heathen by tradition received and believed many great truths of vast importance that were incomprehensible . . . But now ‘tis a maxim with the free thinkers that nothing is to [be] believed but what can be comprehended. And this leads ‘em to reject all the principles of natural religion (as it is called) as well as revealed. For there is nothing pertaining to any doctrine of natural religion, not any perfection of God, no, nor his very existence as from eternity, but what has many things incomprehensible.” Nor did “the heathen . . . proceed with that enmity against moral and divine truth,” so characteristic of Edwards’s freethinking contemporaries, “having not been so irritated by it.”62 One of the principal aims63 of Edward’s published and unpublished work, then, was, like Berkeley’s, to defend revealed religion in general, and Christianity in particular, from the attacks of its freethinking critics.

Notes 1 George Berkeley, The Works of George Berkeley, ed., A. C. Fraser (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901), vol. 1. (All subsequent references to Berkeley are to this 1901 edition. Unless otherwise noted, citations shall appear as Works, followed by volume number, then section number; in this case as Works, vol. 1: 1.) 2 Recent scholars agree that Berkeley and Edwards arrived at their idealism separately. See, for example, Wallace E. Anderson’s introduction to Scientific and Philosophical Writings (The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 6), 52–136. (All subsequent references to the works of Edwards are to the 26 volumes of Yale’s 1957–2008 critical editions. Unless otherwise noted, citations shall appear as WJE, followed by volume number, then page number; in this case as WJE, 6:55–136.) 3 WJE, 13:327, 6:398. 4 Works, 1:156, 479. 5 WJE, 6:205, 238. 6 C. D. Broad, “Berkeley’s Denial of Material Substance,” in Locke and Berkeley: A Collection of Critical Essays, eds., C. B. Martin and D. M. Armstrong (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968), 264ff. 7 In his commonplace book, Berkeley wrote, “Absurd to argue the existence of God from his idea. We have no idea of God. ‘Tis impossible” (Works, 1979, vol. 1, Philosophical Commentaries, no. 782). This becomes more intelligible when we recall that, for Berkeley, because ideas are passive and inert, and minds are not, we have no ideas, in the strict sense, of minds. Even so, Berkeley did not deny that God was infinitely perfect.

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8 Edwards employs both arguments. Note that not all cosmological arguments involve the notion of an hierarchically ordered chain of causes. Samuel Clarke’s cosmological argument is an example. 9 Works, 1:29–30. 10 Lisa Downing, “George Berkeley,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2013 ed.), ed. Edward N. Zalta, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2013/entries/ berkeley/, 13–15. Edwards was aware of the continuity problem and at various points offered several possible solutions: (1) A number of passages suggest that “there is nothing in a room shut up, but only God’s consciousness” (WJE, 6:204). “The things in the room have no being any other way than as God is conscious of them” (WJE, 13:188). Or again, “Things that are in no created consciousness have no existence but in the divine idea” (WJE, 13:258). This position is not carefully worked out, and Edwards may have abandoned it. (It is only clearly expressed in early passages.) (2) “When we say, there are chairs in this room when none perceives it, we mean that minds would perceive chairs here according to the law of nature in such circumstances” (WJE, 6:385). The existence of unobserved objects is constituted by certain counterfactual truths, namely, that observations of a certain kind would be made under appropriate conditions. (3) Edwards believes that the physical universe is strictly governed by deterministic laws. Unobserved objects must be postulated to fill in gaps in the causal picture. Since ideas of unobserved objects are presupposed or implied or suggested by our perceptual ideas, they can be said to be (implicitly) contained in created minds. Thus, according to Edwards, even though the furniture in a closed room is unperceived, it exists in the sense that “there has been in times past such a course and succession of existences that these things must be supposed to make the series complete . . . And there will be innumerable things consequential which will be out of joint—out of their constituted series—without the supposition of these” (WJE, 6: 356ff ). Unobserved objects “not only exist in the divine idea, but in a sense in created idea: for that exists in created idea which necessarily supposes it. If a ball of lead were supposed to be let fall from the clouds and no eye saw it till it got within ten rods of the ground, and then its motion and celerity was perfectly discerned,” and if our intellects were sufficiently acute and comprehensive, “the perfect idea of the rest of the motion would immediately and of itself arise to the mind, as well as that which is there” (WJE, 6:354). (4) Edwards sometimes suggests that the reality of unobserved objects consists in certain facts about God’s decrees or determinations. First, the ideas that God actually produces in created minds are identical in kind with those which would have been produced upon the supposition that furniture exists in the closed room “in the same manner as is vulgarly thought.” Second, God would have produced sensible ideas of the furniture if anyone had been present in

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William J. Wainwright the room (WJE, 6:353ff ). God’s decrees are thus the reality lying behind the truth of such counterfactuals as “One would have had furniture visual impressions if one had entered the room.” Works, 1:148. Works, 2, dialogue 4, section 10. Works, 2, dialogue 4, section 14. It is by mastering this visual language that we are able to successfully navigate ourselves in the world. As E. G. King and others have pointed out, it isn’t immediately clear why, for similar reasons, (e.g.) tactual sensory data, too, can’t be construed as a sensory language. WJE, 6:350. WJE 3:400, 404. WJE, 6:15. WJE, 6:350–351. WJE, 6:398. WJE, 6:344. Since ideas are passive and inert, they cannot resemble or “correspond” to minds that are neither passive nor inert but active. “Thoughts” is used in Descartes’ wide sense. The category includes feelings, sensations, volitions, and the like, as well as ideas in the ordinary sense. WJE, 13:373. WJE, 6:395. Michael J. McClymond and Gerald McDermott, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 126. Henceforth MM. WJE, 9:289. MM, 127. WJE, 18:279. WJE, 11:54. WJE, 11:55. WJE, 11:58. WJE, 11:66. MM, 128–129. WJE, 11:126. Consider such expressions as “bright,” “dull,” “reflect,” “comprehend,” “hard,” and “tender.” Edwards’s quotation is from George Turnball’s The Principles of Moral Philosophy: An Inquiry into the Wise and Good Government of the World, 2 vols. (London, 1740). WJE, 11:53, 69f. WJE, 8:550, 565. WJE, 11:67. Though Edwards does say things that at least suggest that he believes that his conceptual interpretations of the types he discusses are incomplete. For example,

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41 42 43 44 45

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in “The Importance and Advantage of a Thorough Knowledge of Divine Truth,” he asserts that “those who have . . . studied [scripture] the longest, and have made the greatest attainments in this knowledge” confess that they only know a “little of what is to be known.” Because God is “infinite and there is no end to the glory of his perfections,” scripture’s “subject is inexhaustible,” and will “employ . . . the saints and angels to all eternity” (Works 22:95). But that conceptual explications are never complete does not entail that any aspect of the image to be explicated escapes conceptual explication in principle. WJE, 13:181. WJE, 14:140. MM, 123–124. Doesn’t the use of types and other images open the door to the possibility of all sorts of fanciful interpretations? The danger is real but avoidable. Scripture itself explains some types (See Hebrews 5–10 and 18, for example, or Romans 5:6–17, or Ephesians 5:25–33), and these explanations provide us with precedents or models for interpreting other scriptural types. To apply the scriptural models correctly, however, we must be “of a poetical and gracious disposition” (WJE 13:363) and—most important of all—have converted hearts. The best way to learn the language of types is “by much use and acquaintance together with good taste or judgment, comparing one thing with another and having our sense as it were exercised to discern it” (WJE 11:151). The taste in question is that of a regenerate heart. “If one’s interpretation of a type does not display the divine beauty, one has missed its meaning” (MM, 125). It will therefore sound “very harsh in the ears of those who are well versed in the [divine] language” (WJE 11:151). Edwards’s general point is “that a person with the [new] sense of the heart is to use the biblical precedents and her own sense of what is harmonious with the work of redemption”—which is scripture’s central or primary topic—“to discover and then interpret an [as yet unexplained biblical] type” (MM, 125). Our interpretations of biblical types will then in turn provide us with models or guides for the interpretation of extra-biblical types. Just as the Bible’s moral lessons can be applied to personal, social, economic, and political situations not directly envisaged by it (laissez faire capitalism, for example, or the workings of modern democratic polities, or new problems created by recent medical research) so the hermeneutical principles used to explain biblical types and the precedents created by these explanations can be used to interpret events in nature and in secular history. Works, 3:254. The Guardian essay on “Moral Attraction,” in Works, 4:187. G. J. Warnock, Berkeley (London: Penguin Books, 1953), 232, 234. J. O. Urmson, Berkeley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 82. That this manner of speaking, while apt, cannot be taken literally is rather clearly indicated by (e.g.) Siris, 279 and 290.

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46 Works, 3:346–347. 47 Works, 3:308, 335. 48 Kenneth P. Winkler, Berkeley: An Interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 232. 49 Ibid., 233f. 50 Works, 3:308; cf. 309–310. 51 Works, 3:335. 52 Works, 3:323. 53 Works, 3:307. 54 Works, 1:16. Winkler, Berkeley: An Interpretation, 233–234. 55 Warnock, Berkeley, 234. 56 Works, 3:264. 57 Works, 3:330. 58 Works, 3:332. 59 Works, 3:350. 60 Works, 3:303. The knowledge, in other words, is intuitive. See also Siris 358 and 367. 61 Douglas A. Sweeney, “Editor’s introduction,” WJE, 23:20. 62 WJE, 23:245. 63 But by no means his only aim. Edwards’s overarching aim was to exhibit God’s, sovereignty, glory, and graciousness.

Bibliography Anderson, Wallace E. “Introduction.” Scientific and Philosophical Writings. In The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 6. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980. Berkeley, George. The Works of George Berkeley. In 4 vols, edited by A. C. Fraser. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901. Berkeley, George. The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, edited by A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop. Nedein: Kraus Reprint, 1979. Broad, C. D. “Berkeley’s Denial of Material Substance.” In Locke and Berkeley: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by C. B. Martin and D. M. Armstrong. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968. Downing, Lisa. “George Berkeley.” The Stanford Enclyclopedia of Philosophy. (Spring 2013 ed.), edited by Edward N. Zalta. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2013/ entries/berkeley/. Edwards, Jonathan. The Works of Jonathan Edwards, edited by Perry Miller (vols. 1–2), John E. Smith (vols. 3–9), and Harry S. Stout (vols. 10–26). New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957–2008.

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King, E. G. “Language, Berkeley, and God,” In International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 1 (1970): 112–125. McClymond, Michael J., and Gerald R. McDermott. The Theology of Jonathan Edwards. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Sweeney, Douglas A. “Introduction.” The Miscellanies 1153–1360. In The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 23. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Urmson, J. O. Berkeley. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982. Warnock, G. J. Berkeley. London: Penguin Books, 1953. Winkler, Kenneth P. Berkeley: An Interpretation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.

3

Idealistic Panentheism: Reflections on Jonathan Edwards’s Account of the God-World Relation Jordan Wessling

Panentheism is the doctrine that the created world is, in some sense, ontologically in God but not equivalent to God, since God transcends the world. As such, panentheism rests between classical theism, which holds that God and creation are ontologically independent (they are, for example, independent substances that bear distinct properties), and pantheism, wherein God and the world are one. Panentheism is certainly not the way that most Christians have historically understood the God-world relation; nevertheless, this has not discouraged many contemporary theologians from adopting it.1 In fact, Michael Brierley claims that modern theology has undergone a “panentheistic turn,”2 and, according to David Tracy, panentheism is the “one permanent achievement of modern theologies of God.”3 But while panentheism has not been the historically reigning paradigm concerning God’s relation to creation, it is not altogether novel either. Rather its roots reach back to early Christian Neoplatonism, and would later appear in the theology of the American Reformed theologian Jonathan Edwards.4 However, unlike panentheists today, who stress a relational metaphysic, God-world perichoresis, and creation as the body of God, Edwards adhered to what we might call idealistic panentheism.5 Edwards was an idealist in that he believed that the entire created world just is a collection of divine ideas, or particular mental states.6 He was a panentheist in that he held that all of creation exists in the mind of God as this set of ideas, but that God is much more than his ideas that constitute the world. For theists who are attracted to an idealist ontology, Edwards’s idealistic panentheism may furnish such thinkers with the raw material for situating idealism within a theistic, in fact Christian,

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framework that coalesces with contemporary panentheistic sensibilities. In this chapter, then, we shall evaluate the prospects of Edwards’s idealistic panentheism. It must be stressed that the present chapter is not intended to be a work of historical theology. My goal, in other words, is not to defend a particular interpretation of Edwards. Instead, I evaluate what I deem to be a plausible reading of Edwards, where the evaluation concerns not the tenability of the reading itself, but the reasonableness of the ideas contained within that reading. Should my casting of the thought of Edwards miss the mark, it may remain worthwhile to grapple with a significant understanding of Edwards that merges idealism with panentheism. The chapter is divided into three sections. In the first section, I explain in greater detail how I understand Edwards’s idealistic panentheism. Then, in section two, I present some benefits of this doctrine. Finally, I respond to objections to the notion that creation exists within the mind of God.

Jonathan Edwards’s idealistic panentheism The God of Jonathan Edwards is supremely powerful and sovereign. Nothing in creation occurs except for that which God unconditionally determines. Ultimately, it is Edwards’s desire to protect the unsurpassable sovereignty of God that leads him to embrace a number of controversial theses, including the idea that God necessarily creates, that the world does not technically persist through time but that God continually creates and re-creates the world, that the identity of entities is determined by the will of God, and more besides.7 While these doctrines are certainly ripe for theological analysis, we must presently leave them aside. We will focus instead on those teachings that bear a direct logical relation to Edwards’s idealistic panentheism. To that end, let us first consider the Edwardsian thesis that God is the only true substance in the world, in that God alone is that which is self-subsistent and can “stand underneath” and “uphold” a collection of properties.8 This is not to say, however, that there are not other entities that are quite like substances. Human persons, for example, are what we might call “attenuated substances.”9 They in some sense bear properties—they are not mere collections of externally related properties—but humans are not the kinds of entities that are self-subsistent and can uphold the properties they bear. We might say that, for Edwards, humans

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(as well as other created minds) are only the proximate bearers of properties, but God alone is the ultimate bearer of these properties. Second, Edwards believed in something like Berkeleyan idealism, the thesis that all that exists are minds and their ideas (or more generally, mental states). Edwards writes that “nothing has existence any where else . . . but either in created or uncreated consciousness.”10 Edwards’s idealism sheds some light on his doctrine of attenuated substances. Created minds are quasi-substances because they bear properties, namely mental states. But material entities such as bodies, trees, and automobiles do not bear properties. They are mere collections of properties, mental properties “all the way down,” that are had by created minds. Ultimately, however, created minds are not independent bearers of mental properties. They too rest within or are had by a mind: the mind of God. We see how, then, Edwards’s commitment to idealism plus the notion that God is the sole substance leads him to embrace a unique kind of panentheism. All of creation is identical to a particular collection of divine ideas, which resides in the mind of God. As Robert Jenson puts it, for Edwards, “God contains, envelops, all other reality . . . as a consciousness contains that of which it is conscious.”11 Thus, if idealism is the thesis that all that exists are minds and their mental states, then Edwards is an idealist writ large: all that exists is the divine mind and the mental states that adhere within that mind. By locating the world in the mind of God as a collection of ideas, Edwards affirmed panentheism: “God is the sum of all being, and there is not being without his being; all things are in him, and he in all.”12 It is worth saying a bit more about how I am using the term “panentheism.” As I stated at the outset, I understand panentheism, in its most general form, to be the doctrine that although God transcends creation, creation is in God. We see this in the constituents of the designation, pan (all), en (in), and theism (God). As it stands, however, this description is not too helpful as one may wonder what the appropriate sense of “en” or “in” amounts to. For our purposes it will be sufficient to say that the panentheism of the Edwardsian variety is the view that all of creation is a proper part of God. Roughly, creation is a proper part of God if it is a collection of attributes or properties that are had or exemplified by God (where the collection itself is monadic or “one-place,” but each individual attribute within the collection may not be); but, importantly, God is not exhausted by these attributes/properties. The created world, then, is not ontologically independent from God. As a collection of ideas, creation

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depends upon God in the way that ideas (i.e., ideas themselves, not the content of ideas) depend upon minds—or so says the idealistic panentheist.

Some benefits of idealistic panentheism It is initially tempting to write off Edwards’s idealistic panentheism as a peculiar formulation of the God-creation relation, unworthy of further consideration. Although this attitude is understandable, for those for who hold idealism as a live option, there may be more to idealistic panentheism than initially thought. In particular, the doctrine is ontologically parsimonious, it furnishes apparently fruitful ways of conceptualizing God’s transcendence and immanence, and it provides a straightforward analysis of God’s conservation of creation. We will briefly discuss these in turn. To begin with, idealistic panentheism is every bit a philosophical framework as much as it is a theological one. Idealistic panentheism is in fact a kind of global or all-encompassing ontology, and as such, assessments along these lines are paramount. It seems, furthermore, that idealistic panentheism succeeds on at least one influential criterion for the success of a global ontology, namely parsimony. For on idealistic panentheism only God and his ideas exist. Thus there are no dualisms of kinds of substances (as we have seen with Edwards, God is the only one true substance) and hence there are no interaction problems between radically different kinds of entities (e.g., spirit and matter). Nor can the idealistic panentheist be accused of multiplying entities without warrant. The value of ontological parsimony can be underscored by considering the widely discussed modal realism of the late metaphysician David Lewis. Lewis’s modal realism may roughly be described as the thesis that all possible worlds (i.e., complete or total ways reality could be) are concrete, existing entities that are not spatiotemporally related. According to this theory, each and every genuinely possible state of affairs is actual in some world or other, however bizarre. Thus, there are, if only in a “distant” world that we cannot in principle travel to, pint-sized leprechauns riding unicorns! While Lewis acknowledged that his theory is in large part counterintuitive (do leprechauns and unicorns really exist?), he maintained that his account can explain so much with the postulation of relatively few kinds of entities.13 Of course, Lewis understood that the number of entities within his ontology is mind-bogglingly high (for every possible being exists), but the number of kinds of entities is quite low, basically concrete particulars and sets.

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Now, I am certainly not suggesting that Lewis provided sufficient reason to subscribe to his modal realism. Despite Lewis’s enormous influence on the landscape of contemporary metaphysics, his modal realism has, unsurprisingly, won few adherents. But what is of present interest is that many deem Lewis’s quest for ontological parsimony to be a worthwhile one—which partially accounts for why metaphysicians continue to grapple with Lewis’s modal realism even when they find it too peculiar to adhere to. Think, in particular, of the often used (and abused) appeal to Ockham’s razor to eschew commitment to entities that can be otherwise explained. From this I do not mean to indicate that one should affirm idealistic panentheism simply because it requires few kind of entities. Rather, I am suggesting that idealistic panentheism has the benefit of being ontologically austere for those who believe that such austerity is indicative of truth. Other desiderata will of course be important. But the one who finds the ontological parsimony of idealism attractive may welcome an even more austere ontology that only allows God and his ideas existence. Besides ontological parsimony, Edwards’s idealistic panentheism has a unique and perhaps fruitful way of conceptualizing both God’s transcendence and his immanence. As the necessarily existent, sole substance in the world (and given Edwards’s ocassionalism, the sole cause as well14), God is radically different from all of the “shadowy,” non-substantial creation. Yet, since the world exists within the mind of God, there is no corner of creation where he is not. The very substance or being of God is omnipresent as it is the divine mind/substance that “upholds” and “stands beneath” all of (ideal) creation. The distinct nature of this Edwardsian account of omnipresence can be seen by comparing it with a more classical understanding. In the thought of Thomas Aquinas, for instance, God’s ubiquitous presence is understood in terms of power, knowledge, and essence. Thomas explains, “God is in all things by his power, inasmuch as all things are subject to his power; he is by his [knowledge present] in all things, inasmuch as all things are bare and open to his eyes; he is in all things by his essence, inasmuch as he is present to all as the cause of their being.”15 Although there is much to appreciate about Thomas’s account, William Wainwright notes one obvious problem: The third mode of presence is an instance of the first, however, since God’s creation and preservation of being is one exercise of his power. The question therefore is: “How does God’s power over, and knowledge of, everything entail his presence in or to all things?”16

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Wainwright furthermore suggests that a more literal, substantial doctrine of omnipresence is preferable to the classic account. He quotes Brian Leftow with approval, [When Jeremiah] declaims “Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord” (Jer. 23:24), the suggestion seems to be that God’s knowledge rests on his omnipresence, not vice versa. Again, the religious (and even mystical) sense of God’s presence seems to be not just that God knows us or creates us, but that God is in some sense here with us.17

Wainwright and Leftow are not alone in wanting a more substantial ubiquitous presence of God. Similar sentiments have been expressed by Hud Hudson,18 Robert Oakes,19 and Alexander Pruss.20 Edwards can meet the relevant desire. He provides us with a robust and rather straightforward account of the omnipresence of the divine essence. With Aquinas, Edwards can affirm that God is in all, in the sense that he has power over all things, causally sustains all things, and has direct knowledge of everything. Yet Edwards can go further by claiming that the very essence of God is present to all created entities, for each facet of creation is a divine idea that is housed within the divine mind—a mind, we may suppose, that is not distinct from the divine essence. In harmony with St. Paul, Edwards can gladly affirm that “in [God] we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Finally, Edwards’s idealistic panentheism furthermore allows for a direct account of God’s conservation of creation. For God to conserve creation is to simply think about it in the manner necessary for the relevant collection of ideas to count as creation. I add qualification “in the manner necessary for the relevant collection of ideas to count as creation” because presumably not each collection of divine ideas rises to the level of creation.21 However, it seems to be a plausible assumption that there could be something other than material creation that appropriately designates one collection of divine ideas as creation. If so, then for each moment that creation exists, it exists if and only if God thinks about creation in the relevant way. It seems, then, that contrary to initial appearances, there are some interesting reasons to subscribe to idealistic panentheism. I do not suggest that the listed reasons are anywhere near sufficient, by themselves, to entice such a commitment. But these reasons may make idealistic panentheism worthy of further consideration for some who are already sympathetic to either idealism or panentheism, or both.

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Some problems with idealistic panentheism It would be premature, however, to suppose that idealistic panentheism is a live option without first considering at least a few of its alleged shortcomings. This is the subject of the present section. First, it seems that idealistic panentheism requires a fairly substantial revision to the attributes of God as classically ascribed to him by the Christian tradition. In particular, contemporary theologians have argued that panentheism, whether in general or of the idealistic kind, is incompatible with divine immutability and simplicity.22 And it is easy to see why theologians might think this. For if the world is part of God, and the world is full of change, then it is difficult to resist the conclusion God changes as well—since, as traditionally conceived, God qua God is thought to be mutable in no respects. Similarly, according to the doctrine of simplicity, God is non-composite. But if the world is a proper part of God, as presently characterized, then it appears to follow that God is composed of at least two parts—separable parts, in fact, if (pace Edwards) creation is contingent.23 A thorough discussion of the in/compatibility of panentheism and these classical attributes would take us too far afield. I suspect, though, that this issue is of little consequence to the mindset that seriously entertains idealistic panentheism. For though panentheism has antecedents within the Christian tradition, one who embraces panentheism must surely be aware that revisions to the doctrine of God will be necessary.24 It should be noted, however, that the revisions the idealistic panentheist makes may not be deemed entirely radical. She may hold, for instance, that God’s composition and mutations are contingent features of God. Sans creation, it may be said, God is simple and unchanging; but God may shed these features by choosing to create a world in the relevant panentheistic way.25 I leave it to the reader to determine whether the cost of this revision to the doctrine of God is too high. A perhaps more expensive cost to be paid is that idealistic panentheism seems to entail theological determinism. While I do not have anything that nears a knock-down argument for this conclusion, I suggest that ideas are the kinds of things that are ultimately determined by external causes. In the human case, ideas are often determined by such influences as the will of the thinker, other mental states, biochemical operations, psychological history, and environmental inputs. But with a sovereign and omnipotent God, it seems that God’s ideas (when considered as a complete set) must be solely governed by the

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nature of God (including the nature of the divine mind) and his will. After all, it does not seem right that God’s ideas would, so to speak, “have minds of their own” that can exercise independent, contra-causal libertarian freedom. And it seems downright impious to suggest that God’s ideas are governed by genuinely random processes. Finally, if idealistic panentheism is true, there is nothing outside of God’s mind that can influence the shape of God’s ideas. But given all of these conditions, it seems that it must be God who ultimately determines his ideas, by choice or by his nature or some combination thereof. In which case, determinism is true—since the world just is a collection of divine ideas that is ultimately determined by the will and nature of God. It is no wonder that Edwards was such an ardent defender of theological determinism! The problems with theological determinism are well known, however. Among other things, theological determinism is thought to erode moral responsibility and preclude genuine divine-human relationships.26 Perhaps most importantly, many fear that theological determinism renders the problem of evil if not insuperable than exceedingly more difficult. The philosopher Alan Rhoda states the matter plainly: According to theological determinism, God knowingly and willingly ordains “whatever comes to pass” and is the sole ultimate sufficient cause of all that happens. That means that every evil thing, from the Fall to the Holocaust to the eternal damnation of the reprobate, is something that God either directly brings about or irresistibly sets in motion. Frankly, for a theist to take this view is like giving atheists a slow pitch right down the middle of the plate.27

Not everyone is so pessimistic about the resources of theological determinism for responding to the problem of evil. Along broadly Edwardsian lines one might join Charles Hodge and contend that God determines evil for the purpose of glorifying himself.28 The thought here is that the display and exercise of certain attributes of God, such as retribution and mercy, depend on sin and suffering; and furthermore, the display and exercise of these attributes outweigh the disvalue of the evil. Others have tried to craft models of the soulmaking theodicy that are compatible with determinism, sometimes coupling this with the doctrine of universal salvation.29 Finally, theological determinists may (either alternatively or conjointly) opt for “skeptical theism,” according to which, in this context, the fact that we do not know what reasons God could have for decreeing evil does not provide much reason to think that God does not have his reasons.30

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Many find themselves unimpressed with these treatments of evil by determinists—I count myself among them. But, of course, many bright and informed Christians who are well aware of the evil and suffering in this world embrace theological determinism. Such individuals stand in a tradition that arguably runs from Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas, to Calvin, Luther, and, lest we forget, Edwards. For those who stand firmly in the determinist stream, the fact (if it is a fact) that idealistic panentheism entails theological determinism will cause no anxiety. In their view, theological determinism poses no real problem for God’s moral goodness. Suppose we grant this. Even so, idealistic panentheism may be thought to compromise God’s goodness in other ways. After all, perfect goodness seems to entail that God is without moral defect of any kind, yet if evil is part of creation and hence part of God, does it not follow that God is at least partially evil? No, there is no such implication for the panentheist, argues Michael Brierley. Rather an objection of this kind “is simply a non sequitur, assuming with Augustine that evil is privative.”31 The idea appears to be that if evil has no substance, no genuine being, then it is illegitimate to suppose that there is some entity, evil, which is genuinely part of creation and consequently part of God. Brierley’s reasoning has two weaknesses. First, it is not obvious that each and every bad state of affairs is simply a privation. As Francisco Suárez and others have pointed out, neither moral vices nor conscious episodes of pain and suffering appear to be a lack of some good, but “positive” realities.32 Greed, for instance, is not merely a privation of some virtue such as generosity; it is a genuine character trait that causes various mental patterns and influences behavior. Assuming that nonexistents (such as pure privations) cannot cause anything, and that the vice of greed causes certain events (e.g., thoughts and behaviors), it follows that greed exists—positively and not as a mere privation. Next, consider episodes of physical pain. To suppose that the pain I experience by missing the nail and accidently hammering my thumb is something like the absence of mental tranquility is to utterly misconstrue the experience. The pain is instead an intruding, throbbing, positive reality that has me begging for the good of the absence of this alleged absence of good. In light of these problems, the Augustinian account of evil surely requires further defense. Let us, however, assume that every evil is a privation. Does this exonerate the character of the God of panentheism? I doubt it. Suppose that we can meaningfully parse, say, Geraldo’s vice of avarice as a privation. From the fact that Geraldo’s avarice is wholly an absence of the right kind of good, it does not

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follow that Geraldo’s moral goodness is not compromised. Quite the contrary. Geraldo has a moral vice. Likewise, even if it is true that the evils of creation that are part of God are privations, it does not necessarily follow that these evils are not privations of the relevant kind of God. And, of course, if there are privations of the relevant kind, God’s moral perfection is besmirched. At this stage the panentheist may push back by claiming that what is true of the parts (creation) is not always true of the whole (God). For example, it would be fallacious to reason that because all the cells (the parts) of an elephant weight very little, the elephant (the whole) is light. Similarly, it might be said that it is illegitimate to conclude that God is morally vicious because Geraldo is morally vicious and part of God. Furthermore, even if it is not fallacious to reason that if there is no part of creation that is not part of God, and part of creation is bad, then part of God is bad, it may still be fallacious to claim that part of God is bad and God is morally imperfect for it. In other words, just because the evils of this world reside in the divine mind, we need not conclude that the evil content of God’s thought life somehow corrupts God. This last point merits elaboration. Thinking about pornographic images of juveniles for prolonged periods of time is, when considered by itself, a bad state of affairs. In the typical case, the individual engaged in prolonged reflection on these images is morally compromised. Yet once we discover that it is a detective who is considering these images for the purpose of collecting evidence to detain a child pornographer, we no longer judge this as a character flaw. To be sure, dwelling on pornographic images of youths remains a regrettable state of affairs. But we do not suppose that the detective is morally imperfect because he must reflect on them. A similar judgment would be made if we find out that the individual reflecting on pornographic images is one who has uncontrollable flashbacks to her former life as a victim of sex trafficking. She thinks about these images not as a source of lascivious pleasure, rather she finds herself haunted by her victimization. The flashbacks are certainly bad, but she is not blameworthy for thinking about them. But if a human can sometimes think about evil, even intentionally, and yet be free from blame, why think that the God of idealistic panentheism cannot be relevantly similar? One reason to think that God, understood along the lines of idealistic panentheism, would be morally imperfect is this. In paradigmatic cases, a person who has thoughts full of rape, murder, and genocide is blameless when he or she has no control over these thoughts, or these thoughts are a means to or constituent of some greater good. As stated, the victim of sex trafficking has no

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control over the horrible images that rush through her mind, and the detective does have the requisite control of his thoughts (or so we might assume) but he intentionally considers pornographic images for the good of distributing justice. Now God, it might be thought, meets neither of these conditions. He certainly has control over his creation-generating ideas, and there is no sufficient good to achieve by God “filling his head” with the evils of this world. How might the idealistic panentheist respond? Given that theological determinism seems to be a concomitant of idealistic panentheism, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that the divine ideas are within the requisite control of God. If so, then to protect the moral purity of the divine mind, the defender of idealistic panentheism should rely heavily on the answers to the problem of evil that have been used by theological determinists elsewhere. Accordingly, and as discussed, the idealistic panentheist may claim that God determines evil, in this case the evil content of his own mind, for the purpose of glorifying himself and/or for building souls. Or perhaps she opts for skeptical theism. Should these resources be deemed generally successful, I see no reason to suppose that they should not also be deemed successful for the idealistic panentheist in this case. One might try to resist this conclusion by noting that the God of idealistic panentheism contains all evil within his mind, whereas the God of the more traditional theological determinist thinks of the evils of the external world. But why is this distinction morally relevant? After all, given standard accounts of theological determinism, God’s pre-creative “blueprint” that contains every event within creation, including evil, is explanatorily prior to the occurrence of each evil that he determines to bring about. In this important sense, then, evils are first and foremost contained in the divine mind—they are not yet thoughts about existing objects in the external world. But more to the point, provided we agree that God has morally sufficient reason for decreeing the kinds of evil that occur within our world, it seems to make little difference whether these evils are external or internal to the divine mind. This is especially the case if God has independent reason for creating in the way of idealistic panentheism— perhaps to be substantially present to all of his creatures. The upshot is that it appears that the reality of evil poses no additional problem for the goodness of God on idealistic panentheism than does evil on non-panentheistic accounts of theological determinism. This is significant because, as noted, theological determinism has been espoused by leading theologians within the Western Christian tradition.

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Conclusion Any complete theology of the God-world relation must contain accounts of divine transcendence and immanence, the manner of God’s sustenance of creation, and divine providence. For the Christian who is committed to idealism, weaving together these accounts into a coherent whole that also integrates her idealism is theologically beneficial. Jonathan Edwards can provide the idealist with what she is looking for. He offers a kind of divine idealism that requires few ontological commitments: for each and every thing that exists, that thing either is the divine mind or a mental state within that mind. And with this divine idealism one also inherits a picture of a sovereign God who generates a world by his thoughts and is intimately present to every corner of creation as a mind is to its ideas. Furthermore, God, as one who has complete control of his ideas, determines everything that shall come to pass. This understanding of the Godworld relation thus weds together an intricate form of mind-idea panentheism with the strongest possible understanding of divine providence. Will Edwards’s idealistic panentheism garner significant adherence and provide fodder for further theological construction? This remains to be seen.

Notes 1 For an overview of panentheism, both past and present, see Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacocke (eds.), In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in a Scientific World (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004); John W. Cooper, Panentheism—The Other God of the Philosophers: From Plato to the Present (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2006); and John Culp, “Panentheism,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2013 ed.), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2013/entries/panentheism/. 2 Michael W. Brierley, “Naming a Quiet Revolution: The Panentheistic Turn in Modern Theology” in In Whom we Live and Move and Have our Being, ed. Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacocke. 3 David Tracy, “The Return of God in Contemporary Theology,” in On Naming the Present: God, Hermeneutics, and Church (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis and London: SCM, 1994), 41. 4 The term “panentheism” was not present in Edwards’s day. But, of course, this does not mean that Edwards did not affirm a conception of the God-world relation that falls in line with the use of the term today.

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5 My understanding of Edwards’s panentheism is largely influenced by Oliver D. Crisp. In particular, see the following works by Crisp: “Johnathan Edwards’ Panentheism” in Don Schweitzer (ed.), Jonathan Edwards as Contemporary: Essays in Honor of Sang Lee (New York: Peter Lang, 2010), chapter 7; “Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), Idealism and Christology,” Revisioning Christology: Theology in the Reformed Tradition (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011), chapter 3; and Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation (New York: Oxford, 2012), chapter 7. The claim that Edwards was a panentheist is also discussed by John W. Cooper, Panentheism—The Other God of the Philosophers, 74–77; Douglas Elwood, The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), 21–22, 40, and 57; and Sang Lee, The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), chapter 7. 6 For ease of expression I use various psychological terms as synonyms, for example, “ideas,” “thoughts,” and “mental states”—even though they may well be classified distinctly. 7 One can find a discussion of these unusual views of Jonathan Edwards in Crisp, “Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), Idealism and Christology”; Crisp, Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation, passim; William Wainwright, “Jonathan Edwards,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2012 ed.), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/edwards/. 8 For example, see Edwards’s “Of Atoms,” in his Scientific and Philosophical Writings: The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 6, ed. Wallace E. Anderson (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980), 235–238. 9 I borrow the term “attenuated substances” from Oliver Crip, Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation, chapter 7. 10 Quote taken from Wainwright, “Jonathan Edwards.” 11 Robert Jenson’s emphasis, America’s Theologian: A Recommendation of Jonathan Edwards (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 21. 12 Jonathan Edwards, “Entry 880.1,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 20, The “Miscellanies,” 883–1152, ed. Amy Plantinga Pauw (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 121–123. 13 See David Lewis’s On the Plurality of Worlds (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001), especially pp. 3–5. Ned Hall provides a corroborating analysis of Lewis’s metaphysical methodology in “David Lewis’s Metaphysics,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2012 ed.), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato. stanford.edu/archives/fall2012/entries/lewis-metaphysics/. 14 A discussion of Edwards’s occasionalism can be found in Crisp, “How ‘Occasional’ was Edwards’s Occasionalism?” in Jonathan Edwards: Philosophical Theologian, ed. Oliver D. Crisp and Paul Helm (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003), pp. 61–78; Wainwright, “Jonathan Edwards”; and Stephen H. Daniel, “Edwards’

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17 18

19 20 21

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Jordan Wessling Occasionalism,” in Jonathan Edwards as Contemporary, ed. Don Schweitzer, chapter 1. Summa Theologiae I, 8, 3, from Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas, ed. Anton Pegis (New York: Random House, 1945). William J. Wainwright, “Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnipresence,” in The Cambridge Companion to Christian Philosophical Theology, ed. Charles Taliaferro and Chad Meister (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 52. Wainwright further considers Brian Leftow’s suggestion that Aquinas may have utilized the doctrine of divine simplicity to explain how God is present to all things by his essence. For given simplicity, God is his knowledge and power. As such, the essence of God is present wherever his knowledge and power is present. For the details of this interesting proposal, see Brian Leftow, “Omnipresence,” Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward Craig (London and New York: Routledge, 1998), 103–107. Wainwright, “Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnipresence,” 53. The Leftow quote is found in “Omnipresence,” 106. Hud Hudson, “Omnipresence” in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology, ed. Thomas P. Flint and Michael C. Rea (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 199–216. Robert Oakes, “Divine Omnipresence and Maximal Immanence: Supernaturalism versus Pantheism,” American Philosophical Quarterly 43:2 (2006): 171–179. Alexander R. Pruss, “Omnipresence, Multilocation, the Real Presence and Time Travel,” Journal of Analytic Theology 1:1 (2013): 60–72. Edwards may have the resources for something like David Lewis’s modal realism, wherein particular collections of divine ideas make up different concrete worlds. But I leave the project of developing an Edwardsian modal realism to another. For example, see Oliver Crisp, Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation, chapter 7 and Cooper, Panentheism—The Other God of the Philosophers, chapter 14. For resources from a classical theist that may help the panentheist maintain divine atemporalism, see Pruss, “Omnipresence, Multilocation, the Real Presence and Time Travel,” 60–72. Oliver Crisp argues that, according to Edwards, all of God’s actions are determined by God’s nature. Thus, God’s choice to create the actual world was not contingent, but a necessary output of God. See, Crisp’s Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation, chapters 3–4. On the history of panentheism within the Christian tradition see Copper’s Panentheism—The Other God of the Philosophers. Although not a panentheist, see William Lane Craig, God, Time, and Eternity (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001) for an account of God that is unchanging without creation but mutable in relation to creation.

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26 For a succinct overview of problems with theological determinism, see Michael D. Robinson, The Storms of Providence: Navigating the Waters of Calvinism, Arminianism, and Open Theism (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2003), 49–66. 27 Alan Rhoda, “The Philosophical Case for Open Theism,” Philosophia 35 (2007): 301–311. 28 Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1940), 435–436. 29 See, Lynn Rudder Baker, “Why Christians Should Not Be Libertarians: An Augustinian Challenge,” Faith and Philosophy 20:4 (2003): 460–478. Two essays by Derk Pereboom are also relevant: “Free Will, Evil, and Divine Providence” in God and the Ethics of Belief, ed. Andrew Chignell and Andrew Dole (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 77–98, and “Libertarianism and Theological Determinism” in Free Will and Theism: Connections, Contingencies, and Concerns, ed. Kevin Timpe and Dan Speak (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). 30 For a brief but excellent discussion of theological determinism and the problem of evil, see Leigh Vicens “Theological Determinism,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2014), ed. James Fieser and Bradley Dowden, http://www.iep.utm.edu/ theo-det/. 31 Brierley, “Naming a Quiet Revolution,” 6. 32 I must add that Suárez thought he could account for the apparent counterexamples that he raises. Unfortunately, it is not clear that his succeeds on this score. See, Jorge J. E. Gracia, “Evil and the Transcendentality of Goodness: Suárez’s Solution to the Problem of Positive Evils” in Being and Goodness: The Concept of the Good in Metaphysics and Philosophical Theology, ed. Scott MacDonald (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), 151–176.

Bibliography Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae I, 8, 3. In Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas, edited by Anton Pegis. New York: Random House, 1945. Baker, Lynn Rudder. “Why Christians Should Not Be Libertarians: An Augustinian Challenge.” In Faith and Philosophy 20:4 (2003): 460–478. Brierley, Michael W. “Naming a Quiet Revolution: The Panentheistic Turn in Modern Theology.” In In Whom we Live and Move and Have our Being, edited by Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacocke. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004. Clayton, Philip, and Arthur Peacocke (eds.). In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in a Scientific World. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004.

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Cooper, John W. Panentheism—The Other God of the Philosophers: From Plato to the Present. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2006. Craig, William L. God, Time, and Eternity. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001. Crisp, Oliver D. “How ‘Occasional’ was Edwards’s Occasionalism?” In Jonathan Edwards: Philosophical Theologian, edited by Oliver D. Crisp and Paul Helm. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003. Crisp, Oliver D. “Jonathan Edwards’ Panentheism.” In Jonathan Edwards as Contemporary: Essays in Honor of Sang Lee, edited by Don Schweitzer. New York: Peter Lang, 2010. Crisp, Oliver D. “Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), Idealism and Christology.” In Revisioning Christology: Theology in the Reformed Tradition, edited by Oliver D. Crisp. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011. Crisp, Oliver D. Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation. New York: Oxford, 2012. Culp, John. “Panentheism.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2013 ed.), edited by Edward N. Zalta. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2013/entries/ panentheism/. Daniel, Stephen H. “Edwards’ Occasionalism.” In Jonathan Edwards as Contemporary: Essays in Honor of Sang Lee, edited by Don Schweitzer. New York: Peter Lang, 2010. Edwards, Jonathan. The Works of Jonathan Edwards in 26 Volumes, edited by Perry Miller, John E. Smith and Harry S. Stout. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957–2006. Elwood, Douglas. The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards. New York: Columbia University Press, 1960. Gracia, Jorge J. E. “Evil and the Transcendentality of Goodness: Suárez’s Solution to the Problem of Positive Evils.” In Being and Goodness: The Concept of the Good in Metaphysics and Philosophical Theology, edited by Scott MacDonald. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991. Hall, Ned. “David Lewis’s Metaphysics.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2012 ed.), edited by Edward N. Zalta. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2012/ entries/lewis-metaphysics/. Hodge, Charles. Systematic Theology, Vol. 1. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1940. Hudson, Hud. “Omnipresence.” In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology, edited by Thomas P. Flint and Michael C. Rea. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Jenson, Robert. America’s Theologian: A Recommendation of Jonathan Edwards. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Lee, Sang. The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988. Leftow, Brian. “Omnipresence.” In Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward Craig. London and New York: Routledge, 1998.

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Lewis, David. On the Plurality of Worlds. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001. Oakes, Robert. “Divine Omnipresence and Maximal Immanence: Supernaturalism versus Pantheism.” In American Philosophical Quarterly 43:2 (2006): 171–179. Pereboom, Derk. “Free Will, Evil, and Divine Providence.” In God and the Ethics of Belief, edited by Andrew Chignell and Andrew Dole. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pereboom, Derk. “Libertarianism and Theological Determinism.” In Free Will and Theism: Connections, Contingencies, and Concerns, edited by Kevin Timpe and Dan Speak. New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming. Pruss, Alexander R. “Omnipresence, Multilocation, the Real Presence and Time Travel.” In Journal of Analytic Theology 1:1 (2013): 60–72. Rhoda, Alan. “The Philosophical Case for Open Theism.” In Philosophia 35 (2007): 301–311. Robinson, Michael D. The Storms of Providence: Navigating the Waters of Calvinism, Arminianism, and Open Theism. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2003. Tracy, David. “The Return of God in Contemporary Theology.” In On Naming the Present: God, Hermeneutics, and Church, edited by David Tracy. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis and London: SCM, 1994. Vicens, Leigh. “Theological Determinism.” In The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2014), edited by James Fieser and Bradley Dowden. http://www.iep.utm.edu/theodet/. Wainwright, William J. “Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnipresence.” In The Cambridge Companion to Christian Philosophical Theology, edited by Charles Taliaferro and Chad Meister. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Wainwright, William J. “Jonathan Edwards.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2012 ed.), edited by Edward N. Zalta. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/ win2012/entries/edwards/.

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Berkeley, Realism, Idealism, and Creation Keith E. Yandell

Berkeley wrote against atheism, skepticism, and materialist realism and in favor of theistic idealism. That much is clear. How he did that—what exactly his arguments were—is much less clear, at least if we compare even excellent interpreters. His work shares a feature with all the works of significant philosophers: its meaning is disputed. In offering one account of divine creation I shall have to assume certain interpretations without saying much on their behalf. This is the price of brevity in the face of interpretive fecundity. I will use visual perception as my sample idea with the reminder that there are also tactual, olfactory, gustatory, and auditory ideas. Berkeley takes a rare Christian stand in embracing idealism and rejecting realism. The realism he rejects claims that there are mind-independent spatially located physical objects. The idealism he embraces is committed to the view that the world’s furnishings are of just two kinds: immaterial minds or spirits and ideas. (Strictly, there are also notions, which is significant since we cannot have an idea of God, virtue, or the mind, to name only a few things of which we can have notions but not ideas.)

Berkeley, the master argument, and mind-dependent matter Consider this striking passage: That a corporeal substance, which hath absolute existence without the minds of spirits should be produced out of nothing by the mere will of a spirit hath been looked upon as a thing so contrary to all reason, so impossible and absurd, that not only the most celebrated amongst the ancients, but even diverse modern and Christian philosophers have thought it co-eternal with the Deity.1

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Most celebrated ancients, and modern and Christian philosophers who deny this notwithstanding, Berkeley occupies a lonely point in conceptual space. Berkeley claims that a realistic doctrine of creation ascribes to God an action the performance of which by any agent is contrary to all reason, impossible and absurd. This suggests an argument. 1. There is matter—something extended in space and mind-independent—in the world. 2. Theism includes as an essential tenet that God created the world. 3. God cannot create matter. 4. God did not create the world. 5. If God did not create the world, then God does not exist. 6. Therefore, God does not exist. Berkeley wants to oppose atheism and defend theism. So the argument is flatly anti-Berkeleyan. It is the combination of 1 and 3 that leads to 4. Point 2 is just a truth concerning theism. Point 5 is a conditional that is true if 2 is true, which it is. So, if he wants to successfully reply to the argument, Berkeley must deny at least one of 1 and 3. If 1 is false, the argument fails in virtue of having a false premise. The same holds for 3. In spite of the reference to ancients, moderns, and some Christian philosophers, it seems clear that most Christians would grant that there is matter and claim that God created it. They would assent to 1 and deny 3. Berkeley rather assents to 3 and denies 1. Assenting to 3 by a Christian is shocking even if 1 is false, for one would have thought that even if there were no matter at all, God still could have created gobs of it. But for Berkeley, God could not even create a spoonful. If you just cannot create it, the odds against a spoonful are as good as those against a galaxy. But why even in his immaterialist world does Berkeley deny 3? Were there simply no matter, that would not be much in favor of 3. There are, so far as I know, no naturally peppermint-striped elephants, but this is not evidence that God could not have created some. So why accept 3? The view that not even God can create material things ex nihilo would present no problem for the view that God is the great designer. It is inconsistent with the view that God is creator. This assertion of 3 is the root of Berkeley’s idealistic creation doctrine. It specifies at least part of why Berkeley finds physicalism so objectionable. It is well known that Berkeley makes the remarkable offer that if the realist can conceive of a material object, he will grant that the realist is

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right. This one-throw-of-the-dice argument rests on the thesis that no one can so much as form the realist theory in noncontradictory terms. Part of the historical and conceptual context here is the doctrine, held, for example, by Descartes and Locke, that sensory qualities come in two kinds. One kind is secondary qualities that are accessible to one sense alone. These are visual, tactual, auditory, gustatory, or olfactory. They are not qualities of objects, but (in Locke’s apt phrase) powers in objects to cause sensations in us. They are thus mind-dependent. Primary qualities are accessible to more than one sense, are mind-independent, and do belong to the objects. Berkeley rejects this distinction, giving the argument that nothing can be extended, or have size or shape, without having a so-called secondary quality. But then if extension must have a secondary quality, it too is mind-dependent. So the very notion of a physical object as something mind-independent and extended in space is self-contradictory, having to be both mind-independent and, since extended, mind dependent. If God can create something, God can conceive it. But it is inconceivable that there be a mind-independent material object. The inconceivable is not something too complex for us, or requiring too much of us, like reporting the name of every human ever to live or running a oneminute mile. If something is inconceivable, it is logically and (if this is different) metaphysically impossible—impossible in principle. So we have a simple metaphysical argument in favor of 3. There is another argument that rests on Berkeley’s doctrine of general ideas. The general idea of a tree will be the idea of a particular tree used to stand for all trees—that is, a particular collection of ideas such that, were it to have been received as perception, it would count as seeing a tree, standing in for all other ideas resembling it sufficiently to count as seeing a tree. This involves the claim that episodically having a sensory idea in mind requires the presence of an idea having been produced by the thinker—an idea (image) that resembles things of a kind and hence can represent them. The general scheme seems to be something like this: An idea cannot be an image of palm, weeping willow, fir, and maple trees. But we need sometimes to say things like, “The world needs more trees.” To say this one forms an idea (image) of a particular kind of tree, and indeed a particular tree. (A tree is a collection of ideas, of course.) The idea(s) must be such that if its twin were passively received, one would be seeing a tree. This, I take it, is an image theory of meaning for one kind of word, namely words that ascribe an observable

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quality to something or a word that is used to refer to what realists mean by “physical objects.” Let such lightly characterized terms be sensory terms. If this is along the right lines, we get something like this: person S knows the meaning of sensory word W only if S is able to cause an idea to which W applies. Then this argument can be formed: 1. For any sensory word W and person S, if S is thinking of something to which W applies, then S must have before S’s mind an idea such that, were the twin of the idea to constitute part of S’s perceptual field, S would be perceiving a thing to which W applies. 2. That to which a sensory word applies always has sensory qualities. 3. Whatever has sensory qualities is mind-dependent. 4. Therefore, any supposed physical object is mind-dependent. Or perhaps, using a specific example: 1. To think of absent trees one must have before one’s mind a collection of ideas such that were its twin to be received one would be perceiving trees, 2. Any idea that represents or stands for other ideas must resemble what it represents. (Berkeley holds that representation requires resemblance.) 3. Any collection of ideas that represents a tree must resemble other tree collections. 4. All tree collections contain ideas that have (are?) secondary qualities; (A secondary quality-less image of an extended item would not be imaginable.) 5. If a correct general idea must possess or contain a feature in order to sufficiently resemble all trees, then possessing or containing sensory qualities is essential to being a tree. 6. To think of a particular tree requires producing an idea that has or contains secondary qualities. 7. If to think of a tree or trees requires producing an idea that contains or possesses secondary qualities, then trees have secondary qualities as essential qualities. 8. Trees have secondary qualities as essential qualities. 9. Whatever has secondary qualities as essential qualities is mind-dependent. 10. Therefore, trees are mind-dependent. If this somewhat speculative construction is at least in the conceptual neighborhood, it gives an account of Berkeley’s master argument to the conclusion

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that one cannot conceive of mind-independent trees. As noted earlier, it is not part of my task here to assess his arguments.

Theory of ideas What is said in this section is, or ought to be, common ground for Berkeley interpreters. I shall not engage in arguing for this, lest we have an essay only on ideas. His ideas are not, in Brentano’s sense, intentional.2 That is, they lack (real or unreal) objects, are not about something, are not outer-directed. They are sensory. Pain—a sensation—is the paradigm for ideas. “God,” “virtues,” and “truth” express notions, not ideas. We cannot have an idea of an idea, but do have a notion of an idea, which makes it possible for him to do philosophy. Ideas are mental states—states of consciousness—that have sensory content. Each is private to its subject. Ideas do not compose minds, but rather presuppose them. No minds or spirits, no ideas. Each idea is mind-dependent—none go about unchaperoned by an owner. No idea in one mind is numerically identical to an idea in another mind, and no idea lasts longer than its habitation in the one mind that has it. They cannot be transferred from one mind to another, though one mind can cause another mind to have the twin of an idea the sending mind has. What we call “physical objects” are without exception collections of ideas. Sensory perception is identical to a mind having ideas it did not produce. Imagining is the result of a mind creating its own ideas. Since we are able to distinguish between our minds passively receiving ideas and causing them, we are able to distinguish between perception and imagination. Thus, how they are caused is a basic criterion for distinguishing between perception and imagination. The reliability of the reception of a series of numerically different ideas depends on a coherence rather than a correspondence criterion. There being no mindindependent extended objects, there is neither need nor opportunity to compare idea and object. While perceptual ideas are typically more vivacious than ideas produced by imagining, the fundamental criterion for reliable perception and unreliable perception is this: if you have series A of ideas and series B of ideas, each not reliable if the other is, ask which series fits—provides the basis for—the longer coherent narrative, considering the phase of experience within which A and B occur. The nature and order of ideas will be centrally relevant here since reliable perception is the series of sensory ideas that leads to the correct expectations regarding future ideas. So Berkeley can offer immaterialist grounds

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for distinguishing reliable versus unreliable perception. Ideas come to us in a general orderly fashion, thereby providing laws and being a basis for science and everyday life. God sends us the ideas that constitute our sensory perception. Ideas themselves have no causal powers, in that his conscious states with sensory contents are like all epiphenomenalstic conscious states. This gives us an account of part of Berkeley’s theory of ideas.

Realism The realism relevant here holds that there are mind-independent material objects that are extended in space. The idealism relevant here is theistic and maintains that there are no material objects, and what we refer to as such things as trees and desks are in fact collections of mind-dependent ideas. On realism’s side is the fact that ordinary language and the common sense that it expresses have a structural bias toward realism. The sentence form “Mary perceives” requires some accusative—perception requires physical objects. Objects typically have considerable continuous existence, unlike particular conscious states. Also, the same object typically can be seen by more than one person. In virtue of seeing the same things, two people can agree on what to call them. Idealism leaves the world without substance. And so it does in one sense. It denies that at any time and any place, and in eternity if that is different, there is a material substance. Since it seems rather clear that the majority of Christian thinkers, and certainly everyday believers, have been physical object realists, why not suppose that there is no inconsistency between Christian belief and realism? Further, Christians believe in the divine incarnation—the Second Person of the Trinity becoming fully human as well as being fully divine, and thus being embodied then crucified, buried, and resurrected. The notion of all this having no ontological commitment save to minds, ideas, and notions seem ferociously implausible.

Creation It is relevant that Berkeley is interpreted as giving two accounts of the preservation of “objects.” One is counterfactual. To say that his desk still exists when he leaves his study is to say that were someone else to enter it, or he to return, his desk would be sitting there. This obviously is an entailment of the view that God always

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preserves the desk, or does so for an appropriate desk life. But then the desk only potentially exists when no observer is there (that is, has the ideas anyone would have if she has the ideas requisite to being in Berkeley’s study). (Here as elsewhere I assume an omniscient being could give a disjunctive account of what the requisite ideas would be.) The basic fact is that the counterfactual about God providing a re-perceiving service of the sort described is compatible with the desk never existing again. But this in effect is to say that something can have continuous existence even though its existence is “gappy” and can be such that the gaps take up most of the time from its beginning to its end. The other route is that the desk continues in the mind of God. This suggests an ectype to archetype relationship between ideas that God has and those that God sends. God does not send out all of the ideas God has (roughly, for God to send an idea A is for God to have idea A and to cause in a created being a twin idea). Relative to a desk, let D be a desk-composing collection of ideas. Presumably this will include ideas that exhaust all the ways that his desk would look from every possible angle, and Berkeley need only have some of the members of D. Then concerning this desk (and the same goes for any item such that a collection of ideas sufficient for it to count as some mind or spirit perceiving that item) the word “desk” will have a surface reference to one collection or many collections of ideas in Berkeley’s mind—to every ectype of that desk that occurs in any mind—and a deep reference to a very complex collection of ideas in God’s mind. This, of course, has entailments as to Berkeley’s conception of divine omniscience. Let us call this BI, for short.

Some consequences of BI omniscience If God has BI omniscience, and God is eternal, then the deep referents of “rock” and “desk” have eternal existence. So do “buffalo” and “human body.” These are sensory terms. Berkeley’s claim that something is not conceivable is metaphysically significant. He moves from X being inconceivable to X being impossible for God to bring about. This is not a limitation on God because no thing is possible that is also inconceivable for God. Berkeley’s philosophy of language requires that one (presumably anyone) must have ideas in order to know the meaning of these terms. The continuance of unperceived objects requires that God experience their archetypes. But if God is eternal, then so are the ideas God has at t1. This can be understood in

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terms of what McTaggert called a B-theory of time.3 Very briefly, this theory proposes that we think of time on the model of an immensely (perhaps infinitely) long strip of film, with each frame indicating an instant of time. Each moment is “just as real” as any other. So while an event may fill, say, only a hundred frames, those hundred times exist eternally alongside all the others. So a tree may only exist for N frames, but those N frames have eternal tenure. The tree will exist for only so many frames, but the frames (and the tree-slices in them) coexist with all other frames. But realism has parallel entailments, a difference being that the time-slices are material. If these consequences are unwelcome, one can switch to God being everlasting—from God existing at no time to God existing at all times. Parenthetically, it will not do to say that eternity is simultaneous with every time. Whatever is simultaneously with every time exists at every time and thus is everlasting. Further, if A is simultaneous with B, and B with C, then A is simultaneous with C. If eternity is simultaneous with every time, every time is simultaneous with every other. Hence, the beginning of every lecture, even every life, is simultaneous with its end. Another consequence is that in creating a world of trees and buffaloes, God creates minds or spirits and sends them tree-relevant and buffalo-relevant ideas (collections of ideas reception of which constitutes seeing a tree and seeing a buffalo). There can be no sensory world in which minds are unrepresented. (This raises the question of how an idealist theory of evolution goes.) A third consequence is that Berkeley’s universe is in some ways sacramental. It is part of standard Christian doctrine that God sustains the created world so long as it exists. Obviously, idealist creationism shares this view. The idealist doctrine makes the sustaining process a matter of God sustaining minds and continuously sending them ideas. A realist concerning universals can regard natural laws to be grounded in relations among them. A realist about objects can regard them as having essences or natures that determine what they cause and how they are affected in various circumstances. For Berkeley, laws express the ways in which God sends ideas. There is nothing to violate should God “work a miracle” in sending ideas to some person or persons in a way out of the ordinary. God’s orderly ways of sending ideas make science and daily life possible. This reveals benevolence as well as intelligence. The ideas sent to us are a language in which God speaks to us. The realist uses of the cosmological and teleological arguments have a less personal role than in idealism with its lack of secondary causes and its passive ideas.

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A fourth consequence is that intelligent agency cannot be progressively eliminated while the world goes on. Mechanism is ruled out. The Humean shift from causality between agent and end to causality between event and event is avoided. If causal relations hold only between one event and another, nonevents (in particular, substances) are left out unless persons are collections of events, which Berkeley rejects. Agent causality is all the causality there is in his world.

Conclusion What precedes is an attempt to offer a sympathetic account of some elements of Berkeley’s thought. I am dubious about what seems to be his imagist theory of meaning but not about his view that perceptual content does not need Rationalist clarification or some mind-independent criterion. Berkeley’s doctrine of creation, assuming we have gotten it at all right or accurately seen some of its entailments, is theologically and philosophically challenging. Whether it is defensible or not is, of course, another matter. The answer to that question partly depends on what should be said concerning his idealist rendering of Christianity’s other major doctrines.

Notes 1 George Berkeley, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous in The Works of George Berkeley, vol. 1, ed. A. C. Fraser (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1871), 391. 2 Brentano understand intentionality in this way, “Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object, and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction toward an object (which is not to be understood here as meaning a thing), or immanent objectivity. Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself.” (Brentano, Psychology, 88). Taken from the following: Wolfgang Huemer, “Franz Brentano,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2014 ed.), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato. stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/brentano/. 3 See Kris McDaniel, “John M. E. McTaggart,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 ed.), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/ entries/mctaggart/.

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Bibliography Berkeley, George. Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous in The Works of George Berkeley, vol. 1, edited by A. C. Fraser. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1871. Huemer, Wolfgang. “Franz Brentano,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2014 ed.), edited by Edward N. Zalta. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/ entries/brentano/. McDaniel, Kris. “John M. E. McTaggart,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 ed.), edited by Edward N. Zalta. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/ spr2015/entries/mctaggart/.

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Edwardsian Idealism, Imago Dei, and Contemporary Theology Joshua R. Farris

Jonathan Edwards is a theologian who is largely indebted to the Augustinian and Reformed tradition. Edwards is committed to a strong view of God’s sovereignty in providence and in salvation. He affirms God’s meticulous providence in the sense that God not only sustains and preserves the world but that he directs the operations of the world and has control over all specific events in the world, which is common to Reformed orthodoxy. Edwards affirms God’s control over the salvation of individuals by his efficient grace regarding human willing. As a product of the enlightenment, Edwards’ philosophical commitments shape his theology in significant ways—represented in his anthropology. With respect to his theological anthropology, I will explore Edwards’s use of substance dualist language often employed by the majority of theologians of the Reformed orthodox tradition that so much influenced Edwards’ theology. Unlike his theological forebears, I argue that Edwards is not a substantive/ontological dualist, but he is a monist of an immaterialist sort—albeit a peculiar one—concerning human nature and the imago Dei, maintaining that physical things are mental phenomena.1 I suggest that his ontological commitments have some interesting implications for his theological anthropology. Toward the end, I briefly offer one benefit following from Edwards’s view—in contrast to a traditional substance dualist rendering of the imago Dei, which makes this project a piece of retrieval and analytic theology.2 Edwards works with a “substantive” understanding of the image, yet like the Reformers he ties it to a “functional” notion of the image. Elsewhere, I have discussed the distinction of a substantive view, which is the notion that a particular kind of substance reflects God. This is often conflated with a “structural”

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view (the hallmark of which is particular capacities), yet a substantive view is also distinct from but inclusive of two other views. One view is a “relational” view (e.g., man’s right relation to God and to other creatures), and another is a functional view (e.g., man’s activities of ruling). As such, a substantive view is holistic and comprehensive, tying together all aspects of human nature.3 While Edwards integrates both functional and relational elements into his understanding of the “image,” the nature of substance plays a crucial role in the logic of his understanding of the image. In what follows, I examine his ontological commitments as they relate to the imago Dei.

Edwards on the Imago Dei Edwards does not systematically define imago Dei. What little Edwards does say about the imago Dei is quite interesting. He seems to suggest that the image is a potent and complex set of divine ideas (“principles”) that convey glory/excellency to human minds where human minds are immaterial substances in some ephemeral or radically dependent sense (where God is Being in general that diffuses his attributes to minds).4 And God communicates (i.e., the notion that all other created things are to be understood as divine ideas that causally produce what finite minds experience) primarily to human beings who are both Divine events (i.e., ways in which God acts) and substances minimally construed as property bearers. God primarily communicates to humans because they reflect his image—they are minds (i.e., weak or as Crisp calls it “attenuated” immaterial substances) that bear properties representing God.5 I like to call this an idealist-communicative ontology. Only minds bear phenomenological sensations.6 Human beings bear the “natural/ creational image” in terms of certain creational capacities (i.e., lower governing principles) yet come to bear the “supernatural image” (i.e., higher governing principles) when human minds have an orderly set of ideas corresponding to the mind of God and are rightly united to God, which actually and completely occurs in eschatological glory where minds become full participants in the Divine nature.7

Edwards’s Imago Dei—Dualist or monist? As previously indicated, Edwards is a beneficiary of various post-Reformation thinkers, the majority of whom appear to assume substance dualism concerning

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human ontology, yet I argue that he is a monist.8 First, Edwards’s use of language drawn from the Reformed tradition seems to suggest he affirms substance dualism in various places.9 Second, he aligns himself with the Reformed tradition where nearly all Reformed theologians affirm substance dualism of some variety prior to Edwards.10 In one place, Edwards aligns himself with the Westminster tradition codified in the Westminster Confession of Faith (hereafter WCF), which explicitly upholds substance dualism. Edwards says, “As to my subscribing to the substance of the Westminster Confession, there would be no difficulty.”11 However, as with so much of his ontology, Edwards affirms several items that are not expressly endorsed in the WCF (e.g., occasionalism, the necessity of creation, continuous creation), even if it could be read in light of these ontological commitments. One might argue that Edwards’s ontological commitments are out of sync with the patterns and assumptions of the WCF framers. Alternatively, we can read Edwards “on the surface” as using language commensurate with substance dualism, but argue that this is ultimately incidental to WCF and the Reformed Tradition at large. When we consider Edwards’s commitment to the notion that bodies and souls are divine ideas and souls are publicly communicated to other minds we do not have a reason to think he intends deception, but his substance dualist language becomes a bit deceptive. That Edwards often speaks with the “vulgar” and thinks with the “learned” is evident in his treatment of the imago Dei.

Edwards’s reformed theological anthropology Substance dualism is the notion that humans are comprised of fundamentally two kinds of Things: namely a physical entity or substance and a nonmaterial or spiritual substance. Common among Reformed theologians is the belief that humans are soul-body units (a view known as substance dualism or, an alternative, hylomorphic dualism) and the notion that the divine “image” is primarily identified with the soul, yet maintaining a place for the body.12 However, Edwards revises Reformation theological anthropology with an idealist ontology (reminiscent of Berkeley) where human substances are immaterial and physical things are mental projections. Let us briefly consider Reformation and post-Reformation teaching on the nature of human constitution. The use of substance dualism language is pervasive throughout the Reformed literature and in Edwards’s corpus. Both Reformers and Edwards use the language of “inner” and “outer,” representing terms for soul and body. Furthermore,

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both Edwards and the Reformers refer to the gifts of “wisdom, holiness, and righteousness” as those that are divine gifts to the soul, but the way Edwards captures these notions is distinct.13 We also find that Edwards’s use of the image is similar to the WCF concerning the language of substance dualism and humanity’s role of functionally representing God.14 Both Turretin and Mastricht affirm that the imago Dei primarily refers to the soul and its properties.15 Edwards’s discussion of the “image” appropriates similar language from the tradition. Edwards, commensurate with the tradition, discusses the “image” at creation (i.e., rational faculties) and at redemption (namely, wisdom, holiness, and righteousness). Unlike much of post-Reformation thought, Edwards does not believe that a body is a substance. Thus, he reconceives post-Reformation theology, but his language in speaking with the “vulgar” (i.e., common sense language of the day) hides this.

Edwards’ ontology It is important when reading Edwards to keep in mind his wider ontological commitments, which have a role to play in how he understands the imago Dei. I will offer a plausible interpretation of Edwards’s metaphysics as it pertains to his doctrine of the image, which goes some way in explaining Edwards’s use of substance dualist language and helps us to better understand his concept of imago Dei.16 His ontological commitments seem to be the following: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

God is the only absolute and true substance. Human minds or spirits or souls are substances, at least in the weak or minimal sense of being property-bearers. Bodies are not substances but instead are perceivable products (i.e., public ideas) of the mind. Perceptible products of the mind are divine ideas communicated to creaturely minds.17 Souls, as divine ideas, do not actually persist instead they apparently persist because they are continuously created. The world is a shadowy projection as a set of divine ideas.18

Let us, briefly, take these one at a time. Edwards supports the ontology of idealism and communicative events, which is the notion that all other created things are to be understood as divine ideas that causally produce what finite minds experience), and this serves as an appropriate foundation for the imago Dei.

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First, Edwards affirms that God is the only true substance. By substance, Edwards means a thing or particular existent that exists independently of anything else. In one place, Edwards supports the notion that God is the only true Substance, saying, “God is . . . ens entium; or if there was nothing else in the world but bodies, the only real being . . . The nearer in nature beings are to God, so much the more properly they are beings, and more substantial; and that spirits are much more properly beings, and more substantial, than bodies.”19 Here we also find evidence for Edwards’s view that souls are more substantial than bodies, which leads to the second commitment.20 Second, according to Edwards, human minds or spirits or souls are substances, at least in the weak or minimal sense of being property-bearers. He affirms that all of reality is ideal when he says, “we have also shewn that all existence is mental, that the existence of all exterior things is ideal.”21 Edwards states, “All existence is perception.”22 In the essay “On Being” he contrasts spirits and physical beings by saying, “spirits only are properly substance.”23 And in another place, “spirits are much more properly beings, and more substantial, than bodies.”24 Third, Edwards affirms that bodies are not substances, but physical things are mentally produced. In one place, Edwards states: “What we call body is nothing but a particular mode of perception.”25 In another place, Edwards asserts, “that 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.”26 Additionally, Edwards not only affirms that bodies are mentally dependent and produced, but that souls or spirits, as he calls them, are divine communications. While he does refer to souls as substances, it only makes sense to understand such an idea in a qualified sense given his commitment to God as actual substance.27 This leads to the fourth commitment. Edwards affirms that all ideas, namely all of created reality, are divinely communicated—including both bodies and souls. As such, on one reading, Edwards’s view of the soul is different than Berkeley’s where human souls/minds exist as real. The difference between souls and bodies is that souls are more closely related to God and can become parts of God and bodies are particular ways in which God acts to communicate his glory to minds.28 Given his commitment to phenomenal idealism, all physical things are dependent for the entirety of their existence upon mind. Interestingly for Edwards the same is true of finite/ created mental substances. They too are divinely communicated events. Edwards explicitly discusses the ontology of spirits/souls as mental perceptions, “What we call spirit, then, is nothing but a composition and series of perceptions [mental

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events] . . . connected by . . . laws.”29 One could read this in the sense that a human soul is bordering on an antirealist understanding in contrast to Berkeley, but it is not entirely clear how one ought to read Edwards. Additionally, bodies are divinely communicated events to the human mind. As such, they are ways in which God communicates himself to created minds.30 Edwards embraces the Reformed notion that human minds, as imago Dei, are substances. For Edwards, material bodies do not exist in a mind-independent way nor are they property-bearers and as such are not truly substances, but that is not to say that the physical world including bodies does not exist. They are simply products of the mind.31 In other words, Edwards affirms that souls are closer to God and are more properly construed as substances, yet they are ephemeral substances (i.e., radically dependent on continuous creation) because they exist as ideas in the divine mind and are communicated as a series of events.32 Fifth, Edwards’ concept of imago Dei should also be considered in light of his understanding of immaterial substances as continuously re-created in a physical world of laws that are occasions of the divine mind. Edwards states, “God’s preserving created things in being is perfectly equivalent to a continued creation, or to his creating those things out of nothing at each moment of their existence.”33 This, in itself, would undermine the actual persistence of the mental substance and, once again, lean in the direction of antirealism. As with physical laws, Edwards understands souls and substances as a particular way in which God acts. Sixth and finally, Edwards’ apparent commitment to panentheism plays a large role not only in his general ontology, but in his understanding of the substantive imago Dei. Apparently, Edwards is a panentheist, in the sense that he believes all created things exist in God in some sense. Construing him in this way helps to make sense of his belief that God is the only true substance. God is the only substance that mentally projects all the parts of the created order. He affirms this when he states, “All things are in God.”34 Further support is found in Edwards’s understanding that God is Being in general.35 In another place, Edwards refers to God in relationship to created minds as an “enlargement” of himself and as a “diffusion” of himself.36 However, Edwards makes a distinction between the identity of creatures and their Creator. If it is right to articulate Edwards’s idealism as a form of panentheism where all of created reality is a mental production ad-extra to God’s nature, then this serves to undermine the notion that Edwards affirms substance dualism and offers some novel ways of cashing out the image as a communicated event of God’s excellence. Furthermore, when one connects the

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notion of panentheism (where God is the only true substance) with the idea that souls are more substantial the closer they are to God, then one can see that soul/ images become more substantial when they become more like God. Hence, this points in the direction that Edwards conceives of the imago Dei as having some eschatological aspects or features that are not represented in the creational imago Dei. This, then, raises the question of how to make sense of Edwards’s language. Edwards can loosely communicate his understanding of image in terms of soul and body without firmly committing to the underlying ontology commensurate with the philosophical tradition that also underlies much of the Reformed tradition (i.e., Aristotelian substance ontology where individual parts are not only property-bearers but exist and persist independent of anything else). Having said this, substance dualism does not adequately account for what Edwards states about humans and the imago Dei. While he does use the language of soul and body in referring to the distinct ontological constituents of human beings, he cannot affirm substance dualism because of his other commitments to metaphysical idealism and the notion that physical objects are dependent upon immaterial substances. As substance dualism is assumed to be the common sense position (i.e., that which we intuitively believe) and further buttressed by a common commitment within the Reformation tradition, it seems understandable that Edwards would use common language to communicate such complex ideas. Upon reflection, he may rightly see substance dualism as providing appropriate language to make sense of human nature, but this could be construed as a nonessential, even if useful, doctrine within Reformed Orthodoxy, as seen in the WCF and Turretin. I suggest that Edwards maintains similar motivations in his rejection of materialist ontology in terms of highlighting the role of mind and rationality. Edwards’s commitment to the rejection of materialist ontology, pace Hobbes, is in keeping with the Reformed rejection of materialism and the centrality of minds. In using the language of substance dualism, one can loosely align with it in the sense that he is once again speaking with the “vulgar” (i.e., he is using common language). One might argue that he affirms a dualism of God’s communicative events concerning the human story. At most, one could affirm a dualism of subject and idea, not an ontological dualism of concrete parts.37 But this is a significant concession. Given these points, Edwards seems to assume a rather complex notion of the imago Dei. At its base is an idealistcommunicative ontology wherein God communicates to humans at creation and in the eschaton.

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Idealist implications for the Imago Dei Edwards’s commitment to an idealist-communicative ontology and his reconceiving of aspects of Reformation theology has some interesting implications for theological anthropology.38 Consider three such implications. First, Edwards maintains a functional or communicative dualism concerning the body and soul in the image such that all aspects or features play a role in the image. The image as a substantial entity is crucial in that persons become complete images when united to God in the future when God’s act of making the saints his own is actual. Second, Edwards affirms both a natural image and a supernatural image, but his commitment to idealism lends itself to a revised understanding of both concepts of the image in Reformed thought. Third, while Edwards is committed to a substantive view of the imago Dei with much of Reformation theology, his understanding is radically dynamic and relational. While Edwards does not affirm substance dualism, he does affirm a kind of functional or communicative dualism where God communicates two differing kinds of ideas.39 The first idea concerns ephemeral substances that are the primary referents for glory/excellence and, second, that physical objects are divine mental products communicated to other minds. This is the first point. This does not commit him to substance dualism, as shown before, but he uses language that suggests bodies and souls are radically different in that the mind is substantial and is more closely related to God as an image and a body is for the benefit of communicating God’s glory to minds.40 To understand the functional difference in Edwards’s conception of body and soul, one must understand the whole of creation as ultimately a reflection of God’s excellence (the communication of himself). The soul exists ultimately for the communication of God’s glory, while the body is construed as physical products of the mind, not as that which exists independent of the mind, communicating God’s excellence.41 It seems there is more to say about Edwards’s understanding of the soul’s and the body’s operational distinction, but this deserves additional attention in a separate context. Next, Edwards’s monism yields a slightly different understanding of the imago Dei. Edwards, in light of his ontological commitments, seems to modify the Reformed understanding of “natural” and “supernatural.” Normally these terms are understood to represent two ways in which humans image God, where one builds on the other, in the sense that certain natural/creational capacities and potentialities are fully actualized at redemption. In other words, in such a view, it

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is accurate to affirm that the image is present from the beginning under ordinary conditions, but is present in a much greater manner under extraordinary conditions. Yet, with Edwards these terms are different in that there is not so much an addition of the supernatural to what is natural, but a continuum of God’s action of communication, whereby God communicates two discrete effects that are overlapping. In the first, God communicates the capacity and availability of God’s glory. In the second, he communicates added excellencies to the created mind via union.42 One is a creational communication where God withholds his full nature and the second is redemption where he is communicating the fullness of his nature to human minds. While Edwards’s understanding of “natural” image and “supernatural” image have yet to be explored in detail, they correspond and undergird Edwards’s understanding of “natural” and “moral” or “supernatural” ability—and scholars have explored this latter notion in detail. In brief, Edwards affirms that human minds are natural images in the sense that God has communicated the ability and possibility for God’s glory to human minds as the recipients of knowledge for God’s glory and that these same images reflect the natural attributes of power, in keeping with God’s nature. Given that human minds are the primary things or substances in God’s creation (the only ones apart from angels), it makes sense to suggest that human minds are the primary recipients of God’s glory in the whole created order. In the context of discussing Edwards’s conversion as the matrix for understanding the divine program Avihu Zakai shows that for Edwards there is a movement away from the soul. Zakai argues, instead, that Edwards affirms that souls are “images,” meaning that God properly communicates excellence to minds and, contrastively, bodies—as well as the physical world—are referred to as “shadows” of the divine being.43 By way of contrast, according to Edwards, God communicates (or his communication has discrete effects) in a distinct way when he makes minds aware of his glory. He supports this in two key passages. In one place, he says, “Herein very much consists the natural image of God; as his spiritual and moral image, wherein man was made at first, consisted in that moral excellency, that he was endowed with.”44 In another, he writes, “Besides these, there were superior principles, that were spiritual, holy and divine, summarily comprehended in divine love; wherein consisted the spiritual image of God, and man’s righteousness and true holiness; which are called in Scripture the divine nature.”45 The latter part of this quote is suggestive that Edwards identified human righteousness and holiness with the divine nature itself. The loss of the “moral” or the “supernatural”

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image, in the Fall, is a loss of God’s Spirit, arguably. For in one place, Edwards states, When man sinned, and broke God’s covenant, and fell under his curse, these superior principles left his heart: for indeed God then left him; that communion with God, on which these principles depended, entirely ceased; the Holy Spirit, that divine inhabitant, forsook the house. The inferior principles of self-love and natural appetite, which were given only to serve, being alone, and left to themselves, of course became reigning principles; having no superior principles to regulate or control them, they became absolute masters of the heart. Man did immediately set up himself, and the objects of his private affections and appetites, as supreme; and so they took the place of God. These inferior principles are like fire in a house; which, we say, is a good servant, but a bad master; very useful while kept in its place, but if left to take possession of the whole house, soon brings all to destruction. Man’s love to his own honor, separate interest, and private pleasure, which before was wholly subordinate unto love to God and regard to his authority and glory, now dispose and impel man to pursue those objects, without regard to God’s honor, or law; because there is no true regard to these divine things left in him.46

In one sense both correspond to a standard delineation of “natural” and “supernatural” in WCF and Turretin where the natural image is comprised of “knowledge, understanding, and will” and the supernatural image is comprised of “wisdom, holiness, and righteousness.” The difference is that, as Edwards states in the second quote, the supernatural gift (namely, holiness) is not a principle of the will—as we have with faculty psychology—but God’s giving of himself, hence, once again, we have an eschatological aspect to the image. Herein the natural/creational features are present always, but the spiritual or supernatural aspects are present, in some sense, prior to the Fall and to a greater extent in redemption. Edwards further explains, As there are two kinds of attributes in God . . . his moral attitudes, which are summed up in his holiness, and his natural attributes of strength, knowledge, etc., that constitute the greatness of God; so there is a twofold image of God in man, his moral or spiritual image, which is his holiness, that is the image of God’s moral excellency (which image was lost by the fall) and God’s natural image, consisting in man’s reason and understanding, his natural ability, and dominion over the creatures, which is the image of God’s natural attribute.47

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It is important to keep in mind that the natural and spiritual images were present at creation in one sense, where the spiritual image was lost at the Fall, but that the spiritual image is strengthened concerning man and perfected eschatologically, given Edwards’s teachings on the afterlife and man’s union with God where humans transition from being created ideas of the divine mind to ideas God has of himself.48 God communicates additional excellencies by uniting humans more intimately to himself in the consummation of his salvific act (hence making them more substantial). As a result, Edwards’s notion of the substantive image is dynamic in that the image is actualized when more intimately tied to God. As discussed, the human person is a divinely communicated event where the physical world communicates and helps bring the mind to an orderly state. Humans image God in virtue of having orderly ideas and properly ordered sensations. In this way, Edwards’s view of the image is relational. Edwards’s idealism and communicative ontology makes for a robust notion of the image as dynamic and relational. Bodies and souls are united by an intimate communication, as a particular way of God acting. As I stated earlier, the imago Dei is a rich idea that shines forth God’s glory. Edwards’s view affirms the notion that divine communication occurs between body and soul as an occasion. Edwards discusses the idea of mutual communication as an occasion for divine activity when he says that the body “is an occasion of affections in the mind.”49 Added to this, Edwards’s view of the image is robustly dynamic. Humans are rightly referred to as images of the divine in that they more closely relate to God in the hierarchy of Being because God communicates more of himself with human minds. This is in keeping with the recent understanding of Edwards’s God in terms of panentheism—at least one variation of panentheism.50 Given that human persons are divine ideas, they are properly related to God and come to participate in God more intimately and immediately than what we see in a substance dualist understanding of humans. This is so in the sense that human minds are finite and dependent upon the divine, and, as such, divine activity toward human minds are necessary causal conditions for the minds coming to be and continuing to be. In contrast to substance dualism, human minds are necessarily ideas of the divine mind whereas substance dualist construals of the mind and body seem to yield the idea that minds exist independently of the divine mind or, at least, minds and bodies are causally removed and relationally distant from the divine mind. Images are divinely communicated events, which Stephen Daniel has helpfully referred to as “com-unification” of ideas that comprise created minds.51

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To bring out this distinction concerning a substance dualist variation of images in contrast to an idealist variation of images, consider the following two analogies. As for substance dualism, I suggest that an appropriate analogy for images in relation to God is a light bulb.52 While on some variations of substance dualism, the soul requires the body for the actualization of the soul’s powers, so does the light bulb depend upon a socket for power. Furthermore, I suggest that a light bulb’s powers can in a sense be strengthened when linked up to other bulbs tied to a light source. In this way souls like light bulbs bear certain properties in an appropriate relational dynamic such that some properties are extrinsic and derivative when the soul is tied to a body and to other substances. Bodies and other substances mediate and/or enhance powers to and/or in souls. By way of contrast, souls that are situated in an idealist-communicative ontology, of an Edwardsian variety, are more directly, intimately, and immediately tied to the overarching substance. I liken this ontology to a wave that is produced in a larger body of water. The dynamic is similar to natural light waves; if we want to keep with the light analogy, which is common to historical reflections on the image. A wave is both distinct and immediately tied to a larger body of water. A wave is distinct in the sense that it bears a set of properties in contrast to say other waves. It is identical to or united to the body of water, in that it is produced by, powered by, and contained within the body of water. In a similar fashion, Edwardsian images are distinct in the properties they bear, yet intimately united in the sense that they are produced, powered, and contained within the divine mind. Added to Edwards’s articulation of idealism, are the complex notions called occasionalism and continuous creation, noted above. For Edwards all of created activity is an occasion of divine activity and continuously created by God. One might object that the analogy is insufficient, given that causality is a divine occasion and created things do not independently persist on Edwards’s ontology. However, I think the analogy works quite well. If we think about the ocean waves as constantly changing and being re-created by the ocean, then this would serve as a suitable analogy to give some conceptual grasp of Edwards’s human ontology and the physical world where humans are weak substances of the divine mind, mental activity is a divine occasion, and human minds are continuously created by the divine mind, albeit internal and dependent on the divine mind.53 In addition to providing a more naturally satisfying story that promotes the relational and dynamic aspects of the image in contrast to dualism, there

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is another apparent advantage of Edwards’s variant of idealism in terms of the Creator-creature distinction. For the dualist, there is a sharp distinction between human souls and God, or so it seems. Now, by providing the story of the light bulbs, I was able to tell a story that paints a picture whereby humans are able to assume properties of the divine in a derivative fashion. However, Edwardsian monism gives us a different story. Edwards can affirm what some have construed, in the contemporary literature, as the traditional and orthodox view of the Creator-creature relation in that Edwards can affirm God’s transcendence from creation, but also the intimacy and immanence of his nature to human creatures without assuming the supposed “modern” divide between the two notions. In this way, then, God is said to encompass all of reality, most importantly human reality—as the one above and as the one present to it.

An idealist reconception of the creator-creature distinction My aim in this final section is a modest one. I will lay out one benefit of Edwards’s conception of the imago Dei. I want to suggest that he provides the theologian committed to orthodoxy a way to understand minds as images in an Augustinian sense, while maintaining the Creator-creature distinction in a unique way, visà-vis his forebears. I begin with substance dualism as a picture that captures something about God by raising one common worry in the literature regarding the Creator-creature distinction. Then I briefly lay out the picture of Edwards’s idealist-communicative ontology of the image. You might take substance dualist ontology as offering a picture similar to what we find in some contemporary views called theological personalism, as seen in a variety of contemporary philosophers.54 In their view, we must begin with a conception of God as a person, as humans are persons, where the connection is between specified and overlapping properties predicable of the immaterial substance, where God is a soul or spirit like humans are souls/ spirits. On this picture of humans and God, there are, arguably, several objects that are discrete and independent causal agents. God, as a person, is simply one person among other persons.55 This does not mean that souls, bodies, and divine beings cannot interact in some sense, but that God is a causal, mental, and personal agent among other agents. Arguably, this is not the traditional view.

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In fact, traditional theology seems to see God not as an agent among other agents. Instead, he is the agent that transcends all causal processes found within the world, and, thus, not a person—at least not in the way that we normally think of persons.56 Others might call it “alterity” theism in contrast to “personal theism” or “immanent agency.” Brian Robinette, in the context of discussing creatio ex nihilo, reflects the traditional view of God when saying, creatio ex nihilo affirms God’s unconditioned transcendence in a way that expressly avoids construing the God-world relationship in contrastive terms. It reflects a basic “grammar” for speaking of God and creation in a way that names their absolute, qualitative difference—a difference that allows us to affirm divine transcendence precisely as God’s incomprehensible nearness.57

On the traditional view, God is said to be above the causal order of physical and human events in such a way that he, in a sense, encompasses the causal order. God is said to be causally present and active in the world in a way wholly dissimilar from human causality. Dualism, some would say, breaks up ontological relationships. It paints a picture where not only body and soul are discrete objects of reflection, but God and soul are, apparently, discrete and independent objects of reflection and centers of causal power. Yet, this is not so of the traditional view. Whether or not substance dualism requires this metaphysical story is a research question deserving additional attention. I only point this out because there is a long tradition of criticizing Cartesianism or substance dualism generally as a model of anthropology suitable for speculation about God. And, on the surface, one could argue that substance dualism paints a picture whereby God is not distant from human causality but is an object among objects. Edwards’s idealist anthropology provides a different metaphysical story, given that the soul is a divinely communicative event and a substance weakly construed. Edwards, like his Augustinian and Reformed forebears, conceives of God as different from the creation that he encompasses.58 While he maintains the traditional orthodox picture of God in relation to humans as one of both transcendence and immanence, he does so in a novel manner. Edwards is able to tell a story whereby God is above the causal order, unlike human agents (i.e., transcendent), and both causally active and present to his creation, especially humans as the recipients of glory, hence immanent. This makes sense when we consider that for Edwards the world is an idea internal to the divine mind. While God is present everywhere in the created order due to the created order existing as an idea (or a set of ideas) held in the divine mind, he is present in a special way with humans. Anthropologically, God, as distinct from creation, communicates

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himself at creation to humans by giving humans the powers of rationality (i.e., lower-governing principles), and is more closely related to humans, that is, his assumption of Neoplatonism. In the eschaton he communicates to humans (i.e., holiness; higher-governing principles) by communicating his own presence when humans become ideas God has about himself rather than mere divine ideas. Furthermore, there is a divine act that is complete in the eschaton where substances become complete in nature.

Monism and contemporary anthropology While there is a tendency toward monistic anthropology in contemporary theology, it is not of an immaterialist or idealist sort. Rather, it is of a materialist sort. In the contemporary literature, there is an overwhelming, and unwarranted, suspicion concerning idealism. Contemporary theologians have commonly raised an objection against Cartesian dualism from embodiment where idealism is normally included. John Cooper criticizes idealism as that “which allows for personal existence beyond earthly life but considers the earthly body incidental.”59 In saying this, Cooper is referring to other variants of idealism (e.g., Kantian), but he does not consider Edwardsian or Berkeleyan idealism as a potential option. In a similar spirit and reflective of a contemporary aversion to both substance dualism and idealism, Cortez raises a similar problem. Cortez states, This affirmation of human embodiment means that at least two theories of human ontology are widely regarded as biblically and theologically inadequate. First, idealism, which views the human person as a purely “spiritual” being, finds few supporters among contemporary thinkers. Second, classic or “Cartesian” dualism, which argues that the spiritual and the physical are two, fundamentally distinct, “parts” of the human person, while not denying the physicality of the human, is widely criticized for its apparent denigration of the body and its overly sharp distinction between the material and the immaterial dimensions of the human person. The contemporary consensus, then, maintains that any adequate anthropology must affirm human embodiment in ways that idealism and Cartesian dualism simply are not able to do.60

The notion that Cartesianism denigrates the value of embodiment is a common objection/worry raised. Whether or not this objection is viable concerning Cartesian dualism is up for debate, but to raise this as a worry or concern for idealism seems unwarranted—or at least it is not clear why the defender of idealism should be moved by such a worry. It seems odd to charge Edwards’s

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idealism with a denigrated view of the body because the body is a product of the mind and a “shadow” of divine glory. There is no clear reason, in the development of idealism or in the recent objection/worry raised, to suggest that the body is insignificant to the imago Dei. Additional work is necessary to get this objection off the ground. In the end, Edwardsian idealism is worth considering, given the potential benefits it offers as a distinctive option within theological anthropology, but additional research and reflection is needed.

Conclusion Jonathan Edwards both conserves and reconceives Reformed theological anthropology. However, his commitment to the underlying personal ontology of idealism is a significant departure from the ontology carried along in the Reformation tradition. These ontological commitments significantly shape aspects and features of his understanding of the imago Dei as seen from the examples I have offered. He conserves the notion that “images” are substantial, functional, relational, and that the imago Dei is fundamentally immaterial. I have suggested that Edwards holds that the imago bears an eschatological character in that human images are incomplete until the eschaton when they are fully united to the one true substance—namely, God. His view of the imago Dei, as he constructively appropriates the Reformed tradition, is significantly distinct when tied to an idealist-communicative ontology, and his communication has two distinct effects—body and soul. In this way, I suggested that Edwards’s ontological commitments have two potential benefits over his Reformed forebears, but that these require further reflection and research. First, he modifies a common Reformed understanding of what is natural and supernatural. Second, his idealist-communicative conception of the imago Dei has some advantages/benefits over contemporary substance dualism literature on the imago Dei. Initially, it seems that Edwards’s view provides resources for constructively developing a satisfying contemporary notion of the imago Dei, which has the resources to preserve a strong doctrine of God’s imminence and the intimacy of the divine-human relationship. In the end, Edwards’s idealism seems to maintain what is essential to the tradition and helpfully contributes to Reformation thought, yet additional attention is needed to unpack all of the implications following from Edwards’s commitment to his brand of idealism.61

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Notes 1 See Oliver Crisp, Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), chapter 1. 2 This is a piece of analytic theology, primarily, in the sense that I am clarifying Edwards by using analytic tools and terminology. 3 See Joshua R. Farris, “A Substantive (Soul) Model of the Imago Dei: A Rich-Property View,” in The Ashgate Research Companion to Theological Anthropology, ed. Joshua R. Farris and Charles Taliaferro (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2015). Also see Joshua R. Farris, “An Immaterial Substance View: Imago Dei in Creation and Redemption,” The Heythrop Journal published online July 15, 2015, DOI: 10.1111/heyj.12274. By “holistic,” I mean to convey that all aspects/features of human beings in some fashion bear God’s image, have a share in that image, or point to the magnificence and glory of God (under ordinary and extraordinary conditions). 4 See Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation, chapter 1. Oliver Crisp persuasively defends this notion, which plays a crucial role in how Edwards understands the image as God’s communication of himself. 5 See Marc Cortez, “The Human Person as Communicative Event: Jonathan Edwards on the Mind-body Relationship,” in Ashgate Research Companion to Theological Anthropology, ed. Joshua R. Farris and Charles Taliaferro (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2015). Cortez offers a thoughtful explanation of Edwards’s understanding of the philosophy of mind where humans are both communicative events and substances. 6 A standard way to define an event would be to say that an event is a property instantiated by a substance at a time. This may be an accurate way of affirming God’s causal activity as an event. 7 Also see Kyle Strobel, Jonathan Edwards’s Theology: A Reinterpretation (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012), chapters 1 and 4. Strobel develops Edwards’s notion of the image in terms of the Spirit’s activity, yet I am tying it more closely to Edwards’s ontological commitments. There may be a way to integrate both by showing how it is that the Spirit works at creation and, more importantly, at redemption by tying humans to God. This tying and uniting minds to God’s nature in the future lends itself to what has often been called theosis or deification. 8 Peter Beck, “Jonathan Edwards and the Imago Dei: A Man Ahead of His Time,” presented at the 2005 Evangelical Theological Society annual meeting. While Beck has not published this paper, he is the only person I know of who has even attempted to offer some thoughtful articulation, albeit brief, of Edwards’s imago Dei. However, Beck interprets Edwards’s loosely as a substance dualist, and as I am suggesting in this chapter this is impossible. In this way, it seems important to cite Beck.

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9 In several places, Edwards discusses soul and body as distinct and radically disparate in nature. 10 In several places, he aligns himself with Calvin and his tradition. All references to the printed Works of Jonathan Edwards are to the Yale Letterpress Edition (Perry Miller, John E. Smith, and Harry S. Stout, general editors, The Works of Jonathan Edwards in 26 Volumes [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957–2006]). Hereinafter, citations appear as follows YE, followed by volume number, colon, and page reference. Throughout Edwards’s corpus on “Notes on Conversion from various Authors,” he favorably cites and draws from Peter van Mastricht (YE 37). See also YE 6:20. 11 Edwards, YE 16:355. 12 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeil, trans. Ford L. Battles (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1960), 1.15.2. 13 See William Ames, Marrow of Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1997), 105, 106. Furthermore, all of this sounds like both Calvin and Augustine’s faculty psychology. “Ethical Writings,” YE 8:559. 14 Westminster Confession of Faith, in Reformed Confessions Harmonized, ed. Joel R. Beeke and Sinclair B. Fergusson (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), 39. 15 See Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed. George M. Giger, trans. James T. Dennison, J.R. (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1992), 1:464. Also see Edwards’s Letters and Personal Writings, YE 16:217. 16 There is one other noteworthy position, which is Sang Lee’s interpretation. 17 Once again, see Crisp, Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation, chapter 1. Crisp offers an alternative to Lee’s interpretation of Edwards’s ontology as a kind of dispositionalism, in the sense that all of created reality is a creative event of God’s mind. See Stephen H. Daniel, The Philosophy of Jonathan Edwards: A Study of Divine Semiotics (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994). Marc Cortez takes and develops this notion of a communicative event, “The Human Person as Communicative Event: Jonathan Edwards on the Mind-body Relationship.” 18 Having said this, it is not entirely clear whether Edwards moves in a realist direction or an antirealist direction. This deserves further attention. Edwards may be an immaterial realist, but the textual evidence is unclear. Crisp has made an argument that is suggestive of realism. Crisp argues that, “one could make metaphysical room, as it were, for the existence of minds that were not necessarily radically dependant on God or their continued existence, i.e. were not dependant for their continued existence on God continuing to think of them,” “Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), Idealism and Christology,” Revisioning Christology: Theology in the Reformed Tradition (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011), 53.

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19 YE 6:238. Also see Crisp, “Jonathan Edwards’s Ontology: A Critique of Sang Hyun Lee’s Dispositional Account of Edwardsian Metaphysics,” Religious Studies 46:1 (2010): 1–20. 20 Also see Crisp, Revisioning Christology: Theology in the Reformed Tradition (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011), chapter 3, for an exposition of Edwards’s global ontology. 21 YE 9:341. 22 “Notebook on Being,” YE 6:398. 23 YE 6:206. 24 YE 6:238. 25 YE 6:398. 26 “Of Atoms,” YE 6:215. 27 For some textual support to this end, see, “Notes on Knowledge and Existence,” YE 6:398 28 In this way, Edwards is a Neoplatonist. 29 See, “Notes on Knowledge and Existence,” YE 6:398 30 YE 6:112. Wallace Anderson seems to suggest that minds as substances have some independent nature as real entities, but this is a debated matter concerning the interpretation of Edwards on created minds. In fact, given Edwards’s inclination toward Plotinian Neoplatonism and panentheism, created minds seem to be parts of God’s nature, internal to his nature as emanations, which would seem to lend itself to an antirealist conception of minds. 31 Edwards is influenced by the Cambridge Platonists in his rejection of Hobbesianism. See Crisp, Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation, 34. 32 They are not simply things that are generated by Divine ideas that have some extramental reality, but are actually internal to the Divine mind and become parts of God’s mind ad extra. This is what is so radical about Edwards’s view. 33 YE 3: 401. Also see YE 4: 316. Oliver Crisp expounds on Edwards’s doctrine of ocassionalism in Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation, 32–34. 34 “Miscellanies,” YE 13:295. 35 “Miscellanies,” YE 20:122. 36 See Jonathan Edwards, The End of Creation YE 8: 461–462. 37 One might categorize Edwards as a mind-body dualist, which is clearly not a version of substance dualism because he does make a radical distinction between the mind or soul and body. See Robinson, Howard, “Dualism,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2012 ed.), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato. stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/dualism/. However, one might argue that idealist monism is a more accurate representation of Edwardsian idealism because bodies are not substances in any sense of the term, hence there is only one substance or concrete particular.

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38 I am tempted to use the word revise but this may be too strong. I do not have a strong reason to think Edwards was aware or intent on revising his own tradition. 39 On this interpretation, following Crisp and Cortez, Edwards seems to have departed from Berkeley’s understanding of immaterial substances. Instead, Edwards seems, as suggested earlier, to move in an antirealist direction where souls are mere divine ideas. Once again, I say this realizing that one could interpret Edwards as Berkeleyian, but it is not obvious that the later interpretation is superior to the former. 40 I have already cited evidence in favor of this notion. Additional support can be obtained in virtue of Edwards’s understanding of the first phase of the afterlife as potentially disembodied (YE 2:113). I do not mean to suggest that Edwards believes that humans will exist disembodied throughout the whole of their existence in the afterlife—only in the beginning. 41 YE 8:534. It is important to note that physical knowledge is not something that is gained through the senses as if material objects existed independently, but, once again, are mental products or projections. 42 YE 8:534. 43 See Avihu Zakai, Jonathan Edwards’s Philosophy of History: The Reenchantment of the World in the Age of Enlightenment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 73. 44 YE 1:166. 45 YE 3:381. 46 Thanks to Mark Hamilton for pointing this out. “The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended,” YE 3:381–3. 47 Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, pt. III, sec. 3 in The Works of President Edwards, 8 vols. (Worcester, 1808, cited as Worcester ed.), 4:189–190; YE 3:256. 48 See the following on Edwards’s Neoplatonism and panentheistic ontology: Micheal J. McClymond, “Salvation as Divinization: Jonathan Edwards, Gregory Palamas and the Theological Uses of Neoplatonism,” in Jonathan Edwards: Philosophical Theologian, ed. Oliver Crisp and Paul Helm (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 139–160; Crisp, Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation; Seng-Kong Tan, Fullness Received and Returned: Trinity and Participation in Jonathan Edwards (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014). 49 YE 2:269. 50 See Cortez, “The Human Person as a Communicative Event.” Also see Crisp, Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation, chapter 8. 51 See Stephen H. Daniel, “Edwards’ Occasionalism,” in Jonathan Edwards as Contemporary: Essays in Honor of Sang Hyun Lee, ed. Don Schweitzer (New York: Peter Lang, 2010), 1.

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52 Richard Swinburne uses this analogy with respect to the mind-body relationship in his The Evolution of the Soul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). I have extended this analogy and used it for theological purposes in “A Substantive (Soul) Model of the Imago Dei.” One might still argue that Edwards’s unusual brand of idealism-constant creation-panentheism collapses into a Spinozian pantheism, but the manner in which Edwards defines the substances would not reduce to pantheism because created minds retain individual properties distinguishing them from the Creator-God. 53 See Crisp, Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation, 160–161. See also John Cooper, Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 77. The common Reformed commitment to the Creator-creature distinction is maintained. 54 Brian Davies, An Introduction to Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 9–15. While Davies uses this term—theological personalism—I do not believe he was the first to use it in this way. 55 For example, Swinburne and Plantinga have developed a conception of God in relation to human souls along these lines. See Christopher Insole, The Realist Hope: A Critique of Anti-Realist Approaches in Contemporary Philosophical Theology (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 148–160. Insole offers an interesting objection contemporary apophaticism by using the Cartesian (i.e., substance dualist model of persons) model of divine and human relations and suggests that both offer an irrational or ilicit understanding of God as suprahuman. He uses the Cartesian model, as a suggestively wrong-headed, to critique empty philosophical approaches. By way of response to this and related criticisms, see Joshua R. Farris, “Discovering God and Soul: A Re-Appraisal and Appreciation for Cartesian Natural Theology,” in Philosophia Christi 16:1 (2014): 37–55. 56 Kathryn Tanner, God and Creation in Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005), see chapter 2. Tanner advances a transcendent agent model of divine action. 57 Brian Robinette, “The Difference Nothing Makes: Creatio Ex Nihilo, Resurrection, and Divine Gratuity.” Theological Studies 72 (2011): 526–527. 58 See Michael Horton, “Hellenistic or Hebrew,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 45: 2 (June 2002): 320–326. Horton offers a thoughtful development of the Reformed view of God in relation to human persons in contrast to Open Theism. Herein, he rejects the view of God as person. 59 John Cooper, “Scripture, Philosophy and Anthropology,” in the Ashgate Research Companion to Theologiccal Anthropology (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2015), 37. 60 Marc Cortez, Theological Anthropology: A Guide for the Perplexed (New York: T&T Clark, 2010), 70. In personal conversation, he stated that he has changed his position since writing this piece.

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61 Many thanks to Oliver Crisp, Ryan Brandt, Mark Hamilton, Jim Spiegel, and Kyle Strobel for their reading of this chapter and offering insightful suggestions and criticisms.

Bibliography Ames, William. Marrow of Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1997. Beck, Peter. “Jonathan Edwards and the Imago Dei: A Man Ahead of His Time.” Presented at the 2005 Evangelical Theological Society annual meeting (unpublished). Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion, edited by John T. McNeil and translated by Ford L. Battles. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1960. Cooper, John. Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006. Cooper, John. “Scripture, Philosophy and Anthropology.” In the Ashgate Research Companion to Theological Anthropology. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2015, chapter 2. Cortez, Marc. “The Human Person as Communicative Event: Jonathan Edwards on the Mind-body Relationship.” In Ashgate Research Companion to Theological Anthropology, edited by Joshua R. Farris and Charles Taliaferro. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2015. Cortez, Marc. Theological Anthropology: A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: T&T Clark, 2010. Crisp, Oliver. Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Crisp, Oliver. “Jonathan Edwards’s Ontology: A Critique of Sang Hyun Lee’s Dispositional Account of Edwardsian Metaphysics.” In Religious Studies 46/1 (2010): 1–20. Crisp, Oliver. Revisioning Christology: Theology in the Reformed Tradition. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011. Daniel, Stephen H. “Edwards’ Occasionalism,” in Jonathan Edwards as Contemporary: Essays in Honor of Sang Hyun Lee, edited by Don Schweitzer. New York: Peter Lang, 2010. Daniel, Stephen H. The Philosophy of Jonathan Edwards: A Study of Divine Semiotics. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994. Davies, Brian. An Introduction to Philosophy of Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Edwards, Jonathan. The Works of Jonathan Edwards in 26 Volumes, edited by Perry Miller, John E. Smith and Harry S. Stout. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957–2006.

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Farris, Joshua R. “A Substantive (Soul) Model of the Imago Dei: A Rich-Property View,” in The Ashgate Research Companion to Theological Anthropology, edited by Joshua R. Farris and Charles Taliaferro. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2015. Farris, Joshua R. “An Immaterial Substance View: Imago Dei in Creation and Redemption.” In The Heythrop Journal, 2015. DOI: 10.1111/heyj.12274. Farris, Joshua R. “Discovering God and Soul: A Re-appraisel and Appreciation for Cartesian Natural Theology.” In Philosophia Christi 16:1 (2014): 37–55. Horton, Michael. “Hellenistic or Hebrew.” In Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 45:2 (June 2002): 320–326. Insole, Christopher. The Realist Hope: A Critique of Anti-Realist Approaches in Contemporary Philosophical Theology. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. McClymond, Michael J. “Salvation as Divinization: Jonathan Edwards, Gregory Palamas and the Theological Uses of Neoplatonism.” In Jonathan Edwards: Philosophical Theologian, edited by Oliver Crisp and Paul Helm. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004. Robinette, Brian. “The Difference Nothing Makes: Creatio Ex Nihilo, Resurrection, and Divine Gratuity.” In Theological Studies 72 (2011): 526–527. Robinson, Howard. “Dualism,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2012 ed.), edited by Edward N. Zalta. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/ dualism/. Strobel, Kyle. Jonathan Edwards’s Theology: A Reinterpretation. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012. Swinburne, Richard. The Evolution of the Soul. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Tan, Seng-Kong. Fullness Received and Returned: Trinity and Participation in Jonathan Edwards. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014. Tanner, Kathryn. God and Creation in Christian Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005. Turretin, Francis. Institutes of Elenctic Theology, edited by George M. Giger, translated by James T. Dennison, Jr. Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1992. Westminster Confession of Faith. In Reformed Confessions Harmonized, edited by Joel R. Beeke and Sinclair B. Fergusson. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999. Zakai, Avihu. Jonathan Edwards’s Philosophy of History: The Reenchantment of the World in the Age of Enlightenment. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.

6

On the Corruption of the Body: A Theological Argument for Metaphysical Idealism S. Mark Hamilton

The Reformed doctrine of moral corruption says, roughly, that all fallen human persons possess a disordered desire for things other than God and that so pervasive is moral corruption’s effect upon fallen humanity that its effects extend beyond the mind or soul to the body. Integral to how Reformed theologians have traditionally articulated the doctrine of moral corruption is a metaphysical story about human personhood, commensurate with a version of what I henceforth refer to as mind-body dualism, by which I mean that persons are some sort of immaterial-material composite (more hereafter). So integral has this metaphysical story been to expressions of the doctrine of moral corruption that it has become something of a permanent fixture of the Reformed tradition’s hamartiological prolegomena. In this chapter, I argue that the doctrine of moral corruption does not, in fact, require mind-body dualism, but is consistent with an alternative story about human personhood along the lines of metaphysical idealism, according to which persons are essentially minds and their ideas. The argument proceeds in three parts. In the first part, I offer a brief synthetic account of Reformed appropriations of mind-body dualism. This will enable us to see, in the second part, wherein I present a synthetic account of Reformed doctrine of moral corruption, the extent to which mind-body dualism informs this doctrine. By “synthetic account” I mean a mostly abductive enterprise, that is, an attempt to provide the most likely explanation of the evidence—a strategy that will get us closest to what I think are the most basic constituent parts of both mind-body dualism and the doctrine of moral corruption, that is, parts to which the majority of theologians in the Reformed tradition have historically subscribed. This strategy will also enable us to more clearly identify

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the extent to which mind-body dualism supplies the metaphysical apparatus of the Reformed doctrine of moral corruption, and what is more, at what points this apparatus might be altered and improved by metaphysical idealism. In part three, I consider how Jonathan Edwards’s (1703–1758) doctrine of corruption plays out along the lines of metaphysical idealism. I conclude by giving some reasons for why one might think that metaphysical idealism may actually offer a theologically preferable account of the Reformed doctrine of corruption than those appropriations of a mind-body dualism that have presided over the tradition since its inception.

Reformed appropriations of mind-body dualism: A synthetic account I take it that Reformed appropriations of mind-body dualism, by and large, traditionally construe human beings in terms of an immaterial mind or soul and material body, both of which are distinct, property-bearing substances that are also somehow able to communicate properties one to another.1 By describing the Reformed tradition’s theological anthropology broadly in terms of mindbody dualism, I am attempting to make metaphysical room for versions of substance dualism as well as versions of so-called, substantive dualism—the distinction here being that substantive dualists construe the notion of substance as two distinguishable parts of single concrete thing—what we might call “weaker substances”—that can also compose one substance.2 In other words, I am using mind-body dualism as shorthand for substance/substantive dualism in this context. So, for example, the substantive dualist could say that if someone’s leg were completely cut off in a chainsaw accident, that leg would no longer be a part of the substance to which it originally belonged. Rather it would be a substance in its own right, though in a much weaker sense; the weaker sense not diminishing the fact that the leg is a substance on its own. By setting up mindbody dualism in this way, I am trying to avoid distinguishing repeatedly between what may well be construed as a particular species of hylomorphic, substance, or so-called Cartesian dualism—all of which have their own discriminating and important features. Mind-body dualism then, is a term of art used here to describe human ontology as consisting of nothing less than an immaterial and a material component, however they might be related. Mind-body dualism could thus be construed as mereological fusions of one mind and one body that is itself

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a substance with distinct parts—what we might call hylomorphic dualism. It might also represent the view that human persons are immaterial minds that are (somehow) rightly related to a material body by some direct, two-way causation and that both the mind and the body are substances in themselves—what we might call substance or Cartesian dualism. In either case, referring broadly to Reformed theological anthropology as mind-body dualism establishes for us a sort of conceptual baseline for understanding the metaphysical apparatus that has, so I argue, traditionally propped up the Reformed doctrine of corruption. With all this in mind, for the sake of brevity and clarity, let us consider the following four numbered theses (A1)–(A4) as comprising what I take to be a synthetic account of the various Reformed appropriations of mind-body dualism: (A1) Human persons are souls and bodies, rightly related.

That Reformed theologians have historically thought of human persons as immaterial souls and material bodies is a proposition that needs little defense. For the soul and body to be “rightly related,” on the other hand, could mean a number of things, as I have already suggested. For this reason, all I want to propose at this point is that for souls and bodies to be rightly related, however that relation is construed, is something requisite to what we might call “normal human personhood.” According to Herman Bavinck (1854–1921), “It follows from the doctrine of human creation in the image of God that this image extends to the whole person. Nothing in a human being excluded him from the image of God. And he is such totally, in soul and body, in all his faculties and powers, in all conditions and relations.”3 A few centuries earlier, Thomas Goodwin (1600– 1680) intimated that, “Adam was a ‘living soul,’ that is, a reasonable soul, giving life to a body made of earth and to live on earth; not a soul simply, but a ‘living soul.’ The making of Adam a man is described as involving two things: 1) the forming of his body [and] 2) the breathing in, and uniting the soul unto it, which together united do make up one person.”4 And this brings us to the next two closely related propositions: (A2) The soul is immaterial and essential to personhood, whereas (A3) The body is material (extended, unthinking substance) and contingent to personhood.

By “soul,” I mean, an immaterial, metaphysically simple, property-bearing substance, whereas by “body,” I mean the material, property-bearing substance that is a contingent aspect of a person, which as we shall see in (A4) is not essential

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to personhood in the reduced sense, that is, as something minimally requisite to postmortem or pre-resurrection states, but is nevertheless metaphysically requisite to the soul’s proper or normal function in a material world. According to John Calvin (1509–1564) the soul is, “an immortal yet created essence. The body is not affected by the fear of spiritual punishment, which falls upon the soul only; from this it follows that the souls is endowed with essence.”5 William Ames (1576–1633) similarly intimates that, Man as the last of the creatures is also the summary of all, being both absolutely and contingently perfect—in the former way in his soul and in the latter way in his body. The body was first prepared and afterwards the soul was breathed in, Gen 2:7. The body was made of elementary matter, but the soul was produced not out of matter existing before, but rather by the immediate power of God. The creation of man was male and female, both of them out of nothing as far as the soul is concerned. The body of the male was made out of the earth mixed with other elements and that of the woman out of the man and for the man so that nothing would be missing for his well-being (1 Cor. 11:8, 9).6

This brings us to our final proposition, namely, that (A4) A material body is requisite to an immaterial soul’s proper function in a material world.

According to Louis Berkhof (1873–1957), “[B]ody and soul are distinct substances, which do interact, though their mode of interaction escapes human scrutiny and remains a mystery for us. The union between the two may be called a union of life: the two are organically related, the soul acting on the body and the body on the soul. Some of the actions of the body are dependent on the conscious operation of the soul, while others are not. The operations of the soul are connected with the body as its instrument in the present life.”7 This is an echo of (A3). For, by (A4) I am simply asserting that normal human personhood entails material embodiment of some sort for an immaterial soul to meaningfully interact with the material world. The contingent relation of the body to the soul is a claim about personhood as it pertains to postmortem or pre-resurrection states. In this way, (A4) is merely a claim about the soul’s embodied functionality. Again, I am not thereby saying that the body is essential to personhood. I am only saying that a material body is required for an immaterial soul’s normal function insofar as that soul is believed to act in and interact with a world that is of a material nature. Let us now turn and consider the Reformed doctrine of moral corruption and the extent to which it is grounded by (A1)–(A4).

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Mind-body dualism and corruption Traditionally, the doctrine of moral corruption has served a mostly stipulative function, as a sort of dogmatic bridge between the doctrine of original sin—the morally vitiated estate of all human persons that derives from their relationship to the homo primus—and the doctrine of actual sin—the morally evil acts that necessarily follow from all human persons as a result of this relation. Interestingly, few in the tradition have offered any detailed, philosophically sophisticated definition of corruption (especially as it relates to the corruption of the body). To bring some shape and clarity to our discussion, let us consider the following four propositions, again, for the sake of brevity, as the conceptual hardcore of the Reformed doctrine of human moral corruption. First, (C1) All fallen human persons are morally corrupt.

That is, corruption is a problem that affects all humanity in that all human persons invariably suffer (though in varying degrees) from an inherent tendency toward acts of moral evil. No one is without sin, according to the Apostolic teaching (Romans 3:23; 1 John 1:8–10). Again, Berkhof argues that, “Original pollution includes two things, namely, the absence of original righteousness and the presence of positive evil. [Inherent] corruption extends to every part of man’s nature, to all the faculties and powers of both soul and body.”8 Note Berkhof ’s reference to the “presence of a positive evil.” This is quite important, and an innovation that belongs largely, to those of the Reformed tradition, about which we will say more in a moment. For now, we should observe that Reformed theologians think that all humanity is morally corrupt. This seems beyond contest and thus needs little further defense, save for one important qualification. That all human persons are wholly corrupt does not mean that all persons are as corrupt as they possibly could be. Corruption comes in degrees. So while all persons may covet, for example, not all persons are kleptomaniacs. Now we come to our next proposition. (C2) The corruption of the soul is equivalent to a disordered desire for things that are not God.

The doctrine of corruption most often accounts for the sort of change that took place in Adam, and therefore in all humanity, as a result of the primal sin.9 The better part of Reformed theologians characterize this change in two ways, what we might call corruption by acquisition and corruption by privation. Corruption by privation refers to some (or some set of) supernatural governing

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principle(s) that Adam lost as a result of the primal sin and his posterity lost mutatis mutandis. In this sense, corruption is a loss of so-called, original righteousness—a view most closely associated with Augustine and the Roman Catholic tradition.10 Corruption by acquisition, on the other hand, is something of a Reformed innovation, as we have already had cause to note to with Berkhof ’s reference to the “presence of a positive evil.” It supposes that both Adam and his posterity not only fell from their original pristine and righteous state, they were also henceforth endowed with a new capacity or disposition to sin—a positive property of “being corrupt”—that Adam’s pristine nature obtained as a result of the primal sin, and that Adam’s posterity obtained because of their relationship to Adam. To be corrupt by acquisition means that all persons, post-lapsum, possess various new and inordinate desires for evil. According to Ames’s discussion of corruption, which is subsumed into the larger discussion of sin’s origin and propagation, corruption is a “perversion in man that has, as it were, two parts, one formal and the other material.”11 The formal part he refers to as a sort of loathing of all moral goodness, and the material part, he explains as a propensity or disposition toward moral evil. To be corrupt in this sense means that both Adam and his posterity not only lack a desire for things that are morally good, they also possess an excessive longing for things that are morally bad. In other words, the soul bears the property, being corrupt in both a negative (privative) and a positive (acquisitioned) sense.12 It is significant that Ames assigns both parts of his doctrine of corruption to a function or, better, a malfunction of the will. He goes so far as to say, “The will is deprived of the power of willing well and takes the form of willing amiss.”13 Interestingly, Ames explains earlier, that “corruption is attributed not only to the whole man in general but to each one of his parts,” of which include: “1) the intellect, 2) the conscience, 3) the will, and 4) the body”14 “The first motion and step in this disobedience [the primal sin],” Ames argues, “was the disordered desire for some superiority due to pride of mind.”15 So what then about the corruption of the body? This leads us to our next two, closely related propositions: (C3) The corruption of the body is equivalent to one’s being prone to weakness, infirmity, and death. (C4) Bodily corruption is (somehow) derivative of the soul’s corruption.

Most often, Reformed theologians refer to bodily corruption in terms of those derivative characteristics or accidental features that (somehow) naturally

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follow from the soul’s corruption, such as sickness or disease or death. On the corruption of the body, Charles Hodge (1797–1878) argues, Augustinianism, as held by the Lutherans and Reformed Churches, teaches that the whole man, soul and body, is affected by the corruption of our nature derived from our first parents. As the Scriptures speak of the body being sanctified in two ways [i.e., being made fit for service and being made habitable for righteousness], so also they represent the body as affected by the apostasy of our race. It is not only employed in the service of sin or as an instrument to unrighteousness; but it is in every respect deteriorated. It is inordinate in its cravings, rebellious, and hard to restrain.16

From this we observe three things: First, that Hodge thinks that the body is viewed as somehow an instrument of unrighteousness; second, that bodily corruption is somehow equivalent to the diminishment of human homeostasis. Third, and most notable for our purposes, that the body has some measure of agency apart from the soul. For these reasons I want to suggest that some Reformed theologians think that persons bear the property of corruption in their bodies similar to how they bear the property of corruption in their souls, namely, by both the privation of something good and by the acquisition of something bad. Consider Berkhof ’s statement once again, that “Original pollution includes two things, namely, the absence of original righteousness and the presence of positive evil. [Inherent] corruption extends to every part of man’s nature, to all the faculties and powers of both soul and body.”17 Think of the difference between say, being prone to do something and being inclined to it. On this way of thinking, the privation of one’s health does not simply give rise to the property of “being cancerous,” for example. In other words, a person’s body instantiates a positive property, “being cancerous,” by the acquisition of some negative state of affairs, not (merely) by the privation of one’s health. Being prone to sickness is not the same as being inclined thereto. One seems to carry the idea of vulnerability, while the other seems to carry the idea of an active receptivity—almost as if the body were working against itself, and perhaps even against the soul. Now, beyond (C1)–(C4), there is at best only disparate discussion amongst Reformed theologians about the precise nature and extent of human moral corruption. This is particularly true as it pertains to the corruption of the body. Given (A1)–(A4), we are left with one remaining question about the nature of corruption: How does the soul share the property of being corrupt with the body?18 Because Reformed theologians have had little to say that is philosophically

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precise about how such a relation works, it is worth some brief exploration. Let me begin with a sketch of the challenge. Here I am not so much interested in rehearsing the potential solutions to the mind-body interaction challenge as I am with the fact that there is a challenge and that this challenge warrants some additional philosophical fortification.19 So that we might understand just what mind-body dualists are up against, let us consider the following illustration.

Mind-body interaction: The boxer Imagine a boxer who enters the ring for his first title fight. At the sound of the first bell, the champ stuns the challenger with his first punch. At this, the champ lands a second punch, whereupon the challenger stumbles about, visibly disoriented and afraid, as his chance to win the title is suddenly in jeopardy. Now, prima facie, we would say that the challenger’s initial disorientation is a result of the champ’s enormous punching power and his landing a head shot that caused the challenger’s brain to be jostled around inside of his skull. But, strictly speaking, for the mind-body dualist, the brain is merely a hunk of matter, a material composite of neurons, cerebrospinal fluids, and other cellular entities and is not numerically identical with the mind, which is an immaterial, thinking thing. The challenger’s disorientation is a mental state or mental property of the mind, not a physical property of the brain. So, how can the features of a material thing give rise to a mental state? And what about the other way around? That is, how can the mental state give rise to a physical property? That is, how does the challenger’s instantiation of the mental property, “being afraid” give rise to say, a sudden change of countenance, rapid perspiration, or pulmonary acceleration, and so forth? These and many other such questions are representative of the challenges presented by so-called mind-body interactionism. A similar set of questions may be raised, I maintain, for Reformed theologians who assume something like (A1)–(A4), and who claim that the doctrine of corruption affects both the mind and the body, in that order. So, borrowing from contemporary philosophy of mind, let us consider two additional propositions in our construal of corruption: (C5) Corruption is a mixed-mental property. (C6) Bodily corruption has a teleo-functional relationship to the soul’s being corrupt.

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Propositions (C5) and (C6) provide what I think are some possible explanatory refinements to (C1)–(C4), especially (C3) and (C4). Let us take each in turn, beginning with (C5). First, consider (C5), the notion that being corrupt is mixed-mental property. A property is a mixed-mental property insofar as it accounts for the relationship between, say, the instantiation of the mental property, “purposing to knock your opponent out cold in the first round of a fight” and the instantiation of the physical property, “intentionally delivering the knockout blow.” According to Richard Swinburne, [Mixed mental properties] are properties, and so events, which look to be mental on this definition, which can be analyzed in terms of a physical component and a mental component. These properties we may call “mixed” mental properties and events. The instantiation of the mental property is followed by the instantiation of the physical property. On the dualist view the mixed property belongs to the man, because its pure-mental property component belongs to his soul, and its physical-property component belongs to his body. A person has a body if there is a chunk of matter through which he makes a difference to the material world, and through which he acquires true beliefs about that world. Our bodies are the vehicles of our knowledge and operation.20

Similarly, being corrupt is a mixed-mental property, if the instantiation of the mental property “purposing to commit fraud,” for example, is followed by the physical property of “intentionally filing false paperwork that defrauds an insurance company.” To say that being corrupt is a mixed-mental property helps us understand how those in Reformed tradition seem to have explained the intimacy of the soul-body relation and how the corruption of the body follows from the corruption of the soul. If the body is, as Swinburne indicates, “the vehicle of our knowledge and operation,” it seems then that if the body bears the positive property of “being corrupt”,, it is doing so in more than a merely accidental way. So consider that, (C5) Corruption is a mixed-mental property.

Now, as for (C6), some properties, perhaps including the property of “being corrupt,” are what some contemporary philosophers call teleo-functional properties.21 Broadly (and rather roughly) speaking, functionalism is the idea that mental states are a consequence of the functional operations that make up organizational structure of an entity.22 According to Godfrey-Smith, “For the teleo-functionist, what is essential to the mental state is not what it tends to do,

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but what it is supposed to do.”23 In other words, teleo-functionalism describes the normative operation of various physical properties and their response to a particular mental state and vice versa.24 Take the experience of pain, for example. Pain is a mental state that bears a teleo-functional relationship to, say, “a punch to the mouth” in the sense that the body is the vehicle for the mind to be able to (somehow) meaningfully interpret pain. According to Ploger, “the teleological function of a thing is what is normal in a design or a purposive sense; it is what things of a kind are supposed to do.”25 Consider the mental state, “being corrupt,” as bearing a teleo-functional relationship to the body because it accounts for the proper (or in this case, improper) function of the body. Suppose the mind instantiates the property of “intentionally purposing to commit perjury.” Only when coupled with a material body can this mental state be properly exercised, namely, by “intentionally falsifying a hand-written document in a legal proceeding.” So, perhaps (C6) Bodily corruption bears a teleo-functional relationship to the soul’s being corrupt.

From this it seems then that (C5) helps us account for mind-body dualist claim (A4), which, we recall is that a material body is requisite to an immaterial soul’s proper function in a material world. However, (C5) and (C6) do not ultimately provide us with a precise account of the nature of a derivative-property relationship of an immaterial substance (a soul/mind) and a material substance (a body). Rather, (C5) and (C6) help us more accurately account for the mindbody dualist understanding of corruption by more accurately describing what may be meant by Reformed ascriptions (C3) and (C4). That being corrupt is a property shared by the soul to body is a subject that requires a much more detailed inquiry, far more than could be expressed here. The question that most concerns us here is this: Do (C1)–(C6) require a metaphysical story like (A1)– (A4)? Now that we have a clearer picture of what those in the Reformed tradition have traditionally thought about the nature of human persons and the doctrine of moral corruption, let us briefly consider at what points (C1)–(C6) seem to require (A1)–(A4), beginning with (C5) and (C6). As I have already suggested, both (C5) and (C6) are explanatory propositions about the function of soul and the body, both of which assume (A3) and (A4). Does this mean that (C5) and (C6) require (A3) and (A4)? It certainly looks that way. For while (C5) and (C6) only shed additional light on our understanding of (A3) and (A4), they are nevertheless filling out what remains of the philosophically

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unsophisticated portion of the conceptual hardcore of a doctrine of corruption that simply assumes that human persons are souls and bodies of a different kind-nature. That certain metaphysical assumptions about personhood are left unclear, however, should not prevent us either from trying to get at what they actually mean by the corruption of a soul and the corruption of a body, or how the soul might corrupt the body, or from trying to measure the implications that follow from such meaning. So, in this sense, (C5) and (C6) do appear to require (A3) and (A4). What then of the couplet, (C3) and (C4)? Obviously, to claim that a person’s body is corrupt assumes that that person in fact, has a body. And this confirms (A3). But given claim (C4), that bodily corruption is derivative of the soul, one must have a soul too, which of course requires (A1) and (A2). So, (C4) seems to require (A2), and (A1), and this implies that a person’s soul is different in kind than their body (A2), which means that claims about soul’s corruption (C2) are different in kind than claims about body corruption (C3). In this sense, (C2) and (C3) appear to require (A1) and (A2). In these ways at least, it looks as though (C1)–(C6) are built around assumptions about human personhood (A1)–(A4). Having parsed out (C1)–(C6) and (A1)–(A4) and having considered the extent to which (C1)–(C6) are conceptually reliant upon (A1)–(A4), we are now in a position to consider an alternative metaphysical story about human personhood and how it might make sense of the doctrine of corruption.

Metaphysical idealism Reformed theologians need not look hard for someone in their own tradition to find a metaphysical idealist, namely, Jonathan Edwards. While the extent to which Edwards’s idealism actually figured into his more speculative theological ventures is debatable, his hamartiology is classically known as containing some of his most controversial metaphysical innovations. Before we look closely at Edwards’s doctrine of corruption, let us briefly consider what is meant by metaphysical idealism and Edwards’s version of it. Metaphysical idealism is, roughly, the idea that human persons are essentially minds whose bodies are merely ideas or a collection of ideas in the divine mind. In other words, matter, as it is commonly understood, is a fiction. Bodies are simply made up of ideas; ideas that God communicates to human minds. “All existence is perception,” Edwards writes. “What we call body is nothing but a particular mode of perception; and what we call spirit is nothing but a

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composition and series of perceptions, or a universe of coexisting and successive perceptions connected by such wonderful methods and laws.”26 For Edwards, the existence of bodies is a purely physical phenomenon. So, there is no actual material property-bearer where there are instantiated properties of tallness, thinness, blondness, and the like. Such properties are simply ideas presented to human minds by God. To put it starkly, there is no mind-independent material world, no substratum, no unthinking substance. “Nothing has any existence anywhere else but in consciousness,” Edwards writes.27 “Those beings which have knowledge and consciousness are the only proper and real and substantial beings, inasmuch as the being of other things is only by these. From hence we may see the gross mistake of those who think material things the most substantial beings, and spirits more like a shadow.”28 With this before us we should distinguish Edwards’s immaterialism from his antirealism. Antirealism is the idea that all perceptible objects (including bodies) do not exist independently of minds.29 Or to put it positively, Edwards’s notion of antirealism is the idea that all created minds (and their ideas) have their existence by virtue of their being ideas in the divine mind. This is quite an important distinction. For Edwards construes persons as “created minds” in contrast to the “uncreated mind” of God. Strangely, Edwards thinks that created mind somehow exist “within” and are “communications” of the divine mind, almost as if such minds are not simply property-bearers of those ideas that are communicated to them by God, but that they themselves are properties of the divine mind.30 It is not entirely clear what Edwards means by this. What is clear is that for Edwards, the apparent stability or solidity of a perceptible object, whether a person, or the changing autumn colors, or the ebb and flow of oceanic tide, is singularly a matter of that object’s stability and subsistence in the divine mind. As Edwards famously writes, The secret lies here: that which is truly the substance of all bodies is the infinitely exact and precise and perfectly stable idea in God’s mind, together with his stable will that the same shall be gradually communicated to us, and to other minds, according to certain fixed and exact established methods and laws. The infinitely exact and precise divine idea, together with an answerable, perfectly exact, precise and stable will with respect to correspondent communications to created minds, and effects on their minds.31

Elsewhere he writes, God supposes its existence; that is, he causes all changes to arise as if all these things had actually existed in such a series in some created mind, and as if

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created minds had comprehended all things perfectly. And although created minds do not, yet the divine mind doth, and he orders all things according to his mind, and his ideas.32

With all this now in place, let us think through how an idealist account of human personhood like that which Edwards puts forward might offer those in the Reformed tradition a viable, metaphysical alternative to mind-body dualism. Given Edwards’s idealism, Reformed theologians might make sense of the doctrine of corruption by affirming what I take to be the following slightly adjusted four-fold claim about human personhood: (A1’) Human persons are souls/minds and bodies, rightly related, according to which,33 (A2’) A human person is essentially an immaterial mind, which is normally rightly related to a physical body. (A3’) Physical bodies are ideas (or collections of ideas) in the divine mind (made perceptible to human minds by God), and these (A4’) Perceptible bodies are normally requisite to a created mind’s proper function (of perception) in an immaterial world.

Before we move on to Edwards’s doctrine of corruption, we ought to think briefly about the difference between what the mind-body dualist calls a material body and what the idealist refers to as a physical body. To describe the body as physical rather than material is not a category mistake so much as it is a sort of subtle attempt at a category recovery. At some point in the recent history of philosophy of religion, things traditionally described as being material (i.e., like bodies being composed of matter) underwent a sort of rebranding, as it were, to be thenceforth described as being physical. So for contemporary philosophers and theologians to say that the body is physical now simply amounts to its being composed of matter. But for the metaphysical idealist, something is physical if it is perceptible. So, in this sense, to say that the keys on which I am presently typing this paper are physical means that my mind is sensing some gentle resistance to a spring-loaded, backlit, white, black-letter-embossed, square object against the tips of my fingers. The keys, like the lights beneath them, and indeed, my very fingers tips, are only perceptions of my mind. In other words, for something to be physical, according to the idealist, means that it is something I perceive by some sort of physical resistance to it—my fingers to the computer’s keys. Something is physical and not material if it is perceptible and not made of matter. And this

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has direct implications for how idealism makes sense of the Reformed doctrine of corruption. Let us turn again to Edwards. Edwards’s doctrine of corruption is situated is his larger discussion of the imago Dei, according to which, he thinks (roughly) that persons bear the image of God in two ways: morally and naturally. The natural image—what Edwards describes in terms of “inferior” or “natural” principles—consists in a person’s reason, understanding, will, and authority (this is Edwards’s faculty psychology). The moral image—what he explains as a person’s “superior” or “supernatural” principles—he says consists in divine love. In Original Sin, Edwards writes: The case with man was plainly this: when God made man at first, he implanted in him two kinds of principles. There was an inferior kind, which may be called natural, being the principles of mere human nature; such as self-love, with those natural appetites and passions, which belong to the nature of man, in which his love to his own liberty, honor and pleasure, were exercised: these when alone, and left to themselves, are what the Scriptures sometimes call flesh. Besides these, there were superior principles, that were spiritual, holy and divine, summarily comprehended in divine love; wherein consisted the spiritual image of God, and man’s righteousness and true holiness; which are called in Scripture the divine nature.34

Edwards is quite clear that when God created Adam, he endowed him with the full—natural and spiritual—image, but because of the Fall, Adam and his posterity retained only the natural image.35 Having thus been corrupted, no longer was Adam nor his posterity fit, as it were, to bear the moral or spiritual image. He defends this in a number of his published and unpublished works. For example, in his Religious Affections, he writes, As there are two kinds of attributes in God, according to our way of conceiving of him, his moral attributes, which are summed up in his holiness, and his natural attributes, of strength, knowledge, etc. that constitute the greatness of God; so there is a twofold image of God in man, his moral or spiritual image, which is his holiness, that is the image of God’s moral excellency (which image was lost by the fall); and God’s natural image, consisting in men’s reason and understanding, his natural ability, and dominion over the creatures, which is the image of God’s natural attributes.36

What this amounts to for Edwards’s immaterialism is a reduction in the complexity of the doctrine of corruption, especially as it pertains to the body,

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by accounting for all persons (post-lapsum) as simply and only corrupt minds— disordered minds that have disordered ideas about God and creation. Edwards explains, and here I quote him at length: When man sinned, and broke God’s covenant, and fell under his curse, these superior principles left his heart: for indeed God then left him; that communion with God, on which these principles depended, entirely ceased; the Holy Spirit, that divine inhabitant, forsook the house. The inferior principles of self-love and natural appetite, which were given only to serve, being alone, and left to themselves, of course became reigning principles; having no superior principles to regulate or control them, they became absolute masters of the heart. Man did immediately set up himself, and the objects of his private affections and appetites, as supreme; and so they took the place of God. These inferior principles are like fire in a house; which, we say, is a good servant, but a bad master; very useful while kept in its place, but if left to take possession of the whole house, soon brings all to destruction. Man’s love to his own honor, separate interest, and private pleasure, which before was wholly subordinate unto love to God and regard to his authority and glory, now dispose and impel man to pursue those objects, without regard to God’s honor, or law; because there is no true regard to these divine things left in him.37

From this it is clear that Edwards thinks that the so-called spiritual principles (or moral image) left Adam as a result of God’s withdrawal from Adam. In other words, the loss of the moral image is for Edwards the loss of the Spirit of God himself, which results in the corruption or disordering of that person’s mind and therefore a disordering of that person’s ideas, one (or perhaps one bundle of ideas) of which is the body. So, the extent to which a person’s body can be regarded as corrupt, in Edwards’s view, is singularly dependent on their mind’s being corrupt. In Edwards’s view, the properties of mental and physical corruption are collocated in the mind. This is because there is no body wherein the property of bodily corruption can be instantiated, apart from the mind’s perception of it. In this way, Edwards’s idealist account of corruption not only avoids mind-body dualism’s interaction challenge, by denying the material nature of bodies, but it also reduces the complexity of doctrine of corruption itself, by simply affirming the following three adjusted propositions: (C1’) All fallen human persons are morally corrupt. (C2’) Corruption is a mental state equivalent to having disordered desires for things other than God.

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(C3’) Bodily corruption is an idea or collection of ideas in the mind (disease, decay, and death, are merely mental states).

Conclusion We have taken apart the doctrine of corruption, dividing it into its most basic parts for both a mind-body dualist and metaphysical idealist account of human personhood. In such light, it seems that a metaphysical idealist understanding of the doctrine of corruption presents a viable alternative to the traditional mind-body dualism that has hitherto dominated the Reformed tradition. As it pertains to the Reformed explanation of the corruption of the body, it seems as though metaphysical idealism provides a more natural account of the mind’s corruption of the body by virtue of the fact that it makes better sense of the mind’s interaction with the body. On Reformed appropriations of mind-body dualism, the problem of interaction creates a further problem of needing to account for bodily corruption because the body is of a different kind-nature. For idealist’s like Edwards, the interaction problem is eliminated and, concomitantly, the problem of making sense of material bodily corruption. And it does so in at least four ways. First, Edwards’s way of thinking requires fewer number of things to account for—a soul and ideas rather than a soul, its ideas, and a body—than on the mind-body dualist account of corruption. Second, Edwards’s idealism also requires an explanation of a fewer kinds of things—an immaterial mind—whereas the mind-body dualist must account for at least two kinds of things—an immaterial soul and material body. Third, in order to make sense of the mind-body dualist notion of corruption, one must understand certain underlying information about what it means for something to be made of matter before one can say how something material can be corrupted (and what is more, how that material thing can be corrupted by something immaterial); a problem that Edwards’s idealism does not face. “Being corrupt” in body is simply a collocated property in the mind. Insofar as the body is corrupt on idealism, it is only corrupt because it is perceived as such, not because it is in some independent substance that is different than the mind or soul. Fourth and finally, the metaphysical idealist account of corruption seems to require fewer law-like relations such as those necessary to describe the interaction of souls and bodies on mind-body dualism. On idealism, there are no such law-like relations. Ceteris paribus, idealism has less to make sense of

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then mind-body dualism. And the doctrine of corruption provides us with a good theological reason for thinking so.38

Notes 1 Now, I also take it that a property is essentially an abstract object that is also, and most often, a universal. Take “hotness,” for example. Hotness is a universal because it can be instantiated in a variety of substances, such as the “hotness” of my wife or the “hotness” of some fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. That said, however, not all properties are universals. “Being the world record holder for having the longest beard,” for instance, is a property borne only by the one who holds that record and for this reason is not a universal. Whereas the property of “greyness” could be instantiated upon the world record-holding beard, a cloud, a pachyderm, or any other such substance wherein this property might appear. Property-bearing substances in this sense include such things as say, coffee cake, asteroids, candy bars, as well as human souls and bodies. Of course, I am conscious of the controversial nature of this claim in contemporary metaphysics. One could certainly deny that coffee cake, for example, is rightly described as a substance by defending a version of mereological nihilim, according to which, the only extant property-bearing substances are those (subatomic) particles that comprise an entity like, coffee cake. Since no apparent distinction like this appears among theologians of the Reformed tradition, I will assume, for argument’s sake, that composite entities are indeed property-bearing substances (For more on mereological nihilism, see, e.g., Theodore Sider, “Against Parthood” in Karen Bennett and Dean W. Zimmerman, eds., Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, vol. 8 [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013], 237–293). 2 For an account of substance dualism, see, for example, J. P. Moreland and Scott Rae, Body & Soul: Human Nature & the Crisis in Ethics (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2000), chapter 2. For an account of what I am calling substantive dualism, see, for example, Eleanor Stump, Aquinas (New York: Routledge, 2003), chapter 6. 3 Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, vol. 2: God and Creation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 555 (emphasis added). 4 Thomas Goodwin, “Of the Creatures, and the Condition of Their State by Creation,” in The Works of Thomas Goodwin, vol. 7, ed. Thomas Smith (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1863), 92–93. 5 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 1.15.1–2. 6 William Ames, The Marrow of Theology, ed. John Dykstra Eusdesn (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1968), 1.8.61–1.8.65, 1.8.79, 105–106 (emphasis added).

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7 Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996 [1938]), 195–196 (emphasis added). 8 Ibid., 246–247. 9 It is notable that, save for a few disparate comments belonging to his larger concern for the doctrine of original sin, William Shedd’s (1820–1894) discussion of the doctrine of moral corruption appears as a part of his discussion of the nature of guilt. Here, Shedd lays out nine propositions in support of his claim that corruption is essentially equivalent to guilt—motivated perhaps by the traditional Reformed distinction between reatus culpe (i.e., “potential guilt” or an intrinsic moral deficiency) and reatus poenae (i.e., guilt’s relation to divine justice). See William Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, ed. Alan W. Gomes, 3rd ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed), 568. 10 For some recent and helpful historical discussion on the development of this distinction, see Tatha Wiley, Original Sin: Origins, Developments, Contemporary Meanings (New York: Paulist Press, 2002), chapterss 3 and 4. 11 Ames, Marrow, 121. 12 John Owen (1616–1683) similarly describes the corruption of the soul as a law that has both “dominion” and “an efficacy to provoke.” The former he describes in gubernatorial terms as an authority or power that rules a person’s acts. The latter he describes in terms of the habitual or dispositional exercise of that power, see “On Indwelling Sin in Believer’s,” in The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Gould, vol. 7 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2000 [1850–1853]),163–165. For some additionally helpful discussion about the positive property of corruption, see Paul Helm, John Calvin’s Ideas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), chapters 4 and 5. 13 Ames, Marrow, 121 (emphasis added). 14 Ibid., 120–121 (emphasis added). 15 Ibid., 114 (emphasis added). 16 Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s, 1885), 2.2.7, p. 255 (emphasis added). 17 Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 246–247 (emphasis added). 18 Mind-body interaction is a subject of enormous interest to philosophers of mind. See, for example, E. J. Lowe, An Introduction to The Mind-Body Problem (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Jaegwon Kim, Philosophy of Mind, 3rd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2010 [1996]). 19 Interactionism is a challenge for all theories of human ontology that explain human personhood at any level in terms of material substance. That is, interactionism is as much a problem for proponents of materialism as it is for proponents of substance dualism. Materialists argue that persons are essentially molecular substances that

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possess no immaterial parts, like a soul or a mind (strictly speaking). Persons are made of flesh, blood, neutrons, electrons, and other chemical composites. Souls, minds, or spirits are a fiction. While increasingly popular among a number of contemporary philosophers of religion (see, e.g., Hud Hudson, A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001]; Peter van Inwagen, Material Beings [Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990]; Lynne Rudder Baker, “Need A Christian Be a Mind/Body Dualist,” Faith and Philosophy 12:4 [October 1995], 498–504), the deliverances of materialism have yet to be fully realized in terms of how two different kind-substances, namely, God—a purely immaterial being—causally interacts with, influences, or changes human persons—purely material beings. For some further discussion, see Oliver D. Crisp, “Materialist Christology” in God Incarnate: Explorations is Christology (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 137–154. Richard Swinburne, The Evolution of the Soul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997 [1986]), 7–8ff, 145–147. The locus classicus on teleo-functionalism is found in two volumes by William G. Lycan, Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1987), and Consciousness and Experience (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1996). For a helpful treatment of Lycan’s works, see Thomas Ploger and Owen Flanagan, “A Decade of Teleofunctionalism: Lycan’s Consciousness and Consciousness and Experience,” Minds and Machines 11 (2001): 113–126. (Special thanks to Tom Ploger who generously supplied me with this article). There are two additionally noteworthy comments that I ought to make. First, teleo-functionalism, by and large, has been a tool employed in the service of making arguments for materialism. That said, there are some, like Robert Koons, for whom teleo-functionalism supports dualism (of some sort); see Realism Regained: An Exact Theory of Causation, Teleology and the Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Second, though some may think otherwise, my particular use of teleo-functionalism to describe mind-body interaction as it pertains to the Reformed doctrine of moral corruption is not at all in service to or a confirmation of any evolutionary theory. A widely debated subject among philosophers of the mind, functionalism comes in variety of species. For helpful survey of these various species of functionalism, see Thomas W. Ploger, Natural Minds (Cambridge, MA: Bradford Books [The MIT Press], 2004), chapters 3–5 (special thanks to Tom Ploger who generously supplied me with these chapters). Peter Godfrey-Smith, Complexity and the Function of the Mind in Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 13 (emphasis added). Joshua R. Farris, “Emergent Creationism: Another Option in the Origin of the Soul Debate,” Religious Studies 50:3 (September 2014), 321–339.

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25 Ploger, Natural Minds, 173. 26 Jonathan Edwards, “Notes on Knowledge and Existence,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards in 26 Volumes, ed. Perry Miller, John E. Smith, and Harry S. Stout, vol. 6 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957–2006), 398 (citations hereafter: title, WJE, volume number, colon, and page reference; in this case: WJE 6:398). 27 “Of Being,” WJE 6:204. 28 “Of Being,” WJE 6:206 (emphasis added). 29 It is notable that, according to Crisp, one could make the case for Edwards being an immaterial realist. With some disparate, but still notable support from Edwards, Crisp argues that, “one could make metaphysical room, as it were, for the existence of minds that were not necessarily radically dependant on God or their continued existence, that is, were not dependant for their continued existence on God continuing to think of them,” Revisioning Christology: Theology in the Reformed Tradition (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011), 53. 30 This is an admittedly controversial way to construe antirealism, a more standard account of which holds that ideas are the properties of minds, and that minds are property-bearers. To say that human persons (i.e., created minds) exist in the divine mind as ideas would mean that one sort of property-bearer was also a property. This is clearly a category confusion of two sorts of things: properties and property-bearers. Perhaps it might simply be best to say that Edwards conceived of minds as existing in a sort of shadowy sense as the mental projections of the divine mind, something that squares with more recent suggestions that Edwards thought of persistence through time in four-dimensional terms, namely, that persons are but transient stages of various spatiotemporally extended objects (for more on Edwards’s four-dimensionalism, see S. Mark Hamilton, “Jonathan Edwards on the Atonement,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 15:4 (October 2013), 394–415). 31 “The Mind,” entry n. 13, WJE 6:344 (emphasis added). 32 “The Mind,” entry n. 34, WJE 6:354 (emphasis added). 33 Here, I mean rightly related in productive sense, that is, in the sense that minds produce ideas (or more precisely, are presented with ideas, by God). On this way of thinking about right relations, physical things just are mental things. 34 “The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended,” WJE 3:381–383. 35 For more on the mechanics of Edwards’s account of the transmission of original sin, see Michael Rea, “The Metaphysics of Original Sin,” in Persons Human and Divine, ed. Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 319–356. 36 “Religious Affections,” WJE 2:256. 37 “The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended,” WJE 3:381–383 (emphasis added).

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38 I am particularly grateful for Oliver Crisp, Steve Cowan, Joshua Farris, Paul Helm, Hud Hudson, Jim Spiegel, and Jordan Wessling for comments on previous iterations of this chapter.

Bibliography Ames, William. The Marrow of Theology, edited by John Dykstra Eusdesn. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1968. Baker, Lynne Rudder. “Need A Christian Be a Mind/Body Dualist.” In Faith and Philosophy 12:4 (October 1995): 498–504. Bavinck, Herman. Reformed Dogmatics, edited by John Bolt, translated by John Vriend. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004. Berkhof, Louis. Systematic Theology, 3rd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996 (1938). Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion, edited by John T. McNeill, translated by Ford Lewis Battles. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960. Crisp, Oliver D. God Incarnate: Explorations is Christology. London: T&T Clark, 2009. Crisp, Oliver D. Revisioning Christology: Theology in the Reformed Tradition. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011. Edwards, Jonathan. The Works of Jonathan Edwards in 26 Volumes, edited by Perry Miller, John E. Smith and Harry S. Stout. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957–2006. Farris, Joshua R. “Emergent Creationism: Another Option in the Origin of the Soul Debate” In Religious Studies 50:3 (September 2014): 321–339. Godfrey-Smith, Peter. Complexity and the Function of the Mind in Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Goodwin, Thomas. The Works of Thomas Goodwin, edited by Thomas Smith. Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1863. Hamilton, S. Mark. “Jonathan Edwards on the Atonement” In International Journal of Systematic Theology 15:4 (October 2013): 394–415. Helm, Paul. John Calvin’s Ideas. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Hodge, Charles, Systematic Theology in 3 volumes. New York: Charles Scribner’s, 1885. Hudson, Hud. A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001. Kim, Jaegwon. Philosophy of Mind, 3rd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2010 [1996]. Koons, Robert. Realism Regained: An Exact Theory of Causation, Teleology and the Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Lowe, E. J. An Introduction to The Mind-Body Problem. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Lycan, William G. Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1987.

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Lycan, William G. Consciousness and Experience. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1996. Moreland, J. P., and Scott Rae. Body & Soul: Human Nature & the Crisis in Ethics. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2000. Owen, John. The Works of John Owen, edited by William H. Gould. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2000 (1850–1803). Ploger, Thomas, and Owen Flanagan. “A Decade of Teleofunctionalism: Lycan’s Consciousness and Consciousness and Experience.” Minds and Machines 11 (2001): 113–126. Ploger, Thomas W., and Owen Flanagan. Natural Minds. Cambridge, MA: Bradford Books [The MIT Press], 2004. Rea, Michael. “The Metaphysics of Original Sin.” In Persons: Human and Divine, edited by Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Shedd, William G. T. Dogmatic Theology, edited by Alan W. Gomes, 3rd ed. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2003. Sider, Theodore. “Against Parthood.” In Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, vol. 8, edited by Karen Bennett and Dean W. Zimmerman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Stump, Eleanor. Aquinas. New York: Routledge, 2003. Swinburne, Richard. The Evolution of the Soul. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997 [1986]. van Inwagen, Peter. Material Beings. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990. Wiley, Tatha. Original Sin: Origins, Developments, Contemporary Meanings. New York: Paulist Press, 2002.

7

Idealism and the Resurrection Marc Cortez

As a term, idealism is notoriously difficult to define.1 One common feature in its various uses, though, seems to be that each raises challenging questions about the nature and state of the “material” world. This in turn generates questions about the extent to which an idealist ontology can account for the resurrection. After all, what would it mean for an idealist to affirm the resurrection of the physical body while at the same time raising questions about whether or not such things as “physical” bodies even exist? And given that the resurrection has traditionally served as a cornerstone of orthodox Christian belief,2 this leads to questions about whether idealism can really be a philosophical resource for Christian theology.3 Given the diverse kinds of idealism that have been proposed, however, it would be absurd to try to answer questions about whether idealism in the abstract can offer a coherent account of the resurrection. Instead, I propose to use the theology of Jonathan Edwards as a case study in thinking about the resurrection from the perspective of an idealist ontology. In doing so, I am not suggesting that Edwards somehow serves as an exemplar of idealism. Edwards is a unique thinker who often deviates from what other, possibly more influential, idealists have argued. Indeed, it is even difficult to characterize Edwards as an “idealist,” if by that we intend some comprehensive label that captures what is most central to his thought. Nonetheless, Edwards provides an interesting example of someone who joins idealistic speculations about the nature of the created world with fairly traditional statements about the resurrection and the importance of the physical body in the eschaton.4 As such, he offers an opportunity to reflect on the extent to which these two commitments can be joined coherently in a single theological system.

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Although Edwards’s ontology has received considerable attention in recent years,5 few have explored the relationship between the idealist strand of Edwards’s thought and his theology of the resurrection.6 As we dig further into this aspect of his theology, we will see that although certain aspects of his view need to be clarified or strengthened in important ways, his idealistic account of the physical body does not preclude him from offering a robust and compelling theology of the resurrection in which the resurrected body is fundamental to God’s eternal purposes. Rather than undermining the significance of the body, Edwards’s eschatology emphasizes it in unique and interesting ways.

Edwards’s ontology of material objects Edwards’s view of material objects takes its starting point from his radically Godcentered ontology.7 According to Edwards, God is the only ontologically necessary being, and, consequently, he is the “ens entium,” the one in whom all other beings have their existence.8 By itself, such a claim might mean no more than that all created beings somehow have their existence “in” God, a fairly standard claim in many traditional theologies of creation. However, Edwards goes further by claiming that properly speaking God is the only true being: “in metaphysical strictness and propriety, he is, as there is none else.”9 Thus, God is the only true “substance,” the only being that “properly subsists by itself.”10 God continuously produces all other beings such that “the universe is created out of nothing every moment.”11 According to Edwards this radically God-centered ontology entails the claim that what we call “physical” objects are simply the ways in which conscious beings experience a particular kind of divine action. We call something “physical” because we perceive it to be solid, by which we mean that it resists being penetrated by other physical objects. However, Edwards contends that this property of “resistance” or “solidity” does not come from some underlying physical substance. Instead, the “solidity” that we perceive comes from God’s own action—that is, he creates the resistance that we experience as solidity. Edwards extends this argument beyond solidity to include all the properties of so-called physical objects, concluding that “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.”12 Edwards thus contends that what we call “physical” or “material” objects are really bundles of properties that are directly produced by God’s own action.

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Consequently, Edwards also rejects the notion that material objects are mindindependent realities, contending instead that these property-bundles can only exist insofar as they are perceived by some conscious being. In Edwards’s view, when I say that an apple is red, what I really mean is that God is currently producing all the properties of appleness (solidity, shape, taste, etc.), along with the corresponding property of redness. But what could it mean to say that God is producing these properties unless we mean that he is causing some conscious being to experience the requisite properties? After all, he cannot mean that God is causing the properties to adhere in some substance, since there is no such material substance. Thus, he must be acting in such a way that the properties really “adhere” in the conscious experience of some perceiver. This is what Edwards means when he concludes that “nothing has any existence anywhere else but in consciousness”13 and that “the material universe exists only in the mind.”14 For Edwards, then, a material body is much more of an “act” or “event” than it is a “thing” or “substance.” This does not mean, however, that material bodies lack any meaningful existence. Although material things do not exist “on their own,” they have a stable mode of existence in God’s constant and consistent activity: And indeed, the secret lies here: that which truly is the substance of all bodies is the infinitely exact and precise and perfectly stable idea in God’s mind, together with his stable will that the same shall gradually be communicated to us, and to other minds, according to certain fixed and exact established methods and laws: or in somewhat different language, the infinitely exact and precise divine idea, together with an answerable, perfectly exact, precise and stable will with respect to correspondent communications to created minds, and effects on their minds.15

In other words, the existence of material objects is grounded both in God’s “stable idea” of those objects and in his “stable will” by which he consistently and perfectly communicates that idea “to other minds.” In that restricted sense, Edwards can even refer to material objects as having “substance.”16 Edwards’s event-oriented ontology of material bodies means that “the universe is created out of nothing every moment.”17 Since these objects are not constituted by enduring substances, there is nothing to “continue” from one moment to the next. Every moment, the entire material universe is a new creation of God. Nonetheless, God’s stable idea and will ensures that the universe he creates in the next moment is sufficiently continuous with the universe existing

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at this moment that we can still talk about the law-like patterns that exist in the universe.18 Indeed, Edwards thinks that his theocentric occasionalism is entirely compatible with modern science. The only difference being that instead of studying so-called natural laws and causes, scientists are actually studying patterns in God’s constant and consistent action. Every object in the created world, then, is the direct outworking of God’s moment-by-moment creative activity. The fundamental purpose of these various acts of creation, though, is the expression of God’s own beauty. According to Edwards, God has an eternal disposition toward communicating his goodness and beauty.19 This is a “perfection” and an “original property” of his divine nature,20 and this disposition was the fundamental end for which God created the world. Thus, when Edwards says that the universe is created anew every moment, what he really intends is that each moment in creation is another occasion on which God directly communicates his own beauty through creation.21 Creation is a communicative act. None of this would work, however, if there were no conscious minds in creation to perceive the beauty of God’s handiwork. As Edwards argues, “Now except the world had such a consciousness of itself, it would be altogether in vain that it was. If the world is not conscious of its being, it had as good not be as be.”22 The whole purpose of creation, according to Edwards, is that God might communicate his goodness and beauty to other conscious beings. Thus, human persons are the pinnacle of creation, “that creature for which all the rest is made,”23 because the human person alone is “the consciousness of the creation,” the means by which “the universe is conscious of its own being.”24 Indeed, the existence of conscious beings who can receive God’s communicative acts is so central to Edwards’s theology of creation that creation itself would become “totally extinct” if there were no sentient beings.25 If humans were to become extinct, “the world and all that pertains to it . . . the whole absolutely ceases and comes to nothing.”26

The eschatological role of the resurrected body Given Edwards’s ontology of material bodies and the role they play in the communication of God’s beauty and goodness, we can begin to appreciate why Edwards would continue to emphasize the importance of the body and other material objects in the eschaton.27 If God’s purpose in creating was to communicate his beauty and goodness to other conscious beings by means of

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the “material” world, and if the eschaton is the culmination of God’s plans for creation, then it stands to reason that material bodies would continue to play that pivotal mediating role in the communication of God’s glory forever. Indeed, Robert Jenson argues that one of the reasons Edwards devotes relatively little attention to defending the physicality of the resurrection is that he took it as simply obvious that humans would continue to be embodied in the eschaton.28 According to Edwards, the conscious perception of God’s beauty must continue in the eschaton or creation will have served no purpose: Now it is as evident that the world is as much in vain, if this consciousness lasts but a little while and then ceases, as it would be if there was no consciousness of it; that is, after that consciousness ceases, and from that time forth forever, it is in vain that there ever was such a consciousness. For instance, when the earth is destroyed, if its consciousness don’t remain, it is in vain that ever it has been.29

Assuming that God’s purposes for creation cannot fail in this way, something that is inconceivable for Edwards, the eschatological state of creation must be such that it will be populated with conscious minds that perceive God’s beauty through material objects. In this way, “God will have obtained the end of all his great works that he had been doing from the beginning.”30 The shift in Edwards’s eschatology is not from a material reality to a purely spiritual one. Instead, Edwards emphasizes the transformation of the material world into a glorified material world that is more eminently suitable for the communication of God’s glory. In that future state “there shall be external beauties and harmonies altogether of another kind from what we perceive here,” preeminently displayed in “the bodies of the man Christ Jesus and of the saints.”31 In the resurrection, then, “the saints will be in the natural state of union with bodies, glorious bodies, bodies perfectly fitted for the uses of a holy glorified soul.”32 This will require a “great change”33 from the current “weak, heavy, gross, deformed body of frail and corruptible flesh and blood” that we cannot even conceive of everything this transformation will involve.34 Our physical organs will become “immensely more exquisitely perceptive” so we can more adequately perceive God’s glory through material realities,35 and “our capacities will be exceedingly enlarged.”36 Thus, our physical bodies, indeed all material objects in the eschaton, will manifest a greater “susceptiveness of the influence of spiritual beings.”37 Throughout his writings, then, Edwards maintains his conviction that despite these radical transformations, the eschatological world will continue to be a material world.

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Unfortunately, Edwards never relates his speculations about the ontology of material bodies directly to his discussions of the resurrection. So we are left wondering about the extent to which he anticipated that we would use those insights to understand the nature of the resurrected body. Nevertheless, since he never retracts his ontology, it seems reasonable to conclude that it was still operative in this context. This means that the “materiality” of the resurrection body remains the direct product of divine action as God seeks to communicate his beauty to conscious beings. In other words, in the resurrection, there is no reason to think that the body somehow becomes the kind of autonomous, physical substance that Edwards rejected as adequate for understanding the human person in this life. Instead, the “materiality” of the body continues to be the way in which conscious beings experience God’s own action. To say that the resurrection body has been transformed in some way, then, is to say that in the resurrection God acts so as to produce the kinds of bodies more adequate to his communicative action.

Is the resurrection body necessary? Despite the overall coherence of Edwards’s view of the resurrected body, however, we need to press further on the extent to which the resurrection truly matters in Edwards’s vision of the eschatological human person. There is no question that he affirms the resurrection, even emphasizing its fundamental importance. The question is whether he can truly explain why the resurrected body should be as important as he claims.38 The concern first arises with Edwards’s discussion of the intermediate state. According to Edwards, the human person continues to exist after death as a disembodied soul awaiting the resurrection.39 Although he maintains that the perfection of the human person does not arrive until the resurrection, he still views the intermediate state as “a blissful abode” and “a very happy state.”40 Indeed, in his 1735 sermon “The Portion of the Righteous,” Edwards dedicates an entire section to explicating “the happiness of the saints, in their separation from the body,”41 where he describes the intermediate state in glowing terms. After death, the person’s soul is ushered into heaven by the angels of God, where they shall live in community with Christ and the redeemed, experiencing God’s glorious presence. Edwards goes so far as to state that such a disembodied soul can “behold that glory and taste that pleasure which it long hoped for,” that it

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can “know by experience what the joys of heaven are,” and that it will receive the fulfillment of “the great and precious promises of the gospel.”42 In light of all this, one begins to wonder about the real significance of the body in Edwards’s theological ontology. If the disembodied human person can truly experience communion with Christ and the redeemed while witnessing the manifestation of God’s glory and the fulfillment of the promises of the gospel, precisely what function does the body really serve? More specific to our purposes, does the resurrection of the body add anything to this glorious, albeit disembodied, state? This concern receives additional impetus when we consider Edwards’s affirmation of a kind of knowing that would not require the mediation of material objects. Describing the eschatological state, Edwards envisions a direct communication “between one mind and another, and between all their minds and Christ Jesus and the supreme mind.”43 According to him, then, there can be no doubt “that there will [be] immediate intellectual views of minds . . . more immediate, clear and sensible than our views of bodily things with bodily eyes.”44 Even in that context, he continues to maintain the importance of the resurrection and the corresponding bodily vision, but it is clearly secondary to this immediate, spiritual vision. In light of Edwards’s description of the intermediate state and the reality of an immediate, spiritual vision in the eschaton, we are left with the question whether the resurrection really matters in his theology of the human person. Granted, Edwards clearly affirms the resurrection and even contends that it is central to the divine plan. For Edwards, it is precisely because of the resurrection that the final state of the human person transcends the disembodied humanity of the intermediate state.45 However, is this an affirmation without explanation, or does Edwards have a way of maintaining the significance of the resurrection body despite these additional factors? One of the clearest ways in which Edwards defends against such a concern is with his insistence that we need both a bodily (mediated) vision of God as well as a spiritual (immediate) vision of God in the eschaton.46 Although Edwards often highlights the importance of the latter, he thinks the incarnation itself warrants the conclusion that both are necessary for God’s created purposes to be accomplished: “This end is obtained by Christ’s incarnation, viz. that the saints may see God with their bodily eyes as well as by an intellectual view. They may see him in both ways of seeing which their natures, being body and spirit, are capable of.”47 Edwards seems to be arguing, then, that the incarnation and

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creation each demonstrate the importance of the body in the communication of God’s beauty. Consequently, the body must be a part of the glorified state of humanity. As important as such a response might be, though, it is not entirely satisfying. Unless strengthened in some way, it appears to concede that all the truly important aspects of the human person can be accomplished without the body (relating to other humans, relating to God, participating in the communication of God’s glory, etc.). Although this argument might lead us to affirm the eschatological necessity of the body in God’s plan, it leaves us without any account of why we are constituted in this way and what the body contributes to the human person. Given the fullness of human life described in the intermediate state and the possibility of unmediated human knowing, the body begins to sound like an extraneous add-on to a fundamentally nonmaterial human being. Edwards’s response would be strengthened at this point if he were to offer an argument for what embodied experience contributes to the human person that purely spiritual experience cannot. In other words, could it be the case that we experience the communication of God’s beauty through something like a rainbow that we simply cannot have through any kind of immediate, spiritual experience? This would not require us to prioritize the embodied experience over the spiritual experience, but simply to give the embodied experience a unique role to play such that it becomes a fundamental and irreplaceable aspect of a complete human person. To do this, Edwards would need to offer a more truncated vision of the intermediate state. Rather than portraying that as a nearly perfect mode of human existence, he would need to explicate the extent to which human persons are unable to experience fully the communication of God’s beauty in this disembodied state. A more robust option for strengthening Edwards’s theology of the resurrected body would be to reject or significantly restrict the idea of immediate, spiritual knowledge of other minds. In one extended passage, Edwards explores this possibility, contending that real difficulties accompany the idea of immediate knowledge of other minds. For one person (X) to have a direct experience of another person’s (Y) mind runs the risk of fusing their personalities in such a way that they become virtually indistinguishable. This is because such an immediate knowing means that there would be no difference between seeing and experiencing. For X to see Y’s experience is just for X to experience what Y is experiencing. This leads to the conclusion that “a spiritual, created being can’t have an immediate view of another mind without some union of personality.”48

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Instead, Edwards suggests that immediate knowing is an epistemological mode appropriate only to God and to Jesus Christ as the divine-human. Creaturely knowing is always mediated in some way, whether through images, words, effects, or a priori argumentation. If Edwards were to extend this argument to his theology of the resurrection, he would end up with a far more robust account of the resurrected body and its significance in the economy of God’s self-communication. By rejecting, or at least severely restricting, immediate knowledge as a mode of creaturely knowing, Edwards would have to conclude that human knowing is entirely or almost entirely mediated through the human body. The disembodied person in the intermediate state would either have a severely limited form of knowing or would be restricted entirely to the knowledge that it had attained prior to the separation of body and soul. Similarly, the human person would be severely restricted in its ability to commune with God and other human persons insofar as such communion is based upon the capacity of those persons to know one another. Presumably, again, some form of communion might be possible on the basis of prior knowledge and maybe a limited ability to accrue new knowledge, but this would enable only a highly truncated form of human community in the intermediate state.

Edwardsian idealism and the resurrection of the dead Edwards’s idealistic construal of material object leads him to a powerful affirmation of the body in God’s communicative economy. The fundamental purpose of creation is that God might display his beauty through the material world such that his beauty is perceived by conscious beings who can delight in his glory. This places the human person at the center of God’s creative purposes, and it highlights the significance of both the body and the soul as having a fundamental role to play in the process. Thus, although what it means to say that something is “material” in this account will strike many as unusual and even unlikely, Edwards manages to unite this idealistic view of the material world with a robust appreciation of the physical body that contributes to his robust theology of the resurrection. Such an approach would seem to have some interesting advantages over other views of human constitution. Unlike substance dualism, Edwards’s view avoids most of the challenging questions surrounding precisely how immaterial

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souls are related to material bodies. At the same time, his approach has the potential to affirm the significance of the body for the human person in ways that at least some forms of substance dualism have historically struggled to do. And unlike materialist ontologies, Edwards’s approach avoids the difficulties of establishing the identity criteria necessary for a physical entity to remain numerically the same through a transformation as significant as death and resurrection. However, certain aspects of Edwards’s eschatology run the risk of undermining his own emphasis on the resurrection of the body. Both his lofty descriptions of the intermediate state and his speculations on the possibility of immediate spiritual knowledge point toward a view of humanity where the body appears somewhat extraneous. To avoid this, we would need either (possibly both) a more limited picture of disembodied human life in the intermediate state or a more restricted account of immediate spiritual knowledge. However, both of these moves could easily be accommodated without any significant modification of Edwards’s other theological and philosophical commitments.49 In the end, Edwards offers an interesting example of an idealist who is firmly committed to the centrality of the resurrection and the importance of the physical body. With the adjustments suggested, we can strengthen his account further, developing an account in which the body is eternally necessary for the communication of God’s own beauty.

Notes 1 See especially Jeremy Dunham, Iain Hamilton Grant, and Sean Watson, Idealism: The History of a Philosophy (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011). 2 For example, the Nicene Creed. 3 When I talk with students about whether Christians can utilize idealism as a resource for theological reflection, the two issues they most frequently raise as objections are the incarnation and the resurrection. Both revolve around the conviction that the body matters for Christian theology and the concern that at least some forms of idealism cannot provide an adequate account of human embodiment. 4 Regarding the orthodoxy of Edwards’s eschatology, C. C. Goen contends, “Edwards’ doctrine of the last things, so far as it describes the final End beyond history, is but a full and realistic elucidation of concepts generally accepted in the orthodox Calvinistic tradition” (“Jonathan Edwards: A New Departure in Eschatology,” Church History 28:1 [1959]: 25).

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5 See, for example, Douglas J. Elwood, The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards (New York: Oxford, 1960); Sang Hyun Lee, The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988); Norman Fiering, “The Rationalist Foundations of Jonathan Edwards’s Metaphysics,” in Jonathan Edwards and the American Experience, ed. Nathan O. Hatch and Harry S. Stout (New York: Oxford, 1989), 73–101; Leon Chai, Jonathan Edwards and the Limits of Enlightenment Philosophy (New York: Oxford, 1998); Michael James McClymond, Encounters with God: An Approach to the Theology of Jonathan Edwards (New York: Oxford, 1998); Oliver Crisp, “How ‘Occasional’ Was Edwards’s Occasionalism?” in Jonathan Edwards: Philosophical Theologian, ed. Paul Helm and Oliver Crisp (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 61–77; Oliver Crisp, Jonathan Edwards and the Metaphysics of Sin (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005); and Marc Cortez, “The Human Person as Communicative Event: Jonathan Edwards on the Mind/Body Relationship,” in The Ashgate Research Companion to Theological Anthropology, ed. Joshua Farris and Charles Taliaferro (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2015), 139–150. 6 For some helpful resources, see Philip L. Quinn, “Some Problems about Resurrection,” Religious Studies 14 (1978): 343–359; Robert W. Jenson, America’s Theologian: A Recommendation of Jonathan Edwards (New York: Oxford, 1988), 177–185; Stephen J. Stein, “Eschatology,” in The Princeton Companion to Jonathan Edwards, ed. Sang Hyun Lee (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), 226–242; Jeffrey K. Jue, “A Millennial Genealogy: Joseph Mede, Jonathan Edwards, and Old Princeton,” in Resurrection and Eschatology: Theology in Service of the Church: Essays in Honor of Richard B. Gaffin, Jr, ed. Richard B. Gaffin, Lane G. Tipton, and Jeffrey C. Waddington (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R, 2008), 396–423; R. Caldwell, “A Brief History of Heaven in the Writings of Jonathan Edwards,” Calvin Theological Journal 46:1 (2011): 48–71; Michael J. McClymond and Gerald R. McDermott, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards (New York: Oxford, 2011), 295–308. 7 McClymond and McDermott, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 106. 8 Jonathan Edwards, Scientific and Philosophical Writings, The Works of Jonathan Edwards: Vol. 6 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), p. 238. Henceforth, references to The Works of Jonathan Edwards will be abbreviated as WJE and cited by volume and page number (e.g., WJE 6:238). See especially “Of Being,” WJE 6:202–208 and Miscellany 27a, WJE 13:213. 9 WJE 6:364. Michael McClymond and Gerald McDermott refer to this as Edwards’s “theocentric idealism” (McClymond and McDermott, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 113. See also Michael J. McClymond, “God the Measure: Towards an Understanding of Jonathan Edwards’ Theocentric Metaphysics,” Scottish Journal of Theology 47:1 (1994): 43–59.

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Marc Cortez WJE 6:125. WJE 6:241. WJE 6:215. WJE 6:204. WJE 6:368. WJE 6:344. WJE 6:351. In this more limited sense, then, “substance” refers to an object that has this kind of “stable” existence and that consequently impacts how we experience the world. Thus Edwards contends that such objects continue to exist (in at least some sense) even when they are not being directly perceived by any conscious mind because God continues to constitute the perceptual experience of created beings on the basis of the supposition of such material objects (Cortez, “The Human Person as Communicative Event,” 141–143). Sang Hyun Lee utilizes the idea of “disposition” to explain the abiding reality of creaturely objects (see esp. The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards). Although his approach has received significant critique in recent years (see esp. Michael J. McClymond, “Hearing the Symphony: A Critique of Some Critics of Sang Lee’s and Amy Pauw’s Accounts of Jonathan Edwards’ View of God,” in Jonathan Edwards as Contemporary, ed. Don Schweitzer [Peter Lang, 2010], 67–91), he correctly recognizes that Edwards affirms some kind of stable existence for material objects in the world. WJE 6:241. Lee rejects the idea that Edwards affirms the kind of occasionalism in which God creates the universe anew moment by moment, arguing instead that the material world involves enduring dispositional states that provide a kind of continuity inconsistent with occasionalism (The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 63). As I have argued elsewhere, though, it is entirely possible to affirm both occasionalism and continuity by contending that God creates each successive state of the universe in a way that is consistent with its prior state (“The Human Person as Communicative Event: Jonathan Edwards on the Mind/Body Relationship,” 143, n. 16; see also Norman Fiering, Jonathan Edwards’s Moral Thought and Its British Context [Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1981], 270–280, 307–308; and Crisp “How ‘Occasional’ Was Edwards,” 61–77; and Stephen H. Daniel, “Edwards’ Occasionalism”). WJE 13:272. WJE 8:433, 435. For the importance of beauty in Edwards theology, see especially Roland André Delattre, “Beauty and Theology: A Reappraisal of Jonathan Edwards,” in Critical Essays on Jonathan Edwards, ed. William J. Scheick (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1980), 136–150; Louis J. Mitchell, “The Theological Aesthetics of Jonathan Edwards,” Theology Today 64:1 (2007): 36–46; Sang Hyun Lee, “Edwards and Beauty,” in

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Understanding Jonathan Edwards: An Introduction to America’s Theologian, ed. Gerald R. McDermott (New York: Oxford, 2009), 113–125. WJE 13:197. WJE 20:108. WJE 13:197. WJE 20:108. WJE 18:94. For a nice summary of Edwards’s writings about heaven, see Caldwell, “A Brief History of Heaven in the Writings of Jonathan Edwards.” Jenson, America’s Theologian: A Recommendation of Jonathan Edwards, 181. WJE 13:197. WJE 13:443. WJE 13: 328. WJE 13:443. WJE 20:462; cf. 13:350. WJE 20:462. WJE 13:369. WJE 13: 329. WJE 23:237. As Edwards contends, “[A]fter the end of the world, not only the inhabitants of heaven but the place of habitation itself shall, as it were, put on new and beautiful garments” (WJE 23:239). Instead of envisioning a transformation of this present earth, though, Edwards argues that the “new heavens and new earth” refer to the consummation of all things in heaven (Caldwell, “A Brief History of Heaven in the Writings of Jonathan Edwards,” 51–52; Jenson, America’s Theologian: A Recommendation of Jonathan Edwards, 180; see especially Misc. nos. 634, 743, and 745). Philip Quinn has argued that Edwards’s account of the resurrection also runs into difficulties because his occasionalism renders him unable to establish any firm ground for continuous personal identity (Quinn, “Some Problems about Resurrection”). Since the human person is created anew at each moment, Quinn contends the only kind of personal identity Edwards can affirm is that grounded in an arbitrary divine decree that these various entities will all be treated as comprising the same person even though they lack any real ontological unity. Oliver Crisp has usefully argued, however, that even if Edwards grounds personal identity in a divine decree, this decree does not need to be completely arbitrary (i.e., there may be ways of grouping objects that are more fitting than others), and he can still view the resulting object as metaphysically real (Crisp, Jonathan Edwards And The Metaphysics Of Sin, chapter 5; see also Michael C. Rae, “The Metaphysics of Original Sin,” in Persons: Divine and Human, ed. Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman [New York: Oxford, 2007], 319–356). Regardless, the issues

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Marc Cortez surrounding Edwards’s view of personal identity arise from his ontology in general and consequently are not specific to his view of the resurrection. Thus, we will not engage them further here. To be consistent with his overall ontology, it cannot be the case that Edwards envisions the intermediate state as involving the separation of the immaterial substance of the soul from the physical substance of the body. Instead, he would need to say that “disembodied” means that in this state God no longer engages in the kinds of actions that conscious minds perceive as materiality. WJE 18:93; 13:540. Edwards, “The Portion of the Body,” 2:892. Ibid. WJE 13:329. Ibid. WJE 13:442–444. “The glorification of the souls of the saints at their death is a marriage, in comparison of their conversion, and their state of grace here; but ‘tis but an espousal, a state of conversation with Christ in order to marriage, compared with the glory that shall be after the resurrection” (WJE 18:93). Robert Jenson offers this kind of argument, apparently seeing it as an adequate explanation for the resurrection of the body in Edwards’s theology (America’s Theologian: A Recommendation of Jonathan Edwards, 181). WJE 13:501. WJE 18:427. According to McClymond and McDermott, Edwards’s understanding of heavenly vision may have undergone some shifts during his life, moving from “from a more Platonic disparagement of the body toward a more body-affirming standpoint” (McClymond and McDermott, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 300). This would seem to support the conclusion that a move in this direction is fully consistent with the trajectory of Edwards’s overall theology.

Bibliography Caldwell, R. “A Brief History of Heaven in the Writings of Jonathan Edwards.” In Calvin Theological Journal 46:1 (2011): 48–71. Chai, Leon. Jonathan Edwards and the Limits of Enlightenment Philosophy. New York: Oxford, 1998. Cortez, Marc. “The Human Person as Communicative Event: Jonathan Edwards on the Mind/Body Relationship.” In The Ashgate Research Companion to Theological Anthropology, edited by Joshua Farris and Charles Taliaferro, 139–150. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2015.

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Crisp, Oliver. “How ‘Occasional’ Was Edwards’s Occasionalism?” In Jonathan Edwards: Philosophical Theologian, edited by Paul Helm and Oliver Crisp, 61–77. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004. Crisp, Oliver. Jonathan Edwards and The Metaphysics Of Sin. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005. Delattre, Roland André. “Beauty and Theology: A Reappraisal of Jonathan Edwards.” In Critical Essays on Jonathan Edwards, edited by William J. Scheick, 136–150. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1980. Dunham, Jeremy, Iain Hamilton Grant, and Sean Watson. Idealism: The History of a Philosophy. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011. Edwards, Jonathan. The Works of Jonathan Edwards in 26 Volumes, edited by Perry Miller, John E. Smith and Harry S. Stout. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957–2006. Elwood, Douglas J. The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards. New York: Oxford, 1960. Fiering, Norman. Jonathan Edwards’s Moral Thought and Its British Context. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1981. Fiering, Norman. “The Rationalist Foundations of Jonathan Edwards’s Metaphysics.” In Jonathan Edwards and the American Experience, edited by Nathan O. Hatch and Harry S. Stout, 73–101. New York: Oxford, 1989. Goen, C. C. “Jonathan Edwards: A New Departure in Eschatology.” Church History 28:1 (1959): 25–40. Jenson, Robert W. America’s Theologian: A Recommendation of Jonathan Edwards. New York: Oxford, 1988. Jue, Jeffrey K. “A Millennial Genealogy: Joseph Mede, Jonathan Edwards, and Old Princeton.” In Resurrection and Eschatology: Theology in Service of the Church: Essays in Honor of Richard B. Gaffin, Jr, edited by Richard B. Gaffin, Lane G. Tipton, and Jeffrey C. Waddington, 396–423. Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R, 2008. Lee, Sang Hyun. “Edwards and Beauty.” In Understanding Jonathan Edwards: An Introduction to America’s Theologian, edited by Gerald R. McDermott, 113–125. New York: Oxford, 2009. Lee, Sang Hyun. The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988. McClymond, Michael J. Encounters with God: An Approach to the Theology of Jonathan Edwards. New York: Oxford, 1998. McClymond, Michael J. “God the Measure: Towards an Understanding of Jonathan Edwards’ Theocentric Metaphysics.” Scottish Journal of Theology 47:1 (1994): 43–59. McClymond, Michael J. “Hearing the Symphony: A Critique of Some Critics of Sang Lee’s and Amy Pauw’s Accounts of Jonathan Edwards’ View of God.” In Jonathan Edwards as Contemporary, edited by Don Schweitzer, 67–91. New York: Peter Lang, 2010. McClymond, Michael J., and Gerald R. McDermott. The Theology of Jonathan Edwards. New York: Oxford, 2011.

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Mitchell, Louis J. “The Theological Aesthetics of Jonathan Edwards.” Theology Today 64:1 (2007): 36–46. Quinn, Philip L. “Some Problems about Resurrection.” Religious Studies 14 (1978): 343–359. Rea, Michael C. “The Metaphysics of Original Sin.” In Persons: Divine and Human, edited by Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman, 319–356. New York: Oxford, 2007. Stein, Stephen J. “Eschatology.” In The Princeton Companion to Jonathan Edwards, edited by Sang Hyun Lee, 226–242. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.

8

Jonathan Edwards, Idealism, and Christology Oliver D. Crisp

Jonathan Edwards’ Christology is one of the more astonishing, and even eccentric, aspects of his thought. There is no doubt that he intended to be orthodox in the matter, but he arrived at orthodoxy—if he did—on anything but usual paths. Robert W. Jenson1

Jonathan Edwards is something of a theological wild card in the deck of Reformed theology. Although he is often lionized as a scion of the Reformation and a major influence upon the Great Awakening and the rise of evangelicalism, the various branches of his complex and labyrinthine theology often lead to very different destinations than might be expected of a staunchly Reformed theologian.2 This is true of his doctrines of God and the Trinity.3 It is also true of his Christology. Recent work on Edwards’s Christology has argued that it is piecemeal or fragmentary in nature;4 that it is not clearly or fully developed in his extant writings and notebooks;5 that it may even be inconsistent or paradoxical in places;6 that it bucks the trend in Western theology to conceive of the Incarnation in the terms set by the two-natures doctrine of the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451;7 that it is clearly an instance of Reformed Christology;8 or that it is equally clearly theologically anomalous as far as Reformed theology is concerned, having more in common with an “Alexandrian” and Lutheran Christology.9 This bewildering array of views has led Robert Caldwell in his recent study of Edwards’s Pneumatology to conclude that we are only just beginning to understand the nature of Edwards’s Christology—more than two hundred and fifty years after his death.10 In this chapter, I will argue that Edwards’s Christology is, in fact, even more strange than has hitherto been thought to be the case. This is because several of his

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key metaphysical commitments have important implications for his Christology, implications that neither Edwards himself nor his modern interpreters appear to have drawn out in any systematic fashion. These metaphysical doctrines present the Edwardsian with considerable theological obstacles. They comprise his immaterialism, his metaphysical antirealism, his occasionalism, and what I shall call his pure act panentheism (about which, more presently). The nature of the Christological problems generated by these metaphysical commitments does not necessarily yield an unorthodox Christology. But it does yield a metaphysically exotic Christology.11 The argument has two parts. The first offers an overview of the aspects of Edwards’s metaphysics relevant to his Christology, focusing on his immaterialism, metaphysical antirealism, occasionalism, and pure act panentheism. The second sets out the Christological implications for these four doctrines, including the theological obstacles they present for the orthodoxy of Edwardsianism. In conclusion, I offer some reflections on the implications of Edwards’s idealism for his Christology.

Some Edwardsian metaphysics We begin with a sketch of the relevant elements of Edwards’s metaphysics, set out in a series of numbered metaphysical theses, with supporting references to Edwards’s works, to make the key elements of his position as clear as possible. We begin with, 1. God is a simple pure act. Whether Edwards did believe this is a matter of dispute in contemporary Edwardsian scholarship. But Edwards nowhere denies this traditional doctrine of Western Christianity, and he endorses it in a number of places, albeit in passing, as one might expect from someone who takes a particular theological claim to be uncontroversial. Thus, for example, he speaks explicitly in Freedom of the Will, the principle work by which he wished to be remembered, of God’s “perfect and absolute simplicity.”12 And in Religious Affections, another major work he saw through the press in his own lifetime, in speaking of the moral excellence of the divine attributes, 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:

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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.”13 And, as is well known, the idea that the divine attributes imply each other is a central plank of the traditional doctrine of divine simplicity; it implies that no divine attribute is distinct from the other, strictly speaking. It is not inconsequential that when he speaks of divine simplicity in two of the major works published during his lifetime, it is to endorse the traditional doctrine. This is important because much of the recent controversy concerning Edwards’s doctrine of divine simplicity centers on works that were not published in his lifetime, or that were in no state to be published, such as his Discourse on the Trinity or his Miscellanies notebooks. But even in those works, he clearly endorses the doctrine.14 2. God is maximally excellent; he is a one being in whom subsist three divine persons, the Father, the son and the Holy Spirit, in perfect eternal perichoretic harmony and happiness. In a famous early entry in his Miscellanies notebook on the Trinity, Edward concludes by saying, “we have shown that one alone cannot be excellent, inasmuch as there can be no consent. Therefore, if God is excellent, there must be a plurality in God; otherwise there can be no consent in him.”15 Here he is referring back to his notebook on The Mind, where he had maintained that a single solitary being cannot be considered to be excellent, because such a being would have no “consent” to other being(s), and no “agreement” with other such being(s). What is more, “As nothing else has a proper being but spirits, and as bodies are but the shadow of being, therefore, the consent of bodies to one another, and the harmony that is among them, is but the shadow of excellency. The highest excellency, therefore, must be the consent of spirits to one another.”16 This is reiterated in his Discourse on the Trinity, where Edwards affirms that “The honor of the Father and the Son is that they are infinitely excellent, or that from them infinite excellency proceeds”— that is, the Holy Spirit.17 So, in addition to endorsing divine simplicity, Edwards holds that there are also “real” distinctions in the Godhead, pertaining to particular divine persons whose perfect mutual relationship is maximally excellent.18 3.

God is the only true substance.

In an early philosophical note Edwards comments, “bodies have no substance of their own, neither is solidity, strictly speaking, a property belonging to body . . . neither are the other properties of body, which depend upon it and are only

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modifications of it. So that there is neither real substance nor property belonging to bodies; but all that is real, it is immediately in the first being.” Later in the same passage, he draws the following corollary: “God is . . . ens entium; or if there was nothing else in the world but bodies, the only real being . . . The nearer in nature beings are to God, so much the more properly they are beings, and more substantial; and that spirits are much more properly beings, and more substantial, than bodies.”19 4. The created world consists of a collection of ideas held in the mind of God; there is no such thing as matter understood as physical entity having extension in space independent of any mind. This line of thought is pursued in his early notebooks in particular. For instance, “Things to be Considered an[[d]] Written fully about,” item 26 reads, “To bring in an observation somewhere in a proper place, that instead of Hobbes’ notion that God is matter and that all substance is matter; that nothing that is matter can possibly be God, and that no matter is, in the most proper sense, matter.”20 And later, item 47 reads, “body is nothing but an infinite resistance in some part of space cause by the immediate exercise of divine power.”21 Elsewhere in his Miscellanies, he writes: “Supposing a room in which none is, none sees in that room, no created intelligence; the things in the room have no being any other way than only as God is conscious [[of them]], for there is no color, nor any sound, nor any shape, etc.”22 And in another place in his early notebooks, “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 (we speak at present with respect to bodies only).”23 He even goes as far as to say in The Mind that “the brain exists only mentally” so that he speaks “improperly when I say, the soul is in the soul only as to its operations.”24 5. Created minds (such as human minds) are only substances in an attenuated sense. We have already noted Edwards’s sentiment expressed in passages like the following: “How God is as it were the only substance, or rather, the perfection and steadfastness of his knowledge, wisdom, power and will.”25 He also says things like this: “those beings which have knowledge and consciousness are the only proper and real and substantial beings, inasmuch as the being of other things is only by these. From hence we may see the gross mistake of those who

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think material things the most substantial beings, and spirits more like a shadow; whereas spirits only are properly substance.”26 6. God continuously creates the world. Edwards is unequivocal about this both in his early notebooks and in his later treatises, especially Original Sin. Thus, in “Things to be Considered an[[d]] Written fully about,” Edwards remarks, “as great and wonderful a power is every moment exerted to the upholding of the world, as at first was to the creation of it; the first creation being only the first exertion of this power to cause such resistance, the preservation only the continuation or the repetition of this power every moment to cause this resistance. So that the universe is created out of nothing every moment.”27 And in Original Sin, “God’s preserving created things in being is perfectly equivalent to a continued creation, or to his creating those things out of nothing at each moment of their existence.”28 Moreover, “It will follow from what has been observed, that God’s upholding created substance, or causing its existence in each successive moment, is altogether equivalent to an immediate production out of nothing, as each moment.”29 7. The created world does not persist through time; it is one of an infinite number of world “stages” that God creates the world out of nothing. Once created, a given world immediately ceases to exist, being replaced by a facsimile world, also created ex nihilo, into which are built the relevant incremental changes so as to appear to be the next maximal state of affairs that obtains at the moment just after the one that obtains in the previous world stage. Each world stage is created seriatim, and segued together in the divine mind according to God’s will.30 Edwards in Original Sin writes: there is no identity or oneness in the case, but what depends on the arbitrary constitution of the Creator; who by his wise sovereign establishment so unites these successive new effects, that he treats them as one, by communicating to them like properties, relations, and circumstances; and so, leads us to regard and treat them as one. When I call this an arbitrary constitution, I mean, that it is a constitution which depends on nothing but the divine will; which divine will depends on nothing but the divine wisdom. In this sense, the whole course of nature, with all that belongs to it, all its laws and methods, and constancy and regularity, continuance and proceeding, is an arbitrary constitution. In this sense, the continuance of the very being of the world and all its parts, as well as the manner of continued being,

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depends entirely on an arbitrary constitution: for it don’t at all necessarily follow, that because there was sound, or light, or color, or resistance, or gravity, or thought, or consciousness, or any other dependent thing the last moment, that therefore there shall be the like at the next. All dependent existence whatsoever is in a constant flux, ever passing and returning; renewed every moment, as the colour of bodies are every moment renewed by the light that shines upon them; and all is constantly proceeding from God, as light from the sun.31

In addition, “It appears, if we consider matters strictly, there is no such thing as any identity or oneness in created objects, existing at different times, but what depends on God’s sovereign constitution . . . for it appears, that a divine constitution is the thing which makes truth, in affairs of this nature.”32 8. Moreover, God is the sole causal agent of all that comes to pass; no human agent persists long enough to bring about any mundane actions; all created agents are merely the occasions of God’s bringing about what obtains. Edwards’s notion of occasional causation must be gleaned from a number of places. For instance, in Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival, he says “They that are studied in logic have learned that the nature of the cause is not to be judged of by the nature of the effect, nor the nature of the effect from the nature of the cause, when the cause is only causa sine qua non, or an occasional cause; yea, that in such a case, oftentimes the nature of the effect is quite contrary to the nature of the cause.”33 But his most developed views on causation are intimated in Freedom of the Will. There he denies that a cause is ontologically more than an occasion: “Therefore I sometimes use the word ‘cause,’ in this inquiry, to signify . . . any antecedent with which a consequent event is so connected, that it truly belongs to the reason why the proposition which affirms that event is true.” But the relation that exists between the antecedent and its consequent, “is perhaps rather an occasion than a cause, most properly speaking.”34 Alongside this, we can place his early Miscellany 267, where Edwards implies a connection between continuous creation and something like a doctrine of occasional causation, “The mere exertion of a new thought is a certain proof of a God. For certainly there is something that immediately produces and upholds that thought; here is a new thing, and there is a necessity of a cause. It is not antecedent thoughts, for they are vanished and gone; they are past, and what is past is not.”35 9. Hence, the series of world-stages God creates are radically dependent upon God.

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This is plainly the implication of Edwards’s well-known views in Original Sin. For instance, “Identity of consciousness depends wholly on a law of nature; and so, on the sovereign will and agency of God; and therefore, that personal identity, and so the derivation of the pollution and guilt of past sins in the same person, depends on an arbitrary divine constitution . . . For if same consciousness be one thing necessary to personal identity, and this depends on God’s sovereign constitution, it will still follow, that personal identity depends on God’ sovereign constitution.”36 10. Nevertheless, the series of world-stages is the necessary product of God’s essential creativity. In the End of Creation, Edwards says God has “a communicative disposition in general, or a disposition in the fullness of the divinity to flow out and diffuse itself.”37 Moreover, “The divine disposition to create is an ‘original property’ of the divine nature: ‘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 creation.’”38 And in Freedom of the Will he makes it clear that, as far as he is concerned, necessity is consistent with divine freedom, understood in a compatibilist manner thus: From things which have been observed, it will follow, that . . . God himself has the highest possible freedom, according to the true and proper meaning of the term; and that he is in the highest possible respect an agent, and active in the exercise of his infinite holiness; though he acts therein in the highest degree necessarily; and his actions of this kind are in the highest, most absolutely perfect manner virtuous and praiseworthy; and so, for that very reason, because they are most perfectly necessary.39

This is underlined later in the same treatise: “’Tis no disadvantage or dishonor to a being, necessarily to act in the most excellent and happy manner, from the necessary perfection of his own nature.”40 Similarly, in Miscellany 31 he says this: The freedom of will (to speak very improperly) don’t infer an absolute contingency, nor is it inconsistent with an absolute necessity of the event that is to be brought about by this free will. For most certainly, God’s will is free, or is no more bound than the will of his creatures; yet there is the greatest and most absolute necessity imaginable, that God should always will good and never evil.41

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From this it appears that Edwards thinks God acts freely but according to some necessity of his own nature, which includes as an “original property” of his nature an essential “disposition” to create or “emanate” himself in creation.42 This leads to our final Edwardsian claim: 11. God must create a world; but also God must create this world because it is the best possible world.43 In Miscellany 697 Edwards says: An infinite being, therefore, must be an all-comprehending being. He must comprehend in himself all being. That there should be another being underived and independent, and so no way comprehended, will argue him not to be infinite, because then there is something more. There is more entity. There is some entity beside what is in this being; and therefore, his entity can’t be infinite. These two beings put together are more than one, for they taken together are a sum total. And one taken alone is but a part of that sum total, and therefore is finite, for whatsoever is a part is finite. God— as he is infinite, and the being whence all are derived, and from whom every thing is given— does comprehend the entity of all his creatures; and their entity is not to be added to his, as not comprehended in it, for they are but communications from him. Communications of being ben’t additions of being. The reflections of the sun’s light don’t add at all to the sum total of the light.44

And in his “Book of Controversies,” Edwards writes, it is demonstrably true that if God sees that good will come of it [[i.e. of permitting some evil]], and more good than otherwise, so that, when the whole series of events is viewed by God, and all things balanced, the sum total of good with the evil is more than without—all being subtracted that need to be subtracted, and added that is to be added—I say, if the sum total of good, thus considered, be greatest, greater than the sum without it, then it will follow that God, if he be a wise and holy Being, must will it. For if this sum total that has the evil in it, when what the evil subtracts is subtracted, has yet the greatest good, then ’tis the best sum total, better than the sum total that has no evil in it. But if, all things considered, it be really the best, how can it be otherwise, than that it should be chosen by an infinitely wise and good Being, whose holiness and goodness consist in always choosing what is best? Which does it argue most—wisdom or folly, a good disposition or an evil one—when two things are set before a being, the one better and the other worse, to choose the worse and refuse the better?45

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A complete elaboration of each of these doctrines would take up the remainder of this essay. Fortunately, this has been done elsewhere and I direct the reader’s attention to these other publications, which underpin the cameo of Edwardsian metaphysics presented here.46 Assuming the claims made represent an adequate picture of Edwards’s position, it would appear that he is committed to four controversial notions relevant to his Christology. These are, immaterialism (especially (3)–(5) and (9)), metaphysical antirealism ((3)–(5) and (9)), occasionalism ((6)–(8) and (10)) and what I call pure act panentheism ((1)–(3) and (9)–(11)). I will briefly explain what each of these terms means, in light of the series of claims about Edwardsian metaphysics just given. First, I take immaterialism to be that doctrine according to which all that exists are minds and their ideas. There is no material substance. Indeed, there is nothing material—that is, nothing that is an unthinking, extended substance—at all. According to Edwards, God alone is the true substance. But created minds may be said to exist, albeit in a rather attenuated state as mere shadows of the real, divine substance. Divine and created minds have ideas. Although there is no material object over and above the idea of, say, an apple on the table that is a property bearer for the properties the apple possesses, this does not mean Edwards’s immaterialism collapses into a radical subjectivism. Like Bishop Berkeley, Edwards can affirm that perceptible entities like apples continue to exist provided God continues to think of them. So there is an apple on the table even when I am not in the room to see it, because God continues to “see” it, upholding it in existence in his mind from one moment to the next. But unlike Bishop Berkeley, Edwards denies that the apple does persist through time from one moment to the next. It appears to persist through time. The apple before my eyes at one moment appears to be exactly the same apple at the next moment, and so on. But strictly speaking, persistence through time is an illusion for Edwards. We will return to this matter in a moment, when elaborating his doctrine of occasionalism. Second, Edwards is also a metaphysical antirealist. At first blush we might think that metaphysical antirealism is, very roughly, the idea that there is no mind-independent reality. But in fact, this is not quite right, since one could be an immaterial realist if one thought that all that existed were minds and their ideas, together with the notion that created minds exist independently of God. In this way, one could make metaphysical room, as it were, for the existence of minds that were not necessarily radically dependent upon God for their continued existence, that is, were not dependent for their continued existence

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on God continuing to think of them. While at times Edwards says things that suggest his view is a species of what I am calling immaterial realism, there is reason to think this is not an adequate description of his position. For instance, in The Mind, Edwards has a great deal to say about how it is that all existing things (including our brains and bodies) are really only minds or ideas. This is consistent with immaterial realism, of course. But he also strongly suggests that all created minds and their ideas exist only in the divine mind. And this is not consistent with immaterial realism, but rather, with an immaterial antirealism. For if all created minds exist only in the divine mind, then all created minds are radically dependent upon God for their continued existence. In fact, on this way of construing immaterialism, all created minds exist if, and only if God continues to think them.47 Thus, at one point, Edwards writes, “And indeed, the secret lies here: that which is truly the substance of all bodies is the infinitely exact and precise and perfectly stable idea in God’s mind, together with his stable will that the same shall be gradually communicated to us, and to other minds, according to certain fixed and exact established methods and laws.” Or to put it somewhat differently, “the infinitely exact and precise divine idea, together with an answerable, perfectly exact, precise and stable will with respect to correspondent communications to created minds, and effects on their minds.”48 And later, he concedes that the created world “does not exist anywhere perfectly but in the divine mind.”49 All that is created exists in God’s mind by “his determination, his care and his design that ideas should be united forever, just so and in such a manner as is agreeable to such a series.”50 What is more, perceptible changes in this ideal world occur because “God supposes its existence; that is, he cause all change to arise as if all these things had actually existed in such a series in some created mind.”51 But of course, created things do not exist anywhere else than in the divine mind. It is God that “orders all things according to his mind, and his ideas.”52 One can be an immaterialist and a realist of sorts—so there is no entailment between Edwards’s immaterialism and his metaphysical antirealism. But the way that Edwards construes immaterialism means he is committed to metaphysical antirealism. Note that this does not mean the only apples that exist are the ones in my mind. The idea is merely that when I see an apple (in fact, apple-stage), that apple, being nothing more than a bundle of properties collocated together in one place by God, appears to persist through time provided God continues to think about it, and provided God continues to replace one apple stage with a succeeding apple stage, seriatim. So there is nothing radically subjective about

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Edwards’s doctrine. Mundane entities like apples can be accounted for on his way of thinking as divine ideas, or more particularly, as collocated properties sustained in the divine mind as part of the maximal state of affairs that is a given world stage. These collocated properties are replaced, along with all other created entities from one moment to the next as each world stages is annihilated and replaced by its successor in the series, all of which are sustained by the divine mind. Third, Edwards believes that occasionalism is true.53 I take it that occasionalism is the doctrine according to which God causes all things to exist and there is no other causal agent besides God; creatures are merely the “occasions” of God’s action, they are not truly causal agents. On Edwards’s way of thinking, this is conjoined with a doctrine of continuous creation, according to which no created object persists through time. On one plausible rendering of Edwards’s thinking, when dealing with problems arising from the doctrine of the imputation of Adam’s sin to his progeny, he ends up holding something like a stage theory of personal identity.54 On this view, entities that seem to persist through time (Wayne yesterday and Wayne today) are actually composed of numerous momentary stages. These are numerically distinct, momentary entities that are succeeded by subsequent stages. Wayne yesterday is numerically distinct from Wayne today. Yet we treat them both as if they were parts of one entity that exists across time. On this reading of Edwards’s ontology, something similar obtains with respect to all created entities. God creates the whole world in momentary “stages.” These world stages are “run together” in the divine mind like a motion picture on the silver screen of a movie theater or cinema. But, like the individual photographic stills that make up the motion picture as it is projected onto the screen, the series of world stages are discrete, numerically distinct entities run together in the divine mind to give the appearance of continuity across time. So, on this rendering of Edwards’s position, our apple does not persist from one moment to the next, strictly speaking (though it appears to). There is one apple-stage corresponding to the world stage of which it is a part, which is replaced by an entirely numerically distinct (though qualitatively identical) apple-stage that belongs to the subsequent world stage God creates to replace the first world stage that has been annihilated. And so on, seriatim. Occasionalism is sometimes said to be the doctrine according to which God is the sole causal agent, creatures being merely the “occasions” of divine action. But Edwards maintains this alongside his strong claims about the continuous creation of the world.

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Fourth, Edwards is also a pure act panentheist.55 This is a neologism, a compound of the idea that God is a simple pure act, and panentheism. We have seen that there is evidence to suggest Edwards endorses the traditional, Western account of the divine nature according to which God is a metaphysically simple entity without any parts whatsoever, having no passive potentiality. On this view, God is a completely “realized” being without remainder—a claim common enough in Western theism.56 Edwards’s contribution to this tradition is to fuse this metaphysical picture of the divine nature with the notion that God must create the world he does. Because God is essentially creative (he has as an “original property” of his nature an essential disposition to create), he must create. He did not have the option of refraining from creating a world in anything other than a notional sense. This is not to deny God freedom; it is to deny that a certain account of freedom applies to God. Edwards denies that libertarian freedom is coherent. This includes the idea that for an agent to be morally responsible for a given choice, it must be one that is not caused by anything other than the immediate volition of the agent available to him or her at the moment of volition—sometimes called the principle of alternate possibilities. According to Edwards, neither God nor creaturely moral agents can be free in a libertarian sense. But they are free in a compatibilist sense. That is, they can be free provided freedom consists in a liberty consistent with determinism. And, in point of fact, this is just the species of freedom Edwards thinks does obtain in the case of divine action.57 But given his idealism, Edwards also thinks that the world exists only in the divine mind, so to speak. So not only is the created order the necessary product of God’s creative activity, it is also the case that “The being of God includes and penetrates the whole universe, so that every part exists in Him, but His Being is more than, and not exhausted by, the universe.”58 But this is just panentheism. Hence, Edwards is committed to a pure act version of panentheism.

Edwardsian metaphysics and Christology This completes our brief overview of Edwardsian metaphysics—or at least, of the aspects of Edwardsian metaphysics relevant to our current concern. We are now in a position to apply these findings to Edwards’s Christology. The results are somewhat unexpected, even extraordinary. To see exactly how extraordinary, let us return to the four metaphysical commitments just outlined to see how each of these positions shapes the sort of Christology Edwards is able to articulate.

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But before doing so, note that what follows is very much an Edwardsian argument, not an argument that derives solely from things Edwards actually states. As has already been intimated, Edwards does not offer a systematic treatment of Christology in his work or notebooks. His comments are almost entirely piecemeal or occasional in nature, or part of some other argument, or treatise as with his comments about Christology in, say, his Discourse on the Trinity, or the History of the Work of Redemption. His metaphysics is also somewhat scattered, although his early scientific and philosophical notebooks offer a more complete picture of his views, which can be laid alongside his later work to form a fairly consistent metaphysical picture (in, e.g., his treatise on Original Sin). There is some development of his idealism, but once he had reached his mature views, it appears that his position remained relatively consistent. Certainly there is no indication in his later works that he repudiated the views he came to in his earlier philosophical works, and there is evidence that his later views are consistent with the earlier ones, for example, in Original Sin. In short, this section attempts to trace out the implications of Edwards’s idealism for his Christology. This is a perfectly legitimate exercise: the implications of a given view are contained within that view, so to speak, even if the person who espouses the view in question does not draw out these implications, or even, is not aware that his view has these implications, as is sometimes the case in the history of philosophy and theology. With this caveat in mind, we may proceed to the first of our metaphysical claims, that is, immateralism. Since Edwards’s immaterialist ontology is strictly incommensurable with a notion of matter, the first and most obvious implication Edwards’s metaphysics has for his Christology is that his doctrine of the Incarnation is incommensurable with the idea that in becoming incarnate, God the Son assumed a material body.59 In which case, one very strange consequence of Edwards’s immaterialism is that the Incarnation does not involve God the Son becoming incarnate (i.e., embodied). This might be thought problematic, even unorthodox. For docetism, the doctrine according to which Christ’s corporeal body is thought to be an illusion or simulacrum, is heretical. And Edwards’s immaterialism appears to commit him to docetism. For, according to Edwards’s way of thinking, Christ’s human body only appears to be material; it is in fact nothing more than the collocation of a number of properties bundled together that exist in mind of God.60 But this is too quick. In fact, Edwards’s immaterialism could be seen as an asset rather than a liability. And, contrary to first appearances, it does not

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imply docetism, though it does imply that in becoming incarnate the Son does not become embodied, provided “embodied” is equivalent to “material body.” However, on Edwards’s metaphysics, these two things are not equivalent, as we shall see. Let us take these two claims in reverse order, beginning with the charge of docetism. Edwards’s Christology is only docetic if he claims that Christ’s human body is nonmaterial, while affirming that all other human bodies are material. A core claim for docetism is that Christ’s human body is significantly different from other human bodies in this respect, in order to preserve God the Son from being sullied by coming into contact with a material entity on assuming human nature at the Incarnation. But this is not equivalent to Edwards’s position. For, as we have seen, Edwards maintains that there simply is no such thing as matter. In which case, no human bodies are composed of matter. Christ’s human body, like all other human bodies, is composed of a collocated bundle of properties sustained in the divine mind. Since properties are by definition nonmaterial entities, no human body is a material entity. So Christ’s human body is no different than any other human body, given the ontology with which Edwards is working. This reasoning also helps us to see how Edwards’s immaterialist Christology avoids the charge of docetism. There is a crucial distinction here between the ontology one adopts and the charge of docetism. In point of fact, for docetism to obtain, there must be at least some material entities, including some material human bodies. In other words, the doctrine of docetism presupposes that some objects are material objects, and that at least some human bodies are material bodies— something that Edwards’s ontology explicitly denies. For this reason alone, his immaterialism cannot commit him to docetism.61 If the objection is to immaterialism per se, that is a rather different matter. There does not seem to be any obvious theological reason to refrain from adopting immaterialism that depends upon matters Christological. For an immaterialist such as Edwards can affirm all the catholic creedal statements pertaining to Christ. Take the Chalcedonian “definition” of the person of Christ as the classical Christological touchstone. Given Edwardsian immaterialism, it is true to say that Christ was the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and a body; consubstantial with the Father as regards his divinity, and the same consubstantial with us as regards his humanity; like us in all respects, except for sin; begotten before the ages from the Father as regards his divinity, and in the last days the same for us and for our salvation from Mary,

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the Virgin God-bearer, as regards his humanity; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, acknowledged in two natures which undergo no confusion, no change, no division, no separation; at no point was the difference between the natures taken away through the union, but rather the property of both natures is preserved and comes together into a single person and a single subsistent being; he is not parted or divided into two persons, but is one and the same onlybegotten Son, God, Word, Lord Jesus Christ, just as the prophets taught from the beginning about him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ himself instructed us, and as the creed of the fathers has handed it down to us.62

None of these creedal affirmations are denied on an immaterialist ontology, though one must understand the references to Christ’s human nature as reference to an immaterial entity, not a material one. But this does no violence to the dogmatic content of the creed. So, commitment to immaterialism does not appear to introduce any serious obstacle to the orthodoxy of Edwards’s Christology. But does it offer any advantage? In their recent essay, Hight and Bohannon argue that Berkeleyan immaterialism does indeed offer an important ontological dividend for Christology.63 Traditional, orthodox Christian theology typically presumes that the created order contains at least some material entities, including human bodies. This presents a real difficulty for Christology because it requires a lot of explanation to make sense of the idea that an essentially immaterial divine agent, namely, God the Son, comes to be united to a created entity at least part of which is essentially material, that is, Christ’s human body. This is a particular, Christological version of a much more general philosophical conundrum, the problem of how an essentially immaterial entity can have causal relations with, or have as a proper part, an essentially material entity. For ex hypothesi, something that is essentially immaterial can have no material parts, just as something that is essentially material can have no immaterial parts. When it is applied to Christology, this problem is made particularly acute because the relationship God the Son bears to his human nature is said to be very intimate indeed—a personal, or hypostatic union. It is not just that God the Son bears some purely extrinsic, contingent relation to a certain parcel of matter (much as God is said to create, sustain, and interact with the material world in traditional Western theism). Rather, it is that God the Son somehow has metaphysical ownership of the particular parcel of matter that is the human body of Christ, as part of his human nature. An immaterialist doctrine such as that espoused by Edwards dissolves the general philosophical problem of the interaction between essentially immaterial

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and essentially material entities, endemic in most versions of theism that presume a species of substance dualism, by denying that there are any material entities. For this very reason, it also offers an ingenious argument that could come to the aid of classical Christology: Assume Christ’s human nature has no material parts whatsoever (because there simply is no such thing as matter understood as an extended unthinking substance). Then, there is no problem about the interaction between essentially immaterial and essentially material entities to be solved. Christ’s human body, like all human bodies, is an essentially immaterial thing. This does have the peculiar consequence that, for an immateralist like Edwards, the Incarnation does not entail the assumption of a material body by God the Son. Christ is not “embodied” if this means “has a material human body.” Calling this an Incarnation without the need to become incarnate is rather misleading, however. Edwards does not deny that God the Son becomes incarnate—that would be unorthodox. He denies that incarnation requires the acquisition of a material entity. Christ is God Incarnate all right. But his being incarnate is not equivalent to his possessing or otherwise assuming a particular material body. Chris’s human nature is essentially immaterial, just as are all other human natures. This is a strange consequence of the immaterialism Edwards espouses. But it is not theologically unorthodox. Let us turn to the second of our metaphysical notions, that is, metaphysical antirealism. Here we can be more succinct. I take it that the sort of metaphysical antirealism to which Edwards is committed is intimately connected with his immaterialsm. If all that exists are minds and their ideas, then necessarily, there is no mind-independent state of affairs. And, if all created minds and their ideas exist only in the divine mind, then Edwards’s immaterialism is antirealist rather than realist, as we have already had cause to note. To be fair to Edwards, it is not clear from the scattered places at which he expounds his immaterialist doctrine, whether or not he thinks that abstract objects like properties are mind-independent.64 But a charitable interpretation of his immaterialism suggests not. He is, after all, a “God-intoxicated theist” for whom all theology and metaphysics must be subordinated to the absolute sovereignty of God understood in strictly determinist terms. It would be strange to think he held that there are a certain class of abstract entities that are not included as items in the divine mind, and which therefore do not have the properties “being conceived by God” and “being true if, and only if, believed by God.” Although this would not violate his commitment to the

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idea of a global immaterialism (i.e., the notion that all entities are essentially immaterial entities), this would mean not all created entities are contained in the divine mind. And this would appear to be contrary to the whole tenor of Edwards’s idealism. So, it seems most likely that the application of Edwardsian metaphysical antirealism to Christology means that Christ’s human nature has no mind-independent existence. But it does not mean that his human nature has no existence independent of other created entities. In this respect, Edwardsian metaphysical antirealism is no different from that of Bishop Berkeley. This brings us to his occasionalism. We have seen that on one plausible interpretation, Edwards believes in something like a stage-theoretic account of persisting objects. In fact, in Original Sin IV. III, Edwards suggests a sort of divine command theory of persistence, according to which what counts as a successor to an object at a particular time is just that God treats it as the successor to that object. So there may be more than one account of how mundane objects are said to persist through time in Edwards’s work. But, in any case, Edwards does seem to be committed to occasionalism. Recall that this has two aspects in Edwards’s thought: (a) a doctrine of continuous creation coupled with, (b) a doctrine of occasional mundane causation. Let us take each of these components in turn. One straightforward consequence of his continuous creation doctrine is that there is not one single Incarnation, but an infinite number of incarnations. This generates what might be called a multiple incarnation problem for Edwardsian Christology. Since, according to Edwardsian occasionalism, Christ at one moment is numerically distinct from Christ at a subsequent moment, he simply cannot have a single human nature that persist through time from one moment to the next. That is, Edwards must deny that a given human nature is numerically identical from one moment to the next. This is heady metaphyiscs. But it does not necessarily count against the orthodoxy of Edwards’s Christology. For it is an implication of the continuous creation aspect of Edwardsian occasionalism that no mundane object is numerically identical from one moment to the next. The maximal state of affairs that comprises the world at one time is numerically distinct from the maximal state of affairs that comprises the world at a subsequent time, and so on. Interestingly, Edwards’s doctrine of occasional mundane causation does not necessarily undercut his Christology either, although it does generate a serious problem for mundane causation in cases other than the theanthropic person of Christ. The reason is this. According to catholic Christology, God the Son is hypostatically united to a particular human nature. It is “his”

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human nature. He acts in the world via his human nature. There are various ways in which this has been construed in Christian theology. Nevertheless, however God the Son actually acts in his human nature, the point is, such action is his theanthropic action—the operation of a divine person upon his human nature. Given Edwardsian occasionalism, no act of Christ’s human nature is anything other than the occasion of God the Son’s acting. His human nature does not act independent of the immediate volition of God the Son. This is what we might expect, given that Christ’s actions are the actions of God the Son Incarnate. But in point of fact, Edwards, like the puritan John Owen, thinks that the Holy Spirit is the active divine agent preserving the personal union between Christ’s human and divine natures, once God the Son has become incarnate. This is his “Spirit Christology.” In which case once he has assumed human nature, God the Son is not the divine person actively preserving his personal union with his human nature; God the Holy Spirit is. This complicates matters, but quite apart from the merits of Spirit Christology, it does mean that it is God who acts in the human nature of Christ, although it is not necessarily the case, in Edwards’s way of thinking, that God the Son is the divine person preserving this personal union after the first moment of Incarnation.65 However, there is still a concern here, which is a particular case of a more general problem that affects Edwardsian occasionalism. This is that the actions of Christ are not the actions of a human causal agent. They are not even the actions of a divine-human causal agent (i.e. of a God-man). They are merely the actions of a divine causal agent: God—in the person of the Son at the Incarnation, and, as far as Edwards is concerned, the Spirit in preserving the personal union thereafter. Although it would be true to say that, given Edwardsian occasionalism, Christ acts when he writes in the dirt, say, or when he kisses Judas, we should not take this to mean Christ as a human being causes certain things to happen. This would be to overlook the fact that for the occasionalist, God is the sole causal agent. So what we should say in the case of Christ is that God the Son brings about certain actions in his human nature. Or, to be strictly Edwardsian, at all moments subsequent to the initial instant of union with human nature, God the Holy Spirit brings about certain actions in Christ’s human nature. Qua human his actions are not the actions of a causal agent. He does not cause anything to obtain qua human. Instead, God causes all that comes to pass, including the actions of the human nature of God the Son, directly, as the only causal agent that exists in the created order.

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This might be thought to be a strength of Edwards’s position, for it removes problems about how Christ’s human nature acts without Christ’s human nature being thought to have some sort of causal efficacy in bringing about certain sorts of things. And this generates what we might call a causal overdetermination problem, because it means God the Son (or God the Holy Spirit) causes his human nature to cause a particular thing to happen—kissing Judas, let us say. And this seems strange since usually we think that one agent causes things to obtain, even where that agency is exercised at a distance or through some medium, as when, say, an astronaut acts “through” his spacesuit, in order to repair the satellite. The spacesuit is not an agent; it does not cause the satellite to be repaired; the astronaut does. But the action is brought about through his spacesuit as a sort of medium through which or by means of which he causes certain things to happen. The problem in the case of Christ is that it looks like he does have a human nature that is a causal agent since he is said to be like us in every way, sin excepted (Hebrews 4:15) and this has been understood since the Third Council of Constantinople in AD 681 to mean Christ has two wills, not one divine will. Note that the Edwardsian can say (though as far as I know Edwards himself did not) that his occasionalism does not entail the denial of dyotheletism in Christ. But it does mean that when he wills an action qua human, like all humans, this is not a cause of certain things obtaining. Only God is a causal agent in this sense. Christ’s human willing, like the human volitions of all other human beings, is merely the occasion of a divine action, namely, God causing that thing to come to pass. So Christ’s human nature may will certain things, just as any human wills certain things qua human. But, given Edwardsian occasionalism, no instance of human willing is causally efficacious. In the case of Christ this may not generate insuperable theological problems— after all, catholic Christians want to say that Christ is a divine person with a human nature, not a divine person and a human person conjoined. But it does have problems apart from Edwards’s Christology because it means that there is no such thing as mundane causation. Whereas this might be an asset for Christology, it is a liability in terms of theological anthropology more generally, because it entails that God alone is the cause of all that comes to pass, including evil. Human actions are merely the occasions of God’s causing the things to obtain that do obtain. And this generates a serious problem of evil for Edwards.66 Finally, let us consider problems for Edwards’s Christology generated by his commitment to a species of pure act panentheism. On Edwards’s reckoning, Christ’s human nature, like all created things, is contained “in” God. It has no

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existence independent of the divine nature because the world is the necessary ideal product of the “original property” of essential creativity. But if God must create a world—and God must create this world—then it looks like the Incarnation is necessary in a very strong sense indeed. And this poses a problem. Call it the problem of the necessity of the Incarnation. Now, there are theologians who claim the Incarnation is necessary, meaning by this merely that if God freely decrees the Incarnation, then the Incarnation must obtain. This is what is sometimes called consequential necessity, because it means the Incarnation is necessary consequent upon God’s decree to bring about the Incarnation.67 But Edwards’s panentheism commits him to a stronger species of necessity here. Recall that, for Edwards, God is morally unable to do other than the best. Although God could do otherwise if he so chose, he is constitutionally incapable of acting otherwise—it would be contrary to his nature to act otherwise, since God cannot do other than the best. So, if God willed to bring about less than the best state of affairs, he could bring about less than the best state of affairs because he would have the power to bring about less than the best state of affairs (he is, after all, omnipotent). But God cannot bring about less than the best state of affairs because he is necessarily morally unable to do so. Not in the sense that God has some moral failing that prevents him from acting in this way, but in the sense that God is constrained by his nature to act in this way. Applied to the Incarnation, this means that if God chose to create this world and refrain from becoming Incarnate in order to save some number of fallen humanity, he would have the power to do this because he is omnipotent. But God cannot choose to do this because he is necessarily morally incapable of so choosing.68 And this means that the Incarnation is morally necessary, not just consequentially necessary. Though both species of necessity depend upon the divine will, the way in which they depend upon the divine will differs in important respects. Consequential necessity means that if God wills something, it must come to pass—its coming to pass is necessary thereafter, so to speak. Whereas moral necessity of the sort Edwards has in mind means that if God were to will a thing, he would have the power to bring it about. But he cannot will to bring about that thing—he is so constituted that such a state of affairs simply cannot be an object of the divine will. We might put the difference like this. In the case of consequential necessity, some principle of alternate possibilities may obtain. God could choose x; but he could also choose y at the moment he makes the choice he does. He chooses x; so x will obtain. Indeed, given that God wills x, x necessarily obtains per consequens. But in the case of the moral necessity

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Edwards utilizes, no principle of alternate possibilities obtains. It is not the case that God could choose x, but he could also choose y at the moment he makes the choice he does. Instead, if God wills y rather than x, y rather than x would obtain. But it is impossible for God to will y rather than x. So x obtains. Edwards is not always entirely consistent about whether he thinks the Incarnation is decreed logically subsequent to the decree to permit the Fall and human sin (infralapsarianism) or logically prior to the decree to permit the fall and human sin (supralapsarianism).69 There may be some reason to think that his position would be better construed as a species of supralapsarianism rather than as a species of infralapsarianism, although this is debatable, given the internal evidence in his corpus.70 But given his panentheism, it would seem that he does think that it is morally necessary that God act as he does in the creation of the world. And this implies supralapsarianism: the Incarnation must obtain; it cannot not obtain. In this respect, there appears to be an unresolved problem in Edwards’s metaphysics of the Incarnation.

Conclusion Edwards was not a theological revisionist. He thought of himself and his work as part of the great flowering of Reformed theology in the post-Reformation period, and situated himself squarely within the tradition of Puritan and continental Reformed thought in which he had been schooled. But his thinking did push at the boundaries of Reformed thinking in a number of areas. We have seen that this is true with respect to the Christological implications of four of his key metaphysical claims. There are several problems the conjunction of his metaphysics with classical Christology generates. The first has to do with his commitment to a species of Berkeley-like idealism. I have argued that the problems this generates for his theology are not necessarily insurmountable, despite first appearances. But few theologians today would wish to adopt Edwardsian metaphysics: idealism of the sort Edwards espoused has fallen on hard times.71 Nevertheless, the Edwardsian arguments we have considered here show that there is much more to be said for an idealist Christology than might be thought at first glance—even when it entails metaphysical antirealism. But a second sort of problem has to do with his advocacy of occasionalism and pure act panentheism. Although these aspects of his metaphysics do not have untoward implications for the orthodoxy of Edwards’s Christology, they do

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generate other theological problems that make them undesirable assumptions for Christology, other things being equal. And in the case of his panentheism, there seems to be an antinomy in Edwards’s metaphysics that he does not resolve. One might treat these different metaphysical doctrines as discrete elements in Edwards’s thought, adopting his idealism without also adopting his occasionalism and panentheism. There may even be good theological reasons for embracing some version of immaterialism, reasons having to do with the problems besetting traditional accounts of the Incarnation that include a material human body in the human nature of Christ. Edwards, like Berkeley, can claim his immaterialism means that God the Son is not united to a material substance at the Incarnation. Most contemporary advocates of ontological monism in philosophicaltheological anthropology are materialists: they claim that humans are simply material entities of some sort and proceed from there to offer reasons to think this is consistent with orthodox Christology.72 There are well-known difficulties attending such arguments. Edwardsian immaterialism offers the opposite sort of monism according to which human beings are immaterial entities.73 If this aspect of his ontology is right, then the metaphysics of the Incarnation may be made a little easier. But only if one is willing to follow Edwards’s currently unfashionable penchant for philosophical idealism.

Notes 1 Robert W. Jenson, “Christology,” in The Princeton Companion to Jonathan Edwards, ed. Sang Hyun Lee (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 72. 2 I do not claim Edwards is not a resolutely Reformed theologian—he is. But his theology cannot be described as travelling along the well-worn lines of Reformed Orthodoxy on every point. We might think of his work as a defence of the essential components of Reformed theology recast using the metaphysics of the Early Enlightenment. Hence, his is both an apologetic as well as constructive theological programme. 3 See Amy Plantinga-Pauw, “The Supreme Harmony of All”: The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002); Sang Lee, editorial introduction to Jonathan Edwards, Writings on the Trinity, Grace, and Faith, The Works of Jonathan Edwards Vol. 21 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003); Steven Studebaker, “Jonathan Edwards Social Augustinian Trintarianism: An Alternative to a Recent Trend,” Scottish Journal of Theology 56:3 (2003): 268–285; and Oliver D. Crisp, Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation (New York: Oxford

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University Press, 2011), chapters 5–7. Note that all references to Edwards works are taken from the Yale edition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957–2008), cited as YE followed by volume number, colon, and pagination, for example, YE 21:5. References to volumes in this edition only available only are given as WJE, followed by section. There are no pages given in the online-only volumes. Amy Plantinga Pauw in The Supreme Harmony of All, chapter 4. Stephen R. Holmes in God of Grace and God of Glory: An Account of the Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 141. Both Holmes (in God of Grace and God of Glory) and Plantinga Pauw (in “The Supreme Harmony of All”) make this claim, though for different reasons. See also discussion in Robert W. Caldwell III, Communion in the Spirit: The Holy Spirit as the Bond of Union in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Milton Keynes: Paternoster Press, 2006), 75–76. James Carse, “The final shape of his Christology has almost nothing in common with . . . the orthodox Protestant theologians . . . [[his]] overall christological design causes Edwards to make a radical departure from the traditional orthodox discussion of the nature of Christ as well.” Jonathan Edwards and The Visibility of God (New York: Charles Schribner’s, 1967), 98–99. See Paul Ramsey’s comments in the context of a discussion on Edwards’s use of the communicatio idiomatum in his understanding of Heaven as a progressive state in YE 8:734. This is the burden of Jenson’s view. See America’s Theology: A Recommendation of Jonathan Edwards (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), chapter 10 and “Christology.” Jenson does say that “Edwards was neither an Alexandrian nor a Lutheran” (America’s Theologian, 119). But his analysis of Edwards in both essays suggests that Edwardsian Christology emphasizes the unitive elements in the joining of human nature to God the Son. This is much more in keeping with “Alexandrian” Christology and classical Lutheran thought. “The lack of consensus on the nature of Edwards’s christological views reveals that we are only in the beginning stages of understanding his complete christology.” Caldwell, Communion in the Spirit, 76. As I have already indicated, there are other problems with Edwards’s Christology that have been discussed in the recent literature. We might call these “material” problems for his Christology. I will not be concerned with these matters here. My concern is with what we might call the “formal” problems for his Christology. In other words, I shall be concerned with the implications his metaphysics has for his Christology, not with the peculiarities of substantive elements of his Christology— which is a matter for another occasion. YE 1:377. YE 3:256–257, emphasis added.

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14 See YE 21:113, 116 for relevant material from the Discourse on the Trinity and Miscellanies entries 94, 135, 308 in YE 13. See also Miscellanies entry 1340, where Edwards endorses a traditional Boethian account of divine timelessness, a corollary of the pure act account of the divine nature. For more on this matter in the contemporary literature, See Oliver Crisp, “Jonathan Edwards on the Divine Nature”; Crisp, “Jonathan Edwards on Divine Simplicity,” Religious Studies 39:1 (2003): 23–41. For a different perspective, see Plantinga-Pauw, The Supreme Harmony of All, chapter 2. 15 Miscellanies entry 117, in YE 13:284. 16 YE 6:344 and 337 respectively. 17 YE 21:135. 18 See YE 21:133, where Edwards endorses the doctrine of Trinitarian perichoresis, or mutual indwelling, with these words, “there is such a wonderful union between them [[the persons of the Godhead]] that they after an ineffable and inconceivable manner one in another; so that one hath another, and they have communion in one another, and are as it were predicable of one another.” Like other Reformed Orthodox and Puritan divines, Edwards shows no embarrassment in affirming both divine simplicity and the doctrine of the Trinity. 19 YE 6:238. Like John Locke in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding II. XXIII, Edwards observes that by substance is meant “only ‘something,’ because of abstract substance we have no idea that is more particular than only existence in general” (YE6:378). For more on God as substance in Edwards’s ontology, see Oliver Crisp “Jonathan Edwards’s Ontology: A Critique of Sang Hyun Lee’s Dispositional Account of Edwardsian Metaphysics,” Religious Studies 46:1 (2010): 1–20; Stephen R. Holmes, “Does Jonathan Edwards Use a Dispositional Ontology? A Response to Sang Hyun Lee,” in Jonathan Edwards: Philosophical Theologian, ed. Paul Helm and Oliver D. Crisp (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), 99–114 and William Wainwright, “Jonathan Edwards,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/ entries/edwards/ (accessed July 5, 2010). 20 YE 6:235. Edwards explicitly makes this cross-reference between the excerpt from “Of Atoms” just cited and entry 26 in “Things to be Considered.” Incidentally, the statement “matter is not matter” strictly speaking, is an implication of Edwards’s idealism. 21 YE 6:241. 22 YE 13:188, referred to by Sang Lee in The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards, Expanded Edition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 58. 23 YE 6:215. 24 YE 6:355. Edwards explicitly denies material substance in the short list “Notes on Knowledge and Existence,” where he states in response to Hobbesianism that “What we call body is nothing but a particular mode of perception; and what we

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call spirit is nothing but a composition and series of perceptions, or an universe of coexisting and successive perceptions connected by such wonderful methods and laws” (YE 6:398.) YE 6:398. YE 6:206. YE 6:241. YE 3:401, emphasis in original. YE 3:402, emphasis in original. There is more than one way in which Edwards doctrine has been understood on this matter, an issue to which we shall return. YE 3:403–404. YE 3:404. YE 4:316. YE 1:180–181. YE 13:373. YE 3:399. YE 8:435. YE 8:435, emphasis in original. YE 1:364. YE 1:377. YE 13:217. Compare William Rowe, who says this of Edwards’ conception of divine necessity, “In short, given his necessary perfections, God is morally unable to do anything other than what he sees to be best. God is morally unable to do otherwise because although God is able to do otherwise if he chooses to, he cannot choose to do other than the best.” Rowe, Can God Be Free? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 61. See William J. Wainwright, “Jonathan Edwards, William Rowe, and the Necessity of Creation,” in Faith, Freedom, and Responsibility, ed. Jeff Jordan and Daniel HowardSnyder (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996). YE 18:281. Some of his Miscellanies entries are stronger still: “but being includes in it all that we call God, who is, and there is none else besides him” Miscellanies entry 27a (YE 13:213.) 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” Miscellanies entry 880 (YE 20:123). YE 27, Part III in WJE online (accessed April 23, 2010). See Crisp, “Jonathan Edwards on Divine Simplicity,” 23–41; Crisp, “Jonathan Edwards on the Divine Nature”; Crisp, “Jonathan Edwards’s Ontology”; Crisp, Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation; Holmes, “Does Jonathan Edwards Use a Dispositional Ontology?”; and Wainwright, “Jonathan Edwards.” See also Richard

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Oliver D. Crisp R. Niebuhr’s “Being and Consent,” in The Princeton Companion to Jonathan Edwards, ed. Sang Hyun Lee (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 34–43; and George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 2003), chapter 4. See The Mind, entries 2, 9, 13, 34, and 35, in YE 6:338–355. In fact, this is not quite right either, because no created thing persists through time, on Edwards’s reckoning. This is a corollary of his continuous creation thesis. The Mind, entry 13 in YE 6:344. Compare Alvin Plantinga, who says that what I am calling metaphysical antirealism depends on the claim that propositions have the following properties: “being conceived by God” and “being true if, and only if, believed by God.” See “How to be an Anti-Realist,” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 56/1 (1982): 70. Since, as I am arguing, Edwards believes that there are no entities independent of the divine mind, it would appear that Edwards is committed to metaphysical antirealism of the sort Plantinga outlines. The Mind, entry 34 in YE 6:354. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Some Edwardsian scholars deny that Edwards held to a consistent doctrine of occasionalism, for example, Sang Lee in his The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards. The principle cause for concern is Edwards’s late Miscellanies notebook entry, no. 1263, in which he seems to argue that the created world persists through time, according to fixed laws God has created. But for an argument to the conclusion that what Edwards says in Miscellany 1263 is consistent with a full-blooded occasionalism, see Crisp, “How ‘Occasional’ Was Edwards’ Occasionalism?,” 61–77. A number of recent interpreters of Edwards have noted his commitment to some four-dimensionalist doctrine, according to which objects “persist” through time by having temporal parts on a par with physical parts, which exist at different times and which can be aggregated together to form one four-dimensional whole. See, Roderick Chisholm, Person and Object (London: Routledge, 1976), appendix A, 138–147; Oliver Crisp, Jonathan Edwards and the Metaphysics of Sin (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), chapter 5; and Paul Helm, Faith and Understanding (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997), chapter 7. However, Michael Rea has argued, I think persuasively, that Edwards is probably better understood as a four-dimensionalist who defends something like a species of stage theory. Unlike a doctrine of temporal parts, this idea was “in the air” at the time, being espoused by, among others, David Hume and

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Anthony Collins. Although the doctrine of temporal parts (or perdurantism) and stage theory share a common ontology, the way this ontology is “carved up” is different. For the stage theorist things do not persist through time, strictly speaking. One momentary “stage” is succeeded by a numerically distinct but qualitatively identical stand-in, which succeeds it in a series. For discussion, see Michael C. Rea, “The Metaphysics of Original Sin,” in Persons: Human and Divine, ed. Dean Zimmerman and Peter van Inwagen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 319–356. This claim is developed in Oliver D. Crisp, “Jonathan Edwards’ Panentheism,” in Jonathan Edwards as Contemporary: Essays in Honor of Sang Lee, ed. Don Schweitzer (New York: Peter Lang, 2010), chapter 7 and Crisp, Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation. Edwards’s panentheism is also discussed in John W. Cooper, Panentheism, the Other God of The Philosophers (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 74–77; Douglas Elwood, The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960); and Sang Lee, The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards, chapter VII. For recent discussion of divine simplicity, see Jeffrey E. Brower, “Simplicity and Aseity,” in Thomas P. Flint and Michael C. Rea, eds. The Oxford Handbook to Philosophical Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 105–128. For historical discussion relevant to Edwards’s milieu, see Richard A. Muller, PostReformation Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 3 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 38–44; 271–298. He also, somewhat paradoxically, thinks this is the sort of freedom that obtains in the case of human moral acts as well, although, as we have seen, he is not warranted in drawing this conclusion given his commitment to occasionalism. For if no created thing persists through time for more than a moment then no created agents persist through time for more than a moment. What is more, if God is the sole causal agent, creatures being merely the occasions of his action, then we do not cause anything to obtain. Taken together, these two elements of Edwards’s occasionalism mean that any idea of creaturely moral action collapses. But discussion of this would take us too far from our present concern although it does have an obvious Christological application. For further discussion of the metaphysics of this matter, see Crisp, Jonathan Edwards and the Metaphysics of Sin. Cooper, Panentheism, 27, citing F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Third Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 1213. In their recent defence of a Berkeleyan immaterialist account of the Incarnation, Marc Hight and Joshua Bohannon make it clear that “The modern view of matter

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Oliver D. Crisp sees it as an unthinking, extended substance. Within the context of this view [viz. Berkeleyan immaterialism] material and immaterial substances are strictly incommensurable.” “The Son More Visible: Immaterialism and the Incarnation,” Modern Theology 26:1 (2010): 124. The same would apply mutatis mutandis to Edwardsian immaterialism. But—to anticipate a later section of the argument—this is only an approximation to Edwards’s position, because his occasionalism means that the collocated propertybundle that is Christ’s human body is actually a series of numerically distinct bodystages that do not persist through time, but are replaced by succeeding body-stages in a series of body-stages that can be aggregated to form a four-dimensional entity that exists across space-time. A similar point is made with reference to Berkeleyan immaterialism in Hight and Bohannon, “A Son More Visible,” 136. Norman P. Tanner, ed. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, Vol. I (Nicaea I–Lateran V) (London and Washington, DC: Sheed and Ward and Georgetown University Press), 86–87. See Hight and Bohannon, “A Son More Visible,” 124–129. As they put it, “A principled immaterialist reading of the Incarnation not only fulfils the demand of orthodox faith but makes other philosophical analyses of the Incarnation better by removing one problem that vexes the materialist Christian: the problem associated with possession of a human body by the Son” 128. That said, where he does speak about universals he says things that would be consistent with immaterialism. See, for example, the corollary to The Mind, entry 43 in YE 6:362. Discussion of Edwards’s Spirit Christology can be found in Holmes’s God of Grace, 136–142; Plantinga-Pauw, The Supreme Harmony of All, 145–150; and, most importantly, in Robert Caldwell’s study, Communion in The Spirit, especially chapter 4. This is discussed at greater length in Crisp, Jonathan Edwards and the Metaphysics of Sin. St. Anselm of Canterbury is a good example of just this sort of view of the necessity of the Incarnation. He says, “And if you want to know what the true necessity was behind all the things which he did and had done to him, know this: all these things of necessity were, because he himself so willed it. Indeed, no necessity is antecedent to his will,” Cur Deus Homo, II. 17. Here William Rowe’s discussion of the implications of Edwards’s position is especially helpful. See Rowe, Can God Be Free? chapter 4. So, for example, Miscellanies entry 704 seems to pull in an infralapsarian direction, but much of what Edwards says in End of Creation seems, on the face of it, to lend

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itself to a supralapsarian construal. For discussion of this point, see Oliver Crisp, Jonathan Edwards and the Metaphysics of Sin, chapter 1. Crisp, Jonathan Edwards and the Metaphysics of Sin, 21. This is not to say there are no idealists left, just that they are few and far between. Representative contemporary idealists include Robert Merrihew Adams, John Foster, and Howard Robinson. Note that the claim here refers only to materialism concerning theological anthropology (i.e., humans) not to global materialism, which is necessarily inconsistent with orthodox Christian faith. Of course, Edwards is a global immaterialist. I suppose it would be difficult to motivate and argument for some restricted immaterialism, according to which only some entities, such as humans, are essentially immaterial entities, while other entities, like mountains or trees, are essentially material entities.

Bibliography St. Anselm. Cur Deus Homo, translated by Brian Davies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, first print 1998. Brower, Jeffrey E. “Simplicity and Aseity.” In The Oxford Handbook to Philosophical Theology, edited by Thomas P. Flint and Michael C. Rea, 105–128. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Caldwell III, Robert W. Communion in the Spirit: The Holy Spirit as the Bond of Union in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards. Milton Keynes: Paternoster Press, 2006. Carse, James. Jonathan Edwards and the Visibility of God. New York: Charles Schribner’s, 1967. Chisholm, Roderick. Person and Object. London: Routledge, 1976. Cooper, John. Panentheism, the Other God of the Philosophers. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006. Crisp, Oliver D. “Jonathan Edwards on Divine Simplicity” in Religious Studies 39:1 (2003): 23–41. Crisp, Oliver D. Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Crisp, Oliver D. Jonathan Edwards and the Metaphysics of Sin. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005. Crisp, Oliver D. “Jonathan Edwards’s Ontology: A Critique of Sang Hyun Lee’s Dispositional Account of Edwardsian Metaphysics.” In Religious Studies 46:1 (2010): 1–20. Cross, F. L., and E. A. Livingstone (eds.). The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Third Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

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Edwards, Jonathan. The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 26. Vols. Edited by Perry Miller, John E. Smith and Harry S. Stout, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957–2008. Elwood, Douglas. The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards New York: Columbia University Press, 1960. Flint, Thomas P., and Michael C. Rea (eds.). The Oxford Handbook to Philosophical Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Helm, Paul. Faith and Understanding. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997. Helm, Paul, and Oliver D. Crisp (eds.). Jonathan Edwards: Philosophical Theologian. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003. Hight, Marc, and Joshua Bohannon. “The Son More Visible: Immaterialism and the Incarnation.” In Modern Theology 26:1 (2010): 1–48. Holmes, Stephen R. God of Grace and God of Glory: An Account of the Theology of Jonathan Edwards. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000. Jenson, Robert. America’s Theology: A Recommendation of Jonathan Edwards. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Jordan, Jeff, and Daniel Howard-Snyder (eds.). Faith, Freedom, and Responsibility. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996. Locke, John. Essay Concerning Human Understanding, edited by Peter Nidditch. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. Marsden, George. Jonathan Edwards: A Life. New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 2003. Muller, Richard. Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 3. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003. Plantinga, Alvin. “How to be an Anti-Realist.” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 56:1 (1982): 477-7–0. Plantinga-Pauw, Amy.“The Supreme Harmony of All”: The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002. Rea, Michael C. “The Metaphysics of Original Sin.” In Persons: Human and Divine, edited by Dean Zimmerman and Peter van Inwagen, 319–356. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Rowe, William. Can God Be Free? Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Sang Hyun Lee, Sang Lee, editorial introduction to Jonathan Edwards, Writings on the Trinity, Grace, and Faith, the Works of Jonathan Edwards Vol. 21. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. Sang Hyun Lee. The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards, Expanded Edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Sang Hyun Lee. (eds.). The Princeton Companion to Jonathan Edwards. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. Schweitzer, Don (ed.). Jonathan Edwards as Contemporary: Essays in Honor of Sang Lee. New York: Peter Lang, 2010.

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Studebaker, Steven. “Jonathan Edwards Social Augustinian Trintarianism: An Alternative to a Recent Trend.” In Scottish Journal of Theology 56:3 (2003): 268–285. Tanner, Norman P. (ed.). Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, Vol. I (Nicaea I–Lateran V). London and Washington, DC: Sheed and Ward and Georgetown University Press. Wainwright, William. “Jonathan Edwards.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http:// plato.stanford.edu/entries/edwards/ (accessed July 5, 2010). Zimmerman, Dean, and Peter van Inwagen (eds.). Persons: Human and Divine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

9

Jonathan Edwards’s Dynamic Idealism and Cosmic Christology Seng-Kong Tan

LOGOS. It the more confirms me in it, that the perfect idea God has of himself is truly and properly God, that the existence of all corporeal things is only ideas. Jonathan Edwards1

[I]t appears that the Holy Spirit is the pure act of God and energy of the Deity, by his office, which is to actuate and quicken all things, and to beget energy and vivacity in the creature. Jonathan Edwards2

Much scholarly work can be found on Jonathan Edwards’s idealism.3 And studies on his Christology are increasing.4 However, very little has been written on the confluence of the two, save for a recent and helpful essay by Oliver Crisp.5 Among other things, Crisp takes great care to distinguish Edwards’s species of idealism from Berkeley’s. He does not, however, explore the pneumatic dimension of Edwards’s idealism. In this essay, I utilize Edwards’s Trinitarian musings, particularly on the reciprocity of Word and Spirit, to illuminate and exegete his philosophical idealism in two parts.6 First, I argue that Edwards’s pneumatic idealism is grounded in the divine being and is crucial to his construal of the created order. Not only do I show that pneumatic action ensures the dynamism and objectivity of this ideal, physical universe, in part two, I argue that this very same Spirit causes the being and identity of the incarnate Logos.

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Necessary processions of idea and action in God We start by looking at Edwards’s doctrine of the triune being. In line with the Augustinian tradition, Edwards reads the Trinity in predominantly psychological terms, in which the Son and Spirit are understood respectively as the intellect and will of God in eternal action.7 He weds this psychological analogy to a mutual-love model, where God and Logos stand in an eternal, dynamic relation of love in their Spirit.8 According to Edwards, by “God’s thinking of the Deity,” the Logos is generated. As the “reflex or contemplative idea,” the Son is the eternal object generated and perceived by the Father. 9 The Son, therefore, subsists by an eternal returning gaze toward the Father: “The idea’s beholding is the idea’s existing.”10 In this mutual act of looking upon and beholding each other, the Holy Spirit proceeds from Father to the Son, who returns the Spirit to the Father. In this double procession, the Spirit comes forth from the Father “mediately by the Son, viz., by the Father’s beholding himself in the Son,” while the Spirit proceeds directly from the Son “by beholding the Father in himself.”11 This reciprocal, pure operation of love between the Father and Son is “the Deity in act . . . the divine nature as subsisting in pure act and perfect energy.”12 In the Father and Son’s ordered but mutual regard for each other, the Holy Spirit exists. As the will is posterior to intellect even in God, the Son’s existence is solely dependent upon the Father’s generation, but the Spirit’s being is from both Father and Son.13 Nonetheless, the Spirit’s procession is not separate from the Son’s generation as the divine Idea accompanies the “infinite, substantial, intelligent love” of the Deity.14 The origin of Word and Spirit are the two natural, or “necessary, essential, and so independent” processions in God.15 This eternal Word-Spirit connection is the ground of Edwards’s pneumatic idealism. How are the divine Idea and Act in God related to the willed procession of creatures from God?

Virtual ideas as comprehended by the divine idea in love While the creation of the universe—one of God’s free decrees—is distinct from God’s natural or necessary processions ad intra, the Son and Spirit are the reasons (rationes) for the emanation of creatures ad extra.16 The reality of this universe is virtually comprehended in the generation of the Son. “Tis also said that God’s knowledge of himself includes the knowledge of all things; and that he knows, and from eternity knew, all things by the looking on himself and by the idea of

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himself, because he is virtually all things.”17 And the exercise and communication of God’s love toward the creature—the end of creation—are “virtually contained” in the procession of the Spirit.18 This language of virtuality in Edwards is the philosophical cognate of the theological language of the divine decrees.19 Things in themselves remain only possibilities or natural knowledge except as God freely decrees them “into a state of futurition, to be certainly future.”20 Here, Edwards distinguishes God’s natural and free knowledge as located respectively in the Father and Son. God’s natural knowledge includes God’s “love” and “knowledge of everything possible,” and this is identical to God the Father—God’s “mere direct consciousness.”21 “There must be,” however, “something to bring it out of a state of mere possibility, into a state of futurition, and this must be God only.”22 This power to move possibilities into free knowledge is exercised by the Father in the divine generation of the Son.23 As Edwards puts it, When God considers of making anything for himself, he presents himself before himself and views himself as his end; and that viewing himself is the same as reflecting on himself or having an idea of himself. And to make the world for the Godhead thus viewed and understood is to make the world for the Godhead begotten: and that is to make the world for the Son of God.24

How do virtual ideas or the decree of creation exist in the Logos?25 The idea of the created universe exists perfectly in the divine mind and is perceived according to a divine mode of perception—atemporally.26 So Edwards’s assertion that “all God’s ideas are only the one idea of himself ” means that all ideas of things to be are already comprehended and present in the Logos as an eternal “now.”27 The ideas of future creation are real, ontological principles—dispositions that lie between possibility and actuality—residing eternally in the Logos.28 They are “laws that constitute all permanent being in created things, both corporeal and spiritual.”29 However, virtual ideas in the Logos are dispositions to actuality only with the involvement of the Spirit. That is why all possibilities exist in the Father as prevolitional ideas. Insofar as God is Trinity only in the coming forth of the Spirit—“the end of all procession,” virtual ideas of creation exist in God’s Love toward his Son.30 The creation of the world is decreed in the conjunct processions of Son and Spirit. Edwards elucidates: For God made the world for himself from love to himself; but God loves himself only in a reflex act He views himself and so loves himself; so he makes the world for himself, viewed and reflected on, and that is the same with himself repeated or begotten in his own idea: and that is his Son.31

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The future creation of the universe, as with all things decreed by God, is “virtually done in the sight of the Father” by the Son in the Spirit.32 It is an act of election by the triune God.

Creation as an act of the divine idea Just as possible ideas are made virtual through divine election, so the universe is actualized by God’s Logos and Spirit. When the divine power is exercised ad extra, it is equivalent to the operation of God’s understanding and will.33 Creation, whether contemplated ad intra or communicated ad extra, is a Trinitarian act. Nonetheless, there is divine ordering to the work of creation. The universe comes into being by the Father through the Son’s Spirit since the Logos is the mediator of all divine works. As Edwards explains, “All universally are by the Spirit . . . as the Spirit of the Son.”34 As the Spirit is the divine volition, disposition or act of God, the Logos wills virtual ideas into actual ideas. Edwards elaborates: The love of God as it flows forth ad extra is wholly determined and directed by divine wisdom, so that those only are the objects of it that divine wisdom chooses. So that the creation of the world is to gratify divine love as that is exercised by divine wisdom. But Christ is divine wisdom, so that the world is made to gratify divine love as exercised by Christ.35

Just as there is an ordering of creation, so God’s communication to the world is similarly ordered. While all ideas are comprehended in the divine Logos, the creation of the universe is not a temporal communication of the divine Idea or the divine Love. The universe in itself is not a self-communication of God, but is a created image of the Son’s own person. Only as the Son gives his Spirit to redeemed creatures does this constitute a divine self-communication ad extra—the end of creation.36 In other words, the universe is made by the Son’s Spirit in order that he might communicate his Spirit.37 What then is Edwards’s understanding of the essence and existence of the created world?

Creation as a continual communication of ideas For Edwards, there is no such thing as extended substance, created or uncreated, and no occult or “unknown substance” underlying physical things.38 Only the

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triune Deity is true substance. Proceeding from God, the Logos and Spirit are respectively the “substantial and personal idea” and “infinite, substantial, intelligent love” of the divine nature and only they have independent existence, essence, and subsistence.39 The divine Idea and Love are what they are, and they are the particular persons that they are because they derive the one, same, divine essence from the Father ultimately and necessarily. Though physical entities are real, there is no material substance for “no matter is, in the most proper sense, matter.”40 A physical entity or a “body,” according to Edwards, “is nothing but an infinite resistance in some part of space caused by the immediate exercise of divine power.”41 If original creation out of nothing is God’s first exercise of such divine power, then it follows that “preservation [is] only the continuation or the repetition of this power every moment to cause this resistance.” That being the case, preservation is nothing but “the universe [being] created out of nothing every moment.”42 All creation—bodies and spirits—derive their essence and existence through continual creation out of nothing. Each momentary world stage is not positively annihilated in the sense that it is destroyed and then brought into existence again. Since there is no hidden substance to ensure permanence of being, the universe would revert into relative nothingness or “empty space”—its counterfactual condition—apart from continuing, divine action.43 Unlike God, created beings do not have the power of self-subsistence. However, created entities are an ongoing series of effects or events caused by God ad extra that imitate the divine being.44 Creatures are similar to the divine processions ad intra as they are “constantly proceeding from God” ad extra, only that they do not have independent essence and existence.45 Creation as a continual ex nihilo operation is closely linked to Edwards’s dynamic pneumatology and his conception of the divine persons as perpetual processions.46 We might say that created entities are temporal verbs. If the “substance of bodies at last becomes . . . nothing but the Deity acting in that particular manner in those parts of space where he thinks fit,” matter is the conjunct operations of the divine Act and Idea ad extra.47 Created substances, which are essentially ideas of resistance or solidity, with their properties and relations, do not exist in a space-time receptacle. Rather, time consists of a series of contingent, world stages communicated sequentially to a community of created spirits, which is brought into existence similarly.48 For Edwards, all physical bodies and created spirits exist as ideas in God communicated ad extra.49 How, then, are created spirits different from bodies?

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First, bodies only exist as ideas perceived by a community of created minds.50 Edwards’s notion that created minds passively receive a constellation of properties— color, motion, relations—as ideas is similar to Berkeley’s brand of idealism.51 The physical universe needs a community of sentient minds to be conscious of it for it to be real and, therefore, ad extra or objectively real to God.52 Second, and related to the previous point, while both bodies and spirits do not self-subsist or have the power of “autonomous self-perpetuation,” spirits do not depend on the perception of other created minds for their existence.53 Hence, sentient minds have some degree of substantiality, unlike bodies, which are but shadows of being.54 Thirdly, created beings mirror God not only as thinking, volitional beings but also as active, reflexive ideas.55 Sentient beings, for Edwards, are not only to be perceived but also to be doing (esse est percipi et operari).56 In their natural state, human beings are respectively like Spirit and Word as active dispositions and self-reflective ideas, in a continual “reception and remanation of the idea of existence.”57 In their regenerated states, they are active spirits who love and know God and others as possessors of the divine Idea and Love. As a species of created spirits, human beings are spirit-body composites— unions of active and passive ideas. The spirit-body union and the consequent “vital communication between them” are not grounded in “either substance,” but are so by Word and Spirit. As Edwards phrases it, this union is caused and upheld by “an arbitrary institution of divine wisdom, and the laws of this connection being performed by voluntary and immediate divine efficacy.”58 In short, God’s mere thinking, without a corollary willing and acting, does not bring about the created universe of active and passive ideas, be they pure spirits, bodies, or human beings.59 The physical universe is objective to human minds insofar as it is grounded in the divine mind. At the same time, in the continuing act of creation, the virtual universe that is communicated as and to created minds becomes “external” to and objectively real to God. Otherwise, created reality remains an atemporal, perfect series of ideas in God’s mind—as possibilities in the Father and virtualities in the Son.

Objective idealism: Identity and continuity in created being To this point we have seen that Edwards’s doctrine of continuous creation and immaterialism mean that created entities have no essence, existence, and

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permanent identity in and of themselves. Nonetheless, God’s action ad extra is not only continual and creative but also identity constitutive.60 That is, God not only confers ongoing, temporal existence and properties to all things but also ensures that these temporal slices of reality are continuously united. Edwards writes, There is no identity or oneness in the case, but what depends on the arbitrary constitution of the Creator; who by his wise sovereign establishment so unites these successive new effects, that he treats them as one, by communicating to them like properties, relations, and circumstances; and so, leads us to regard and treat them as one.61

How does God ensure continuity and identity in created beings? As with the virtual idea of creation and its actualization, continuity and identity in created things depends wholly on an “arbitrary constitution” of God, which is by Word and Act. “When I call this an arbitrary constitution,” Edwards remarks, “I mean, that it is a constitution which depends on nothing but the divine will; which divine will depends on nothing but the divine wisdom.”62 God’s constitution is “arbitrary” (and not in a capricious sense) insofar as it founded upon the divine freedom and knowledge, that is, by God’s ordained power (de potentia ordinata). Divine constitution is fundamentally nomic; it is based upon spiritual or natural laws, which God has established to order the divine action ad extra. As actualized ad extra, it has two main elements: ontological and relational, which we will examine in turn. First, while the universe is a numerically discrete series of ideas communicated ad extra, God ensures that each idea has an ontological connection with what comes before and after it. There is a real oneness whereby God “unites these successive effects” through a communication or “continuation of qualities, properties, or relations, natural or moral, from what is past.” 63 In relation to inanimate objects, for example, a tree, “God has in a constant succession communicated to it many of the same qualities, and most important properties, as if it were one.”64 Similarly, for intelligent beings, Edwards speaks of a “communication or continuance of the same consciousness and memory to any subject, through successive parts of duration.”65 So, humankind is considered one moral person with Adam upon a “real union,” like that of “root and branches,” by which all human beings share in original sin “in reality and propriety.”66 Every human being really (in a quasi-organic way) participates in same kind of guilt and corruption that follows the sin of the first Adam by inheriting a similar sinful disposition.67

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Second, on the basis of such a real union, a twofold relational union— epistemological and ethical—ensues. Epistemologically, God perceives, looks upon, or regards the real union of successive effects as one. Just as the Father eternally “looks upon” His own perfect Idea—“that face, aspect, form or appearance whereby God eternally appears to himself,” so God beholds all created ideas ad extra as one in reality corresponding to the virtual, perfect, series of ideas in Christ.68 Ethically, God treats and operates upon creation as an organic whole. This relational union, once again, is the function of the divine Idea and Act ad extra. While all the numerically discrete slivers of created ideas are communicated ad extra on a continuing creation and idealistic framework, God “treats them as one . . . and so, leads us to regard and treat them as one” in view of a real, ontological union. Likewise, when human beings are “looked upon and treated as though they were partakers with Adam in his act of sin,” therefore original sin is thereby imputed to the whole Adam (totus Adam).69 For Edwards, his idealism is not meant to displace the commonsense, scientific conception of the universe: “Though we suppose that the existence of the whole material universe is absolutely dependent on idea, yet we may speak in the old way, and as properly and truly as ever.”70 For, “all the natural changes in the universe . . . in a continued series” are commensurate with that completed, virtual series of ideas in the Logos.71 That is why “divine constitution is the thing which makes truth,” for it includes both an ontic and epistemological correspondence between the actual to the virtual ideas in God.72 That individual identity of a created thing is not located in itself, be it in an underlying substance or otherwise, need not undermine creaturely integrity. For a created thing to be dynamically recreated and reconstituted as singular testifies to its utter poverty of independent being and its radically dependent ontological relation to God. This oneness of the physical universe is, therefore, not an illusion to God or human beings.73

Jesus Christ as the union of created idea and divine idea Similar to natural unions, spiritual unions—in the Trinity, Christ, between Christ, and the church and among Christians—involve the real and the relational.74 In the incarnation, a spiritual union comes about when the Spirit indwells the human nature of Christ.75 As a result, a real, ontological union—the hypostatic union—ensues where “that creature [the human Jesus] may become one person”

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with the Logos. This is followed by a relational union, where the Father regards and treats the incarnate Logos as His Son.76 What further thoughts does Edwards have of this real union? The hypostatic union consists of a twofold act of the Spirit: the creation of the human nature and its unification with the Logos.77 Similar to his cosmology, Edwards’s construal of the uncreated Idea coming to exist as an idea in time includes the divine action of giving being and identity. The incarnation is an act of “making in union.”78 Let us consider the two modes of action in turn. First, there is the conception of the human nature of Christ—the making in union. The creation of “the human nature of Christ and what belongs to it is by the Spirit as the Spirit of the Father.”79 This, then, is a unique instance of creation insofar as the rest of the universe is brought into being by the Spirit of the Son (of the Father). It is exceptional in order to safeguard personal unity: Christ cannot be continuously creating his own human nature as if it were some other thing. It is also sui generis due to aesthetic congruence: It is fitting that the Father sends his Spirit to create the idea of perfect, human existence since it is the Father who eternally generates the perfect, uncreated Idea in the Spirit.80 Second, we turn to the unification of this human nature to the Logos—the making in union. For the incarnational or hypostatic union to come about, the Spirit of the Logos must indwell the human nature.81 It is “the Logos or Word [who] sent forth this constituent, or principle of assumption or unition, to assume it out of nothing to himself.”82 By the indwelling of the Spirit of the divine Logos in the human nature, a personal union with the divine Idea is brought about. “The human nature of Christ was so honored as to be in the same person with the eternal Son of God.”83 On Edwards’s idealism, however, the human nature is not in the divine Logos spatially since “place itself is mental, and ‘within’ and ‘without’ are mere mental conceptions.”84 Just as there must be a relation of dependence or mutual communication between body and spirit to constitute a sentient entity, so the assumed human nature derives existence and subsistence from the Logos.85 A particular, created idea enters into a relation of dependence to the divine Idea. If the hypostatic union is not a proximate in-existence of the human nature in the Word, no communion of natures (communion naturarum) parsed as the interpenetration (perichoresis) of substances is to be had either. “In Jesus who dwelt here upon earth, there was [sic] immediately only these two things: there was . . . the human nature; and . . . the eternal Spirit, by which he was united to the Logos. Jesus who dwelt among us, was as it were compounded of these

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two.”86 Strictly speaking, the earthly Jesus is a composite of the divine Act and created idea, who is united to the divine Idea. Edwards’s Christology simply does not have to deal with the more complicated union of an immaterial substance (Word) with a composite substance that is both material and immaterial (bodysoul).87 In light of Edwards’s doctrine of continuous creation, there is no hypostatic union that follows the act of assumption or unition. On Edwards’s ontology, the incarnation is much more accurately described as a series of reiterative acts of assumption—the continual recreating and reuniting of the human nature to the Logos. It is a communication ad infinitum of a created idea ad extra and its union with the divine Idea ad intra. This is preceded by a perpetual sending or communication ad extra of the Pure Act of Father and Son to effect the creation and unition of created idea to the divine Idea. The hypostatic union is, properly speaking, a reiterative hypostatic uniting. That the Holy Spirit acts as a “principle of assumption and unition” in Christ is commensurate with his role as the bond of union in God.88 According to Edwards’s definition, if “a person is that which hath understanding and will,” then a personal union must consist of a union between the understandings and wills of the two natures.89 Accordingly, the Spirit also acts as the “principle of union” between the two natures of Christ.90 But as he is pure act and perfect energy, “the Holy Ghost must . . . act as a means of conveyance of the understanding and will of the divine Logos, to the understanding and will of the human nature, or of the union of these understandings and wills.”91 For Edwards, this continual communication of consciousness from the divine to the human nature just is the communion of natures.92 Nonetheless, this communication is primarily asymmetrical, and in this case of Christ’s personal consciousness, the uncreated Idea communicates unilaterally to the created idea.93 From this, Edwards concludes that the human Jesus participates in the eternal knowledge of the preexistent Logos. This comes to the man Jesus as “reminiscence or consciousness of what appertained to the eternal Logos, and so of his happiness with the Father.”94 Jesus does not have such memories as the Logos has in divine mode, but appropriately “after the manner of a creature.”95 Edwards was certain that the man Jesus had such recollections except for “the particular manner of this consciousness, and how far the ideas of a creature can be after the manner of the divine, and how a creature may be said to remember what is in God.”96 In the incarnation, created idea and uncreated Idea are united through a correspondence of content without a confusion of modes.

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In conjunction with and as a consequence of this real, hypostatic union, “by what is inherent in this man, whereby he becomes one person,” a relational union follows where there comes about a “respect which God hath to this human nature.”97 The real union occurs within the complex person of Christ, which allows the assumed human nature to participate in the Logos-Father relation. In the hypostatic union, “this man hath communion with the Logos, in the love which the Father hath to him as his only begotten Son.” As the Father eternally beholds and loves the Logos by the Spirit, “God hath respect to this man and loveth him as his own Son” in time. And because of the indwelling Spirit of the Logos, the man Jesus “is conscious of a respect in the Father to him as the only begotten Son.” In eternity and time, there is a mutual beholding, regard, and love between the Father and Son. In the hypostatic union, as the Father looks upon and treats Jesus as his Son, so Christ is “disposed towards the Father as being his own Father in the manner that he is the Father of the Logos.”98 In short, while the real communication of consciousness within Christ seems to be unidirectional, the resultant relational union between the incarnate Word and his Father is mutual, though asymmetrical. By the Pure Act that binds the Logos with the human nature, Christ as man comes into a relation of reciprocal regard and love with the eternal Father. It is in this perception of the Father that Jesus has life and being.99 “The idea’s beholding is the idea’s existing” in time and eternity.100 Yet it is only by the Spirit that this beholding is an active, loving perception of God.

Conclusion In the foregoing sections, I have tried to show that Edwards’s idealism and Christology are pneumatic from start to end. As the place of all virtual ideas, the cosmic Christ is the creative cause and ground of all ideas of the universe. Yet, these ideas of creation are not only disposed toward future reality by the Spirit, they are actualized and conferred identity moment by moment ad extra through pneumatic action. It is through a similarly communicative and unifying work of the Spirit that the incarnate Logos attains dynamic, objective reality and personal identity. This real being and particularity that Christ and this world obtain ensures the authenticity of all relations. Since God truly treats Jesus as one person with the Logos and the actual world as a united whole, our regard for the integrity of the incarnate Son and the mundane world is not a deception. On the contrary, we perceive the truth of Christ and the world as God sees it because he has made them true.

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Notes 1 “Miscellanies,” no. 179, in WJEO 13:327. I gratefully acknowledge the time and effort that the editors have spent in reviewing this essay. All references to the works of Jonathan Edwards are taken from the online edition and appear last WJEO followed by volume number. 2 “Miscellanies,” no. 94, in WJEO 13:261. 3 This essay will deal with neither the sources nor similarities of Edwards’s philosophical idealism with that of his predecessors, whether Berkeley, Malebranche, or Locke. See, for example, Wallace E. Anderson, “Immaterialism in Jonathan Edwards’ Early Philosophical Notes,” Journal of the History of Ideas 25:2 (April–June 1964): 181–200; Stephen H. Daniel, “Edwards’ Occasionalism,” in Jonathan Edwards as Contemporary, ed. Don Schweitzer (New York: Peter Lang, 2010); and Paul Copan, “Jonathan Edwards’ Philosophical Influences—Lockean or Malebranchean?,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 44 (March 2001): 107–124. 4 See Robert W. Jenson, “Christology,” in The Princeton Companion to Jonathan Edwards, ed. Sang Hyun Lee (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005); Robert W. Caldwell III, Communion in the Spirit: The Holy Spirit as the Bond of Union in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Milton Keynes: Paternoster Press, 2006); and, most recently, W. Ross Hastings, Jonathan Edwards and the Life of God: Toward an Evangelical Theology of Participation (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2015). 5 Oliver D. Crisp concludes that Edwards’s philosophy does not lead him to a Christology that is heterodox, but “metaphysically exotic.” See his “Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), Idealism and Christology,” ch. 3 of Revisioning Christology: Theology in the Reformed Tradition (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011), 43–67; reprinted as chapter 9 of this volume. 6 Edwards directs his readers to consult his philosophical idealism (“Of Being,” WJEO 6:203–206) when theologizing on the generation of the Logos (“Miscellanies,” no. 94, in WJEO 13:298). 7 Edwards also employed a social analogy of the Trinity. How all these models stood in relation to the others; which one was primary; and how they were influenced by the preceding philosophical (Lockean, Malebranchean) and theological (Augustinian-Thomist, Greek) traditions are issues still in debate. I have argued elsewhere that these models may be fruitfully integrated through a procession and return framework. See Seng-Kong Tan, Fullness Received and Returned: Trinity and Participation in Jonathan Edwards (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014), 5–49. The now standard reference on this topic is Amy Plantinga Pauw’s The Supreme Harmony of All: The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Grand Rapics, MI: Eerdmans, 2002). See also Sang Hyun Lee, “Editor’s Introduction,” in WJEO 21:2–38. For a

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recent reading, see Kyle C. Strobel, Jonathan Edwards’s Theology: A Reinterpretation, reprint ed. (New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014). 8 Steven M. Studebaker and Robert W. Caldwell III, The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards: Text, Context, and Application (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012). 9 “Discourse on the Trinity,” in WJEO 21:116. That Edwards did not abandon the notion of the Logos as being the Father’s “reflex act of knowledge” (pace Strobel) is clear as this is a late addition to the manuscript. Lee dates it early- to mid-1750s (ibid., 141n1). 10 “Discourse on the Trinity,” in WJEO 21:143. 11 Ibid. 12 Among Edwards’s other rich descriptions, the Spirit is also “the act of the will” and “the disposition, temper or affection of the divine mind” (“Discourse on the Trinity,” in WJEO 21:121–122). 13 “So that by God’s thinking of the Deity, [the Deity] must certainly be generated. Hereby there is another person begotten” (“Discourse on the Trinity,” in WJEO 21:116). 14 “Treatise of Grace,” in WJEO 21:186. 15 “On the Equality,” in WJEO 21:147–148. 16 Echoing Aquinas, Edwards states that “the perfection of [God’s] understanding” or Logos is “the foundation of his wise purposes and decrees,” just as the Spirit or “holiness of his nature . . . [is] the cause and reason of his holy determinations” (WJE 1:376). See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Benzinger Brothers, 1947), I, q. 45, a. 6 & 7. Similarly, because St. Thomas appropriates ideas in the divine mind to the Word by likeness, the Word is the locus of God’s ideas. See Gregory T. Doolan, Aquinas on the Divine Ideas as Exemplar Causes (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008), 119. 17 “Miscellanies,” no. 94, in WJEO 13:257. Michael Gibson argues the Edwards’s doctrine of creation is a species of Christian neo-Platonism, where ideas in the divine mind are similar to Maximus of Confessor’s logoi. See Michael D. Gibson, “The Beauty of the Redemption of the World: The Theological Aesthetics of Maximus the Confessor and Jonathan Edwards,” Harvard Theological Review 100:1 (2008): 61–63. While Edwards read the Cambridge Platonists and cited Plato’s notion of the divine forms, which “he calls παραδειγμα and εικονα, an exemplar or image” (Misc. 955, in WJEO 20:228, where Edwards cites Gale’s Court of the Gentiles, pt. 2, bk. 2, ch. 8, p. 181), he did not construe virtual ideas as self-subsisting universals. They only exist in and through the divine intellect and volition. 18 “That eternal act or energy of the divine nature within him, whereby he infinitely loves and delights in himself, I suppose does imply fundamentally goodness and

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20 21 22

23

24 25

26

27

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29 30 31 32

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Seng-Kong Tan grace towards creatures, if there be that occasion which infinite wisdom sees fit” (“Miscellanies,” no. 553, in WJEO 18:97). The decree of creation is “confederated” by the Trinity just as the church is elected to share in Christ and his benefits (“Blank Bible,” note on Gen 1: 1, in WJEO 24:123; see also “Miscellanies,” no. 769, in WJEO 18:418). “Part 4: Predestination,” in “Controversies” Notebook, in WJEO 27. “Discourse on the Trinity,” in WJEO 21:141 (emphasis added). “Part 4: Predestination,” in “Controversies” Notebook, in WJEO 27. The power of God as “that by which God exerts himself, ‘tis no other than the Father” (“Miscellanies,” no. 94, in WJEO 13:262). “Discourse on the Trinity,” in WJEO 21:141, 116. Malebranche, on the other hand, regarded God as contemplating all possible worlds in the Son. See Jasper Reid, “The Trinitarian Metaphysics of Jonathan Edwards and Nicolas Malebranche,” Heythrop Journal 43:2 (2002): 156–157. “Discourse on the Trinity,” in WJEO 21:142. Inasmuch as “there was a consultation among the three persons” and a “joint agreement of all” with regard to the covenant of redemption (pactum salutis), so there was “as much doubtless as about the creating of man” (“Miscellanies,” no. 1062, in WJEO 20:442). “Things as to God exist from all eternity alike. That is, the idea is always the same, and after the same mode.” (“The Mind,” no. 36, in WJEO 6:355). Certainly, there is “eternal duration” in this Boethian aeternitas (WJEO 1:385–86). “For everything that is, has been, or shall be, having been perfectly in God’s idea from all eternity . . . therefore, all things from eternity were equally present with God, and there is no alteration made in [his] idea by presence and absence as there is in us” (“Miscellanies,” no. 94, in WJEO 13:258). See also, WJEO 1:254. John J. Bombaro, Jonathan Edwards’s Vision of Reality: The Relationship of God to the World, Redemption, History, and the Reprobate (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012), 114. “Subjects to be Handled,” no. 36, WJEO 6:391. “On the Equality of the Persons of the Trinity,” in WJEO 21:146. “Discourse on the Trinity,” in WJEO 21:142 (emphasis added). “Justification by Faith Alone,” in WJEO 19:192, italics mine. Similarly, the promises in the covenant of redemption “were made to Christ as a public person, as virtually containing the whole future church that he had taken as it were into himself ” (“Miscellanies,” no. 1091, in WJEO 20:475 (emphasis added). Hence, “God’s power or ability to bring things to pass . . . is not really distinct from his understanding and will . . . but only with the relation they have to those effects that are or are to be produced” (“Discourse on the Trinity,” in WJEO 21:131). So,

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34 35 36

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the extent of God’s omnipotence ad extra is His infinity (“Miscellanies,” no. 194, in WJEO 13:355). “Miscellanies,” no. 958, in WJE 20:234. “Discourse on the Trinity,” in WJEO 21:142. So, human beings, “the consciousness of perception of the creation, is the immediate subject of this”—the Son’s Spirit or happiness (“Miscellanies,” no. 104, in WJEO 13:272). “He who by his immediate influence gives being every moment and by his Spirit actuates the world, because he inclines to communicate himself and his excellencies, doth doubtless communicate his excellency to bodies, as far as there is any consent or analogy” (“Miscellanies,” no. WJEO 13:279). “Miscellanies,” no. 194, in WJEO 13:335; “Of Atoms,” in WJEO 6:215. “Discourse on the Trinity,” in WJEO 21:117, 121; “Treatise on Grace,” in WJEO 21:186. “Things to be Considered and Written Fully About,” in WJEO 6:235. Ibid., 241. Ibid., 241. “The Mind,” no. 61, in WJEO 6:377. As Edwards puts it, the “very being of created things depends on laws . . . of events following one another” (“The Mind,” no. 50, in WJE 6:392). WJEO 3:404. The Son is “begotten by [the Father] from eternity and continually through eternity” while “the Holy Spirit . . . eternally and continually proceeds from both,” See “Miscellanies,” no. 143 (133), in WJEO 13:298. “Of Atoms,” in WJEO 6:215 (emphasis added). See also “Things to be Considered and Fully Written about,” no. 47, in WJEO 6:241. “Time is nothing but the existence of created successive beings, and eternity is the necessary existence of the Deity,” see Baxter, 3rd ed. 2, 409ff., as quoted by Edwards, WJEO 1:386n2. Created entities are communicated ad extra into an “infinitely great space,” which Edwards regarded as God, which is to be distinguished from “finite space” (“Of Being,” in WJEO 6:203; see also WJEO 1:387). See Crisp, “Idealism and Christology,” 55–56. “What we call body is nothing but a particular mode of perception; and what we call spirit is nothing but a composition and series of perceptions, or an universe of coexisting and successive perceptions connected by such wonderful methods and laws” (“Note on Knowledge and Existence,” in WJEO 6:398). Berkeley, by contrast, understands spirits as thinking, indivisible substances. See George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (Chicago: Open Court, 1963), 82.

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50 “But when I say, ‘the material universe exists only in the mind,’ I mean that it is absolutely dependent on the conception of the mind for its existence, and does not exist as spirits do, whose existence does not consist in, nor in dependence on, the conception of other minds” (WJEO 6:368). 51 Unlike Fichte’s subjective idealism, the objective nature of reality in Berkeley’s idealism has been transferred from “unknowable matter to that of knowable mind”; see Thomas J. McCormack, “Editor’s Preface,” in Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, xii. 52 Robert W. Jenson, America’s Theologian: Recommendation of Jonathan Edwards (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 31–32. 53 Bombaro, Vision of Reality, 161. 54 See “Miscellanies,” no. 108, in WJEO 13:279. 55 In reference to the Spirit as pure act, Edwards elaborates, “There is an image of this in created beings that approach to perfect action: how frequently do we say that the saints of heaven are all transformed into love, dissolved into joy, become activity itself, changed into mere ecstasy” (“Miscellanies,” no. 94, in WJEO 13:261). 56 Bodies have existence through being perceived by created minds (esse est percipi) whereas human minds were created by God to see and love God and others (esse est percipi et amari). See Stephen R. Holmes, God of Grace and God of Glory: An Account of the Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 87–92. 57 Bombaro, Jonathan Edwards’s Vision of Reality, 160–161. As I have argued elsewhere, the Spirit of Father and Son ad intra is the analogans of all “emanation and remanation” analogata in history and time. See Tan, Fullness Received and Returned, passim. 58 “Miscellanies,” no. 313, in WJEO 13:394. 59 This seems to be implied by Crisp if his point is not merely to insist that the existence and continuing existence of a created universe is a radically ideal one. See Oliver D. Crisp, Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 148. As noted above (n. 13), only the divine Idea exists perpetually through God’s mere thinking. 60 Edwards defines what we consider “substance” as “a complexion of such ideas which we conceive of as subsisting together and by themselves” (“The Mind,” no. 25[b], WJEO 6:350). 61 WJEO 3:403. 62 WJEO 3:403, emphasis in original. 63 WJEO 3:405. 64 WJEO 3:398. 65 WJEO 3:398.

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66 WJEO 3:407. 67 WJEO 3:391. 68 “Miscellanies,” no. 446, in WJEO 13:494. “Christ is called the ‘face’ of God . . . The root that the word comes from signifies to ‘look upon’ or ‘behold.’” 69 WJEO 3:394. Elsewhere, “God, in his disposition of things, treats ‘em [humanity] as one” with Adam (“Controversies” Notebook, in WJEO 27). Upon inheriting a real, sinful disposition by nature, the person willfully and actually sins in the same manner that Adam did. Not only that he is enmeshed in the relational context of a sociological, fallen world—a moral state of sin (407). God thus looks upon and treats the human being as “one moral person”—in a legal or covenantal union— and, therefore, imputes the guilt of Adam upon him. This ordo echoes that found in the unio cum Christo: a real union of hearts (regeneration and faith), relational union (adoption), and legal union (justification), which I have presented in Fullness Received, chapter 6. For another interpretation of this Edwardsian motif, see S. Mark Hamilton, “Jonathan Edwards on the Atonement,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 15:4 (October 2013): 394–415 70 “Subjects to be Handled in the Treatise of the Mind,” no. 34, in WJEO 6:354 (emphasis added). 71 “Subjects to be Handled in the Treatise of the Mind,” no. 34, in WJEO 6:354. 72 WJEO 3:404, italics original. As such, Edwards’s idealism puts cosmology on a most secure foundation as it is specifically a “theocentric idealism,” see Michael J. McClymond, Encounters with God: An Approach to the Theology of Jonathan Edwards (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 33. 73 That Edwards’s immaterialism does not make his Christology docetic is a point well argued by Crisp (“Idealism and Christology,” 59). Similarly, a Christology based on Berkeleyian immaterialism: Marc A. Hight and Joshua Bohannon, “The Son More Visible: Immaterialism and the Incarnation,” Modern Theology 26:1 (January 2010): 135–136. Yet, Edwards’s occasionalism and doctrine of continual creation, in Crisp’s estimation, makes “persistence through time” illusory (“Idealism and Christology,” 53–56). 74 “Miscellanies,” no. 184, in WJEO 13:330; no. 487, in WJEO 13:528–532. 75 In Edwards’s words, God “incarnated [Christ] by sanctification” (“Miscellanies,” no. 709, in WJEO 18:334). 76 “Miscellanies” no. 487, in WJEO 13:528. 77 Elsewhere, he states that the incarnation is the “assuming his flesh into being [making] and into the person of the divine Logos [union], at the same time and by the same act” (“Miscellanies,” no. 709, in WJEO 18:334). 78 “Miscellanies,” no. 709, in WJEO 18:335. 79 “Miscellanies,” no. 958, in WJEO 20:234.

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80 “All the works of God ad extra . . . that are immediately wrought upon or about Christ, or in which Christ himself is the effect or object . . . are more immediately from God the Father” (“Miscellanies,” no. 958, in WJEO 20:234). “When Christ was born, the greatest person was born that ever was or ever will be born” (“No. 5 Sermon Fourteen,” in WJEO 9:299). 81 God’s action upon nature is external and not self-communicative unlike graced nature, where the indwelling Spirit indwells “in acting, communicate[s] itself ” (Misc. 471, in WJEO 13:514). See also “Charity and Its Fruits,” sermon 2, in WJEO 8:158. 82 “Miscellanies,” no. 709, in WJEO 18:335. 83 “Miscellanies,” no. 791, in WJEO 18:490. 84 “The Mind,” no. 51, in WJEO 6:368; see also “The Mind,” no. 34, in WJEO 6:353. 85 “For if thought be in the same place where matter is, yet, if there be no manner of communication or dependence between that and . . . any of that collection of properties that we call matter . . . then thought is not properly in matter” (“The Mind,” no. 21[a], in WJEO 6:347). Similarly, the presence of a spirit to a place is not dependent on proximity but “mutual communications” between them (“The Mind,” no. 32, in WJEO 6:353). 86 “Miscellanies,” no. 487, in WJEO 13:532. 87 On the substance ontology, one could use the reduplicative strategy, where the complex person is seen as a kind of placeholder for the two incompatible natures. See Hight and Bohannon, “Son More Visible,” 125. 88 “Miscellanies,” 709, in WJEO 18:335. 89 “Discourse on the Trinity,” in WJEO 21:133. 90 “Miscellanies,” 709, in WJEO 18:335. 91 “Miscellanies,” 766, in WJEO 18:412. 92 “Miscellanies,” 766, in WJEO 18:412. In Edwards’s ontology, the communion of natures (communio naturarum) is practically a communication of properties or works (communicatio idiomatum or communicatio operationum). “If there is no more communication between this individual human nature and the eternal Son of God than others, there is no more real union” (“Miscellanies,” 766, in WJEO 18:413). 93 As with Chalcedonian Christology, the communication is from the divine to human, unless one holds to a kind of kenoticism. From the human to divine direction, Edwards posits that the human nature of Christ has access to the divine omniscience analogous to a person freely referencing a comprehensive dictionary. This, of course, does not involve any real communication of properties from the human to the divine (“Subjects of Inquiry,” in WJEO 28). 94 “Miscellanies,” no. 205, in WJEO 13:340. 95 Ibid.

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96 97 98 99

“Miscellanies,” no. 205, in WJEO 13:341. “Miscellanies” no. 487, in WJEO 13:529. Ibid. “All men and angels live by the Son, but the Son lives by the Father” (“Miscellanies,” no. 958, in WJEO 20:235). 100 “Discourse on the Trinity,” in WJEO 21:143.

Bibliography Anderson, Wallace E. “Immaterialism in Jonathan Edwards’ Early Philosophical Notes.” In Journal of the History of Ideas 25:2 (April–June 1964): 181–200. Berkeley, George. A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. Chicago: Open Court, 1963. Bombaro, John J. Jonathan Edwards’s Vision of Reality: The Relationship of God to the World, Redemption, History, and the Reprobate. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012. Caldwell, Robert W., III. Communion in the Spirit: The Holy Spirit as the Bond of Union in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards. Studies in Evangelical History and Thought. Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster, 2006. Copan, Paul. “Jonathan Edwards’s Philosophical Influences: Lockean or Malebranchean?” In Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 44:1 (March 2001): 107–124. Crisp, Oliver D. “Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), Idealism and Christology.” Revisioning Christology: Theology in the Reformed Tradition, chapter 3. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011, 43–67. Crisp, Oliver D. Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Daniels, Stephen. “Edwards’ Occasionalism.” In Jonathan Edwards as Contemporary, edited by Don Schweitzer, 1–14. New York: Peter Lang, 2010. Doolan, Gregory T. Aquinas on the Divine Ideas as Exemplar Causes. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008. Edwards, Jonathan. Works of Jonathan Edwards Online vols. 27–73. New Haven: Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University, 2008–. Edwards, Jonathan. Works of Jonathan Edwards vols. 1–26. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957–2008. Gibson, Michael D. “The Beauty of the Redemption of the World: The Theological Aesthetics of Maximus the Confessor and Jonathan Edwards.” In Harvard Theological Review 100:1 (2008): 45–76. Hamilton, S. Mark. “Jonathan Edwards on the Atonement.” In International Journal of Systematic Theology 15:4 (October 2013): 394–415.

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Hastings, W. Ross. Jonathan Edwards and the Life of God: Toward an Evangelical Theology of Participation. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015. Hight, Marc A., and Joshua Bohannon. “The Son More Visible: Immaterialism and the Incarnation.” In Modern Theology 26:1 (January 2010): 135–136. Jenson, Robert W. “Christology.” In The Princeton Companion to Jonathan Edwards, edited by Sang Hyun Lee, 72–86. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. Jenson, Robert W. America’s Theologian: Recommendation of Jonathan Edwards. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. McClymond, Michael J. Encounters with God: An Approach to the Theology of Jonathan Edwards. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Plantinga Pauw, Amy. The Supreme Harmony of All: The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards. Grand Rapics, MI: Eerdmans, 2002. Reid, Jasper. “The Trinitarian Metaphysics of Jonathan Edwards and Nicolas Malebranche.” Heythrop Journal 43:2 (2002): 156–157. Strobel, Kyle C. Jonathan Edwards’s Theology: A Reinterpretation, reprinted. New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014. Studebaker, Steven M., and Robert W. Caldwell, III. The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards: Text, Context, and Application. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2012. Tan, Seng-Kong. Fullness Received and Returned: Trinity and Participation in Jonathan Edwards. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014. Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Benzinger Brothers, 1947.

10

Idealism and Participating in the Body of Christ James M. Arcadi

On the night that he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus Christ took bread; and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take, eat; this is my Body which is given for you: Do this in remembrance of me.” After supper, Jesus took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink this, all of you; for this is my Blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for you, and for many, for the forgiveness of sins: Whenever you drink it, do this in remembrance of me.” “The Order for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion, Commonly Called the Holy Eucharist.”1

At the institution of the Eucharist, Christ uttered some very curious words regarding a piece of bread and a measure of wine. Likewise, ministers standing in persona Christi throughout times, cultures, and places have also uttered these same words when referring to other pieces of bread and measures of wine. This linguistic curiosity has been the locus of much discussion in the history of Christian theology. Specifically, a large number of these discussions have centered on metaphysical implications of these curious utterances. How is one to understand the utterance, “this is the body of Christ” when it is uttered of an object that so clearly resembles a piece of bread? How is one to understand the utterance, “this is the blood of Christ” when it is uttered of liquid that so clearly resembles a measure of wine? And for the purposes of this volume, how does understanding these utterances within the framework of an idealist perspective present unique interpretive challenges and opportunities?

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In this chapter, I will explore options and proffer what I think is the best option, for understanding a corporeal presence explication of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist within an idealist metaphysical framework. Hence, I am here interested in the conjunction of corporeal presence models of the Eucharist and idealism. The metaphysics of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist is but one of many facets of this doctrine, but this facet has been among the most contentious locales of controversy in the history of the discussion. Further, idealism is but one of many metaphysical frameworks on offer. I will not, however, argue for either side of the conjunction. Rather, I will argue that the model of the Eucharist I offer here makes best sense of the conjunction of the commitments to idealism and the corporeal presence of Christ in the Eucharist. If the model I offer is not accepted, I suggest one must give up one of these conjuncts. This chapter will work within a roughly Berkeleyan idealism. This is not the only idealist ontology available, nor is Berkeley’s idealism without various interpretations. In fact, as Jonathan Hill rightly comments, “‘Idealism’ can be a rather nebulous concept to define.”2 However, Hill helpfully clarifies the nebulae by offering these four points as a distillation of Berkeleyan idealism, which I will utilize in my analysis:3 1. Nonmental entities are mind dependent. In Berkeley’s famous formulation, “Their esse is percipi.”4 2. The only things that exist are minds and their contents; nonmental entities are thus not really nonmental at all, but are the contents of minds. “. . . there is not any other substance than spirit, or that which perceives . . . that therefore wherein colour, figure, and the like qualities exist, must perceive them.”5 3. Physical bodies consist solely of our perceptions of them. “. . . what are the forementioned objects but the things we perceive by sense, and what do we perceive besides our own ideas or sensations . . .?”6 4. God is the immediate cause of our perceptions of physical bodies. “. . . nothing can be more evident . . . than the existence of God, or a spirit who is intimately present to our minds, producing in them all that variety of ideas or sensations, which continually affect us.”7 These principles are an expression of the fact that Berkeley’s ontology consists of only minds and ideas. Since physical bodies are not minds, they are ideas, and these ideas are brought about in the minds of perceivers by God. Thus, perception of a certain physical object (e.g., the chair in my office, the tree outside

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my window, or a piece of bread) is the perception of particular sensible qualities arranged in a well-ordered manner by God in the mind of the perceiver. When an amalgamation of ideas is ordered properly, it presents itself as some particular physical object. That is, when the sensible qualities of, say, greenness, barkiness, leafiness, and so on, are presented to the mind in an appropriate order, then there is the perception of the tree outside my window. According to Berkeley: As several of these [sensory ideas] are observed to accompany each other, they come to be marked by one name, and so to be reputed as one thing. Thus, for example, a certain colour, taste, smell, figure and consistence having been observed to go together, are accounted one distinct thing, signified by the name apple. Other collections of ideas constitute a stone, a tree, a book, and the like sensible things.8

Thus, a physical object just is an appropriate ordering of sensible qualities presented to the mind of a perceiver by God. I now move to a discussion of various options of interpreting Christ’s presence in the Eucharist.

A spectrum of views on the eucharistic presence Leaving aside a specific discussion of idealism for the moment, theories of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist fall along a broad spectrum. On one far end of the spectrum are families of views that posit that Christ is not present in the Eucharist in any manner that he is normally present in the cosmos. Let us call these no special presence views. For instance, in virtue of being the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ enjoys the attribute of being omnipresent.9 Accordingly, on this view, in the Eucharist Christ is no more or no more especially present in the consecrated elements than he is in, say, the stone of the altar, the tree outside my window, or Fenway Park. Given this, the dominical words must be understood as some kind of figurative speech. Rather than a strict interpretation of “This is my body,” proponents of no special presence theories interpret this utterance as: “This signifies my body,” “This is like my body,” or the cognitive focus of a memorialist position, as in “Think about me when you perceive this bread.” Christian traditions typically connected with this emphasis in their Eucharistic theology are those associated with Ulrich Zwingli, as well as contemporary Baptist, Pentecostal, and many Evangelical denominations.10 Perhaps conveniently, this perspective on the metaphysics of the Eucharist would seem to be able to run on any ontology.

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Suppose no special presence views are on the far right of the Eucharistic presence spectrum, the next step to the left along the spectrum are those families of views that fall under, what I will call, pneumatic presence views. Proponents of pneumatic presence views often wish to claim that theirs are real presence views; they simply deny that a corporeal presence is necessary for the presence of Christ’s body to be nonetheless real. I do not dispute this claim; although I admit I have a hard time understanding just what a real body is if it is not a corporeal body. Advocates of the pneumatic presence might point to the efficacy of the Holy Spirit as somehow applying the virtues or power of the body of Christ to the faithful. Some within this camp might emphasize an instrumental manner by which the Holy Spirit uses the elements as a means of communicating the efficacy of the body of Christ. This view might be best associated with John Calvin.11 Others within this camp focus on a parallelism by which as the mouth feeds on the consecrated elements so does the heart feed on the body of Christ. This seems to be the emphasis of the Anglican divine Thomas Cranmer.12 There is long-standing debate within the Reformed family of churches as to whether they are in practice in the no special presence camp even if they are by their liturgies, confessions, and catechisms in the pneumatic presence camp.13 Those interested in the recent revival within the Reformed tradition of Mercersburg theology, indebted for their Eucharistic thought in large part on the work of John Williamson Nevin, would emphasize the pneumatic presence aspects of the Reformed tradition.14 However, one might even point to the work of George Hunsinger, who certainly locates himself in the Reformed tradition, as also attempting to “elevate” Reformed Eucharistic theology to consider modes of expression that might include corporeal presence theories.15 In fact, Hunsinger’s work should help non-Roman Catholics, especially those of the Reformed persuasion, realize that Roman transubstantiation is not the only option for advocates of the real corporeal presence doctrine of the Eucharist. Rather, there are resources in Lutheran, Reformed, and especially Eastern Orthodox Eucharistic theology that can account for the corporeal presence without the specific metaphysical requirements of the Roman Catholic explication of transubstantiation. The next move to the left on my metaphysical spectrum of views of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist are, what I here call, corporeal presence theories of Christ’s presence. These families of views are typically associated with the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, and High Church Anglican traditions.

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When speaking of corporeal presence theories and their understanding of the words of interpretation, we might do well to avoid the term “literal.” For at times even pneumatic presence theorists want to aver that theirs is a literal predication. Rather, corporeal presence theories might simply rest with a firstorder predication that “this [object in the minister’s hand] is the body of Christ” and by eating that consecrated object one is eating the body of Christ. Corporeal presence theories of the Eucharist must give an account of two specific metaphysical phenomenal realities. First, given a first-order predication interpretation of the dominical words, the object that is consecrated by the minister is the body of Christ. Second, the corporeal presence theorist has to account for the fact that what is sensibly perceived prior to and after consecration is the same, even if there has been some change with respect to the elements. For prior to consecration the object on the altar was a simple piece of bread, and it was referred to as such. After the consecration, the object on the altar is properly referred to as the body of Christ and is taken to be as such. In the history of Christian theological reflection, there have been three main families of corporeal presence views: transubstantiation, consubstantiation, and impanation. We can distinguish these views by the manner they treat the metaphysical realities of (a) the body of Christ and (b) the consecrated bread. The official Roman Catholic explication of the corporeal presence, known as transubstantiation, has often been expressed within an Aristotelian substance/ accident ontology. There has even been some suspicion that by codifying transubstantiation the Roman Catholic Church has even codified an Aristotelian metaphysics. Whether or not this is the case, transubstantiation as I understand it here is the conjunction of two clams: i. the body of Christ is corporeally present in the Eucharist16 ii. the bread is not corporeally present in the Eucharist. However, given the perceptual experience of anyone attending Mass, (i) and (ii) have two further subsidiary claims that: iii. the sensible qualities of Christ’s body are not in the Eucharist iv. the sensible qualities of bread are in the Eucharist. Described as such, transubstantiation has been referred to as a “real presence/real absence” view of the Eucharist.17 Both the real presence of the body of Christ and the real absence of the bread must be affirmed in order to be a transubstantiation theory.

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Consubstantiation is a view sometimes associated with the Lutheran tradition18 but it also was a popular theory to compare to transubstantiation throughout the middle ages. I define consubstantiation as affirming (i), (iii), and (iv) from above. That is, advocates of consubstantiation hold that in the Eucharist: i. the body of Christ is corporeally present in the Eucharist iii. the sensible qualities of Christ’s body are not in the Eucharist iv. the sensible qualities of bread are in the Eucharist. To these are added a further corollary: v. the bread continues to exist Thus, the body of Christ comes to exist “in, with, and under” the consecrated bread. Impanation is a corporeal presence theory that has cropped up from time to time in the history of reflection on the Eucharist. This view has been deemed heretical by the Roman Catholic Church, as of course has every other theory of the Eucharist that is not transubstantiation. However, I use the term impanation here to refer to any explication of the metaphysics of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist that uses the metaphysics of the Incarnation as an explanatory motif. Thus, impanation understood as an “incarnational model” of the Eucharist actually has significant precedence in the Patristic period, a few medieval advocates, and captures the emphasis of much Eastern Orthodox Eucharistic theology. Similar to consubstantiation, impanation holds to (i), (iv), and (v), but adds another condition that: vi. a union obtains between Christ and the consecrated bread pattered on the Incarnation. Clearly, “impanation” is a play on the term “incarnation.” In the Incarnation, the divine Word forms a union with an instance of human nature. This union is the explanatory basis for the union that obtains between Christ and the elements in impanation’s explanation of the Eucharist. In the tradition, there are a few variants of impanation, which I will discuss below. Importantly for our purposes, impanation does not contain condition (iii). It is this key distinction of impanation from transubstantiation and consubstantiation that makes it, I think, the most attractive idealist corporeal presence theory.

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Trouble for corporeal presence theories With the idealist principles and Eucharistic spectrum in place, we may now analyze the Eucharistic perceptual phenomenon. Given the Berkeleyan principle that God is the immediate cause of our perceptions of physical bodies, (4) above, I propose this analysis: 4. 5. 6. 7.

God is the immediate cause of our perceptions of physical bodies. The bread of the Eucharist is a physical body. In the Eucharist, the recipient perceives bread.19 Thus, (from (4)–(6)) God causes recipients to perceive bread in the Eucharist.

Point (5) seems apt. Like all other normal physical bodies, the Eucharistic element of bread is a physical body. Point (6) also seems uncontroversial. When a recipient approaches the altar and an object is placed in the hand or mouth, that object is perceived as the amalgamation of sensible qualities like starchflavor, whiteness, roundness, and so on, along with a certain size and/or shape, which is conventionally referred to as “bread.”20 Now, corporeal presence theories of the Eucharist hold that the body of Christ is present in the Eucharist. But, all Christians hold to this premise: 8. The body of Christ is a physical body. Premise (8) should be clear from standard, orthodox Christology. Unless one is a Docetist, one will hold to the Chalcedonian definition that Christ is “like us in all things apart from sin” and one thing that humans have are physical bodies.21 Now, the conjunction of (3), (6), and (8) would seem to imply that the body of Christ is not in the Eucharist. That is: 3. 6. 8. 9.

Physical bodies consist solely of our perceptions of them. In the Eucharist, the recipient perceives bread. The body of Christ is a physical body. Thus, (from (3), (6), and (8)) the body of Christ is not in the Eucharist.

Since the body of Christ is, as denoted, a body, and what is perceived is bread, not the body of Christ, then Christ’s body is not in the Eucharist. Clearly, however, if one holds to (9) one does not hold to a corporeal presence doctrine of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist. So, no proponent of a corporeal presence doctrine can

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hold to (9). Yet, proponents of transubstantiation and consubstantiation hold to: iii. the sensible qualities of Christ’s body are not in the Eucharist. Thus, on my analysis, the conjunction of idealism and either transubstantiation or consubstantiation as corporeal presence theories entails a contradiction; to wit, these corporeal theories of the Eucharist are noncorporeal theories of the Eucharist. To hold to a corporeal presence theory of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, one can either (a) give up idealism or (b) give up transubstantiation/ consubstantiation and endorse a corporeal presence theory that does not entail (9). Even a contemporary of Berkeley, Arthur Collier, made a similar observation regarding the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation as I have here: Now nothing, I think, can be more evident, than that both the sound and explication of [transubstantiation] are founded altogether on the supposition of external matter; so that if this be removed, there is not any thing left, whereon to build so much as the appearance of a question. For if after this it be inquired whether the substance of the bread in this sacrament be not changed into the substance of the body of Christ, the accidents or sensible appearances remaining as before; or suppose this should be affirmed to be the fact, or at least possible, it may indeed be shewn to be untrue or impossible, on the supposition of an external world, from certain consequential absurdities which attend it; but to remove an external world, is to prick it in its punctum saliens, or quench its very vital flame. For if there is no external matter, the very distinction is lost between the substance and accidents, or sensible species of bodies, and these last will become the sole essence of material objects. So that if these are supposed to remain as before, there is no possible room for the supposal of any change, in that the thing supposed to be changed is here shewn to be nothing at all.22

It should be clear that the proponent of consubstantiation is in the same sort of trouble that Collier outlines. Any corporeal presence theory that maintains (iii) will inevitably result in the noncorporeal presence position of (9). Thus, in what follows I will offer an attempt at (b) by offering an exposition of impanation that attends to St. Paul’s teaching regarding the Eucharist from 1 Corinthians.

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Impanation described Impanation theories of the corporeal presence take the Incarnation as a metaphysical guide. The strategy is to aver that the metaphysics of the Eucharist is no more difficult than that of the Incarnation and that the Incarnation can provide metaphysical resources for explaining the corporeal presence. As stated previously, impanation holds to the following: i. iv. v. vi.

the body of Christ is corporeally present in the Eucharist the sensible qualities of bread are in the Eucharist the bread continues to exist a union obtains between Christ and the consecrated bread pattered on the Incarnation.

Of course, within idealism, conditions (iv) and (v) are obviously true. Since 6. in the Eucharist, the recipient perceives bread, then the sensible qualities of bread are in the Eucharist. Further, as long as the recipient continues to perceive bread, then (v) the bread is present in the Eucharist. The distinction of (iv) and (v) was important for the discussion of transubstantiation and consubstantiation, but for impanation it does not matter. Further, I noted that impanation differs from transubstantiation and consubstantiation because it does not include this condition: iii. the sensible qualities of Christ’s body are not in the Eucharist. Rather, given idealistic principles (1)–(3), (i) entails: vii. the sensible qualities of Christ’s body are in the Eucharist and vice versa ((vii) entails (i)). Now, the astute student of idealism will note that there is only one set of sensible qualities in any given physical object that God causes minds to perceive. So how can it be that the sensible qualities of Christ’s body and the sensible qualities of bread are both in the Eucharist? How can both (iv) and (vii) obtain? The idealist impanation theorist will hold, then, that in the Eucharist, the sensible qualities of the bread are the sensible qualities of the body of Christ. Quite literally, “this bread is my body.” In the tradition, there are typically two ways that one can explicate impanation, although these are often confused. I term these two ways “Type-H Impanation” and “Type-S Impanation.”23 Both types endorse (vi) and thus affirm a union relation

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that obtains between Christ and the consecrated bread that is patterned on the Incarnation. Where these types differ regards just which aspects of Christ are united with the bread. Chalcedonian Christology holds that the person of the Word possesses both a divine and human nature. On the Type-H Impanation model a union relation obtains between the consecrated bread and the Word. Thus, in the same manner as the divine nature of Christ is joined to the human nature of Christ in the person of the Word (a “hypostatic” union), so too does the divine nature become joined to the consecrated elements in the person of the Word at the Eucharist. By contrast, Type-S Impanation holds that the union obtains between the consecrated bread and the human nature of Christ in the unity of the body (a “sacramental” union) in a similar manner as the hypostatic union. Thus, Type-H Impanation posits another hypostatic union and Type-S Impanation a hypostatic-like union. It seems possible to construe Type-H Impanation as providing an adequate explanation of the dominical words, “This is my body.” But I think Type-S Impanation better provides for a connection between the elements and the historical body of Christ, which was born of the Virgin, suffered on the cross, and rose on the third day. Also, I worry that Type-H Impanation bypasses the human nature of Christ in a manner that is unfitting given the Incarnation, and, of course, the Incarnation was the whole motive for going in this metaphysical direction. Therefore, I will leave aside Type-H Impanation and pursue an explanation of Type-S Impanation that can maintain the conjunction of both (iv) and (vii) within an idealist framework.

Type-S impanation exposited In order to think rightly about Type-S Impanation, and how the sensible qualities of the consecrated bread can be the sensible qualities of the body of Christ, we have to first attend to what it means to have a body. Recall (3) and (4): 3. Physical bodies consist solely of our perceptions of them. 4. God is the immediate cause of our perceptions of physical bodies. On Berkeley’s system, this is as true for bodies like chairs, trees, and bread as it is for human bodies. The having of a human body is God causing a series of particularly ordered perceptions to be had by some mind and of that mind’s possession of those qualities. God also causes those sensible qualities to be perceived by other minds. So, my body is an amalgamation of those

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particularly ordered perceptions, those sensible qualities that God causes me to perceive as mine. And God also causes other minds, perhaps my colleague walking down the hall next to my office, to have similar perceptions. I perceive my hands, the weightiness, the color, the extension, and so on, and likewise my colleague perceives my hands, the weightiness, the color, the extension, and so on, God causes me to perceive my hands from my perspective and causes my colleague to perceive them from her perspective just outside my office door. God causes me to perceive the sensible qualities of my hands as mine; they are my own. That is, I have the perception of some sort of connection to them. In particular, my will is able to control this set of sensible qualities. God does not cause my colleague to perceive my hands as hers, and she is not able to exert control over those ideas. In fact, she perceives them as not hers and as, in fact, mine. Now, were I to see a pair of hands but I had no sensory perception of them as mine (I could not feel with them, control them, perceive with them), I would conclude that those hands were not mine. It is the perceptual ownership of the sensible qualities of my hands that God brings about that indicates the two objects to be my hands and not someone else’s. Upon a moment’s glance at a pair of hands in my office, my colleague may not immediately perceive them to be my hands, but she would surely know that they are not her hands. The status of those hands as being mine is dependent on what God is causing me to perceive, but it is not dependent on the minds of other perceivers. Consider next how, in the Incarnation, the divine Word becomes joined to a human nature, which of course includes a human body. Here, then, is how two idealist theorists, Marc Hight and Joshua Bohannon, apply the aforementioned reasoning to the Incarnation: For an immaterialist, having a body entails having a certain ordered series of sensible ideas. In its simplest formulation, an immaterialist account of the Incarnation can be expressed as the event wherein the infinite mind of God came to stand in a certain relationship with a series of sensible ideas. To be more explicit, the Son had the experiences that attend the possession of a human body. Most importantly, he had the same kind of experiences in the same way that human beings ordinarily do.24

These authors argue that what it is for a mind to have a human body, the “experiences that attend the possession of a human body,” are the same perceptual experiences that the Word had in his human nature. All that is required for a

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mind to have a body or body part is for God to cause that mind to perceive “a certain ordered series of sensible ideas”25 as being possessed by that mind. A similar metaphysical story can be told for the Eucharist, and this is Type-S Impanation. At the consecration, the mind of Christ comes to stand in an appropriate ownership relation to the sensible qualities of the bread and wine. Those sensible qualities then become parts of Christ’s body in the same manner as other sensible qualities are parts of his body, the sensible qualities of his hair are parts of his body, the sensible qualities of his hands are parts of his body, all those sensible qualities that amalgamate, by divine causing, to make Christ’s body are parts of his body. In the Eucharist, Christ’s body simply acquires more parts by God causing Christ to perceive the sensible qualities of bread and wine as being integrated into his body as his own.26 There does not seem to be any metaphysical requirement made by idealism that only certain sensible qualities can count as one’s body. There may be a typical ordering of sensible qualities, but there does not seem to be anything necessary about the qualities themselves, just the possessing of them, that makes them one’s body. Consequently, on this account, both (iv) and (vii) obtain because the sensible qualities of the bread are the sensible qualities of the body of Christ.

Participating in the body of Christ Let us now consider how an ontological system like idealism and a Eucharistic metaphysic like Type-S Impanation can harmonize with St. Paul’s discussion of the Eucharist in 1 Corinthians 10:16: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” But first, a caveat. I do not want to be taken here as having my metaphysics drive my exegesis such that I am accused of really doing eisegesis. Rather, the interpretive variation of this passage leads me to believe that we might not ever know with precision just what Paul meant. As one scholar puts it, “The literature on this passage is immense. As one might well expect, one’s own liturgical or nonliturgical [sic] tradition often colors this investigation.”27 A standard exegetical principle is that challenging passages, like this one,28 ought to be interpreted with the aid of passages of scripture that are more clear in their meaning. However, those that are clear and those that are challenging can be person relative, and one component of a person’s interpretive method is the background ontology they

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assume. Thus, what I am not saying is that 1 Corinthians 10:16 entails idealism, impanation, or a specifically Type-S Impanation. I am suggesting that for those who are antecedently sympathetic to idealism and antecedently desirous of a corporeal presence doctrine of the Eucharist, there is an illuminating and inspiring way to understand this cryptic passage. Caveat out of the way, I take it for granted that Paul is here referring to the Eucharistic bread and wine. Now, it seems a straightforward read of Paul’s rhetorical questions can be restated as: “The cup of blessing that we bless is a participation in the blood of Christ.” and “The bread that we break is a participation in the body of Christ.”

Understood in this way, Paul states that there is a relation that obtains between, say, the consecrated bread and the body of Christ, and this relation is some kind of participatory relation. The key word, of course, is koinonia, which the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament states as the basic meaning, “to share with someone in something.”29 Since neither bread nor a human body is a “someone,” it seems the basic meaning in this instance is that something has a share with something else or bread has a share with the body of Christ. I suggest, then, that what the bread and the body of Christ share is that the sensible qualities of each are possessed in the Eucharist by the mind of Christ in the appropriate manner outlined above. More specifically, the amalgamation of sensible qualities that normally denote bread is integrated with, or participate in or become some of, the sensible qualities that Christ perceives as his body. This participatory relation makes it such that the bread and the wine are the body and blood of Christ. Christ adopts the sensible qualities of the bread and wine in the Eucharist; they become the sensible qualities of his body and blood even while still remaining those amalgamations of sensible qualities that we normally call, and can continue to call, bread and wine. What is especially important for the Eucharist is that Christ’s body is here in virtue of the sensible qualities of the bread. Corporeal presence theories are about presence, the presence of the body of Christ. When the sensible qualities of the bread participate in the body of Christ, become parts of his body, they make Christ present. Or, to put it more accurately in an idealist framework, by God causing us to perceive the sensible qualities of bread and wine, which are appropriately owned by Christ, God causes us to perceive the body of Christ on the altar, in our hands, and in our mouths.

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Conclusion Any Christian theologian faced with the task of interpreting Christ’s utterances at the Last Supper is in for a challenging project. Those sympathetic to idealism and to a corporeal presence interpretation of these utterances are in for an even stiffer challenge. For how could Christ be said to be bodily present in the Eucharist when none of the sensible qualities of his body are presented to the minds of the recipients? This trouble is compounded in corporeal presence theories of the Eucharist that explicitly state that the sensible qualities of Christ’s body are not present in the Eucharist. On an idealistic metaphysical framework, this surely entails that Christ is not bodily present in the Eucharist. Faced with this dilemma, one might be tempted to give up idealism or give up on corporeal presence notions of Christ in the Eucharist. However, I have argued that impanation, and specifically Type-S Impanation, is able to deliver on the corporeal presence of Christ in the Eucharist within an idealist ontology. At their most general, impanation theories hold that the metaphysics of the Eucharistic presence is patterned after the metaphysics of the Incarnation. Thus, as there is a robust union relation between the divine and human natures of Christ in the unity of his person, so too is there a union between the person of Christ and the elements (Type-H Impanation) or between Christ’s human nature and the elements (Type-S Impanation). I offered here an exploration of Type-S Impanation as a plausible means for holding together the conditions that both the sensible qualities of bread and the sensible qualities of the body of Christ are present in the Eucharist. Type-S Impanation achieves this by holding that, in the Eucharist, the sensible qualities of the bread become and are the sensible qualities of the body of Christ. This is brought about in the Eucharistic consecration by the mind of Christ coming to stand in the appropriate ownership and control relations to the sensible qualities of bread and wine such that they constitute his body as much as the sensible qualities of his hair, bones, or skin constitute his body. The practical upshot of this theory is that when the minister offers the consecrated bread to the recipient the minister can say, on the level of first-order predication, “This is the body of Christ.” Translated into an idealist metaphysical expression (that probably ought not be used in a Eucharist service!), “this amalgamation of sensible qualities, such as a certain size, shape, and flavor, that God is presenting to your mind, stand in an appropriate relation to the mind of

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Christ such that they are his body.” There is no need for the recipient to suspend their normal interaction with similar amalgamations of these sensible qualities. That is, Type-S Impanation does not ask its adherents to cease to conceive of that object as bread. Rather, Type-S Impanation holds that the consecrated object is both bread and the body of Christ. To which the idealist Christian can respond, “Amen!”

Notes 1 Anglican Church in North America, “The Order for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion, Commonly Called the Holy Eucharist,” 2013. 2 Jonathan Hill, “Gregory of Nyssa, Material Substance and Berkeleyan Idealism,” British Journal of the History of Philosophy 17:4 (2009): 654. 3 Hill lists these idealist doctrines on 654, subsequent footnotes will be references to Berkeley’s work whence they are deduced. 4 Principles of Human Knowledge, I 3. All references to Berkeley are to volume andpage numbers in The Works of George Berkeley, edited by A. Luce and T. Jessop (London: Nelson, 1948–1957). 5 Principles of Human Knowledge, I 7. 6 Ibid., I 4. 7 Ibid., I 149. 8 Ibid., I 1. 9 This family of views need not embrace Luther’s ubiquity doctrine, nor do they need to embrace the extra calvinisticum. All that is required here is that somehow, in some way Christ is omnipresent. 10 As with almost any interpretation of a theologian’s view, it is up for conversation as to whether Zwingli himself endorsed Memorialism, even if his followers have. See W. P. Stephens, The Theology of Huldrych Zwingli (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986); Ulrich Zwingli and Heinrich Bullinger, Zwingli and Bullinger; Selected Translations with Introductions and Notes (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1953). For the sake of filling out the spectrum, we might indicate those Christian traditions that do not celebrate the Eucharist at all, the view of adeipnonism, such as the Friends Church and the Salvation Army. 11 One might call this broadly the view of John Calvin; however, the seeds of this view can be traced to Martin Bucer and were also expressed by Peter Martyr Vermigli. Calvin’s views can be found in the Institutes 4.17 (see Institutes of the Christian Religion [Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1960]). For commentary, see B. A. Gerrish, Grace and Gratitude: The Eucharistic Theology of John Calvin

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James M. Arcadi (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993); Keith A. Mathison, Given for You: Reclaiming Calvin’s Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2002). On Cranmer see the seminal study by Peter Newman Brooks, Thomas Cranmer’s Doctrine of the Eucharist: An Essay in Historical Development (New York: Seabury Press, 1965), but also see corrections and further discussion in James M. Arcadi, “And Feed on Him in Thy Heart: The Development of Thomas Cranmer’s View of Christ’s Presence in the Eucharist,” ThM thesis (Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, 2010). On the terms “memorial,” “instrumental,” and “parallel,” see Brian A. Gerrish, “Lord’s Supper in the Reformed Confessions,” Theology Today 23:2 (1966): 224–243. Of course, there are debates about almost everything in the Reformed tradition including whether Zwingli is a proper progenitor of the tradition along with John Calvin. I do not wish to enter into those debates here. Suffice it to say for the purposes of this chapter, I do not think that neither the special presence nor the pneumatic presence camps have much interesting to say in the face of an idealist ontology that they cannot also say given a substance dualist or materialist ontology. See John Williamson Nevin and Linden J. DeBie, The Mystical Presence: and the Doctrine of the Reformed Church on the Lord’s Supper (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2012). See his The Eucharist and Ecumenism: Let us Keep the Feast (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). I admit that the preposition “in” here might seem problematic. I simply mean by this something like “at the location of the host.” Corporeal presence theories hold that the body of Christ in the Eucharist is in some way circumscribed by the dimensions of the host such that it is true for the minister to point to the host and utter “This is the body of Christ” and where it is false for the minister to move his finger a few inches to the side and point to another location on the alter and make the same utterance. How one explains this location is one of the distinguishing features between corporeal presence theories. For a recent philosophic discussion of the Roman Catholic perspective, see Alexander R. Pruss, “The Eucharist: Real Presence and Real Absence,” in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology, eds. Thomas P. Flint and Michael C. Rea (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). Although Lutherans often balk at the term for aligning them too closely with a metaphysical explication of the Eucharist, something they hold Luther wished to avoid. For one of Luther’s discussions of the Eucharist, see “The blessed sacrament of the Body of Christ” in vol. 35, 742–758 and “The sacrament of the body and blood of Christ—Against the fanatics” in vol. 36, 482–523 in Works (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1955). The best commentary on Luther’s view of the Eucharist is still Hermann Sasse, This Is My Body; Luther’s Contention for the Real

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Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1959). For the sake of convenience I will tend to refer to just the bread. I do, however, intend to indicate similar statements regarding the blood of Christ and the wine when referring to the body of Christ and the bread. Thus, by (5) one should also understand “The blood of Christ is a physical body,” by (6) “The wine of the Eucharist is a physical body,” and by (7) “In the Eucharist, the recipient perceives wine.” Similar translations ought to be made throughout. Of course, in Western High-Church traditions an unleavened wafer is used as the Eucharistic host. This object is but a shadow of the objects used to make toast and sandwiches. As has been occasionally quipped, “It is as hard to believe that the wafer is the body of Christ as it is that the wafer is actually bread!” Levity aside, some form of baked flour mixed with water is conventionally conceived of and referred to as bread. Humans at least have physical bodies insofar as God causes minds to perceive bodies that correspond to the bodily intention of other minds, or however the idealist prefers to translate the having of a body that humans enjoy. Arthur Collier, Clavis Universalis (Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 1909), 125–127. “H” refers to “hypostatic,” “S” refers to “sacramental.” For a fuller discussion of this distinction, see James M. Arcadi, “Impanation, Incarnation, and Enabling Externalism,” Religious Studies 51:1 (2015): 75–90. Marc A. Hight and Joshua Bohannon, “The Son More Visible: Immaterialism and the Incarnation,” Modern Theology 26:1 (2010): 132. Ibid. I do not here want to get into a Christological/Trinitarian discussion about which divine person does the causing and how that might be complicated in the case of Christ. I do want to affirm, I think along with Chalcedon, that however God causes regular humans (those not assumed by a divine person) to perceive their bodies’ sensible qualities is what occurs in Christ’s human nature as well. Recall that Type-S Impanation posits the connection between the human body of Christ (human because it is had by the human mind) and the consecrated bread. It seems metaphysically possible, on this construal, that this sort of thing can happen to regular humans as well, although we have no theological motivation to suppose this. Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1987), 513. The definition of a “challenging passage” is, of course, relative and vague. However, I should think that a passage that has generated an “immense” literature with many, even contradictory, interpretations would count as a “challenging passage.”

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29 Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey William Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich, Theological dictionary of the New Testament vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964), 804, in Fee. 514.

Bibliography Anglican Church in North America. “The Order for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion, Commonly Called the Holy Eucharist,” 2013. Arcadi, James M. “ ‘And Feed on Him in Thy Heart’ ”: The Development of Thomas Cranmer’s View of Christ’s Presence in the Eucharist.” ThM thesis. Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, 2010. Arcadi, James M. “Impanation, Incarnation, and Enabling Externalism.” In Religious Studies 51:1 (2015): 75–90. Berkeley, George. The Works of George Berkeley, edited by A. Luce and T. Jessop. London: Nelson, 1948–1957. Brooks, Peter Newman. Thomas Cranmer’s Doctrine of the Eucharist: An Essay in Historical Development. New York: Seabury Press, 1965. Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1960. Collier, Arthur. Clavis Universalis. Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 1909. Fee, Gordon D. The First Epistle to the Corinthians. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1987. Gerrish, B. A. “Lord’s Supper in the Reformed Confessions.” In Theology Today 23:2 (1966): 224–243. Gerrish, B. A. Grace and Gratitude: The Eucharistic Theology of John Calvin. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993. Hight, Marc A., and Joshua Bohannon. “The Son More Visible: Immaterialism and the Incarnation.” In Modern Theology 26:1 (2010): 120–148. Hill, Jonathan. “Gregory of Nyssa, Material Substance and Berkeleyan Idealism.” In British Journal of the History of Philosophy 17:4 (2009): 653–683. Hunsinger, George. The Eucharist and Ecumenism Let Us Keep the Feast. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Kittel, Gerhard, Geoffrey William Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament vol. 3. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964. Luther, Martin. Works. St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1955. Mathison, Keith A. Given for You: Reclaiming Calvin’s Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2002. Nevin, John Williamson, and Linden J. DeBie. The Mystical Presence: And the Doctrine of the Reformed Church on the Lord’s Supper. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2012.

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Pruss, Alexander R. “The Eucharist: Real Presence and Real Absence.” In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology, edited by Thomas P. Flint and Michael C. Rea. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Sasse, Herman. This Is My Body; Luther’s Contention for the Real Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1959. Stephens, W. P. The Theology of Huldrych Zwingli. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986. Zwingli, Ulrich, and Heinrich Bullinger. Zwingli and Bullinger; Selected Translations with Introductions and Notes. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1953.

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Idealistic Ethics and Berkeley’s Good God Timo Airaksinen

Nicholas Rescher defines what he calls conceptual idealism as follows: “Ours is conceptual idealism in holding that nature . . . is conceived by us in terms whose adequate analysis or explication requires some reference to the characteristically mental processes like imagining, supposing, and the like.”1 This applies to Berkeley’s idealistic ethics: one cannot define moral notions and conscience without a reference to the mind and its functions or, in this case, God’s will. He is the ideal model and the measure of the good and the right, or virtue. There are no other adequate models. In other words, it only makes sense to talk about ethics in a theological context. To talk about the good and the right as do the scientifically minded mechanist materialists and supporters of enlightened atheism— or the “free thinkers” of Berkeley’s time— is to miss the indispensable spiritual components of ethical terms. Hence, Berkeley is an ethical idealist in the Platonic sense: his faith in God allows him to define the ethical ideals, or the model principles of moral conduct and the measures of ethical life, in an idealistic fashion. His ethics rests on idealistic metaphysics— it is metaphysically informed as it tracks God. As, Euphranor, Berkeley’s mouthpiece in Alciphron, puts it: Me thinks I can easily comprehend that when the fear of God is quite extinguished the mind must be very easy with respect to other duties, which become outward pretences and formalities, from the moment that they quit their hold upon the conscience; and conscience always supposeth the being of a God. But I still thought that Englishmen of all denominations . . . agreed in the belief of a God, and of so much at least as is called Natural Religion.2

Thus, ethics is defined in terms of God’s will, actions, and commands.3 Four preliminary remarks follow. First, to obey God is conceptually different from doing good.4 To be merited is not the same as being a good person. Only if the merit giving authority is good is the merited person good, but the definition of

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good is still independent of the merit and its giver. The main difficulty, therefore, is to understand God’s role in ethics. He is a good God, but what then is the definition of “good” and how does it apply to God? I try to answer in what follows. However, one can argue that Berkeley has— strictly speaking— no moral theory.5 Second, Berkeley’s conception of virtue is Augustinian in the sense that virtue without God is not possible. Two versions of this exist: the acquired virtue version says no description of virtue works without a reference to God but the person is still responsible for her own virtue. The infused virtue version says God alone makes you virtuous. Berkeley mainly discusses acquired virtue but he also mentions infused virtue, noting that: “Virtue is not to be learned from men, that it is the gift of God.”6 Third, to say that God is the model and measure of virtue refers to two different things: God’s actions and God’s normative utterances. For Berkeley, his actions are more important because he trusts natural theology and wants to moderate the significance of revelation. Science and observation give more information and are more significant than any divine mysteries. Fourth, God’s goodness is evident in the fact that (perfect) happiness in a future state is a consequence of virtue. Berkeley strongly emphasizes the role of happiness of a future state in his ethical considerations. The general good or happiness is a criterion of moral conduct. Euphranor asks: “Is not the general good of mankind to be regarded as a rule and measure of moral truths, of all such truths as direct or influence the moral actions of men?”7 In this chapter, I explain how Berkeley shows his readers a path to (real) happiness, both here on earth and then in heaven. Happiness is his key notion, but it is not a moral term. To aim at general happiness by means of one’s actions indicates that the person wants to follow the will of God. God is good; this is to say that he promises and provides happiness to all those who obey him. When we follow God, we must aim at our brethren’s happiness. However, all this depends on our religious faith. Without it, all action— however well meaning— is worthless. This is what irreligious free thinkers fail to understand. They promote actions that may look good but that are ultimately harmful to people. Hence, their influence must be condemned.

Externalism in ethics On Berkeley’s view, theological ethics is the only possible ethics, regardless of what such godless people as free thinkers say.8 Without our faith in God and our

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(natural) knowledge of His expressed will a quandary is obvious: without God our duties are formalities; or serious intentions, nice values, and strict norms will remain undefined and as such multiply in all directions without exhibiting coherence, constancy, agreement, or unity. How could they be binding? In other words, why trust a person to realize her moral duties even when moral choices approach supererogation? An ethically conscientious life must be a well-defined whole that supports personal ethical integrity in every aspect of life. For Berkeley, ethics makes sense only if it is based on the highest spiritual ideals, which he discovers in God’s expressed will and our shared knowledge of it. So Berkeley is a reasons externalist in the sense that no practical reasons are valid as such, that is, without their external support. He writes, “Duty and virtue are in a fairer way of being practised, if men are led by reason.”9 Reasons for action must be based on rational deliberation, but the principles of reason and rationality are not subjective. The principles of a “right computation” are objective objects of knowledge.10 Moreover, nous—that is, reason or intellect—is divine for Berkeley and all right reasons are dependent on it. This is what Berkeley’s conceptual idealism requires. A moral agent also needs her proper passional motivation for action: this is one’s love and fear of God. Moral motivation flows from the heart.11 Morality is not motivating as such. This makes Berkeley a motivational externalist. God loves us and, hence, we love God and his creations; this constitutes our moral motivation.12 Accordingly, moral motivation makes no sense without the person’s religious beliefs, which also entail the relevant feelings, or the love of God. In other words, an agent knows what is good and right because God informs him. His knowledge and reason provide him with the correct reasons for action, and love motivates him to do good. Moreover, the basic duty and virtue is to follow His words, will, and actions— ethics tracks God. All this promises us perfect happiness in a future state. This is prudential consequentialism. Berkeley never accepts moral subjectivism, such as the moral sense theory, nor would he accept reasons internalism or motivational internalism. Nous constitutes reasons for action, and love of God makes motives ethical. Berkeley avoids the simplest possible solution; namely, that we must follow God’s will because he demands it. If I benevolently help my neighbors, I do so not only because he commands me but because it is rationally beneficial: my actions contribute to their happiness. To think otherwise is to lapse into an authoritarian ethics— no ethical idealist may accept this. God wants us to keep his (supreme) values and (promised) good goals in sight when we act. Accordingly, I do not

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resist the temptation of adultery just because God condemns it. It all depends on whether I properly understand God’s words, designs, intentions, and desires. I understand that they all are ideally loving, benevolent, and good. They provide an ideal model of ethics, which is fit to be used as a source of moral reasons and motives. Religious experience teaches us the relevant aspects of God’s (good) will; only then can one see why the motive to help others or to avoid adultery is good. This reveals Berkeley’s practical ethical idealism: God is a perfect and infinite being and his actions are perfect examples of ethical behavior. All ethical behavior depends on the Infinite Mind; hence, all ethics is idealistic. We can also say that Berkeley’s ethics is based on a divine analogy between man and God. God provides— through his charitable love— a perfect example and superior model for personal ethics and so in the sublunary world social life should imitate God.13 The virtue of benevolence rules in both realms, so that our ethical life resembles life in a future state in terms of its blessed happiness. The key term is happiness. Certainly our earthly life is imperfect.14 This need not bother an ethical idealist whose eyes are fixed on the perfection of the eternal aspects of ethical life and virtue. Life is what it is but it can always get better if we follow the right rules of ethics— and it will get worse if we fail.

Virtue and utilitarianism Berkeley is not a virtue ethicist, however frequently he might use the terms “virtue” and “virtuous.” I want to emphasize this because Berkeley’s casual reader may conclude that the key term is virtue and not happiness or duty. This is understandable because Berkeley uses “virtue” so often and emphatically. One problem is that he never tells us what virtue is. He has no definition, but without it this term has no fixed meaning.15 It is a matter of the conversational style of the period that virtue means something like admirable or meritorious action and good character assenting to some conventional ideas of a decent Christian life. Such ideas are contextual and relativistic. Think about the cruelty of Ulysses’s homecoming. Looking like a blood-covered wild beast, he kills his wife’s suitors and orders her maids to be hanged. The poet loves to tell the story. According to the Homeric standards of virtue, all this exhibits heroic virtue.16 Berkeley certainly wants more than relativism. He wants a firm basis for his ethics, which a historicist idea of virtue cannot provide. However, prudential virtue is

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implicitly but consistently characterized by Berkeley in utilitarian terms. Virtue depends on a utilitarian conceptual framework so that ethical life becomes characterized by the consequentialist ideas of the good and the right. However, you cannot maintain that an action is virtuous because of its good consequences without losing your right to speak about virtue ethics proper. Normally virtue is related to admirable or healthy character in service of the ultimate telos of human life and existence. In less romantic terms, virtue means admirable selfrealization because of its intrinsic value. In the most modest context virtue means doing (habitually and noninstrumentally) “good for good’s sake.”17 However, for Berkeley virtue means two different things: a person’s perpetual obedience to God and her successful generation of general happiness, which is consonant with prudential consequentialism. Of course, Berkeley never says he is a utilitarian— he is not— although he uses utilitarian terms and ideas at the level of prudential reasons for action.18 Now, the question is, how is Berkeley’s worldly consequentialism related to his idealistic theological ethics? Berkeley’s consequentialism requires benevolence and aims at general happiness, as well as at individual happiness of the agent herself. God promises us happiness if we do our duty. He aims at our happiness both on earth and in heaven. In this sense God himself is a utilitarian. Moreover, he is a rule utilitarian because he offers us natural laws and social norms that work for our best. Now, a person is virtuous or conscientious if and only if his intention is to follow God. Here virtue means moral duty. However, he then deliberates and rationally promotes the general good, understood in terms of hedonistic and intellectual happiness. These considerations constitute his prudential reasons for action. Virtue, therefore, generates happiness, or utility. The conclusion is that virtue is also a consequentialist term for Berkeley. My position is, then, that Berkeley is no utilitarian, rather God is. Berkeley may look like a proto-utilitarian consequentialist who defines good in terms of happiness and presents a clear definition of act and rule utilitarianism. He writes, “The well-being of mankind must necessarily be carried on one of these two ways: Either first, without the injunction of any certain universal rules of morality, only by obliging every one upon each particular occasion, to consult the public good, and always to do that which to him shall seem, in the present time and circumstances, most to conduce to it. Or, secondly, by enjoining the observation of some determinate, established laws.”19 However, it is a fallacy to infer from these definitions to his commitment to utilitarian ethics. Happiness is not a fundamental moral term. His basic moral commitment is to religious duty.

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I maintain that, for Berkeley, true happiness in heaven and earth is similar but its cause, intensity, and duration vary. If the types of happiness diverge we do not know what to desire. In this case Berkeley does not refer to a similegenerated analogical relation between two different kinds of happiness. He does not mean that earthly happiness is something like happiness in heaven. All (true) happiness is of the very same type of mental state, or a free gift on earth and a promised reward in heaven.20 Certainly much of our earthly happiness is an artificial or sensory illusion.21 Yet, true happiness is not a mere analogy of its divine counterpart. They are both blessed in the same sense. We need to assume this in order to make Berkeley’s idealistic moral theology and its key idea of happiness work. One possible argument against my view is that Berkeley’s notion of happiness is hedonistic, that is, based on sensory pleasure. Is there sensory pleasure in a future state? If there is pleasure there, it is not sensual—the blessed souls have no senses. Hence, I argue that Berkeley’s (true) happiness is not sensual. Next, the question of the meaning of happiness must be addressed. What is it to be happy? Not all types of happiness understood in terms of pleasure will do, since many forms of pleasure are morally indifferent, undesirable, and even evil. It is no paradox to say that, for Berkeley, some forms of happiness are undesirable or even evil. Think of a happy atheist whose whole life is bad. At this point Berkeley’s conceptual idealism kicks in with significant results: true happiness must be defined in terms of God’s will. Happiness is what he promotes and he wants a certain kind of happiness. This happiness flows from God via our love of him. Hence, happiness must not be based on some artificial or “fantastical” desires and pleasures, such as idle, aristocratic luxuries, and indulgencies like excessive use of alcohol. Such happiness is not created by God. On the contrary, it is an empty human invention.22 Happiness must not come at the price of corrupting others, which is a good reason to condemn the sect of free thinkers and all of their teaching. Berkeley aims at the highest ideals when he talks about a future state and its eternal happiness; but he also focuses on some existing, worldly ideals when he talks about the betterment of the human condition here and now. Happiness— understood in its correct, narrow sense—is the key value both in a future state and daily life. For Berkeley, as I said, happiness is similar in heaven and earth although its causes, intensity, and duration vary. Natural pleasures are simple, pleasant, and innocent sensory goods, especially when complemented with intellectual pleasures. There are “pure pleasures of reason.”23 Simple, natural

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pleasures can be misused and misunderstood, too. They may resemble an Epicurean idea that cannot appeal to Berkeley. They create happiness that is available to free thinkers and must therefore be absent in a future state. If it is not available there it cannot be available here on earth—the happiness here and there is similar. In heaven, “eternal happiness [is] a happiness large as our desires.”24 Therefore, acceptable natural pleasures have their divine part and as such are available only to believers. Only they can be happy in the right way— this is what Berkeley means. The Christian norm, “love thy neighbour,” or the love of man, is crucially important to Berkeley. He also mentions—less often—love of your country, love of truth, love of virtue, self-love, love of liberty, love of studies, love of property, domestic love, and so on. Now, (true) happiness is based on love in the sense that the love of man provides the loved persons such happiness that only Christian love carries with it. Love of studies can bring about good pleasure and happiness. The right type of happiness is based jointly on intellect, natural pleasures, and Christian love. Only a good Christian can be happy and one is perfectly happy in a future state because there the best type of love—love of God—rules. Hence, the nonsensory pleasures of reason, intellect, understanding, and imagination are critically important.25 These pleasures are pure and heaven is defined by its purity.26 They motivate our religious hope of reaching a future state. We should know God’s will, learn how God created the world, how nature works, and how all of this makes us happy in the right way. Happiness on earth may be connected with sensory pleasures but is primarily associated with the intellect and Christian love. God is benevolent and his created world is good, as we see and hear him assert. Therefore, we should follow his guidance and plans. All this knowledge provides us with the right idea of happiness. Once we know this, we also know that the considerations of (true) happiness act as good secondary reasons for moral action. We can substitute “happiness” with “what God wants.” This is what I call Berkeley’s rule of substitution in ethics. It is the same thing to aim at human happiness as it is to follow his expressed will, desires, commands, and plans for us: “He who promotes the general wellbeing of mankind by the proper necessary means is truly wise and acts upon wise grounds.”27 It is the same thing to say “do what God wants” and “promote happiness and be happy.” This obviously puts a burden on the theory of the right kind of happiness. The rule of substitution is based on Berkeley’s (key) presumption: the good God wants our happiness both on earth and in heaven. He is ready to promote

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it and so should we. It is our (Christian) duty to do so and, hence, our human ethics is deontological, not utilitarian. Of course, rule utilitarianism is the best prudential way of promoting utility as general happiness but this has nothing to do with utilitarian ethics—it is the best method of calculation. We must do our duty first. Why is duty the primary ethical notion? Man is absolutely dependent on the omnipotent and infinite God—this is one of Berkeley favorite themes.28 Hence, we have to obey and obey freely, which is to say that we recognize God’s will as the source of our duties. We respect God, we recognize his will, and we obey. Not all people do so and Berkeley is anxious about them. They will miss eternal bliss in heaven. The problem is aggravated by free thinkers who teach atheism in science and ethics. They systematically promote godless thought. They are the quintessential anti-idealists. At the utilitarian level, love as a source of happiness is firmly connected with benevolence. Love promotes happiness because we help those we love. However, we love many things, for instance, social success. You are also justified in feeling “love of your own country” and “love of learning.” Your country should flourish and prosper. Love of learning means becoming a learned, civilized, and respectable person or, in this sense, a successful person. Berkeley is also a keen economist who understands the value of money and its role in good life. Hence, economic success is naturally desirable, although one should not exaggerate it. And as an enlightened protestant clergyman, Berkeley avoids all theological doctrines that despise earthly happiness, success, and prosperity.29 Religion is not an empty ritual; on the contrary, it entails a strong practical effort to make our lives and world happier. The struggle for happiness via love has its wide, concrete basis. Of course, Berkeley does not say that one’s reasons for virtuous action must be directly based on utility. This is a godless solution that allows for all kinds of problematic notions of utility, happiness, and consequentialist good. The sole guides to good action are God’s decrees; however, the agent can be certain that his actions bring about good and happy consequences when the terms “good” and “happy” are understood correctly. If questioned why to act in a given way, Berkeley’s answer is sometimes like the empty sounding “because it is virtuous.” Let us read it correctly. What is meant is that the agent should desire to obey God’s commands to be benevolent because of his love of God, at the same time understanding that his actions will advance his own and other people’s happiness and prosperity now and forever. Metaethically speaking, the concept of a good reason for action requires God’s sustenance. Practically, we can be certain that good and virtuous conduct

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promotes happiness here on earth and justifies our hope of happiness in a future state. These two aspects of ethics are in perfect harmony. The good God wants us to be happy and when we act accordingly, we are virtuous and we will be happy, prosperous, and successful. My neighbors, my country, and the whole world will benefit accordingly. Good consequences follow because God is benevolent to those who are willing to follow his commands, which dictate what Berkeley calls the “love of man.” When you aim at the good of others and promote their happiness, you do what God wants and hence he blesses your efforts. If you aim only at your own egotistic good, you betray God. As Berkeley says, you can use the idea of the good consequences of your own actions as a measure and criterion of their morality. In this sense, action is not right because it brings about good consequences but because right action always benefits you, other people, and their common lot. You can use this fact as a sign and criterion of morality. However, you must be careful not to call wrong things good just because they have happy consequences. Mistakes are all too common here, Berkeley worries. Let me specify why Berkeley needs utilitarian considerations. God’s will has been expressed to us in overtly broad terms. For instance, he says, do not kill. However, in many cases we kill without implicated guilt. Berkeley seems to accept the death penalty.30 This means we need to apply God’s commands to specific cases, acts, as well as rules and policies, without any further help from God. We only know we ought to do good. This is achieved by means of utility calculations. The basic rule is, be benevolent and take care of common happiness like of your own, which leads us directly to calculations of the degrees of happiness; this is prudential utilitarianism. Any practical ethicist is at least a pseudo-utilitarian. God is a perfect rule utilitarian in his goodness. He has organized the universe according to the laws of nature so that people can benefit from them and reach happiness at least in a future state. He wants to maximize our happiness. We should maximize happiness, or general good, as well. There is an evident analogy between the divine and human consequentialism.

Optimism in the vale of tears Berkeley’s ethics and its virtues are easy on us, however highly idealistic their background may be. They aim at our happiness. God could demand us to suffer cruelly while promising nothing certain in a future state, but Berkeley rejects such austere religious sensibilities. He is an optimist who unconditionally

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trusts God’s love and (utilitarian) benevolence. Our private chances of arriving at a future state after death are good. Berkeley is an unmitigated optimist. The human good, pleasure, happiness, and eternal bliss are preeminent in such a system of optimistic ethics. You act virtuously when you obey God’s commands, that is, you are virtuous in this special sense. When you act ethically, you can trust that the world and life are so arranged that people will be happy. This is because your action is backed by God’s good will. However, your own personal happiness is not part of your virtuous motivation; you do not act because you want to be happy. You will be happy because you acted virtuously, for instance, benevolently, responsibly, or even patriotically within a religious framework. He commands you to do the good thing, which may have personally desirable side effects, or unintended, inessential, or occasional consequences that still bring happiness to you, too. The bad news is that accidental consequences may hurt you. There is nothing you can do about it. People must suffer, or otherwise they already are in heaven. Anyway, God has set the world in good working order. It is the world of cosmic fairness where justified optimism rules under a benevolent God. He desires only one thing for himself: his people’s love. For Berkeley the requirement is both modest and understandable and he has a hard time seeing why free thinkers and other godless people refuse to admit this. How can they fail to see what is so obvious? Why believe in ethical ideals if you are convinced that this world is rotten, created by evil demons to be as bad as possible? An ethical idealist is an optimist because she can put her trust in an omnipotent and benevolent mind. If you aim at good, and this implies a promise of some perfect good, it does not make sense to be a pessimist.31 Perhaps such ideals are hopelessly unattainable, as a pessimist would say, unlike Berkeley. Perhaps he supports transferred optimism so that one’s principal hope is the future paradise after a life full of misery. I do not think so. His idealism certainly dictates a belief in the right kind of happiness in this world and not only in the next one, but his mature attitude remains ambiguous. He was more optimistic when he was young. Then he met the problem of evil— the problem why there is so much unhappiness and suffering in this world. Of course, the pagan world is like hell or the Hobbesian condition of nature, which he essentially saw in America, but his own civilized society could look quite evil, too.32 One common way of dealing with the problem refers to free will. Berkeley affirms the existence of free will and grounds the notion of responsibility on it in a standard manner.33 Hence, some people are unhappy because they do wrong and deserve it. Perhaps their desires are fantastical, or unnatural, unsatisfiable,

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and no good. Innocent people are sometimes unhappy because other people ruin their lives, for instance, they are kept in slavery. Free thinkers bring about unhappiness because they deny God who is the sole source of (genuine) happiness, says Berkeley. Also, natural calamities treat all the people in a ruthlessly equal manner. No one is safe when painful illness strikes, earthquakes hit, and abodes burn down. Berkeley calls our world a vale of tears.34 People are happier when they are virtuous, but perhaps never happy per se. They are like small elephants or big flies—small or big in a relative and contextual sense but not absolutely.35 People suffer. They are happy like a happy cancer patient, a happy bankrupt business person, or a happy widower can be, but never happy per se. A happy cancer patient is not happy as such; he is happy for a cancer patient. It is indeed possible to be happy and unhappy at the same time—we all are, relative to varying contexts, just as elephants can be big and small at the same time. The problems I sketched above threaten to make Berkeley’s optimism more or less academic. He can say that people are genuinely happy—or happy as such—only in the sense that living virtuously and devoutly in close connection with God is what we mean by happiness. Alas, this brings us back to the idea that these people are unhappy but also happy as devout Christians. The conclusion is that these people are not really happy. Big mice are not really big. Perhaps this is an idealistic solution but its optimism is of a weird kind. First, it is vacuous because happiness is not only brought about by virtuous life; it is virtuous life. Such semantic trickery may not appeal to a robust proto-utilitarian mind. Berkeley himself is immune to it, as his Alciphron shows. He insists on real happiness. Hence, and this is the second problem, it is not a consequentialist solution: happiness as a human goal is abundance of natural and intellectual pleasures. Therefore, he must say something more about the happiness of all those virtuous individuals who suffer so much. In his last major publication, Siris, suffering and its benevolent medical alleviation are the main ethical themes. Berkeley offers people hope by means of his tar water concoction that makes them healthier than whisky would. He cannot remove their suffering but he can alleviate it. However, all this pessimistic speculation is alien to the idealistic spirit tied to an optimistic outlook. It may be true that devout Christians are always happy because of their religion, regardless of what happens to them. However, this is empty selfsatisfied happiness that cannot appeal to any idealist thinker with a critical and acute mind. Berkeley must say something else. Of course, one can remark

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that devout Christians are happy because they expect a happy future state even if they experience pain and unhappiness here and now. The problem is the missing analogy between earthly life and a future state. Berkeley clearly believes in earthly happiness along with its misery. We must aim at general happiness, which therefore must exist, that is, if the aim is rational. Moreover, given that happiness is a sign of God’s benevolence, there must be happiness in this world—and there must be much of it, proportionally to God’s love. Also, God is good and God appears in the world; therefore, good must appear in the world.36 Moreover, happiness on earth is a gift of God. Here Berkeley’s optimistic idealism struggles under the pressure of a realistic view of the social world. Perhaps it is not the happiness or unhappiness as such that matters. What matters is potential happiness, or the possibility of becoming and being happy by living a virtuous life. This is a kind of Aristotelian solution but that need not make it unpalatable for Berkeley. He is keen on ancient learning, especially on Plato but also Aristotle and all the philosophers who are not godless. This is a large and diverse group, as especially Siris shows in its later paragraphs.37 Hence, the argument from potentiality might have appealed to him. We cannot be certain as he does not openly discuss it. However, readers may think that morally good action realizes all the potential for (consequentialist) goodness as happiness in this world. In other words, when you act virtuously the results are as good as possible, which is to say that all the potential good has been realized. It is an error to expect more, or to expect anything like perfection in this world. To say the world of the virtuous is as good as it can possibly be is to say virtue realizes all the potential good. This does not mean that the world is a thoroughly good, prosperous, and happy place, as it clearly is not. This solution avoids the problem of the relative and contextual happiness of the happy cancer patient. Virtue brings about happiness that is happiness as such. It may not be much but it is real happiness. Notice that Berkeley never says that virtuous people are happy in their suffering, like a happy martyr is. He may say, rather, that virtue releases all the potential happiness in us, in the sense that we could not be happier. Here virtue is defined according to God’s good so that happiness is the happiness of devout persons. Berkeley’s ultimate solution of course is to note that happiness in heaven is pure happiness, so that the problem gets it final solution in that ideal state of being. This further indicates why a future state is so important to Berkeley although it appears to fail to solve the problem of evil on earth.

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Resident evil All these subtle sensibilities are a far cry from the young Berkeley’s comments on good and evil in his Principles of Human Knowledge. Famously, he says that evil in this world works like shadows that make its good features visible: “The very blemishes and defects of nature . . . make an agreeable sort of variety, and augment of the beauty of the rest.”38 This sounds like (unintended) cynicism. How much resident evil is needed he does not say; perhaps, the more the better. Of course, evil is not real in its aesthetic role. This is something he implies by calling it similar to shadows. In this case the shadow argument cannot solve the problem of evil as it simply presupposes that evil is not real. The argument is circular. Our problem does not concern evil as an illusion but as reality. Later, both in Newport Rhode Island and Cloyne Southern Ireland, he came to grips with real evil, both natural and human. Berkeley presents in the same context another argument designed to prove that evil is unreal. This is an old Scholastic argument based on Genesis: God, after creation, looks back at it and says it is good. So, all being is good. As Thomas Aquinas argues, goodness and being mean the same thing.39 Berkeley reads this as follows: evil is an impression created by the limited human perspective on the world. If you saw and understood all the works of God—the world as a totality— you would not see any evil in it. Evil is something whose role in creation is so challenging that we cannot readily figure it out. However, it is a good role. This argument suggests that evil is an illusion. These two arguments are mutually inconsistent. First, evil makes good shine so that without evil there is no visible good. Evil points out the good and brings about evidence for its existence. Second, in the global perspective no evil exists. Suppose you look at the world as it is. It is full of good. It looks so splendid because of the evil in it. Now gradually distance yourself from the world so that you can see more and more of its totality. Consequently, you see less and less evil and, therefore also, less and less good. When you finally see the totality of the world at a glance, you see no evil. Therefore, also all the good has vanished. There is no good in the world. It follows that we have no (natural) evidence for the existence of good. If we say for Berkeley good is a practical and effective quality in the sense that it must be perceivable to exist, good does not exist at all. In this case, goodness becomes a mere illusion, which suits a pessimist. Notice also that on this view you must do evil things if you want to emphasize the good in the world. This is absurd.

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Let us return to the shadow argument and distinguish between three different cases. First, we have two bad items; second, we have one bad and one good item; and third, we have two good items to consider. First, if I have two bottles of fine wine, the finer one tastes much better when I taste and compare the wines to each other. I see too many really fine paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and this inflates their subjective value. When I see a batch of less impressive (good) paintings, I regain my normal sense of aesthetic scale. I know I need every now and then to drink indifferent wine and visit different fine art galleries. In the second case, I have a good and a bad thing. I am happy when everybody around me is unhappy. If this makes me happier, I am a bad person. If I am a good person, the situation makes me less happy. In this sense bad drags me down. Here is a theological dilemma: How can you be happy in heaven when you know your loved ones suffer in hell? If you are happy, you are a bad person who does not belong to heaven. If you are unhappy, you are not in heaven. Berkeley’s idealistic optimism is under a threat when he writes his Alciphron in Newport, Rhode Island where people are not as pious as they ought to be.40 What do you expect from slave traders and rum runners? He may say that slavery in New England is evil but it makes freedom shine so much brighter. He purchased slaves for his own household, as we know. Alternately, why not say slavery is a bad thing that makes liberty of those who happen to be free more cherished but also tainted? How could such a contrast to your own liberty fail to make you feel dirty and guilty, which is to be less free? In this sense, a slave owner is less free because of his slaves.41 Berkeley himself provided religious education for his slaves and baptized them as Berkeleys. He did something to reduce his guilt, although he never condemns slavery. Its abolishment is an empty ideal, he says.42 Third, we have two bad things of which one is worse than the other. We may well be happy that not everything is equally bad, but no value emerges where there is none. To be better is not to be good in the sense that a comparison of the two evils would prove the lesser evil to be good. Both things remain as bad as ever. It seems that Berkeley’s optimistic shadow argument works only when we discuss various degree of goodness: less good makes the higher good shine. Here we mention no evil, which is, accordingly, irrelevant to the desired shine of the good. Ethically speaking, the mature Berkeley never invested too much in this world that is only a faint reflection of the next one and, therefore, his idealistic optimism stays intact under the pressure from the realistic description of the world. He says happiness is a temporary gift, a fact that God makes evident to us.

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Love, benevolence, prosperity, health, and happiness exist in an imperfect form, but anyway there they are. We have no good reason to dismiss them and even less reason to act against them and our good neighbors. We must have faith and trust, come what may. His mature position is, as I see it, that both good and evil exist. As an optimist he should say that there is (much) more good than evil in the world. It is difficult to guess how he feels about such a proposition.

Conclusion: A modest view Berkeley’s practical, idealistic optimism is transferred optimism, in the following sense. We can be happy in this world and this tells us that there is a future state, a world to come, a divine paradise, a pure land where perfect happiness reigns.43 To a (practical) idealist like Berkeley, virtue leads to (true) happiness in our world and this carries an important message with it. Like a magic trick, being (truly) virtuous here promises you the perfect happiness of a future state. You may not earn your happiness; you do not deserve it, it is not your entitlement, yet it is your reward. As Crito says, “As for the Providence of God watching over the conduct of human agents, and dispensing blessings or chastisements, the immortality of the soul, a final judgment, and future state of rewards and punishments,” these are the “great points of natural religion.”44 To Berkeley’s modern audiences this may look like a miracle of analogous reasoning. A future state resembles the virtuous world on earth; so, by living a virtuous life here you will reap the ultimate profit there. To say these two worlds are alike is, of course, problematic. A future state is so much better. We do not know much about it, but analogical reasoning can expand our knowledge. The rest is speculation and wishful thinking. Nevertheless, Berkeley likes to compare them as he thinks that a virtuous life here is a signpost to afterlife in a future state. This is not instrumental reasoning. Virtue is not a method as it is simply a name for the love of God and man in the divine sense. Somehow it follows that the virtuous world is not really here but it is transferred there, to a future state where only the virtuous will go. Our virtuous happiness is transferred to a future state. It is indeed good, actually better than one can imagine. This is an optimistic and idealistic view because all this good emanates from the spirit of God. By acting virtuously it is as if you already were in a future state. This is to say, after death you find yourself resting in paradise because you already started on the path of virtue in this life.

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Berkeley keeps his idealistic and optimistic ethics modest: be virtuous and do not prevent others from being virtuous and you will find happiness for yourself and others. There is nothing implausible as such in his ethical views. If you accept its religious sensibilities and presuppositions, all is well. In the rejection of free thinking, much hinges on the validity of Berkeley’s natural religion. As a philosopher, he wants the truth—not practical success at the cost of the truth. To convince his audience, Berkeley in Alciphron eloquently describes what happens to ethical reason if no God can be assumed and referred to. For instance, Mandeville argues that evil deeds are the best, or vice is virtue.45 This is a playful application of the rhetorical form of paradiastole, although Berkeley sees it differently. Hence, voluntary godlessness, that is free thinking and atheism, are sins comparable to high treason: “[P]erhaps it may be no easy matter to assign a good reason why blasphemy against God should not be inquired into, and punished with the same rigour as treason against the king.”46 Its proper punishment used to be torture and death. He comes close to saying atheists deserve to be put to death, because, according to Berkeley, this view will result in no real virtue or morality, just private opinions without any unifying theme, a hell where the ghosts of free thinkers like Hobbes, Collins, Mandeville, Spinoza, and Shaftesbury roam contaminating everything with their godless poison.47

Notes 1 N. Rescher, Conceptual Idealism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1973), 3. 2 Alciphron in A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop, eds. Works Vol. 3 (London: Nelson, 1948–1957), I, 12. 3 See S. Darwall, “Berkeley’s Moral and Political Philosophy,” in Cambridge Companion to Berkeley, ed. K. Winkler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); and P. Olscamp, The Moral Philosophy of George Berkeley (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1970). 4 S. B. Cunningham, Reclaiming Moral Agency, The Moral Philosophy of Albert the Great (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008), 49. 5 I will, nevertheless, speak of Berkeley’s ethics. See also L. Jaffro, “Berkeley’s Criticism of Shaftesbury’s Moral Theory in Alciphron III,” in Reexamining Berkeley’s Philosophy, ed. S. Daniel (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), 201, 211. 6 Alciphron VI, 12, p. 242. 7 Alciphron I, 15, p. 49.

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8 Cf. Shaftesbury, Characteristics, ed. J. Robertson (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1980), Treatise IV, II, I, I, 280. Here is a problem for Berkeley: Shaftesbury says belief in a god is important in ethics. Obviously, the real existence of the god does not matter. Machiavelli says the same. 9 Alciphron I, 13. 10 Alciphron II, 18. 11 Sermon III, “On Charity,” Works 7, p. 28; “not with eye-service, but in sincerity of heart”; also “Discourse to Magistrates,” Works 6, p. 208. 12 Alciphron VI, 1, p. 220. 13 Analogical reasoning is important to an idealist; see P. Walmsley, The Rhetoric of Berkeley’s Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), ch. 12. 14 Alciphron V, 5. 15 Alciphron II, 12, p. 82, where virtue is the (natural) health of the soul. 16 See A. MacIntyre, After Virtue (London: Duckworth, 1981), ch. 10. 17 “That [moral] consciousness . . . is convinced that to ask for the Why? is simple immorality; to do good for its own sake is virtue, to do it for some ulterior end or object, not itself good, is never virtue.” F. H. Bradley, Ethical Studies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927), 62. 18 Jaffro, 209–210; cf. Darwall, 314. See Alciphron II, 12, p. 81 for a perfect example of utilitarian reasoning. 19 Passive Obedience, Works 6, 8, p. 21. 20 Sermon III, “On Charity,” p. 34. 21 Alciphron II, 16. 22 Guardian Essays IV, “Pleasures,” Works 7. 23 Alciphron II, 14, 16. 24 Sermon I, “On Immortality,” p. 12. 25 Alciphron II, 14. 26 Siris, Works 5, 211. 27 Alciphron I, 16, p. 50. 28 Three Dialogues II, Works 2, p. 214. Berkeley is no pantheist; cf. S. Daniel, “Berkeley’s Pantheistic Discourse,” International Journal of Philosophy of Religion 49 (2001): 179–194. 29 “Advertisement,” Querist, Works 6, 103. 30 Alciphron V, 12, pp. 185–186: Crito on Christian justice. 31 N. Rescher, Ethical Idealism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), ch. 4, 112. 32 “A Proposal,” Works 7, p. 359. 33 Alciphron VII, 19. See G. Bryckman, “On Human Liberty in Berkeley’s Alciphron VII,” in New Interpretations of Berkeley’s Thought, ed. S. Daniel (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2008).

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34 Sermon VI, “On the Mystery of Godliness,” p. 86. In Alciphron, Crito often sounds pessimistic but Berkeley’s personal view remains hidden. 35 See J. J. Thomson, Normativity (Chicago: Open Court, 2008), ch. 1:2. 36 See Alciphron IV, 20. 37 Siris, 298–299. 38 Principles of Human Knowledge, Works 2, 152–153. 39 N. Lombardo, The Logic of Desire, Aquinas on Emotion (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2011), pp. 27ff. 40 Letters, Works 8, p. 202; “A Proposal,” p. 359, also p. 346; Sermon IX, “Anniversary Sermon,” p. 123.Alciphron V, 35. 41 A false notion of liberty is criticized by Crito, Alciphron II, 26, p. 110. 42 Alciphron V, 35. 43 Guardian Essays I, “The Future State,” pp. 183–184. 44 Alciphron V, 27. 45 B. Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices, Publick Benefits (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1988). 46 “An Essay towards Preventing the Ruin of Great Britain,” Works 6, p. 71. 47 My warmest thanks are due to Professor Heta Gylling (Helsinki).

Bibliography Bradley, F. H. Ethical Studies. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927. Cooper, Anthony Ashley, Earl of Shaftesbury. Characteristics, edited by J. Robertson. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1980. Cunningham, S. B. Reclaiming Moral Agency, The Moral Philosophy of Albert the Great. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008. Daniel, Stephen. “Berkeley’s Pantheistic Discourse.” In International Journal in Philosophy of Religion 49 (2001): 179–194. Daniel, Stephen (ed.). New Interpretations of Berkeley’s Thought. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2008. Darwall, S. “Berkeley’s Moral and Political Philosophy.” In Cambridge Companion to Berkeley, edited by K. Winkler, 311–338. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Jaffro, L. “Berkeley’s Criticism of Shaftesbury’s Moral Theory in Alciphron III.” In Reexamining Berkeleys Philosophy, edited by S. Daniel, 199–213. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. Lombardo, N. The Logic of Desire, Aquinas on Emotion. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2011. Luce, A. A., and T. E. Jessop (eds). Works. London: Nelson, 1948–1957.

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MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue. London: Duckworth, 1981. Mandeville, B. The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices, Publick Benefits. Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1988. Olscamp, P. The Moral Philosophy of George Berkeley. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1970. Rescher, Nicholas. Conceptual Idealism. Oxford: Blackwell, 1973. Rescher, Nicholas. Ethical Idealism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Thomson, J. J. Normativity. Chicago: Open Court, 2008. Walmsley, P. The Rhetoric of Berkeley’s Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Notes on Contributors

Timo Airaksinen is professor emeritus of Ethics and Social Philosophy at the University of Helsinki. He has written extensively on Thomas Hobbes, George Berkeley, Hegel, and the Marquis de Sade. His books include The Philosophy of the Marquis de Sade (Routledge), Ethics of Coercion and Authority (University of Pittsburgh Press), and (with Bertil Belfrage) Berkeley’s Lasting Legacy: 300 Years Later (Cambridge Scholars). James M. Arcadi is a postdoctoral research fellow at Fuller Theological Seminary and a Templeton Research Fellow in Jewish Philosophical Theology at the Herzl Institute. He recently completed his PhD in Theology and Religious Studies from the University of Bristol. His articles have appeared in Religious Studies and The Heythrop Journal. Alongside of his academic work, James is an ordained priest in the Anglican Church in North America. Marc Cortez is associate professor of Theology at Wheaton College. His scholarly articles have appeared in such journals as Scottish Journal of Theology, International Journal of Systematic Theology and Journal of Analytic Theology. His books include Christological Anthropology in Historical Perspective (Zondervan), Embodied Souls, Ensouled Bodies (T&T Clark), and Theological Anthropology: A Guide for the Perplexed (T&T Clark). Oliver D. Crisp is professor of Systematic Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary. He has published numerous articles in analytic theology, historical theology, and philosophical theology. He is the author or editor of several books, including Deviant Calvinism (Fortress), Revisioning Christology (Ashgate), Retrieving Doctrine (InterVarsity), and A Reader in Contemporary Philosophical Theology (T&T Clark). Joshua R. Farris is assistant professor of Theology at Houston Baptist University and director of Trinity School of Theology. His work has appeared in Religious

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Studies, Philosophia Christi, Philosophy and Theology, Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie and Heythrop Journal. His forthcoming books include The Soul of Theological Anthropology (Ashgate) and A Brief Introduction to Theological Anthropology (Baker). And (with Charles Taliaferro) he is editor of the Ashgate Research Companion to Theological Anthropology. S. Mark Hamilton is a PhD candidate at the Free University of Amsterdam. He is also the author of two recently published articles on Jonathan Edwards’ doctrine of Atonement with International Journal of Systematic Theology. James S. Spiegel is professor of Philosophy and Religion at Taylor University. He has published numerous articles on Berkeleyan idealism, and his scholarly work has appeared in such journals as Faith and Philosophy, Sophia, and International Journal of Philosophy and Theology. His books include Hypocrisy: Moral Fraud and Other Vices (Baker) and the award winning, How to be Good in a World Gone Bad (Kregel). Seng-Kong Tan is lecturer of Systematic and Spiritual Theology and director of Online Education at Biblical Graduate School of Theology in Singapore. He is the author of Fullness Received and Returned: Trinity and Participation in Jonathan Edwards (Fortress Press). William J. Wainwright is distinguished professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is a past editor of Faith and Philosophy and past president of the Society of Christian Philosophers and the Society for Philosophy of Religion. His major publications include Reason and the Heart (Cornell), Philosophy of Religion, 2nd ed. (Cengage), Religion and Morality (Ashgate), and the edited volume The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Religion. Jordan Wessling is a postdoctoral research fellow at Fuller Theological Seminary. He is the book review editor for the Journal of Analytic Theology (which is jointly sponsored by the University of Notre Dame and Baylor University), and his publications have appeared in venues such as Theology and Science, the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Philosophia Christi, and the Journal of Reformed Theology. He is also currently completing a monograph on divine love. Keith E. Yandell has taught at The Ohio State University and University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has published over sixty articles dealing with issues in

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metaphysics, philosophy of religion, ethics, and the history of modern philosophy. His books include Hume’s Inexplicable Mystery (Temple), The Epistemology of Religious Experience (Cambridge), Faith and Narrative (Oxford), and The Soul (Ashgate).

Index abstract ideas 37, 46, 160 see also ideas abstraction 46 abstract objects 37, 46, 160 Adams, Robert M. 173 Ames, William 100, 104, 110, 123–4, 127 Anselm 63, 172, 173 antirealism, antirealists 6, 88, 118, 126, 146, 153, 154, 160, 161, 161, 165, 170 Aquinas, Thomas 59, 68, 69, 123, 189, 196, 229 Bavink, Herman 109, 123, 127 Beck, Peter 99, 104 Berkeley, George, alciphron 28–30, 38, 217, 227–34 analogy 21, 28, 222, 233 common sense 14, 18, 33, 78, 86, 89 consistency thesis 9, 10, 17 determinism 16, 17, 22, 31, 60–5 endorsement thesis 10, 16, 17, 26, 29 epicurean 17 ethical externalism 218–20 ex nihilo 17 fiction 18 heterodoxy 14, 18, 27 human responsibility 16, 17 ideational 12 image theory 75–6 master argument 73–7 material substance 11, 15–18, 36–9 matterist 6, 15–24 notional 73–7, 156 optimism 225–30 private 19, 20 public 19–24 siris 44–8, 227–8 spirit 5, 11, 12, 15 stoic 17 Three Dialogues 10, 35 virtue, acquired 218 virtue, infused 218

virtue utilitarianism 220–5 vulgar 14, 18 Berkhof, Louis 110, 111–13, 124, 127 body worry 97–8 Brentano 77, 81 Brierly, Michael 55 bundle theory 121, 130, 131, 154, 157, 158, 172 Caldwell, Robert W. III 139, 141–2, 145, 167, 172–3, 188–9, 195–6 Calvin, John 31, 32, 100, 104, 110, 123, 124, 127, 200, 211, 212, 214 Cambridge Platonists 189 causation 2, 109, 125, 127, 150, 161, 163 Christ see Jesus Christ Christianity 2, 7, 48, 81, 146 Collier, Arthur 28, 204, 213–14 common sense 13–15, 29, 31, 33, 36–7, 47, 78, 86, 89, 184 communicative ontology 84, 86, 89–90, 93–5, 98, 100, 102, 132, 134, 142, 194 “com-unification” 93 consciousness 35, 49, 57, 77, 118, 125, 127–8, 131–3, 148, 150–1, 179, 183, 187, 191, 233 Cooper, John 66–7, 70, 97, 103–4, 171, 173 correspondence 77 corruption, see 107–29 Cortez, Marc 5, 99–100, 103–4, 129, 139–40, 237 Council of Nicaea 172, 175 creatio ex nihilo 17, 25, 74, 96, 103, 105, 149 creation, continuous 6, 80, 85–6, 88, 94, 130–1, 149–50, 155, 161, 170, 182–3, 185–6 Creator-creature 95–8

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Crisp, Oliver 6, 67–8, 70, 99, 101–2, 104–5, 125, 127, 139, 141, 143, 145, 168, 171, 173, 174, 177, 188, 192, 195, 237 Cudworth, Ralph 45 Daniel, Stephen 67, 70, 93, 100 Deists 30, 47 Dennett, Daniel 103, 104, 150, 188, 195, 234 Descartes, Rene 17, 32, 75 determinism 62 divine action, learned 84 mental phenomenalism 39–41 occasionalism 38–40, 85, 94, 132, 146, 153–66 second cause 39 signs 41 typology 41 vulgar 39, 84 divine conservation 17, 24, 29, 60 divine decrees 22, 49, 164, 175, 178–9, 189 divine ideas 5, 19–22, 24, 30, 40–1, 46, 48–9, 55, 57, 59–62, 65–6, 68, 73, 78–9, 84–8, 90, 93, 97, 101–2, 117–19, 121, 124, 126, 148, 153–5, 160, 177–6, 189, 192, 195, 207–8, 220 divine timelessness 168 see also God, timelessness dualism 5, 58, 84–6, 88–90, 93–8, 101, 105, 107–9, 111, 119, 121–5, 137–8, 160 Edwards, Jonathan, Of Atoms 39, 67, 102, 168, 191 On Being 35 panentheism 88, 89, 93, 101, 103, 104, 146, 153, 156, 163, 164, 165, 171, see also ch.3 substance 57–9, 84 embodiment 97, 110, 138 ens enitium 36 epistemology 239 esse est percipi (aut percipere) 10–11, 28, 182, 192, 198 ethics, morality 7, 69, 71, 123, 128, 217–21, 223–7, 229, 231, 233, 237, 239

evil, problem of 15–16, 27, 29, 32, 62–3, 65, 69–70, 163, 226, 228, 229, 230 evolutionary theory 125 experience 18, 20, 24, 25, 44, 63, 77, 79, 84, 86, 116, 125, 128, 130–1, 134–6, 139–40, 143, 201, 207, 220, 228, 239 extension 40, 75, 148, 207 facts 10, 43, 49 faculty psychology 93 volition natural 90–3 volition supernatural 90–3 faith 14, 26, 29, 44, 47, 69, 85, 100, 105, 125, 127, 166, 169, 170, 172–4, 190, 193, 200, 217–18, 231, 238–9 Farris, Jenna see acknowledgments finite spirits 19, 21–2, 24, 80, 86, 87, 118, 147–9, 181, 191 see also mind; soul Flanagan, Owen 125, 128 Foster, John 1, 7, 17 four-dimensionalism 6, 126 free will 27, 31, 69, 71, 150–1, 183, 226 God, aseity 171, 173 attributes 30, 57, 61–2, 84, 91–2, 120, 146–7 existence 18, 20, 30, 37–41, 48–9, 57, 59, 73, 78–9, 81, 87–8, 100, 102, 130–2, 149, 153–4, 178, 181–2, 191, 198 foreknowledge 24 glory 23, 51–2, 84, 87, 90–3, 96, 98–9, 121, 133–7, 142, 167, 174, 192 immanence 58–9, 66, 68, 71, 95–6 immutability 61 love 2, 14, 35, 91–2, 120–1, 146, 178, 182, 187, 189, 192, 219–20, 222–6, 228, 231, 238 omnibenevolence, goodness 15–16, 42, 46, 63–5, 69, 69–70, 112, 132, 152, 189, 218, 225, 228–30 omnipotence 68, 71, 190 simplicity 61, 68, 146, 168–9, 171, 173 sovereignty 16, 39, 52, 56, 83, 160 timelessness 168 transcendence 58, 59, 66, 95–6

Index Goodwin, Thomas 109, 123, 127 gospel 9, 27, 42, 135 Hamilton, Alora 123 Hegel, G. W. F. 237 Helm, Paul 67, 70, 102, 105, 124, 127, 139, 143, 168, 170, 174 Hick, John 29, 32 Hight, Marc A. 159, 171–2, 174, 193–4, 196, 207, 213–14 Hobbes, Thomas 89, 101, 148, 168, 226, 232, 237 Hodge, Charles 62, 113 Hudson, Hud 60, 68, 70, 125, 127 Hume, David 40, 45, 81, 170 Hunsinger, George 200, 214 Hylas 13, 17–19, 27, 28, 32, 81, 82 idealism, absolute 73, 86, 146, 184 Berkeleyan 3–5, 57, 97, 159, 198, 203, 211, 214, 238 ideas, abstract 37, 46, 160 Imago Dei see 83–105 Jesus Christ 42, 133, 135, 137, 159, 184, 185, 186, 187, 197, 199 Johnson, Samuel 12–13 Kant, Immanuel 97 laws of nature 18, 22, 24–5, 49, 151, 225 Leftow, Brian 60, 68, 71 Lewis, David K. 58, 59, 67, 68, 70, 71, 123, 127 Locke, John 10, 27, 32, 36, 45, 48, 52, 75, 168, 174, 188, 195 Logos 177–81, 184–9, 193 Lowe, E. J. 124 Luther, Martin 63, 113, 145, 200–1 Lycan, William G. 125 McClymond, Michael 50, 53, 105, 139, 140, 143, 193, 196 McCracken 21

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McTaggert, J. M. E. 80 Malebranche, Nicolas 188, 190, 195–6 materialism 89, 124–5, 173 material substratum 1, 24, 118 matter see material substratum matterism see materialism Melville 44 metaphor 27 mind see soul mind-body problem see 108–17 More, Henry 45 naturalism 68 Oakes, Robert 60, 68, 71 occasionalism 38–40, 67–70, 85, 94, 102, 104, 132, 139–43, 146, 153, 155, 161–3, 165–6, 170, 171, 172, 188, 193, 195 Ockham’s (Occam’s) Razor 11, 57 omniscience 79 orthodoxy (theological) 4, 9, 25, 83, 89, 95, 138, 145–6, 159, 161, 165, 166 Osteen, Joel 9 Owen, John 124, 128, 162 panentheism 4, 6, 55–70, 88–9, 93, 101, 103, 146, 153, 156, 163–6, 171 pantheism 4, 55, 68, 103 particulars 3, 37, 58 perception 10, 12, 18, 29–30, 33, 35–6, 40–3, 73, 75, 77–8, 87, 117, 118–19, 121, 133, 168–9, 179, 182, 187, 191, 198–9, 203, 206, 207 perdurantism 171 personal identity 141, 142, 151, 155, 185, 187 phenomenalism 39–41 Plantinga, Alvin 170, 174 Plato (and Platonic, Platonism) 43–7, 55, 97, 142, 175, 189, 217, 228 Ploger, Thomas 128 Plotinus 29 properties 36, 39, 40, 55–7, 84, 86, 94–5, 103, 108, 115, 116, 118, 121, 123, 126, 130, 131, 147, 153, 154, 155, 158, 160, 170, 181–3, 194

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providence 16, 23, 31, 38, 42, 66, 69, 71, 83, 231 Pruss, Alexander 68, 71, 212, 215 qualities 10, 17, 22–3, 35–6, 38, 40, 43, 46, 75–6, 183, 198, 199, 201–13 Rea, Michael 68, 70, 126, 128, 144, 170–4, 212, 215 realism 5–6, 14–15, 58–9, 68, 73, 75, 77–81, 88, 100, 118, 125, 127, 154 Reid, Thomas 196 resurrection 129–44 Rhoda, Alan 62 Robinette 96 Robinson, Howard 101, 105, 173 science 78, 80, 132, 218, 224, 238 sensation 25, 36, 40, 50, 75, 77, 84, 93, 198 sense data 38, 50 sense reliability 77 Shedd, William G. T. 124, 128 Sider, Theodore 123, 128 simplicity 61 skepticism 73 soul 5, 12–13, 28, 42, 45–6, 62, 65, 85–104, 107–28, 133–4, 137–8, 142, 148, 159, 188, 222, 231, 233, 237, 238–9 see also mind space 36, 39, 74–5, 78, 87, 130, 148, 163, 172, 181, 191 Spiegel, James 4, 7, 9, 127, 238 Strobel, Kyle 99, 104–5, 188, 196

substance see also material substratum Cartesianism 97 dualism 97 substratum see material substratum Swinburne, Richard 103, 105, 115, 125, 128 Taliaferro, Charles 68, 71, 99, 104–5, 139, 142, 238 teleology (teleological) 125, 128 theological personalism 95, 103 Thornbull 43 Tillich, Paul 44 Tracy, David 55 truth 9, 11, 13, 19, 26–8, 37, 46, 48–1, 59, 74, 77, 124, 128, 150, 184, 187, 218, 223, 232 Turbayne, Colin 24 Turretin, Francis 86, 89, 92, 100, 105 universals 86, 123, 172, 189 van Inwagen, Peter 125, 126, 128, 141, 144, 171, 174, 175 Wainwright, William 59, 67, 68, 71, 168–9, 175, 238 Warnock, G. J. 45 Zakai, Avihu 91, 102, 105 Zimmerman, Dean 123, 126, 128, 141, 144, 171, 174–5 Zwingli, Ulrich 179, 211, 212, 215