Protestant Virtue and Stoic Ethics 9780567671356, 9780567671387, 9780567671363

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title
Title
Copyright
Contents
Introduction and Acknowledgments
1. Protestant Virtue Ethics and the Retrieval of the Stoics
2. A Roman Stoic Ethic of Assent
3. The Primacy of Faith in a Protestant Virtue Ethic
4. Conversion, Transformation, and Christian Progress: Protestant Soteriology and the Formation of Moral Character
5. Providence, Necessity, and the Human Will: Moral Agency in Historical Protestant Ethics
6. Emotions in the Virtuous Life
Conclusion: Future Prospects for Protestant Virtue Ethics
Works Cited
Index

Citation preview

Protestant Virtue and Stoic Ethics

T&T Clark Enquiries in Theological Ethics Series editors Brian Brock Susan F. Parsons

Protestant Virtue and Stoic Ethics Elizabeth Agnew Cochran

T&T CLARK Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the T&T Clark logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2018 Paperback edition first published 2019 Copyright © Elizabeth Agnew Cochran, 2018 Elizabeth Agnew Cochran has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. vi constitute an extension of this copyright page. 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. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-0-5676-7135-6 PB: 978-0-5676-8916-0 ePDF: 978-0-5676-7136-3 ePub: 978-0-5676-7137-0 Series: T&T Clark Enquiries in Theological Ethics Typeset by Newgen KnowledgeWorks Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

Contents Introduction and Acknowledgments

vi

1

Protestant Virtue Ethics and the Retrieval of the Stoics

2

A Roman Stoic Ethic of Assent

47

3

The Primacy of Faith in a Protestant Virtue Ethic

91

4

Conversion, Transformation, and Christian Progress: Protestant Soteriology and the Formation of Moral Character

113

Providence, Necessity, and the Human Will: Moral Agency in Historical Protestant Ethics

139

Emotions in the Virtuous Life

173

Conclusion: Future Prospects for Protestant Virtue Ethics

195

5 6

1

Works Cited

199

Index

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Introduction and Acknowledgments The notion of Protestant virtue immediately raises a number of questions. Can one speak coherently of any Protestant moral commitment in light of the diversity of ecclesial bodies that can broadly be characterized as Protestant or that might identify themselves in this way? Do historical Protestant traditions allow for an authentic conception of virtue, or is such a perspective unavoidably at odds with claims regarding righteousness that we particularly tend to associate with Luther? And does the notion of Protestant virtue imply the need for a virtue ethic that unravels the moral claims associated with non-Protestant branches of Christianity, and particularly with the work of Thomas Aquinas? These questions—posed at academic conferences and in conversations with colleagues and graduate students—suggest the merits of clarifying this book’s character and scope at the outset. This book develops a constructive virtue ethic that draws on three historical Protestant theologians: Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards. These thinkers do not speak comprehensively for all of Protestant theology and, in some ways, most clearly represent the body of interrelated traditions that can broadly be considered Reformed in the historical sense: a set of traditions that includes Anglican and Wesleyan perspectives as well as churches associated with Lutheranism and Calvinism.1 Insofar as it reflects these historical roots of many Protestant traditions, the account of virtue laid out in this volume can broadly be termed “Protestant” even as this designation is, in a certain sense, overly simplistic. Such a designation is valuable, moreover, because it points toward the possibility of conceiving Protestant ethics as a moral tradition with a kind of internal coherence, despite the complexity of Protestant identity that is perhaps particularly evident among Protestant Christians in the United States.

1

Oliver Crisp helpfully notes the historical relation among these traditions in Crisp, Deviant Calvinism:  Broadening Reformed Theology. Minneapolis, MN:  Augsburg Fortress Press, 2014, pp. 1–28.

Introduction and Acknowledgments

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In addition to questions about the label “Protestant,” those with knowledge of historical Protestant thinkers may well question the plausibility of associating the term “virtue” with Protestant theology; Luther, in particular, overtly rejects the notion of virtue as implying a sort of works-righteousness. Likewise, the terminology of Protestant virtue raises questions about whether such a notion necessarily implies a rejection of Catholic and Orthodox theology and signals a reassertion of Protestant identity precisely as Protestant. Further clarification of this book’s intent and purposes provides a vehicle for addressing these questions as well. This book is a constructive retrieval of moral claims that find particular purchase in Luther, Calvin, and Edwards. In describing these claims as Protestant, I  do not intend to denigrate the Catholic tradition nor try to establish a case that the positions laid out here are inherently better than accounts of virtue at work in Aristotle or Thomas Aquinas. However, I  do wish to expand virtue ethicists’ understanding of the range of historical positions that can enrich our understanding of moral character and particularly of the virtues, and to argue that historical Protestant theology can meaningfully contribute to the ongoing reflection of contemporary virtue ethics despite some of the obvious ways in which this tradition appears to be at odds with recovery of the virtues. I turn to the Stoics as a philosophical tradition that—when considered alongside Luther, Calvin, and Edwards—illuminates the senses in which these Protestant thinkers develop claims that can be woven authentically into a virtue ethic. The remainder of this manuscript explains more fully precisely how this is the case. In negotiating these questions and reflecting on how best to articulate the ways in which reflection on Stoic thought and historical Protestant theology can enhance contemporary understandings of virtue, I have benefited greatly from a number of institutions and individuals who have provided time and financial support for the work of research and writing, offered constructive feedback on texts, and engaged earlier versions of these arguments critically, challenging me to clarify my thinking. I am grateful for the ways in which others have contributed to the ideas I lay out in this book and to my continued development as a scholar. One major source of support for this project came through a grant from the Character Project at Wake Forest University and the John Templeton

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Foundation.2 I am grateful both for the time this grant afforded me to work on research and writing and for the opportunities this grant provided to reflect on moral formation and development with an interdisciplinary community of scholars. Christian Miller and Angela Knobel provided extremely helpful editorial comments on an early draft of an essay I submitted to the edited volume emerging from the work of the Character Project. Nancy Snow offered thoughtful and critical feedback on an early version of Chapter 3 and on the project of this book as a whole. My conversations with Christian, Angela, and Nancy ultimately played a significant role in shaping the structure and tone of the argument in this book. My home institution, Duquesne University, also supported this project by providing me with a sabbatical semester and two internal grants, a Wimmer Research Grant through the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts in 2009, and a Presidential Scholarship Award in 2016. I appreciate the support of my department chairs, George Worgul, Maureen O’Brien, and Marinus Iwuchukwu, and Dean Jim Swindal, who enabled me to receive the time and financial assistance for researching this subject and writing this manuscript. Colleagues in the Department of Theology were helpful conversation partners at various stages in this project; I’m particularly grateful to Jim Bailey, Anna Floerke Scheid, Daniel Scheid, Elisabeth Vasko, Darlene Weaver, and Bill Wright for conversations that helped to shape and clarify ideas expressed in this manuscript. PhD students Catherine Brodersen, Lisa Hickman, Michael Niebauer, and Joseph Smith also helped me with research. Both Jennifer Herdt and Jean Porter read large portions of this manuscript and multiple versions of several chapters. Their careful and constructive feedback has enriched this project significantly. I  greatly appreciate their time and encouragement and their clear commitment to working with emerging scholars. I am grateful to Susan Parsons and Brian Brock for their support for this work and their commitment to shepherding it as part of the Enquiries in Theological Ethics series. I  also wish to thank Anna Turton at T&T Clark/ Bloomsbury for her support for this work.

2

The opinions expressed in the publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Character Project, Wake Forest University, or the John Templeton Foundation.

Introduction and Acknowledgments

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Jim Keenan, Diana Fritz Cates, and Bill Mattison have also supported this work at different stages through helpful conversations. Bill also offered careful and thoughtful feedback on an early version of Chapter 3. I am grateful to Jim, Diana, and Bill for their time in helping me hone these arguments. Audiences at the 2009, 2014, and 2016 annual meetings of the Society of Christian Ethics and the 2010 meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies raised valuable questions related to earlier versions of this argument. I  particularly appreciate the opportunity to consider questions about the nature, scope, and character of Protestant ethics with the Protestant Ethics and Natural Law interest group of the SCE, chaired by Neil Arner and Paul Martens. I am likewise grateful for questions raised in Jerry McKenny’s thoughtful response to the paper presented there. I also benefitted from the opportunity to engage C.  Kavin Rowe, who challenged my earlier efforts to draw connections between Edwards’s theology and the Stoics and published a response to me in the Journal of Religious Ethics in 2012. I am grateful to Martin Kavka, Aline Kalbian, and the editorial board of the Journal of Religious Ethics for enabling me to publish a response to Rowe. This experience provided a helpful opportunity to work through and clarify my arguments and methodology. I am blessed with a family who has been a source of strength for me throughout my life, and I  am grateful for the ways in which my parents, Peter and Lois Agnew, and my brother Peter continue to support me and my work. Likewise I am immensely grateful for my husband Michael and my sons Luke and Caleb. Their love and companionship brings me great joy. Parenthood has brought me many reminders of how far I fall short of the ideals laid out in this book, both Christian and Stoic. But my husband and children also provide daily reminders of how love remains powerful in the midst of human shortcomings and how God is at work in human relationships. Elizabeth Agnew Cochran April 2017

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Portions of this book are adapted from previously published texts. I am grateful for permissions I have received to adapt and make use of the articles listed below: ●

●

●

●

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“The Moral Beauty of Assent: Retrieving Stoic Virtue Theory for Christian Ethics.” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 30.1 (2010): 117–40. “Consent, Conversion, and Moral Formation: Stoic Elements in Jonathan Edwards’ Ethics.” Journal of Religious Ethics 39.4 (2011): 623–50. “Bricolage and the Purity of Traditions: Engaging the Stoics for Contemporary Christian Ethics.” Journal of Religious Ethics 40.4 (2012): 720–9. “Faith, Love, and Stoic Assent: Reconsidering Virtue in the Reformed Tradition.” Journal of Moral Theology 3.1 (2014): 199–227. “The Moral Significance of Religious Affections: A Reformed Perspective on Emotions and Moral Formation.” Studies in Christian Ethics 28.2 (2015): 150– 62. “Necessity and Human Agency: Cultivating Character in the Reformed Christian Tradition,” in Character, ed. Christian Miller, R. Michael Furr, Angela Knobel, and William Fleeson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 555–71.

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The term “Stoic” has long been used as a means of criticizing certain morally complicated claims associated with Reformed Protestant theology. John Calvin alludes—in the Institutes of the Christian Religion—to opponents who characterize his views of providence and necessity as Stoic, and he hastens to distance his position from a Stoic account of fate.1 Jonathan Edwards adopts a different strategy in On Freedom of the Will. In response to Arminians who characterize his understanding of freedom and necessity as Stoic, he essentially says, “so what if it is?” The Stoics, he affirms, are “the greatest, wisest, and most virtuous of all the heathen philosophers” who “in their doctrine and practice came the nearest to Christianity of any of their sects.” It is not surprising, Edwards maintains, that Christians have historically used Stoic ideas “as a confirmation of some of the greatest truths of the Christian religion, relating to the unity and perfections of the Godhead, a future state, the duty and happiness of mankind, etc. as observing how the light of nature and reason in the wisest and best of the heathen, harmonizes with, and confirms the gospel of Jesus Christ.”2 Calvin and Edwards offer two possible ways of thinking about Christian theology’s intersection with other moral traditions, and both are helpful for reflecting on the nature and character of Christian ethics. Conversations with other traditions can 1

2

John Calvin (1559). Institutes of the Christian Religion. Trans. Henry Beveridge, 1845. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2009. I.16.8, pp. 119–20. Jonathan Edwards, Freedom of the Will, ed. Paul Ramsey. (1957). Volume 1 in Works of Jonathan Edwards. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, p. 372. All quotations from Jonathan Edwards are drawn from the 26-volume Works of Jonathan Edwards (WJE) series published between 1957 and 2008 by Yale University Press.

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be fruitful, and Edwards points toward ways in which certain points of overlap between Christianity and other systems of thought are to be expected and appreciated in light of Christian theological understandings of the created order and the God-given capacities of natural reason. At the same time, Calvin’s precision is a helpful reminder that acknowledging and upholding the distinctive and particular commitments of Christianity is important to ensuring the clarity and integrity of Christian theology’s engagement with other traditions. Much like the opponents of Calvin and Edwards, this book contends that Roman Stoic ethics has certain points of affinity with Protestant theology, particularly as this theology is expressed and embodied in the historical Reformed tradition. Like Calvin, I will contend that Christian theology should assert its distinct witness and celebrate the particulars and uniqueness of the tradition rooted in God’s self-revelation in the incarnate Jesus Christ. However, like Edwards, I  argue that this affinity is not surprising and not something that theologians should see as threatening. On the contrary, an exploration of Roman Stoic ethics alongside the work of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards can help Christian ethicists to understand and appreciate the contributions Protestant Christianity offers to contemporary reflection on the virtues. Contemporary virtue ethics began as a recovery of Aristotle and in many ways continue to privilege Aristotelian conceptions of virtue. Yet, a number of recent studies increasingly recognize nuances among ancient philosophical schools and point toward the ways in which Platonist, Neoplatonist, and Stoic accounts of virtue can positively inform our understandings of the virtues, sustained dispositions, or character traits that are morally praiseworthy and desirable. Protestant ethics benefits from attending to these diverse conceptions of virtue, particularly to those developed by the Roman Stoics. Certain aspects of Roman Stoic thought were appropriated by Christianity at different historical points and were emphasized in fruitful and distinctive ways by Protestant Christians in particular. Failure to recognize and explore the character of this influence has made it difficult to grasp the distinctive shape of Protestant virtue ethics. A conversation between Roman Stoic ethics and historical Protestant Christianity illuminates key themes in Christian thought that reflect unexpected points of continuity with the Stoics. These were recaptured and

Protestant Virtue Ethics and the Retrieval of the Stoics

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developed in striking ways by historical Protestant theologians: virtue (or, for Protestants, faith) holds a unique value among possible moral goods; virtue has a unity consonant with a soteriology that conceives justification as radically transforming a Christian from a sinner to one who is righteous before God; human beings exercise a responsive and authentic moral agency through a dispositional consent to God’s benevolent providence that gives rise to love for God and neighbor; and virtue serves as a necessary and essential guide in discerning the proper pursuit of emotions, even as certain emotional states are to be celebrated as part of human nature. These convictions stand largely in keeping with the Christian tradition as a whole and are particularly prominent in the writings of Paul and Augustine. Nevertheless, Luther, Calvin, and Edwards develop them in ways that constitute a characteristically Protestant perspective on the moral life and that provide a foundation for constructing a contemporary Protestant virtue ethic. A project that attends carefully to the Stoics as a resource for Christian ethics invites a number of questions. Many virtue ethicists are suspicious of the Stoics because retrievals of Stoic ethics were prominent in modernity, a period often associated with the rise of secularism and the decline of virtue. Moreover, historical and contemporary Christian theologians rightly criticize the Stoics for advocating suicide, rejecting the emotions (even grief at the loss of a loved one), adhering to a type of pantheism, and conceiving the human person as overly self-reliant. These concerns give Christian ethicists reason to avoid embracing Stoic ethics uncritically and in its entirety. Nevertheless, the Stoics merit further consideration from Christian ethicists because the Stoics influenced the historical development of Christian thought—and particularly of Christian moral thought—in crucial ways. Most studies of the relation between Stoicism and Christian theology have focused on earlier periods in Christian history, but the Stoic influence on Christian moral thought continued into modernity. Even as historical Protestant theologians deliberately distanced themselves from certain Stoic positions, Protestant theology reflects this influence, both because the retrieval of Stoicism characterized much of early modern and modern moral thought and because Luther, Calvin, and Edwards recovered early Christian positions that resonate particularly with Stoic thought. Acknowledging the points of congruity between Stoic and Christian moral thought provides a compelling point of

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entry for recognizing Protestant theology’s distinctive potential for advancing scholarship on the virtues. This book develops a constructive Christian virtue ethic that draws the moral claims of three major Protestant theologians of the Reformed tradition—Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards—into conversation with the Roman Stoics. Despite the points of discontinuity between these traditions (which I will spell out more fully as this chapter progresses), recent scholarly interest in Stoic virtue offers an unexpected avenue for a new exploration of historical Protestant theology’s potential contributions to virtue ethics, and particularly for recovering positions and commitments that characterize Reformed Protestant thought. A  conversation between Protestant and Stoic ethics provides a unique entry point for exploring some of the most promising and challenging dimensions of Reformed Protestant accounts of the moral life and showing how Reformed positions can fruitfully engage broader conversations in philosophical and theological virtue ethics. Four convictions that broadly inform Reformed accounts of the moral life find a philosophical counterpart in Roman Stoicism. First, trust in, or consent to, the benevolent providential direction of divine being is central to the moral life and is a necessary foundation for an ethic of genuine concern for those human beings who stand outside our immediate circles. Second, virtue is a unity, and the unified character of virtue stands in keeping with recognizing the possibility of a transformative experience as crucial to an agent’s pursuit of moral good. Third, a divine being providentially guides the world, and yet human beings are morally responsible for our actions and decisions. Fourth, emotions play a complex role in the moral life, at times fostering an individual’s embodiment of virtue but at other times problematically interfering with virtue. Juxtaposing Reformed and Stoic development of these claims offers new insights into the complexity of Reformed convictions about the nature and work of God and the character of human beings, and these insights, in turn, provide a basis for enhancing contemporary scholarship on virtue and moral agency. In the course of developing a constructive understanding of virtue attentive to Reformed Protestant theology, this book simultaneously explores Stoic moral thought’s broader constructive possibilities—and limitations— for contemporary Christian ethics. Luther, Calvin, and Edwards are helpful

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interlocutors for this conversation because they articulate and defend theological positions that I will argue are more adequately understood through comparison to Stoic moral thought than through conversation with the Aristotelian accounts of the moral life that dominate virtue ethics. At the same time, their writings guard against potential theological dangers that have arisen in the work of many modern Christian philosophers (such as Justus Lipsius, Francis Hutcheson, and Thomas Reid) who appropriate the Stoics more directly and systematically. Luther, Calvin, and Edwards are three central figures in Christian orthodoxy whose writings reflect a historical Protestant moral vision that preserves theological convictions that have remained essential to this tradition: a belief in a triune God who is distinct from and transcends the created order; a belief that Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, was a fully human and fully divine being who died and was raised from the dead; and a belief that human nature was corrupted by original sin but retains the possibility of salvation through the person and work of Jesus Christ. The centrality of these theological particulars for Luther’s, Calvin’s, and Edwards’s thought underscores the boundaries that must be preserved in comparing Christian and Stoic ethics. Yet, while reading the Stoics in conversation with Luther, Calvin, and Edwards points toward the need for Christian theologians to avoid embracing Stoicism wholeheartedly, it also demonstrates the positive contributions that a deliberate engagement with the Stoics can bring to Christian ethics. This book recognizes these contributions while acknowledging their limits. This chapter lays out the promise and challenges of an effort to develop a constructive Christian ethic through drawing together the moral traditions of Roman Stoicism and Reformed Protestant Christianity. I  begin with an account of the historical and theological concerns that have led virtue ethicists and Christian ethicists to be wary of Stoicism. Some of these concerns reflect a failure to recognize nuances in Stoic positions, and others provide important cautions about the ways in which Stoicism is not fully in line with the commitments of Christian ethics. After recognizing the potential perils of engaging the Stoics, I consider more fully the value of this conversation between traditions. This consideration prompts reflection on both the nature of constructive ethics and the ways in which historical lines of thought are directly and indirectly shaped by earlier networks of ideas. Exploration of

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these questions helps to clarify the scope and bounds of this study, partly by more precisely considering the ways in which Stoicism can be said to have contributed to historical Protestant moral thought.

The neglect of the Stoics in contemporary Christian ethics Two major factors have influenced Christian ethicists’ tendency to overlook the Stoics as a possible resource for recovering a theory of the virtues. The first reflects concerns about a historical link between Stoicism and modernity. Retrievals of the Stoics were prominent in sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century European thought, and this retrieval coincided with the emergence of a more secularized understanding of ethics. Moreover, MacIntyre’s influential narrative of the history of moral thought explicitly associates the modern recovery of Stoicism with a diminished account of virtue. Many prominent Christian virtue ethicists, such as Stanley Hauerwas, link a return to virtue with a rejection of modern or Kantian systems of ethics, and MacIntyre’s narratives suggest that Stoic virtue is too closely connected to modern ethics to be of use in developing an ethic that stands in contrast to modern thought. The second factor is a suspicion of Stoicism arising from certain Stoic convictions about God and human persons that are clearly at odds with the Christian narrative. Most Stoics conceive God in impersonal terms, adhere to a pantheist account of God’s relation to the world, believe that humans have a natural capacity to pursue virtue independently of God’s particularized and specific assistance, and understand God to care for the universe in general terms, but not to extend love to specific persons. These factors point toward the need for caution in recovering the Stoics for Christian ethics, and it is therefore valuable to consider them in more depth before entering into this project.

The Stoics’ relation to modern thought Concerns about the Stoics’ relation to modern philosophy are no doubt largely responsible for Christian ethicists’ tendency to neglect Stoic thought. The retrieval of Stoic ethics is indisputably a hallmark of early modern moral thought. For contemporary ethicists, the influence of the Stoics on modernity

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casts suspicion on them for two reasons. First, it suggests the possibility that the modern recovery of the Stoics played a significant role in the emergence of secularism. Second, it suggests an opposition between virtue ethics—a movement that arose as an attempt to put forth an alternative to modern Kantian and utilitarism moral theories—and the Stoics, whose influence on modernity is undeniable. Numerous recent works have attempted to trace the emergence of secularism and explain its origins. One such work, Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age, considers the historical and intellectual shifts that led to a radical shift in Western thought between 1500 and 2000. Taylor identifies two related dimensions of this shift that constitute the emergence of secularity: first, secularity is marked by a widespread and dramatic decline in belief in a transcendent God, and second, secularity involves a diminished belief in supernatural ends or higher purposes for human nature so that human flourishing (in this lifetime, between birth and death) is the ultimate end or purpose of existence.3 Taylor associates the emergence of this secular perspective with developments in modern thought, one of which is the birth of “neo-Stoicism” in philosophers such as sixteenth-century Justus Lipsius. Lipsius was a Flemish humanist whom contemporary historians commonly credit with playing a major role in the emergence of Neostoicism.4 His attempts to retrieve and reconstruct Stoicism were particularly attentive to the work of Seneca and Cicero, and also drew on numerous Christian authors, including Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Jerome, Gregory the Great, Clement of Alexandria, Philo, and Augustine.5 His highly influential De constantia, published in 1584, is a dialogue on constancy, identified as a virtue in Seneca’s De constantia sapientis. Lipsius subsequently published a new edition of Seneca’s works along with two systematic texts on Stoic philosophy.6 In publishing these texts, Lipsius attempted to put forth a version of Stoicism 3 4

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Charles Taylor (2007). A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, pp. 20 –1. Gerhard Oestreich (1982). Neostoicism and the Early Modern State. New  York :  Cambridge University Press. See also Mark P. O. Morford (1991). Stoics and Neostoics: Rubens and the Circle of Lipsius Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 64 – 6. Jan Papy (2009). “The First Christian Defender of Stoic Virtue? Justus Lipsius and Cicero’s Paradoxa Stoicorum,” in Christian Humanism: Essays in Honor of Arjo Vanderjagt, ed. Alasdair A. MacDonald, Zweder R. W. M. von Martels, and Jan R. Veenstra. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, pp. 139–54, at 149–50. Papy argues that Lipsius showed particular interest in the work of Clement of Alexandria, who is known in part for his efforts to synthesize Christianity with Platonism and to transform Stoic ethics for Christian theology. Papy, pp. 144–5.

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that was at least in some measure compatible with Christian faith, and contemporary scholars have often spoken of him as a “Christian Stoic moralist.”7 While Lipsius’s attempt to draw together Stoic and Christian ethics was, as Taylor notes, embraced by Lutherans, Calvinists, and Catholics in Western Europe,8 his neo-Stoicism was not fully continuous with either tradition. Taylor suggests that Lipsius’s discontinuity with orthodox Christianity represented a step toward secularism. In particular, Taylor notes that Lipsius’s text is “silent” regarding humanity’s need for divine grace in order to pursue the good.9 Taylor goes on to make clear that Lipsius’s neo-Stoicism is not an “exclusive humanism.” For Lipsius, God is the source of our ability to reason, divine providence guides human events, and following God leads us toward a constancy that is the core of morality.10 In these ways, Taylor explains, God remains “crucial” to Lipsius’s neo-Stoicism, which is ultimately “theistic” and which differs in important ways even from eighteenth-century Deism.11 However, this neo-Stoicism still marks a “shift” toward Deism and humanism12 and, ultimately, toward a secular worldview. Taylor’s narrative underscores the differences between sixteenth-century neo-Stoicism and moral systems that detach ethics from God. Nevertheless, Taylor also makes a compelling case that modern humanism has neo-Stoic “roots.”13 Neo-Stoicism creates “space” for a shift in thinking that perceives in humans the capacity to attain our own moral good.14 Insofar as the Stoics uphold humans’ intrinsic moral capacities, one might fairly question whether a tendency toward nontheistic ethics is inherently present in Stoic ethics itself. This concern is deepened by recognizing that certain dimensions of Stoic thought (such as a tendency to conceive God in impersonal terms rather than as an agent who interacts with us, and a conception of God as immanent rather than transcendent) coincide with dimensions of Deism that Taylor 7

8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Christopher Brooke uses this term in discussing a reading of Lipsius that he traces back to Leontine Zanta’s 1914 work La renaissance du stoicisme au XVIe siècle. Christopher Brooke (2012). Philosophic Pride: Stoicism and Political Thought from Lipsius to Rousseau. Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 14. Papy similarly contends that Lipsius’s use of these sources led him toward “a new Christianized reading and rehabilitation of Stoicism” (pp. 151–3). Taylor, p. 116. Ibid., p. 115. Ibid., pp. 115–16. Ibid., p. 117. Ibid., p. 117. Ibid., p. 250. Ibid., pp. 233– 4.

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characterizes as a more decisive step on the path toward atheism.15 Taylor addresses the question of whether Stoicism necessarily promotes a secular outlook by considering whether the “pagan ancient world” tends toward a view of ethics that places great “confidence in our own powers of moral ordering.” He ultimately argues that neither Platonism nor Stoicism should be thought of as an “exclusive humanism.” Both traditions placed humans “in a larger spiritual or cosmic order” and “resisted disenchantment and the mechanistic universe in their own ways.”16 Nevertheless, particular reconstructions of Stoic ethics helped to shape the emergence of modern perspectives associated with the diminishment of belief in God. This historical awareness has undoubtedly contributed to contemporary Christian suspicions of the Stoics. Just as the role of Stoicism in modernity raises questions about potential links between Stoicism and secularity, so has it cast suspicion on Stoic views of virtue. Alasdair MacIntyre’s seminal After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory associates the advancement of Stoicism, and particularly the modern retrieval of Stoic thought, with virtue’s decline. For MacIntyre, modern thinkers’ use of the Stoics represents a rejection of historical conceptions of virtue in favor of an ethic grounded in a more narrow view of law.17 He identifies the Enlightenment retrieval of Stoic ethics with a subtle and problematic shift that rejects the teleological framework that is necessary to give meaning to moral terms such as “virtue.” MacIntyre contends that a premodern, teloscentered ethic provides a framework that makes a conception of virtues intelligible; virtues are habitual dispositions that guide persons toward particular ends.18 The modern prioritization of the Stoics over Aristotle constituted a rejection of teleology insofar as Stoicism itself, on MacIntyre’s reading, “lacks any notion of a telos.”19 This loss of teleology, in turn, led to the advancement of positions that deprive moral terms of their meaning.20 MacIntyre’s account of the Stoics’ contribution to virtue’s decline presents Stoicism and a virtue-centered ethic as two distinct alternatives available to

15 16 17

18 19 20

Ibid., pp. 289–91, 543. Ibid., p. 27. Alasdair MacIntyre (1984). After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. 3rd ed. 2007. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 233 – 4. Ibid., pp. 54– 61. Ibid., pp. 168–9. MacIntyre develops this argument through his well-known critiques of emotivism (Ibid., pp. 23–35).

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Western moral philosophy. Stoicism, MacIntyre explains, “sets a pattern” for all moral systems that prioritize law in a manner that excludes or diminishes virtue.21 The Stoics do speak of virtue, but MacIntyre suggests that the Stoics replace Plato’s and Aristotle’s conceptions of “the plurality of the virtues and their teleological ordering in the good life” with a “simple monism of virtue.” Virtues are not defined in relation to the historical and social contexts that shape a person’s identity; instead, to live virtuously is, for the Stoics, to act in “conformity to cosmic law,” which is universal and detached from “local particularity or circumstance.”22 This shift in virtue’s understanding leads to a singular view of virtue that, for MacIntyre, necessarily tends toward a conception of morality that involves “total compliance” with a law.23 Stoic virtue theory, on MacIntyre’s view, is not truly a virtue theory at all. MacIntyre’s far-reaching influence on subsequent work in virtue ethics has surely contributed to subsequent scholars’ neglect of the Stoics. However, two recent trends in scholarship complicate MacIntyre’s characterization of the Stoics. The first of these coincides with Taylor’s suggestion that modern retrievals of Stoicism should not necessarily lead us to conclude that Stoicism inherently undermines religion: scholars increasingly call into question a simple alignment of Stoicism with modernity, particularly an alignment that detaches Stoic thought from the natural world and its particulars. Many scholars challenge the notion that Kantian positions are essentially Stoic. Lawrence C. Becker, a contemporary advocate of Stoicism, argues that Stoic moral thought is “relentlessly naturalistic and particularistic” in a way that Kantian ethics is not, insofar as Kant emphasizes the detachment of the human will from the causal order of the phenomenal world.24 Amélie Rorty likewise suggests that Stoic virtue is embodied rather than the achievement 21

22 23 24

MacIntyre affi rms, “Stoicism is not of course only an episode in Greek and Roman culture; it sets a pattern for all those later European moralities that invoke the notion of law as central in such a way as to displace conceptions of the virtues” (Ibid., p. 169). He goes on to explain that Stoicism has historically been less influential on these systems than the form of law advanced by “Judaism in the form of Christianity,” but this is only because Judaism, a “sterner morality of law,” ultimately “converted the ancient world” (Ibid., p. 170). Ibid., p. 169. Ibid., pp. 233– 4. Lawrence C. Becker (1998). A New Stoicism. Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press, p.  134. Becker characterizes Kant’s reading of Stoic thought as “dangerous” because Kantian positions “look alike in slogan form” but “look very different [from Stoicism] when each is fully explained” (p.  134). For further discussion of differences between Kantian ethics and Stoicism, see J. B. Schneewind (1996). “Kant and Stoic Ethics,” in Aristotle, Kant, and the Stoics, ed. Stephen Engstrom and Jennifer Whiting. New York : Cambridge University Press, pp. 285 –301.

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of a detached will. For Rorty, the “self-knowledge essential to Stoic virtue” is “by no means merely an intellectual matter”; instead, the knowledge “permeates, and is expressed throughout, a person’s character, in his phantasiai, his impulses and actions.”25 Differentiation of the Stoics from Kant calls into question the notion that a Stoic moral theory necessarily tends toward a modern view of virtue that prioritizes law over virtue and that detaches the human person from her social and political contexts. A second noteworthy trend in scholarship points toward the continuity among ancient ethical schools, including Stoicism and Aristotelianism, that differentiates them from modern approaches to ethics. Julia Annas’s The Morality of Happiness contends that ancient ethical theories (with special focus on forms of Aristotelianism and Stoicism) share a formal teleological framework that is strikingly at odds with modern theories of ethics.26 Although the differences among these thinkers’ understandings of eudaimonia, the state of flourishing definitive of a moral telos, are central to Annas’s argument,27 she simultaneously recognizes important common ground between the Stoics and Aristotle that indicates that the Stoics are best understood as ancient thinkers who offer a moral view that shares more in common with Aristotle than with modern perspectives. Her more recent Intelligent Virtue develops a phenomenological and constructive account of virtue informed most overtly by Aristotle but holding much in common with the Stoics as well. She rejects the Stoic claim that the virtues are acquired all at once and instead develops an account of moral formation as developmental and gradual.28 But two features of her constructive position more readily resonate with Stoic views of virtue. First, Annas follows Aristotle in affirming the virtues’ unity through a shared relation to practical reason.29 The Stoics likewise share Aristotle’s conviction that the virtues possess a unity related to practical reason, though I will argue in Chapter 2 that their understanding of the nature of this unity is more radical than Annas’s account of the unity of the virtues. Second, Annas develops one line of argument that more clearly aligns with the Stoics than with Aristotle: she argues for the importance of 25

26 27 28 29

Amelie Oksenberg Rorty (1996). “The Two Faces of Stoicism: Rousseau and Freud.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 34.3: 335 –7. Julia Annas (1993). The Morality of Happiness. New York : Oxford University Press, pp. 11–3. Ibid., p. 10 and pp. 430– 4. Julia Annas (2011). Intelligent Virtue. New York : Oxford University Press, pp. 38, 65, 89–90. Ibid., pp. 85–9, 97–9.

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distinguishing the “circumstances” of one’s life from the “living” of one’s life, explaining that the latter is a way of describing how one responds to her life circumstances.30 She associates conceptions of virtue and eudaimonia with the living of one’s life, a position that decidedly echoes the Stoic understanding of virtue as sufficient for happiness regardless of external circumstances. In the context of this discussion, Annas reiterates a core Stoic argument while criticizing Aristotle’s account of a certain virtue as accessible only to the rich: the virtues, she maintains, need to be available to all persons.31 Intelligent Virtue points toward the plausibility of developing a constructive ethic that draws together dimensions of Aristotelianism and Stoicism, underscoring the ways in which both moral traditions represent complementary alternatives to modern thought despite Stoicism’s influence on modernity. Annas’s work is particularly significant for considering the Stoics’ promise for contemporary virtue ethics because she specifically characterizes the Stoics as eudaimonists, which suggests that their account of virtue, like Aristotle’s, must be interpreted in relation to a teleological framework. This characterization of the Stoics exempts them from MacIntyre’s central critique. We saw that MacIntyre understands virtue’s relation to a telos as definitive for the development of a cogent virtue ethic. In classical thought, a telos is a state of eudaimonia or flourishing, and a virtue is partly constitutive of that state. Whereas MacIntyre associates the modern retrieval of the Stoics with the rejection of teleology, Annas identifies both the Stoics and Aristotle as teleological eudaimonists. This characterization is accepted by many contemporary ethicists but, in practice, current scholarship tends to favor an Aristotelian view of these terms; as Nicholas Wolterstorff notes in his 2008 book Justice: Rights and Wrongs, “Most contemporary eudaimonists adhere to the Aristotelian or Peripatetic version of ancient eudaimonism; in fact, I know of no contemporary Stoic eudaimonist.”32 Annas’s argument serves as a reminder that the Stoics do share the Aristotelian commitment to a focus on human flourishing. Precisely because it speaks to the dimension of ancient virtue that MacIntyre makes the linchpin of an ethic that runs counter to

30 31 32

Ibid., pp. 92–3, 116, 128–9, 150. Ibid., p. 97. Nicholas Wolterstorff (2008). Justice:  Rights and Wrongs. Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press, p. 150.

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modernity, the Stoics’ eudaimonism underscores their potential value for contemporary virtue ethics. These scholarly trends are significant because they suggest that even as Stoic moral thought was attractive to many modern thinkers, Stoic ethics nonetheless can offer a viable alternative to modern philosophical claims. The differentiation of the Stoics from modern thought makes the retrieval of Stoic moral commitments consistent with the aims and intentions of contemporary virtue ethics. In continuity with Aristotle, the Stoics affirm a view of the human person as more embodied, more closely and necessarily situated within the natural world, and more integrated than Kant’s human person. In keeping with philosophical virtue ethicists, many Christian ethicists have turned to Aristotle as a theorist who understands humans to be part of the created world and who acknowledges a multiplicity of moral experiences appropriate to our status as embodied creatures. Recognition of the “ancient” dimension of Stoic ethics, and particularly its points of common ground with Aristotle, demonstrates that the Stoics can contribute to a moral venture that emphasizes congruity between the natural order and the human will and that embraces human fragility.

Theological concerns about Stoicism In addition to historical concerns regarding the intersections of the Stoics with modernity, theological concerns about Stoic thought also contribute to contemporary Christian ethicists’ resistance to engaging this tradition. These concerns are largely consistent with historical Christian criticism of the Stoics, indicating that certain Stoic commitments are decidedly at odds with Christian doctrine. Historical Christian critiques of the Stoics are too complex to be treated adequately in a succinct and summative way because thinkers such as Augustine and John Calvin articulate these critiques while simultaneously developing theological positions that are deeply influenced by Stoic thought. Subsequent chapters will return to these critiques as appropriate for considering how specific points of difference between Stoic ethics and Christian theology inform the constructive Protestant ethic developed here. However, a general overview of major Christian theological concerns about Stoic ethics is nonetheless instructive here. This overview provides a more complete account of the reasons for the Stoics’ neglect by contemporary

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Christian virtue ethicists and simultaneously points toward some necessary points of disagreement between Stoic ethics and Christian theology. One concern that arises in Christian theological considerations of the Stoics relates to the clear opposition between Stoic and Christian understandings of God’s relation to the created order; the constructive arguments of Chapters 3, 4, and 5 must necessarily take these differing cosmologies into account. The Stoics tend to characterize God as an impersonal force immanently present in the natural world. This divine force directs the world toward a good end through the material workings of laws of nature that function according to a type of necessity. Orthodox Christian theology, in contrast, has historically affirmed that a triune God transcends the world and created the world ex nihilo, and that God works providentially in the world by exercising individualized care for particular human beings. To be sure, these competing metaphysical claims do not represent either tradition fully. Of particular note are the ways in which Epictetus suggests an understanding of God as more of a personal being than that held by other Stoics, and Marcus Aurelius at points suggests the possibility of God’s care for particular persons.33 Broadly speaking, however, the differences between Stoic and Christian accounts of God’s relation to the natural world affect their understandings of the ways in which God works in the natural world and with the human beings within it. Christian criticisms of Stoic accounts of fate highlight a further difference between Stoic and Christian ethics. Stanley Hauerwas and Charles Pinches associate Stoic thought with a stance of “fatalism” that emerges, in part, from a deterministic worldview.34 Their characterization of Stoic fatalism stands in keeping with John Calvin’s efforts to distinguish Christian providence from Stoic fate in Institutes of the Christian Religion. Calvin explicitly rejects the term “fate” and argues that his theological conception of God’s providential ordering of the world differs greatly from Stoic fate, which Calvin perceives to be a more impersonal necessity internal to the natural order: “But the dogma [of fate] itself is falsely and maliciously imputed to us. For we do not with the Stoics imagine a necessity consisting of a perpetual chain of causes, and a kind of involved series contained in nature, but we hold that God is the 33 34

Chapter 2 discusses these positions more fully. Stanley Hauerwas and Charles Pinches (1997). Christians among the Virtues:  Theological Conversations with Ancient and Modern Ethics. Notre Dame, IN:  University of Notre Dame Press, p. 175, see also p. 216 n29.

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disposer and ruler of all things – that from the remotest eternity, according to his own wisdom, he decreed what he was to do, and now by his power executes what he decreed.”35 Although this book ascribes a somewhat more personal and theological account of providence to the Roman Stoics than the account of Stoic fate that Calvin describes, Calvin’s suspicion of the Stoics is important to recognize. Chapter 5 ultimately depicts a Reformed understanding of providence that is concerned with affirming God’s attention to and care for particular human beings. The Stoics’ commitment to a cosmology in which God is immanently present and active in the natural world is closely linked to another essential difference between Christian and Stoic thought. The Stoics uphold a much more positive account of the moral capacities natural to human beings than is at work in the Christian tradition. A Stoic moral agent is capable of acquiring virtue naturally through the appropriate use of reason. The Stoics present an egalitarian account of virtue rooted in a conception of reason as a faculty God has bestowed upon all persons, so that we can pursue virtue independently of our external circumstances. Christian theology, in contrast, affirms that all persons have lost the natural capacity to pursue a virtuous life through original sin and the consequent corruption of human nature. Humans are therefore, according to the Christian narrative, unable to do good apart from God’s graciously intervening assistance. This account of human nature is important because it secures the necessity of Jesus Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection for human salvation and for the moral life, and because it reinforces a Christian understanding of God as a being who loves and cares for individual human beings in their particular circumstances. Christian theology therefore cannot embrace the Stoic account of human nature’s moral capacities without undermining an orthodox Christian doctrine of God as well as a Christian understanding of the human person. Recognition of these necessary points of departure between Stoic and Christian accounts of the human person shapes the conceptions of virtue and conversion considered in Chapters 3 and 4 of this book. An additional difference between Stoic and Christian ethics relates to the moral significance of the emotions or, as Taylor puts it, the opposition between

35

Calvin, Institutes, I.16.8, pp. 119–20.

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Christian agape and Stoic apatheia as ultimate moral ideals.36 Christian theologians such as Diana Fritz Cates rightly question whether certain valued Christian emotions, such as compassion, are at odds with the Stoic ideal of apatheia. Cates characterizes Stoic apatheia as a moral ideal whose achievement requires the complete rejection of the emotions, observing that “according to most Stoics, emotions always constitute inappropriate reactions to what is happening in one’s world. They have no place in a good human life.”37 Cates herself ultimately advocates a more Aristotelian and Thomistic account of emotion. Richard Sorabji likewise sees Stoic thought as problematically tending toward the eradication not merely of certain select emotions, but of emotions more generally as a part of human experience.38 At the same time, he emphasizes nuances in certain Stoic positions that allow for the retention of certain emotions; for example, Seneca rejects the emotion of “pity” but approves the practice of “mercy” as “compatible with clear thinking.”39 These contemporary concerns echo Augustine’s perception that the Stoics usually speak of apatheia as requiring a rejection of all emotions, including those that a Christian might value. In The City of God IX Augustine discusses the Stoics’ rejection of the passions,40 and observes that the Stoics “are in the habit of extending their condemnation to compassion.”41 Such a view of compassion would be problematic from Augustine’s perspective because it stands at odds with a conception of virtue as reflections of the divine perfections of the triune God, who practices compassion.42 Augustine ultimately suggests that the Stoics’ view of passions is not as different from the Aristotelian view as it might appear,43 and observes in particular that Epictetus allows certain passions “into the soul of a wise man” while affirming that “such a man is free from every vice.”44 Nevertheless, his discussion of compassion signals one possible theological concern that the Stoic position could raise: the Christian God exercises love and compassion, and if God’s perfections define 36 37

38

39 40 41 42 43 44

Taylor, p. 115. Diana Fritz Cates (2009). Aquinas on the Emotions:  A  Religious-Ethical Inquiry. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, p. 43. Richard Sorabji (2008). Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation. New York : Oxford University Press, pp. 181–93. Ibid., p. 192. I address this distinction, put forth in Seneca’s On Mercy, in Chapter 2 . Augustine (1984). The City of God. Trans. Henry Bettenson. London: Penguin, IX, pp. 4–5. Ibid., IX.5, p. 349. Ibid., IX.10, p. 355. Ibid., IX.4 and IX.5, pp. 348–9. Ibid., IX.5, p. 349.

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the contours of Christian virtue (as they do for Augustine and the Reformed tradition),45 then virtue must be compatible with certain emotions. A closely related concern emerges both from Stoic apatheia and the Stoics’ understanding of impartial love as a moral ideal. While many dimensions of impartial love are highly compatible with Christian moral thought, certain Stoic articulations of this ideal, in conjunction with the practice of apatheia, imply that virtue is incompatible with deeply felt personal loves such as grief at the loss of a loved one. Eric Gregory associates the Stoics with this sort of view in his discussion of two passages from Augustine’s Confessions that scholars often cite as indicators of the early Augustine’s reliance on the Stoics and Platonism: Augustine’s regret at weeping over Dido’s death and his grief after the death of a friend. As Gregory develops an argument that Augustine’s position is not a rejection of finite loves but instead is an advocacy of overcoming possessive loves in order to love one’s friends “in God,”46 he implicitly suggests that a Stoic account of emotions preserves a more negative view of finite goods. Gregory affirms that as Augustine matures, his writings reflect a “deStoicizing move” that properly integrates “loving, understanding, and willing.”47 Hauerwas and Pinches similarly understand a Stoic view of passions to require the rejection of grief, which they perceive to be a necessary and valuable emotion for Christians. Following Lee Yearley’s reading of Aquinas,48 they affirm that “the place of sadness in the Christian life is the crucial difference between Stoicism and Christianity. The Christian cannot seek to be free of sadness, for without the appropriate sadness we lack the ability to be joyful.”49 This critique of the Stoics recognizes a dimension of their thought that stands at odds with a Christian belief in God’s particular and personal love for humans: the Stoics, as Martha Nussbaum puts it, advocate “curing” oneself of grief over a loved one’s death by restructuring our cognitive commitments so that we come to recognize the loved one as less unique and valuable than we originally thought them to be.50 Chapters 2 and 6 defends a view 45

46

47 48

49 50

For additional discussion, see Elizabeth Agnew Cochran (2011). Receptive Human Virtues: A New Reading of Jonathan Edwards’s Ethics. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press. Eric Gregory (2008). Politics and the Order of Love:  An Augustinian Ethic of Democratic Citizenship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 284 – 6. Ibid., p. 278. See Lee Yearly (1990). Mencius and Aquinas:  Theories of Virtue and Conceptions of Courage. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Hauerwas and Pinches, p. 214 n22. Martha C. Nussbaum (2009). The Therapy of Desire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 381–2 .

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of Stoic apatheia as more compatible with authentic love for one’s neighbor than Nussbaum’s characterization of Stoic accounts of grief would suggest, but it remains the case that Christian theology cannot embrace dimensions of apatheia that reject forms of grief and sadness that Christians might plausibly view as authentic expressions of love for one’s neighbor. These significant differences between Stoic and Christian commitments must be acknowledged when attempting constructively to engage Stoic texts from within the Christian tradition. Stoic ethics and Christian ethics represent two distinct traditions that do not perfectly coincide, and a retrieval of Stoic thought that denied its points of difference with Christianity would be doing a disservice to both traditions. Nevertheless, Stoicism’s decisive influence on historical Christian thought demonstrates that Christian wariness about the Stoics has not kept Christian moral thought separate and distinct from Stoic ethics. Although Stoic ideas attractive to Christian theology should not be interpreted as fully detachable from the broader context of Stoic thought as a whole, it is both appropriate and valuable to consider how certain Stoic ideas might positively inform contemporary Christian reflection on the virtues. Indeed, this exploration will reveal that Stoic thought coincides with particular Christian moral claims in a manner that suggests some historical interplay between these traditions. While the concerns addressed here place important limitations upon Christian retrieval of the Stoics, they do not negate the importance of such a task.

Reconsidering the Stoics for contemporary Christian ethics Precisely why, then, should Christian ethicists be concerned with the Stoics? This book will show that Stoicism provides a vehicle for philosophically supporting the retrieval of a particular Reformed Protestant perspective on the virtues that offer a counterpoint to recoveries of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, which have tended to dominate current theological discussions of the virtues. Although the Stoics influenced Christian thought even prior to the emergence of Protestant theological traditions, a Stoic account of virtue has particular points of affinity with the moral commitments of early modern and modern Protestant theologians. Considering certain dimensions of Stoic ethics in conjunction with Christian theological commitments

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historically emphasized by the Reformed tradition highlights central dimensions of the distinctive understanding of virtue that this tradition offers to contemporary ethics. Virtue, for Luther, Calvin, and Edwards is, broadly speaking, a term most appropriate to ascribe to God, who is characteristically good, just, loving, and merciful. As a perfection of God’s nature, virtue remains in a certain sense inaccessible to human beings, who are created in God’s image but whose moral capacities are radically inhibited by the effects of sin. In various ways, these thinkers wrestle with questions about the plausibility of ascribing morally praiseworthy character traits to humans. Questions about virtue are necessarily intermixed with reflection on the processes and mechanisms through which God empowers virtue’s pursuit, questions regarding the scope and character of salvation, and considerations of the ways in which divine grace empowers or shapes human dispositions and actions. Engagement with the Stoics provides a starting point through which Protestant ethicists can come to recognize how historical Protestant theology can effectively contribute to broader interdisciplinary conversations about virtue without having to set aside the distinctive theological claims characteristic of Protestant Christianity’s historical roots. Many writings of the most well known contemporary Protestant virtue ethicist, Stanley Hauerwas, tend to reflect and reinforce the preference for Aristotle that characterizes much of twentieth-century virtue ethics. Hauerwas’s influential and significant body of work on the virtues is deeply indebted to MacIntyre, and his thoughtful Christians Among the Virtues (co-authored with Charles Pinches) takes Aristotle to offer a paradigmatic account of the virtues most helpful for contemporary reflection. Hauerwas’s attention to Aristotle is not unjustified, and has helped to shape virtue ethics as a field in important ways. At the same time, from the vantage point of Protestant theology, an excess of attention to Aristotle neglects Christianity’s historical suspicions of Aristotle’s thought, which were particularly made explicit in the writings of theologians such as Luther and Edwards,51 and which focused in particular on Aristotle’s view of 51

Th is is not to say that historical Christian, and even historical Protestant, thought is entirely inimical to Aristotle. For example, Joel D. Biermann attests to Philip Melanchthon’s appreciation for Aristotle. Joel D. Biermann (2014). A Case for Character: Toward a Lutheran Virtue Ethics. Minneapolis, MN:  Fortress Press, pp. 80 –5. Likewise, Aristotle was an important influence on various strains of seventeenth and eighteenth century Protestant thought, including the work of thinkers associated with the Reformed tradition. Stephen A. Wilson thoughtfully explores the

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habituation. Neglect of these suspicions risks obscuring some of Protestant theology’s distinctive contributions to virtue ethics. Whereas theologians such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas incorporated habituation into an understanding of virtue that reconciled this model of formation with the activity of divine grace,52 both Luther and Edwards explicitly and decisively rejected Aristotle’s habituation as a model for conceiving moral formation, arguing that a belief that repeated actions form human beings in morally good dispositions minimizes the necessity of divine grace for enabling moral character traits and behaviors.53 Their suspicion points toward the possibility that Protestant traditions can give rise to alternate accounts of virtue and moral formation, and this possibility is reinforced in works by Gilbert Meilaender and Kirk Nolan that in different ways point toward the distinctive character of virtue in historical Protestant thought.54 This book builds on this trajectory of scholarship to spell out ways in which theological emphases characteristic of historical Protestant thought shape an ethic whose contributions to contemporary reflection on the virtues are better understood through a conversation with the Stoics than with Aristotle. A conversation between Stoic and Reformed Protestant ethics also suggests the possibility of reinterpreting modern Christian attempts to bring

52

53

54

interplay between Aristotelian positions and the work of theologians such as Francis Turretin and Peter Van Mastricht. Stephen A. Wilson (2005). Virtue Reformed:  Rereading Jonathan Edwards’s Ethics. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. For a more complete discussion of the ways in which Augustine and Aquinas integrate views of habituation with Christian accounts of the workings of divine grace, see Jennifer A. Herdt, Putting on Virtue: The Legacy of the Splendid Vices. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008, pp. 12 , 46–7, 73–5. Luther and Edwards argue against Aristotle that good dispositions must precede good actions, a view of formation that I will examine more fully in Chapter 4. Terence Irwin offers a very helpful explanation of Luther’s criticisms of Aristotle, which focus not on the idea that virtue would be praiseworthy but instead on the idea that humans can acquire the virtues. Terence Irwin (2012). “Luther’s Attack on Self-Love:  The Failure of Pagan Virtue.” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 42 .1:  131–55. Irwin draws especially on Luther’s Lectures on Romans to develop his argument. A number of Luther’s other works reinforce and support Irwin’s reading. Two examples include a 1520 text in which Luther characterizes Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics as opposing “divine grace and all Christian virtues” (LW 44: 200–1), and the 1535 Lecture on Galatians, in which Luther allows that strictly in the realm of “civil life” we can follow Aristotle in saying that “one becomes a doer on the basis of deeds,” but continues to maintain that these deeds do not shape righteousness or virtue (LW 26:256). Edwards, in Treatise on Religious Affections, likewise explicitly rejects an Aristotelian understanding of habituation as the process through which humans acquire virtue. For more discussion, see William J. Danaher (2004). The Trinitarian Ethics of Jonathan Edwards. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, pp. 151– 6, and Cochran (2011), pp. 109–11. Gilbert Meilaender (1984). The Theory and Practice of Virtue. Notre Dame, IN:  University of Notre Dame Press. Kirk J. Nolan (2014). Reformed Virtue after Barth: Developing Moral Virtue Ethics in the Reformed Tradition. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.

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these traditions into conversation. The retrieval of Roman Stoic ethics was a practice characteristic of philosophers who were part of the Scottish Enlightenment. This eighteenth and nineteenth century intellectual movement is associated with secular moralists David Hume and Adam Smith but also involved a number of philosophers who were ordained Presbyterian pastors, including Francis Hutcheson, Hugh Blair, and Thomas Reid. Narratives such as MacIntyre’s associate this turn to the Stoics with a cultural shift toward an increasingly secular understanding of the moral life. Yet, bearing in mind Stoicism’s historical influence on the Christian tradition, it seems equally plausible that eighteenth century Reformed interest in Stoic thought does not signal an irrevocable turn away from the Christian tradition, but instead (in the case of thinkers such as Hutcheson, Blair, and Reid) reflects a particular kinship between historical Protestant theology and Stoic ethics. A comparison of key Stoic moral claims to the work of Luther, Calvin, and Edwards could point toward the value of further exploration of the Scottish Enlightenment by contemporary Christian ethicists. In light of the potential contributions an exploration of Stoic themes offers to Christian ethics, this book’s central task is to develop a constructive Protestant virtue ethic that draws on the writings of Luther, Calvin, and Edwards but that simultaneously engages Roman Stoic commitments that illuminate our understanding of these Protestant thinkers’ relevance to contemporary virtue ethics. Drawing the Stoics into conversation with historical Protestant theology appropriately acknowledges the historical influence of the Stoics on Christian thought, serves as a promising starting point for engaging contemporary philosophical studies of the Stoics, and gives rise to an increased understanding of a philosophical framework that in many ways coincides with early modern and modern Protestant views of virtue. A comparison to the Roman Stoics enriches a study of the ethics of Luther, Calvin, and Edwards because the Roman Stoics share certain key convictions with Reformed theology:  Roman Stoic virtue is revealed in the divine character so that humans act virtuously by imitating the divine nature; Stoic virtue is acquired through a transformative experience akin to conversion; and a Stoic moral agent is both morally accountable for her actions and radically dependent upon divine providence. In turn, developing a greater appreciation of these shared commitments as well as the necessary points of departure

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between Stoic ethics and Reformed theology provides a foundation for developing a virtue ethic that emerges from historical Protestant convictions regarding God’s nature and being as well as the nature, ends, and characteristic goods of the human person.

Moral bricolage and reception history: articulating the relation of Stoic and Protestant ethics A consideration of the Stoics as conversation partners for Christian ethics raises questions about the nature of the historical and intellectual relation between Christianity and Stoicism. Is there a sense in which the Stoics can be said to have contributed to the shape of Christian theology? Influence studies are notoriously difficult to sustain, and a 1979 article by Marcia L. Colish highlights a number of tensions that arose in the nineteenth and twentieth century as scholars explored possible relations between Paul’s letters and the ideas of the Roman Stoics, who were (broadly speaking) Paul’s contemporaries. Colish traces a number of accounts of the relation of the Stoics to the Christian New Testament, starting with nineteenth century “rationalist” positions that compared Stoicism and Christianity with the goal of upholding the “superiority” of Stoicism, and “anti-rationalist” positions that sought to demonstrate Christianity’s superiority.55 Some anti-rationalist positions, Colish argues, treated Stoicism and Christianity as competing traditions and criticized possible attempts to “blend” them for fear that these attempts would somehow compromise or devalue Christian thought. Other anti-rationalists sought to demonstrate that the New Testament was a material influence on “one, some, or all of the Roman Stoics,” in matters of metaphysics as well as ethics.56 A noteworthy set of debates emerged in the twentieth century in response to the work of Rudolf Bultmann, who developed an influential argument that the Stoics influenced Paul’s New Testament writings.57 Colish notes that some

55

56

57

Marcia L. Colish (1979). “Pauline Theology and Stoic Philosophy: An Historical Study.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 57.1B: 1–21, at 5. Colish (1979), p.  5. The most striking example Colish highlights is the two-volume work of Amedee Fleury, published in 1853, which argued that Seneca was so influenced by Paul that he ultimately converted to Christianity. Colish observes that classicists by and large rejected this thesis (1979, p. 6). Ibid., pp. 7–9.

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Christian scholars responded to this idea with “horror” and concern that Bultmann’s approach “would have the effect of undermining the uniqueness and superiority of the Gospel message, reducing it to an unoriginal pastiche of late Hellenistic ideas with no special claims to truth.”58 By the mid-1960s, however, scholars more or less reached an “equilibrium” evidenced in the subsiding of significant debates about Paul and the Stoics. Colish affirms that her own contemporaries in the 1970s no longer asserted the view that early Christianity influenced the Stoics. At the same time, she suggests that convergence between Hellenistic and biblical ideas no longer holds “shock value” and is generally accepted as a potentially fruitful avenue for scholarly exploration.59 Despite Colish’s suggestion that comparisons of Christianity and Stoicism no longer hold “shock value,” the recent history she recounts is instructive for understanding ways in which a comparison of Stoic and Christian sources could prompt uneasiness. Her article therefore provides a helpful backdrop for clarifying this study’s historical claims. This work is sympathetic to the possibility of Stoic influence on the history of Christian moral thought, including the writings of Paul, and briefly makes note below of recent scholarly works that support such a relation. But the ethic put forth in this book does not presume or rely on a measurable account of the Stoics’ direct influence on Paul (or of Paul’s influence on the Stoics), and this book certainly does not embrace a relation that would interpret either tradition as dependent on the other. Likewise, while this manuscript will defend a certain kind of affinity between Protestant theology and Roman Stoic ethics, such an affinity does not establish that Luther, Calvin, or Edwards intentionally engaged—or were otherwise decisively influenced—by Stoic texts. On the other hand, both Luther and Calvin were directly exposed to Stoic ideas—Luther read many works of Cicero and is likely to have read his volume on Stoic paradoxes,60 and Calvin read Cicero and Seneca.61 It is also likely that Edwards studied Cicero’s

58

59 60

61

Ibid., p. 10. Th is reaction to Bultmann was followed by shifts in scholarship that suggest that similarities between Stoic thought and the New Testament do not necessarily mark “influence in either direction,” and suggest that such similarities are “superficial.” Other scholars, such as Max Polenz, argue that Paul drew on the Stoics but nevertheless developed a fundamentally Christian position that differed from Stoic thought (ibid., pp. 11–12) Ibid., pp. 13–14. Marjorie O’Rourke Boyle, “Stoic Luther:  Paradoxical Sin and Necessity.” Archiv fur Reformationsgeschichte 73 (1982): 77. William J. Bouwsma (1989). John Calvin:  A  Sixteenth Century Portrait. New  York :  Oxford University Press, p. 10.

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De officiis, a text that conveys the central claims of Stoic ethics.62 Perhaps more importantly, Luther, Calvin, and Edwards were particularly attentive to retrieving Christian sources and texts, such as the New Testament book of Romans and the writings of Augustine, that a number of scholars interpret as in some sense informed by Stoic thought. They also wrote in a historical time period widely acknowledged to be marked by a resurgence of European interest in the Stoics. While the project of articulating a possible intellectual relation between Stoic and Protestant moral thought stands largely outside this book’s constructive goals, it is nevertheless helpful to consider two lines of thought that allow us to think about possible ways of describing how Stoic moral commitments may indirectly be said to have informed historical Protestant moral thought. The first is centered on the concept of moral bricolage; the second is rooted in reflection on the nature and character of reception history.

Moral bricolage in Luther, Calvin, and Edwards The first tool that helps us in conceiving this relation is Jeffrey Stout’s concept of “moral bricolage,” a term that describes a methodology for engaging historical texts that Stout argues is present in “all great works of creative ethical thought.” Bricolage involves making selective judgments about how best to draw upon various conceptual resources, and reframing and reordering these concepts to support new arguments.63 The image of bricolage speaks to the academic enterprise of ethics, which draws together fragments from multiple distinct moral traditions to develop normative claims about the moral life. Stout points to Thomas Aquinas as a paradigm for bricolage. He argues that although Aquinas is often incorrectly viewed as “the author of a great system of natural law,” his “real accomplishment” is the drawing together of a range of sources from multiple traditions into a coherent argument. In pursuit of 62

63

Norman Fiering (1981a) discusses this likelihood in Jonathan Edwards’s Moral Thought and Its British Context. Chapel Hill, NC:  University of North Carolina Press, p.  3. Most educated eighteenth-century colonial Americans would have been at least somewhat familiar with Cicero. Although Edwards does not cite Cicero extensively, one of his personal letters alludes to Cicero’s Orations as an object of examinations at his college. Jonathan Edwards, “To the Reverend Timothy Edwards.” July 24, 1719. WJE 17:33. A portion of this volume was also present in the library of Edwards’s father Timothy. WJE 26:396. Jeff rey Stout (1988). Ethics after Babel: The Languages of Morals and Their Discontents. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, p. 75.

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this constructive project, Aquinas is, for Stout, “a strong moralist engaging in a kind of selective retrieval and reconfiguration of available moral languages for his own use.”64 Bricolage is a helpful image for understanding the process of constructively retrieving ancient thought for contemporary moral reflection. It is a useful tool for clarifying the scope of this present work, which draws together isolated ideas from multiple sources without establishing a definitive intellectual relation among the sources themselves. But in addition to offering a mechanism for describing contemporary moral methods, bricolage is instructive for considering the ways in which Luther, Calvin, and Edwards selectively draw on a range of sources. It is possible to identify Stoic ideas at work in Luther, Calvin, and Edwards without concluding that their ethics are fundamentally Stoic. Bricolage involves, as Stout puts it, “taking apart, putting together, reordering, weighting, weeding out, and filling in.”65 Such an account of bricolage suggests that moral arguments can coherently select and adapt certain elements of a philosophical system while rejecting other elements, and that efforts to synthesize ideas from various traditions can be successful. The notion of bricolage, therefore, underscores the feasibility of arguing that specific isolated Stoic ideas are at work in particular arguments whose authors deliberately and decisively reject other dimensions of Stoic thought, even certain dimensions of Stoic moral thought. Drawing on Stout’s account of moral bricolage, Calvin can readily be conceived as a bricoleur whose theology draws at least partly on Stoic sources, and indeed, many scholars conceive Stoicism as a significant influence on his Christian thought. Like other intellectuals of the Renaissance, Calvin 64

65

Stout, p. 76. C. Kavin Rowe (2016) argues against the notion of bricolage as a viable framework within which to interpret the intellectual relation between Christianity and Stoicism in One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. One of his arguments is particularly worth highlighting, insofar as it calls into question the nature of bricolage itself. He contends that terms, concepts, and grammar must properly be understood within a narrative context, and when removed from this context and transplanted into another, these terms, concepts, and grammar lose their original meaning. Thus Rowe suggests that we shortchange Stoicism when we try to interpret Stoic ideas detached from a life of embodied practices appropriate to that tradition (2016, 246–54). Rowe’s arguments are complex and I have engaged them more fully elsewhere, but one concern is that Rowe’s position fails to account for a number of widely accepted scholarly interpretations of major Christian theologians who are known to have developed constructive positions that integrate elements from philosophical traditions selectively with Scripture. Stout’s characterization of Thomas Aquinas, for example, as a bricoleur more adequately speaks to the multiplicity of influences on Aquinas’s thought than would a reading of Aquinas that rejects his efforts to engage Aristotle. Stout, p. 75.

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was exposed to the work of the Roman Stoics in the course of his education. Calvin began his career as a humanist and studied to become a lawyer. His earliest published work was a learned commentary on Seneca’s De clementia66 that showed sympathy to certain Stoic views, even as Calvin disputed some of Seneca’s conclusions (such as his classification of pity as a vice).67 Calvin’s commentary was published in 1532, and scholars debate its relationship to Calvin’s conversion, which also occurred in 1532. Most scholars agree that the conversion, which was heavily influenced by Augustine’s thought, occurred after the writing of the commentary. The chronology of these events raises questions about whether Calvin, through converting to the reform of Christianity, repudiated his earlier humanist positions.68 Despite differing scholarly opinions about the degree to which Stoicism remains important for Calvin after his conversion, two major twentieth century studies of Stoicism in Calvin’s thought suggest that Calvin’s theology is a fusion (whether deliberate or intentional) of Stoic ideas and biblical or Augustinian theology. Both studies, one by William J. Bouwsma in 1975 and the other by Peter J. Leithart in the 1990s, conclude that biblical and Augustinian thought is the dominant influence on Calvin even as elements of Stoicism are clearly present in his Christian writings. Both scholars problematically tend to characterize Stoicism and Pauline or Augustinian thought as distinct and competing intellectual systems, a view that is partially correct, but that also neglects the ways in which Augustine’s theology—and early Christian thought in general—is itself already informed by Stoicism.69 Nevertheless, understanding Calvin as working with both traditions helpfully informs our view of Calvin as a bricoleur who draws selectively on the Stoics in a manner that supports his own constructive theological positions. 66 67

68

69

Bouwsma (1989), p. 10. Peter J. Leithart (1993). “Stoic Elements in Calvin’s Doctrine of the Christian Life, Part 1: Original Corruption, Natural Law, and the Order of the Soul.” Westminster Theological Journal 55.1: 31–54, at 32. Peter J.  Leithart, who has published numerous articles on Stoic and Ciceronian elements in Calvin’s thought in the Westminster Theological Journal, summarizes a range of interpretations that twentieth century scholars advance regarding the relationship of Renaissance humanism to Calvin’s Christian writings. He observes that while some scholars perceive Calvin’s Christian writings to be a complete break from Stoicism, others suggest that the Christian Calvin attempts “a synthesis of classical and biblical thought” or that Calvin’s theological texts were “unconsciously dependent on classical and humanistic methods and concepts.” Peter J. Leithart (1990). “That Eminent Pagan:  Calvin’s Use of Cicero in Institutes 1.1–5.” Westminster Theological Journal 52: 1–12 , at 1. I return to this reading of Augustine below.

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Bouwsma’s influential 1975 essay “The Two Faces of Humanism: Stoicism and Augustianism in Renaissance Thought” situates the interplay between Stoicism and Christian theology in Calvin’s thought within the context of the Renaissance as a whole. Bouwsma contends that Calvin embodies an internal tension between Stoicism and Augustinianism, a tension more broadly characteristic of Renaissance thought.70 Bouwsma characterizes Stoicism and Augustinianism as “antithetical visions of human existence”71 which stand in “tension” 72 and cannot be easily reconciled, despite historical Christians’ efforts to fi nd Stoicism and Christianity compatible.73 He lays out elements of Stoic thought that would appear attractive to Christians— piety, providence, benevolence, obedience, and virtue—and notes that these same elements impressed Renaissance thinkers as well, but he nevertheless maintains that Stoicism and Augustinian Christianity remain opposed “at a deeper level” because Stoicism tends toward a form of divine immanence that amounts to pantheism.74 At the same time, Bouwsma notes that despite this opposition, both philosophical views were highly influential in the Renaissance, in part because Renaissance thinkers found these ideas compelling in the context of the “deep and changing needs of Renaissance society and culture.” 75 He concludes that there is no clear resolution in the tension between these philosophical systems in the Renaissance or Reformation, and that both systems clearly influence major historical thinkers from this era such that a single individual’s writings often demonstrate the presence of both perspectives.76 While a more careful look at historical attempts to assimilate Christianity and Stoicism would suggest that Bouwsma’s account of the incompatibility of these systems is overstated,77 Bouwsma nevertheless develops a nuanced reading of Calvin that recognizes the complexities 70

71 72 73 74 75 76 77

William J. Bouwsma (1975). “The Two Faces of Humanism:  Stoicism and Augustnianism in Renaissance Thought,” in Itinerarium Italicum:  The Profile of the Italian Renaissance in the Mirror of Its European Transformation, ed. H. Oberman. Leiden, The Netherlands:  Brill, pp. 3 – 60, at 51. Ibid., p. 4. Ibid., p. 6. Ibid., p. 9. Ibid., p. 9. Ibid., p. 16. Ibid., p. 51. For an additional critique of Bouwsma’s reading of Calvin, see Richard Muller (2001). The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Foundation of a Theological Tradition. New York : Oxford University Press, pp. 79–98.

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of his intellectual relation to both traditions. He identifies Calvin’s connection of faith to the heart and affections,78 his affi rmation of humanity’s absolute dependence upon our creator,79 his affi rmation of a strong separation between earthly and heavenly realms, 80 and his promotion of a social moral vision guarding against spiritual elitism81 as commitments consistent with Augustinian humanism. Yet Calvin’s thought also clearly reflects elements of Stoic humanism, including a Stoic focus on inwardness and tranquility, 82 a Stoic account of the natural world and human body as rationally ordered and directed by God, 83 and a conception of reason as a source of “religious insight.”84 Bouwsma notes that Renaissance thinkers, including Calvin, were particularly interested in Stoic ethics and a Stoic emphasis on virtue;85 an influence that we will see remains evident in later generations of Reformed Protestants. A second scholar who recognizes the interplay between biblical Christianity and Stoicism in Calvin’s Christian writings is Peter J. Leithart, author of a series of articles published in the Westminster Theological Journal entitled “Stoic Elements in Calvin’s Doctrine of the Christian Life.” Leithart shares with Bouwsma a suspicion of Stoicism reflected in his initial observation that “Weber, Troeltsch, and other sociologists of religion of the last two centuries produced a portrait of the Puritan Calvinist that now occupies a firm place in popular culture: the Calvinist as prudish, passionless, consummate premodern rationalist—in short, the Calvinist as Stoic.”86 Leithart’s study focuses on a portion of the Institutes, Book III chapters 6–10, a text describing the “Christian life” which was published separately from the Institutes in 1550. He suggests that if Troeltsch and Weber have characterized Calvin’s followers correctly, then Calvin’s work on the Christian life is no doubt responsible for the problematic understanding of the nature of the Christian life that these generations of Puritans have exhibited.87 Leithart

78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87

Bouwsma (1975), pp. 38–9. Ibid., p. 43. Ibid., pp. 45–7. Ibid., pp. 48–51. Ibid., pp. 30–1. Ibid., p. 18. Ibid., p. 20. Ibid., p. 22. Leithart (1993a), p. 31. Ibid.

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indicates that it is worthwhile to determine whether this section of the Institutes “betrays a Stoic influence,” implicitly suggesting that such influence would be “alien to” Calvin’s “general biblical framework.”88 He concludes that Calvin’s emphasis on self-denial, which reflects a Stoic influence, can be pastorally helpful for contemporary Reformed Christians; but adds that Christians should emphasize more fully Calvin’s Christology, eschatology, and account of the sacraments rather than Stoic understandings of the moral life, precisely because “the Stoic elements in Calvin’s doctrine and within Calvinism in general have been an inhuman and intolerable burden for many.”89 Leithart clearly shares Bouwsma’s presumption of tension between Christianity and Stoic thought and his negative assessment of Stoic moral thought. At the same time, both studies acknowledge Stoicism as a key source that informs Calvin’s thought. While Calvin’s intellectual continuity with the Stoics should not be overstated, it is clear that he shows an interest in Stoic thought in his Christian writings, partly in a desire to respond to critics who argue that Calvin’s theology essentially replicates certain Stoic ideas. He particularly identifies areas of disagreement between Stoic and Christian accounts of providence and the emotions, topics that Chapters  5 and 6 of this book address in more depth. However, he shows appreciation for certain Stoic ideas as well, including the Stoic understanding of providence that he ultimately rejects.90 Calvin’s engagement of the Stoics points toward the merits of bringing his thought into conversation with Stoic ethics. Both Calvin’s points of continuity with and calculated departures from the Stoics prove to be instructive for appreciating his distinctive accounts of virtue and the moral life.

88 89 90

Ibid. Leithart (1994), p. 85. As Charles Partee and W.  J. Torrance Kirby note, Calvin makes clear that a Stoic account of divine providence is superior to an Epicurean view of God as detached from the concerns of the material world, even as he develops an account of providence that differs in key ways from the Stoic view. Partee observes that despite his differences from the Stoics, Calvin “approves of certain Stoic doctrines,” including their belief that God is sovereign and that humans are rational and social. See Charles Partee (1977). Calvin and Classical Philosophy. Leiden, The Netherlands:  Brill, pp. 120 –5 and W. J. Torrance Kirby (2003). “Stoic and Epicurean? Calvin’s Dialectical Account of Providence in the Institutes.” International Journal of Systematic Theology 5.3: 309–22 . Calvin’s Commentary on Seneca’s De Clementia 1.6.10 also criticizes the Epicureans for denigrating Stoic providence.

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Reception history as a tool for understanding Stoic dimensions in historical Protestant ethics Stout’s concept of moral bricolage encourages a recognition that all moral arguments draw selectively on a range of sometimes disparate ideas gleaned from multiple traditions, and Calvin can rather easily be conceived as a bricoleur who draws on ancient sources of Stoic thought. But while Luther and Edwards can be appropriately identified as bricoleurs as well, some of their exposure to Stoic ideas is more indirect. Calvin’s reading of the Stoics is likewise partly indirect and, considering the range of networks of ideas through which all of these thinkers may have encountered Stoic thought, is important to understand the avenues through which we can think of their positions as interacting with the Stoics. The academic study of reception history provides a helpful framework through which to describe more precisely the intellectual relation of all three of these thinkers—but especially of Luther and Edwards—to the Stoics’ moral thought. Reception history approaches the study of historical texts by attending to ways in which the texts are received and appropriated by later thinkers. One major theoretical influence on this field is the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer,91 whose 1960 Truth and Method argues that scholars encountering historical texts are necessarily influenced and limited by the contemporary presumptions and questions they bring to the text.92 Acknowledging this limitation invites a new understanding of the meaning of a text and its relation to author and reader. Gadamer argues instead that proper interpretation of texts must attend to the “fusion of horizons” between the text’s original historical setting and the reading of its later interpreters.93 In developing this argument, he also challenges the “hermeneutical rule” that “nothing should be put into a text that the writer or the reader could not have intended.”94 Many scholars who do reception history build on the distance Gadamer affirms between a text’s meaning and an author’s intentions to argue that a tradition or historical era’s appropriations of ancient texts help to shape the 91

92

93

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Lorna Hardwick explains Gadamer’s influence on reception history. Lorna Hardwick (2003). Reception Studies. New York : Oxford University Press, p. 8. Elizabeth Clark (2004). History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 111–12 . Hans-Georg Gadamer (1960). Truth and Method. Trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall London: Continuum, 2004, pp. 390, 396– 400. Ibid., p. 396.

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meaning of the original texts. This conception of how to conceive a text’s meaning prompts a new understanding of how ancient Greek and Roman texts relate to their modern appropriations. Lorna Hardwick explains that reception studies shift away from efforts to trace a “great chain of influence” between ancient texts and their modern interpreters. Such efforts, she suggests, tended to see ancient texts as generating a “ ‘meaning’ which was unproblematic, there to be grasped and to be applied in all kinds of situations far removed from the ancient one.”95 In the introduction to a volume on the reception of classical texts, Hardwick and Christopher Stray argue that understanding meaning to reside in an interplay of text and interpreters changes our view of “the cultural authority” of a given ancient text as well as “concepts such as ‘authenticity’ and ‘faithfulness.’ ”96 Reception historians recognize a value in considering appropriations of texts in relation not only to the original texts, but also to “a number of [other] receptions” of those texts, some of which may be common to receptions in a given historical period or which may “be a common feature in a number of receptions, irrespective of timeframe.”97 Reception history suggests that modern receptions of ancient texts in some ways shape the meaning of the ancient texts. In turn, if later appropriations of an ancient text contribute to and help shape its meaning, then it likewise should follow that these later texts can be viewed as transmitting and passing along ancient ideas. Felix Budelmann and Johannes Haubold provide an example of this in considering the relation of a poem written by seventeenth century poet Abraham Cowley to the ancient sixth/fift h century lyric poet Anacreon. Cowley was one of many European thinkers familiar with a modern publication of the ancient anonymous collection of poems Anacreontea: a set of poems that were often attributed to Anacreon but that are actually, Budelmann and Haubold argue, more properly viewed as a “reception” of Anacreon, written by another author.98 Budelmann and Haubold note that

95 96

97 98

Hardwick, p. 3. Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray (2011). “Introduction:  Making Connections,” in A Companion to Classical Receptions, ed. Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 1–10, at 5. Ibid., p. 5. Felix Budelmann and Johannes Haubold (2011). “Reception and Tradition,” in A Companion to Classical Receptions, ed. Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 13 –25, at 14– 6.

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Cowley’s poem uses the “structure and conceits” of a poem from this volume, but argue that the relation between the poems is not easily characterized in terms of simply “influence,” in part because intermediary sources play a crucial role in understanding it. Cowley’s poem, they explain, is “linked with Anacreon through a long chain of what we might call intermediate acts of reception,” one of which is the Anacreontea itself.99 Reception studies thus conceive such intermediary influences as playing a crucial role in conceiving and articulating receptions of classical ideas. In turn, the idea that intermediary sources can function as vehicles through which to understand an original source is important to a study of Luther, Calvin, and Edwards, because each of these thinkers indisputably encountered Stoic ideas in mediated form. Earlier Christian writings, particularly in the letters of Paul and the writings of Augustine, were important sources for Luther, Calvin, and Edwards. In turn, a number of contemporary studies suggest that Stoicism informed early Christian moral thought, even as Colish’s article reminds us that such claims have at times been controversial. Monographs by Troels Engberg-Pedersen and Timothy A. Brookins and essays by Runar Thorsteinsson100 and Niko Huttunen101 identify and explore points of convergence between Stoic and Pauline ethics, particularly emphasizing Romans and 1 Corinthians. Of particular notes are two arguments by Engberg-Pedersen that coincide with this book’s reading of Luther, Calvin, and Edwards in concert with the Stoics. First, Engberg-Pedersen argues not that the Stoics influenced Paul, but that Stoicism was nonetheless clearly central to the “philosophical environment” in which Paul wrote.102 Consequently, reading Paul “in the light of Stoicism” helps to demonstrate the coherence and consistency of Pauline texts.103 Second, Engberg-Pedersen in particular argues that the logic undergirding Stoic views of moral transformation 99 100

101 102

103

Budelmann and Haubold, p. 16. Runar M. Thorsteinsson (2010). “Stoicism as a Key to Pauline Ethics in Romans,” in Stoicism in Early Christianity, ed. Ruomas Rasimus, Troels Engberg-Pedersen, and Ismo Dunderberg. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, pp. 15 –38. Thorsteinsson brings Paul’s letters into conversation with the Roman Stoics in particular, noting that Seneca was serving in the “highly influential” role of “imperial counselor” at the time when Paul was writing the letter to the Romans (pp. 18–19). Niko Huttunen (2010). “Stoic Law in Paul?” in Stoicism in Early Christianity, pp. 39–58. Engberg-Pedersen (2010). Cosmology and the Self in the Apostle Paul:  The Material Spirit. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 19. Engberg-Pedersen (2000). Paul and the Stoics. Louisville, KY:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2000, pp. 1, 5.

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is central to many core Pauline arguments in the New Testament. A  Stoic “model” of conversion “may be seen to illuminate a whole number of widely different motifs in the Pauline material” and provide a certain measure of cohesion in interpreting Paul’s texts as a coherent body.104 Timothy Brookins likewise argues that Stoicism provides a central rhetorical framework and “philosophical form” through which to read 1 Corinthians.105 These comparisons suggest the plausibility of interpreting Paul’s letters as a source through which a particular reception of Christianized Stoic moral arguments would have been available to Luther, Calvin, and Edwards. Augustine’s work can also be interpreted partly as a reception of Stoic ideas selectively adapted and explored in a Christian context, as noted briefly above. Augustine was familiar with a broad range of Stoic sources in Greek and Latin. Colish argues that Augustine viewed the classical tradition as having a “worth” that is “intrinsic” and notes that Stoicism was a significant part of this tradition as Augustine encountered it. She describes Augustine’s use of Stoicism in a manner that evokes Stout’s account of bricolage: Augustine, she observes, drew on some Stoic ideas without changing them, viewed others as “obsolete currency,” and treated others still as “gold and silver” to be “melted down and recast into new forms.” For example, it seems clear that Augustine embraces certain dimension of the Stoic understanding of the passions while subjecting others to “revision or reformulation.”106 He also accepts certain Stoic convictions while rejecting ideas that the Stoics view as corollaries to these convictions; for example, he seems to draw on the Stoic idea that the virtuous person possesses all good through possessing virtue but rejects the Stoic position that all sins are equal.107 Furthermore, Augustine’s view of certain Stoic positions also changed and developed over time.108 Augustine 104

105

106

107 108

Ibid., 30. Engberg-Pedersen also argues for points of intersection (though not total convergence) between Pauline and Stoic cosmology and anthropology and develops an intriguing comparison of Paul and Epictetus on matters of divine and human freedom and agency (2010, pp. 98–105). Timothy A. Brookins (2014). Corinthian Wisdom, Stoic Philosophy, and the Ancient Economy. New York : Cambridge University Press, see in particular pp. 206 –11. Marcia L. Colish (1985), The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, 2 vols. Leiden, The Netherlands:  Brill, 2:209. Sorabji (2000) and Sarah C.  Byers further specify the ways in which Augustine’s account of the passions coincides with, modifies, and departs from the positions of different Stoics. Sarah C. Byers (2013). Perception, Sensibility, and Moral Motivation in Augustine: A Stoic-Platonic Synthesis. New York : Cambridge University Press. Colish., (1985), 2:210. Ibid., 2:143. As noted above, Gregory also argues that Augustine’s earlier writings draw on standard “tropes” of Stoicism as well as Neoplatonism, but that he moves away from Stoicism in his later writings in favor of an account of love embodied in the incarnation (2008, pp. 275–80).

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thus draws on certain Stoic ideas and partially transforms these ideas into a received and adapted version of Stoicism. Select Stoic moral convictions would thus certainly have been mediated to Luther, Calvin, and Edwards through the writings of Augustine. In some ways, then, Luther’s, Calvin’s, and Edwards’s study of earlier Christian texts exposed them to receptions of Stoic ideas, partly transformed through attention to Christian theological convictions. Additionally, in a different way, they also encountered Stoic receptions in their own historical context. A resurgence of interest in the Stoics is a hallmark feature of early modern and modern European thought. Engagement with the Stoics shaped the development of modern thought in the Renaissance and Enlightenment, both within and beyond the bounds of academic philosophy. As A. A. Long puts it, all “those who had time to read in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries,” including “priests, scholars, politicians, and others,” read and studied the Stoics.109 This far-reaching interest was reflected in new efforts to print and translate Stoic texts, both from Greek into Latin and into more vernacular European languages.110 Significantly for the present project, Roman Stoic ethical writings were central to this period of modern retrieval, just as scholars who argue for a relation between Paul and the Stoics often see congruity between Paul and the Roman Stoics in particular. Long explains that “what was most accessible and influential for the Renaissance and Enlightenment were the treatments of Stoic ethics by Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.”111 The Stoics indisputably informed modern thought after the Reformation as well. Ernst Cassirer speaks to this influence on seventeenth-century political philosophy, which he characterizes as largely “a rejuvenation of Stoic ideas,” and argues that seventeenth and eighteenth century thinkers attributed to Stoic moral commitments a “tremendous practical significance.”112 In a work discussing the intellectual context of Edwards’ thought, Norman 109

110 111

112

A. A. Long (1986), Hellenistic Philosophy:  Stoics, Epicureans, Skeptics. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 107. Brad Inwood also notes Stoicism’s widespread influence in Christianity. Brad Inwood (2008), Reading Seneca: Stoic Philosophy at Rome. New York : Oxford University Press, p. 1. Brooke, pp. xii–xiii. A. A. Long (2003), “Stoicism in the Philosophical Tradition: Spinoza, Lipsius, Butler,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics, ed. Brad Inwood. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 365–92, at 367. Ernst Cassirer (1961). The Myth of the State. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, pp. 166 –70.

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Fiering explains that in Edwards’s Anglo-American setting, “[t]he Stoics, particularly Seneca and Plutarch, were more deeply studied in the seventeenth century than at any previous time, and aspects of Neostoicism underlay much of eighteenth-century ethical thought.”113 Recovery of the Roman Stoics significantly informed seventeenth and eighteenth century moral and political thought. Reception history provides a lens through which to expand our understanding of how Stoic ideas may have helped inform and shape the works of Luther, Calvin, and Edwards. This discipline would suggest that the meaning of Stoic texts is reinterpreted and reconstructed through their early Christian and modern receptions, and the resulting intellectual climate no doubt helped to shape the writings of Luther, Calvin, and Edwards beyond their direct and overt reading of Stoic texts. Luther, Calvin, and Edwards encountered Stoic ethics through a number of “intermediate acts of reception” of original Roman Stoic texts. To complicate this picture further, many of these modern intermediate receptions were the work of Christians who selectively integrated Stoic ideas with Christian commitments. Sixteenth-century Europeans often combined elements of Stoic thought with ideas from Plato, Aristotle, and Christian doctrine.114 Reception history’s understanding of intermediate receptions as having a kind of validity proves helpful for conceiving how Luther’s thought interacts with Stoicism. One major source through which Luther would have been exposed to Stoic thought is Cicero. In the Tischreden, Luther upholds Cicero’s De officiis (a text that conveys central ideas of Stoic ethics) as superior to Aristotle’s Ethics. Luther praises Cicero’s discussion of God’s existence and God’s concern for human affairs, and goes so far as to speculate that Cicero ultimately received divine salvation.115 But some of Luther’s exposure to Stoic ideas would have come through his intellectual climate more generally. Andries Raath argues that a number of “early Lutheran authors strongly espoused the views of the Stoics and the classic Roman-law authors in matters pertaining to politics and law,” particularly the Stoic understandings of 113

114 115

Norman Fiering (1981a). Jonathan Edwards’s Moral Thought in Its British Context. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, p. 5. Long (1986), p. 238. Alden Smith (2012) quotes and translates these arguments in “Deipnosophistae Reformed: Classical Intertexts in Luther’s Tischreden.” Logia: A Journal of Lutheran Theology 21.2: 19–22 .

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providence, natural law, and human inclinations toward “justice, benevolence, and virtue.”116 Raath focuses heavily on Melanchthon rather than Luther, but his study shows that Stoic ideas were discussed by Luther’s contemporaries and in contexts in which Luther encountered and explored them. Raath supports his argument in part by drawing on a 1530 document that Melanchthon authored and that Melanchthon and Luther issued together with other early Lutheran theologians.117 Luther’s indirect exposure to the Stoics through his contemporaries is important, in part, because it can be argued that his thought coincides with Stoicism in ways that go beyond his overt and intentional adaptation of Stoic ideas. Later chapters will argue this point more fully, and Chapters 3 and 4, in doing so, will engage in depth the work of Marjorie O’Rourke Boyle. Boyle argues that Luther’s thought heavily employs a hermeneutical “logic” consistent with the Stoic paradoxes that all sins are equal and that someone who commits one sin commits all of them. Whereas Boyle maintains that “The coincidence of Luther’s theology with Stoicism is emphatically not in the area of ethics … but of epistemology,”118 Chapters 3 and 4 of this book will contend that these paradoxes are central to an ethic that insists on justification as an antecedent of moral goodness and that gives rise to a view of moral growth as not strictly linear. But for the current purposes of reflecting on Luther as a bricoleur informed by receptions of Stoicism, it is instructive to consider Boyle’s account of the various paths through which a Stoic logic came to be at work in Luther. Boyle argues that Luther drew on Stoic ideas through his familiarity with Cicero, and that Paradoxa Stoicorum would have been an informative source. Interestingly, she contends that as informed by Cicero, Luther’s thought is more consistent with Greek than Roman Stoicism. She speculates that scholars overlook Luther’s Stoicism (in contrast to identifying Stoic influences in Melanchthon, Zwingli, and Calvin) because they are accustomed to viewing “Senecan morality” as the “progenitor of sixteenth

116

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Andries Raath (2009). “Stoic Roots of Early Reformational Resistance Theory: A Marginal Note on the Origins of the Right to Resistance in Early Reformational Political Thought.” Studia historiae ecclesiasticae 35.2: 303 –22 , at 304. Ibid., pp. 311–12. The document’s text can be found at LW 47: 8 and 11. Boyle, (1982), pp. 69–93, at 77. Boyle more fully discusses Luther’s debt to “stoic epistemology” in Boyle (1993). Rhetoric and Reform:  Erasmus’s Civil Dispute with Luther. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 51–8. She argues that Luther’s “dependence” on Stoic epistemology affects his understanding of faith, a claim to which I return in Chapter 3.

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century versions of Stoicism,” and for Boyle, Luther’s thought is not consistent with this morality.119 In looking to sources outside of Seneca, Boyle also argues that the Christian Scriptures are a source of Luther’s Stoic logic. Her discussion of the Stoic paradox “he who sins one sin, sins all” focuses on James 2:10 as Luther’s source. James 2:10’s articulation of this paradox coincides with rabbinical teaching, and twentieth century biblical scholars tend to argue that the rabbinical teaching that one who “transgresses the law in one point wholly violates that law” is the major source of the argument in James.120 But Boyle argues that even if this is the case, the fact remains that it is a Stoic paradox as well, and in fact one articulated twice in Seneca’s De beneficiis.121 Augustine associates James 2:1–10 with the Stoic paradox of the equality of all sins in a letter to Jerome.122 Boyle notes that Erasmus drew on this letter in accusing Luther (whose position Erasmus ultimately contrasted with Augustine) of advocating Stoic paradoxes, and suggests that Luther is likely to have known of this association as well.123 Boyle’s argument suggests that the interaction of Luther’s thought with Stoic ideas is best understood by attending to a range of possible sources for these ideas, many of which are secondary receptions of Stoic claims. The significance of intermediary receptions is likewise crucial to acknowledging and exploring ways in which Edwards’s ethics coincide at certain points with Stoic thought. Edwards notes in his treatise On Freedom of the Will that he has never read the Stoics, although he has generally positive feelings about Stoic thought based on his knowledge of the attitudes of historical Christian authors toward the Stoics.124 Yet, despite Edwards’s lack of

119 120 121 122

123 124

Ibid., p. 77. Ibid., p. 83. Ibid., p. 82. Augustine’s Letter 167 focuses on the proper interpretation of James’s contention that “Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all” (p. 532). Augustine recognizes that many philosophers affi rm that the virtues have some measure or unity or interconnection and seems to fi nd this view plausible (p. 534). But he is critical of the Stoics for insisting on the “absurd tenet” that “all sins are equal” and goes on to argues that it is possible to affi rm the interconnection among the virtues without requiring the equality of sins (pp. 534- 6). He summarizes his position against the Stoics in paragraph 14: “Even though it were true that he who has one virtue has all virtues, and that he who lacks one virtue has none, this would not involve the consequence that all sins are equal; for although it is true that where there is no virtue there is nothing right, it by no means follows that among bad actions one cannot be worse than another, or that divergence from that which is right does not admit of degrees” (p. 536–7). Boyle, (1982) pp. 78, 83. Edwards, Freedom of the Will, WJE 1:372.

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familiarity with Stoic writings, he would certainly have encountered a distinctively modern adaptation of Stoic ideas through the work of his own philosophical contemporaries. Most scholarship on the philosophical influences on Edwards’s theology situates his writings in the context of these contemporaries,125 suggesting that Edwards was indeed well immersed in a worldview that was permeated with Roman Stoic thought. George Marsden observes that it is appropriate to think of Edwards’ primary intellectual context as British,126 and thinkers of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British Enlightenment were decisively influenced by the Roman Stoics. Many of Edwards’s major treatises in ethics were written in the 1740s and 1750s and reflect this mediated Stoic influence. Within this intellectual context, the work of the British philosopher Anthony Ashley Cooper (Lord Shaftesbury) and the Scottish philosopher and Presbyterian pastor Francis Hutcheson played a particularly significant role in shaping Edwards’s moral thought, a point that is important because Shaftesbury and Hutcheson are widely interpreted as developing modern receptions of Roman Stoicism. Hutcheson’s ideas were popular in colonial America, and Fiering argues that this popularity could well point toward an affinity between Hutcheson’s sentimentalism and Puritan religious convictions.127 While scholars debate whether Edwards read Hutcheson prior to developing his understanding of conversion and moral formation,128 it is

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Sang Hyun Lee, for example, argues that Edwards employs and develops a particular concept of “disposition” to describe the being and activity of both God and humans; this conception, for Lee, emerges in a context shaped by Locke and Newton, partially mediated through the Cambridge Platonists. Lee argues that Edwards drew upon these thinkers in a manner that redefi nes Aristotelian metaphysics. Sang Hyun Lee (1988). The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 3 –75; Sang Hyun Lee (2003). “Editor’s Introduction,” in WJE 21:  6 –10. Stephen A.  Wilson (2005) offers an extensive and thorough study of Edwards’s relation to Protestant scholastics and the Cambridge Platonists in Virtue Reformed: Rereading Jonathan Edwards’s Ethics. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2005. Leon Chai (1998) examines Edwards’s thought in connection to major Enlightenment figures, with particular focus on Locke, Leibniz, and Malebranche, in Jonathan Edwards and the Limits of Enlightenment Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press. Marsden argues that most American colonists in the mid-1700s, including Edwards, thought of themselves as British subjects and took the Scottish intellectual context very seriously. George Marsden (2003) Jonathan Edwards: A Life. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, pp. 466 –7. He contends that consistently with this general respect for British thought, Edwards “immersed himself in the literature of the emerging British Enlightenment” from an early age (pp. 5–8). Norman Fiering (1981b). Moral Philosophy at Seventeenth- Century Harvard:  A  Discipline in Transition. Williamsburg, VA: University of North Carolina Press, p. 5. Fiering argues that Edwards did not read Hutcheson’s Inquiry until after 1746 and that Edwards therefore developed his view of the spiritual sense independently of Hutcheson’s account of the moral sense. Fiering (1981a), p. 129.

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feasible that Edwards would have encountered Shaftesbury and Hutcheson during his study at Yale.129 Moreover, Edwards is known to have owned two major moral treatises that Hutcheson wrote in the 1720s,130 and Edwards’s writings refer to Shaftesbury explicitly as early as 1723, and to Hutcheson as early as 1738.131 Edwards’s familiarity with Shaftesbury and Hutcheson would certainly give him some awareness of modern Stoic retrievals, despite his relative lack of knowledge of the Stoics themselves. Shaftesbury and Hutcheson read the Roman Stoics directly and drew upon them heavily. Benjamin Rand argues that Shaftesbury’s Philosophical Regimen is “thoroughly saturated” in the philosophy of Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, and that this text “reproduces not only their [Marcus Aurelius’s and Epictetus’s] thought but also to a considerable extent their technical language.”132 Hutcheson encountered the Stoics through Shaftesbury, who was a significant influence on his thought.133 He drew directly upon the work of the Roman Stoics, especially the ideas of Marcus Aurelius, whose Meditations he translated and published 129

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See Michael McClymond (1998), Encounters with God: An Approach to the Theology of Jonathan Edwards. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 51. “Edwards owned and read many works of Enlightenment moral theorists, such as Hutcheson’s Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725) and An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections with Illustration on the Moral Sense (1728).” Avihu Zakai (2003). Jonathan Edwards’ Philosophy of History: The Reenchantment of the World in an Age of Enlightenment. Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 312 . Paul Ramsey (1989). “Jonathan Edwards on Moral Sense, and the Sentimentalists,” in Edwards, WJE 8:703 – 4. Rand further explains, “It was with the works of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius that Shaftesbury was most thoroughly conversant. From them he draws most of the topics and their maxims in the Regimen. He reproduces not only their thought but also to a considerable extent their technical language. It would be difficult indeed to fi nd any author with quotations in every instance so apt as those which Shaftesbury makes from these writers. With their philosophy, moreover, he was most thoroughly saturated.” Benjamin Rand (1900). “Prefatory Introduction,” in The Life, Unpublished Letters, and Philosophical Regimen of Antony, Earl of Shaftesbury, ed. Anthony Ashley Cooper, Lord Shaftesbury. New  York :  Macmillan, pp. i–xii, at xi. Th is connection between Shaftesbury and the Stoics is generally accepted among twentieth-century scholars: a 1923 article by Esther Tiffany affi rms that it is “generally recognized that the background of Shaftesbury’s thought is classical . . . deriving both from Stoicism and from Platonism and neo-Platonism” via the Cambridge Platonists. Esther Tiffany (1923). “Shaftesbury as Stoic,” Publication of the Modern Language Association 38.3: 642–84, at 642– 4. More recently, Lawrence Klein notes the extensive influence of the Roman Stoics upon Shaftesbury. Lawrence Klein (1999). “Introduction,” in Characteristics of Men, Manner, Opinion, and Times, ed. Anthony Ashley Cooper, Lord Shaftesbury. New York : Cambridge University Press, pp. xxv–xxvi. Shaftesbury’s influence on Hutcheson is widely acknowledged. Henning Jensen recognizes that Hutcheson explicitly seeks to defend and build on Shaftesbury’s ethic. Henning Jensen (1971). Motivation and the Moral Sense in Francis Hutcheson’s Ethical Theory. The Hague:  Martinus Nijhoff, pp. 35 –8. Alasdair MacIntyre likewise observes that Hutcheson was “greatly impressed” by Shaftesbury, and that Shaftesbury is more or less the source for Hutcheson’s moral sense. Alasdair MacIntyre (1988). Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Notre Dame, IN: The University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 268.

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with colleague James Moor.134 Two of Hutcheson’s major works cite Marcus Aurelius in support of the notion that humanity has a moral obligation to seek justice and a universal well being for all persons.135 At the same time, Hutcheson was a Presbyterian pastor who sought to dissociate himself from Shaftesbury with regard to religion, and paid particular attention to Stoic claims that he believed could be reconciled with Christian moral commitments. Hutcheson’s efforts constituted, as Richard Sher puts it, a “brand of Christian Stoicism [that] exerted a powerful influence on Scottish moral philosophy and religion throughout the eighteenth century.”136 The interest in Stoicism that generally characterized modern European thought was particularly pronounced in Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, and partially fused with Christianity in Hutcheson. Edwards’s later ethical writings reflect this Stoicized intellectual context. Luther, Calvin, and Edwards can all be rightly viewed as moral bricoleurs. Luther and Calvin drew on the Stoics directly, and reception history underscores the plausibility of understanding the ethics of all three thinkers as, in some sense, informed by Stoic ideas and in turn shaping what Stoic thought represents for their contemporaries and subsequent generations. A conception of these theologians as bricoleurs does not negate the important ways in which each thinker rejects certain Stoic convictions, nor does it require demonstrating a clear and uncontroversial influence of Stoic texts on Luther’s, Calvin’s, and Edwards’s ideas. Instead, it provides a starting point through which to conceive the intellectual relation between two multilayered and 134

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Hutcheson’s and Moor’s introduction to this translation lavishly praises Marcus Aurelius’s intellectual gifts and moral character. They affi rm that Marcus’s “own meditations, to every judicious reader, will present a great soul; adorned with the soundest understanding, the most amiable sweetness and kindness of affections, the most invincible meekness, steddy justice, humility, and simplicity, and the most entire resignation to GOD. And the history of his life, even as ‘tis imperfectly preserved to us, will shew his great capacity, and penetration, in public affairs, and his strength of mind, calmness, and trepidity amidst the greatest dangers” (p. 4). James Moore and Michael Silverthorne helpfully make note of these citations in their introduction to Hutcheson and Moor’s translation of Marcus Aurelius. One reference occurs in Hutcheson’s 1728 An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections with Illustrations on the Moral Sense, another in his A System of Moral Philosophy (written in the 1730s and published in 1755). James Moore and Michael Silverthorne (2008). “Introduction,” in The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, ed. Francis Hutcheson and Moor (Indianapolis: The Liberty Fund), pp. ix–xxx, at xvi. Richard B. Sher (1985). Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment:  The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh. Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press, pp. 177. P.  H. Clarke likewise refers to Frances Hutcheson’s ideas as “Christian Stoicism.” P. H. Clarke (2000). “Adam Smith, Stoicism, and Religion in the Eighteenth Century.” History of the Human Sciences 13.4: 49–72 , at 51.

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complex moral traditions whose points of coincidence and departure are illuminating for contemporary Christian ethics.

Structure of this book Rather than considering Stoic or Protestant ethics comprehensively, this book identifies a number of ways in which the juxtaposition of Stoic and historical Protestant ethics enriches our understanding of Protestant theology’s distinctive contributions to contemporary discussions of virtue. Chapter  2 introduces Roman Stoic ethics first by briefly discussing the most prolific figures associated with this tradition. It then explores four interrelated themes important to Roman Stoic moral thought that are instructive for subsequent chapters’ considerations of historical Protestant accounts of virtue. First, while Stoicism in general is associated with an account of virtue as a singular and unified good, for the Roman Stoics this singular good is embodied in a disposition of assent to divine providence, a disposition the Stoics associate with the faculty of the prohairesis. Second, the Stoics’ conception of virtue as a unified good leads them toward an account of moral formation that suggests that a sage transforms decisively from a vicious person to a virtuous person at an identifiable point of time. Although one may make progress toward virtue, a Stoic moral agent is, properly speaking, either wholly virtuous or wholly vicious. Third, the Stoics’ conception of virtue must be interpreted within a broader metaphysical framework that understands divine providence to be at work in the universe, a commitment that shapes a particular understanding of human freedom and agency. For the Roman Stoics in particular, this providence is benevolent and, to some degree, suggests a personal God—although such a view of the divine nature cannot be seen as characteristic of Stoicism as a whole. Finally, the Stoics advocate the practice of apatheia, the rejection of most affective states or emotions. The Stoic rejection of the emotions is an extension of the Roman Stoic understanding of virtuous assent as an embodied judgment concerning the goodness of divine providence at work in the world. The Stoics view the emotions as flawed or inaccurate judgments and resist them because of their discontinuity with virtue. The relation of virtue to apatheia is partly evident in the Stoics’ approval of particular affective states that they see as compatible with virtue.

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Chapters  3, 4, 5, and 6 develop the argument that engagement with the Stoics enriches our understanding of key moral claims that reflect historical Protestant theology’s distinctive contribution to reflection on the virtues. Chapter  3 focuses on a Reformed understanding of faith as both cognitive belief and embodied trust in God. While historical Protestants resisted designating faith as a virtue, a comparison of the accounts of faith at work in Luther, Calvin, and Edwards to Stoic virtuous assent suggests that a certain conception of faith functions as a core virtue in Protestant theology. Luther, Calvin, and (to a lesser degree) Edwards elevate faith as human good that has unique value in the Christian life, just as the Stoics contend that only virtue is a genuine good. Moreover, the structure of virtuous assent couples intellectual belief in divine goodness with a moral disposition of consent or trust. The faith that functions as a virtue in Protestant accounts of the moral life is likewise an embodied and sustained disposition that couples cognitive belief with a more volitional trust. The similarities between Stoic assent and Protestant faith suggest that Stoic ethics provides resources for adjudicating differences in Luther’s, Calvin’s, and Edwards’s accounts of faith’s relation to love. The concerns Luther and Calvin express about the Scholastic formula of “faith formed by love” point toward the primacy faith must hold in a Protestant vision of the moral life. But the structure of Roman Stoic assent indirectly demonstrates the importance of preserving a necessary relation between faith and love (even as love plays a secondary role) in order to sustain the idea that faith is not merely akin to cognitive belief. For the Stoics, the moral dimension of assent necessarily generates a disposition of impartial love for the universe as a whole. Calvin and Edwards similarly present faith and love as integrally linked in a manner that offers a helpful corrective to Luther’s occasional elevation of faith at love’s expense. Chapter 4 turns to the shape of moral formation in a Protestant understanding of the Christian life. For Luther, Calvin, and Edwards, justification plays a decisive role in determining a Christian’s status before God and, in a certain sense, their moral status as well; but these theologians simultaneously affirm the possibility of moral growth as part of the Christian life subsequent to conversion. This chapter explores the role that justification plays in the accounts of moral formation at work in Luther, Calvin, and Edwards. Justification is radically transformative for all three thinkers, defining a Christian’s status

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before God, determining their moral capacities, and imputing to a Christian the indivisible and perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. This transformative account of justification stands in keeping with a Stoic understanding of virtue as a unity acquired all at once. At the same time, Luther, Calvin, and Edwards depart from the Stoics in arguing that Christians grow in virtue after justification. A commitment to justification as in a sense complete and transformative coupled with a view that Christians grow in virtue after they are justified gives rise to an account of the Christian life marked by a distinctive shape that is simultaneously linear and a series of returns to one’s starting point. This account of moral formation need not put Protestant theology at odds with contemporary virtue ethics, but attention to the Stoics is helpful for articulating how this account of the moral life intersects with arguments in other moral traditions. Whereas strictly linear models of growth would appear more easily to fit with an Aristotelian habituation-based account of moral formation, the Stoic understanding of virtue as a unity and conception of virtue as acquired all at once offers an entry point for reflecting on how Protestants can intelligibly advocate a view of formation in virtue that allows for some measure of linear growth while simultaneously retaining an insistent openness to the interruption of this process by the transformative workings of a particularistic grace. Chapter  5 builds on these accounts of virtue and moral formation to consider the nature of a human agency that a Reformed ethic can plausibly attribute to Christians. Reflection on the interplay of divine and human agency, in turn, must acknowledge a number of related questions that arise in Reformed ethics. This chapter lays out major contours of Luther’s, Calvin’s, and Edwards’s accounts of divine providence and human free will. These accounts highlight challenges that arise in the positions of all three theologians: certain claims by all three thinkers put them at risk of conceiving God in a manner that risks undermining their professed commitments to God’s freedom and God’s fundamental goodness and love for the created order. By the same token, all three thinkers understand free will in human beings in a manner that requires shifting away from accounts of moral agency centered on the realization of autonomy. This chapter concludes by briefly laying out an account of moral agency in humans broadly continuous with Reformed theological convictions. Stoic thought is instructive for this consideration

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of moral agency even as Stoic and Christian accounts of providence differ in important ways. The Stoics tend to depict providence as an impersonal divine force that permeates the material world and directs it in a manner that is not highly individuated, although passages in Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius suggest the possibility of thinking of providence as working more personally and specifically with individual human beings. Christian thought, in contrast, maintains God’s transcendence over—and distinction from— the material world, and contends that God is concerned with the particular circumstances facing individual human beings. Yet the Roman Stoics and Christians share an understanding of God’s providential ordering as rational and benevolent, directing the world toward its good. This shared conviction is striking because the Stoics uphold these commitments while simultaneously defending an account of moral responsibility in humans that is in many ways more robust than the picture of agency present in historical Reformed defenses of free will. This chapter, therefore, argues that despite the notable differences between Stoic and Christian understandings of God and of divine providence, a Stoic account of moral agency can fruitfully support and clarify Reformed arguments that humans are morally accountable for their actions, even as any moral action requires God’s enabling and empowering grace. Protestant ethicists can preserve a commitment to the active oversight of God’s providence in relation to human affairs while simultaneously advocating a model of moral agency embodied in two closely related character dispositions:  a deliberative and embodied acceptance of the ways in which our circumstances necessarily place certain limits on our moral capacities, and a love for strangers that emerges from a recognition of one’s place within the universe. Chapter 6 turns more specifically to the role of the emotions in shaping a person’s moral character. Historical Christian thinkers, including Calvin, adamantly reject the Stoics’ advocacy of apatheia , noting that the incarnate Jesus Christ experienced and displayed a number of emotional states and, in doing so, demonstrated their compatibility with Christ’s own perfect virtue. Yet this chapter argues that Luther, Calvin, and Edwards qualify their acceptance of the emotions in a manner that draws their positions closer to Stoic apatheia than they initially appear to be. Luther and Calvin restrict the appropriate exercise of emotions such as anger to

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activity associated with particular offices or vocations rather than to interpersonal relationships between humans as humans. Edwards links the affections to the will, and, in doing so, advances a moral psychology that carefully integrates reason, will, and emotions, rather than embracing passions without qualification. Ultimately, this chapter contends that a characteristic Reformed account of the emotions prioritizes virtue as setting a standard that guides a moral agent in discerning whether a given emotion should be embraced or resisted, a position that shares certain important features with a Stoic account of the emotions. Th is book’s exploration of virtue, moral agency, and the role of the emotions in Luther, Calvin, and Edwards illuminates ways in which Protestant ethicists can benefit from acknowledging and bringing into relief the Stoic themes that have contributed to the historical shape of Christian moral thought. Despite MacIntyre’s criticisms of both Protestant theology and Stoicism, some measure of kinship with the Stoics does not distance Protestant theology from the commitments of contemporary virtue theorists. Instead, it allows Christian theologians more fully to recognize and embrace the distinctiveness of a virtue ethic that emphasizes the transformative character of faith in the moral life, and that understands moral responsibility in close conjunction with a deep commitment to the all pervasiveness of God’s benevolent providence. Such an ethic complements and enriches current studies of virtue and Christian thought, and challenges ethicists to think about the scope of virtue ethics in increasingly expanding ways.

2

A Roman Stoic Ethic of Assent

Stoicism’s extraordinary historical and geographical breadth makes it difficult to present a comprehensive and concise account of Stoic ethics. Stoicism was an organized school for nearly five centuries, and its ideas were developed in both Athens and Rome. Major proponents of Stoicism share certain commitments characteristic of the Stoic school, most notably, an understanding of the world as rationally ordered and a belief that virtue is tied to human reason and knowledge. At the same time, the Stoics sometimes emphasized different ideas or even developed positions that disagreed with each other.1 Moreover, as noted in Chapter 1, later receptions of the Stoics extracted and emphasized different Stoic commitments at different points in time. Rather than attempting to present a comprehensive picture of Stoic ethics, this chapter identifies Stoic lines of thought that are most promising for reception by contemporary Protestant ethicists. These Stoic convictions intersect with historical Protestant moral thought, in part because historical Protestants appropriated and extended theological convictions of Paul and Augustine that reflected Stoic influence, and in part because of Stoicism’s profound influence on the early modern and modern historical contexts in which Protestant theology emerged. Early modern and modern receptions of the Stoics were particularly focused on the ethics of the Roman Stoics. Certain dimensions of Roman Stoic ethics helpfully complement or clarify the vision of the moral life put forth in Luther, Calvin, and Edwards: Stoic virtue is a unified and singular good whose acquisition transforms one’s 1

Marcia L. Colish (1985), The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, 2  vols. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1:7.

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being; Roman Stoic virtue is a dispositional stance of assent to divine providence; and the exercise of apatheia (or the extirpation of emotions) is one means through which a moral agent embodies virtue. Of course, we will see that Stoic and Protestant ethics do not perfectly coincide and, indeed, Luther, Calvin, and Edwards actively reject certain dimensions of Stoic ethics. Nevertheless, subsequent chapters will suggest that both the Stoics’ points of continuity with and divergence from Reformed Protestant moral commitments are instructive for reflecting on the distinctive contributions Reformed theology offers to contemporary scholarship on the virtues.

Stoicism: a brief historical overview A brief historical overview of Stoicism provides a foundation for situating Roman Stoic ethics within this broader tradition. Scholars traditionally identify three periods of organized Stoicism: the ancient Stoa, the middle Stoa, and the Roman Stoa. The philosopher Zeno of Cattium founded the Stoic school in Athens in 301 BCE, shortly after the death of Aristotle.2 Many of Zeno’s positions emerged in conversation with other emerging Hellenistic philosophical traditions. The Stoics were particularly concerned with challenging Epicureanism, a movement that linked morality to the achievement of pleasure and conceived the gods as fully transcendent beings detached from and disinterested in the natural world. Against such claims, Zeno affirmed that the world is coherently and rationally ordered and that humans are connected to this rational dimension of things through the faculty of reason that all people possess. Human reason, in turn, is central to the pursuit of virtue.3 Marcia L. Colish highlights two philosophical claims through which Zeno departed significantly from Plato and Aristotle. First, Zeno argued that matter and spirit are identical (against a dualism between matter and spirit that he perceived to be at work in Plato and Aristotle). Second, Zeno developed moral claims in relation to a universal moral community rather than a particular local polis.4 At the same time, Stoicism was not fully discontinuous with either 2 3

4

Ibid., 1:7. A. A. Long (1986), Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Skeptics. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 110 –12 . Colish (1985), 1:9.

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Plato or Aristotle.5 Like Plato, the Stoics saw themselves as deeply indebted to Socrates.6 Zeno studied with two eminent philosophers connected to the Megarian school established by Eucleides of Megara, a follower of Socrates.7 Scholars suggest that he was also directly influenced by Plato’s dialogues.8 In addition to sharing a heritage with Plato, it is highly likely that the Stoics were familiar with Aristotle’s ideas,9 and many scholars recognize that Stoic ethics and Aristotelian ethics coincide in relation to a number of positions and commitments. As noted in Chapter 1, Julia Annas argues that a range of perspectives in ancient ethics, including Aristotelian and ancient Stoic ethics, share a eudaimonistic and teleological framework that differentiates these positions from modern ethics even as Aristotle and the Stoics differ in important ways.10 The Stoics’ connection of virtue to cognitive or intellectual knowledge is another commitment they share with both Plato and Aristotle.11 The Stoics’ points of continuity with these philosophical traditions underscores their potential constructive relation to historical Christian authors whose positions were clearly informed by both Platonism and Aristotelianism. A second ancient Stoic who merits brief discussion is one of Zeno’s successors, Chrysippus of Soli. Chrysippus became head of the Stoic school in 232 BCE, and he refined and expanded Stoic teaching through engaging critiques put forth by competing philosophical schools.12 Two fairly recent studies point toward features of Chrysippus’s work that intersect with the concerns of this book. Engberg-Pedersen’s Paul and the Stoics turns to Chrysippus as a resource for exploring Paul’s relation to Stoic ethics. Engberg-Pedersen argues that later Stoics (that is, the Roman Stoics on whom this present work focuses) presumed a Chrysippean framework. Chrysippus, he explains, can therefore

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Brad Inwood argues that Stoicism is “less sharply distinct from ‘Platonism’ than used to be thought.” Brad Inwood (2008), Reading Seneca:  Stoic Philosophy at Rome. New  York :  Oxford University Press, p.  3. Likewise, John Rist’s landmark text Stoic Philosophy begins with the observation that the ancient philosopher Carneades “was in the habit of claiming that the Stoics and Peripatetics taught substantially the same ethical doctrines, varying only in their terminology.” John Rist (1977), Stoic Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 1. David Sedley (1993). “Chrysippus on Psychophysical Causality,” in Passions and Perceptions, ed. J. Brunschwig and M. Nussbaum. New York : Cambridge University Press, pp. 313 –31. Long (1986), pp. 8–9. Tad Brennan (2007), The Stoic Life: Emotions, Duties, and Fate. New York :  Oxford University Press, p. 11. Long (1986), p. 10. Julia Annas (1993). The Morality of Happiness. New York : Oxford University Press. Colish (1985), 1:9. Ibid., 1:10.

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be seen as a common source for both Paul and these Stoics.13 Christoph Jeden’s Stoic Virtues: Chrysippus and the Religious Character of Stoic Ethics similarly emphasizes the religious framework in which Chrysippus operates. Noting the religious orientation of Stoicism as a whole,14 Jeden argues that attending to the “religious tenor of Stoic philosophy” is essential to formulating “an adequate understanding of Stoic ethics.”15 In developing this thesis, he contends that Chrysippus’s belief that God’s will shapes and orders the natural world makes sense of his characterization of virtue as living in accordance with nature.16 He likewise argues that Chrysippus’s religious convictions help make sense of Stoics’ understanding of the virtues as unified but distinct17 and the Stoics’ differentiation between virtue and all inferior goods.18 Jeden’s reading of Chrysippus coincides broadly with the interpretation of the Roman Stoics that I develop here.19 The Roman Stoa was the final stage of organized Stoicism, developed in the first two centuries CE. These Stoics were largely continuous with earlier Stoics, but the period is sometimes characterized as less philosophically rigorous. The Roman Stoics, broadly speaking, were interested in practical questions and matters of ethics.20 This practical focus led the Roman Stoics to draw on both Stoic and other sources in developing their positions. They explored these varied sources to develop the particular ideas and arguments that they found to be of immediate practical interest.21 Annas also observes

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Troels Engberg-Pedersen (2000). Paul and the Stoics. Louisville, KY:  Westminster John Knox Press, p. 46. Christoph Jeden (2009). Stoic Virtues:  Chrysippus and the Religious Character of Stoic Ethics. London: Continuum, pp. 9–30. Ibid., p. 3. Ibid., p. 61. Ibid., pp. 75–80. Ibid., p. 140. It should nevertheless be noted that certain dimensions of Jeden’s characterization of the Stoics, most notably his claim that “the Stoics theorized a personal God who benevolently administers the world,” (p. 140) do not clearly apply to all Stoics, a point to which I return in Chapter 5. It is more common for the Stoics to conceive providence in impersonal and naturalistic terms. Yet in their characterizations of God and the universe, the Roman Stoics come closer than do earlier Stoics to describing God as a personal being with some affi nities to the Christian God, even as they differ from orthodox Christian theology in adhering to a sort of pantheism. Both Colish and Annas note this practical focus as characteristic of the Roman Stoics. Colish argues that in general, the Roman Stoics were more interested in ethics than in physics or logic and were less concerned with speculative questions than their Stoic predecessors; they accepted the logical and philosophical frameworks of the early and middle Stoa and focused their attention on moral questions (Colish 1:12–13). Annas similarly affi rms that the later Stoics tended to ignore “non-ethical philosophy” (Annas [1993], p. 160). Colish (1985), 1:12–13.

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that while the Roman Stoics share earlier Stoics’ understanding of “cosmic nature” as providentially and teleologically directed, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius appear to derive “ethical strategies” from humanity’s relation to the universe as a whole in a manner that departs from earlier Stoics.22 She suggests that these shifts make earlier Stoic texts more clearly eudaimonist in the Aristotelian sense than certain Roman Stoic arguments are.23 These differences indicate the originality of Roman Stoic thought within Stoicism as a whole and reinforce the possibility that historical Protestant interest in Roman Stoic sources might generate different moral conclusions from those that could arise in conjunction with earlier Stoic authors. This distinctive form of Stoicism is most fully developed in the writings of three major figures associated with the Roman Stoa: Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. Seneca, the earliest of the Roman Stoics, was a Roman senator in the first century CE. He received philosophical training in Rome from several teachers, including the Stoic Attalus and the wellknown Roman philosopher Quintus Sextius.24 He was placed in exile for eight years in the 40s. After his return to Rome, he was made part of the imperial household as an instructor of rhetoric to the teenage Nero. When Nero became emperor, Seneca served as his primary political adviser and speech writer until the death of Nero’s mother, after which Nero’s behavior became increasingly problematic. Seneca asked permission to retire; Nero denied permission but allowed the retirement to take place two years later. Soon afterwards, however, the emperor accused Seneca of involvement in a plot against him and ordered him to commit suicide, which Seneca did.25 Seneca wrote most of his works after his return from exile. Stoic philosophical convictions provide a framework within which Seneca explores questions in practical ethics, the primary focus of his writings. Seneca more or less preserves Zeno’s and Chryssipus’s beliefs that divine nature rationally orders the universe and that the shared faculty of reason gives humans a special relationship both to divine nature and to each other.26 As a result, many 22 23 24

25 26

Annas (1993), pp. 161–2. Ibid., pp. 162–3. Seneca perceived Quintus Sextius to be continuous with Stoic thought, but Sextius himself denied this connection. John M. Cooper and J. F. Procope (1995). “General Introduction” to Seneca, Moral and Political Essays. New  York :  Cambridge University Press, pp. xi–xxxii, at xii, n.3. Ibid., pp. xiii–xv. Ibid., pp. xvii–xviii.

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dimensions of Seneca’s philosophy, such as his account of moral psychology, the will, and the status of the passions, are in keeping with early Stoics.27 Yet, while largely working within this framework established by predecessors, Seneca adopts a practical stance that leads him to focus on ordinary people and their experiences, rather than on the elusive sage. As John M.  Cooper and J.F. Procope put it, Seneca asks “how people who are not fully virtuous and know they are never going to be, but seriously wish to live as well as they possibly can, should organize their lives.”28 Seneca’s writings take “first-hand experience” seriously29 and are essays directed at the general population. Because of this focus and because Seneca wrote in Latin rather than Greek, the later Roman Stoics do not quote or discuss his work.30 However, Seneca influenced many Latin Christian authors in antiquity and the middle ages, and his extensive and thoroughgoing influence on early modern and modern thought is widely acknowledged. Whereas Seneca’s connections to Nero gave him a certain measure of wealth and power, Epictetus was born into slavery in the middle of the first century CE. He was acquired by Nero’s secretary Epaphroditus and allowed to attend lectures by the prominent Stoic teacher Musonius Rufus. Long suggests that Epaphroditus probably recognized Epictetus’s talent and supported his learning; he subsequently freed Epictetus. Epictetus’s background nonetheless makes it likely that he was less widely read than some of his near-contemporaries, persons such as Seneca, Cicero, and Plutarch; as Long observes, his literary allusions are more limited and he tends to invoke practical illustrations.31 Despite this difference from some of his peers, Epictetus became a highly respected Stoic teacher and philosopher and established his school in Nicopolis. It is reported that the Emperor Hadrian and other prominent Romans sought conversations with him.32 Epictetus’s works are recorded and preserved by his student Arrian in the detailed Discourses and the more compressed Enchiridion.33 These works 27 28 29 30 31

32 33

Inwood, p. 3. Cooper and Procope, p. xvii. Inwood, p. 3. Cooper and Procope, p. xxxi. As Long observes, his literary allusions are more limited and he tends to invoke practical illustrations. A. A. Long (2004), Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life. Cambridge, MA: Clarendon Press, pp. 12–13. Ibid., pp. 10–11. Ibid., pp. 8–9.

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indicate that, like Seneca, Epictetus is consistent with earlier Stoics in presuming that the divine nature permeates the material world and that the human mind gives human nature a unique ability to connect with the “cosmic order” and collaborate with and care for other humans.34 Yet, Epictetus also introduced innovations into earlier Stoic positions; scholars therefore sometimes question his status as an “orthodox” Stoic.35 One major distinctive of Epictetus’s thought is his conception of prohairesis, a term that Epictetus is likely to have adopted from Aristotle.36 Michael Frede characterizes Epictetus’s prohairesis as a precursor to modern accounts of the self or the autonomous will, but other scholars read the term as more definitive of a person’s overall character.37 Certainly, Epictetus argues that human beings lack control over many dimensions of life, but that developing an appropriate response to the circumstances that confront us is within our power, or “up to us.”38 Long contends that Epictetus’s account of the divine nature is also somewhat of a shift from the positions of earlier Stoics. He argues that Epictetus gives the Stoic account of the divine nature a “personalist twist” such that the divine nature, which Epictetus calls God, puts forth a pattern of moral ordering that humans can seek to emulate as part of coming to understand what it means to live morally.39 Epictetus’s sense of humans’ moral responsibility is thus closely tied to his conception of the divine character, a theme likewise important to Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. Epictetus was a significant intellectual influence upon Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the third major Roman Stoic philosopher whose work is preserved. Marcus Aurelius was born in 121 CE. His biological father died during Marcus Aurelius’s childhood, and Marcus Aurelius was formally adopted

34 35

36

37

38 39

Ibid., pp. 20–1. Richard Sorabji (2000), Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation. New York : Oxford University Press, pp. 181–95. Troels Engberg-Pedersen (2010), Cosmology and the Self in the Apostle Paul: The Material Spirit. New York : Oxford University Press, p. 109. Michael Frede translates prohairesis as “will” and argues that in Epictetus, we find the origins of a modern notion of the human will as free. Michael Frede (2011). A Free Will: Origins of the Notion in Ancient Thought, ed. A. A. Long. Berkley:  University of California Press, pp. 66 –88. Similarly, Long translates prohairesis as “volition” and associates it with a somewhat existentialist account of the self (Long [2004], pp. 33– 4). I return below to Epictetus’s account of prohairesis and ultimately advocate a reading consistent with Rist and (to a lesser degree) Sorabji, who view prohairesis as signifying the volitional or moral dimension of human nature (Rist uses the term “moral personality”) rather than translating the term as “will” in a narrow sense. Long (2004), pp. 33– 4. Ibid., pp. 25–7.

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into the emperor’s family and eventually made the successor to the throne. Prior to becoming emperor, he studied Stoic and Peripatetic philosophy and sought to embody its principles. In their influential eighteenth-century translation of Marcus Aurelius’s work, Francis Hutcheson and James Moor maintain that Marcus Aurelius’s “chief delight was in the Stoic philosophy” and that Marcus Aurelius demonstrated this delight through “practice” as well as “speculation.” They explain that from twelve years old, Marcus Aurelius humbly exercised various “austerities” and a sort of impassivity appropriate to the life of a Stoic.40 He became emperor in 161 and died in 180. His major work, generally published as The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, is a manuscript that Marcus wrote as personal reflections for himself. C. R. Haines characterizes it as “private devotional memoranda” and notes that it is unclear how the text came to be preserved for later generations.41 Like Seneca and Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius followed earlier Stoics in understanding the natural world to be rationally ordered and believing that human beings’ rational natures give us particular insight into the laws that order this world.42 In terms of Roman Stoic distinctives, Marcus Aurelius is largely consistent with Epictetus. Epictetus’s influence on Marcus Aurelius, through Marcus Aurelius’s reading of the Discourses collected by Arrian,43 is evident in Marcus Aurelius’s interest in the human will and its capacities. Long argues that Epictetus’s “intense preoccupation with unimpeded volition” is a significant influence on Marcus Aurelius,44 and Rist contends that Marcus Aurelius uses the term prohairesis in a manner consistent with Epictetus.45 At the same time, certain dimensions of Marcus Aurelius’s work made him a particularly attractive figure for Christian intellectuals at certain points in history. As discussed more fully below, some of his reflections on providence seem open to the possibility that God cares for the needs of specific human 40

41

42

43

44 45

Francis Hutcheson and James Moor (1742). “Introduction:  Containing some of the Most Memorable Passages, Preserv’d, of the Life of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus,” in The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, ed. Francis Hutcheson and James Moor. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2008, pp. 1–23, at 5. C. R. Haines (1915). “Introduction,” in Marcus Aurelius, ed. and trans. C. R. Haines. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. xi–xx, at xi–xiii. James Moore and Michael Silverthorne (2008). “Introduction,” in The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, ed. Francis Hutcheson and Moor, pp. ix–xxx, at xix. Long (2004), p. 41. Long clarifies that it is unlikely that Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius ever met in person (p. 12). Ibid., p. 119. Rist, p. 232.

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persons, a position that departs from earlier Stoics. Henderson also suggests that Marcus Aurelius’s account of the emotions is more open to embracing the practice of compassion than are the arguments of earlier Stoics.46 This openness to compassion would exempt Marcus Aurelius from some of the critiques of Stoic apatheia that Christians have historically leveled at Stoic accounts of the emotions.

Stoic virtue as a unified, singular, and transformative good This introduction to the Roman Stoics provides a starting point for understanding themes from Roman Stoic moral thought that are particularly fruitful for illuminating the contours of a characteristically Protestant virtue ethic. One Stoic conviction of paramount importance for this project is that virtue is a unified, singular, and transformative good. The unity of the virtues was a debated issue in the historical context of the Stoics, and contemporary scholars likewise point toward a variety of ways in which one might ascribe a certain kind of unity to the virtues. Christian Miller defends an understanding of the virtues as possessing what he calls a “limited unity,” arguing that in order for a given character trait to function as a virtue, the agent possessing that trait must possess certain other virtues as well.47 Miller’s thesis suggests that certain virtues are related to others so that they can be present in a moral agent only if related virtues are present. Miller puts forth a conception of compassion rooted in empathy and argues that “fairness, justice, high-order practical wisdom, and courage” are necessary complements to compassion in order to guard against “vicious patterns of behavior.”48 Miller is clear, however, that this necessary relation only applies to certain “closely related and mutually complementary” virtues, not to every virtue.49 This conclusion differentiates his position from a stronger formulation of the unity thesis that would argue that an agent who truly possesses one virtue will necessarily have all the virtues. Annas articulates

46 47

48 49

Haines, p. xiii. Christian Miller (2015). “Empathy as the Only Hope for the Virtue of Compassion and as Support for a Limited Unity of the Virtues,” Philosophy, Theology, and Science 2: 89–113, 108. Ibid., p. 109. Ibid., pp. 109–10.

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a stronger account of the unity thesis and aligns it with Aristotle’s understanding of the virtues as reciprocal. Annas argues that all the virtues share an essential relation to practical wisdom, and that practical wisdom, in turn, integrates the virtues. On this view, in order for an individual to possess any single virtue, she must possess practical intelligence, and this practical intelligence, in turn, engenders all the virtues.50 Practical intelligence thus unifies the virtues so that they are interrelated even as they appear distinct.51 Different virtues may be emphasized in different ways of life,52 but all the virtues will be present in some sense in a truly virtuous moral agent. This view demands a more narrow understanding of what might constitute a virtue than Miller’s position would allow. Annas argues that a shared relation to practical intelligence must be central to our understanding of which traits can be seen as virtuous. Not all desirable traits are necessarily virtues,53 but only those that can be unified with each other both through a shared relation to practical intelligence and through what Annas describes as a shared and “characteristic” commitment to goodness.54 An even stronger account of the unity of the virtues is put forth by Socrates in the Protagoras, and this position is likewise most consistent with the Stoics’ view of the unity of the virtues. Gregory Vlastos observes that most scholars attribute to Socrates a belief in the unity of the virtues that conceives distinct virtue terms to be names for the same singular “thing” or “essence.”55 This position suggests not only that “having any virtue entails having every virtue,” as Annas would affirm, but that different virtue terms can in some sense be predicated upon each other.56 The Stoics had a deep respect for Socrates and followed him in conceiving virtue as a singular and unified moral good.57 Although the ancient Stoics affirm the four classical cardinal virtues, they understand these virtues to be distinct forms of a 50 51 52 53 54 55

56 57

Julia Annas, (2011). Intelligent Virtue. New York : Oxford University Press, p. 86. Ibid., p. 99. Ibid., p. 94. Ibid., p. 97. Ibid., pp. 107–9. Gregory Vlastos (1972), “The Unity of Virtues in the ‘Protagoras.’” The Review of Metaphysics 25.3: 415 –58, at 418–19. Ibid., p. 444. For more on the influence of Socrates on the Stoics, see Long (1996), pp. 1–8 and pp. 16–34. Long affi rms that scholars regularly acknowledge Socrates’ importance to the Stoics and holds that “Socrates is the philosopher with whom the Stoics most closely aligned themselves” (p. 16). He particularly notes Socrates’s prominent place in Epictetus’s Discourses (p. 2).

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single good. Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, identifies this good as prudence, the same virtue that holds pride of place in Aristotle’s thought. Plutarch explains: Zeno admits several different virtues, as Plato does, namely prudence, courage, moderation, and justice, on the grounds that, although inseparable, they are distinct and different from each other. Yet in defining each of them, he says that courage is prudence in matters requiring action, and justice is prudence in matters requiring distribution—on the grounds that it is one simple virtue, which seems to differ in actions according to its dispositions relative to things.58

Plutarch goes on to criticize this Stoic position, arguing that it is inconsistent to say that the virtues are simultaneously distinct and each equivalent to prudence.59 His criticism underscores the interpretive challenges in accepting a position that conceives disparate virtues as in some sense equivalent. Seneca explains the plausibility of thinking of virtue as a unity by comparing a virtuous character to a single human who holds multiple social roles: “For just as someone is both a poet and an orator but still one person, so the virtues are living beings but not a plurality of these. The same mind is both moderate and just and prudent and brave, being disposed in a certain way with respect to the individual virtues”60 In addition to following Socrates in describing virtue as a unified quality, the Stoics affirm that virtue alone is good and that the good it possesses differs qualitatively from the apparent value of any other potential good, such as health or wealth.61 Epictetus delineates categories of goods and evils, and concludes that only virtues and those things that partake in the virtues can properly be called good: “of things that be, some are good, others evil, and others indifferent. Now good things are virtues, and everything that partakes in the virtues; evil are the opposite; while indifferent are wealth, health, 58

59 60 61

Plutarch, On Stoic Self-contradictions 1034C-E, in A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, ed. (1987.) The Hellenistic Philosophers. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1:378. Ibid. Seneca, Letters 113.24, in Long and Sedley, p. 379. As Nussbaum puts it, the value of virtue is not “commensurable” with that of other goods. Martha C. Nussbaum (2009). The Therapy of Desire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, p. 361.

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reputation.”62 Good and evil, he reiterates later, both rest in “moral purpose,” and things that “lie outside the domain of moral purpose” are neither good nor evil.63 Epictetus’s reservation of good and evil to matters of virtue or vice is typical of the Stoics as a whole. As Diogenes Laertius explains, the Stoics see virtues as good, opposite qualities as bad, and other dimensions of human experience—“life, health, pleasure, beauty, strength, wealth, reputation, noble birth, and their opposites, death, disease . . . and the like”—as indifferent.64 At some points, the Stoics do suggest that certain natural advantages can be “preferred,” or desirable and useful for promoting virtue. Stobaeus observes that Zeno was the first Stoic to apply the term “preferred”65 to a good such as “health,” “strength,” or “well-functioning sense organs.”66 Seneca acknowledges that he personally would choose for himself certain physical experiences, such as health, if he has the option, and that this choice can be consistent with virtue.67 Nevertheless, these preferred qualities remain “indifferent” in value;68 only virtue is genuinely a good that has “absolute or intrinsic worth.”69 Seneca therefore concludes that although certain natural goods are preferred, these goods do not have inherent value: “I shall take good health and strength, if the selection is granted me, but the good will be my judgment regarding them, and not the things themselves”70 But Nussbaum insists that interpreters of Stoic thought be cautious in attributing any value at all to such goods. She argues that we should not attribute to “the indifferents, the external goods, the sort of value that most ordinary people are seen to attach to them and that Aristotle explicitly accords them.” Virtue differs from other goods precisely because virtue alone is necessary for human flourishing, or eudaimonia.71 The Stoics’ contention that virtue is both necessary and sufficient for eudaimonia is one well established point of departure between their thought

62

63 64 65 66 67

68 69 70 71

Epictetus Discourses II.9 in Epictetus (1998). The Discourses as Reported by Arrian. 2 vols, trans. W. A. Oldfather. London, Loeb. 1:265. Ibid., II.16, 1:313–5. Diogenes Laertius 7.101–103, in Long and Sedley (1987), p. 354. Stobaeus 2.84, 18-85, 11 (SVF 3.128), in Long and Sedley (1987), p. 355. Ibid., 2.79,18-80,13; 82,20-21, in Long and Sedley, pp. 354–5. “The point might be made, ‘If good health, rest, and freedom from pain are not going to thwart virtue, will you not pursue them?’ Of course I will. Not because they are good, but because they are in accordance with nature.” Seneca, Letters 92.11-13, in Long and Sedley, p. 405. Stobaeus 2.79, 18-80,13; 82, 20-21, in Long and Sedley, pp. 354–5. Long (1986), pp. 192–3. Seneca, Letters 92.11-13, in Long and Sedley, p. 405. Nussbaum (2009), pp. 361–3.

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and Aristotle’s, and this contention is rooted in the Stoics’ commitment to virtue as the only good. Different Aristotelian positions hold that happiness depends upon other external goods as well as virtue, so that virtue is necessary, but not sufficient, for happiness. But for the Stoics, no other quality can add to or increase virtue’s goodness. Julia Annas characterizes this difference between the Stoics and Aristotelians as a “debate about the nature of virtue and its relation to other valued things.”72 She explains that the Stoics’ belief that virtue is sufficient for happiness is rooted in the “sharp line they [the Stoics] draw between the value of a virtue and the value of other kinds of things.”73 The Stoics believe that virtue is sufficient for human flourishing because, as Cicero observes in De finibus, they conceive virtue alone as a good, desirable for its own sake.74 The Stoics affirm that wealth and prosperity do not add to the happiness we gain from virtue precisely because these dimensions of life are indifferent. Virtue has a value that “cannot be assessed against other kinds of things.”75 Cicero attributes to the Stoic Cato the stance that virtue’s value differs from that of other qualities in “kind, not degree.”76 Epictetus maintains that a true Stoic is a person who has this unique good of virtue and who is therefore “happy” even if he is “sick,” “in danger,” “dying,” “condemned to exile,” or “in disrepute.”77 As the only genuine good, virtue provides a happiness that does not depend on any other human experiences. A second difference between Stoic and Aristotelian ethics reinforces the Stoics’ distinction between virtue and other goods. While Aristotelians allow that love of others can develop naturally from love of oneself, the Stoics are careful to treat love of self and love for others as (as Annas explains it) “two distinct sources of human behaviour, neither developing from the other.”78 The natural cultivation of self-love cannot finally lead to virtue, which, for the Stoics, requires a universal love attentive to the good of the whole. Epictetus does acknowledge that God providentially has ordered the world in a manner that ensures that most people cannot achieve their own interest without 72 73

74

75 76 77 78

Annas (1993), p. 430. Ibid., p.  430. For further discussion of this distinction between Aristotle and the Stoics, see Becker, pp. 150–5 and Rist, pp. 5–8. Cicero, On Moral Ends III.20–21, in Cicero (2001). On Moral Ends. Ed. Julia Annas. Trans. Raphael Woolf. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 71–2 . Annas (1993), p. 432. Cicero, On Moral Ends III.34, in Cicero, p. 76. Epictetus, Discourses II.19, 1:357–9. Annas (1993), p. 275.

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somehow benefitting society as a whole. God, Epictetus affirms, “has so constituted the nature of the rational animal man, so that he can attain nothing of his own proper goods unless he contributes something to the common interest.”79 But as Annas observes, Epictetus’s position is not that love for others is an expanded version of love for self, but rather that “self-concern properly understood is compatible with other-concern.”80 Such an argument distinguishes virtue from self-love in a manner that underscores the discontinuity between virtue and inferior sorts of human qualities. Because the Stoics embrace a strong commitment to the unity of the virtues and believe that only virtue is a good, they tend toward an understanding of the virtues as acquired through a marked experience of transformation akin to a conversion. The Stoics’ affirmation of the unity of the virtues suggests that only complete and perfect virtue can properly be called virtuous. There are no degrees or gradations of virtue that allow a moral agent to be somewhat or partly virtuous. Cicero argues that according to the Stoics, both “right conduct” and “goodness itself, which is found in one’s being in harmony with nature, do not admit of cumulative enlargement” or “become greater over time.”81 Granted, the Stoics maintain that moral progress is possible, to some degree, prior to the attainment of virtue. Rist argues that Chrysippus and Cicero articulate a view of moral growth with some similarities to Aristotle’s habituation, such that “the repetition of right actions tends toward the performance of right actions from the right motives.”82 Epictetus indicates that certain practices—self-examination, attending to our own “moral purpose,” and avoiding distractions from inferior goods—can facilitate “progress” toward the pursuit of virtue.83 But the Stoic commitment to the virtues’ unity nevertheless leads them to separate any such progress from virtue itself. Th is separation is underscored in the sharp distinction the Stoics draw between the virtuous person and the person who has not yet attained virtue. Rist and A. A. Long argue that for the Stoics, until a moral agent becomes virtuous, their actions are immoral in the sense of either being blatantly contrary to nature84 or, more moderately, lacking truly moral

79 80 81 82 83 84

Epictetus , Discourses I.19, 1:131. Annas (1993), p. 275, n88. Cicero, On Moral Ends 3.45– 46, in Cicero, pp. 79–80. Rist, p. 14. Epictetus, Discourses, I.4, 1:33. Long (1986), p. 181.

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intentions.85 Th is position is rooted in an understanding of virtue itself as something that is either present or absent. Rist explains that for the Stoics, if an act is not a “moral act” then “it is, strictly speaking, immoral.”86 Just as virtue is either entirely present or entirely absent, so is a prospective moral agent best classified either as an “aspirant to virtue” or as a virtuous individual.87 Actions and choices that appear virtuous, then, are not truly virtuous until an agent has achieved a virtuous disposition.88 Colish similarly argues that the ancient Stoics conceive both virtue and vice as “all-ornothing propositions.” Consequently, for these Stoics, “the moral life is not a question of piecemeal effort or habituation to the good.” Instead, “instant conversion” from vice to virtue is a viable possibility.89 Diogenes Laertius reiterates the Stoics’ presumption that a moral agent may acquire virtue instantaneously and notes the disparity between this view and Aristotle’s account of habituation. Laertius upholds the Stoics’ understanding of the stark differences between vice and virtue as a point of departure from Aristotle’s school: “It is their [the Stoics’] doctrine that nothing is in between virtue and vice, though the Peripatetics say that progress is in between these. For as, they say, a stick must be either straight or crooked, so a man must be either just or unjust, but not either more just or more unjust, and likewise with the other virtues.”90 Rist explains this Stoic position by comparing morality to truth, noting that for the Stoics, “a proposition is either true or not-true,” and people are likewise “either moral or not-moral.”91 The sharp distinction between moral and non-moral persons suggest that the repeated performance of acts by a non-moral person does not ensure a moral agent’s attainment of virtue. The Stoics’ affirmation of the unity of the virtues and their idea that virtue is the only good provide a general orientation to their understanding of the moral life. The Stoics share with many other ancient philosophers a sense of the priority of virtue for human flourishing, but they radicalize this priority so that virtue is viewed as a singular quality with a unique value 85 86 87 88 89 90 91

Rist, p. 13. Ibid., p. 83. Ibid., p. 17. Long (1986), pp. 191–2. Colish (1985), 1:44–5. Diogenes Laertius 7.127, in Long and Sedley, p. 380. Rist, p. 83.

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that makes it qualitatively different from other apparent good. They also present this quality as something that lacks degrees so that a moral agent either possesses virtue or does not. These commitments provide a foundation for understanding the particular form of virtue characteristic of the Roman Stoics.

Roman stoic virtue as assent to providence The Roman Stoics are consistent with earlier Stoics in treating virtue as a singular quality that is the only good, but they characterize virtue in a distinctive way. Whereas earlier Stoics followed Socrates in defining the virtues as forms of phronesis, the Roman Stoics tend to speak of the singular moral good of virtue as a disposition that assents to God’s providential oversight of the world. Epictetus describes assent to the truth as humanity’s “moral purpose.”92 Assent has a cognitive component, beginning with an agent’s recognition of indicators of the world’s providential ordering, and a moral or volitional component through which an agent willfully consents to the circumstances divine providence lays out for her. As she lives out this consent, she reorients herself increasingly to embrace the providential ordering of events and to align her character with this ordering, so that she may in some sense take part in divine providence’s work in the world.

Providence An exploration of the Roman Stoic account of providence provides a necessary starting point for understanding the religious character of virtuous assent. Roman Stoic assent should not be confused with a passive resignation to an arbitrary or mysterious fate; on the contrary, the Roman Stoics (most consistently Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus) maintain that the providence overseeing the world is rational. Although the Stoics lack a conception of creation akin to the Christian belief that God created the world ex nihilo, they nevertheless affirm divine oversight of the world and indicate that the world is teleologically and rationally ordered. 92

Epictetus, Discourses I.17, 1:117.

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The Roman Stoics’ understanding of providence is rooted in a view of the divine nature as immanently involved in the direction of the universe. The Stoics generally tend toward a pantheism that emphasizes divine immanence to a degree that fails to distinguish God’s being or substance from the substance of the natural world. Orthodox Christian theology has historically affirmed that a distinction between God and creation is necessary for maintaining adequate accounts of creation as a willful and loving act of God and of the incarnation as an event in which divine nature and human nature are brought together coherently and completely in the person of Christ. Christian theology conceives God as a Trinitarian being complete in Godself who creates the world deliberatively as an expression of grace and love.93 In contrast to this conception of the Godcreation relation, Neoplatonist thought characterizes God as an overflowing good who forms the world spontaneously as an emanation of this goodness,94 and the Stoics similarly tend to speak of the created order as an extension of God’s being. Diogenes Laertius attributes to Zeno and Chrysippus a belief that “the world and heaven are the substance of God”95 and explains that the Stoics use the term “world” (kosmos) to describe both the being of God and the being of the world. According to Diogenes Laetrius, the substance of God and the world are intertwined for the Stoics. They conceive God as “the peculiarly qualified individual consisting of all substance, who is indestructible and ingenerable, since he is the manufacturer of the world-order, at set periods of time consuming all substance into himself and reproducing it again from himself.”96 This understanding of God as sharing a substance with the world puts Stoic metaphysics at odds with Christian theology, and the Stoic account of God’s immanence particularly stands opposed to Luther’s and Calvin’s characteristic emphasis on God’s transcendence over the created order.97 Just as the Stoic view of the divine nature differs from a Christian understanding of God, so do the Stoics uphold an account of providence that does

93

94

95 96 97

Robert Sokolowski (1982). The God of Faith and Reason. Notre Dame, IN:  University of Notre Dame Press. David Burrell (1990). “Creation and Emanation:  Two Paradigms of Reason,” in God and Creation: An Ecumenical Symposium, ed. David B. Burrell and Bernard McGinn. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 27–37. Diogenes Laertius , 7.148–9, in Long and Sedley, p. 266. Ibid., 7.137, in Long and Sedley, p. 270. For more on this emphasis in Luther and Calvin, see William Placher (1996). The Domestication of Transcendence: How Modern Thinking about God Went Wrong. Louisville, KY:  Westminster John Knox Press.

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not perfectly intersect with a Christian account of divine providence. The most notable difference is that the Stoics (most clearly the early Stoics and Chrysippus) do not believe that providence is highly personalized and specified, in contrast to a Judeo-Christian conception of God as knowing and caring for particulars that impact individual human beings. In a speech defending Stoic thought in On Divination, Cicero affirms, “it is not a Stoic doctrine that the gods concern themselves with individual cracks in the liver or individual bird-songs. That is unbecoming, unworthy of the gods, and quite impossible.”98 Nevertheless, the Stoics share with Christian thought a presumption that the world is intelligibly ordered toward the good. According to Cicero, the Stoics believe that the gods are intelligent beings who “set up and ordered” the laws of the natural world and that the gods “love us” in that they are “beneficent and friendly to mankind.”99 This understanding of God points toward a view of providence, with certain points of continuity with a Christian account of providence, and these points of continuity are particularly pronounced in the Roman Stoics, who speak of God (or, at times, nature or providence) as a rational being who oversees and guides the operation of the universe.100 Seneca’s On Providence characterizes God as at least to some degree a personal being. Seneca affirms that God “concerns himself with us” and that God’s “providence does preside over us all.”101 While considering the question of why “good men” suffer misfortunes,102 Seneca speaks of God as a father103 and argues that God causes misfortunes to happen to good people to encourage formation in virtue. At times, he explains, God puts a “good man  .  .  . to the test, hardens him, and makes him ready for his service.”104 This is a demonstration of the “father’s heart” that God employs, as he “loves” good humans “in a manly way.”105 Seneca unapologetically identifies God as the direct and immediate cause of suffering, explaining that sometimes when

98 99 100

101

102 103 104 105

Cicero, On Divination I.117–8, in Long and Sedley, p. 261. Ibid., On Divination I.82–3 in Long and Sedley, p. 260. Annas attributes a belief that providence is rational to “the later Stoics, especially Marcus Aurelius and Seneca” (1993, p. 161). Seneca (2007). On Providence, in Dialogues and Essays, trans. John Davie. Oxford:  Clarendon Press, pp. 3 –17, at 3. Ibid., p. 3. Ibid., pp. 4–5. Ibid., p. 4. Ibid., p. 5.

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God desires people’s goodness, he “assigns to them a fortune that will make them struggle,”106 and God may indeed “afflict the best men with bad wealth, or grief, or other misfortunes.”107 For the Stoics, understanding God as the direct cause of suffering does not call God’s character into question. Because they conceive virtue as the only true good, the Stoics can logically affirm that sufferings or misfortunes are not bad in themselves; therefore, when God causes suffering, God is not causing a bad thing. Seneca makes this point by suggesting that “true evils are not those which appear to be so,” since apparent hardships are actually “of benefit” to us.108 In this sense, God does not cause “something bad” to happen to those who are good even when he gives them apparent hardships.109 While Seneca does speak of God and providence in personal terms at points, he makes certain claims in On Providence that tend to promote a greater sense of resignation to an unalterable and potentially arbitrary fate than is at work in the other Roman Stoics.110 Such an understanding of God is particularly evident in book five of On Providence. Seneca explains here that “the duty of a good man” is “to offer himself to fate,” and he affirms a view of world events as necessary and unchangeable. “Fate is our guide,” he explains, and he goes on to maintain that all events (including particulars that affect individual humans, such as the duration of a person’s life) are predetermined and intertwined. Seneca explains that “Everything happens . . . by design,” and “all matters, public or private, are directed by a long sequence of events.”111 Indeed, he argues that fate or fortune guides world events in such a manner that even God is bound by fate’s laws, a claim that somewhat undermines his assurance that apparent sufferings are dictated by God for a purpose. He contends that although God, as the “creator and ruler of the universe,” did write “fate’s decrees,” God made these decrees “only once” and now must “follow” and “obey” them for eternity. “The creator” is 106 107

108

109 110

111

Ibid. Ibid., p. 11. Likewise, Seneca suggests that when God seems to “favour” someone by giving that person good fortune, he is “keeping [that person] soft against the misfortunes that are to come” (p. 11) Ibid., p.  6. In keeping with earlier Stoics and with Cicero’s account of the Stoics addressed above, Seneca affirms that these hardships benefit not only “the very persons they happen to” but also “the whole human race, which matters more to the gods than individuals do” (p. 6). Ibid., pp. 15–16. Long argues that in contrast to Epictetus, Seneca seems to align God more simply with fate (Long [2004], p. 177). Seneca, On Providence, p. 14.

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not unjust in letting good people suffer precisely because God himself “cannot alter matter: this is the law to which it [God] has submitted.”112 While Seneca affirms God’s fatherly love for humans, then, he couples these affirmations with an account of providence more in keeping with the beliefs of earlier Stoics in a naturalistic necessity, than with a sense that God is rational and caring. In contrast to Seneca, whose account of providence holds in tension these different understandings of God’s oversight of the world, Marcus Aurelius more clearly and consistently upholds an understanding of providence that characterizes God as rational and benevolent. Although he at points shows an openness to thinking of “necessity” as one factor that shapes events,113 he more regularly appeals to the term “providence.” He sees this term as consistent with a being who is “gracious” in directing the universe114 and indicates that nature (which he at times equates with the gods) acts providentially to bring about the good of the world (and the good of individual humans, which follows from concern for universal good): “But good for every part of Nature is that which the Nature of the Whole brings about, and which goes to preserve it.”115 In describing the good toward which the gods direct the world, Marcus Aurelius implies a degree of intimate involvement that exceeds that suggested by Cicero’s account of the Stoics. He maintains that “each several thing” is accomplished “in accordance with the Nature of the Universe”116 and goes so far as to muse about the possibility that “the Gods have taken counsel about me and the things to befall me.” He remains ambivalent about the gods’ particular involvement with individual humans, but affirms that the gods are certainly concerned to promote the good of the universe as a whole in a manner that benefits all beings within the universe:  “But if the Gods have taken no counsel for me individually, yet they have in any case done so for the interests of the Universe, and I  am bound to welcome and make the best of those things also that befall as a necessary corollary to those interests.”117 He likewise argues that all things that proceed from the divine 112 113

114 115 116 117

Ibid., p. 15. Marcus Aurelius (1915). Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, in Marcus Aurelius, ed. and trans. C. R. Haines. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. II.3, p. 29; XII.14, p. 329. Ibid., XII.14, in Haines, p. 329. Ibid., II.3, in Haines, p. 29. Ibid., VI.9, in Haines, p. 133. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, VI.44, in Haines, p. 155.

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being are “excellent” and therefore “worthy of reverence.”118 These claims suggest that Marcus Aurelius adheres to an understanding of divine providence as ordering the world in a rational manner that promotes humanity’s good. Epictetus’s view of God reflects some of the same commitments at work in Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and even more consistently presents God in personal terms rather than equating God with an impersonal fate.119 Like Seneca, Epictetus characterizes God as the “maker, and father, and guardian of humans.120 God cares for all created beings, who in turn reflect and “reveal” their creator.121 Epictetus draws on the language of sympatheia to describe the intimacy of God’s oversight of the world. The spiritual and material worlds are closely bound together, he contends, so that “what is on earth feels the influence of that which is in heaven”; we see this in patterns such as the growth of flowers, the waxing and waning of the moon, and the ripening of fruit, all of which occur “regularly, as if from God’s command.”122 Epictetus explains that just as “plants and our own bodies” are “closely” and “intimately” connected to the universe, this connection is even more present in our souls. In keeping with other Stoics who speak of God and the world as coextensive, Epictetus affirms that our souls, indeed, are so closely related to God as to be “parts and portions of His being,” so that God can feel their “every motion” as something happening within himself.123 Reflection on God’s intimate connection to the human soul leads Epictetus to the conclusion that God is at the center of world events. He affirms that God is “able to oversee all things,” though in contrast to Seneca, he tends to use language that emphasizes God’s rational involvement with the universe rather than language that speaks of events as dictated by God’s will. God, for Epictetus, is “present with all [things]” and has “a certain communication from them all”;124 likewise, God is “able to perceive all things.”125

118 119

120 121 122 123 124 125

Ibid., II.13, in Haines, p. 37. Long contends that Epictetus’s theological language is distinctly “theist rather than pantheist” and “personalist rather than personal” (2004, p. 156). Despite the theistic language, Epictetus still describes God in terms that fail to distinguish the divine and created order to a degree present in Christian accounts of God’s transcendence. Epictetus, Discourses, I.9, 1:65. See also Epictetus, Discourses, I.3, 1:25. Ibid., I.6, 1:41–3. Ibid., I.14, 1:99–101. Epictetus, Discourses, I.14, 1:101. Ibid., I.11, 1:101. Ibid., I.14, 1:103.

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In speaking about God’s direct and immediate involvement with the world, Epictetus makes clear that God guides the world in a manner that is both intentional and purposeful. God created humans for the purpose of viewing and responding to God and God’s works. Epictetus affirms that “God has brought man into the world to be a spectator of Himself and of His works, and not merely a spectator, but also an interpreter.”126 Humans fulfill the purpose for which we are made when we recognize God’s goodness and respond by “rehearsing His benefits and “singing hymns of praise to God.”127 Epictetus’s discussions of providence emphasize the gifts God provides us and our ability (through the use of reason, which is also a gift from God) to recognize the goodness of these gifts.

Virtuous assent While the Roman Stoics were broadly continuous with the Stoic school, their elevation of the human will coupled with their particularly religious orientation to the moral life leads them to an account of moral good that differs from the view of earlier Stoics. Their understanding of the moral life gives pride of place to a disposition through which a moral agent embodies a stance of assent to the divine providence that rationally oversees the world. This assent has two dimensions: one intellectual, and one moral or volitional. The intellectual dimension of assent consists in the apprehension and approval of providence, the acceptance of a belief that divine providence is at work in the universe, ordering it to its ultimate good. The volitional or moral dimension is an expression of trust in or consent to providence that involves the agent’s entire being. This moral dimension of assent is closely related to benevolence (or love), because humans exercise consent to providence by emulating divine benevolence. As a character disposition that is uniquely good and that defines a person’s moral status, assent to divine providence functions as the core virtue in Roman Stoic thought. Martha Nussbaum’s discussion of the emotions in Upheavals of Thought:  The Intelligence of Emotions provides a framework for understanding the intellectual dimension of the virtuous assent at work in the 126 127

Ibid., I.6, 1:45. Ibid., I.16, 1:111.

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Roman Stoics. Nussbaum characterizes Stoic emotions as moral judgments that consist in “assent” to sensory impressions. She maintains that the emotions involve both a cognitive perception of a given proposition (or state of affairs) and a judgment about this proposition’s value. For example, she notes that Chrysippus sees grief and other emotions as involving both a rational judgment that perceives a current state of affairs and a more evaluative judgment that this state of affairs calls for a particular moral response; in the case of grief, an agent makes “not only the judgment that an important part of my life has gone, but that it is right to be upset about that.”128 The moral judgment, or act of assent, central to the structure of the emotions, is thus both a cognitive perception and an evaluative judgment.129 Nussbaum argues that the judgments that constitute the emotions have a continuous impact on our character rather than functioning as momentary events. As sustained judgments, they are “enduring states” which makes them akin to character dispositions. Nussbaum explains that in assent, “although initially there may be an act of acceptance, and judgment is defi ned in terms of that act, there is also an enduring state, namely of having that content inside, so to speak; one accepts or assents to that proposition continuously.”130 Like Nussbaum’s account of the emotions, the assent central to Roman Stoic virtue is a disposition sustained over time, and this disposition is partly cognitive or intellectual. The cognitive dimension of Roman Stoic assent, like Nussbaum’s assent, couples sensory perception with evaluative judgment. For the Stoics, sensory impressions are foundational to all knowledge, including moral knowledge. When humans encounter objects in the material world, these objects give rise to cognitive sensory impressions. In describing Zeno’s understanding of sensory impressions, Cicero is adamant that such impressions must be cognitive; they can be “true” or “false” insofar as they accurately perceive qualities inherent in the material world.131 Our encounter with these cognitive impressions leads the human mind through periods of intellectual growth that ultimately result in virtue: the mind “makes use of the

128

129 130 131

Martha Nussbaum (2001). Upheavals of Thought:  The Intelligence of Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 47. Nussbaum (2001), 27, pp. 30–1. Ibid., p. 46. Cicero, Academica 2.77–8, in Long and Sedley, p. 242.

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senses . . . and strengthens philosophy itself up to the point where it produces virtue, the one thing on which the whole of life depends.”132 Both Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus suggest that humans grow in moral knowledge through encountering phantasies, or external sense impressions, in the material world and perceiving these impressions accurately. Marcus Aurelius argues that phantasies present themselves to humans as reliable sources of knowledge: “Say no more to thyself than what the initial impressions report . . . I see that my child is ailing. I see it, but I do not see that he is in danger. Keep then ever to first impressions and supplement them not on thy part from within.”133 Epictetus similarly describes these phantasies as innately good or evil, and explains that human senses can perceive this good and evil independently from our own internal judgment: “Things seen by the mind (which the philosophers call phantasies), whereby the intellect of man is struck at the very first sight of anything which penetrates to the mind, are not subject to his will, nor to his control, but by virtue of a certain force of their own thrust themselves upon the attention of men.”134 Sensory impressions function as a primary and trustworthy source of knowledge that encourages particular actions. Epictetus therefore affirms that “the measure of every man’s actions is the impression of his senses”135 and that “The good requires . . . the faculty of using external impressions.”136 Yet the cognitive dimension of assent is not merely an act of perception or apprehension. Instead, like Nussbaum’s emotions, Roman Stoic assent involves an evaluative judgment. After human senses observe the natural world, human reason recognizes that this world is providentially directed and judges this direction to be good. Epictetus indicates that an intellectual understanding that “there is a God, and that his providence directs the whole” is a starting point for virtue.137 Reason is thus the faculty that builds on and uses sensory impressions to direct humans toward the achievement of virtue. Epictetus conceives the activity of reason as central to virtue’s pursuit, noting that reason involves cognitive capacities that are a necessary precursor to the proper “use” of providence’s gifts: “It is not sufficient to wish to become noble 132 133 134 135 136 137

Ibid., Academica 2.30-1, in Long and Sedley, p. 247. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations VIII, in Haines, p. 223. Epictetus, Fragment #9, in Discourses 2:449–51. Ibid., I.28, 1:177. Ibid., II.8, 1:253. Epictetus, Discourses II.14, 1:301.

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and good, but . . . we are under the necessity of learning something first . . . For use is one thing, and understanding another.”138 Reason enables us to recognize the workings of providence in our everyday activities.139 Our discernment of God’s providential oversight of the world is the proper use of humans’ God-given capacity to “understand the use of external impressions.”140 Roman Stoic virtue thus involves recognizing the universe’s goodness and working to discern the ways in which the impressions we encounter fit within this goodness. Encounters with the universe form us in virtue and provide us with a setting in which to cultivate and practice virtue. As Marcus Aurelius puts it, the things that “meet us in life” provide us with opportunities to grow in understanding the universe and our place within it: For nothing is so conducive to greatness of mind as the ability to examine systematically and honestly everything that meets us in life, and to regard these things always in such a way as to form a conception of the kind of Universe they belong to, and of the use which the thing in question subserves in it; what value it has for the whole Universe and what for man . . . and what virtue it calls for from me, such as gentleness, manly courage, truth, fidelity, guilelessness, independence, and the rest.141

Marcus Aurelius goes on to explain that as we come to understand these objects that meet us in life, we will recognize the presence and work of God in some of them: “In each case therefore must thou say:  This has come from God [theos]; and this is due to the conjunction of fate and the contexture of the world’s web . . . while that comes from a clansman and a kinsman and a neighbour, albeit one who is ignorant of what is really in accordance with his nature.”142 This ability to recognize and understand the divine being, an ability closely intertwined with Stoic virtue, is something that requires interaction with the material world in which divine providence is at work. Epictetus underscores this point through an argument that “God has brought man into the world to be a spectator of Himself and of His works, and not merely a spectator, but also an interpreter.”143 The moral task, for humans, is to observe

138 139 140 141 142 143

Ibid., II:14, 1:301–3. Ibid., I.6, 1:39. Ibid., I.6, 1:43–5. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, III.11, in Haines, pp. 59– 61. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, III.11, in Haines, pp. 59– 61. Epictetus, Discourses I.6, 1:45.

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and interpret God’s presence within the world, and this recognition of benevolent divine activity is an important part of virtuous assent. Achieving a proper cognitive grasp of God’s activity in the world and our place within the world’s ordering is important to virtuous assent. But assent has a moral or volitional component as well. Diana Fritz Cates’s discussion of Nussbaum’s account of assent indirectly clarifies the ways in which the Roman Stoic account of virtuous assent differs structurally from Nussbaum’s. For Nussbaum, the emotions are judgments of human reason that can be conceived entirely in the domain of the intellect. Cates contrasts Nussbaum’s account of the emotions, which conceives the emotions as “forms of cognition,” with that of Thomas Aquinas, who conceives the emotions as “appetitive motions” that are sustained only partly by acts of cognition.144 Aquinas views emotions as movements that draw together intellect and will, and Roman Stoic assent similarly involves both an intellectual component (the work of reason) and a moral or willful component (the work of the prohairesis). It should be noted that Nussbaum argues that her view of assent is moral as well. She contends that as an act of judgment, assent is within our power, and she stresses that assent is volitional or intentional.145 However, Roman Stoic assent is not purely cognitive: this assent involves a volitional and extended stance of consent to, or trust in, the divine providence whom a moral agent perceives to be at work in the universe. Reason is central to Roman Stoic virtue, but this virtue is most fully embodied as the moral agent’s prohairesis consents to divine providence in a manner that reorients their character. This act of the prohairesis differentiates Roman Stoic virtuous assent from Nussbaum’s account of assent as judgment, though judgment remains important in the Roman Stoic view. As noted briefly above, the Roman Stoics’ use of the term prohairesis distinguishes their writing from earlier Stoics. Michael Frede argues that Epictetus introduces this Aristotelian term into Stoic thought to identify a faculty with a particular capacity to make choices.146 Frede translates prohairesis as “will.” He argues that Epictetus is one of the earliest defenders

144

145 146

Diana Fritz Cates (2009). Aquinas on the Emotions: A Religious-Ethical Inquiry. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, pp. 62–8. Nussbaum (2001), 27, pp. 30–1. Michael Frede (2011). A Free Will: Origins of the Notion in Ancient Thought, ed. A. A. Long. Berkley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 43 – 6.

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of the idea that humans have a will and that this will is free.147 Other scholars are more cautious in translating prohairesis as will. Richard Sorabji uses this translation but stresses that Stoic will is more reasoned than contemporary readings of the term “will” might imply.148 Rist argues that Epictetus’s prohairesis is better thought of as the “moral personality.”149 Prohairesis, he contends, is “a term used for the whole spiritual being of man” that includes “all the mental activities which have to do with our character.”150 Moreover, Rist suggests that while Seneca uses the term “voluntas” (will), his account of voluntas shares with Epictetus a focus on “moral character” rather than on “willing” in a narrow sense.151 Rist acknowledges that in both Epictetus and Seneca (as well as Marcus Aurelius, who follows Epictetus’s use of prohairesis) there is a “voluntarist shift” away from earlier Stoa, which Rist suggests was informed by the introduction of the faculty of the will from the time of Cicero, but this shift is subtle and still emphasizes reason.152 This notion of “moral personality” captures the dimension of assent through which a moral agent consciously and deliberately pursues a particular character disposition that is embodied in particular behaviors.153 Through the activity of the agent’s moral personality, a moral agent embodies a trust in (or consent to) divine providence that emerges from awareness of her place within the universe. An intellectual understanding of divine providence motivates her to pursue the good by striving to align her character with the benevolent work of providence, or, as Seneca puts it, “to live according to nature.”154 Epictetus elevates consent to the will of providence as the hallmark of virtuous assent and roots this consent in an understanding that God is at work in all things. Recognition of God’s activity in the world generates a “sense of gratitude” toward God.155 This sense of gratitude encourages us to seek to align our character with God and God’s work within the world. In 147 148

149 150 151

152 153 154

155

Ibid., pp. 76–7. Sorabji argues that the term “will” is somewhat distorted “since proairesis has more to do with reason and less with will-power than do modern concepts of the will” (2000, p. 215). Rist, pp. 230, 232. Ibid., pp. 228–9. “When Seneca talks about willing and the will, what he is really concerned with is our moral character” (Ibid., p. 227). Ibid., pp. 231–2. Ibid., p. 230. Seneca (1995). On the Private Life, in Moral and Political Essays, ed. John M. Cooper and J. F. Procopé. New York : Cambridge University Press, pp. 165 –80, at 175. Epictetus, Discourses I.6, 1:39.

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seeking harmony with divine providence, a moral agent embraces the purposes for which God made her. Humans have “received faculties” from God156 so that we may live in accordance with the nature God has given us. We do this by seeking “a manner of life harmonious with nature”157 through which we recognize that God has made us to be “citizen[s] of the universe,” persons who exist in community with God and others.158 This cognitive understanding of our place in the universe is most fully expressed in an agent’s consent to God’s will. According to Epictetus, “the good and excellent man,” after considering whether God exists and is concerned with human affairs, “subordinates his own will to him who administers the universe.”159 Virtuous assent, then, is grounded in an intellectual apprehension of divine goodness at work in the universe. It is a reasonable act centered upon the acceptance of a proposition. However, assent simultaneously has a moral component. Humans exercise assent as we are formed in a disposition of trust in the divine nature through which we consent to our place within the universe. Trust in providence, in turn, leads a Stoic sage to pursue a union with providence by seeking to emulate the divine character. The divine character reveals to us what it means to live virtuously.160 The Stoic belief that union with providence is brought about through emulating the divine character establishes a close relation between assent’s moral component and benevolence, a disposition of love for the universe central to the divine nature. This close connection between consent (the moral dimension of assent) and benevolence is developed in the works of Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. Both Epictetus and Seneca suggest that as a virtuous agent consents to her place in the universe, she strives to align her character with God’s benevolent concern for the universe. Epictetus perceives that God’s character shows us what virtue is, so that we exercise virtue ourselves—and thereby love others properly—by imitating what we observe in God. Epictetus explains that apprehension of divine activity in the world creates a desire to form one’s character to mirror God. We can pursue this desire only by first “learning” of God’s character, for knowledge of God’s character gives us some

156 157 158 159 160

Ibid., I.6, 1:45. Ibid. Ibid., I.9, 1:63–5. Ibid., I.12, 1:89–91. Nussbaum (2009), p. 333.

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understanding of the nature of virtue. After humans come to understand that God providentially directs the world, they should seek to align their characters with this God: “If the Deity is faithful, he [a moral agent] too must be faithful; if free, beneficent, and noble, he must be free, beneficent, and noble likewise, in all his words and actions behaving as an imitator of God.”161 Seneca similarly indicates that humans develop virtuous benevolence through an apprehension of God’s mercy toward us that leads us to desire to imitate God’s character in our behavior toward others. On Favours develops this argument by beginning with the contention that all persons benefit in countless ways from “divine munificence.”162 We are morally obligated to do favors (which Seneca defines as spontaneous “act[s] of benevolence”163) toward others because this is a means of embodying virtue that is exemplified in God’s relation toward us: “God confers on us the greatest and most important favours without any thought of return. He has no need for anything to be conferred, nor could we confer anything on him. Doing a favour is therefore something to be chosen for its own sake.”164 For the Roman Stoics, virtuous assent—a disposition of trust in providence rooted in the apprehension of divine goodness—engenders a consent to divine providence that we embody through emulating God’s intrinsically benevolent character. Trust in God leads a moral agent to emulate God’s benevolence not simply as an expression of gratitude to God, but more completely as an embodiment of her rational recognition that God’s providence over the world makes all human beings radically connected. The Stoics believe that through the process of oikeiosis, aspirants to virtue can grow in their recognition that all human beings are, in a sense, members of the same household.165 Humans have a moral obligation to exercise an impartial and universal concern for all other persons. Sorabji equates this disposition in the sage with one subspecies of the eupatheia of will, a feeling of “good will (eunoia), defined as willing

161 162 163 164 165

Epictetus, Discourses, II.14, 1:301. Seneca, On Favours IV.5, in Cooper and Procope, p. 276. Seneca, On Favours, I.6, in Cooper and Procope, p. 202. Ibid., On Favours IV.9, in Cooper and Procope, p. 280. For more on oikeiosis, see Sorabji, p. 174. Nussbaum and Annas similarly describe this commitment to impartial and universal concern for other humans as characteristic of Stoic thought. Annas observes that “The Stoics are the fi rst ethical theorists clearly to commit themselves to the thesis that morality requires impartiality to all others from the moral point of view” (1993, p. 265). Nussbaum likewise maintains that the Stoics treat the cosmos as a whole as humanity’s primary moral attachment, and our particular community as secondary (2009, p. 345).

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good to another for the other’s sake” that can be further divided into “affection” and “love.”166 The ancient Stoic Hierocles grounds this universal love in a development of natural instincts toward relational love: as we love particular others, we gradually grow into abilities to love more broadly so that the circle of persons whom we love widens.167 But for the Roman Stoics, impartial love for all beings emerges as our trust in divine providence increases.168 Roman Stoic virtuous assent gives rise to a universal concern for other persons rooted in a virtuous person’s intellectual recognition that all humans share a relation to the divine nature. Epictetus affirms God’s intimate oversight of the universe, such that all human actions take place “under the eye of God.”169 This divine providential oversight, in turn, draws human souls together and unites them with each other: “But are the plants and our own bodies so closely bound up with the universe, and do they so intimately share its affections, and is not the same much more true of our souls?”170 As beings whose souls hold a particular relation to the universe, humans share the moral task of “singing hymns of praise to God,”171 and this shared experience leads us toward a harmonious relation with each other. Marcus Aurelius likewise suggests that virtuous assent establishes a sense of kinship with others in the world that gives rise to an impartial love for other humans. In consenting to divine providence, virtuous persons recognize their place within the universe as a whole: “All that is in tune with thee, O Universe, is in tune with me! Nothing that is in due time for thee is too early or too late for me! . . . All things come from thee, subsist in thee, go back to thee.”172 This harmony between ourselves and the universe makes us aware that all beings in the universe are interconnected: “All things are

166 167 168

169 170 171 172

Sorabji, p. 174. Annas (1993), pp. 267–9. Th is characterization is at odds with Annas’s contention that the Stoics’ emphasis on impartiality “does not rest on special features of Stoicism: it rests on strong demands on rationality which are also evident in other kinds of theory. In particular it does not rest on the Stoic view that the universe is an ordered whole of which we are parts, since, as we have seen, this is not a principle from which ethical theses are derived” (1993, p. 274). However, Annas acknowledges that Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus differ from earlier Stoics precisely in treating “cosmic nature” as more of a “first principle within ethics,” a move that she suggests is a departure from earlier Stoics (pp.  175–7). It is plausible to read the Roman Stoics as deriving moral commitments, including a commitment to impartiality, from a commitment to God. Epictetus, Discourses I.14, 1:99. Epictetus, Discourses I.14, 1:101. Ibid., I.16, 1:111. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations IV.23, in Haines, p. 81.

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mutually intertwined, and the tie is sacred, and scarcely anything is alien the one to the other. For all things have been ranged side by side, and together help to order one ordered Universe. For there is both one Universe, made up of all things, and one God immanent in all things.”173 Because we are not “ignorant” of God’s work in the universe, he argues, we are obligated to “treat” our neighbors “kindly, and justly, in accordance with the natural law of neighbourliness.”174 Marcus Aurelius compares individual humans to the limbs of an organism and argues that recognizing our interdependence with other human beings is what helps to ensure that we “love mankind from the heart.”175 This “love” for others, even “those who stumble,” necessarily arises from our sense of community with fellow humans through our shared relation to God; this love “follows as soon as thou reflectest that they are kin to thee.”176 Assent, then, logically gives rise to a benevolent concern for others’ well being.

Assent, freedom, and moral responsibility The Roman Stoics’ beliefs that divine providence actively oversees the world and that humans exercise virtue by assenting to the work of this providence raise questions about precisely how humans can be authentic moral agents. Some critics of the Stoics have argued that Stoic ethics promotes a stance of passivity or resignation to fate, as noted in Chapter 1. Nevertheless, Annas argues that all ancient philosophies, including Stoicism, see humans not as passively resigned to fate but instead as morally responsible for their own development in virtue.177 A Roman Stoic account of assent gives rise to a view of moral responsibility that promotes humans’ freedom to pursue and attain virtue, even while recognizing that many life circumstances are beyond human control. The Stoics believed that, while we are unable to control many events in life, the act of assent is ultimately under our control. Assent is, as Steven K. Strange explains, central to the Stoics’ understanding of humans’ moral capacities.

173 174 175 176 177

Ibid., VII.9, in Haines, p. 169. Ibid., III.11, in Haines, p. 61. Ibid., VII.13, in Haines, p. 169. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations VII.22, in Haines, pp. 173–5. Annas (1993), pp. 427–8.

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The Stoics are committed to the notion that humans have free will and are morally accountable for the decision to give or withhold assent. A conviction that desire and emotion are under a moral agent’s control emerges from the Stoic belief that these feelings are rooted in assent, and humans are capable of giving or withholding assent: “According to the Stoic view, it is primarily assent that is ‘in our power’ or ‘up to us’ (eph’ he min), and it is only because this lies in our control that anything at all does. So if we are responsible for any of our actions, for any of our desires, or for any of our passions or emotions, it is because these all depend upon our capacity to give or withhold our assent in particular cases. Similarly, if we are to bear any responsibility for our own moral character, this too will be due to our capacity for assent.”178 Even the early Stoics understand this assent as voluntary. According to Diogenes Laertius, Zeno, the founder of the first Stoic school, argues that individuals have the ability to decide which sensory impressions merit mental assent.179 Cicero reiterates this understanding of the Stoics on moral responsibility, indicating that for the Stoics, not only should a virtuous agent seek to live “according to nature and in harmony with nature,” but we can also assume that she will have the “power” to do so.180 The Stoic commitment to human freedom and moral responsibility is particularly pronounced in Epictetus. His use of the term prohairesis (discussed more fully above) indicates the centrality of the capacity to make deliberative choices for his understanding of human nature. Like earlier Stoics, Epictetus identifies assent as the particular activity through which humans exercise freedom and recognizes that many other dimensions of life are outside of human control. He argues that the gods have given humans “the power to

178

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Steven K. Strange (2004). “The Stoics on the Voluntariness of the Passions,” in Stoicism: Traditions and Transformations, ed. Steven K. Strange and Jack Zupko. New York : Cambridge University Press, pp. 32–51, at 35. Similarly, Richard Sorabji argues that the Stoics see “voluntary assent” as a part of judgment, and explains that “The voluntariness is based on the idea that one is free to question appearances and withhold assent from them. If you do not bother to do so, that is your own fault” (pp. 45– 6). Nussbaum likewise affirms that the Stoics “thought that assent was always a voluntary act, and that we always had it in our power to assent or refuse assent to any appearance” (2001, p. 38). Diogenes Laertius (1925). Lives of Eminent Philosophers, trans. R. D. Hicks, vol. II. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, p. 157. “For the Stoics indeed the conclusion is easy, since they hold it the sovereign good to live according to nature and in harmony with nature, seeing that not only is this the wise man’s settled duty but also it lies in his power, and so for them it follows necessarily that where a man has the chief good in his power, he also has the power of happy life” (Cicero, Tusculuan Disputations XXVIII), qtd. in Becker, p. 155.

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make correct use of” our impressions of the world that we encounter, “but all the others they have not put under our control.”181 We are responsible for recognizing the good and evil in the perceptions we receive and choosing to assent to the good. For Epictetus, “Things seen by the mind . . . whereby the intellect of man is struck at the very first sight of anything . . . are not subject to his will, nor to his control . . . but the assents . . . whereby [phantasies] seen by the mind are recognized, are subject to man’s will, and fall uder his control.”182 The Stoics thus maintain that we lack control over the faculties we possess and the sensory impressions that confront us, but they nonetheless affirm that we do have some measure of freedom in our response, in our “use” of the impressions we see, and in our decision to give them assent. Indeed, Epictetus makes clear that a denial of freedom would undermine his commitment to God’s goodness, a concern that arises again in Reformed reflection on free will and providence. Epictetus’s commitment to humanity’s moral freedom is crucial to preserving his conception of God as intrinsically loving: “For if God had so constructed that part of His own being which He has taken from Himself and bestowed upon us, that it could be subjected to hindrance or constraint either from himself or from some other, He were no longer God, nor would He be caring for us as He ought.”183 His belief in God’s constitutive benevolence leads Epictetus to conclude that God gives us moral faculties “free from all restraint, compulsion, hindrance; He has put the whole matter under our control without reserving even for himself any power to prevent or hinder.”184 We are not compelled to exercise assent precisely because this denial of free will would be at odds with Epictetus’s understanding of the divine nature as benevolent and caring for the good of humans. While all Stoics perceive virtue to be the only genuine good, the Roman Stoics develop a distinctive understanding of this singularly good virtue in their account of assent to benevolent providence. The characterization of virtue as assent prioritizes the prohairesis in moral formation and allows for an understanding of humans as retaining responsibility for their own formation in virtue. This conception of moral responsibility is coupled with a belief that many dimensions of life are outside human beings’ control, but that these 181 182 183 184

Epictetus, Discourses I.1, 1:9. Epictetus, Fragment #9, 2:449–51. Epictetus, Discourses, I.17, vol. 1, pp. 117–19. Epictetus, Discourses I.7, 1:49.

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factors do not add objectively to their flourishing, which is ensured by virtue alone. Yet even as the Roman Stoics believe that humans lack control over many experiences in life, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius in particular contend that a benevolent providence directs the universe toward its good. Rather than thinking of virtuous assent as resigning ourselves to circumstances or events, interpreters of the Roman Stoics should see this assent as an expression of trust in divine goodness that we express, in part, by aligning our wills with the divine character. Humans exercise moral responsibility through this reorientation of their character.

Stoic virtue as embodied in apatheia The Roman Stoic understanding of virtue as a singular assent to benevolent providence provides a framework within which to reflect on one of the more widely criticized dimensions of Stoic ethics: the Stoic commitment to apatheia, or the rejection and eradication of the emotions. The Stoics’ advocacy of apatheia distinguishes their understanding of the moral significance of the emotions from Aristotelian thought, which defends the moderation of the emotions, and from the Christian tradition, which upholds as a moral exemplar a fully human Jesus Christ who wept at the death of his friend Lazarus. On a superficial level, the commitment to apatheia is one of the better-known features of Stoic thought; Stoicism is often popularly equated with the experience of being unmoved by passions and intense emotions such as joy, anger, and grief. However, considering apatheia in conjunction with Roman Stoic accounts of virtue, assent, and moral responsibility provides a more complete picture of its place in the moral life. Apatheia is best understood as a counterpart to virtuous assent, a means through which moral agents work to align their emotions with the virtue of consenting to divine providence. Apatheia is the avoidance of pathe, a term referring to a particular kind of mental state that contemporary scholars generally characterize as “emotions.”185 Reflection on the Stoics’ understanding of emotions helps to make sense of their belief that emotions are to be rejected. Many of the Stoics

185

Nussbaum argues that “emotion” and “passion” can be used interchangeably for Stoic pathe (2009, p. 319 n4).

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conceive the emotions as false beliefs or judgments, distorted workings of the rational faculty that lead a moral agent to assent to false circumstances. Nussbaum attributes this understanding of the emotions as “forms of false judgment or false belief” to Chrysippus.186 Sorabji explains that Chrysippus conceives the emotions as involving two separate “value judgments”: first, that a moral agent is perceiving something that can cause her benefit or harm, and second, that it is “appropriate” for her to “react” to this perception.187 Some emotions elicit a false perception that a certain “internal and involuntary” reaction to events is appropriate. The Stoics speak of such internal responses as “contractions” or “expansions” of the mind. Other emotions lead a moral agent to believe, incorrectly, that circumstances warrant a particular “behavioral and volitional” response.188 In both cases, the emotions are distorted moral judgments that assent to false circumstances. While it is most often appropriate to think of Stoic emotions as forms of cognitive judgments, as they are for Chrysippus, some other Stoics align the emotions with the contractions or expansions of the mind that these judgments elicit. In particular, Zeno’s position tends to characterize the emotions as movements rather than judgments.189 Margaret R.  Graver, drawing on Zeno’s account of emotions as “ ‘excessive impulses,’ that is, as action tendencies of a certain powerful kind,”190 contends that moral judgments about the appropriateness of a given response to a perceived good or evil prompt a particular affective impulse that she identifies with emotions themselves.191 Sorabji argues compellingly that Seneca attempts to reconcile elements of Chrysippus and Zeno in his account of the movements associated with the emotions, and it is clear that Seneca follows Chrysippus in understanding the emotions as largely constructed by moral judgments. The emotions are problematic for both Chrysippus and Seneca because they are flawed judgments of reason, or a false form of assent.192 The Stoics at points describe the emotions

186 187 188 189 190 191 192

Ibid., p. 366. Sorabji, 29–30. Ibid., pp. 31–2. Ibid., pp. 34–7. Margaret Graver (2007). Stoicism and Emotion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 28. Graver, pp. 44–5. Sorabji points out that Seneca views emotions as consisting both in flawed judgments and in the will’s deliberate disobedience of this flawed judgment. Th is notion that the will’s disobedience is part of the problem with the pathe is characteristic of Zeno (pp. 61–5). But even while Seneca incorporates this element of Zeno’s position into his account of the emotions to reconcile

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as an illness of the soul that philosophy (meaning the moral life) can in some sense “cure.”193 This illness is exemplified in the soul’s erroneous judgments about the value of particular objects and about the appropriateness of certain responses to these objects’ gain or loss. Seneca’s accounts of anger and grief demonstrate how these emotions function as distorted or flawed judgments. Seneca’s treatise On Anger presents anger as an intense desire for revenge.194 This desire is problematic because it goes against the purposes for which humans exist. Humans, he explains, are “begotten for mutual assistance” that is fostered by the practice of “love reciprocated” through which we are “bound together.” Anger is “utterly out of accord” with human nature. Seneca describes it as a “savage, ruinous fault” that is deeply harmful and divisive.195 Marcus Aurelius later reiterates this view of the damage anger brings about, contending that anger is “non-social and conducive of harm.”196 In considering how to overcome anger, Seneca makes clear that anger rests on a flawed understanding of the nature of things. Noting that false belief and deception can lead to “the greatest harm,”197 Seneca systematically considers Posidonius’s definition of anger, “a burning desire to punish him by whom you think yourself to have been unfairly harmed,”198 and shows that the judgments upon which anger is based are flawed. First, this account of anger involves a judgment that someone has done wrong to us. Nevertheless, certain objects or beings, Seneca notes, “cannot possibly have done us wrong.” It would be foolish to be angry with inanimate objects or animals, with people (such as children) who cannot truly will our harm,199 or with the gods, who by their nature are incapable of doing harm to us.200 Furthermore, even if we perceive that someone capable of causing harm has done something to hurt us, this perception could be based on false information provided by a malicious or confused third party201 or on our incomplete understanding

193 194

195 196 197 198 199 200

201

apparent inconsistencies in Zeno and Chrysippus, he follows Chrysippus in associating the emotions with errors of reason. Nussbaum (2009), pp. 366–8. Seneca, On Anger 1.2.3, in Cooper and Procope, pp. 1–116, at 19. See also Seneca, On Anger 1.3.3, in Cooper and Procope, p. 21. Ibid., 1.5.2-3, in Cooper and Procope, p. 23. Marcus Aurelius , Meditations, XI.10, in Haines, p. 311. Seneca, On Anger, 2.24.1, in Cooper and Procope, p. 62. Ibid., 1.2.3, in Cooper and Procope, p. 19. Seneca, On Anger, 2.26.1- 6, in Cooper and Procope, pp. 63– 4. As Seneca explains, the gods’ “nature is gently and kindly, as averse to wronging others as wronging themselves” (On Anger 2.27.1-2, in Cooper and Procope, p. 64). Ibid., 2.29.2-3, in Cooper and Procope, p. 67.

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of all the factors that led someone to perform a particular action.202 Second, anger involves a judgment that harm we experienced is unfair. Seneca challenges this presumption of unfairness, reminding his readers that no one is truly “innocent” or “faultless”203 and arguing that a perception of unfairness is often rooted in “arrogance or ignorance of the facts.”204 Third, just as Chrysippus’s view of emotions involves a judgment that a particular pathe is an appropriate response to a circumstance, so too does Seneca’s account of anger involve a judgment that retaliation or vengeance is somehow appropriate. Against such a conclusion, Seneca stresses that hurting someone else is never appropriate; causing harm to another goes against human nature.205 Retaliation causes harm not only to the person against whom one seeks vengeance, but also to the person who retaliates.206 Anger is rooted in problematic judgments, and its remedy lies in recognizing these intellectual flaws. Seneca’s Consolation to Marcia, written to a woman grieving after the death of her son, illustrates that he conceives grief, like anger, as problematically rooted in a false understanding of reality. Seneca concedes that some measure of mourning the loss of loved ones is consistent with human nature.207 In this sense, grief differs from anger, which is to be avoided entirely. But Seneca nonetheless cautions against extended or excessive grief, in part because a grieving moral agent exercises flawed judgment by attributing to herself and her loved one a uniqueness that exempts them from experiences common to human beings. All of us are mortal208 and all of us are subject to the workings of “Fortune,” which Seneca characterizes in this text as a “harsh and unconquerable” force that acts unpredictably rather than rationally.209 To some degree, Seneca’s critique of this dimension of grief exemplifies one problematic consequence of the Stoics’ characterization of virtue as the only good: a Stoic who perceives virtue as the only good might logically conclude that the life of an individual person is of diminished or inferior value. Nussbaum argues that a false perception that an object has a greater value than it truly

202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209

Ibid., 2.30.1-2, in Cooper and Procope, pp. 67–8. Ibid., 2.28.1-3, in Cooper and Procope, p. 65. Ibid., 2.31.1-3, in Cooper and Procope, pp. 68–9. Ibid., 2.31.6-8, in Cooper and Procope, pp. 69–70. Seneca, On Anger, 2.32.1, 2.34.1, and 2.34.4, in Cooper and Procope, pp. 70–2. Seneca, Consolation to Marcia, in Davie, pp. 53–84, at 59. Ibid., p. 63. Ibid., pp. 62–3.

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does is part of Chrysippus’s explanation of why a passion is problematic.210 Seneca’s critique of grief implies that grief is partly to be avoided because it attributes excessive or unique value to a person’s loved ones, and this claim appears consistent with the Stoics’ general tendency to elevate the overall good of the world at the expense of affirming the unique value of individual persons.211 Despite Seneca’s intimation that the world is governed by a wrathful and arbitrary fortune, the Stoics’ understanding of virtuous assent to a benevolent providence helps to make sense of the Stoics’ conclusion that emotions such as grief and anger are to be avoided. Part of what the Stoics perceive to be morally wrong in the pathe is the falseness of the judgments that are central to the emotion. The judgment is false because it attributes to events or objects a value that they lack (since most things in the world, with the exception of virtue, are indifferent). Virtuous assent to providence, in contrast to the flawed assent at work in the emotions, is a means through which a Stoic moral agent perceives (accurately) that divine providence is benevolently at work in the universe and works to align their will with the divine character. In giving in to pathe, a person exercises a distorted form of assent that gives our dayto-day circumstances a disproportionate value and, in doing so, tragically surrenders to them. Seneca notes that emotion is not simply the experience of “being moved by impressions,” but of “surrendering oneself” to these impressions.212 In virtuous assent—in contrast to the false assent associated with the pathe—a person consents not to these distorted impressions, but to the proposition that providence is more broadly at work in the material world. Marcus Aurelius explains that apatheia guards against the “surrender” of oneself to an injury we have experienced, 213 arguing that such surrender causes harm to our well being.214 He criticizes the pathos of anger because 210

211

212 213 214

Nussbaum (2009), p. 377. Sorabji notes that the same conclusion is central to the early Stoic Cleanthes (p. 32). The conclusion to be drawn is not that an individual person lacks any value, but that excessive grief attributes a greater value to a human’s life than an individual life actually possesses. This claim is clearly at odds with both a Christian understanding of the unique value of each particular human life and the Kantian commitment that individuals should be treated as ends in themselves. The Stoics would affi rm that we should love other persons, but that, as Graver puts it in describing Epictetus’s position, we should love them “in full awareness of their mortality” (Graver, p. 177). Seneca, On Anger, 2.3.1, in Cooper and Procope, p. 44. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations XI.10, in Haines, p. 311. Ibid., XI.8, in Haines, p. 309.

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it involves accepting a false judgment that runs counter to the reality of God’s providential oversight of the universe: “In taking umbrage at anything, thou forgettest this, that everything happens in accordance with the Universal Nature.”215 By striving for apatheia , aspirants in virtue seek to avoid feelings of resignation to external circumstances by reorienting their dispositions toward objects of greater value. Apatheia promotes a moral agent’s progress toward virtue by helping her to detach herself emotionally from circumstances outside her control so that she can focus instead on divine providence. As Epictetus puts it, when our priorities are ordered rightly, we seek virtue “not in order to change the constitution of things,— for this is neither vouchsafed us nor is it better that it should be,—but in order that, things about us being as they are and as their nature is, we may, for our own part, keep our wills in harmony with what happens.”216 Apatheia directs us against the pursuit of apparent goods so that we may “keep our soul intent upon” the “mark” of seeking virtue. “We must pursue none of the things external, none of the things which are not our own, but as He that is mighty has ordained; pursuing without any hesitation the things that lie within the sphere of moral purpose, and all other things as they have been given us.”217 The Stoics’ presumption that apatheia supports a life of virtue is consistent with their belief that virtue is accessible to all persons regardless of their backgrounds and resources. Particular material circumstances do not affect one’s ability to be virtuous. Seneca articulates this commitment particularly clearly, affirming that virtue is present in all persons equally, and “open to all; as well to servants and exiles as to princes.”218 Seneca’s belief in moral equality is so significant, in fact, that Inwood argues that this concern lies at the roots of Seneca’s problematic advocacy of suicide; Seneca, Inwood contends, wishes to show that no one is truly bereft of moral ability even in difficult circumstances such as slavery.219 The Stoics’ commitment to the notion of humans’ equal capacities for virtue is reinforced by their advocacy of apatheia, a 215 216 217 218

219

Ibid., XII, in Haines, p. 335. Epictetus , Discourses I.12, 1:93. Ibid., IV.12, 2:427. Seneca, Of a Happy Life, in The Wisdom of the Stoics:  Selections from Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, ed. Frances and Henry Hazlitt. Lanham, MD:  University Press of America, 1984, p. 22 . Inwood, p. 310.

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practice that involves emotionally detaching oneself from circumstances that might interfere with the pursuit of virtue. The Stoics’ commitment to apatheia thus indicates that Stoic virtuous assent is incompatible with the emotions, insofar as the emotions represent flawed judgments about the value of apparent goods. However, the Stoics simultaneously stress that virtue can still be compatible with certain affective mental states. This possibility is particularly clear for Seneca and Epictetus, who distinguish affective “first movements” from the emotions themselves. In making this distinction, they provide a moral agent room to abstain from giving into a full-fledged emotion even after experiencing an unexpected impulse of the mind. First movements of the mind are fleeting experiences of mental shock (often coupled with physical agitation)220 when one encounters something that has potential to evoke a strong emotion. Seneca characterizes first movements as “involuntary,” as “mental jolt[s] which we cannot escape through reason,” and which differ from actual emotions.221 They are “not affections, but the preliminaries, the prelude to affections.”222 Moreover, both Seneca223 and Epictetus indicate that virtuous people can still experience these initial impulses even as they are able to avoid the emotions that follow. In a fragment preserved by the second-century Latin author Aulus Gellius, Epictetus indicates that even the wise may be momentarily “disturbed” by a sudden event or experience without engaging in the false assent that would constitute the pathe of fear. A wise person may change in “color and expression” momentarily, but will regain their equanimity before giving their assent to impressions that could cause fear.224 Apatheia, then, is compatible with this sort of involuntary affective mental state.

220

221 222 223 224

Seneca distinguishes physical “agitations”—including “pallor, falling tears, sexual excitement or deep sighing, a sudden glint in the eyes or something similar”—from emotions and indicates that even virtuous people might be subject to these agitations in stressful moments. On Anger 2.3.2-3, in Cooper and Procope, p. 44. Ibid., 2.4.1-2, in Cooper and Procope, p. 45. Ibid., 2.2.5, in Cooper and Procope, p. 44. Ibid., 2.2.2., in Cooper and Procope, p. 43. Epictetus, Fragment #9, in Discourses 2:449– 451. Augustine, citing Aulus Gellius’s account of an encounter with a Stoic in The Attic Nights, discusses this argument in The City of God. He argues that Epictetus allows the wise person to experience passions and concludes that the Stoic understanding of the passions is ultimately equivalent to the Platonist and Aristotelian position that seeks the moderation of the passions rather than their expulsion (City of God 9.4). But Sorabji argues that Aulus Gellius’s manuscript contained a minor error in transcription that marred the distinction between fi rst movements and emotions, leading Augustine to this faulty conclusion (Sorabji, pp. 374–380).

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In addition to allowing that apatheia can be exercised even in conjunction with the experience of first movements, the Stoics develop a more positive account of a certain class of affective movements, the eupatheiai, as appropriate to and even characteristic of the sage. The Stoics exempt these affective impulses, which Sorabji characterizes as “states of feeling” and Graver as “affective responses,”225 from the category of pathe. They include three broad categories or type: joy, will (boulesis, a term used more precise acts of willing are characteristic of the term voluntas), and caution. Sorabji argues that the difference between eupatheiai and the pathe, particularly clear in Chrysippus, is that the eupatheiai involve the making of true judgments, rather than false ones.226 The eupatheiai thus function as affective states emerging from the accurate judgment characteristic of virtuous assent. Graver affirms that the eupatheia are “affective responses which the Stoic theory accepts as entirely rational and good.”227 Not only do the Stoics allow the possibility that the virtuous person can experience certain affective states, but certain lines of argument also suggest that the virtuous person’s disposition of universal benevolence facilitates the exercise of particular loves. Graver argues that even Chrysippus’s account of the emotions can support the practice of authentic love for family members and friends, as well as romantic love.228 She contends that the eupatheiai encompass “certain particular kinds of love and friendship” as well as joy, reverence, and longing.229 This possible dimension of Stoic thought is certainly realized in Epictetus’s Discourses. This text includes an extended narrative through which Epictetus criticizes a man who abandons his sick child, explaining that such an action runs counter to the affection nature demonstrates to be proper between parents and children.230 Later Epictetus explains that humans tend to be self-interested, and if our self-interest rules us, we will abandon all of our family and friends for the sake of our own interest. The cultivation of virtue counters this tendency and is necessary to ensure that we love others rightly: “If, therefore, I am where my moral purpose is, then, and then only, will I be the friend and son and the father that I should be.”231 225 226 227 228 229 230 231

Sorabji, p. 47. Graver, p. 4. Ibid., pp. 47–9. Ibid., p. 4. Ibid., pp. 176–89. Graver, p. 4. Epictetus, Discourses, I.11, 1:77–89. Ibid., II.22, 1:389.

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Still later in the Discourses, Epictetus explicitly clarifies that our relations to friends and family are constituted not simply by the resigned fulfillment of our duties, but more properly by appropriate emotions. Although the pursuit of goodness requires resisting some experiences of emotion, Epictetus nevertheless affirms, “I ought not to be unfeeling like a statue, but should maintain my relationships, both natural and acquired, as a religious man, as a son, a brother, a father, a citizen.”232 For Epictetus, then, apatheia is not the avoidance of emotional ties, but a reorientation of our desires so that our loves can be exercised more fully and genuinely. Stoic apatheia is a rejection of the emotions rather than a practice that seeks their moderation. The emotions, for the Stoics, are flawed judgments through which a moral agent tragically resigns to an incomplete understanding of the circumstances before her rather than embracing the work of divine providence that guides the universe in a manner that ultimately benefits all beings. But while virtuous assent is incompatible with the pathe, it can be reconciled with certain other affective responses. Indeed, virtuous assent tends toward a concern for other humans that can be characterized as universal love. In turn, this universal love provides a framework within which to situate particular loves as well.

Conclusion The Roman Stoics’ interrelated understandings of assent, providence, and the emotions give rise to a virtue ethic that differs from other ancient accounts of the virtues. Nevertheless, it is a virtue ethic—an ethic that elevates character and the holistic narrative of a human’s life as of central moral concern, and that identifies a particular moral disposition as a good that lies at the heart of this ethic. A Stoic virtue ethic, in turn, provides a crucial point of entry for exploring the contributions of Reformed Protestant theology to reflections on the virtuous life. The Roman Stoic account of virtue as assent to providence suggests an avenue through which a Reformed understanding of faith as an attribute with unique purchase in the Christian life can constructively inform contemporary virtue ethics. Likewise, Reformed accounts of 232

Ibid., III.2,1- 6, 2:22–3.

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conversion and justification benefit from conversation with the Stoic account of virtue as a transformative and unified quality that an individual either possesses completely or lacks altogether. Stoic accounts of providence and the emotions highlight the limits of constructive interplay between Stoic and Christian ethics. Nevertheless, a comparison of Stoic and Reformed positions on providence and the emotions simultaneously offers insight into the ways in which Reformed theological convictions promote a particular virtue ethic. Subsequent chapters build on this consideration of Stoic moral thought to lay out the contours of a Protestant virtue ethic rooted in historical Reformed theology.

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This chapter begins to lay out the contours of a Protestant virtue ethic rooted in the theologies of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards. In this virtue ethic, faith holds pride of place. Protestant theologians have historically affirmed that faith has unique purchase in the Christian life. This elevation of faith as a good is consistent with the Christian tradition as a whole, but Luther, Calvin, and Edwards place a particular and distinctive emphasis on faith as a disposition central to salvation, and this soteriological framework directly informs their accounts of the moral life. For these thinkers, the possession or absence of faith plays a crucial role in determining a Christian’s status before God. Faith has a value in the Christian life that differentiates faith from other possible goods, and after justification, it functions as a sustained disposition through which human beings pursue and cultivate the characteristic goods and ends for which they were created. Historical Protestant theologians resist the notion that faith is a virtue, and indeed, Luther and Edwards argue explicitly that it is not. Humans cannot pursue virtue until they have been justified, and faith, in turn, is a condition for justification and therefore in some sense necessarily prior to it.1 Yet 1

Martin Luther tends to reject the term “virtue” entirely, equating it with the human’s sinful and hopeless quest for a righteousness that can be achieved through our own moral agency independently of God. His The Freedom of a Christian begins with a rejection of the notion that faith is a virtue, insofar as this designation might imply a link between faith and works (Luther, Freedom of a Christian, LW 31:343). Jonathan Edwards rejects the idea that faith is a virtue on similar grounds. Because he understands faith to be a condition for salvation that a human acquires prior to conversion, he is concerned that characterizing faith as a virtue might imply that humans could be virtuous prior to receiving God’s justifying grace. Edwards is clear that prior to conversion, humans lack moral merit so that even though faith is a means through which Christians are justified, this faith is not

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consideration of Luther’s, Calvin’s, and Edwards’s understandings of faith’s relation to love in the Christian life reveals that faith, when coupled with love in a manner that retains faith’s priority, functions as a virtue, and indeed as the central virtue, in Protestant thought. Although the Protestant tradition affirms that the faith of a sinful human being cannot be deemed virtuous prior to justification, after justification it is appropriate to designate this faith as a virtue, in keeping with contemporary scholarly accounts of the nature of a virtue. A virtue is a moral disposition or character trait that benefits its possessor and leads to her flourishing, and through its relation to this end of flourishing, a virtue can be said to make its possessor a “good human being.” Moreover, a virtue is partly constitutive of the end or purpose for which humans exist.2 Within the life of a justified Christian, faith is a virtuous disposition through which Christians are formed into the creatures whom they were created to be. A consideration of Protestant faith alongside Stoic assent reinforces the plausibility of understanding faith as the chief Protestant virtue. While dimensions of Stoic thought helped to shape Christian ethics as a whole, Protestant accounts of faith demonstrate a particular affinity with the Roman Stoic conception of virtue as a dispositional stance of assent to divine providence.3 A Roman Stoic account of virtue suggests resources for characterizing faith as a virtue and conceiving this virtue’s relation to love. Like virtuous assent, Christian faith has both a cognitive component, through which an agent intellectually apprehends divine goodness, and a moral component, through

2

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itself meritorious: “An interest in Christ and a right to his benefits is not given as a rewards or from respect to the moral fitness of anything in us” (Miscellany 682, WJE 18, p. 243). The phrase “justification by faith alone,” Edwards explains, presumes that justification occurs “without any manner of virtue or goodness of our own” ( Justification by Faith, WJE 19, pp. 149 and 154). These attributes of a virtue are drawn from Rosalind Hursthouse (1999), On Virtue Ethics. New  York :  Oxford University Press, and Alasdair MacIntyre (1984), After Virtue:  A  Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, rev. ed. 2007. Hursthouse argues that Plato and Aristotle defend two claims central to the meaning of virtue that must be viewed as interrelated: “the virtues benefit their possessor,” and “their virtues make their possessor a good human being,” in that “Human beings need the virtues in order to live well, to flourish as human beings, to live a characteristically good, eudaimon, human life” (p. 167). She explores and defends these claims about virtue’s relation to human nature in 163–216. MacIntyre emphasizes virtue’s essential relation to the human telos, the end or purpose for which humans exist. See in particular pp. 58–9, 202, and 219. A focus on the Roman Stoics, whose ideas are represented most thoroughly in the work of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, is appropriate to this study because of their historical influence on the early modern and modern context in which the Reformed theological tradition emerged. Cicero was also a highly studied thinker at this time, and this article makes reference to select passages from Cicero’s work that represent Stoic ideas.

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which an agent exercises trust in (or consents to) the God who is good. A consideration of these points of similarity between Roman Stoic assent and the understandings of faith at work in Luther, Calvin, and Edwards illuminates the ways in which these theologians uphold faith as the primary moral good for humans. At the same time, conversation with the Stoics indirectly points toward the importance of preserving a necessary relationship between faith and love (even as love requires and depends on faith to be properly realized). Not only does this necessary relation secure the notion that faith is at the heart of Protestant virtue, but it also preserves the idea (important to the Reformers and Edwards) that faith is not merely akin to cognitive belief. For the Stoics, the moral component of assent necessarily generates a disposition of impartial love for the universe as a whole. Christian faith likewise generates Christian love, a disposition of benevolence directed toward both God and the created universe. Faith and love cannot and should not be severed, even as Luther’s and Calvin’s concerns about the Scholastic formula of “faith formed by love” necessitate preserving faith’s status as an essential foundation for the moral life, such that faith retains a certain kind of primacy over love.

The structure of faith in Protestant thought Roman Stoic virtue and Christian faith are by no means perfectly continuous. One of the most significant differences between the two emerges from the Stoics’ view of our natural capacities to achieve virtue. As noted in Chapter 2, the Stoics believe that humans can pursue virtue through properly honing and developing the natural faculties God has given us. The Roman Stoic understanding of assent underscores the human capacity to pursue virtue through exercising our internal faculties correctly. Recall, for example, that Zeno and Chryssipus contend that the act of assent is “voluntary” and “within our power.”4 The Roman Stoic Epictetus makes similar claims, characterizing virtue as “up to us” and elevating the prohairesis as a moral faculty with a certain kind of power to make deliberative choices.5 Christianity, in contrast, 4 5

John Rist (1977). Stoic Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 141, 145. Ibid., pp. 228–9. As noted in Chapter 2 , Epictetus’s use of the phrase “up to us” is also important to Frede’s reading of Epictetus as an early advocate of the notion of free will. See Michael Frede (2011). A Free Will: Origins of the Notion in Ancient Thought. Ed. A. A. Long. Berkley: University of California Press, pp. 76 –88.

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affirms that original sin has damaged our natural faculties to a degree that makes it impossible for us to achieve virtue apart from the direct intervention of God’s grace. A commitment to the necessity of divine grace for the acquisition of faith is particularly important to the historical Protestant tradition. Chapters 4 and 5 explore the significance of these convictions for Protestant accounts of moral responsibility and moral formation. Yet despite this significant difference, there remains a marked structural or formal similarity between Christian faith and the account of Roman Stoic assent laid out in Chapter 2. Two dimensions of the structure of faith highlight its similarities to Stoic assent. First, although faith is not restricted to mere academic belief, it is nonetheless rooted in a propositional belief in God’s goodness, just as Stoic assent emerges from an intellectual recognition of divine goodness.6 Second, while faith is propositionally rooted, it is more adequately understood as a disposition of trust in God akin to the moral dimension of assent.7 These dimensions of faith are evident in the thought of Luther, Calvin, and Edwards. For these theologians, Christian faith is a stance of trust in God. Th is trust has a cognitive dimension insofar as the God in whom Christians trust is the God revealed in the person and work of Jesus Christ and proclaimed in the Christian Scriptures. Yet faith is not a matter of cognitive belief alone. Faith shapes our character, moving our hearts or wills so that we increasingly come to trust the God who has graciously initiated a relationship with us. Indeed, faith affects our character to a degree that makes its presence or absence defi nitive of Christian identity and our status before God. In this sense, faith, like Stoic virtue, is a uniquely valuable moral good.

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Robert Merrihew Adams establishes a link between faith and belief through an argument that places faith in contrast with unbelief. Adams contends that even though humans are “cognitively dependent” and have incomplete knowledge, unbelief can rightly be viewed as sinful. Robert Merrihew Adams (1987). The Virtue of Faith and Other Essays in Philosophical Theology. New York : Oxford University Press, pp. 16 –20. Oliver Crisp associates these two dimensions of faith particularly with evangelical theology. He argues that evangelical Christians typically hold that faith has both a “doxastic” or “propositional” component and a “fiducial” or trust-centered component. Oliver Crisp (2014). Deviant Calvinism:  Broadening Reformed Theology. Minneapolis, MN:  Augsburg Fortress, p.  22 . Crisp observes that some contemporary views of faith resist the idea that propositional content is essential to faith, but he argues that such views “do not seem to be typical of mainstream Reformed and evangelical theology” (23). Certainly, for Luther, Calvin, and Edwards, as we see below, faith involves propositional content or understanding as well as a disposition of trust.

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The cognitive dimension of faith Luther, Calvin, and Edwards all understand belief in God to be part of faith. As Calvin explains, faith consists in “the knowledge of Christ,”8 in “a knowledge of the divine favor toward us, and a full persuasion of its truth.”9 But whereas both Calvin and Edwards move quickly to emphasize the ways in which faith must be internalized,10 Luther stresses the centrality of intellectual belief in the Christian gospel for faith, which he aligns with belief or “believing” in The Freedom of a Christian.11 He develops two lines of argument that particularly illuminate faith’s cognitive character. First, in Lectures on Romans, he considers whether faith requires adherence to the entire body of Christian teachings about Christ or whether it allows for selective belief. Consistent with the Stoic notion that the good is indivisible, Luther affirms that true faith requires “complete confession” of “all the words which pertain to” Christ precisely because these words represent a good that cannot be divided.12 Christ is present, Luther goes on to explain, in the Word of God, which is lived out in the Church and in the Eucharist. If we deny Christ’s presence in one of these settings, this denial destroys our faith.13 Faith therefore requires belief in all that the Christian tradition teaches about Christ: “The faith in Christ by which we are justified is not a matter of believing only in Christ or in the person of Christ, but in all things which pertain to Christ.”14 Though Luther makes clear that God may remedy the imperfections of our unbelief if we “humble ourselves greatly,”15 the connections he develops between faith and belief demonstrate that the exercise of faith consists partly in an intellectual comprehension and acceptance of Christian doctrine.

8 9 10

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13 14 15

Calvin, Institutes, 3.2.8, p. 360. Ibid., 3.2.12, p. 362. Phillip Cary argues that this stance distinguishes Calvin and his followers from Luther. See Phillip Cary (2007). “Sola Fide: Luther and Calvin.” Concordia Theological Quarterly 71: 265 –81, at 273– 6. “So let him who wishes to do good works begin not with the doing of works, but with believing, which makes the person good, for nothing makes a man good except faith, or evil except unbelief” (Luther, The Freedom of a Christian, LW 31:362). “But you ask: If denial is so great that having denied in one point, a person has denied in all, why is not the acceptance of equal force, so that when one believes in one point, he believes in all? The answer is that the good is perfect and simple, and thus it is destroyed by one denial. But it is not established by the confession of one thing, unless it be one complete confession without any denial” (Ibid., LW 25:239). Ibid., LW 25:237–8. Ibid., LW 25:237. Ibid., LW 25:238–9.

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Luther’s understanding of conscience further illustrates the intellectual dimension of Christian faith and highlights its continuity and discontinuity with the cognitive dimension of Stoic assent. As discussed in Chapter 2, the Stoics emphasize the role of sensory impressions in obtaining knowledge. Our inner faculties perceive objects in the material world, and these perceptions give rise to cognitive sense impressions that provide a starting-point for the pursuit of virtue. Luther, in turn, elevates the role of the conscience in our practice of faith, and his understanding of the conscience as a “power (virtus) of the flesh” leads to a view of moral formation that elevates the interpretation of empirical data as a starting point for the acquisition of faith.16 Luther characterizes the conscience as a faculty that makes judgments, and the close connection he draws between faith and the conscience reiterates his indication that faith, like Stoic assent, is rooted in an act of cognitive judgment. This judgment recognizes the moral inadequacy of our actions before God; Luther emphasizes the conscience’s recognition of our failure to do good apart from Christ as crucial to the exercise of faith.17 Marjorie O’Rourke Boyle argues that Luther’s presentation of faith as “dependent upon the apprehension” of truth intentionally draws on Stoic epistemology.18 Yet even as sensory knowledge plays a role in the pursuit of faith, Luther, again like the Stoics, sees this knowledge as insufficient. For the Stoics, virtue cannot be obtained without the work of human reason assisting the senses; for Luther, in contrast, faith ultimately requires God’s direct assistance in order to be realized. Luther emphasizes the conscience’s inadequacy to make accurate judgments about a moral agent’s actions on the basis of sensory knowledge alone. Through its own natural mechanisms, the conscience may recognize our sins but it will nonetheless uphold the flawed conviction that a human being can rectify sin without divine help. As Luther explains in Commentary on Galatians, although sin “brings with it the sting and remorse of conscience, still we suppose that it has so little weight and force that some

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Randall Zachman contends that Luther’s conscience has a “strongly empirical orientation:  it is oriented toward present, temporal things that are sensible and visible.” Randall C. Zachman (2005). The Assurance of Faith: Conscience in the Theology of Martin Luther and John Calvin. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, p. 21. Ibid., p. 24. Zachman contrasts Luther on this point to Augustine, who tends to treat the human will as the primary object of divine grace (p. 2). Marjorie O’Rourke Boyle (1983). Rhetoric and Reform:  Erasmus’s Civil Dispute with Luther. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 56.

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little work or merit of ours will remove it.”19 In order to achieve a true recognition of our moral limitations, the conscience must receive from God a proper understanding of humanity’s moral limitations and of the grace and forgiveness God offers in Jesus Christ. Faith has an intellectual dimension, as Stoic assent does, but Luther departs from the Stoics in arguing that the knowledge of God central to faith cannot be achieved solely through our natural capacities. A conception of virtue that prioritizes cognitive belief can easily give rise to a problematic kind of intellectual elitism. But the notion that Christian faith holds a necessary relation to Christian doctrine helps to secure this disposition’s foundation in the particular God revealed in Scripture. This connection is important because it safeguards a Protestant conception of faith against one possible concern that could be raised about an ethic that prioritizes faith over or obedience. Without a connection to particular cognitive commitments about God’s essential love and goodness, faith could be an act of blind obedience. Christians have faith in the God whose character is revealed and witnessed to in Scripture. Thus, Boyle stresses that Luther’s emphasis on its cognitive dimension leads him to a view of faith more properly equated with “confidence” than in the sort of “trust” that might imply risk taking. Faith, as she describes Luther’s position, is rooted in a “certain knowledge” and “certitude” regarding God’s character.20 A cognitively rooted faith does not support an ethic of uncritical obedience to an arbitrary and inaccessible deity. Instead, such faith gives rise to an ethic of trust based on a conviction that the God in whom one trusts, whose character is revealed in the person and work of Jesus Christ, is fundamentally goodness and love.

The moral dimension of faith While faith’s cognitive dimension thus helps to secure an ethic of consent from becoming an ethic of mere obedience, historical and contemporary 19 20

Luther, Commentary on Galatians, LW 26:33. Boyle (1983), pp. 53– 4, 63. Boyle’s efforts to defend Luther’s position are complicated by a line of argument in Luther that I highlight in Chapter 5: Luther leaves open the possibility that God’s hidden will may contradict God’s will revealed in Scriptures. Boyle’s argument here offers a possible starting point for ameliorating the concerns I will raise there, or at the very least points toward the ways in which Luther’s position is complex and at times inconsistent. Nevertheless, the concern about Luther’s account of the relation between God’s hidden will and revealed will should not be overlooked and Chapter 5 returns to this concern.

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Protestant theologians rightly recognize that an account of faith as exclusively intellectual would fail to capture faith’s richness and depth. James Gustafson contends that assessing faith’s import for ethics more properly focuses on “believing” rather than “belief” because the term “believing” better captures ways in which faith is “an experiential and affective component of life” involving multiple dimensions of human experience.21 Robert Adams speaks of the trusting dimension of faith as a vehicle through which humans maintain a right relationship with God: “What is the good of faith or trust? . . . as the world is actually set up, we have to have faith in God in order to be rightly related to him here and now.”22 Adams contends that in an ultimate sense, God requires our complete trust23 so that we can have a relationship with him that is authentic and personal,24 and this trust is essential to faith. This conception of faith as trust, articulated in terms strikingly similar to a Roman Stoic account of the moral dimension of assent, is likewise central for understanding faith in Luther, Calvin, and Edwards. While Luther’s account of faith prioritizes intellectual understanding, he simultaneously indicates that this intellectual belief is embodied in a form of trust in, or consent to, the ongoing work of Jesus Christ in a Christian’s life. In his Commentary on Galatians, Luther encourages the pursuit of “passive righteousness,” a righteousness attained simply through submitting oneself to Christ and accepting what Christ has done in us. This disposition is a certain kind of self-renunciation that stands in contrast to both “morality” and “works,” through which humans problematically attempt to pursue good actions apart from God.25 Luther develops an argument in The Freedom of a Christian that even more explicitly associates faith with a disposition similar to the willful dimension of Stoic virtuous assent. Through faith, Luther explains, the human soul “trusts God’s promises” and therefore “consents” to God’s “will.” Such consent involves a radical trust that renounces our own volition. Recognizing God’s “truthfulness, righteousness, and whatever else should be ascribed to one who is trusted,” the soul “hallows his name and 21

22 23

24 25

James M. Gustafson (1977). Can Ethics Be Christian? Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 64, 45. Adams (1987), p. 20. “God demands of us the greatest trust, the acceptance of the most complete dependence. In death he confronts each of us with a total loss of control over our own destiny” (Ibid., p. 22). Ibid., pp. 22–3. Luther, Commentary on Galatians, LW 26:7.

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allows itself to be treated according to God’s good pleasure for, clinging to God’s promises, it does not doubt that he who is true, just, and wise will do, dispose, and provide all things well.”26 Luther contends here that trust in divine providence is one essential means through which justified Christians live out their faith. Whereas these passages indicate that Luther makes some effort to present faith as a disposition of the will as well as the intellect, Calvin and Edwards more clearly and consistently emphasize the ways in which faith, like Stoic assent, involves both the intellect and the overall character of an individual, which Calvin associates with the “heart.”27 Calvin explains that for Christians to embrace the word of God fully, “the mind must be enlightened, and the heart confirmed.”28 While Calvin recognizes that Scripture sometimes aligns faith with “understanding” or “knowledge,”29 he adamantly argues, to a degree that surpasses Luther, that intellectual belief in God does not sufficiently describe the nature of Christian faith. He criticizes “the Schoolmen” for aligning faith with a belief in God “devoid of the fear of God.”30 They are in error, he explains, to think of faith as “bare simple assent of the understanding  .  .  . overlooking confidence and security of heart,” because true “faith is something higher than human understanding.”31 Mere cognitive belief is not “true faith,” but simply a “shadow or image of faith . . . unworthy of the name.”32 In developing this argument that faith exceeds mere intellectual belief, Calvin demonstrates an understanding of the nature of “assent” very much in keeping with the Stoics’ account of virtuous assent. Rather than defending his view by arguing that faith is not simply a matter of intellectual assent, Calvin instead contends that assent itself is not merely an intellectual act. He maintains that a Scriptural understanding of assent “consists in pious affection.” 26 27

28 29 30 31 32

Luther, Freedom of a Christian, LW 31:350. Barry G. Waugh considers a passage from Calvin’s Commentary on Romans that uses the phrase “mind and heart” to describe the extent of fallen humanity’s alienation from God’s righteousness. Waugh argues that Calvin couples the faculties of mind and heart to emphasize original sin’s impact on a Christian’s full character or being. “The terms ‘mind and heart’ are used to express the totality of man’s separation from God and the need for a complete redemption.” Barry G. Waugh (2010). “Reason within the Limits of Revelation Alone:  John Calvin’s Understanding of Human Reason.” Westminster Theological Journal 72: 1–21, at 15. Calvin, Institutes, 3.2.7, p. 360. Calvin, Institutes, 3.2.14, p. 365. Ibid., 3.2.8, p. 360. Ibid., 3.2.33, p. 377. Ibid., 3.2.10, p. 361.

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Faith and assent are equivalent for Calvin, and “assent itself . . . is more a matter of the heart than the head, of the affection than the intellect.”33 Just as Stoic assent involves a consent of the prohairesis (that is, the person’s moral faculty) to God’s providence, so does Calvin’s understanding of the assent associated with faith involve the activity of the whole moral person. Faith, like assent, is a disposition that shapes a moral agent’s overall character. Calvin underscores this point by contending that faith must be internalized. While faith, on Calvin’s view, is partly constituted by a “certainty” regarding God’s mercy that can be contrasted with the “unbelief” toward which humans are prone,34 this faith is only authentic if it is made part of an agent’s inner being. Calvin argues that we need to make God’s “promises of mercy … ours by inwardly embracing them.”35 By accepting and embracing God’s promises of mercy, we can seek the growth in our hearts of belief in God.36 This internalized belief gives rise to feelings of “full assurance . . . an assurance which leaves no doubt that the goodness of God is clearly offered to us.”37 Scripture, Calvin notes, “uniformly attributes” these feelings of assurance to faith.38 “Confidence” in God’s mercy is thus a crucial component of faith.39 Calvin explains that we cannot have assurance “without truly perceiving its sweetness, and experiencing it in ourselves.”40 Assurance gives rise to confidence, a term that can be seen as “equivalent” to faith, and this assurance is expressed in “boldness,” an ability and eagerness to “appear calmly in the presence of God.”41 Like Calvin, Edwards stresses the internalized character of faith. While faith plays a discrete role in conversion, Edwards also presents faith as a disposition that a justified Christian sustains over time as an essential part of the Christian life. Edwards’s sermon “Persevering Faith” and treatise Justification by Faith treat faith as an attribute that abides in a Christian. Edwards explains that Paul’s letter to the Hebrews alludes to the notion of “persevering faith” precisely because salvation presumes and requires 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

Ibid., 3.2.8, p. 360. Calvin, Institutes, 3.2.15, p. 365. Ibid., 3.2.16, p. 365. Ibid., 3.2.10, p. 361. Ibid., 3.2.15, p. 365. Ibid. Ibid., 3.17.11, p. 535. Ibid., 3.2.15, p. 365. Ibid.

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extended expressions of faith: “In order to salvation, ‘tis necessary that persons should believe and trust in Christ in a persevering way.”42 He likewise maintains that justification occurs not simply through a single act (or the “first act”) of faith, but more fully through an expression of faith as a continual disposition, the “perseverance of faith.”43 These arguments suggest that Paul Ramsey is right to affirm that Edwards holds a belief in an “abiding faith” that remains in the heart of a Christian whom love has brought into union with God.44 Edwards’s discussion of “spiritual knowledge” in Treatise on Religious Affections further illuminates his understanding of faith as an activity of mind and heart. Edwards argues in this text that the religious affections central to virtue are rooted in an intellectual recognition of God’s goodness, a recognition that is cognitive but that simultaneously captivates the person’s being. “All truly gracious affections,” he affi rms, “proceed” from a “knowledge of divine things.”45 They “arise from the enlightening of the understanding to understand the things that are taught of God and Christ, in a new manner.”46 In contrast to the passions, which are sudden impulses that problematically overpower the mind,47 affections are deeply logical, having a close relation both to the understanding and to the will, or heart.48 It is fitting for humans to love God because, Edwards explains, God’s nature is infi nitely excellent and worthy of love. An intellectual recognition of God’s holiness provides a starting point from which virtuous love to God emerges.49 Edwards maintains that this “spiritual knowledge” through which we apprehend God50 is not solely a rational recognition of God’s goodness; it is feasible, Edwards explains, that some people might intellectually recognize God’s goodness without being moved by it. True spiritual knowledge of God, the knowledge that gives rise to religious affections, is a perception of the moral beauty of God’s goodness.51 As Leon Chai 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

49 50 51

Edwards, “Persevering Faith,” WJE 19:605. Edwards, Justification by Faith, WJE 19:206–7; see also WJE 19:360. Paul Ramsey, “Editor’s Introduction,” in WJE 8:103. Edwards, Religious Affections, WJE 2:275. Ibid., WJE 2:267–8. Ibid., WJE 2:98. Ibid., WJE 2: 96–97. Chapter 6 returns to Edwards’s account of the affections and considers them in more depth. Edwards, Religious Affections, WJE 2:242–3. Ibid., WJE 2:281. Ibid., WJE 2:264.

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puts it, this perception causes an “attraction,” an “inclination or desire” in the individual who observes God.52 The faith implicit in this account of spiritual knowledge is thus rooted in the intellect, but is more fully realized as the human will inclines toward God— underscoring both its close relation to love and its continuity with Stoic assent as a volitional disposition of trust in God. Early in Religious Affections, Edwards aligns affections with the will and says that the two are not distinct faculties,53 which suggests that affections occur through some measure of volition and intentionality. Edwards says later in the text that the affections to which spiritual knowledge gives rise are most properly located in the will because they are a dispositional response to our spiritual knowledge of God’s moral beauty.54 These affections, like lesser affections, are “habitual dispositions” through which humans approve and like something or reject and oppose it.55 Ultimately, Edwards identifies two affections—love to God and joy in Christ—as primary.56 These are affections “by which the soul is carried out to what is in view [in this case, God], cleaving to it, or seeking it.”57 But even as love to God is the “fountain” of the other affections,58 virtuous love itself follows from a perception of divine goodness that establishes the very conditions that bring this love about. We love God and God’s creatures and desire their good because we have first come to trust God and to revere God’s excellence.59 This trust, or faith, is sustained in the Christian life and informs and shapes a Christian’s character.

Faith and virtue Although Protestant theologians have historically been reluctant to designate faith as a virtue, the accounts of faith at work in Luther, Calvin, and Edwards suggest that faith possesses several attributes characteristic of a virtue. A virtue is a sustained character trait that benefits its possessor by making its 52

53 54 55 56 57 58 59

Leon Chai (1998). Jonathan Edwards and the Limits of Enlightenment Philosophy. New  York : Oxford University Press, p. 31. Ibid., WJE 2:97. Ibid., WJE 2:281–2. Ibid., WJE 2:98. Edwards, Religious Affections, WJE 2:94–95. Ibid., WJE 2:98. Ibid., WJE 2:106. Ibid., WJE 2:146– 47.

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possessor in some way “good,” and a virtue is partly constitutive of the end or purpose for which humans exist. Each of these qualities of a virtue is in some sense present in a Protestant conception of faith, particularly as faith is lived out after justification. Faith is not merely an isolated act; instead, its acquisition reorients one’s character and provides a starting point for growth in a moral disposition that is sustained over time. Moreover, although faith cannot precisely be called “good” because it is an attribute more appropriate to humans (who are inherently sinful) than to God (who alone is good), it is crucial that humans pursue faith for their own well being. Faith can therefore be designated as a qualified good appropriate to human nature. Moreover, faith benefits human beings by directing them toward the purpose for which God created them. God creates for the purpose of furthering God’s glory, and faith restores a relationship between a Christian and God that allows Christians to glorify God through their being and actions. Moreover, not only is it appropriate to argue that Christian faith possesses an objective measure of goodness, but faith’s role in salvation also gives it a unique value in the Christian life. Like Stoic virtue, a Protestant understanding of faith is a good distinct from all other apparent goods. Gerald McDermott makes this point in relation to Edwards’s theology, observing that faith is, for Edwards, the only moral attribute that “can stand alone” in the Christian life. Faith is “the only condition for salvation,” and although saving faith produces Christian virtues, faith does not require these virtues to be sufficient for salvation.60 A Protestant commitment to faith’s sufficiency for salvation necessarily gives faith an unsurpassable value that differentiates it from other possible goods. Luther insists upon the unsurpassable value of faith to a degree that somewhat exceeds Calvin and Edwards. In The Freedom of a Christian, Luther presents faith as the singular and uniquely good quality on which all other goods depend: “God our Father has made all things depend on faith so that whoever has faith will have everything, and whoever does not have faith will have nothing.”61 Faith allows Christians to fulfill God’s commandments, and justifying faith brings about this possibility decisively:  “faith alone is the 60

61

Gerald McDermott (2007). “Jonathan Edwards on Justification by Faith—More Protestant or Catholic?” Pro Ecclesia 17.1: 92–111, at 102–3. McDermott draws on Miscellany 518 to make this argument. Luther, Freedom of a Christian, LW 31:349.

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righteousness of a Christian and the fulfilling of all the commandments, for he who fulfills the First Commandment has no difficulty in fulfilling all the rest . . . The commandments must be fulfi lled before any works can be done, and the works proceed from the fulfilling of the commandments.”62 Strikingly, as Luther develops this argument about the unique value of faith, he echoes the Stoics in maintaining specifically that external goods add no value to the Christian righteousness associated with faith. Luther contends that Christian righteousness radically affects the “inner” person and does not depend on external conditions such as health or experiences of pleasure. Only the word of God “is necessary for Christian life, righteousness, and freedom.”63 The unique value of faith distinguishes it from other human experiences so that other experiences (even works of the soul, such as “contemplation” and “meditation”64) cannot add to it. Faith is both necessary and sufficient for Christian righteousness, just as Stoic virtue is both necessary and sufficient for human flourishing. One of the most well known claims Luther develops to secure faith’s unique goodness is his rejection of a position he associates with Scholastic theology, the idea that Christian righteousness consists in “faith active in love.” While he appears to support a form of this claim in The Freedom of a Christian,65 his later Commentary on Galatians expresses concern that certain conceptions of faith’s relation to love could undermine faith’s basic independence from other goods. Luther defends faith’s intrinsic value and inherent righteousness, contending that love may follow from faith but does not increase the righteousness of faith; faith has inherent righteousness.66 He criticizes those who believe that love is the “form” of faith, arguing that this position presumes that “faith, that miserable virtue, would be a sort of unformed chaos … a purely passive material. This is blasphemous and satanic; it calls men away from Christian doctrine, from Christ the Mediator . . . For if love is the form of faith, then I am immediately obliged to say that love is the most important and the largest part in the Christian religion.”67 Luther goes on to explain that when love is 62 63 64 65

66 67

Ibid., LW 31:353. Ibid., LW 31:345. Ibid., LW 31:345. At one point in this text Luther affi rms that in a “truly Christian life,” faith will indeed be “truly active through love” and other works. Ibid., LW 31: 365. Luther, Commentary on Galatians, LW 26:269. Ibid., LW 26:270.

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prioritized above faith, we privilege “a moral kind of ‘doing’ ” over the being or relationality of faith.68 While love may follow from faith, then, Luther is clear that faith is certainly complete without love and superior to love. Luther thus attributes to faith a kind of goodness that is unique among possible goods, a goodness similar to the unique value the Stoics attribute to virtue. In developing this position, Luther goes further than either Calvin or Edwards in elevating faith within the Christian life. But an ethic that isolates faith from love could give rise to a number of problems. The first is that love, on such an account, is reduced to a narrow trust, as Daphne Hampson has argued. Hampson suggests that Lutheran theology so prioritizes faith at love’s expenses that it promotes a diminished account of love as merely a small component of faith akin to trust. Lutheran theology, she contends, presents the individual as so fully cleaving to God that “apart from God there is no [human] self” who can take part in the interpersonal and “dialogical” exchange with God that constitutes mutual love.69 A  second problem with isolating faith from love is that this separation threatens to sever a close tie between love to God and love for one’s neighbors. While Stoic concern for others differs in essential ways from Christian love, a consideration of Stoic assent nonetheless presents a constructive model for recognizing the value of a logical and necessary relation between trust in the divine and a concern for other human beings. For the Stoics, these dispositions are interrelated because a human being lives out virtuous assent through assuming the point of view of the universe, a perspective that promotes understandings of the myriad ways in which human beings are part of a single household. A Stoic moral agent who exercises virtuous assent will, in embodying this assent, seek a union with divine providence that leads her to exercise an impartial and universal love for other beings in the world. The moral dimension of Stoic assent necessarily fosters a spirit of kinship with others that a moral agent expresses in universal concern. Likewise, a Christian account of faith as both cognitive and moral cannot be sustained unless love necessarily follows from this faith. Authentic faith prompts a love for God that necessarily extends to God’s created order, a love that is universal in character. A conception of faith

68 69

Ibid., LW 26:270. Daphne Hampson (2001). Christian Contradictions:  The Structures of Lutheran and Catholic Thought New York : Cambridge University Press, pp. 246 –7.

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as mere cognitive belief might not necessarily engender love, but the connection between genuine consent to God and love for God’s creation is more “inseverable.”

Virtuous faith embodied in love Both Calvin and Edwards put forth accounts of the relation between faith and love that underscore faith’s centrality for a Protestant virtue ethic but that also clarify that faith must be aligned and integrated with love. Ultimately, an understanding of faith necessarily embodied in love more adequately represents the core of a Protestant virtue ethic than does a virtue ethic that isolates faith from love. Faith is the foundation and starting point for a virtuous life, and this life, in turn, is constituted by and reinscribed through an integrated complex of faith and love. For Calvin, faith engenders love and is inseparable from love and hope. Edwards, in turn, aligns virtue more overtly with love than with faith but makes clear that faith serves as a necessary foundation for the exercise of truly virtuous love. Both Luther and Calvin understand faith to affect the relation between God and humans, as does Stoic assent. Both thinkers also make clear that faith, in contrast to Stoic virtue, is a gift from God rather than something that humans can pursue through proper formation of their natural faculties.70 Calvin departs from Luther, however, in maintaining a necessary relation between faith and love, arguing for a unity among faith, hope, and love. Nevertheless, while this position is a clear departure from Luther’s argument in Commentary on Galatians, Calvin shares with Luther an understanding of faith as having priority within the Christian life. He criticizes the Scholastic elevation of love or charity over faith, noting that faith is a necessary foundation for love: “For what the Schoolmen say as to the priority of love to faith and hope is a mere dream . . . since it is faith alone that first engenders love.”71 While faith cannot be detached from love and hope, both love and hope depend on faith.

70

71

Calvin argues that faith is “revealed to our minds, and sealed on our hearts, by the Holy Spirit” (Institutes 3.2.7, p. 360). Ibid., 3.2.41, p. 382.

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In criticizing the Scholastic distinction between formed and unformed faith, Calvin argues that in true faith, the Holy Spirit brings about a reconciliation between God and humans that is deeply tied to love.72 As the Holy Spirit enables humans to see God’s goodness (if only in part) in a manner that exceeds the evidence of goodness in the created order, a human mind that has been illuminated will necessarily feel intense love for God. Indeed, Calvin suggests that love for God necessarily follows from faith: But how can the mind rise to such a perception and foretaste of the divine goodness, without being at the same time wholly inflamed with love to God? The abundance of joy which God has treasured up for those who fear him cannot be truly known without making a most powerful impression. He who is thus once affected is raised and carried entirely toward him.73

Love, then, cannot be understood apart from faith and depends on faith for its generation. At the same time, because this faith is spontaneous, faith cannot be detached from love, as it seems that it can be (at least in a theoretical sense) for Luther. Faith and love exist in unity in the Christian life. Calvin is also adamant that faith and hope exist in unity, noting that because of the “affinity” between faith and hope, “Scripture sometimes confounds the two terms.”74 His characterization of the relation between the two virtues is consistent with his account of faith’s relation to love. Faith is the “foundation” for hope, as it is for love, and “of itself [faith] beget[s] and manifest[s]” hope;75 yet, also as with love, faith and hope cannot be detached. Calvin explains that “wherever this living faith exists, it must have the hope of eternal life as its inseparable companion,” and that if we lack hope, then we do not have faith: “where [hope] is wanting, however clearly and elegantly we may discourse of faith, it is certain we have it not.”76 Calvin’s affirmation of the inseparability of faith and hope suggests that faith may generate hope

72

73 74 75 76

Hence Calvin explains: “They insist that faith is an assent with which any despiser of God may receive what is delivered by Scripture. But we must first see whether anyone can by his own strength acquire faith, or whether the Holy Spirit, by means of it, becomes the witness of adoption. Hence it is childish trifl ing in them to inquire whether the faith formed by the supervening quality of love be the same, or a different and new faith. By talking in this style, they show plainly that they have never thought of the special gift of the Spirit; since one of the fi rst elements of faith is reconciliation implied in man’s drawing near to God” (Institutes 3.2.8, p. 360). Ibid., 3.2.41, p. 382. Ibid., 3.2.43, p. 383 Ibid., 3.2.42, p. 382 Calvin, Institutes, 3.2.42, p. 382

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spontaneously, as with love. At the very least, a Christian’s continued faith depends on hope insofar as hope “nourishes and sustains” faith, “refreshes” faith, and gives faith vigor.77 Whereas both Luther and Calvin speak expressly against an account of the Christian life that prizes love above faith, Edwards develops an ethic that at first glance appears to elevate love above faith. In The Nature of True Virtue, Edwards clearly aligns true virtue with benevolence, a general love for God and the created world as a whole.78 In contrast, in Miscellany 712, Edwards distinguishes faith from virtue by designating faith as an instantiation of “natural goodness,” a category that he employs to distinguish genuine virtue from lesser goods (such as justice and partial loves) that fail to partake fully in the moral goodness reserved for true virtue.79 Faith, Edwards explains in Miscellany 712, is a human quality “that is really and spiritually good, that is prior in the order of nature to justification.”80 Faith’s goodness is tied to its status as the condition for salvation and consists in its having a “natural fitness,”81 or a “natural agreement and congruity,”82 with the relationship with Christ into which justification draws us.83 In describing faith’s goodness in terms of its “natural suitableness” to salvation, Edwards underscores his rejection of the idea that faith possesses any “moral suitableness” or moral goodness in itself.84 Yet while Edwards clearly characterizes love as the primary virtue, his account of true virtue, or Christian love, makes clear that faith is a disposition deeply important to, and indeed definitive for, the Christian life as Edwards understands it. A close reading of Charity and Its Fruits, a collection 77 78 79

80 81 82 83

84

Ibid., 3.2.42, pp. 382–3. Edwards, The Nature of True Virtue, WJE 8: 550–5. For further discussion of Edwards’s designation of justice and partial loves as forms of “natural goodness,” see Elizabeth Agnew Cochran (2011). Receptive Human Virtues: A Reading of Jonathan Edwards’s Ethics. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, pp. 152–7. Miscellany 712, WJE 18: 341. Miscellany 714, WJE 18: 345. Miscellany 712, WJE 18: 341. “Faith in its very nature and essence consist in nothing else but a direct according, suiting or closing of the soul with the Savior and his salvation, especially that which may be called fundamental actual salvation, viz. justification by Christ. Though there be an agreeableness between other particular grades and salvation, yet suiting and closing with salvation is not their immediate business, and that wherein the proper nature and essence of them consists, as ‘tis in faith” (Miscellany 714, WJE 18:345). “God’s bestowing Christ and his benefits on a soul in consequence of faith, out of regard only to the natural suitableness that there is between such a qualification of a soul, and such a union with Christ and interest in Christ, makes the case very widely different from what would be if he bestowed these things from regard to any moral suitableness” (Miscellany 712, WJE 18:341).

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of sermons on 1 Corinthians 13, indicates that Edwards, like Calvin (and somewhat in contrast to Luther), closely aligns faith with love in a manner that underscores the integral relations among cognitive recognition of divine providence, trust in God, and a true consent of one’s heart to God that Edwards associates with love. Stoic assent involves both intellectual apprehension and a volitional approval of God that draws a moral agent into the broader workings of divine providence. Edwards’s virtue likewise couples spiritual understanding and trust with a consent of one’s heart to God. Charity and Its Fruits develops an account of faith as a disposition that Christians should seek to live out and cultivate in conjunction with their formation in virtuous love. Edwards’s opening sermon, which focuses on love as the sum of all virtue, characterizes faith as a disposition that is inauthentic if detached from love, echoing Calvin’s argument that faith necessarily generates love. Edwards distinguishes between “speculative faith,” an expression of cognitive belief in God, and a “practical faith” that is “true and saving.” Just as Stoic assent involves cognitive belief and a willful expression of trust, so does salvific faith, as Edwards understands it here, unite an “assent” of the understanding with a “consent” of the heart. This salvific faith has a moral dimension through which the soul “accepts and embraces” Christ as savior. Yet Edwards simultaneously suggests that a genuine Christian faith must unite this “act of choice” with a “true spiritual consent of the heart.” At times, he aligns the term “consent” with faith, but more often he speaks of consent as love itself.85 In Charity and Its Fruits, Edwards makes clear that “true spiritual consent of the heart” is love, and Edwards indicates that this consent or love is itself a dimension of authentic faith that makes it genuine: A speculative faith consists only in assent; but in a saving faith are assent and consent together. That faith which has only the assent of the understanding is no better faith than the devils have . . . Now the true spiritual consent of the heart cannot be distinguished from the love of the heart. He whose heart consents to Christ as a Savior loves Christ . . . For the heart sincerely to consent to the way of salvation by Christ cannot be distinguished

85

McDermott notes that Miscellanies 669 and 670 characterize faith as a “ ‘comprehensive’ term for the disposition of consent to Christ that by virtue of union with Christ entails every other Christian fruit” (2007, p. 103). But “consent” to being is a notion central to Edwards’s account of true virtue, or Christian love, in The Nature of True Virtue (see WJE 8:540–1), and we see below that Edwards identifies consent as love in Charity and Its Fruits as well.

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from loving the way of salvation by Christ. There is an act of choice or election in true or saving faith, whereby the soul chooses Christ for its Savior, and accepts and embraces him as such. But as was observed before, election whereby it chooses God and Christ is one act of love. It is a love of choice. In the soul’s embracing Christ as a Savior there is love.86

True Christian faith, Edwards explains, requires not simply that a moral agent gives intellectual assent to a propositional belief in God, but more fully that this belief is realized in a love that chooses Christ for a savior. Love is the actualizing principle of a genuine Christian faith: “The working, acting nature of anything is the life of it . . . The thing by which faith works is love. It is love that is the active working spirit which is in true faith.”87 Edwards makes clear that a faith that goes beyond mere intellectual understanding is central to the Christian life. Christians are to “live by faith,” and they do this properly through linking faith and love.88 The relation between love and faith that this sermon describes could suggest that love is more central to Christianity than is faith, a position that Luther and Calvin would reject. However, a subsequent sermon stresses that love depends on faith so that faith is its foundation. Consistently with a Stoic account of virtue as unified, Edwards explains that it is appropriate to think of all the “graces of Christianity” as interdependent and mutually connected. Faith and love support each other’s growth and development, and a diminishment of one quality damages the other: “All the graces of Christianity always go together, so that where there is one, there are all; and when one is wanting, all are wanting. Where there is faith, there is love and hope and humility. Where there is love, there is also trust; and where there is a holy trust in God, there is love to God.”89 Edwards goes on to say that faith promotes love, even as love is essential to an authentic faith. Love therefore “depends” on faith even as it reinforces faith: Faith promotes love, and love is the most essential ingredient in a saving faith. And love tends to promote and cherish faith . . . Love is dependent on faith. For a being cannot be truly loved, and especially loved above all other beings, which is not looked upon as a real being. And again love cherishes 86 87 88 89

Charity and Its Fruits, WJE 8:139. Ibid., WJE 8:140. Ibid., WJE 8:141. Charity and Its Fruits, WJE 8:328.

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and promotes faith, because those whom we love we are more apt to believe and give credit to, and disposed to trust in.90

The mutual interdependence of faith and love shows that faith is necessary for the pursuit of love. Although Edwards’s ethic aligns virtue with love, then, he also contends that love depends on faith, underscoring the centrality of faith for his overall vision of the moral life. An affirmation of a close relation between faith and love need not follow the Scholastic formula of faith as a formed by love, nor would such a model be true to Luther’s and Calvin’s explicit rejection of this formula. Protestant faith, like Stoic assent, is the unified good that constitutes the core of virtue, and love plays a supporting and sustaining role. Nevertheless, it is imperative that the connection between faith and love be affirmed, because authentic trust in God alters a moral agent’s self-understanding in a manner that necessarily reorders her loves and gives her the capacity to love other persons as creatures of God. If faith were merely cognitive, it would have no necessary effect on an individual’s loving. But the consenting dimension of faith fosters a desire to be conformed to Christ’s character, and Christ is essentially and wholly love itself. Consent to God retains a necessary relation to love for God and love for God’s creatures, a relation that the structure of Stoic assent implicitly underscores.

Conclusion An understanding of faith and love as interdependent, even as faith is primary, is ultimately crucial to articulating the disposition at the center of Protestant virtue ethics. A  faith that consists in mere cognitive belief less clearly benefits its possessor and less clearly brings about the capacity for relationship with God for which God intends human beings. Moreover, love contributes directly to a moral agent’s ability to sustain and embody faith over an extended time. Detachment from love tends toward an account of faith that is diminished insofar as it overly emphasizes cognitive belief, and it also makes it difficult to sustain the claim that faith functions as a virtue.

90

Ibid., WJE 8:329.

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Yet even as faith retains a kind of interdependence with love, it holds a primary place in the moral life that makes it a necessary foundation for all possible moral goods. Luther, Calvin, and Edwards develop an account of faith as a sustained disposition of trust in God central to the Christian life, and this faith lies at the heart of Protestant virtue. The similarities between Stoic assent and these theological accounts of faith underscore faith’s moral dimension: faith is a disposition of radical and willful consent to God. The exercise of faith shapes a Christian’s character in a manner that orients her toward God and toward the end for which she was created. When this moral dimension of faith is firmly secured through a clear relation to love, this embodied faith functions as a virtue central to a Christian’s being and character, a good that defines their relationship with God, and their moral capacities.

4

Conversion, Transformation, and Christian Progress: Protestant Soteriology and the Formation of Moral Character

Chapter 3 developed an account of Christian faith as a virtue with pride of place in the moral life. While this faith is necessarily connected to both hope and love, faith is simultaneously uniquely determinative of a Christian’s status before God and, likewise, uniquely grounds their moral capacities. Luther, Calvin, and Edwards couple this account of faith with a conception of moral formation in which justification plays a central role in transforming a moral agent from a person fully enslaved to sin to a person with capacities to pursue moral goodness. In justification, a human being is forgiven and her relationship with God is restored through the imputation of Jesus Christ’s perfect and complete righteousness. A justified Christian experiences an ontological shift that defines her status before God and equips her with capabilities for moving toward virtue that she lacks prior to justification. At the same time, justification does not make an individual completely virtuous or morally good. Thus, while faith is uniquely and decisively transformative and is fully present to the Christian in justification, the moral goodness associated with faith exists only in potentia for a justified Christian. This chapter builds on Luther, Calvin, and Edwards to develop a view of moral formation appropriate to a soteriology that requires a conception of faith as a perfect good while simultaneously allowing for the possibility of growth in virtue (a virtue that we have seen is closely aligned with faith) throughout the Christian life. Attention to the Stoics enriches our reflection on the characteristic shape of such a view of moral formation. Consideration of Stoic and Reformed

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ethics points toward two structural points of similarity between Reformed soteriology and a Stoic view of the process through which virtue is acquired. First, Stoic virtue is, as Marcia L. Colish puts it and as we saw in Chapter 2, an “all-or-nothing” affair,1 just as Christian salvation (and the justifying faith associated with it) is something that an individual necessarily either possesses or lacks. Second, as a consequence of this all-or-nothing approach to morality, Stoic moral thought and Protestant theology both allow for the (at least theoretical) possibility of moral transformation to occur through a discrete, decisive, and even instantaneous shift in one’s personal identity and moral status. This possibility of radical and sudden transformation defies overly mechanistic or causal accounts of moral formation, so that one cannot strictly prescribe or predict conditions that will make someone virtuous. For Christian theology, this conviction helps to secure God’s necessary and decisive role in fostering the development of good moral character. God is the agent who transforms us from sinner to redeemed Christian and who gives Christians new moral capacities. At the same time, despite these points of structural continuity between Stoic ethics and Reformed theology, the attention Luther, Calvin, and Edwards show to moral progress after conversion is a departure from the Stoics. This departure is instructive for clarifying the nature of moral formation in the Christian life. While Luther, Calvin, and Edwards reject the possibility of moral growth prior to conversion, they allow for, and indeed insist upon, the possibility of gradual growth in faith subsequent to conversion. The possibility of such moral progress provides a space in which human beings can authentically express and embody moral agency, although Luther and Calvin resist drawing out this potential. At the same time, Christian moral progress has a distinctive shape. While gradual, it is not linear; instead, Christian progress places priority on the gift of Christ’s complete and perfect righteousness received by the Christian in justification and thus involves a certain kind of return to one’s own conversion to God and a growth in dispositions that are in a certain sense perfectly present in justification. The resulting account of moral formation is a Christian conception of growth in virtue, grounded in theological emphases particularly characteristic of 1

Marcia L. Colish (1985), The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, 2  vols. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1:44.

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historical Protestant thought.2 In different ways, this Protestant model prioritizes justification’s central role in shaping a Christian’s moral character while simultaneously allowing for authentic moral growth. This chapter lays out the nature and character of the moral formation associated with Christian progress and argues that the model of progress put forth in Luther, Calvin, and Edwards offers a starting point for conceptualizing a receptive and participatory account of human moral agency. Chapter 5 will build on this concluding argument to provide more concrete contours for a Protestant understanding of moral agency embodied in the cultivation of particular interrelated moral dispositions.

Transformative conversion Conversion (often used interchangeably with “justification”) is an occurrence that dramatically transforms a person’s identity. Historical Protestant theology characteristically adheres to a stance on original sin that denies that a postlapsarian human will can meaningfully pursue the good apart from the particular infusion of divine grace associated with conversion.3 Luther, Calvin, and Edwards affirm that conversion establishes a new identity in 2

3

Both James Gustafson and Daphne Hampson contrast versions of this model of the moral life (which they associate with Luther specifically) with a more linear account of moral formation characteristic of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Gustafson contends that Luther represents a “shift in paradigm” from Thomas Aquinas’s understanding of the moral life as exitus et reditus toward a focus on a person’s trust, or lack of trust, in God. James Gustafson (1978). Protestant and Catholic Ethics: Prospects for Rapprochement. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 8, 13. Hampson develops a similar argument contrasting Catholicism’s linear model of moral development with Luther’s dialectical account of moral growth. She contends that Catholicism and Lutheranism understand the structure of Christian faith in fundamentally different ways, even as these traditions share some of the same philosophical influences. The “essence” of Lutheranism, she argues, is “structured by a dialectic” centered around faith and sin as two contrasting modes of relating to God. Daphne Hampson (2001). Christian Contradictions: The Structures of Lutheran and Catholic Thought. New York : Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–2 . Th is account of original sin’s effects is especially emphasized in Reformed thinkers such as Luther, Calvin, and Edwards, but extends beyond this tradition to theologians such as John Wesley, who argues that human acts prior to justification cannot properly be called “good.” “All truly ‘good works’ (to use the words of our Church) ‘follow after justification’; and they are therefore good and ‘acceptable to God in Christ,’ because they ‘spring out of a true and living faith.’ By a parity of reason, all ‘works done before justification are not good,’ in the Christian sense, ‘forasmuch as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ . . . yea, rather, for that they are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done, we doubt not’ (how strange soever it may appear to some) ‘but that they have the nature of sin’ ” (Wesley, Justification by Faith, III.5). Oliver Crisp likewise contends that Arminians such as Wesley are careful not to argue that “the will of a fallen individual contributes in any substantive way to salvation.” Oliver Crisp (2014). Deviant Calvinism: Broadening Reformed Theology. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, pp. 27–8.

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Christians in two interrelated ways:  first, it restores their relationship with God in a manner that changes their status before God; and second, it equips them with moral capabilities that are lacking in persons who have not undergone conversion. Before explicating this transformation more fully, however, it is important briefly to consider the mechanics of conversion.

Conversion as event, conversion as process A conception of conversion as dramatically or radically transformative might seem to imply that conversion is a sudden and instantaneous event that takes place at a precise and identifiable moment. However, while such a view of conversion is clearly present in a number of Protestant positions, particularly those associated with historical contexts in which revivals were commonplace, Oliver Crisp argues that evangelical Protestant theology allows for multiple ways of thinking about the acquisition of faith. Some models present conversion as a “dramatic change,” and others present conversion as a “process of discovery” and “reflection.”4 Luther, Calvin, and Edwards speak of conversion in different ways at different points, at times describing it in terms appropriate to an instantaneous occurrence and at other times conceptualizing it as more of a process. This variability indicates that Luther, Calvin, and Edwards preserve at least the theoretical possibility that conversion is an instantaneous event but, to varying degrees, simultaneously wish to allow for a conception of conversion as accomplished over time. Of the three thinkers, Luther is most consistent in presenting justification as a discrete occurrence distinct in character from preceding events. Marjorie O’Rourke Boyle argues that Luther conceives justification as happening “all at once” and as “complete,” and that this account of justification is part of a broader strategy Luther adopts to challenge particular Scholastic ideas by deliberately employing the Stoics’ paradoxical account of good and evil, drawing upon Cicero’s Paradoxia Stoicorum.5 Boyle contends that Luther’s account of justification as instantaneous presumes a qualitative difference between faith and other goods consistent with the Stoics’ understanding of virtue as the only good. Moreover, she argues that Luther’s account of justification as 4 5

Crisp (2014), p. 33. Marjorie O’Rourke Boyle, “Stoic Luther:  Paradoxical Sin and Necessity.” Archiv fur Reformationsgeschichte 73 (1982): 69–93, at 77.

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complete reflects a Stoic understanding of good and evil as indivisible qualities that must be experienced in their entirety, an observation consistent with Luther’s understanding of the relation between faith and other goods. While Luther speaks in terms of a Pauline account of justification rather than a Stoic view of moral goodness, Boyle contends that Luther’s account of justification “nevertheless functions logically just as it had in Stoic theory.”6 Boyle’s characterization of Luther’s view of justification as instantaneous and complete is based partly on her reading of Luther’s account of his own conversion experience. As part of the preface to an edition of his works published in 1545, the year before his death, Luther wrote about his early experiences as a Christian and characterized his own conversion in a manner consistent with Stoic formation in virtue. As Boyle notes, Luther recounts a theological breakthrough that appears to occur suddenly and is qualitatively different from his prior experience. After meditating on a particular passage from Romans, Luther experienced an intellectual transformation, and observes, “This immediately made me feel as though I  had been born again, and as though I had entered through open gates into paradise itself.”7 Numerous scholars believe that Luther may have condensed events so that he is representing the date and precise details of this moment poetically,8 and Boyle acknowledges that some scholars argue that Luther’s enlightenment, “if it did occur in the ‘tower-experience,’ was prepared for gradually and widely by Luther’s preaching and teaching.”9 Nevertheless, Boyle insists that Luther’s understanding of the experience as “sudden and distinct from the preparatory process” is significant regardless of its historical accuracy.10 Certainly,

6

7

8 9 10

Boyle (1982), p. 75. As noted briefly in Chapter 1, Troels Engberg-Pedersen (2000) develops a line of argument that indirectly provides a different way of looking at the relation between Stoic thought and Luther’s account of justification. Engberg-Pedersen argues that a particular philosophical “model” of conversion “expresses the basic logical shape” of both Stoic and Pauline anthropology and ethics. There is therefore an “extensive area of overlap” between the traditions in the area of moral formation and the focus of the moral life (2000, pp. 33– 44). Th is argument suggests that continuity between Luther’s account of justification and Stoic accounts of formation could be attributed to Luther’s use of Scripture rather than to the deliberate and intentional use of Stoic paradoxes. In this case, similarities between Luther and the Stoics could be attributed to Luther’s engagement of received and transformed Stoic arguments in earlier Christian texts. Such an argument would not necessarily undermine Boyle’s contention regarding the structural or logical similarity between Lutheran justification and Stoic formation. Luther, selection from WA 54.185.12-186.21, reprinted in Alister McGrath (1985). Luther’s Theology of the Cross. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 95 –8, at 97. For further discussion see McGrath, pp. 98–9. Boyle (1982), p. 75. Ibid.

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Luther consistently affirms a qualitative difference between justifying faith and human works, and this qualitative difference is reiterated in Calvin and Edwards. Certain passages in Calvin’s later writings seem to present conversion as an instantaneous occurrence, in keeping with the reading of Luther that Boyle defends. It seems that during the 1550s, after the publication of the first edition of the Institutes, Calvin increasingly came to characterize conversion as a sudden event that God accomplishes in the life of an individual Christian. During this time, Calvin wrote commentaries on the Gospels and Acts, and his Commentary on Acts presents Paul’s dramatically transformative conversion there as an ideal model for understanding Christian conversion.11 In the preface to his 1557 Commentary on the Psalms, Calvin lifts up David as an exemplar for interpreting Calvin’s own story of conversion and entering ministry.12 The language he uses to describe his own personal narrative is consistent with the notion of conversion occurring suddenly and decisively: Calvin refers to a “sudden conversion” (subita conversio) through which God brought Calvin’s mind to “submission” (docilitas).13 Yet scholars are divided about how far these later discussion of conversion can be read as evidence that Calvin adheres to an instantaneous view of conversion. Even the use of subita in the Commentary on the Psalms—a less developed personal conversion narrative than that characteristic of many prominent seventeenth- and eighteenth-century evangelical Protestants14— may not definitively indicate that Calvin views conversion as a sudden occurrence.15 Moreover, at many points in his work, Calvin emphasizes a Christian’s potential for progress in a manner that points toward a view of conversion

11 12

13

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Alexandre Ganoczy (1988). The Young Calvin. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, pp. 248–9. Peter Wilcox also observes that “scholars commonly note . . . that the account appears calculated to make his own experience conform to a model exemplified by Paul, Augustine, and Luther.” Peter Wilcox (1997). “Conversion in the Thought and Experience of John Calvin.” Anvil 14.2: 113 –28, at 122. John Calvin (1557). Commentary on the Psalms. Trans. James Anderson. Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, volume 1, pp. 25 – 6. D. Bruce Hindmarsh (2005). The Evangelical Conversion Narrative: Spiritual Autobiography in Early Modern England. New York : Oxford University Press, pp. 25 – 6. William Bouwsma, for example, argues for a reading of subita that implies “unexpected” (and hence initiated completely by God) rather than “sudden.” William J. Bouwsma (1989). John Calvin:  A  Sixteenth Century Portrait. New  York :  Oxford University Press, pp. 10 –11. Wilcox helpfully makes reference to a number of discussions of this passage’s implications for Calvin’s view of conversion (p.122, n61).

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as taking place over time.16 Indeed, the majority of Calvin’s writings—albeit writings that were completed earlier than the 1557 Commentary on the Psalms—characterize conversion itself as a gradual process through which a Christian is formed in holiness, and reformed in God’s image, over time. In the Institutes, Calvin affirms that conversion has a beginning and a completion, indirectly describing it as a process rather than an instantaneous occurrence.17 This suggestion that conversion serves as a process is striking and has influenced a number of twentieth-century scholars, who emphasize the differences between Calvin’s process-centered view of conversion and a number of later evangelical positions.18 Like Calvin, Edwards uses both process- and event-oriented language to describe conversion. Michael McClymond and Gerald McDermott contend that Edwards’s tendency to view conversion and regeneration as a process rather than an instantaneous event becomes more pronounced as his thought progresses. They note that “in 1727, Edwards had asserted that regeneration occurs instantaneously,” but by 1740 he characterizes regeneration as a “gradual restoration of the image of God” through sanctification.19 In a manner characteristic of Edwards’s earlier work, his 1738 Justification by Faith Alone presents justification as more of an event, a transformative occurrence that changes a person’s status before God immediately and dramatically. In making the case that justification has no relation to human merit, Edwards affirms that justification changes an “ungodly or wicked” person into a being in right relation with God. He explains that “immediately before” a person is justified, “God beholds him only as an ungodly or wicked creature,” just as God miraculously bestows sight to a blind person and instantaneously removes

16

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19

“Th rough the blessing of Christ we are renewed by that regeneration into the righteousness of God from which we had fallen through Adam . . . Th is renewal, indeed, is not accomplished in a moment, a day, or a year, but by uninterrupted, sometimes even by slow progress God abolishes the remains of carnal corruption in his elect, cleanses them from pollution, and consecrates them as his temples, restoring all their inclinations to real purity” (Calvin, Institutes 3.3.9, p 391). Calvin, Institutes 2.3.6, p 182. David Steinmetz therefore suggests that Calvin’s view of conversion is most appropriately viewed as a pilgrimage. David Steinmetz (1978). “Reformation and Conversion,” Theology Today 35:  25 –32 , at 30. A. N. S. Lane likewise argues that “Calvin’s concept of conversion as a process” differentiates his position from the instantaneous accounts of conversion often associated with later evangelicals. A. N. S. Lane (1987). “Conversion: A Comparison of Calvin and Spener,” Themelios 13.1: 20. Michael J. McClymond and Gerald E. McDermott (2012). The Theology of Jonathan Edwards. New York : Oxford University Press, p. 401.

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the blindness.20 In this text, then, Edwards presents justification as a decisive, and in some ways necessarily instantaneous, shift in our moral status before God, a clear occasion in which a Christian receives God’s approval “as free from the guilt of sin” and as “having that righteousness belonging to him that entitles to the reward of life.”21 In turn, Edwards’s later understanding of conversion as an extended process originating in a discrete event is evident in his 1746 Religious Affections.22 Edwards develops an understanding of conversion as a process whose fruits are fully realized over time.23 This position is laid out particularly in Edwards’s account of the gifts justified Christians receive at conversion. Edwards explains that an individual receives particular “illuminations” and “affections” at “first conversion,” and these gifts are “transforming.” Subsequently to this first conversion, individuals receive other “transforming” affections that possess a “divine power and energy  .  .  . and affect and alter the very nature of the soul.” Edwards maintains that the grace of God continues to transform the human soul far beyond the initial moment of conversion, and this gradual transformation is itself part of conversion: “And a transformation of nature is continued and carried on by them, to the end of life; till it is brought to perfection in glory. Hence the progress of the work of grace in the hearts of the saints, is represented in Scripture, as a continued conversion and renovation of nature.”24 In keeping with Calvin, then, Edwardsean conversion is partly accomplished in a Christian’s gradual growth in holiness and not simply, or exclusively, spontaneously resolved.

20 21 22

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Edwards, Justification by Faith Alone, WJE 19:147. Ibid., WJE 19:150. Roger Ward argues that Religious Affections lays out the dynamics of conversion within the life of the saints and presents conversion as a process through which Christians are dynamically drawn more fully into relation with God. See Roger Ward (2004). Conversion in American Philosophy:  Exploring the Process of Transformation. New  York :  Fordham University Press, pp. 10 –11. McClymond and McDermott suggest that Edwards’s later view of conversion problematically blurs the line between justification and sanctification so that justification in some sense depends on sanctification and perseverance in good works. On such a view, justification is in some manner “provisional” until a Christian has attained holiness (2012, pp. 401–2). Their argument is worth noting, both as an interpretation of Edwards and because this concern about conflating justification and sanctification points to a risk inherent in process-oriented accounts of moral formation. For the sake of this constructive project, I will presume continuity between Edwards’s later position and Calvin’s account of conversion as gradual, and suggest that both accounts invite us to reflect on a dual understanding of conversion as simultaneously complete (in justification) and gradual. Religious Affections, WJE 2:343.

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Conversion and personal identity The positions laid out above indicate that Calvin and Edwards tend to conceptualize conversion as a process rather than a singular, disruptive event. But justification is nonetheless in a certain sense a discrete and identifiable occurrence for these thinkers, even as its fruits are realized over time. There are two senses in which justification functions radically to transform a human being’s identity. First, justification constitutes a relational change between a Christian and God. As a relational change, justification must necessarily be in a certain sense discrete and complete even if it is described as a process. Justification introduces traits that are qualitatively distinct from preceding experiences in a person’s life. Recognizing the lack of causal continuity between justification and prior events is essential to maintaining the logic of soteriology in Christian thought and is particularly important to these Reformed Protestant theologians: a relation between justification and prior experience might suggest that human works contribute to justification in a meaningful way. A second reason that it is necessary to conceive justification as in a certain sense complete relates to the perfection and integrity of the righteousness of Jesus Christ received by a Christian in justification. Because Christ’s righteousness is perfect and indivisible, it necessarily follows that a justified Christian cannot receive only a portion of this righteousness, although we will see that Luther allows for “progress” even in our realization of the “alien righteousness” associated with justification.25 In justification, Christ and his perfections are fully present to the believer through faith. As Tuomo Mannermaa puts it in speaking about Luther’s view of justification, “Faith communicates the divine attributes to the human being, because Christ himself, who is a divine person, is present in faith. Therefore, the believer is given all the ‘goods’ (bona) of God in faith.”26 Therefore, justifying faith, like the act with which it is associated,27 is “not,” as Gilbert Meilaender puts it, “a virtue gradually developed and strengthened bit by bit. It is a mathematical point: the self passive before God.” Like Stoic virtue, this divine verdict that 25 26

27

Luther, “Two Kinds of Righteousness,” LW 31:299. Tuomo Mannermaa (2005). Christ Present in Faith: Luther’s View of Justification, ed. K. Stjerna. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, pp. 21–2 . Indeed, Luther goes so far as to equate justification and faith in Lectures on Romans: “The passive and active justification of God and the faith or belief in Him are the same thing.” (LW 25:212)

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determines our status before God “admits of no gradations,” Meilaender continues.28 One is either a Christian (and simultaneously a sinner and saint) or not a Christian (and exclusively a sinner). Luther’s 1521 work Against Latomus develops a distinction between grace and gift that illuminates the sense in which justification, as Luther conceives it, brings about a complete and discrete shift in a Christian’s identity before God. This text affirms that the gospel provides two “goods” to Christians, gift and grace. Luther characterizes grace in a relational manner, explaining that grace is the opposite of “wrath” and that both of these terms describe God’s willingness to “receive” or “favor” an individual person. At a given moment in time, an individual may be under grace or under wrath, and these relational categories, like Stoic virtue and vice, do not admit gradation: Now it follows that these two, wrath and grace, are so related—since they are outside us—that they are poured out upon the whole, so that he who is under wrath is wholly under the whole of wrath, while he who is under grace is wholly under the whole of grace, because wrath and grace have to do with persons. He whom God receives in grace, He completely receives, and he whom He favors, He completely favors. He is angry at the whole of him with whom He is angry. He does not divide this grace as gifts are divided . . . One man remains wholly under wrath through the sin of one member, while another remains wholly under grace through the one gift of one work.29

Luther goes on to explain that while sin remains in a person after justification (a point that differentiates a justified Christian from a perfectly virtuous Stoic sage), it is still appropriate that sin be “treated as non-existent and as expelled” precisely because a justified Christian pleases God in her “whole person.”30 Justification, then, involves a radical shift in one’s identity akin to the shift at work in Stoic transformation: justification is discrete and complete and shifts an individual decisively from wrath to grace. Calvin and Edwards likewise present justification as defining a Christian’s relationship with God in a manner that determines their identity. In the Institutes, Calvin explains that either God sees a human person as a “sinner” who will receive “wrath and vengeance” instead of “grace,” or God 28

29 30

Gilbert Meilaender (1984). The Theory and Practice of Virtue. Notre Dame, IN:  University of Notre Dame Press, p. 117. Luther, Against Latomus, LW 32:228–9. Ibid., LW 32:229.

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“receives” us “into his favor as if we were righteous.”31 In justification, God forgives a Christian’s sins and imputes Christ’s righteousness to her,32 and in doing so, God brings about the Christian’s “reconciliation” with God.33 Edwards’s Justification by Faith affirms that conversion is marked by a “change in nature” that God effects in a human being.34 In this text, Edwards is more willing than Luther and Calvin to affirm that “there is indeed something in men that is really and spiritually good, that is prior to justification,” but he shares with both thinkers a conviction that in God’s eyes, we remain “condemned,” or “infinitely guilty,” until we are justified. In justification, a Christian is “pardoned,” and God views her in relation to Christ and recognizes their goodness as mediated through this relation.35 Through a believer’s relation to Christ, God recognizes the goodness of their faith, and this recognition occurs only after she has been justified.36 Prior to justification, even a person with some faith is “in himself altogether hateful.”37 In addition to restoring her status before God, a second sense in which justification affects a person’s identity decisively is through equipping her with concrete moral capacities that are wholly lacking in the unregenerate. Luther’s distinction between “grace” and “gift” in Against Latomus38 establishes an account of “gift” through which Christ’s righteousness is fully present to the believer, and this account provides some foundation for enabling Christians to pursue moral actions in a manner that the unregenerate cannot.39

31 32 33 34

35 36

37 38

39

Calvin, Institutes, 3.11.2, p. 475. Ibid., 3.11.2, p. 475. Ibid., 3.11.4, p. 477. Edwards characterizes conversion as a “change of nature” in Religious Affections as well (WJE 2:340). Edwards, Justification by Faith, WJE 19:163– 4. “The acceptance even of faith as any goodness or loveliness of the believer, follows justification: the goodness is on the forementioned account justly looked upon as nothing, until the man is justified” (WJE 19: 164–5). Edwards, Justification by Faith, WJE 19:165. Forms of this distinction are present in many of Luther’s other works as well, including Lectures on Romans. See Michael Root (2006). “Continuing the Conversation:  Deeper Agreement on Justification as Criterion and on the Christian as simul iustus et peccator,” in The Gospel of Justification in Christ:  Where Does the Church Stand Today? ed., W. Stumme. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, pp. 42 , 56. Jennifer A. Herdt suggests that Luther appears to distinguish gift from grace for the purpose of allowing for some sort of growth in virtue subsequent to justification. Jennifer A. Herdt (2008). Putting on Virtue: The Legacy of the Splendid Vices. Chicago:  University of Chicago Press. In the graced Christian “there seems to be room for human activity” (2008, p. 185), and in affirming that faith is a gift that can grow, “Luther seems to be groping for his own substitute for the infused virtues—not acquired through human agency but given to human agency, in some sense already perfected while at the same time subject to development” (p. 187). But Herdt ultimately

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Calvin likewise affirms that in justification, God equips a Christian with new moral capacities in place of the corrupted human will that the Christian possessed prior to justification. The need for such capacities is made evident in Calvin’s consistent emphasis on the disjunction between God’s goodness40 and the depraved and fully corrupt character of postlapsarian human nature. While Calvin does maintain an account of conscience as at work in human nature,41 he simultaneously stresses this faculty’s limits by making clear that the unregenerate cannot make progress toward justification in any sense or actively contribute to justification.42 At the same time, Calvin contends that God equips the elect with moral capacities that the unregenerate are lacking. He presents election as the “origin” of “holiness,” indicating that good works performed after election cannot be separated from the election that made them possible.43 Spelling out more precisely how election enables these works, Calvin suggests that in conversion, God instills in the Christian a will that is capable of pursuing the good. Strikingly, Calvin goes so far as to argue that this installment is accompanied by the destruction of the human will that was present in the sinner prior to justification. In conversion, Calvin explains, a human will that has been corrupted by sin is in a sense “abolished” and replaced with moral capacities that are “wholly of God.”44 God thus “corrects, or rather destroys, our depraved will, and also substitutes a good will from himself.”45 Conversion changes and defines the nature and character of a human person not simply by redirecting the will, then, but even more radically by removing a bad will and replacing it with a good one. Like Calvin, Edwards emphasizes the moral limitations of those who have not been justified and contrasts their inability to avoid sin with

40 41 42

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remains dissatisfied with the account of agency that Luther puts forth, arguing that Luther is “anti-eudaimonistic” and that he ultimately aligns progress in the justified Christian with the agency of Christ who has displaced our human agency (p. 188). I return to this briefly below. Institutes 1.2.2, p. 8. Institutes, 3.19.15, p. 557, and 4.10.3, p. 717. As Wilcox puts it, Calvin sees “no room for a human contribution to conversion” (p. 121). Calvin adamantly maintains that election is unrelated to apparent “virtues and vices” of humans. He rejects the idea that God elects people on the basis of God’s foreknowledge, granting election to those whom God has foreseen will be worthy of it (Institutes 3.22.4, pp. 617–18). Calvin attributes election to God’s “will,” God’s “pleasure,” and God’s “secret counsel” rather than to human work or merit, thereby emphasizing the disjunction between justification and the human works that precede it. Institutes 3.22.4, p. 618; 3.22.6, pp. 618–19. Ibid., 3.22.3, pp. 616–17. Ibid., 2.3.6, p. 182 Ibid., 2.3.7, p. 183.

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capabilities that are bestowed upon Christians at justification. He partly supports this contrast by arguing, like the Stoics, that genuine virtue cannot originate in self-love. As noted in Chapter  2 , the Stoics differ from Aristotle in drawing a sharp distinction between self-love and love for others as motivations for behavior. Both Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas present friendship and family relationships as settings in which moral agents can learn, over time, how to exercise virtuous compassion toward strangers.46 Edwards, in continuity with the Stoics and in contrast to Aristotle, denies that genuinely virtuous compassion can emerge naturally as an extension of private loves because, he argues, partial or personal loves themselves originate in self-love. Edwards argues that all loves inferior to true virtue arise from love of self, insofar as human instincts toward natural loves such as pity and concern for family are primarily directed toward self-preservation.47 Through self-love, we come to love those who love us: “a man’s love to those that love him is no more than a certain expression or effect of self-love.”48 Private loves are the natural effect of self-love, and therefore contain no more virtue than self-love itself does.49 Thus, while Edwards contends, like Epictetus, that such loves take part in God’s providence and are therefore good in some ways, he concludes that these natural loves “don’t arise from a principle of virtue,” nor do they “have a tendency to produce” virtue. 50 Conversion provides Christians with a concrete capacity to pursue virtue that they cannot develop through honing their natural instincts to love others. In Religious Affections Edwards associates justification with the gift of a “spiritual sense” that enables a justified Christian to pursue virtue. Edwards describes the spiritual sense as a new “principle of nature” that changes a person’s ability to exercise her understanding and will.51 The spiritual sense is a capacity that enables someone to pursue a life of true virtue inaccessible to the unregenerate. The moral life, as Edwards understands it, is rooted 46

47 48 49

50 51

For a rich and nuanced discussion of this position and its implications, see Diana Fritz Cates (1997). Choosing to Feel:  Virtue, Friendship, and Compassion for Friends. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Edwards, The Nature of True Virtue, WJE 8:607. Ibid., WJE 8:579. “There is no more virtue in a man’s thus loving his friends merely from self-love than there is in self-love itself, the principle from whence it proceeds” (Ibid., WJE 8:579.). Edwards, The Nature of True Virtue, WJE 8:602. Ibid., WJE 2:206.

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in an agent’s apprehension of God’s moral excellence.52 This agent’s spiritual sense enables her to perceive “the moral beauty of divine things,”53 including “the beauty of the moral perfections of God.”54 In turn, the spiritual sense’s approbation of God’s beauty leads to a positive valuation of God:  a recognition that God is morally beautiful and excellent, and a corollary sense of approval of this beauty. The spiritual sense functions both to perceive God’s moral excellence and to relish it.55 Edwards develops this conception of the spiritual sense’s activity through the concept of “spiritual understanding,” which ultimately gives rise to virtuous affections.56 Apart from justifying grace, however, human beings lack this faculty and are unable to cultivate a genuine virtue embodied in the interrelated dispositions of love for God and love for God’s creation.

The form of Christian progress: transformation and return For Luther, Calvin, and Edwards, then, justification defines a Christian’s status before God and equips her with moral capacities that are not available to the unregenerate. An account of Christian progress consistent with such an understanding of justification must be structured in a way that both recognizes the completeness and sufficiency of justification for securing a Christian’s character and simultaneously allows for authentic moral growth subsequent to justification. A strictly linear view of Christian moral formation, even one that presents justification as a chronological starting point for moral growth, fails to capture the completeness and sufficiency of Christ’s 52

53 54 55

56

Religious Affections explains that the “excellency of divine things . . . is the foundation of all holy affection” (WJE 2:394). Ibid., WJE 2:272. Ibid., WJE 2:274. “There is a distinction to be made between a mere notional understanding, wherein the mind only beholds things in the exercise of a speculative faculty; and the sense of the heart, wherein the mind don’t only speculate and behold, but relishes and feels” (Ibid., WJE 2:272). “Spiritual understanding consists primarily in a sense of heart of that spiritual beauty. I  say, a sense of heart; for it is not speculation merely that is concerned in this kind of understanding: nor can there be a clear distinction made between the two faculties of understanding and will, as acting distinctly and separately, in this matter. When the mind is sensible of the sweet beauty and amiableness of a thing, that implies a sensibleness of sweetness and delight in the presence of the idea of it: and this sensibleness of the amiableness or delightfulness of beauty, carries in the very nature of it, the sense of the heart; or an effect and impression the soul is the subject of, as a substance possessed of taste, inclination, and will” (Edwards, Religious Affections, WJE 2:272).

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righteousness imputed to a Christian at justification and to acknowledge that the virtue in which justified Christians have the capacity to grow is the same virtue that Jesus Christ perfectly exemplifies and embodies. The shape of Christian progress is therefore not strictly a linear path from justification (and a nascent capacity for virtue) toward an end point of virtue or holiness. Instead, Christian progress is a path through which a moral agent grows in acquiring a virtue that has already been perfectly and completely received as a divine gift. Christian growth occurs through a deepening participation in one’s own salvation and the moral dispositions associated with it. In particular, Christian growth involves the deepening of a faith that is already fully present to a Christian in justification. The central place that Luther affords to justification in the Christian moral life gives rise to an account of Christian progress characterized by a pattern of repeated return to, and increasing of, the faith embodied at justification. Whereas Aristotelian virtue theory tends toward a view of the moral life as linear movement toward a telos, Luther’s emphasis on the justified Christian’s utter trust in God points toward a view of moral growth as a repetition and intensification of this trust. Hampson argues that in the framework of Lutheranism, humans can live as trusting in themselves or trusting in God.57 Both realities are present to the life of a Christian. As Hampson puts it, “the formula simul iustus et peccator . . . encapsulates the structure of Lutheran thought.” Significantly, as Hampson notes, both iustus and peccator are “relational terms,” terms tied to our status before and relation to God, rather than representing an “inward ‘state’ of the person.”58 Because justification epitomizes this radical trust, it remains at the pinnacle of the moral life, and its centrality to the moral life is reflected in the shape of Christian progress. Meilaender argues that the implication of this relation-centered account of the Christian life is that grace, for Lutherans, is “in no sense a power that enables us to become ‘more and more’ what God wills we should be,” as grace is within Catholicism, but instead, grace is something that we receive “again and again” as we return to our supreme acceptance of Christ’s righteousness experienced in justification.59 Rather than attempting to “grow 57 58 59

Hampson, p. 49. Ibid., pp. 24–5. Gilbert Meilaender (2006). The Freedom of a Christian: Grace, Vocation, and the Meaning of Our Humanity. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, pp. 43 – 4.

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in righteousness,” Christians, according to this vision, should “simply return time and again to the word that announces pardon, a word that invites and elicits faith. They continually reclaim their starting point.”60 Luther’s writings illustrate both that he affirms the possibility of Christian moral growth or progress and that this progress involves a reclaiming and extending of one’s starting point in justification. While Luther’s account of the sinner’s movement from wrath to grace in Against Latomus, discussed above, makes clear the change in identity that justification establishes, this text also lays out an account of grace and gift that preserves a clear possibility for moral growth in the life of a justified Christian. This gift comes from the Holy Spirit and is “infused” as “leaven” that “works so as to purge away the sin for which a person has already been forgiven and to drive out the evil guest.”61 A Christian is forgiven through grace, and the gift of the Holy Spirit empowers her gradually to resist sin. Luther’s earlier work Lectures on Romans (1515) likewise indicates that Christians experience moral progress or growth in virtue. For example, Luther suggests that humility can foster a Christian’s growth in virtue.62 Later he more explicitly affirms that a Christian’s life is not “static,” but involves “movement from good to better, just as a sick man proceeds from sickness to health.”63 Through repentance, a Christian negotiates sin and righteousness as dimensions of her existence before God and works to increase in righteousness.64 At the same time, this progress is a movement that remains radically rooted in its origin, in justification. Two lines of argument in Luther’s thought are particularly instructive for reflecting on what such an account of progress looks like. In Lectures on Romans, Luther presents the Christian life as one in which Christians make progress through searching again for the God whom they found in justification. God, Luther explains, is the original cause of one’s justification because God must reveal himself to us in order for us to seek him. Justification brings us before God when we do not look for God, but after we find God in justification, God asks us to repeat this search for him: “having been found, He [God] now wills to be sought and found over

60 61 62 63 64

Meilaender (2006), p 44. Luther, Against Latomus, LW 32: 229. Luther, Lectures on Romans, LW 25:178. Luther, Lectures on Romans, LW 25:433. Ibid., LW 25:434–5.

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and over again.”65 Luther explicitly associates this repeated search for God with a continuance of our experience of conversion. God “is found when we are converted to Him from our sins, but He is sought when we continue in this conversion.”66 In a different way, Luther’s sermon “Two Kinds of Righteousness” (1519) indirectly explores the relation of Christian progress to the transforming experience of justification. Luther describes Christian growth through appealing to two kinds of Christian righteousness. “Alien righteousness” is most properly attributed to Christ, and “actual righteousness” more properly describes justified Christians in whom Christ is at work. When we are justified, we receive Christ’s righteousness, an “alien righteousness, that is, the righteousness of another, instilled from without.”67 This righteousness unites us with Christ and is the foundation for any actual righteousness that can be attributed to Christians themselves. Luther explains that alien righteousness is “the basis, the cause, the source of all our own actual righteousness,”68 so that the “proper righteousness” of Christians is the “fruit and consequence” of alien righteousness.69 Yet as we grow in actual righteousness, we necessarily are gradually “transformed into [Christ’s] likeness,”70 the perfect righteousness that established conditions for justification. Strikingly, not only does Luther affirm that our growth in actual righteousness transforms us into Christ’s likeness, but he also stresses that through this progress we also achieve growth in the alien righteousness associated with justification. “For alien righteousness is not instilled all at once, but it begins, makes progress, and is finally perfected at the end through death.”71 This argument secures an inextricable relation between the righteousness associated with justification and the righteousness attributable to a Christian. It also grounds both actual and alien righteousness in Christ’s perfect righteousness. One might question whether an account of progress closely aligned with the “reclaiming” of one’s “starting point” (as Meilaender puts it) allows for genuine growth. The plausibility of this growth being genuine is sustained 65 66 67 68 69 70 71

Ibid., LW 25:253. Ibid., LW 25:253. Luther, “Two Kinds of Righteousness,” LW 31:297. Luther, “Two Kinds of Righteousness,” LW 31:298. Ibid., LW 31:300. Ibid., LW 31:300. Ibid., LW 31:299.

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through a conception of faith as a disposition in which an agent can grow precisely through returning to the starting point at which it is first exercised. For Luther, Calvin, and Edwards, faith itself is both complete in justification and capable of deepening through a kind of repetition. Faith is not static, and therefore, it should be stressed, the act of returning to a pinnacle moment of faith is not merely a repetition identical to an earlier experience. The presumption that such a return might deepen and increase one’s original faith coincides with Luther’s contention, in The Freedom of a Christian, that Christians can grow in faith and love after justification and that this growth, indeed, is rooted in a potency intrinsic to faith by its nature: after justification, faith and love “are to be increased, not by external works, however, but of themselves.”72 Luther’s argument makes it plausible to imagine that through the power embedded in the nature of faith, a Christian returning to her starting point of justification undergoes growth through this return. A consideration of Calvin and Edwards provides additional resources for exploring this understanding of faith as simultaneously complete and capable of increasing. Calvin, on one hand, argues that faith is complete and perfect even when possessed in the smallest portion. At the same time, Calvin makes clear that this faith contains a potency that can and should be realized and expanded over time. Justifying faith is, like Stoic virtue, in a certain sense complete, insofar as even the “minutest particle of faith” enables us to “begin to behold the face of God . . . so distinctly as to assure us that there is no delusion in it.” The very beginnings of faith contain an understanding of God’s mercy that is sufficient for justification. Even a little faith secures “clear knowledge of the divine favor,”73 and the possession of “any minute portion of faith” transforms our character decisively.74 A conception of justifying faith’s efficacy for salvation and transformation logically complements Calvin’s understanding of the unity and perfection of Christ’s righteousness imputed to a Christian at justification. Christ’s righteousness is perfect and complete prior to justification, and Calvin is clear that this righteousness is indivisible,75 so it follows that its imputation must occur all at once, and this 72 73 74 75

Luther, The Freedom of a Christian, LW 31:360. Calvin, Institutes 3.2.19, p. 368. Ibid., 3.2.20, p. 368. For more on the indivisible character of righteousness—a further point of contact among Calvin, Luther, and the Stoics—see Steven R. Coxhead (2009). “John Calvin’s Subordinate Doctrine of Justification by Works,” Westminster Theological Journal 71: 1–19, at 7–9.

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imputation happens in an identifiable relational occurrence that unites the believer to Christ, “engrafting” the believer into Christ’s body.76 Even as justifying faith is in a sense necessarily complete, Calvin goes on to argue that the elect view God more fully as they grow in faith:  “In proportion to the progress we afterward make (and the progress ought to be uninterrupted), we obtain a nearer and surer view [of God], the very continuance making it more familiar to us. Thus we see that a mind illumined with the knowledge of God is at fi rst involved in much ignorance— ignorance, however, which is gradually removed.”77 Calvin understands moral growth not precisely as a return to the event of one’s justification, as Luther does, and his use of the term “progress” and characterization of progress as gradual suggests greater affi nity with a linear understanding of moral progress than is evident in Luther’s thought. Nevertheless, Calvin shares Luther’s perception that this moral growth involves a deepening of the faith that is already sufficient for salvation and in a certain sense perfect and complete. Edwards’s clear affirmation of conversion as gradual has led some scholars to interpret his account of moral progress as linear after justification,78 but his conception of persevering faith points toward a model for understanding the Christian life that is structurally continuous with the vision of Christian progress put forth in Luther and Calvin. Justification by Faith Alone makes clear that Edwards affirms the completeness of a human being’s transformation in justification, even as he argues for the necessity of continuing in faith, and these dual emphases lead to an account of moral formation that elevates justification. Just as Calvin emphasizes the completeness of justifying faith, Edwards affirms that our “first justification is decisive and final” and that our “first act of faith” makes the sinner “actually, and finally justified.”79 Yet this does not mean that either justification or faith cease after the first moment of conversion. When God justifies, Edwards explains, the act of justification 76

77 78

79

Calvin, Institutes 3.11.10. Dennis E.  Tamburello affi rms that “engraft ing” is the term Calvin uses most frequently to describe the union with Christ experienced by the elect. Dennis E. Tamburello (1999). Union with Christ: John Calvin and the Mysticism of St. Bernard. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, pp. 84 –5. Calvin, Institutes 3.2.19, p. 368. See in particular Anri Morimoto (1995). Jonathan Edwards and the Catholic Vision of Salvation. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press. McClymond and McDermott make reference to additional contemporary sources that make this argument (2012, p. 389). Edwards, Justification by Faith Alone, WJE 19:203.

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presumes that “perseverance” in faith is “virtually contained in that first act of faith.” Perseverance in faith is a “property” of the faith that is linked to initial justification. Likewise, in justification, we receive forgiveness not only for past sins but also for “all future infirmities and acts of sin.”80 Justifying faith establishes a “habit and principle in the heart” that has a natural “tendency” toward an “actual repentance and faith.”81 Our perseverance in faith sustains a disposition whose value is realized in us as part of the discrete event of justification. Edwards’s The Life of David Brainerd (1749) supports a model of moral growth in which both faith and love are increased through the recovery of a disposition associated radically with conversion. Brainerd’s account of his conversion prioritizes a particular moment in which his spiritual sense realizes and praises God’s beauty as definitive for his formation. After having gradually come to recognize his problematic tendencies to see merit in his own works,82 Brainerd has an experience in which, he explains, “ ‘unspeakable glory’ seemed to open to the view and apprehension of my soul.”83 He goes on to clarify that this is not a vision that his external senses perceived, but is more properly understood as a “new inward apprehension or view that I had of God.”84 This vision of God leads Brainerd to rejoice in God and to feel captivated by God’s beauty and goodness. Brainerd indicates that through this vision, God leads him to a moral disposition that is definitive of his identity in relation to God: I had no particular apprehension of any one person in the Trinity . . . but it appeared to be the divine glory that I then beheld. And my soul “rejoiced with joy unspeakable” to see such a God, such a glorious divine being; and I was inwardly pleased and satisfied, that he should be God over all forever and ever. My soul was so captivated and delighted with the excellency, loveliness, greatness, and other perfections of God, that I was even swallowed up in him … Thus God, I trust, brought me to a hearty disposition to exalt him and set him on the throne, and principally and ultimately to aim at his honor and glory as King of the universe.85 80 81 82 83 84 85

Ibid., WJE 19:203. Ibid., WJE 19:204. Edwards, The Life of David Brainerd, WJE 7: 132– 4. Ibid., WJE 7:138. Ibid., WJE 7:138. Ibid., WJE 7:138–9.

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Apprehension and approval of God thus lead Brainerd toward a virtuous “disposition,” a disposition to celebrate God. Yet this crucial point in Brainerd’s life is not a foundation for subsequent linear growth, but a starting point from which this worshipful disposition can be regained and sustained through subsequent perseverance. Brainerd’s narrative implies a model of moral development that involves alternating between despair over one’s sin and trust in God, just as Luther characterizes moral growth in terms of fluctuating between sin and righteousness. As we saw in Chapter 3, Edwards couples the trusting dimension of faith with feelings of love, and this coupling of faith and love as dispositions that oppose despair is evident in Brainerd’s story. Brainerd experiences moments of “darkness” as he feels despair at his own sinfulness.86 In many of these moments, Brainerd then experiences “manifestations” of God and divine grace similar to those associated with his moment of conversion. For example, Brainerd recalls one instance in which he mourns his sinfulness and subsequently feels that “My soul was then unusually carried forth in love to God, and had a lively sense of God’s love to me.”87 Brainerd attributes this return of trust in and love for God to the Holy Spirit, who has “influenced” his soul with love to God.88 For Edwards, then, as for Luther and Calvin, moral development involves a return to an intensification of dispositions consistent with justifying faith. Luther, Calvin, and Edwards distinguish the good associated with justification from any other possible goods that come before it, and in this sense, their views of justifying faith coincide with a Stoic understanding of virtue as a unique good distinct from prior attempts to achieve this good. Stoicism provides a possible framework through which to interpret the model of moral formation characteristic of Protestant virtue ethics. At the same time, this Protestant tradition couples an account of justifying faith as transformative and complete with a contention that moral growth continues to occur in a Christian’s life as this faith is intensified. In making this claim, Luther, Calvin, and Edwards run counter to the Stoic view of moral formation, developing an account of faith that recognizes justifying faith to be simultaneously complete and capable of growth.

86 87 88

Edwards, The Life of David Brainerd, WJE 7:140, 142, 147. Ibid., WJE 7:147. Ibid., WJE 7:147.

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Promise and challenge for contemporary Protestants The points of common ground and difference between the Stoics’ account of virtue’s acquisition and the account of Christian moral growth highlighted in this chapter point toward both the potential in and challenges of Protestant accounts of Christian progress as a resource for contemporary constructive accounts of moral formation. Luther and Edwards explicitly reject Aristotelian habituation as a model for moral formation that they perceived to fail adequately to capture divine grace’s centrality for the moral life, and in the thought of Luther, Calvin, and Edwards we fi nd an alternate model of moral development. Justification is a transformative occurrence defi nitive of a Christian’s identity, and Luther, Calvin, and Edwards insist upon a qualitative difference between the moral goodness toward which a human being can strive after justification and the natural goodness available to her prior to justification. These affi rmations help to secure human beings’ radical dependence on God and simultaneously underscore God’s goodness and majesty. In emphasizing our inability to merit salvation, they promote an ethic that resists pride in individual accomplishments and elevates humility and a recognition of our need for the other. While Protestant theology is often associated with hopeless intertwinement with a capitalistic work ethic, what we fi nd in Luther, Calvin, and Edwards are tools for constructing an ethic that emphasizes the profound vulnerability of the human condition, and that conceives humility, rather than autonomy, selfassertion, or power, as a moral ideal. Such an account of personhood fits well with the self-understanding of contemporary virtue ethics, whose earliest proponents emphasized the need for an alternative to Enlightenment modes of thinking. A second promising feature of this Protestant account of moral progress is its coupling of an emphasis on transformative justification with a mechanism for gradual formation. Luther, Calvin, and Edwards depart from the Stoics by suggesting that moral formation occurs over time, even as they structure this formation in a non-linear manner. This departure guards them from a certain kind of incoherence that Augustine argues is present in Stoic thought and enables them to preserve a recognition that Christians remain sinners even while their identity has been established decisively in the relation to God that Christ’s redemption has restored for them. Augustine criticizes the Stoic

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view of virtue as achieved all at once, contending in a letter to Jerome that if a moral agent must surely be making progress toward virtue, then that person is in the process of becoming virtuous.89 Thus a given Christian who is making progress toward virtue is not “altogether without virtue” even while she remains a sinner. Augustine speaks of virtue (or love, which he characterizes as the good in which virtue’s unity consists) as a quality that can be said to increase and decrease even prior to its perfect and complete realization: “the more love exists in a man the more he is endowed with virtue, and the less love he has the less virtue is in him.”90 Luther, Calvin, and Edwards likewise suggest that Christians can grow in virtue over time after justification, so that virtue itself is a dynamic quality. To be sure, they are simultaneously clear that the faith present at justification is complete in the sense of being sufficient for salvation. The completeness of justifying faith is also secured in its close relation to an individual’s union with Christ, who embodies virtue perfectly. But the possibility of growth after justification points toward an account of Christian progress as a journey in which a moral agent can actively seek to hone the capacities God gives to a justified Christian in order to resist sin and work to grow in virtue. Yet Luther, Calvin, and Edwards resist developing this potential. Indeed, Luther and Calvin in particular are careful to present Christian progress not as a context in which humans realize and embody a sort of agency, but rather as the continued activity of God in the human heart. Jennifer Herdt criticizes Luther for aligning moral agency with Christ’s activity in the Christian rather than human action. While Luther wishes to affirm the possibility of growth in virtue for justified Christians, his suspicion of human agency is so severe that he ultimately attributes such growth only to the activity of Christ in us, requiring the Christian to remain utterly passive.91 Calvin likewise follows

89

90 91

“The Stoics . . . appear to me to be mistaken in refusing to admit that a man who is advancing in wisdom has any wisdom at all, and in affi rming that he alone has it who has become altogether perfect in wisdom. They do not indeed, deny that he has made progress, but they say that he is in no degree entitled to be called wise, unless, by emerging, so to speak, from the depths, he suddenly springs forth into the free air of wisdom” (Augustine, Letter 167, section 12). Augustine, Letter 167, section 11. Thus Herdt affi rms: “Luther’s insistence that prideful human agency be displaced by the indwelling Christ makes it difficult to fathom his account of gradual assimilation to Christ. How is a passive, displaced agency to be gradually transformed? . . . What we encounter in Luther is an exaggerated insistence on passivity arising out of a competitive understanding of divine and human agency . . . The exercise of human agency is for Luther inherently an attempt to displace divine agency . . . Luther is right to remind us that human agency remains always dependent on

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Luther in maintaining that justified Christians remain simul iustus et peccator92 and accordingly restricts human moral agency. He argues that even though we can more effectively resist sin after justification, original sin’s “corruption never ceases in us, but constantly produces new fruits.”93 “In this life,” Calvin concludes, justified Christians can pursue righteousness “by imputation only.”94 Calvin’s contention that the works of justified Christians have merit not in themselves, but only through imputation, has disquieting implications for reflection on moral agency in historical Protestant thought. Calvin’s position indicates that just as God imputes Christ’s perfect righteousness to the Christian at justification, so does God impute a kind of moral goodness to her works as she makes moral progress. Steven R. Coxhead explains Calvin’s development of this position. Christians do make moral progress, but for Calvin, true righteousness must consist only in the complete observance of the law.95 Salvation requires an absolute righteousness (a term frequently appearing in Calvin’s Scriptural commentaries), and such righteousness consists in a complete obedience to God’s law that is impossible for humans.96 In justification, as we have seen, the elect are “deemed or reckoned as righteous” through the imputation to them of Christ’s perfect righteousness.97 Once justification has taken place, Calvin explains, God mercifully and graciously attributes righteousness to the Christian believer’s subsequent attempts to do good works. But this attribution does not mean that their works are genuinely righteous even after justification. On the contrary, Calvin does not attribute to these works value “in themselves,” but instead says that they should be perceived as having a certain value only “after justification by faith has been established.”98 Calvin thus suggests that God imputes or attributes

92

93 94 95

96 97 98

God, right to remind us that human goodness is never autonomous, but wrong to insist that this requires human passivity” (p. 188). Jane Strohl (2004). “God’s Self-Revelation in the Sacrament of the Altar.” In By Faith Alone: Essays on Justification in Honor of Gerhard O.  Forde, ed. Joseph Burgess and Marc Kolden. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm B Eerdmans Press, pp. 97–109, at 107. Calvin, Institutes, 4.15.11, p. 863. Ibid., 4.15.10, p. 863. Coxhead, p. 7. Coxhead is developing and defending an argument put forth in Peter A. Lilliback (2001). The Binding of God:  Calvin’s Role in the Development of Covenant Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, pp. 188–9. Coxhead, pp. 8–10. Ibid., p. 14. Calvin, Institutes, 3.17.8, p. 533, see also Coxhead, p. 16.

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righteousness to the works of a believer who has been justified, almost as an extension of justification itself: Forgiveness of sins being previously given [in justification], the good works which follow have a value different from their merit, because whatever is imperfect in them is covered by the perfection of Christ, and all their blemishes and pollutions are wiped away by his purity, so as never to come under the cognizance of the divine tribunal. The guilt of all transgressions  .  .  . being thus effaced, and the imperfection which is wont to sully even good works being buried, the good works which are done by believers are deemed righteous, or, which is the same thing, are imputed for righteous.99

Calvin’s argument that these works are “deemed” or “imputed” righteous after justification indicates that these works have moral value only because God mercifully attributes such value to the works of a justified Christian. Growth in actual goodness or virtue remains inaccessible even to the justified Christian.100 While Luther, Calvin, and Edwards restrict human agency in ways that will no doubt trouble many contemporary ethicists, their affirmation of the possibility of gradual progress toward Christian virtue indirectly provides a mechanism for coupling this vision of grace with the establishment of a context in which Christians can assume responsibility for their actions by taking part in an authentic participatory human agency, an agency that responds to God’s activity but that can simultaneously be attributed to the Christian in her own person. The realization of this promise requires a departure from Luther, Calvin, and Edwards but can nonetheless build on their understanding of human goodness as fundamentally dependent on God’s gracious intervention and their corollary understanding of moral formation as involving growth in a faith already completely realized in justification. Chapter 5 takes up the task of constructing an account of moral agency that preserves a notion of the human being as morally responsible for her actions while wrestling with accounts of moral necessity that remain a significant part of the Protestant legacy. The Stoics are helpful conversation partners for this task because they advance a philosophical framework that couples moral responsibility with a conception of human beings as subject to a certain kind of necessity.

99 100

Ibid., 3.17.8, p. 533. Chapter  5 revisits the ways in which this position limits Calvin’s understanding of moral agency in human beings, even after conversion.

5

Providence, Necessity, and the Human Will: Moral Agency in Historical Protestant Ethics

Ethicists working within any theistic tradition face the challenge of conceiving and articulating the roles of divine and human activity in forming a moral agent’s character. This challenge is particularly pronounced for Reformed Protestant ethicists. Reformed theology has traditionally emphasized divine sovereignty over human affairs to a degree that critics of this tradition see as undermining human agency. Such an emphasis on divine sovereignty is evident in a Reformed understanding of providence and in the soteriological conviction that salvation is the work of God alone. This tradition’s theological commitments give rise to a view of the moral life in which God plays a necessary and decisive role in fostering the development of good character, so much so that good character cannot be achieved apart from divine assistance. Chapter 4 laid out an account of moral formation in which Christian progress allows for genuine moral growth while simultaneously situating this growth alongside a conviction that justification is unsurpassable in defining a Christian’s status before God. A commitment to Christian progress is essential for constructing a plausible understanding of precisely how Christians are morally accountable for their actions, particularly when working with a system of thought in which God is the primary actor in the work of justification. Nevertheless, as we will see below, the accounts of divine providence and free will in Luther, Calvin, and Edwards demonstrate how certain strands of Protestant theology struggle to articulate an adequate view of moral agency in humans. At different points and in different ways, all three authors develop

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arguments that risk undermining God’s goodness and omnipotence and that fail to sustain a clear understanding of human beings as exercising authentic agency in relation to their growth in virtue. At the same time, the coherence of their broader theological convictions requires attributing a certain kind of moral agency to human beings. Such an account must recognize and acknowledge the forms of necessity that constrain human actions while simultaneously maintaining a sense of humans as having sufficient authorship of their actions and dispositions to ground a claim that human beings are morally accountable. This chapter develops a constructive account of Christian moral agency that takes seriously the Reformed conviction that humans depend radically on divine grace. The difficulties in Luther’s, Calvin’s, and Edwards’s positions point toward the need to look beyond their thought to develop such an account and to bring the Roman Stoics to bear on this effort. While Stoic and Christian accounts of providence and human capacities decidedly differ, the Roman Stoics nonetheless couple a clear account of determinism with a strong understanding of human beings as morally responsible for their actions. Recalling Stoic arguments introduced in Chapter  2 within a framework established through carefully considering Luther, Calvin, and Edwards, this chapter proposes an understanding of moral agency realized through the pursuit of two closely related character dispositions. The first is an active acceptance of the limitations that our circumstances place on our moral capacities. The second is an embodied love directed toward humanity as a whole. Universal love emerges as a moral agent correctly apprehends and consents to her own place in the created order. Both of these moral dispositions are a means of living out, sustaining, and (in a certain sense) deepening the faith introduced in Chapter 3, a trust that God is benevolently ordering the world toward its good.

The sovereignty and providence of God In different ways, Luther, Calvin, and Edwards are all committed to upholding God’s omnipotence and God’s sovereignty over the created world. For all three thinkers, God is a supreme and powerful being who is deeply concerned

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with everyday human affairs. Luther and Calvin develop accounts of providence that couple God’s transcendence over the created order with a conviction that God radically and intimately oversees the details of creaturely existence. Their understandings of a highly personalized divine providence are at odds with Stoic necessity, which Calvin explicitly rejects and characterizes as consisting in “a perpetual chain of causes and a kind of involved series contained in nature.”1 Calvin sees this naturalistic and impersonal view of necessity—reflected particularly in the early Stoics and also in Seneca—as opposed to a Christian view of God as “the disposer and ruler of all things.”2 Edwards’s view of providence likewise differs from that of the Stoics, insofar as Edwards conceives God as a personal being and presents salvation and redemption as God’s central work. However, Edwards’s cosmology in The End for Which God Created the World requires thinking of God’s nature as more fully revealed to human beings and accessible to our natures than Luther or Calvin would affirm, and these convictions draw Edwards closer to the Roman Stoics. Together Luther, Calvin, and Edwards represent a range of possibilities for negotiating divine transcendence and divine immanence, and divine inscrutability and divine revelation. Consideration of their positions provides a foundation for articulating a Protestant account of human moral agency and simultaneously clarifies the challenges that such an account must acknowledge.

Divine hiddenness and divine accessibility in Luther, Calvin, and Edwards Both Luther and Calvin demonstrate a clear and consistent commitment to God’s transcendence over the created world. Kathryn Tanner argues that a certain understanding of God’s transcendence over the created order—one that simultaneously allows for God’s intimate and comprehensive involvement with creatures—is central to Christian discourse.3 Such an account of transcendence, when properly conceived, establishes a condition that

1 2 3

Calvin, Institutes, 1.16.8, p 119. Ibid., 1.16.8, pp 119–20. Kathryn Tanner (1988). God and Creation in Christian Theology:  Tyranny or Empowerment? Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 38–9, 46–7, 81.

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promotes and preserves God’s intimate agency in relation to human affairs.4 Luther and Calvin develop accounts of God’s transcendence that couple this transcendence with a corollary conception of God’s will as inscrutable. God has revealed the divine nature to human beings in Scripture and in the incarnate Jesus Christ, but both thinkers stress that God’s nature remains partly inaccessible and ungraspable because of the profound differences between God and creatures. For Luther in particular, God’s transcendence is so pronounced that much of God’s being and will remains “hidden” from human beings. Although Luther believes that a basic knowledge of God’s omnipotence (both in “power” and in “action”) and God’s foreknowledge is accessible to all people,5 humans have incomplete access to God’s essential nature, will, or “majesty.” Luther develops this argument in his 1525 work De servo arbitrio. This work is Luther’s direct response to Erasmus’s 1524 De libero arbitrio,6 a text that criticizes Luther’s theological position on the grounds that it undermines human free will and calls into question God’s character. In De servo arbitrio, Luther criticizes Erasmus for failing to distinguish between “God preached and God hidden, that is, between the Word of God and God himself.”7 God’s self-revelation in the incarnate Christ and the text of Scripture shows us particular dimensions of God’s character, but God in his complete majesty is not “bound . . . by his word, but has kept himself free over all things.”8 Luther explains that God’s essence transcends both God’s word and any human standards of justice or goodness that we might be tempted to impose upon God. He therefore urges his readers not to assess God by their own moral standards, but simply to appreciate the “secrets” of God’s “majesty.”9 This

4

5 6

7 8 9

Kathryn Tanner (2013). “Creation Ex Nihilo as Mixed Metaphor.” Modern Theology 29.2: 138–55, at 146–7. Tanner presents Luther as adhering to the discursive rules she lays out for Christian talk of God’s transcendence (God and Creation, 111–12, 113–14). William Placher similarly associates both Luther and Calvin with a view of God that preserves divine transcendence in a manner problematically lost later in the way that modern thinkers speak about God. William C. Placher (1996). The Domestication of Transcendence:  How Modern Thinking About God Went Wrong. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press. Luther, The Bondage of the Will, LW 33:91. Philip Watson, the translator of this text for the Fortress Press edition of Luther’s works, titles this work The Bondage of the Will but notes that the literal title could be more appropriately translated “Concerning Unfree (or :  Enslaved) Choice,” a direct response to Erasmus’s “Concerning Free Choice.” Watson, “Introduction,” LW 33, pp. xi–xii. Ibid., LW 33:140. Ibid. Ibid., LW 33:206.

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argument is reinforced in Lectures on Genesis, in which Luther argues that humans should avoid scrutinizing the “essential and divine will,” or “Divine Majesty,” explaining, “This will is unsearchable, and God did not want to give us insight into it in this life.”10 The distinction between God hidden and God preached is particularly significant for understanding Luther’s account of divine providence because Luther associates creation and providence specifically with the transcendent and hidden God. As Theodosius Harnack’s classic work on Luther’s theology observes, the God who “in his majesty as creator, transcends creation and is unattainable by it” is the one who, for Luther, “carries and governs it [creation] as by the immanent power of his will.”11 Because providence is the work of the “hidden God,” it follows that humans cannot easily discern precisely why God causes events to happen as they do. As Luther explains it, God has willed only that we know what he has revealed of the divine nature “in his Word, through which he offers himself to us.”12 This emphasis on the inscrutability of God’s will differentiates Luther’s account of providence from Marcus Aurelius’s and Epictetus’s conceptions of providence as rational, insofar as a rational providence is to a large degree accessible to human reason. Strikingly, Luther goes so far as to affirm that through his “inscrutable will,” God actively “wills” events that might be inconsistent with what Scripture reveals of God’s character, underscoring God’s inaccessibility to human reason. This argument confirms Luther’s commitment to a radical sense of divine majesty and advances a view of God as a being whose nature and character are so vast that they cannot be circumscribed by God’s selfrevelation in Scripture. “God does many things that he does not disclose to us in his word; he also wills many things which he does not disclose himself as willing in his word. Thus he does not will the death of a sinner, according to his word; but he wills it according to that inscrutable will of his.”13 Luther 10

11

12 13

Luther, Lectures on Genesis 6.5- 6, LW 2:47. See also Lectures on Isaiah 4.6. In this text, Luther observes that he encourages “younger theologians  .  .  . that they must so study the Holy Scriptures that they refrain from investigating the Divine Majesty and His terrible works. God does not want us to learn to know Him in this way. You cannot nakedly associate with His naked Godhead,” for doing so would lead to “despair.” Instead, “Christ is our way to God” (LW 16:54–5). Harnack, 1:103, translated and quoted in Roland F. Ziegler (2011). “Luther and Calvin on God: Origins of Lutheran and Reformed Differences.” Concordia Theological Quarterly 75: 63 – 90, at 65. Ziegler provides a helpful discussion of the significance of this distinction for Luther’s account of providence. Luther, The Bondage of the Will, LW 33:139. Luther, The Bondage of the Will, LW 33:140.

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makes clear that humans should not focus excessively on this inscrutable will; we should instead leave God “to himself in his own majesty,” and “have nothing to do with” seeking to understand those dimensions of God’s being that he has not revealed to us.14 Luther is confident that God merits our praise even without our understanding: “It is enough to know simply that there is a certain inscrutable will in God, and as to what, why, and how far it wills, that is something we have no right whatever to inquire into, hanker after, care about, or meddle with, but only to fear and adore.”15 To some degree, Luther’s argument functions to urge Christians to celebrate God’s majesty without insisting on understanding it. But in characterizing parts of God’s will as so fully inaccessible that they may be actively “hidden,” Luther risks suggesting that God’s hidden will may actively contradict God’s revealed will, a position that stresses divine power at the possible expense of God’s consistency and goodness. I return to this point below. Like Luther, both Calvin and Edwards uphold God’s sovereignty. Calvin adopts language similar to Luther’s in some ways, associating divine providence with the mysterious will of a God who transcends the created world. He characterizes providence as an activity through which God works “in the disposing and directing of every thing to its proper end by incomprehensible wisdom.”16 Likewise, to some degree, Calvin follows Luther in characterizing God’s will as partly hidden from human beings.17 He maintains that God exercises a “secret providence” that we should “revere” even though we cannot understand the reasons particular events occur. The world is “governed” by God’s “secret” and “incomprehensible counsel.”18 But whereas Luther emphasizes God’s power to act in whatever ways God wishes—so that God’s hidden will might contradict Scripture’s revelation of God’s character—Calvin attributes any apparent discrepancy between God’s actions and Scripture to human beings’ own errors in understanding rather than to God’s deliberate action. Ultimately, Calvin emphasizes God’s wisdom in a manner that conveys a necessary rationality in God. He argues that because it is difficult for human reason to understand how God is at work in particular events,

14 15 16 17 18

Ibid., LW 33:139. Ibid., LW 33:140. Calvin, Institutes, 1.16.4, p. 117. Ibid., 1.16.9, pp. 120–1. Calvin, Institutes, 1.17.2, p. 125.

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these events may appear to be the result of fortune or chance. “As the order, method, end, and necessity of events are, for the most part, hidden in the counsel of God, though it is certain that they are produced by the will of God, they have the appearance of being fortuitous.”19 Nevertheless, it is striking that he characterizes this irrationality as merely apparent, and he reiterates this argument by stressing that the limitations of “our capacity of discernment” contribute to the sense of disorder.20 Thus while Calvin is consistent with Luther in affirming that God’s will is to some degree hidden, he is simultaneously committed to the rationality of God and God’s providential direction over the created order. This conviction draws his position closer to the Roman Stoics’ account of providence as the work of a divine nature who merits our praise for ordering the world toward the good. Although he contends that original sin has introduced a measure of chaos into the world, Calvin nevertheless argues that God has ordered creation so that the world’s perfections reflect and reveal God’s character, providing “many striking evidences of [God’s] wisdom and goodness.”21 Calvin is clear that we cannot examine historical events and draw conclusions about God’s purposes from the events themselves, an argument that guards against efforts to draw precise conclusions about God’s will and intentions from events that one observes.22 Yet we can rest assured that God is acting rationally (that is, he decrees events “knowingly” as well as “willingly”).23 Calvin’s association of the structure and sustaining of the world with God’s wisdom and goodness, rather than simply with God’s omnipotence, points toward

19 20 21

22

23

Ibid., 1.16.9, p. 120. Ibid., 1.16.9, pp. 120–1. Calvin, Institutes, 1.14.21, p.  102. Susan E. Schreiner (1991). The Theater of His Glory:  Nature and the Natural Order in the Thought of John Calvin. Durham, NC:  Labyrinth Press, helpfully unpacks Calvin’s views of creation, providence, and the created order. Ronald J. VanderMolen (1978). “Providence as Mystery, Providence as Revelation: Puritan and Anglican Modifications of John Calvin’s Doctrine of Providence.” Church History 47.1 (March 1978):  27– 47. VanderMolen offers a helpful discussion of Calvin’s account of providence and adaptations made to Calvin’s view by the Anglican churchman George Hakewill and the Puritan Thomas Beard. He argues that an important question for Calvin and theologians whom he influenced related to whether “events reveal the disposition of God” so that “suffering indicate[s] the wrath of God while happiness reflects God’s favor” (p.  28). While Calvin argued against the idea that we can observe the outcome of specific human events and draw conclusions regarding God’s will and the recipients of God’s favor (pp.  29–33), some later theologians modified his understanding of providence to affi rm a more discernible link between God’s intentions and the course of human history. Calvin, Institutes, 1.16.3, p. 116.

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a rationality in the created order so that creation offers reliable insight into divine goodness. In addition to arguing that the created order reflects God’s rational ordering, Calvin is also more comfortable than Luther is with presenting the workings of providence as consistent with God’s character as revealed in Scriptures. Calvin uses God’s character revealed in scripture as a foundation for considering the nature and extent of God’s providence, underscoring the goodness and wisdom with which God directs the world. The doctrine of providence, he affirms, reveals “the singular goodness of God toward each individual.”24 Drawing on multiple Scriptures, Calvin argues more specifically that God providentially protects “the safety of believers” with particular care.25 Reiterating his acknowledgment that we may not understand the reasons that God allows particular events,26 Calvin clarifies that our lack of understanding reflects the limits of human reason rather than suggesting God’s ability to act inconsistently with the Scriptures. Certainly, the Scriptures fail to capture God’s nature in its entirety; for example, Calvin argues that Scriptural suggestions that God repents or feels emotions are mere “forms of expression, by which God is described to us humanly.”27 But whereas Luther argues that God’s inscrutable will could choose the death of a sinner while his will revealed in Scripture could not, Calvin derives his understanding of the fate of the reprobate from God’s character as revealed in Scripture.28 Though many subsequent thinkers criticize Calvin’s efforts to reconcile predestination with the Scriptural understanding of God’s mercy, it is nonetheless important to recognize that Calvin’s attempt to root election and predestination in Scriptural discussions of God’s nature reflects an interest in upholding justice, goodness, and mercy as necessary qualities of God. Calvin more clearly than Luther affirms that although God’s providence is by no means fully accessible to human reason, this providence must operate consistently with divine wisdom and goodness. An understanding of God’s character as rational and consistent with God’s self-revelation in Scripture is even more prominent in Edwards. Edwards’s

24 25 26 27 28

Calvin, Institutes, 1.16.3, p. 116. Ibid., 1.17.6, p. 128. Ibid., 1.17.2, p. 125. Ibid., 1.17.13, p. 133. Ibid., 3.22.6, p. 619 and 3.22.11, p. 623.

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departures from Luther’s and Calvin’s emphases on divine inscrutability are most clearly evident in Miscellany 702 and The End for Which God Created the World. Miscellany 702 develops an account of the “work of redemption” as the preeminent expression of God’s providence. Edwards explains that all other providential acts are “subservient” and “subordinate” to redemption,29 and even God’s work of creating the world is “secondary” to redemption.30 Edwards presents redemption as a lens through which humans can interpret God’s other works, ensuring that God’s character is reliable and consistent with whom God has revealed himself to be in Scripture. Edwards expressly affirms that “possible unrevealed works of God” will not run counter to the work of redemption, for God truly has only “one work” rather than many: “ ‘Tis but one work. ‘Tis all one scheme, one contrivance; and that is the scheme, contrivance, and work of glorifying himself and his Son Jesus Christ, and gathering and uniting his creatures to himself, and making them happy in himself through Christ God-man by means of that glorious redemption that he has wrought out.”31 In spelling out the benevolent character of God’s providence, Edwards adopts a position that specifies God’s character and suggests that human reason can perceive and recognize divine goodness. In keeping with his understanding of redemption as God’s central work, Edwards’s posthumously published The End for Which God Created the World lays out an extended account of God’s self-communication to creatures as essential to God’s purposes in creating the world. Edwards shares with Luther and Calvin a belief that the Scriptures are a primary source for understanding how God works in relation to the created world32 and begins End with an extended argument concerning the teachings of “reason” related to divine creation and providence. He contends not merely that God’s general designs for the created world are accessible to human reason, but even more radically maintains that humanity’s knowledge of God’s perfections is central to bringing about the purposes for which God created the world. Edwards identifies God’s “ultimate” end or purpose in creating the world as God’s own “glory,”33 indicating that Edwards shares Luther’s and Calvin’s appreciation for God’s

29 30 31 32 33

Edwards, Miscellany 702, WJE 18:284, 292. Ibid., WJE 18:290, 294. Ibid., WJE 18:296. Edwards, End of Creation, WJE 8:419–20. Ibid., WJE 8:427, 527.

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majesty. However, God’s communication of this glory, and the ways in which creatures receive and respond to this communication, contributes to this glory’s full realization. Edwards explains that God’s creation of the world is an expression of the inherently excellent divine perfections, and it is likewise excellent that we should know these perfections. Knowledge of God’s perfections is “excellent,” “valuable,” and “desirable;” Edwards affirms, “ ‘Tis a thing infinitely good in itself that God’s glory should be known by a glorious society of created beings.”34 Whereas Luther and Calvin associate divine majesty with a mystery within the Godhead, Edwards argues that God’s glory is most fully realized as God enables creatures to know God’s being and perfections. Such a view of God’s purposes for creating coincides closely with Epictetus’s affirmations that God brought humans into the world to be “spectators” and “interpreters” of God’s works. Luther, Calvin, and Edwards share a commitment to understanding God as working personally and actively to guide and direct the world. Luther and Calvin secure this commitment through presenting God as fully transcending the world. But in considering the nature of divine transcendence, Luther develops and relies on an account of God’s hidden will that ultimately presents God as having the power to be cruel or arbitrary. While Luther would resist such a conclusion, his understanding of providence makes it difficult to avoid the conclusion that God is in some ways complicit in evil. Edwards’s God, in contrast, is markedly more accessible to human beings than Luther’s God is. Nevertheless, Edwards’s account of the created order at times blurs this order with God’s own being in a manner that contradicts classical understandings of God’s self-sufficiency. Below, I explore in more depth the ways in which Luther’s and Edwards’s accounts of providence risk undermining classical Christian accounts of God’s nature and character, particularly a commitment to the notion that goodness is a constitutive feature of God’s essence.

The mechanics of providence: Luther, Calvin, and the problem of evil Both Luther and Calvin couple an unequivocal commitment to God’s transcendence with an argument that God actively and specifically directs human 34

Ibid., WJE 8:431.

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affairs. Luther maintains that God directs and guides all dimensions of creation, so that “all things are under his mighty hand.”35 In developing this position, Luther speaks explicitly against Aristotle, whom he perceives to uphold a God who rests contentedly in self-contemplation rather than actively involving himself in the world’s direction.36 Calvin similarly begins his discussion of providence in the Institutes with a rejection of the idea that God withdraws from the world after creating it: “It were cold and lifeless to represent God as a momentary Creator, who completed his work once for all, and then left it.”37 Rather than simply creating the world, God is also its “Governor and Preserver.”38 Calvin criticizes the Epicureans and Peripatetics for suggesting that God’s preserving of creation is merely indirect, or that God works providentially only by setting the natural world in motion.39 He insists that God continues to be active in sustaining the world subsequent to creating it and maintains that God oversees and guides the world in a “specific” as well as a general sense. Calvin uses the term “special providence” to highlight God’s pervasive oversight of the world40 and explains that “particular events” reveal the workings of this providence.41 Calvin is confident that God’s oversight is such that all events occur “by the ordination and command of God.”42 God’s will is “the supreme and primary cause of all things, because nothing happens without” God’s “order or permission.”43 In a certain sense, this understanding of God functions to support the Scriptural affirmation that God is profoundly concerned with human particulars. God’s intimate oversight of the created world also logically complements the broader theological convictions that God accomplishes salvation for the world through becoming incarnate and undergoing death and resurrection in the particular historically and socially conditioned Jesus Christ. We saw in Chapter 2 that many Stoics dismiss the idea that God is concerned 35 36 37 38 39 40

41 42 43

Luther, The Bondage of the Will, LW 33:139. Ibid., LW 33:171, 291. Calvin, Institutes, 1.16.1, p. 114. Ibid., 1.16.1, p. 114. Ibid., 1.16.4–5, pp. 116–9; see also p. 113. Oliver Crisp (2009). “Calvin on Creation and Providence.” John Calvin and Evangelical Theology: Legacy and Prospect. Essays in Honor of the Quincentenary of John Calvin. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press. Crisp explains the technical distinction between general and specific providence in Calvin’s thought (p. 53). Calvin, Institutes, 1.16.7, p. 119. Ibid., 1.16.3, p. 115. Ibid., 1.16.8, p. 120.

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with, as Cicero puts it, “individual bird-songs.” The idea that God knows human particulars is a commitment rooted in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures rather than in Hellenistic philosophy.44 A notion of God as radically involved in human events is consistent with the idea that God loves and cares for individual created beings. But such an account of providence also raises questions about God’s responsibility for evil and suffering. Luther particularly struggles with these questions, in part because of his resistance to presenting God’s hidden will as intrinsically rational and his prioritization of divine freedom over divine goodness. Luther recognizes that his affirmations that “God works all in all,” that apart from God “nothing is effected or effective,” and that God is “omnipotent” raise questions regarding God’s use of evil.45 Erasmus argues that we can attribute all that is good “wholly to divine benevolence,” and that anything we perceive to be evil should be “impute[d] to ourselves rather than God.”46 He maintains that if we deny free choice, as Luther does, we must conclude that “God works in all men not only good but even evil works,” a view that “seems plainly to ascribe cruelty and injustice to God.”47 Luther avoids ascribing evil to God by arguing that God’s will dictates what is good so that God (who always acts consistently with God’s own will) cannot do evil; the good, Luther asserts, can be defined as “things which please God or which God wills.”48 Erasmus anticipates this answer, but argues that encouraging people simply to “embrace whatever is His [God’s] good pleasure” is ultimately inconsistent with a Scriptural understanding of God as an eternally just and merciful being who loves humans and who merits love from humans.49 Luther concludes that this apparent inconsistency is another demonstration of the mysteries of God. God may find things good even if these things appear evil to us.50

44

45 46

47 48 49 50

David Burrell (1986). Knowing the Unknowable God:  Ibn-Sina, Maimonides, Aquinas. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Luther, The Bondage of the Will, LW 33:175. Erasmus, On the Freedom of the Will, in Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation (2006). Ed. E. Gordon Rupp and Philip S. Watson. Louisville, KY: Westmister John Knox Press, p. 39. Ibid., p. 92. Luther, The Bondage of the Will, LW 33:175. Erasmus, On the Freedom of the Will, in Luther and Erasmus, pp. 92–5. “Consequently, how things can be good in God’s sight which are evil to us only God knows, and those who see with God’s eyes, that is, who have the Spirit” (LW 33:175).

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In working to avoid ascribing evil to God, Luther develops a complex view of necessity that risks undermining his own position regarding divine transcendence and providence. Luther reiterates God’s omnipotence in relation to all events, arguing that God “moves and acts” in “Satan and ungodly man” as well as in the rest of the created order. Yet God acts in the ungodly “as they are.” Although God omnipotently oversees the ungodly, this oversight is accomplished through working with their corrupt natures and moving them to act consistently with these natures. Thus, although God himself cannot do evil, evil can be done through God’s indirect agency: when “God works in and through evil men, evil things are done.”51 God’s omnipotence is such that God “sets in motion” the evil things that the ungodly do, but Luther attributes culpability for evil to the ungodly human agent, who “wills, desires, and acts according to the kind of person he himself is.”52 To sustain this argument that God is omnipotent but not responsible for evil, Luther suggests an understanding of the natural world characterized by a sort of causal necessity akin to that affirmed by the Stoics. The “movement of divine power” causes creatures to act in keeping with their own natures rather than being “idle,”53 but the divine power does not actively transform these actions so that they are used for good. God operates within the natural structures of the world, according to which a person “perpetually and necessarily sins and errs” until God’s spirit salvifically intervenes.54 In keeping with Augustine,55 Luther affirms that God “makes good use of this evil in accordance with his wisdom for his own glory and our salvation.”56 However, he simultaneously maintains that God is restricted by the naturalistic causal forces at work in the world so that God, out of a sort of Stoic necessity, is ultimately active in evil events that lead to evil consequences. God, Luther contends, “cannot help but do evil with an evil instrument”;57 the corruption of the ungodly severely limits the ways in which even God can use them for good.58

51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58

Luther, The Bondage of the Will, LW 33:176. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., LW 33:177. See, for example, City of God XI.17, XIX.1, and XXII.3. Ibid., LW 33:178. Ibid. “The omnipotence of God makes it impossible for the ungodly to evade the motion and action of God, for he is necessarily subject to it and obeys it. But his corruption or aversion from God makes it impossible for him to be moved and carried along with good effect. God cannot lay

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Such an account of providence, according to which the ungodly necessarily act both under God’s oversight and through the direction of their own inescapably evil natures, points toward a limited understanding of free will in humans. I return to Luther’s view of necessity below, but it is helpful for now to recognize that Luther considers the extent of this limitation by exploring the meaning of passages from the Book of Exodus that attest to God’s hardening of Pharoah’s heart. Erasmus’s discussion of these and similar passages connects acts of God’s will to God’s foreknowledge. Erasmus argues that “For God, to will and to foreknow are the same thing.”59 He explains that when it appears that God is imposing necessity on human wills by having “mercy” on some and “hardening” others, it is really the case that God’s mercy and hardening are reflections of God’s knowledge of what the human deserves. Erasmus affirms that Pharoah “was not forced by the will of God to be obstinately wicked,”60 recognizing that this claim would be inconsistent with God’s justice and goodness.61 He attributes Pharoah’s evil actions to Pharoah’s own volition, explaining that Pharoah “was created with a will that could turn either way, but of his own wish he turned to evil, and with his own mind preferred to follow evil rather than obey the commandments of God.”62 Like Erasmus, Luther rejects any suggestion that God willfully and actively implants wickedness in Pharoah. He recognizes that the notion that God works evil in people “by creating evil in us from scratch” would clearly undermine God’s goodness.63 Yet Luther argues that God plays an active role in Pharoah’s hardening, and that God does this using the mechanisms of causal necessity that God established in the natural order. Luther explains that when God decided to remove Pharoah from his role as tyrant over the Israelites, God took steps that he knew would “provoke” Pharoah and increase “the hardness and stubbornness of his heart.”64 As an ungodly person, Pharoah is unable to act consistently with his own nature and is in this sense subject to necessity. Because Pharoah has an “evil will,” he “must

59 60 61 62 63 64

aside his omnipotence on account of man’s aversion, and ungodly man cannot alter his aversion” (Ibid., LW 33:176–7). Erasmus, On the Freedom of the Will, in Luther and Erasmus, p. 66. Ibid., p. 67. Ibid., p. 65. Ibid., p. 66. Luther, The Bondage of the Will, LW 33:178. Luther, The Bondage of the Will, LW 33:177.

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necessarily become worse”65 unless God’s grace intervenes. God encourages Pharoah’s anger by bringing about Pharoah’s encounters with Moses, knowing that these encounters would cause “indignation and rage” in the ungodly Pharoah. An ungodly person, Luther explains, is “incapable of not being angry” when his self-interest is threatened.66 Through exposing Pharoah to a goodness that would inevitably provoke him, God intentionally causes Pharoah’s heart to harden: The hardening of Pharoah by God, therefore, takes place as follows: God confronts his badness outwardly with an object that he naturally hates, without ceasing inwardly to move by omnipotent motion the evil will which he finds there; and Pharoah in accordance with the badness of his will cannot help hating what is opposed to him and trusting in his own strength, until he becomes so obstinate that he neither hears nor understands, but is possessed by Satan and carried away like a raving madman.67

God thus hardens Pharoah’s heart by putting him in a situation that will cause anger and then allowing this causal order to play itself out, “permitting” Pharoah’s hardening.68 Luther’s efforts to demonstrate God’s lack of responsibility for Pharoah’s actions demonstrate a major challenge that Christian accounts of providence must negotiate. Luther acknowledges this challenge and attempts to extricate his position from the idea that God causes evil actions. But in order to sustain this claim, he argues that God’s will and pleasure define the good. This argument dangerously elevates God’s will as the core of God’s essence and isolates the will from other constitutive features of divine being—such as goodness, justice, truth, beauty, and love. At points, Luther indicates that God is incapable of evil, suggesting that Luther does wish to characterize God as essentially and necessarily good. But while a conception of God as a will who determines the meaning of terms such as “good” ensures that God is all-powerful, such a conception does not ensure that God is necessarily good in any real sense; goodness itself simply becomes an arbitrary category. Moreover, Luther’s attempts to deny God’s responsibility for human evil underscore the difficulty of maintaining a strong account of divine determinism without ultimately 65 66 67 68

Ibid., LW 33:180. Ibid., LW 33:177. Ibid., LW 33:179. Ibid., LW 33:177.

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making God the cause of evil. At best, Luther’s God refrains from using the all-encompassing divine power to stop evil and instead stands resigned to allowing evil to take place. At worst, this God actively and intentionally provokes evil, making use of the system of natural causes that God created and knows intimately.

Edwards and the problem of panentheism In contrast to Luther, Edwards at many points presents God as a being whose character is accessible to human reason.69 Norman Fiering affirms that there is an “inherent rationalism” in Edwards’s view of the universe,70 and indeed, in The End for Which God Created the World, Edwards describes creation in terms that point toward a reasonableness and transparency intrinsic to God’s being. Rather than characterizing God’s work as inscrutable, Edwards follows the tradition of British rationalists such as Samuel Clarke in using the language of fitness to describe God’s creation and oversight of the world. God, Edwards explains, is a morally perfect being disposed “to everything that is fit, suitable, and amiable in itself.”71 Creation is not the act of a hidden and accessible will, but the work of a creator whose goodness makes him subject to act consistently with the standards put forth by eternal fitnesses. Edwards conceives these standards as internal to and constitutive of God’s very being, but he is so committed to emphasizing God’s goodness that he maintains that God “knows what the greatest fitness is, as much as if perfect rectitude were a distinct person to direct him.”72 Edwards’s emphasis on God’s rationality and intrinsic goodness gives rise to arguments that illustrate two related potential pitfalls that can arise for thinkers stressing God’s accessibility. First, End of Creation’s cosmology tends toward panentheism, an account of the world’s origins that suggests that God in God’s fullness spills over to form the world so that the world and God’s essence in some ways co-exist. Second, Edwards struggles to preserve divine aseity (the notion that God is sufficient for God’s 69

70

71 72

Edwards is not fully consistent on this point. For discussion of moments at which Edwards risks presenting God as the author of evil, see Oliver Crisp (2005). Jonathan Edwards and the Metaphysics of Sin. London: Ashgate, pp. 13, 18, 21, 54–78. Thus Fiering argues that there is an “inherent rationalism” in Edwards’s universe. Norman Fiering (1981a). Jonathan Edwards’s Moral Thought and Its British Context. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, pp. 343 – 4. Edwards, The End for Which God Created the World, WJE 8:421. Ibid., WJE 8:425.

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own existence). Both tendencies risk undermining orthodox Christian theological claims about God’s nature and being, but even more significantly for our consideration, these pitfalls, like Luther’s, call God’s character into question by, in some sense, qualifying his love for the created order. The first pitfall exemplified in End of Creation is a sort of panentheism. Clearly Edwards intends to distinguish God from the created world and to affirm God’s transcendence as Luther and Calvin do. At one point in End of Creation, he notes that humans are limited in our understanding of God because “God and divine things . . . are so much above us.”73 But throughout the work, he uses the term “emanation” to describe God’s relation to the world, and certain interpretations of this term could call the distinction between God and creatures into question. Edwards equates emanation with “communication”; a connection between these two ideas could suggest that emanation functions simply to speak of how God deliberatively and willfully shares of God’s own nature by imparting divine goodness to creatures so that they can partake in God’s goodness. However, emanation is also a term characteristic of Neoplatonism; in this context, emanation signifies a process through which goodness uncontrollably and necessarily flows forth from a God who is infinite goodness.74 At points, Edwards uses the term “emanation” in conjunction with Neoplatonist language, arguing that goodness flows forth or diff uses from God into creatures and implying that God’s goodness overflows uncontrollably. He maintains that God possesses a “diff usive 73 74

Edwards, The End for Which God Created the World, WJE 8:458. Paul Ramsey lays out the differences between a Biblical and Neoplatonist interpretation of the term “emanation” and explains what is at stake in these alternative readings of the term (WJE 8:433 n5). Ramsey argues that Edwards’s “emanation” should be read simply as “communication,” noting that in one of Edwards’s early Miscellanies, Edwards muses that heaven’s inhabitants fi nd a way to express harmony with each other “by some other emanations than sounds, of which we cannot conceive, that will be vastly more proportionate, harmonious and delightful than the nature of sounds is capable of” (Miscellany 88, qtd. in Ramsey, WJE 8:378 n5). Ramsey affi rms that “communication is the obvious key to understanding the meaning of ‘emanation’ ” both in this Miscellany and in End of Creation (WJE 8:378 n5). For a reading of End of Creation that differs from Ramsey’s, see Michael McClymond (1995). “Sinners in the Hands of a Virtuous God:  Ethics and Divinity in Jonathan Edwards’s End of Creation.” Zeitschrift fur neuere Theologiegeschichte 2/1:  1–22 , reprinted in McClymond (1998). Encounters with God:  An Approach to the Theology of Jonathan Edwards. Oxford:  Oxford University Press. McClymond argues that while Edwards explicitly affi rms creation ex nihilo and God’s independence from creatures, Edwards’s account of God’s inherent disposition to emanate leads to problems with regard to his understanding of God’s relation to the world, God’s freedom in creating, and God’s direction of divine grace toward particular individuals (1995, pp. 10–11). McClymond also argues that End of Creation problematically anthropomorphizes God, making God into a gentleman of whom an eighteenth-century moralist such as Shaftesbury would approve (pp. 15–17).

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disposition” as “an original property of his nature,” and that this disposition inclines God to share of God’s own “infinite fullness of all possible good.”75 Ultimately, God’s disposition to “emanate” his goodness or fullness leads him to create the world.76 God’s possession of such a disposition suggests a sort of potency in God that is actualized by the creation of the world and thus, in a certain sense, completed or perfected by the world, an idea explored more fully in Sang Hyun Lee’s influential account of Edwards’s “relational” or “dispositional” ontology.77 Such an account of creation risks compromising divine aseity by suggesting that God in some ways depends on the world. Edwards would reject the idea that God needs the created order for God’s own self-realization, recognizing and attempting to overcome the “impropriety” of his position insofar as it seems to demand that creatures exist in order for God’s creative disposition to be fulfilled.78 In this sense, Edwards would wish to preserve God’s simplicity and self-sufficiency. Yet, even as Edwards seeks to uphold the idea that God is self-sufficient, his use of the language of disposition and emanation leads toward an understanding of God and the created world as closely and intimately linked, so much so that creation ensures that God’s perfections are able “to produce a proper effect, in opposition to their lying eternally dormant and ineffectual: as his power being eternally without any act or fruit of that power; his wisdom eternally ineffectual in any wise production, or prudent disposal of anything, etc.”79 Edwards indeed suggests that 75 76 77

78 79

Edwards, The End for Which God Created the World, WJE 8:432–3. Ibid., WJE 8:434–5. Sang Hyun Lee (1988). The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards. Princeton:  Princeton University Press. Lee recognizes that his account of Edwards’s position indicates that the act of creation further actualizes God in a sense, even as God is completely act in and of Godself (p. 201). At the same time, he argues that Edwards is faithful to traditional attempts to ensure God’s transcendence and immanence, and that he likewise defends God’s aseity and priority to creatures (p. 206). Stephen R. Holmes criticizes Lee’s argument for presuming that God’s being enlarges and expands in a manner opposed to classical Christian theism; he notes that the Son and the world are generated by God through the same mechanism, according to Lee’s view. Holmes (2003). “Does Jonathan Edwards Use a Dispositional Ontology? A  Response to Sang Hyun Lee,” in Jonathan Edwards:  Philosophical Theologian, ed. Paul Helm and Oliver Crisp. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, p. 107. While Holmes’s critique has merit, one particularly intriguing insight Lee offers is that while Edwards’s argument makes the existence of the world necessary, this necessity is a “moral” rather than a “natural” necessity (p. 201 n 76). Certainly, Edwards affi rms, as discussed below, that God is subject to moral necessity but he does not indicate that God is subject to natural necessity. The importance of this distinction for Edwards’ view of necessity may provide a means through which a reading of Edwardsean dispositions in keeping with Lee’s argument can avoid compromising God’s aseity. Edwards, The End for Which God Created the World, WJE 8:434. Ibid., WJE 8:527.

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the created world is a unique vehicle through which God’s perfect attributes are actualized: “It seems a thing in itself fit, proper, and desirable that they glorious attributes of God, which consist in a sufficiency to certain acts and effects, should be exerted in the production of such effects as might manifest the infinite power, wisdom, righteousness, goodness, etc, which are in God. If the world had not been created, these attributes never would have had any exercise.”80 Edwards implicitly suggests that God does not need to create by indicating that God is aware of God’s own goodness, whether or not God sees its effects.81 Nevertheless, Edwards explains, there is something in the nature of goodness itself that makes it fitting for a supremely good being to share this goodness with others. This goodness is shared partly by displaying God’s beauty so that this beauty can be known by, as Edwards puts it, a “glorious society of created beings,”82 for “it seems to be a thing in itself fit and desirable, that the glorious perfections of God should be known, and the operations and expressions of them seen by other beings than himself.”83 Edwards’s conception of God and the created order as nearly interdependent is underscored in his view of the interrelated character of the two ends for which God created the world. According to Edwards, God created the world both for God’s own glory and for the good of humans,84 and God’s providential direction or government of the world is likewise directed toward these same ends.85 Edwards explains that God governs the world for the sake of God’s own goodness and for the sake of “the good of such as are to be the eternal subjects of God’s goodness.”86 At one point, he considers whether treating God’s own glory as the end of creation implies a selfishness in God, and he argues that God’s glory is so connected to the good of creatures that it is through the communication of divine goodness to the creatures that God is most completely glorified. There is no “disjunction and opposition” between God’s focus on God’s own glory and God’s “communication of good to his

80 81 82 83 84

85 86

Ibid., WJE 8:428–9. Ibid., WJE 8:431. Ibid. Ibid., WJE 8:430–1. At points in the text, Edwards appears to speak not of the good of the created order in general, but the good of the elect in particular (see, e.g., WJE 8:506–11). Nevertheless, at other points he considers the good of creation as a whole as related to God’s own glory and goodness (see, e.g., WJE 8:458–9). Ibid., WJE 8:506–11. Ibid., WJE 8:506.

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creatures.”87 The communion between God and creatures is so extensive that when God shares his fullness with the creatures, God can be said to be expanding and expressing his own glory: God in seeking his glory, therein seeks the good of his creatures: because the emanation of his glory (which he seeks and delights in, and he delights in himself and his own eternal glory) implies the communicated excellency and happiness of his creature . . . In communicating his fullness for them, he does it for himself: because their good, which he seeks, is so much in union and communion with himself. God is their good . . . God in seeking their glory and happiness, seeks himself: and in seeking himself, i.e. himself diff used and expressed . . . he seeks their glory and happiness.88

The deep connections between God and creatures are such that the glorification of God achieves good for creatures, and the good of creatures glorifies God. This position shows a relation between the ends of God and the created world consistent with and appropriate to an ethic in which love of God and neighbor are intertwined. However, such a position simultaneously struggles against making God overly dependent on creatures for God’s own fulfi llment. In some ways, the risks in Edwards’s account of the relation between God and creation represent an opposite extreme from the dangers in Luther’s position. Edwards’s God in End of Creation is almost excessively immanent to the created order, so that God in some sense could be seen as depending on creatures for God’s self-fulfillment. Luther, in contrast, secures divine transcendence to a degree of promoting radical omnipotence. Nevertheless, we have also seen that in defending God from being morally responsible for evil, Luther relies on an argument that curiously constrains this omnipotent God by the causal workings of the natural world. The common ground between the problematic implications of Luther’s and Edwards’s views is further demonstrated by reflecting on the implications of Edwards’s position for conceiving God’s moral character. Divine aseity is crucial for securing God’s fundamental goodness. A view of creation as the necessary fulfillment of God’s internal dispositions characterizes God as benefitting from the act of creating. Christian theology traditionally holds that creation is a free gift 87 88

Ibid., WJE 8:458. Ibid., WJE 8:459.

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from a perfect and complete triune God to creatures. A lack of perfection in God calls into question the sense in which we can think of creation as a gift; if creation provides God with something necessary for God’s own existence and fulfi llment, then the act of creation becomes a means through which God fulfills a personal need. When coupled with the language of emanation, the idea that God needs to create also suggests that creation may not be an act that God actively oversees and directs but is instead a result of God’s obligation to a kind of causal necessity. Edwards thus adopts an understanding of creation and providence that differs markedly from Luther’s view, but that runs similar risks of undermining God’s goodness and calling God’s freedom into question as well.

Freedom and necessity in human agents This brief consideration of Luther’s and Edwards’s views of God’s relation to the created order highlights challenges that certain models of the creatorcreature relation pose for understanding God’s character and action. A related but distinct concern centers on how free will and moral agency are conceived in human beings. Luther, Calvin, and Edwards all affirm that human beings are in some ways subject to necessity. At the same time, all three thinkers indicate that human beings are morally accountable for their actions, a conviction that is theologically crucial for preserving God’s character. According to this position (in its broadest contours), God condemns the unregenerate for damnation because of sin, and if people are not authentically the authors of their own actions, then God’s act of condemnation would undermine God’s goodness and justice. Luther, Calvin, and Edwards work to defend the notion of free will in human beings, in part to safeguard human accountability and in part to secure God’s fundamental goodness. Despite differences in their accounts of progress, the arguments Luther, Calvin, and Edwards develop to explain free will are strikingly similar: people are free, and this freedom consists in a capacity to act in keeping with our natures. Nevertheless, we will see that Luther and Calvin go on to limit moral agency in the elect to a degree that undermines human responsibility. Luther, Calvin, and Edwards reject the notion that a human will is an undetermined force that encounters objects from a neutral stance. Luther argues

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against the notion that we possess a “neutral and unqualified willing”89 such as that which he attributes to Erasmus.90 Calvin likewise advocates extreme caution in using the term “freedom” because he perceives it to be dangerous to orthodox theology.91 People, he explains, are likely to misunderstand the meaning of freedom by assuming that the term refers to having “a free choice of good and evil.”92 Edwards’s basic definition of the will appears to depart from Luther’s and Calvin’s: the will, Edwards affirms, is “that by which the mind chooses anything.”93 But Edwards goes on to develop an understanding of the will continuous with Luther’s and Calvin’s. For all three thinkers, the human will is determined by its own natural tendencies or desires. Luther, Calvin, and Edwards affirm, in slightly different ways, that the human will does not determine itself. Luther and Calvin explain that the default state of a human will after the Fall is a state of enslavement to sin. Just as the Stoics suggest that a moral agent is either wholly virtuous or wholly vicious, and just as (we saw in Chapter  4) justification functions as a discrete transformational occurrence in historical Reformed theology, so does Luther affirm that the human will is either enslaved to sin or in right relation with God: The truth of the matter is rather as Christ says: “He who is not with me is against me” [Luke 11:23]. He does not say: “He who is not with me is not against me either, but neutral.” For if God is in us, Satan is absent, and only a good will is present; if God is absent, Satan is present, and only an evil will is in us.94

Luther contends here that the human will is not self-determining in the sense of being able to choose neutrally among multiple paths. Instead, an unconverted human will can “operate by its own power only in one direction (the bad one),” requiring God’s help to pursue the good.95 Rather than acting freely, such a will is “forced to serve sin.”96 Likewise Luther maintains that justified Christians are “slaves and captives” to God, and these Christians “readily will 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96

Luther, The Bondage of the Will, LW 33:115. Ibid., LW 33:105. Calvin, Institutes, 2.2.8, p. 163. Ibid., 2.2.7, p. 162. Edwards, Freedom of the Will, WJE 1:137. Luther, The Bondage of the Will, LW 33:115. Ibid., LW 33:109. Luther, The Bondage of the Will, LW 33:115.

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and do” what God desires.97 Calvin similarly affirms that the postlapsarian will is in bondage to sin, “so enslaved by depraved lusts as to be incapable of one righteous desire.”98 This enslavement incapacitates human freedom:  as the “slave of sin,” a postlapsarian will “can will nothing but evil.”99 Edwards approaches this argument differently, through engaging John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding and arguing against Locke’s contention that willing and desiring are two separate things. Edwards maintains that humans do not will things that oppose their desires or desire things apart from the will.100 Acts of volition take place in keeping with our perception of “the greatest apparent good” or “what seems most agreeable” to our minds,101 and Edwards affirms that our wills never choose any other object.102 In describing the sort of freedom it is proper to attribute to the human will, all three theologians clarify their arguments by identifying two types of necessity. Luther and Calvin defend the will’s freedom by distinguishing between “compulsion” (necessitas coactionis) and “immutability” (necessitas immutabilitatis).103 Both affirm that human beings have free will insofar as our wills are not subject to compulsion, or coercion by an external force. God does not violently force the elect to will the good.104 But human beings are nonetheless subject to a certain kind of necessity, so that, Calvin explains, humans are free “only to the extent” of being free “from compulsion.”105 In this sense, our freedom is similar to God’s, who must “necessarily” be good. God’s goodness is deeply tied to the very nature of the Godhead. God, therefore, “cannot do evil” precisely as a consequence of God’s “boundless goodness.”106 Calvin also attributes this sort of freedom, precisely and carefully defined, to the human will: a person is free in the sense that he or she “acts voluntarily, and not by compulsion.”107 Calvin thus suggests a vision of freedom equivalent 97 98 99 100 101 102 103

104 105 106 107

Ibid., LW 33:65. Calvin, Institutes, 2.2.12, p. 165. Ibid., 2.5.1, p.198. Edwards, Freedom of the Will, WJE 1:137– 40. Ibid., WJE 1:144. Ibid., WJE 1:147. Luther describes both this form of necessity and the necessity to which the ungodly are subject in terms of “immutability” (necessitas immutabilitatis) rather than “compulsion,” suggesting that all humans are subject to a necessity shaped by consistency with their own natures (Luther, The Bondage of the Will, LW 33:64). Calvin, Institutes 2.3.5, p. 181. Ibid., 2.2.6, p. 161–2. Ibid., 2.3.5, p. 181. Ibid., 2.2.7, p. 162.

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to volition; we are free when we act in a manner that fully involves our own wills. He affirms, “For that which is voluntary is also free.”108 In explaining the nature of free will in God and human beings, Edwards develops an account of natural necessity and moral necessity that functions similarly to Luther’s and Calvin’s distinction between coactio and necessitas. Edwards explains that “natural necessity” involves the subjection of the will to natural limitations; for example, mathematical propositions are necessarily true, and humans are subject to the force of gravity. “Moral necessity,” in contrast, refers to a necessary connection between “moral causes and effects.” A moral cause would include a “moral habit or motive,” and a moral effect would describe an act of the will.109 Edwards argues that human beings are subject to moral necessity. Our desires and characters necessarily determine our actions so that we may find ourselves unable to act counter to our characters.110 However, this form of necessity differs from “natural necessity,” which, like coactio, occurs when “extrinsic” forces prevent us from acting as we desire.111 Edwards argues that our consciences help us recognize that actions subject to natural necessity are not praiseworthy or blameworthy.112 Nevertheless, in thinking about moral necessity, we see an opposite correlation between necessity and praiseworthiness: actions are more praiseworthy or blameworthy when they are consistent with a person’s dispositions than when they are not connected to them. Edwards contends that “good acts of will” performed because of a “strong propensity to good, and a very powerful love to virtue” are more commendable than acts less necessarily tied to these character traits.113 Like Calvin, Edwards argues for a moral necessity in God114 that underscores the praiseworthiness of morally necessary actions. God is a “sovereign” being with “infinite power,”115 but he is simultaneously subject to the moral necessity of being “holy and wise.”116 Edwards argues, drawing on Scripture, that God is to be praised even as his actions are morally

108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116

Ibid., 2.3.5, p. 181. Edwards, Freedom of the Will, WJE 1:156–8. Ibid., WJE 1:159– 60. Ibid., WJE 1:159. Ibid., WJE 1:359. Ibid., WJE 1:360. Ibid., WJE 1:377. Ibid., WJE 1:379. Ibid., WJE 1:380–1. Edwards affi rms here that God’s will is not self-determining; instead, “God’s perfect wisdom” determines his will.

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necessary.117 Just as Luther and Calvin distinguish a form of necessity from compulsion by external forces, so does Edwards uphold our subjection to a moral necessity distinct from compulsion caused by natural forces. Thus, in Luther, Calvin, and Edwards we find coherent and consistent defenses of human freedom modeled on divine freedom. This commitment to human freedom provides a starting point for developing an account of moral agency compatible with a recognition of the necessary constraints that are part of human life. But Luther’s and Calvin’s approaches to sustaining this position remain unsatisfying for attempts to articulate how the elect can be seen to be the authors of their actions in any true sense. Both thinkers ultimately present God, rather than human beings, as the author of good actions, and their insistence on this point seems to undermine their earlier claims about the nature of human freedom. To some degree, God’s very role in conversion raises questions about the authorship of human actions. Both Luther and Calvin argue that the will’s nature is changed in conversion so that when justified Christians love the good, this love is a necessary consequence of the change in nature that God has effected in justification. Luther characterizes the change God brings about as “gentle,” but it remains a thoroughgoing change wholly effected by God. By contrast, if God works in us, the will is changed, and being gently breathed upon by the Spirit of God, it again wills and acts from pure willingness and inclination and of its own accord, not from compulsion, so that it cannot be turned another way by any opposition, not be overcome or compelled even by the gates of hell, but it goes on willing and delighting in and loving the good, just as before it willed and delighted in and loved evil.118

Luther makes clear that the necessity to which persons are subject differs from a “free choice” that would suggest we have the capacity to change ourselves. It is God who changes the very nature of our will. Similarly, as noted at the end of Chapter 4, even though Calvin makes certain arguments supporting a positive view of human reason’s natural capacities after the Fall,119 117 118 119

Edwards, Freedom of the Will, WJE 1:278–80. Luther, The Bondage of the Will, LW 33:65. God providentially does not destroy the “natural gift” of reason in the Fall. He observes that both Scripture and experience testify to human reason’s capacities to engage the world in constructive ways (Institutes 2.2.12, p. 165), and that this ability is one of many gifts God has given to humans (Institutes 2.2.15, p. 167). Th rough reason and natural instincts, we can pursue “civil

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he nevertheless makes clear that at the moment of conversion God gives us a new will, replacing our “heart of stone” with a “heart of flesh.”120 This view of conversion raises questions about whether, for Luther and Calvin, the elect are truly free insofar as they receive good dispositions from God as unearned gifts at the time of justification. A closer consideration of Luther’s and Calvin’s accounts of moral progress in the Christian life reveals that both thinkers are in fact reluctant to attribute goodness to human agents even after justification, a resistance that undermines their commitment to a distinction between necessitas and coactio. Luther stresses the importance of human pursuit of the good after justification but characterizes this pursuit as an exercise of God’s agency within human beings. When justified Christians resist sin, this resistance is “the work of God, who is wonderfully present in his saints.”121 Calvin likewise makes clear in the Institutes that good actions cannot be attributed to the will or internal dispositions that God gives the elect in justification. Instead, it is most proper to see God as the author of good human actions even if these actions are the activity of a justified will. After conversion, Calvin explains, “insofar as” a human will “is good, it is of God, and not of us.”122 Rather than simply making conversion and the acquisition of a new will dependent wholly on God’s grace, Calvin argues that God alone is at work in this human will’s pursuit of the good even after justification: The first part of a good work is the will, the second is vigorous effort in the doing of it. God is the author of both. It is, therefore, robbery from God to arrogate anything to ourselves, either in the will or the act. Were it said that God gives assistance to a weak will, something might be left us; but when it is said that he makes the will, every thing good in it is placed without us . . . [T]he Lord both begins and perfects the good work in us, so that it is due to him, first, that the will conceives a love of rectitude, is inclined to desire, is moved and stimulated to pursue it; secondly that this choice, desire, and

120 121 122

order and honesty” and recognize the value of laws (Institutes, 2.2.13, p. 166). These natural gifts also enable us to achieve certain measures of truth in philosophical reflections, as we see in the work of secular scholars. God providentially gives us various forms and types of knowledge that can be used to benefit humankind as a whole (Institutes, 2.2.15–16, pp. 167–8). For Calvin, then, human nature, and specifically human reason, retains some positive connection to the world and some capacity for a limited (non-moral) good within this world. Calvin, Institutes, 2.3.8, p.184. Luther, The Bondage of the Will, LW 33:254. Calvin, Institutes, 2.3.8, p. 184.

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endeavor fail not, but are carried forward to effect; and, lastly, that we go on without interruption, and persevere even to the end.123

Calvin makes clear that God is the author of human actions after conversion so that humans do not participate in achieving the good in any sense. Such a contention points toward a view of necessity in human actions difficult to reconcile with Calvin’s argument that human sin is voluntary. Calvin affirms that we are morally accountable for sin because our wills, in a sense, participate voluntarily in it. However, he denies such voluntary participation of the elect in goodness, and this denial limits his potential for speaking constructively about moral responsibility. Luther’s and Calvin’s unsatisfactory accounts of humans’ authorship of their actions are somewhat ameliorated in Edwards. Edwards’s efforts to present the elect as cooperating in the pursuit of good actions is important because it suggests that Protestant ethicists can find resources for a plausible account of moral responsibility without abandoning the broad contours of the commitments regarding necessity that Luther and Calvin adopt. We saw that Edwards’s conception of the moral necessity to which the human will is subject is largely consistent with Luther’s and Calvin’s, but Edwards speaks of this necessity in a manner that emphasizes its congruity with human efforts. His understanding of election as a necessary precursor to true virtue makes humanity’s ability to acquire virtue radically dependent on God, as discussed in Chapter 4. But whereas Luther and Calvin wish to emphasize God as the author of good human actions, Edwards indicates that his account of necessity promotes connections among causes and effects that make human efforts toward virtue more worthwhile than Arminianism allows.124 He hints at the possibility that virtue is related to the repeated performance of good actions, so that virtue is partially shaped by preceding events that are the “cause, means, or ground” of this virtue (though Edwards’s consistent rejection of Aristotelian habituation125 means that a reader must presume that he is speaking of formation in virtue subsequently to justification and the possession of a spiritual sense). Additionally, at one point, he argues that over

123 124 125

Ibid., 2.3.9, p. 185. Edwards, Freedom of the Will, WJE 1:368–9. William J. Danaher (2004). The Trinitarian Ethics of Jonathan Edwards. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, pp. 153 –5.

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time, we may be able to overcome bad habits.126 These arguments indicate that Edwards’s view of moral necessity does not mean that character traits produce acts of will in a mechanical sense. Indeed, Edwards maintains that some inclinations or habits toward actions do not result in the actions themselves, noting “that not all propensity implies moral necessity, but only some very high degrees; which none will deny.”127 Edwards thus sees the necessity to which humans are subject as compatible not only with moral responsibility, but more precisely with a sense of responsibility tied to a recognition that our efforts help to shape our character, at least subsequently to justification. Such a view points toward the possibility of reconciling Edwards’s ethic with a certain understanding of moral responsibility in human beings.

Toward a reformed conception of moral agency Ethicists exploring the nature of moral agency within Reformed Protestant traditions must wrestle with a challenging legacy. Luther, Calvin, and Edwards adhere to a thoroughgoing account of divine providence that ultimately subjects the human will to a kind of causal necessity:  choices of the will are effects necessarily caused by a person’s dispositions. Our natures determine who we are and dictate the sorts of actions we are capable of pursuing. This position is further complicated by soteriological commitments that identify God as the agent whose will solely determines the presence or absence of moral capacities in a given human person. God instills moral capacities in the elect when they are justified, and insofar as these capacities determine our character traits, then it would seem to follow that human agency is severely restricted. Moreover, as we saw above, Luther, Calvin, and Edwards present human agency as a reflection of God’s agency, but simultaneously struggle to balance God’s goodness with God’s freedom. A Reformed Protestant emphasis on the all-encompassing character of divine providence runs the risk of undermining God’s goodness. It is difficult to sustain a strong conviction that God actively oversees and directs human affairs without presenting God as the author of evil. Luther’s account of the manner in which God hardened

126 127

Edwards, Freedom of the Will, WJE 1:161–2. Edwards, Freedom of the Will, WJE 1:359.

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Pharoah’s heart exemplifies this risk. Edwards’s efforts to develop an alternate account of creation likewise risks compromising his efforts to characterize God as fundamentally good by limiting the sense in which God’s act of creating can be viewed as a freely chosen and non-reciprocal gift. An understanding of humans as, in some sense, the authors of their own actions, is important for maintaining an adequate understanding of moral agency in humans. As noted both by Epictetus128 and Erasmus (as seen above in his discussion of God’s hardening of Pharoah’s heart), a view of humans as morally accountable also helps to preserve God’s goodness and justice. One can speculate that Luther, Calvin, and Edwards are aware of these concerns as well. While they are cautious about developing a clear cut account of moral agency even in justified Christians, their commitments to the possibility of Christian progress (laid out in Chapter 4) signify their interest in allowing for growth in the Christian life. However, their discussions of free will prove inadequate for maintaining an account of moral agency appropriate to this growth. Despite this inadequacy, historical Reformed thought offers resources for conceiving human beings as authentic moral agents. Discerning these resources helps to specify Protestant theology’s potential contributions to contemporary reflection on moral agency: a Protestant view of moral agency differentiates agency from autonomy and allows for an understanding of moral responsibility that avoids aligning this responsibility with a narrow view of freedom. The idea that human beings are necessarily subject to certain limitations or constraints need not be opposed to affirmations of personal agency. Such a view stands in keeping with a number of philosophical and theological perspectives that reject modern understandings of the human person as an autonomous will that can be detached from historical and material particulars.129 Contemporary philosopher Nomy Arpaly challenges 128 129

Epictetus, Discourses I.17, 1:117–19. Concerns about problematic tendencies of Kantian and utilitarian ethics are illustrated in several major texts associated with the beginnings of contemporary virtue ethics. See, for example, G. E.  M. Anscombe (1958). “Modern Moral Philosophy.” Philosophy 33.124:  1–16; Stanley Hauerwas (1991). A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic. Notre Dame, IN:  University of Notre Dame Press; and Alasdair MacIntyre (1981). After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Feminist approaches to ethics likewise embrace a view of the human person as inherently relational, and additional works recognize the ways in which an excessive emphasis on rationality risks obscuring the full humanity of children, the elderly, and persons with cognitive disabilities. See, for example, Eva Feder Kittay (1999). Love’s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality, and Dependency. New  York :  Routledge; Alasdair MacIntyre (1999). Dependent Rational

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notions of moral responsibility as equivalent to the exercise of autonomy. She argues that autonomy is itself a multifaceted concept, and that ascriptions of autonomy are insufficient for demonstrating that an agent is operating in a morally praiseworthy or blameworthy manner.130 Jesse Couenhoven makes note of Arpaly and other philosophers who conceive responsibility as “compatible with determinism” in exploring and defending an Augustinian view of moral responsibility that focuses in particular on original sin’s effects on humans’ moral capabilities. Couenhoven defends the notion that people can be morally responsible for their character traits while remaining subject to factors outside their control, including instances of moral luck and operations of grace that have at least some irresistible dimensions.131 In an important sense, historical Protestant convictions that humans are necessarily limited in their moral capacities offer an avenue through which to reconceive moral responsibility as embodied precisely in recognition of ways in which we cannot control certain dimensions of life. Attention to the Stoics, in turn, offers clarity for understanding precisely what a view of moral agency compatible with determinism can look like for contemporary Christian ethicists. As we saw in Chapter 2, the Roman Stoics share with Luther, Calvin, and Edwards a sense that humans are subject to necessity as well as a conviction that the universe is benevolently ordered toward the good. Yet in contrast to Luther, Calvin, and Edwards, they couple belief that humans are subject to necessity with a strong sense that humans exercise moral responsibility precisely through choosing when and how to exercise virtuous assent. Moral agents exercise virtuous assent through consenting intellectually and volitionally to the circumstances they are facing and by working deliberatively to align their personal dispositions and actions with the benevolent workings of the universe. Moral responsibility consists in seeing one’s own circumstances accurately, both by acknowledging circumstances outside our control and assessing potential avenues through which we can grow in a recognition of our common humanity with others and a sense of general good will. An agent exercises responsibility by giving herself over

130

131

Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues. Chicago: Open Court Press; and Susan Wendell (1996). The Rejected Body: Feminist Philosophical Reflections on Disability. New York : Routledge. Nomy Arpaly (2003). Unprincipled Virtue: An Inquiry Into Moral Agency. New York :  Oxford University Press, pp. 129– 48. Jesse Couenhoven (2013). Stricken By Sin, Cured By Christ: Agency, Necessity, and Culpability in Augustinian Theology. New York : Oxford University Press, pp. 176 –83, 192– 4.

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to a virtue that is in some ways deeply submissive and that involves committing to take part in something greater without losing their own will. The Stoics hold a much more positive view of human reason’s capacities than that for which the understandings of sin at work in Luther, Calvin, and Edwards would allow. For the Roman Stoics, virtue is embodied in assent to God’s providence, so the affirmation that assent lies within our power is tantamount to an affirmation that we are capable of becoming virtuous through our own merits. This conclusion is clearly at odds with Reformed theology; the Reformed tradition would hold that not even virtue is exclusively under our control but depends on God’s will. Yet, despite this important difference, Epictetus’s advocacy of the practice of discerning and focusing on things that the gods have chosen to be “up to us” is nevertheless instructive because it gives rise to an understanding of moral agency that lies partly in recognizing oneself as subject to some measure of necessity caused by divine providence. The Roman Stoic alignment of moral responsibility with consent to benevolent providence thus offers a promising way forward for Protestant ethicists working to construct a positive account of moral agency while simultaneously acknowledging the myriad ways in which human beings are constrained by limitations associated with sin, finitude, materiality, and particular social, historical, and cultural contexts. Consideration of the pursuit of virtue as the means through which agency is embodied allows us to think of a justified Christian as an active participant in Christian progress, even as their participation is marked by a form of self-giving through which she actively allows God to transform her character. Such transformation increasingly draws her into union with God’s triune being. We saw concretely in Chapter  3 that the virtue characteristic of the Christian life consists in faith—a supreme disposition of trust in God. This faith is necessarily embodied in a love through which a moral agent seeks to align their own being with God’s character and to take part in God’s benevolence directed both toward God’s own being and toward the created world as a whole. A conception of human moral agency for which these virtues are central requires emphasizing our limitations in pursuing these capacities even more than the Stoics do. The Stoic aspirant to virtue is dissuaded from dwelling on dimensions of life that she cannot control. The Christian, more radically, does well to accept her lack of control not only over particular historical and social circumstances that shape her life, but also over her relationship

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with God, for Christianity affirms that God’s desire and capacity to love and forgive exceed human abilities to earn such love. Yet the decision to cede control to divine providence need not serve as an act of passive resignation to an arbitrary fate. Instead, this giving up of control is an expression of trust that the divine nature is benevolently ordering the world toward its good. The moral agency of justified Christians lies in pursuing and embodying a disposition that acknowledges and accepts their own limitations, and particularly their moral limitations. An acceptance of the notion that even moral matters lie outside our control preserves the theological convictions that God providentially directs the world and that God is the author of human salvation. At the same time, elevating this disposition provides a starting point for ensuring that humans exercise moral agency in actively pursuing a good character even while recognizing that this pursuit must be undertaken with profound humility. The practices of self-examination that guide an individual in recognizing her limitations in achieving the good may appear to promote a view of the moral life that is both overly individualistic and focused inwardly to an excessive degree. Such a perspective in some ways runs counter to contemporary accounts of virtue that emphasize the essential role of communities in moral formation. Although personal discernment of one’s capacities for virtue need not be insular—it is plausible to see specific social formations as playing an important role in fostering a moral agent’s recognition of her limitations— this discernment does involve an inward turn that could risk becoming isolating. However, a corollary disposition provides a safeguard against this risk. We saw in Chapter 3 that in both Stoic and Protestant ethics, consent to God’s providence is most perfectly and logically realized in love—a universal concern for the created world. Likewise, moral agency properly understood emerges only through achieving a conception of each human being as deeply connected to all other persons in the universe. Proper self-examination thus generates a sense of relationality that gives rise to a universal love for God and for all of God’s created order. In conjunction with the broad scholarly tendencies (noted above) to challenge views of personhood that prioritize autonomy, a number of works in contemporary ethics call for a view of personhood that recognizes that all persons are formed by relationships with others and depend on others at certain stages of

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life. This shared experience of dependence demonstrates that humans are interrelated rather than isolated beings. Both Stoic and Protestant understandings of the necessary interrelation of human beings coincide with this scholarship in suggesting a view of the person as vulnerable and malleable, but a Protestant ethic roots this view in particular theological claims about God’s relationship to the created order and God’s self-revelation and redemption of the world in Jesus Christ. God is good and imparts divine goodness to the world, and to human beings specifically, in the act of creation. Original sin deeply limits humans’ capacities to pursue moral goodness apart from God’s gracious intervention. Nevertheless, all human beings share a nature that reflects the God who created them, and we live in kinship with all other persons through our shared nature, our shared status as God’s creatures, and our shared identity as persons for whom God, incarnate in Jesus Christ, died and was resurrected. This kinship, in turn, challenges us toward a disposition of concern not simply for those in our immediate circles, but for humanity as a whole. Edwards lays out this conviction most clearly in his account of benevolence as central to true virtue in the Christian life. As I argued in Chapter 3, we find particularly in Edwards’s theology an ethic that demands universal love and that roots this moral claim in the belief that God’s creation of the world and of human beings within the world binds humans all together. As George Marsden puts it, “The key to Edwards’s thought is that everything is related because everything is related to God.”132 Edwards affirms that human beings live out the purposes for which we were created when we practice a virtue that both reflects and participates in God’s own goodness, which is expressed and embodied in a love for God and for all of God’s creatures.133 In spelling out the character of this virtue, Edwards is clear that genuinely virtuous love or “benevolence” must be directed toward “Being in general,” both God134 and all of creation, rather than simply toward one’s own family or friends or other persons whom one directly encounters135 (thus feelings of pity or gratitude toward specific persons are not, strictly speaking, 132 133

134 135

George Marsden (2003). Jonathan Edwards: A Life. New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 460. Elizabeth Agnew Cochran (2011). Receptive Human Virtues:  A  New Reading of Jonathan Edwards’s Ethics. University Park, PA:  Penn State University Press, pp. 154 –5; Edwards, The Nature of True Virtue, WJE 8:439, 503. Ibid., WJE 8:550–5. Ibid., WJE 8:540.

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virtuous).136 A  virtuous agent exercises “consent” toward God and toward the created world, and this consent establishes a “union” of a virtuous person’s “heart” with the rest of creation.137

Conclusion A belief in God’s sovereignty and a conviction that God alone is the author of salvation gives rise to an account of moral goodness as something that humans cannot pursue or cultivate exclusively through their own efforts. These convictions place certain necessary restrictions on human moral agency, and Luther’s, Calvin’s, and Edwards’s discussions of free will offer insufficient tools for ensuring this agency’s authenticity. At the same time, as Luther, Calvin, and Edwards helpfully indicate, moral agency does not require the possession of an elusive autonomy. Instead, it can be cultivated through embodying moral dispositions of an acceptance of our limitations and a love for all human beings. Both of these dispositions emerge in conversation with a Roman Stoic moral vision of self-realization, in which the achievement of virtue involves understanding the deeply relational character of one’s own being and holding oneself accountable to these relationships. We become virtuous as we recognize our responsibility to the divine nature and to the created world as a whole. A disposition of accepting one’s limitations opens an individual to the moral possibilities suited to her own particular circumstances and character and ensures that she retains a focus on matters for which she stands responsible. A proper discernment of one’s own limitations and capacities, in turn, fosters a self-understanding that gives rise to a sense of oneself as a being in the universe. This self-understanding is most fully and completely embodied in universal love. This account of the moral life can enhance and deepen Protestant reflection on what it means for Christians to exercise moral responsibility. God establishes the conditions that allow for virtue, but we are active participants in coming to recognize our identity in relation to our creator and the implications of our created status for our relationships with other creatures.

136 137

Ibid., WJE 8:601–10. Ibid., WJE 8:540.

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The Stoic commitment to apatheia, at least in broad terms, is familiar to many non-specialists, so the suggestion of points of affinity between Stoic ethics and Protestant moral thought immediately prompts questions about the place and status of emotions in Protestant virtue ethics. In certain important ways, a Protestant account of the emotions is clearly at odds with Stoic apatheia. Calvin overtly criticizes the Stoics for advocating the avoidance of emotions such as joy and grief, characterizing the Stoic sage as a “man of iron, and exempt from human affections,”1 a person who embodies a spirit of “indifference” and “hardness.”2 He likewise criticizes some of his Christian contemporaries who, in the fashion of a “new kind of Stoics,” are critical of feelings of sadness and anxiety.3 In advocating a positive role of emotions in the Christian life, Calvin follows Augustine, who affirms that citizens of God’s city exercise numerous emotions,4 and grounds this position in two

1

2

3 4

John Calvin, Commentary on Philippians 2:27, in Commentary on Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, trans. John Pringle, 1851 English edition. Grand Rapids, MI:  Christian Classics Ethereal Library, p. 68. Commentary on 1 Thessalonians 4:13–14, Commentary on Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, p. 256. Commentary on Philippians 2:27, Commentary on Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, p. 68. Because of the multitude of emotions compatible with the Christian life, Augustine criticizes the Stoics for distinguishing pathe and eupatheiai (The City of God, XIV.9). But he goes on to consider the possible construction and function of the emotions prior to the Fall and concludes that Adam and Eve would have been “agitated by no mental perturbations” while in the state of “original blessedness” (The City of God, XIV.10, p. 157, mdrn lib ed). He later commends “philosophers who have approximated to the truth” for having recognized that anger and lust “are vicious mental

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theological convictions. First, the incarnate Jesus Christ serves as a perfect moral exemplar whose life, death, and resurrection define and interpret the nature and meaning of virtue. Calvin contends that in exercising emotions such as sadness and grief, Christ condemned the “iron philosophy” of Stoicism “not only in word, but also by his own example,” grieving and shedding tears for his own sadness and that of others.5 Second, Calvin argues that Christian teaching maintains that emotions are part of the nature that God originally gave to human beings, an argument that goes one step further than Augustine in affirming the goodness of the emotions. It is inappropriate to reject the emotions, Calvin explains, because they “are not evil in themselves . . . they do not arise from the fault of corrupt nature, but come forth from God as their Author.”6 Calvin thus presents the emotions as having a place in human moral experience, and we will see below that Luther and Edwards likewise develop lines of thought that embrace the emotions in the Christian life. Moreover, Luther, Calvin, and Edwards more crucially need to defend the emotions’ place in the Christian life than would have been logically necessary for most earlier Christian thinkers. Their regular attribution of “anger” or “wrath” to God introduces a quality to God’s relation with sinners that does not fit neatly with the commitment of earlier generations of Christian thinkers to the Neoplatonist understanding of God as impassible or passionless, a being who is not subject to emotions because emotions might contradict God’s unchangeable nature. Luther, Calvin, and Edwards stand in keeping with thinkers such as Augustine, Anselm, and Thomas Aquinas in affirming that God’s being and nature are essentially good and that God is the source of all human and created goods, a position that requires that God’s actions and character traits are good as well. However, in arguing that God shows anger and wrath toward sinners, Luther, Calvin, and Edwards adopt a position that

5 6

emotions, because, even when exercised toward objects which wisdom does not prohibit, they are moved in an ungoverned and inordinate manner, and consequently need the regulation of mind and reason” (The City of God, XIV.19, p. 467). While Augustine ultimately develops a position that advocates the emotions’ moderation rather than their eradication, his criticisms of emotions that agitate the mind suggests that his account of the emotions is not unequivocally opposed to that of the Stoics. Institutes 3.8.9, pp. 461–2. Commentary on Philippians 2:27, p. 68.

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in some ways necessitates a valuation of the emotions as compatible with goodness so that God’s anger does not contradict God’s own character. Yet in tension with these positions that require a positive account of the emotions’ role in Christian’s moral growth, Luther, Calvin, and Edwards simultaneously develop two lines of argument that qualify and temper this positive understanding of the emotions in a manner that demonstrates a kind of wariness about their exercise. Ultimately, their cautions point toward an ethic that—in keeping with maintaining a pride of place for virtue (as seen in previous chapters)—assesses the emotions’ moral value by determining their compatibility, or lack of compatibility, with growth in virtue. Chapter three argued that faith, embodied in love to God and neighbor, functions as a central virtue in Protestant thought. Just as the Stoics conceive virtue as having a unique value such that other goods cannot add to it, so do Luther, Calvin, and Edwards ascribe to virtue a unique moral status. Emotions are to be embraced insofar as they result from and complement a virtuous life, but Christians should reject emotions that do not readily follow from or strengthen one’s faith embodied in love to God.

Cautions about the emotions Despite their positive valuation of the emotions, Luther, Calvin, and Edwards qualify the sense in which emotions are to be embraced, and these qualifications point toward a clear anxiety about the emotions’ potential to inhibit Christian growth. Luther and Calvin in particular advocate a tempered view of the emotions that restricts their practice to the fulfillment of particular offices or vocations. This line of argument is particularly important for Luther’s and Calvin’s efforts to explain God’s wrath and anger while simultaneously clarifying that Christians should avoid anger in nearly all circumstances. Edwards, in turn, indirectly tempers the place of emotions in Christian life by upholding religious affections, rather than emotions or passions per se, and aligning these affections with the will informed by reason. His account of the affections finds a place for certain emotions in the Christian life but restricts this place by integrating the emotions carefully with the will and the intellect.

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Emotions and vocation Luther, Calvin, and Edwards attribute anger to God at a number of points, particularly when considering God’s feelings toward sin and sinners. Strikingly, they affirm that God directs this anger not merely toward concepts such as sin, but also toward persons. God shows anger toward the reprobate. Luther describes the “wrath of God” as a state of being into which original sin places human beings,7 even as he also urges Christians to think of God as loving and merciful rather than as fundamentally angry.8 Calvin similarly speaks of the wrath of God and, at points, associates this wrath with vengeance.9 This wrath is distinguishable from the “chastening” God sometimes directs toward the elect. Calvin argues that chastening differs from vengeance and is more properly associated with love.10 Yet Calvin remains clear that God shows anger and associates this anger with vengeance, even if the elect are exempt from this anger.11 This idea that divine anger is compatible with God’s goodness would seem to give rise to an ethic that embraces anger, and perhaps other emotions, as appropriate when guided by wisdom. However, Luther and Calvin clarify that anger is appropriate only to specific “offices,” roles, or vocations. In his commentary on The Sermon on the Mount, Luther distinguishes between “persons” in themselves and the “offices” persons hold, in order to stress that God works through persons holding certain offices even when these persons lack piety or have other shortcomings. The ordering of particular vocations is part of God’s providential oversight of the world.12 Particular spheres of society are ordered toward the public welfare,13 and persons holding certain offices affi liated with these spheres of life will necessarily exercise anger as part of fulfilling the tasks of their vocations. “Anger is indeed necessary sometimes, but only in those whose responsibility it is.”14 Luther explains that Christians 7 8 9 10 11

12 13

14

Luther, Commentary on Genesis 2.9, LW 1:95. Luther, Sermons on the Gospel of John, LW 23:86–7. Institutes, 3.4.33, p. 429. Institutes, 3.4.32, p. 428; Institutes 3.2.21, p. 368. For more instances of divine anger, see Institutes 2.16.1–2, p. 325 and 3.2.22 p. 369. For more on Calvin’s portrayal of God’s anger, see Randall C. Zachman (2012), Reconsidering John Calvin, New York : Cambridge University Press, pp. 157– 60. Luther, The Sermon on the Mount, LW 21:278–9. “There is a decorative and beautiful screen called ‘zeal for righteousness,’ a virtue which loves justice, which hates wickedness and cannot bear it. Thus the sword and the government were ordained to administer righteousness and to punish wickedness, just as father and mother and master and mistress have to get angry and punish” (Sermon on the Mount, LW 21:79). Luther, The Sermon on the Mount, LW 21:76.

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should avoid all feelings of personal anger, but that certain offices—such as that of serving as a judge or a parent—require anger for the sake of preserving justice or teaching children: Anger is sometimes necessary and proper. But be sure that you use it correctly. You are commanded to get angry, not on your own behalf, but on behalf of your office and of God; you must not confuse the two, your person and your office. As far as your person is concerned, you must not get angry with anyone regardless of the injury he may have done to you. But where your office requires it, there you must get angry . . . For example, a pious judge gets angry with a criminal, even though personally he wishes him no harm and would rather let him off without punishment. His anger comes out of a heart where there is nothing but love toward his neighbor.15

In laying out this argument, Luther partly advocates anger toward actions instead of persons, and earlier in the commentary (in considering Matthew 5:22), he suggests the possibility of a “godly anger and vexation” that is “directed at the wrong and not at the person.”16 But here as well, the moral acceptability of anger is ultimately determined by its association with particular vocations and the institutions these vocations support: “such anger is necessary and indispensable in any house, in any position in life or in government, indeed, in any pulpit. If father and mother, judge, and preacher held back their mouths and their fists and did nothing to curb or punish evil, the wickedness of the world would destroy the government and the church and everything.”17 Morally appropriate anger is restricted to offices in which exertions of anger might play an educational role or be seen as carrying out justice. Calvin likewise restricts the human exercise of anger to the work of specific offices that select persons might hold. He generally rejects human anger against persons in any form, a position that we revisit in more depth later in this chapter. He overtly argues that God’s anger is appropriate to the divine office, not an example for human beings to emulate, and develops this argument in considering the significance of Jesus’s overturning the tables of the moneylenders in the temple. According to Calvin, Jesus showed anger in this way only on two very specific occasions: when he was particularly making

15 16 17

Ibid., LW 21:83. Ibid., LW 21:78. Luther, The Sermon on the Mount, LW 21:78–9.

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“himself known as a Teacher and Prophet sent by God” and “Declaring himself “both King and High Priest.” Christ’s actions were excusable because he assumed this office prior to performing them. Calvin therefore cautions against “any private individual” thinking herself “entitled” to imitate these actions.18

Emotional states and the will A second way in which a Reformed ethic indirectly qualifies its embrace of the emotions is particularly evident in Edwards’s development of the religious affections, rather than emotions or passions, as central to the Christian life. Strictly speaking, religious affections are not emotions or passions, but are instead particular expressions of the will. This position distinguishes Edwardsean affections from emotions as commonly considered in contemporary work on the emotions’ moral significance, which has to date primarily been shaped by retrievals and adaptations of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and David Hume. Diana Fritz Cates explicitly clarifies that her book Aquinas on the Emotions: A Religious-Ethical Inquiry focuses on passions or emotions rather than religious affections.19 She associates a focus on affections with historical Reformed thinkers as well as the work of James Gustafson and indicates that treatments of the affections are more appropriate to the Reformed tradition than to her own work on Thomas Aquinas.20 Religious affections and emotions are not precisely the same, and discerning their points of continuity and difference is helpful both for the immediate task of recognizing ways in which Edwards tempers the place of emotions in the Christian life and for this chapter’s broader task of reflecting on what the Reformed tradition offers to contemporary reflection on the emotions. Edwards makes clear that the religious affections are distinct from passions. The religious affections comprise “all vigorous lively actings of the will or inclination.”21 Passions, in contrast to affections, refer only to those actions 18 19

20

21

Commentary on Matthew 21:12, volume 3 of Commentary on Matthew, Mark, and Luke, p. 6. Diana Fritz Cates (2009), Aquinas on the Emotions:  A  Religious-Ethical Inquiry. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, pp. 8–9. Ibid., pp. 41–50. Cates focuses in particular on James Gustafson (1975) Can Ethics Be Christian? Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, and the first volume of Gustafson (1981) Ethics from a Theocentric Perspective. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. See Cates, p. 58 n4. Jonathan Edwards (1746). Religious Affections. The Works of Jonathan Edwards vol. 2, ed. John E. Smith. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1959, 2:97.

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of the will that are more “sudden” and “violent.” Edwards also notes that passions affect persons so that the mind becomes “more overpowered, and less in its own command.”22 The affections, in contrast, are sustained mental states that a moral agent can cultivate over time, and Edwards’s differentiation of affections from passions underscores the ways in which the affections are exercises of will supported and reinforced by cognitive judgment. Indeed, Edwards argues that the will and affections “are not two faculties” and are not “essentially distinct” from each other.23 Instead, Edwards maintains that humans possess a singular faculty, which he at times describes in terms of the affections and at times identifies as the will, inclination, or heart, that functions to make us “inclined” or “disinclined” toward particular objects.24 The affections refer to particularly “vigorous” exercises of the will25 and have a particular power to motivate our actions. Edwards speaks of the affections as “the spring of men’s actions,” the central factor that motivates human activity, and contends that human beings are by nature “very inactive” unless they are “influenced by some affection, either love or hatred, desire, hope, fear, or some other.”26 Both will and affections, in turn, operate in close conjunction with the human intellect. As Edwards understands the will (and, by extension, the affections), this faculty does not function as a capacity to express blind or arbitrary choices. Instead, the will both makes and responds to cognitive judgments. Edwards distinguishes the will from the “understanding,” which perceives objects and makes detached or “indifferent” judgments about them.27 However, Edwards also affirms a close relation between understanding and the will so that if a moral agent properly understands a given state of affairs, her heart will necessarily be moved by this knowledge. “If the great things of religion are rightly understood, they will affect the heart.”28 True religion requires both the “light” of the understanding as well as the “heat” associated with an “affected fervent heart.” Edwards indicates that “heat without light” lacks a divine character.29 Not only does the will draw on the 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Ibid., WJE 2:98. Edwards, Religious Affections, WJE 2:97. Ibid., WJE 2:96. Ibid., WJE 2:97. Ibid., WJE 2:101. Ibid., WJE 2:96. Ibid., WJE 2:120. Edwards, Religious Affections, WJE 2:120.

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understanding, but Edwards also indicates that the will or heart itself makes a sort of moral judgment, insofar as it “beholds” an object and then either is “pleased” and “approves” of this object or is “displeased” and “disapproves” of it.30 Sam Storms therefore suggests that we can best think of Edwardsean affections as involving an “emotional dimension,” but also as differing from certain understandings of emotions in that affections are always informed by rational reflection: an affection is necessarily “the fruit and effect of what the mind understands and knows.”31 The will that Edwards makes central to moral formation is thus intellectually formed, both through its own activity and in conjunction with the understanding. Edwards’s close alignment of affections, will, and reason suggests a caution about embracing the passions without restraint or qualification. This alignment points toward a different sort of ethic than that to which, for example, the work of David Hume gives rise. Both Annette Baier and Simon Blackburn draw on Hume to develop accounts of ethics and moral formation that prioritize the material world and the passions that arise naturally in material human relationships. Reason plays a substantive role in Humean accounts of moral motivation, but both Baier and Blackburn remain clear that the passions (particularly human loves cultivated naturally within social relationships) are central in shaping and constituting human being and agency.32 Baier particularly stresses that love conceived as a Humean passion differs from an Augustinian ethic that advocates a more restrictive “love for the ‘right’ object of love, namely, God.”33 The structure of religious affections differentiates them from 30 31

32

33

Ibid., WJE 2:96–7. Sam Storms (2007). Signs of the Spirit:  An Interpretation of Jonathan Edwards’s Religious Affections. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, p. 45. Baier argues that Hume’s Treatise is centered on showing reason’s “limits” and “dethroning” reason, rather than removing it entirely from an account of moral motivation and formation. Ultimately, he advocates for a “transformed reason . . . accompanied by other abilities and virtues” rather than dismissing reason entirely. Annette Baier (1991). A Progress of Sentiments:  Reflections on Hume’s Treatise. Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, pp. 278–280. See also Simon Blackburn’s account of the structure of “Hume-friendly reason” in Blackburn (1998), Ruling Passions: A Theory of Practical Reasoning. Oxford:  Clarendon Press, pp. 238– 41. For Blackburn’s account of how we are morally formed through participation in social structures see especially Blackburn, pp. 129–33, 208–11, 245. For Baier’s contrast between Humean passions and Augustinian accounts of love, see Baier (1995), Moral Prejudices: Essays on Ethics. Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, p.  36. Edwards’s account of love as an affection stands broadly in keeping with the Platonist and Augustinian tradition in associating sin with disordered love. In Original Sin Edwards affi rms: “If love to God prevails above the love of other things, then virtue will prevail above evil affections, or positive principles of sin; by which principles it is, that sin has a positive power and influence. For evil affections radically consist in inordinate love to other things besides God” (WJE 3:146).

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an account of passions or emotions that grounds a naturalistic ethic. Religious affections are movements that draw together and unify the human person and by their nature speak to that person’s life and moral growth in God. Edwards’s characterization of the affections as a particular expression of the will thereby places implicit constraints on the emotions’ place in the moral life. At the same time, it should be stressed that Edwards’s position allows for a positive, albeit qualified, place for the affections (and thus, indirectly, for certain emotional states) in moral formation. Indeed, as extended and rationally informed workings of the will, the affections have more potential to form us in long-term character dispositions, such as the virtues, than a fleeting passion might. Moreover, Edwards’s argument that a mind remains “in its own command” in the exercise of the affections provides a framework for thinking of the affections as deliberative mental states which an agent is at least somewhat capable of cultivating. In these senses, religious affections are consistent with Aristotelian and Thomist accounts of the emotions that emphasize the emotions’ cognitive dimensions. For thinkers such as Martha Nussbaum and Robert Solomon, emotions are closely linked to moral judgments. Nussbaum’s Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions draws on ideas from the Stoics and Aristotle to characterize the emotions as cognitive moral judgments about the value of particular objects tied to a sense of their importance for our flourishing.34 These judgments are not simply propositional beliefs; instead, they are “rich” and “dense” amalgams of our perceptions and involve many layers of cognitive reflection, part of which is worked out through the imagination.35 In reflecting on the nature of these “emotion-judgments,” Nussbaum argues that while some emotions arise in response to particular encounters with specific objects, other emotions are sustained over time. These “background” emotions, such as love for a family member, “persist through situations of numerous kinds” and shape our decisions and actions over the course of our lives.36 Whereas Nussbaum conceives the emotions exclusively as forms of thought (so that, for example, neither desire nor feelings are necessarily parts of an emotion),37 Robert Solomon

34

35 36 37

Martha C. Nussbaum (2001). Upheavals of Thought:  The Intelligence of Emotions. New York : Cambridge University Press, p. 22 . Ibid., pp. 65–7. Ibid., pp. 69–71. Cates, pp. 63–5.

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contends that the emotions are best understood as only partly constituted by thoughts or judgments. The emotions that are central to human life are both “intelligent” and “purposive.”38 For Solomon, as for Nussbaum, the emotions are intelligent in that they function as the “conceptualization” and “evaluation” of particular objects.39 Indeed, acts of judgment are essential to the very structure of an emotion:  evaluative judgments “constitute, not just accompany, an emotion.”40 Edwards’s association of the affections with the will suggests that religious affections are more similar to Solomon’s view of emotions than to Nussbaum’s. In aligning the affections with the will (while simultaneously affirming a significant cognitive component), Edwards also adopts a stance on the affections broadly in keeping with the accounts of the emotions in both Thomas Aquinas and Calvin. Cates contends that Thomas Aquinas’s understanding of the emotions integrates the human’s powers of apprehension and appetite, or cognitive activity with the activity of desire or choice that inclines or disinclines us toward particular objects.41 She stresses that Thomistic emotions “cannot be aroused or sustained apart from particular acts of cognition” but explains that this position differs from Nussbaum’s characterization of the emotions as consisting exclusively of “thoughts.”42 Aquinas’s emotions are “appetitive motions,” but retain an important cognitive dimension to a degree that allows for some “flexibility” in interpretation; Cates argues that interpreters of Aquinas can plausibly “attend” to one dimension or the other (that is, the cognitive and volitional dimensions of his view of the emotions) as a particular occasion warrants.43 Calvin likewise advances a view of the emotions as particular movements of the will and presents the will as deeply informed by reason. The soul, Calvin explains, consists of two parts, the intellect, which is “always” the “guide and ruler of the soul,” and the will, whose “office” is to “choose and follow what the intellect declares to be good” and “reject and shun what it declares to be bad.” Any other apparent faculty can ultimately be referred to one of these 38

39 40 41 42 43

Robert C. Solomon (2007). True to Our Feelings:  What Our Emotions Are Really Telling Us. New York : Oxford University Press, p. 3. Ibid., p. 161. Ibid., p. 206. Cates, p. 65–70. Ibid., p. 63–5. Cates, p. 74.

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parts. Calvin explicitly notes that the sense is included in the intellect, and the intellect’s “affections” are aligned with the will.44 At the same time, like Thomas Aquinas, Calvin ensures that the emotions have a cognitive dimension through his understanding of reason as the guide of the soul. Calvin’s understanding of reason as ruling the soul is so decisive that he is ultimately consistent with the Stoics in suggesting that the remedy for problematic emotions lies in intellectual meditation on the goodness of divine providence.45 I return to this point later in the chapter. Recognizing that Edwardsean affections are shaped partly by cognitive judgments helps to ensure an account of these affections as informing our development in moral dispositions. Solomon affirms that the emotions both demonstrate our values and shape and extend particular attitudes toward the persons and objects we encounter in the world. “The emotions have ethical significance not just because they take place in ethically charged situations but because they are constituted by judgments that are through and through value laden. They provide our basic orientation to the world and to one another.”46 Nussbaum’s conception of background emotions underscores this idea of the emotions as reflecting and shaping a particular orientation toward the world. The emotions’ cognitive dimension is important to reflection on our emotions because it suggests the possibility of being formed and educated in particular emotions. A link between the emotions and moral formation, in turn, makes plausible an understanding of human beings as morally accountable for their emotions, particularly insofar as the emotions are sustained over time. Yet it is striking that Edwards insists on viewing the affections as encompassing purposeful and sustained workings of the will as deeply informed by reason. This position points toward an understanding of the human person that emphasizes the unity of our faculties so that reason, will, and emotion are integrated and incorporated into our being. Paul Lewis argues that rather than treating emotions and reason as independent entities, Edwards establishes close connections among the emotions, understanding, and will so that

44 45

46

Institutes I.15.7, pp. 110–11. Th is point will be discussed more in relation to primary texts below. See also Kyle A. Fedler (2002), “Calvin’s Burning Heart: Calvin and the Stoics on the Emotions,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 22: 133 – 62 , at 138–9. Solomon, True to Our Feelings, p. 217.

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these faculties are “fluid and interdependent” even as they remain distinct. Lewis contends that by “refusing to construe emotions as a power separate from reason,” Edwards is able to develop a unified account of the self.47 This perspective, Lewis argues, offers a corrective to contemporary moral positions that follow Aristotle in advocating the moderation of the passions with reason. Edwards subverts such arguments that oppose reason and the passions by unifying these faculties inextricably.48 McClymond and McDermott similarly observe that Edwards’s position rejects a dichotomy between mind and heart that was common in the Great Awakening so that the religious affections function as an expression of a unified human self. They correctly stress that the will that Edwards associates with the affections “already has intellectual judgment contained within it.”49 Lewis similarly emphasizes the unity of Edwards’s human person. He argues that Edwards invites a conception of the emotions as ensuring the “unity of the self” by drawing together the “powers of thinking and choosing.”50 Yet, while Edwards does unite intellectual and volitional powers through his account of religious affections, he does so in a manner that elevates the will within his account of the exercise of virtue. McClymond argues that Edwards’s “preoccupation with the will, inclination, and affections . . . situates him in an Augustinian tradition that characterized the human self more in terms of its desires and choices than its thoughts and concepts,” so that “will, desire, and inclination” are ultimately the “keys” to Edwards’s “interpretation of human life.”51 McClymond’s analysis is consistent with Edwards’s insistence that religious affections are essential to “true religion”52 and with Edwards’s conception of the will and affections as a single faculty.

47

48

49

50

51 52

Paul Lewis (1994), “‘The Springs of Motion:’ Jonathan Edwards on Emotions, Character, and Moral Agency.” Journal of Religious Ethics 22: 275 –97, at 283– 4. Ibid., pp. 293–5. Richard A. Hutch also argues that Edwards integrates reason and emotion in a manner that points toward “a new sense of the unity of the human being.” Richard A. Hutch (1978). “Jonathan Edwards’s Analysis of Religious Experience,” Journal of Psychology and Theology 6.2: 123 –131, at 123, 130. Michael J. McClymond and Gerald R. McDermott (2012). The Theology of Jonathan Edwards. New York : Oxford University Press, pp. 313 – 4. Lewis, pp. 293– 4. It should be noted that Lewis’s analysis aligns Edwards’s religious affections with the emotions in a manner that risks subverting the distinction between these terms (Lewis, pp. 282– 4); emotions and religious affections are not precisely the same thing. Nevertheless, his reading of Edwards reiterates the Edwards’s emphasis on a unified understanding of the person. McClymond and McDermott (2012), p. 3. Edwards, Religious Affections, WJE 2:120–1.

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Edwards’s account of the religious affections secures a place for the emotions in the moral life. However, they share this place with will and reason and thereby point toward a view of the moral life in which cognitive, emotional, and volitional dimensions of human experience are unified and integrated. Edwards’s position ultimately limits or constrains the place emotions hold in moral experience in ways that are subtle but significant. An Edwardsean account of the emotions recognizes that the emotions are part of human nature, both as God created this nature and as God in Jesus Christ became incarnate and wholly assumed this nature. However, this recognition does not result in a wholesale acceptance of unfettered emotions. Edwards’s account of the affections draws the emotions wholly into the moral life and integrates them with other dimensions of human psychology. We return to this account below.

Virtue as a standard for discerning the emotions’ moral status Luther, Calvin, and Edwards thus develop and uphold an ambivalent account of the emotions. On one hand, they demonstrate a commitment to a view of the emotions as having potential to enrich the Christian life. All three thinkers depict God as exercising anger, a position that requires that anger and goodness are compatible. Moreover, Calvin affirms that the emotions are present in prelapsarian human nature, a claim that goes beyond even thinkers such as Augustine. At the same time, Luther, Calvin, and Edwards carefully guard against an unrestrained endorsement of the emotions by connecting their proper exercise to specific social offices and by aligning the emotions with the will rather than equating them with the passions. This complex conjunction of arguments gives rise to an ethic that rejects Stoic apatheia when understood narrowly as a complete eradication of emotion. But as we saw in Chapter 2, Stoic apatheia need not require rejecting all emotional states and instead treats virtue as a singular standard through which a moral agent can assess the appropriateness of a given emotion. A Protestant understanding of the moral status of emotions shares with the Stoics this fundamental conviction that attention to virtue is central to discerning whether a certain emotion should be pursued. Whereas Aristotelian accounts of the emotions tend

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to advocate their exercise in accordance with right reason,53 Luther, Calvin, and Edwards challenge moral agents to exercise emotions in a manner consistent with their promotion of virtue lived out in relation to God. The emotions are neither uncritically to be embraced nor wholly to be avoided. Instead, the moral status of particular emotional states is determined by their ability to advance or inhibit the proper exercise of faith lived out in love. God’s relation to us establishes and sustains the Christian life, and as we embody this life through seeking to grow in virtue, we do well to pursue those emotions that facilitate and enhance virtue and to avoid those that hinder its flourishing. In different ways, both Luther and Calvin demonstrate how one’s relation to God, lived out in the virtue of faith intertwined with love, offers singular guidance for discerning when certain emotions should be embraced as part of the Christian life. Luther’s argument that “good” anger is exercised in specific offices or vocations (discussed in more depth above) points toward a presumption that even natural love, when exercised in the context of specific offices, promotes a morally appropriate form of anger. Parents, for example, feel love for their children, and Luther suggests that the anger suitable to the office of parenthood is that which can be understood as an expression and extension of love for one’s children. Luther’s Sermons on the Gospel of St. John makes this position even more explicit in relation to love for God and neighbor. In this text, Luther explores the possibility of a number of character traits or emotions as corollaries to virtue. While considering what it means to say that “Zeal for Thy house will consume me,”54 Luther advances an account of Christian zeal that allows for differentiation between praiseworthy 53

54

Th is statement is not intended to indicate that Protestant perspectives on the moral value of emotions depart completely from an Aristotelian ethic. As noted above, Edwards’s account of the affections presents the affections as closely related to human understanding and thus shares important features with Aristotelian and Thomist perspectives that conceive the emotions as partly cognitively constructed. Nevertheless, it is important to note that a conception of faith and love as guiding our understanding of how to pursue emotions differs from a perspective that allows reason to make this determination. Indeed, Luther in particular stresses the limitations of reason in speaking to salvation and, one might suspect by extension, in reflecting on the nature of the Christian life. For example, at certain points, Luther argues that natural reason cannot bring us to salvation and is suspect because it urges us to rely on its own strength: “Natural reason and human wisdom cannot transcend that viewpoint. According to their process of reasoning, we must rely on our own strength. This we do until we discover that we must despair of our own deeds.” (LW 22:145) Luther sets up this criticism of reason as part of a contrast between “law” and “grace” (LW 22:145) and to stress “obedience” as central to Christian ethics, an obedience that takes “reason captive.” (LW 22:319) The account of the emotions advanced here explores the implications of prioritizing this relationship with God, and the virtues through which this relationship is embodied, over the work of reason. LW 22:228.

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and problematic forms of qualities such as pride, humility, jealousy, and even chastity.55 His development of the meaning of zeal shows that he sees emotions such as anger and grief as likewise praiseworthy as long as these emotions are closely and directly linked to love. Luther defines zeal as a particular form of love demonstrated with a person, motivated by genuine “true love, deplores that another commits a wrong and goes astray.”56 Luther explains that love, by its nature, can be at times “happy” and at other times “mournful.” Zeal is both an “angry love or a jealous love”57 and a mournful love that shows grief over a friend’s misfortune.58 Luther calls this zeal a “precious and noble virtue”59 and explains that this quality is manifest in feelings of both anger (“It angers me that he fell into this sin and shame”) and grief (“deep grief over a good friend’s sin and shame.”) Luther argues that these emotions, as manifestations of zeal (and ultimately of love), signify “the presence of a divine spark in the human heart.” The associated anger he goes on to describe as a “loving anger.” Such an attitude, he affirms, cannot be regarded “as hatred; for it is good, and is motivated by love. Where there is love, there is no room for hatred.”60 This type of zeal, indeed, is exemplified in Christ, whose anger “does not arise from hatred” but “springs from a friendly love toward God.”61 Christ’s anger toward the improper use of God’s temple is a counterpart to his love for God. Because Christ “loves God,” he is “grieved” and “indignant” when people misuse God’s temple.62 Indeed, much of Christ’s ministry is informed by “constant sorrow” and grief reflecting his concern for human failures.63 Luther indicates that these emotions are expressions of love, and as such, are morally praiseworthy. Calvin, like Luther, conceives virtue as a lens through which we can distinguish emotions that are easily reconciled with the Christian life from emotions that inhibit our capacities for moral growth. Whereas Luther discusses the possibility of virtuous and vicious forms of both grief and anger, Calvin’s attention to virtue as a guide for discerning morally praiseworthy 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

LW 22: 232–3. LW 22:234. LW 22:233. LW 22:237. LW 22:234. Ibid. Ibid. LW 22:235. LW 22:236.

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emotions leads him to embrace grief as part of Christian experience but to counsel against anger in any context practiced by human beings (with the exception of the incarnate Jesus Christ). Calvin’s acceptance of grief in the Christian life is rooted in a conviction that Christ has overcome suffering through his death and resurrection, but that suffering continues to be an unavoidable part of Christian experience. Just as humans continue to wrestle with suffering, Calvin explains that they also they inevitably continue to experience certain passions, such as grief, sadness, and fear, that are associated with the pain of suffering.64 These emotions are “natural feelings,” and Calvin reassures his readers that they need not remove all feelings of pain, hardship, and fear in order to be exercising the patience associated with bearing the cross.65 Calvin expresses concern that Christians seeking to exercise patience may feel despair about their inability to eradicate feelings of grief. Drawing a contrast between Christian patience and Stoic thought, Calvin reminds his readers that Christian patience is not the same as “stupor,” and grief cannot be divested from human experience.66 He commends the apostle Paul’s acknowledgment of grief he would have felt at a friend’s death as an indication that grief is compatible with qualities such as patience. Christians should therefore not eradicate their grief, Calvin concludes, but instead should “bridle” this emotion.67 Rather than “casting away human feelings,” the act of tempering certain emotions is a means of making these feelings “subject to God.” Calvin explains that hope in the resurrection does not remove “the grief of the pious.” Instead, through hope, their grief is “mixed with consolation.”68 Yet, while Calvin presents emotions such as grief and sadness as unavoidable, he argues consistently and decisively against human beings showing

64

65 66 67

68

Calvin argues that Christians will experience difficulties that cause genuine suffering but that our suffering is a means through which we are brought into “communion” with Christ in Christ’s suffering (Institutes 3.8.1, p. 458). Kyle Fedler helpfully aligns this position with Calvin’s treatment of the continued presence of the passions in the life of Christians, arguing that Calvin’s view of the passions is “analogous” to his understanding of suffering. Suffering is real but is “overcome by the resurrection.” Painful emotions are likewise “real but must always be experienced not simply under the shadow of the cross but in light of the resurrection” (p. 148). Institutes, 3.8.8–9, pp. 461–2. Ibid., 3.8.10, p. 462. Commentary on Philippians 2:27, Commentary on Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, p. 68. Commentary on 1 Thessalonians 4:13– 4, Commentary on Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, p. 256.

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anger toward other persons,69 echoing Seneca and Marcus Aurelius in characterizing anger as counter to human nature. Humans are created for purposes aligned with a life of virtue, purposes that draw us into relation with God and each other, and anger runs counter to these purposes. In discussing the commandment “Thou shalt not kill,” Calvin argues that God has “bound the whole human race by a kind of unity” that obligates us to care for our neighbors and promote their good. Murder is wrong not only because it is a harmful act against another person, but also because it is a reflection of the mind’s having come “under the influence of wrath and hatred.” Yet rather than suggesting that hatred should be tempered, Calvin indicates that even a moderated anger is morally problematic, insofar as anger for someone implies “passionately longing to do [that person] harm.”70 Such a desire to do another harm is not appropriate to humans. Calvin’s Commentary on Matthew reiterates this critique of all forms of anger among persons. In considering Matthew 5:22, when Jesus condemns those who show anger against other persons, Calvin indicates that the text offers grounds for distinguishing among types of anger and argues that all forms of anger should be avoided. He identifies “three degrees of condemnation” and observes that Christ appears to distinguish internal anger (“l’indignation”) from making cruel statements or openly reproaching someone. However, while hostile words appear to lead their utterer to a more decisive condemnation to “eternal death,” leading Calvin to conclude that hatred is potentially subject to a more “severe punishment” than is anger, he remains very clear that lesser feelings of anger are morally problematic. “Though Christ adjudges to the hell of fire none but those who break out into open reproach, we must not suppose, that he declares anger to be free from a similar punishment; but alluding to earthly judgments, he assures them that God will judge and punish even concealed anger.”71 In laying out this case against anger, Calvin presents the practice of avoiding anger as complementary to Christian virtue, just as we saw in Chapter 2 that Stoic apatheia is ultimately a practice that extends and enhances the 69

70 71

While rejecting hatred or anger toward persons, Calvin does allow that hatred toward sin plays a positive role in Christian spiritual growth: “hatred of sin . . . is the beginning of repentance” (Institutes, 3.3.20, p. 398). Hatred, in turn, is “inveterate anger” (Institutes 2.8.39, p. 256). Institutes 2.8.39, p. 256. Calvin, Commentary on Matthew 5:22, volume 1 of Commentary on Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, p. 250 –1.

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embodiment of virtuous assent. Calvin presents the practice of “pure and holy meditation on divine providence” as part of Christian piety.72 He recommends that Christians respond to adversity by “rais[ing]” their “mind[s] to God, whose hand is most effectual in impressing us with patience and placid moderation of mind.”73 Turning to God under these circumstances promotes a spirit of “mildness and mercy” rather than a spirit of vengeance toward those who have wronged us. After citing an instance in which David turns to God and thereby “curbs the excess of his grief,” Calvin goes on to affirm that meditation on providence more generally quells anger and impatience, associating them with “impulses of passion”: If there is no more effectual remedy for anger and impatience, he assuredly has not made little progress who has learned so to meditate on divine providence, as to be able always to bring his mind to this, The Lord willed it, it must therefore be borne; not only because it is unlawful to strive with him, but because he wills nothing that is not just and befitting.74

Anger, for Calvin, is in need of a “remedy.” This remedy, much like the Stoics’ view of practices that help a moral agent to avoid anger, lies in developing a proper perspective related to God’s providential direction of the world. Edwards’s account of religious affections differs from the reflections on the emotions that Luther and Calvin put forth insofar as it focuses on the affections, as we saw above. At the same time, Edwards shares with these earlier thinkers a conviction that virtue guides the appropriate exercise of emotions for Christians. Edwards’s very use of the term “religious affections” signals the centrality of Christians’ relation with God for discerning the place of emotions in the Christian life. Whereas the term “emotion” might signal a mental state triggered by an event or experience detached from an encounter or relationship with another person (although emotions very often have objects as well), an affection is more necessarily embodied in desire for or aversion to a particular object.75 We saw in previous chapters that Protestant virtue roots human goodness in God’s relation to each person established in

72 73 74 75

Institutes, 1.17.6, p. 128. Ibid.,1.17.8, p. 129. Ibid.,1.17.8, p. 129. Cates, p.  117. Michael J. McClymond (2007). “Jonathan Edwards,” in The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Emotion, ed. John Corrigan. New  York :  Oxford University Press; Oxford Handbooks Online, 2014, pp. 1–9, at 2.

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the work of Jesus Christ, and our reception of that work in justification. This relational understanding of human goodness gives rise to an ethic in which God’s being and activity are central. In turn, a commitment to certain affections as part of the moral life sustains this view of human goods as rooted in our primary and participatory relation to God. Edwards characterizes love to God as the primary religious affection and argues that the goodness of this affection is rooted in and constituted by God, the object of this love. “A holy love has a holy object: the holiness of love consists especially in this that it is the love of that which is holy, as holy, or for its holiness; so that ‘tis the holiness of the object, which is the quality on which it fi xes and terminates.”76 Love to God, for Edwards, gives rise to a number of interrelated affections that are unified by love, expressions of love for God and hatred of those things that stand “contrary” to God, the proper object of our love. These affections include “desire” for God, “gratitude” to God for God’s goodness, a “joyful hope” that anticipates “future enjoyment of God,” and “grief when he [God] is absent.”77 Likewise, this love for God generates affections that embody an aversion toward things that inhibit one’s relationship with God. Affections that Edwards designates as proper to the Christian life include “an intense hatred and abhorrence of sin” and a “fear of sin,” both of which function, Edwards suggests, as counterparts to one’s love for God.78 Love to God lies at the root of these religious affections, and the affections’ relation to God, the object of our love, secures their moral goodness. Edwards is clear that the moral character of virtuous love can be tested by considering whether this love deliberately and explicitly recognizes God’s holiness and excellence: By this therefore all may try their affections, and particularly their love and joy. Various kinds of creatures show the difference of their natures, very much, in the different things they relish as their proper good, one delighting in that which another abhors. Such a difference is there between true saints, and natural men: natural men have no sense of the goodness and excellency of holy things; at least for their holiness.79

76 77

78 79

Edwards, Religious Affections, WJE 2:260. Edwards adds that a “fervent love to men” will similarly give rise to “all other virtuous affections toward men” (Religious Affections, WJE 2:108). Ibid., WJE 2:108. Ibid., WJE 2:262.

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God’s holiness, then, is essential to ensuring the genuine goodness of a moral agent’s love to God. God is likewise the source of goodness for all affections that emerge from this love. Edwards’s account of love to God as the root of all religious affections gives one’s relation with God pride of place in a moral agent’s discernment of the ways in which their own actions and dispositions contribute to or compromise their flourishing. Edwards aligns genuine moral goodness with “holiness,” which “comprehends all the true moral excellency of intelligent beings,” including “all the true virtue of a good man, his love to God, his gracious love to men, his justice, his charity . . . his gracious meekness and gentleness, and all other true Christian virtues that he has.”80 Edwards’s commitment to a conception of holiness as possessing a unique moral goodness suggests that Christians can understand the relative value of possible goods, including their own actions and dispositions, only by first allowing themselves to stand in the presence of God’s holiness so that this holiness can perfect and sanctify those goods that are likely to enrich their virtuous love for God and creation. Edwards describes how this sanctification might occur in relation to certain “naturally good” attributes, which he distinguishes in the Two Dissertations from attributes possessing “moral goodness” (as we saw in Chapter 4). Qualities such as justice and love for one’s friends are character traits through which humans develop the gifts God gave us in creation81 and therefore possess a natural goodness and a secondary kind of beauty.82 These qualities are good in a limited sense, but are not morally good because they lack the nature of true virtue.83 However, if true virtue is present in an agent, then its presence in a sense “sanctifies” these naturally good qualities so that they can foster and complement the work of true virtue in those agents who possess a capacity for this virtue.84 Religious Affections similarly affirms that when natural attributes are joined to “holiness,” this union gives them moral goodness: “Natural qualifications are either excellent or otherwise, according as they are joined with moral excellency or not. Strength and knowledge don’t render any being lovely, without holiness . . . though they render them more

80 81 82 83 84

Edwards, Religious Affections, WJE 2:255. Ibid., WJE 8:578–9. Ibid., WJE 8:569. Ibid., WJE 8:569–73 and 579–88. Ibid., WJE 8:616–8.

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lovely, when joined with holiness.”85 Edwards’s reasoning about the goodness of certain natural attributes suggests that reflection on the possibility of increasing or diminishing one’s truly virtuous love can guide a moral agent in recognizing which dispositions can be sanctified so that they enhance her growth in virtue. Certain emotions, and certain loves in particular, are therefore to be embraced within the Christian life. For Edwards, as for Luther and Calvin, virtue provides a standard through which we discern which emotions function in this way.

Conclusion In keeping with Augustinian Christianity as a whole, Luther, Calvin, and Edwards affirm a more positive account of the emotions’ place in the moral life than is found in the Stoics. The incarnate Jesus Christ experiences emotions; indeed, Luther suggests that sorrow characterizes much of Christ’s earthly life. More generally, emotions are a part of human experience that cannot be avoided. Moreover, God’s exercise of anger necessitates a view of the emotions as compatible with a constant and unchanging goodness. At the same time, Luther, Calvin, and Edwards qualify their acceptance of the emotions. Luther and Calvin restrict the emotions of anger in humans to the activity characteristic of select offices through which human beings take part in God’s providential direction of the created world. Edwards describes the Christian life in terms of religious affections that are sustained expressions of the will, deeply informed by the understanding, and situates the emotions within an account of the moral life that stresses a union between reason and will. For all three thinkers, the emotions fitting to the Christian life are determined by returning to the notion of virtue, whose unique goodness offers a guide for understanding the means and occasions through which emotions may enhance moral growth as well as those through which the emotions inhibit or diminish such growth. In elevating virtue as a standard that enables us to discern how and when to accept certain emotions as part of the Christian life, Luther, Calvin, and Edwards advance a position closer to Stoic apatheia than might be expected. 85

Ibid., WJE 2:257.

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Apatheia, as we saw in Chapter 2, is a practice through which aspirants to virtue guard against surrendering themselves to attitudes and experiences that might interfere with virtue. This practice helps to ensure that one assesses objects rightly, in part, by recognizing virtue’s unique value such that virtue alone can properly be considered good. Christian theology is necessarily at odds with Stoic accounts of grief because a Christian belief in God’s knowledge of, and love for, particular human beings makes it appropriate that love can be expressed in grief on behalf of particular persons with whom we are in relation. But as we have seen in previous chapters, a Christian moral vision stresses virtue’s unique value and urges that faith in God, embodied in and lived out through love for God and other persons, should function to guide our discernment about how to live in relation to other human beings. At times, a focus on virtue presses us toward certain emotions, just as Luther’s Christian zeal consists of expressions of love as anger and grief. At other times, a focus on virtue requires curbing, reframing, or rejecting particular emotions for the sake of a deeper faith. Attention to virtue serves as a vehicle through which we discern what sort of practice is required.

C onclu sion

Future Prospects for Protestant Virtue Ethics

The pictures of Stoic moral philosophy and Protestant Christian ethics laid out here are far from complete. But these chapters nonetheless identify and develop interrelated lines of thought in Protestant theology that provide a foundation for understanding the character of Protestant ethics. The affinity between Stoic and Protestant moral claims, coupled with an increasing appreciation among contemporary virtue ethicists for varieties of ancient schools of virtue, demonstrates that this Protestant ethic is in fact an ethic of virtue, a virtue ethic that can most readily be recognized as such through acknowledging its Stoic character. Luther, Calvin, and Edwards are not Christian Stoics, nor do I advance a contemporary ethic here that is Christian Stoicism in the spirit of Lipsius. But Luther’s, Calvin’s, and Edwards’s points of continuity with certain Stoic arguments are instructive for understanding their vision of the shape of the moral life and the ways in which this vision expands our view of what virtue ethics looks like. This Protestant ethic envisions virtuous character as embodied in faith. Faith discerns God’s benevolent oversight of the world, both in reflecting on God’s radical self-revelation in the incarnate Jesus Christ and in recognizing the ways in which God encounters individual human beings. Faith is fully embodied as this discernment is coupled with consent to God, an extended and dispositional stance of trust in God’s providential goodness and love for the created order. In turn, faith places us in a relationship with God that informs a more complete understanding of our own place in the universe, and as we feel and show gratitude and love for God, we simultaneously grow in love for our neighbors, recognizing that all created beings share a relation because of our common relation to God. This

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love guides and orders our understanding of the value of other possible goods so that we can determine when to embrace particular emotions and when to resist them. The designation of this ethic as “Protestant” is not fully satisfactory and could raise various questions. On one hand, as we saw in Chapter 1, a number of studies attest to the influence of the Stoics on the early church fathers and particularly Paul and Augustine. The Christian ethic I put forth here is not inconsistent with Paul and in some sense represents the Christian tradition more broadly than the term “Protestant” might suggest. On the other hand, the term “Protestant” might also misleadingly seem to indicate that the ethic I put forth successfully captures all voices in the diverse and complex set of church traditions and institutions that would identify as Protestant. The ethic advanced in this book is neither narrowly Protestant nor comprehensively Protestant, and in this sense, one might question the value of using the term Protestant at all. Despite these possible misgivings about terminology, characterizing this account as a Protestant ethic is valuable precisely in the challenges it raises to contemporary ethicists working to engage historical traditions. The designation of an ethic rooted in Luther, Calvin, and Edwards as a Protestant ethic invites more systematic reflection on historical Protestant thought as constituting a more coherent moral tradition than the variety and diversity of contemporary Protestant churches might suggest. In exploring this possibility and reflecting further about the nature and contours of a characteristically Protestant virtue ethic, it will be valuable to attend to a broader range of historical sources than this text was able to consider. Given the somewhat indirect intellectual relation the Stoics share with Luther, Calvin, and Edwards, one might ask whether continued attention to the Stoics is valuable for such a project. There are ways in which attention to the Stoics is not essential: Christianity does not “depend” on Stoic thought, and a rich consideration of Trinitarian theology and soteriology provides intellectual tools in their own right that can provide ample material for conversation among Christians concerning the moral vision appropriate to the Christian traditions. However, in thinking about expanding the historical sources that we might consider for further clarifying a Christian ethic, we would be remiss to overlook Protestant thinkers’ recurrent interest in Stoic thought. One striking example of this interest in the twentieth-century is

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found in the work of prominent American theologian H. Richard Niebuhr. Niebuhr advocates an ethic of “response,” and in a 1974 article in the Journal of Religious Ethics, Richard E. Crouter argues that “Stoic teaching” is the “theoretical base” of this ethic.1 While Niebuhr expressly acknowledges the influence of Augustine, Calvin, Luther, Edwards, and the modern philosopher Spinoza on his work,2 he also makes several explicit and positive references to the Stoics in The Responsible Self. Indeed, he characterizes Stoic ethics as an “ethics of response”3 and speaks of the moral stance of the Stoic sage in a manner that resonates strikingly with the orientation that I have argued is characteristic of Luther, Calvin, and Edwards: The Stoics are concerned with nomos and with the ideal life of apathy, or serenity. But primarily they deal with the ways men react, wisely or foolishly, to the things that befall them, to the things that are not in their power . . . The secret of the wise life is its recognition of the presence in all events of a universal Nature, of “creative, cosmic power, the world-thought,” the world-reason. When birth and death are understood as outworkings of the world-reason, or of God, as the later Stoics said, then the wise man will do the fitting thing, the act that is in accord with the workings of universal reason . . . The Stoic is a citizen of the cosmos to whom nothing is foreign that is not foreign to the central, all-pervading power; he looks to every event as expressive in some fashion of universal plan and pattern; he interprets it in that way and so tries to respond fittingly.4

Niebeuhr’s appreciation for the Stoics is noteworthy, but it is also not an indication that Niebuhr’s view is a full-fledged Christian Stoicism. Although Crouter argues that Niebuhr sees Stoic ethics as showing an “affinity” with biblical and Augustinian ethics, he acknowledges that it would be inappropriate to view Niebuhr as a “neo-Stoic” or a “Stoic-Christian.” Instead, Crouter characterizes Niebuhr’s relation to the Stoics in a manner similar to 1

2

3

4

Richard E. Crouter (1974). “H. Richard Niebuhr and Stoicism.” Journal of Religious Ethics 2 .2 (Fall): 129– 46, at 133. Richard H. Niebuhr (1961). “How My Mind Has Changed,” in How My Mind has Changed: Thirteen Distinguished Religious Thinkers Assess How the Last Decade Has Changed Their Lives and Thought, ed. Harold E. Fey. Cleveland, OH:  Meridian Books/The World Publishing Company, pp. 69–80. H. Richard Niebuhr (1963). The Responsible Self:  An Essay in Christian Moral Philosophy. New York : Harper and Row, p. 170 Niebuhr, The Responsible Self, pp. 170–1. Crouter argues that Niebeuhr’s conception of “the fitting” (to propon) is rooted in Cicero’s De officiis and the Stoic tradition (Crouter, pp. 131–2).

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my claims regarding Luther, Calvin, and Edwards. For Crouter, Niebuhr’s “relation to the Stoics is more analogical and philosophically illustrative than directly formative of his ethical perspective.”5 Precisely for this reason, Crouter’s analysis of Niebuhr underscores the feasibility of the notion that Stoic thought illuminates a particular and central strand of Protestant theology represented in a range of texts and thinkers that exceeds those who have been the focus of this study. This theological tradition upholds a focus on individual character well suited to the work of virtue ethics. At the same time, the vision of virtue laid out here emerges from and reinforces an account of the human person as necessarily relational, as biologically constituted to stand in relation both to a divine being and to other persons. A commitment to human relationality presses moral agents to pursue a virtuous love that is universal in scope, a love lived out in a recognition of one’s own moral responsibility toward strangers as well as friends. Ultimately, both of these commitments are made coherent in a faith in God’s goodness and concern for human beings, a faith lived out in deliberate consent to and trust in God even in times of uncertainty.

5

Crouter, pp. 141.

Works Cited Works of Calvin, Edwards, and Luther Works of John Calvin Calvin, John (1557). Commentary on the Psalms. Trans. James Anderson. Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Calvin, John (1558). Commentary on Matthew, Mark, and Luke. 3 vols. Trans. William Pringle. 1845 English edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Calvin, John (1581). Commentary on Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians. Trans. John Pringle. 1851 English edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Calvin, John (1969). Commentary on Seneca’s De Clementia. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill. Calvin, John (2009). Institutes of the Christian Religion. 1559. Trans. Henry Beveridge, 1845. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers.

Works of Jonathan Edwards Quotations from Jonathan Edwards are taken from the multivolume critical edition of The Works of Jonathan Edwards (WJE). 26  vols. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957–2008. Full titles of specific volumes used in this work are listed below. WJE 1: Freedom of the Will. Ed. Paul Ramsey. 1957. WJE 2: Religious Affections. Ed. John E. Smith. 1959. WJE 3: Original Sin. Ed. Clyde A. Holbrook. 1970. WJE 7: The Life of David Brainerd. Ed. Norman Pettit. 1985. WJE 8: Ethical Writings. Ed. Paul Ramsey. 1989. WJE 17: Sermons and Discourses 1730–1733. Ed. Mark Valeri. 1999. WJE 18: The “Miscellanies,” 501–832. Ed. Ava Chamberlain. 2000. WJE 19: Sermons and Discourses 1734–1738. Ed. M. X. Lesser. 2001. WJE 26: Catalogues of Books. Ed. Peter J. Thuesen. 2008.

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Works of Martin Luther Quotations from Martin Luther are taken from the American critical edition of Luther’s Works. 55 vols. Ed. Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann. Philadelphia and St Louis: Concordia Press and Fortress Press, 1955–. Full titles of specific volumes used in this work are listed below. LW 1: Lectures on Genesis Chapters 1–5. Ed. Jaroslav Pelikan. Trans. George V. Schick. LW 2: Lectures on Genesis Chapters 6–14. Ed. Jaroslav Pelikan. Trans. George V. Schick. LW 16: Lectures on Isaiah Chapters 1–39. Ed. Jaroslav Pelikan. Trans. Herbert J. A. Bouman. LW 21: The Sermon on the Mount (Sermons) and the Magnificat. Ed. Jaroslav Pelikan. Trans. Jaroslav Pelikan and A. T. W. Steinhauser. LW 22: Sermons on the Gospel of St. John Chapters 1–4. Ed. Jaroslav Pelikan. Trans. Martin H. Bertram. LW 23: Sermons on the Gospel of St. John Chapters 6–8. Ed. Jaroslav Pelikan. Trans. Martin H. Bertram. LW 25: Lectures on Romans. Glosses and Scholia. Ed. Hilton C. Oswald. Trans. Walter G. Tillmanns and Jacob A. O. Preus. LW 26: Lectures on Galatians 1535, Chapters 1–4. Ed. and trans. Jaroslav Pelikan. LW 31: Career of the Reformer I. Ed. Harold J. Grimm. LW 32: Career of the Reformer II. Ed. George W. Forell. Trans. Charles Jacobs, Roger Hornsby, George Lindbeck, and A. T. W. Steinhauser. LW 33: Career of the Reformer III. Ed. Philip S. Watson. Trans. Philip S. Watson and Benjamin Drewery. LW 44: The Christian in Society I. Ed. James Atkinson.

Other historical sources Augustine (1886). Letter 167: From Augustine to Jerome, On James II.10. Trans. J. G. Cunningham. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 1. Ed. Philip Schaff. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing. Reprint: Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1995, pp. 532–9. Augustine (1984). The City of God. Trans. Henry Bettenson. London: Penguin. Cicero (2001). On Moral Ends. Ed. Julia Annas. Trans. Raphael Woolf. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

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Index Adams, Robert Merrihew 94 n.6, 98 affections 101–2, 178–9, 180 –5, 190 –1 agape 16 Anacreontea 31–2 anger 82–3, 176 –8, 185, 186, 187, 189–90 pathos of 84 –5 Annas, Julia 11–12, 49, 50 –1, 50 n.20, 55– 6, 59, 64 n.100, 76 n.168, 77 anti-rationalism 22 apatheia 16, 17–18, 41, 48, 80 –8, 173, 185, 189, 193– 4 see also emotions Aquinas, Thomas 20, 72, 125 Aristotelianism 86 n.224, 127, 186 n.53 Aristotle 2, 11–12, 13, 19, 19 n.51, 57, 59, 125 Arminianism 165 Arpaly, Nomy 167–8 Arrian 52 aseity, divine 154 – 6, 158 atheism 9 Augustine 13, 16 –17, 20, 33– 4, 37, 37 n.122, 86 n.224, 134 –5, 173– 4 n.4 City of God, The 16 Confessions 17 Augustinianism 27 Aurelius, Marcus 14, 39– 40, 51, 53–5, 66, 70, 71, 76, 77, 80, 82, 84 –5, 92 n.3 Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, The 39– 40, 54 autonomy 168 Baier, Annette 180 Becker, Lawrence C. 10 benevolence 3, 4, 27, 41, 45, 66, 68, 72, 74, 75, 79–80, 84, 108, 147, 150, 169, 171, 195 Blackburn, Simon 180 Blair, Hugh 21 Bouwsma, William J. 26 –8, 118 n.15 Boyle, Marjorie O’Rourke 36 –7, 96, 97, 97 n.20, 116 –18 Brainerd, David 132–3

bricolage 24 –9, 40 Brookins, Timothy A. 32, 33 Budelmann, Felix 31–2 Bultmann, Rudolf 22–3, 23 n.58 Byers, Sarah C. 33 n.106 Calvin, John vi, 1, 2, 3, 4 –5, 13, 14 –15, 19, 21, 23– 4, 25– 6, 27–9, 35, 40, 42, 95, 195–8 Commentary on Matthew 189 on conversion 116, 118–19, 122–3, 124, 130 –1 on divine hiddenness and accessibility 144 – 6 on divine providence 140 –1, 148–9 on emotions 173– 4, 175, 176, 177–8, 182–3, 185, 186, 187–90 on faith 99–100, 106 –8, 130 –1 on freedom 159, 160, 161–2, 163 on God's transcendence 141–2 Institutes of the Christian Religion 1, 14 –15, 119, 122, 149 on justification 134, 135–7, 164 –5 on necessity 162, 163– 4 Cassirer, Ernst 34 Cates, Diana Fritz 16, 72, 178, 182 Catholicism 115 n.2 Chai, Leon 38 n.125, 101 Christian progress Protestant accounts of 134 –7 transformation and return 126 –33 Chrysippus 49–50, 60, 63, 69, 81, 87 Cicero 23, 35, 59, 60, 64, 69, 78, 92 n.3 De finibus 59 De officiis 24, 35 On Divination 64 Paradoxa Stoicorum 36 Clarke, Samuel 154 Colish, Marcia L. 22–3, 33, 48, 50 n.20, 61, 114 compassion 16 –17, 55, 125 conscience 96 –7, 162

212

Index

conversion 26, 114, 115–16 as event and process 116 –20 and personal identity 121– 6 transformative conversion 115–26 transformative good, virtue as 55– 62 Cooper, John M. 52 cosmolgy, Stoic 15 Couenhoven, Jesse 168 Cowley, Abraham 31–2 Coxhead, Steven R. 136 Crisp, Oliver 94 n.7, 116, 149 n.40 Crouter, Richard E. 197–8 Deism 8–9 detached will 10 –11, 85 divine activity, apprehension of 74 divine being 4 divine hiddenness and accessibility 141–8 Edwards, Jonathan vi, 1, 2, 3, 4 –5, 19, 20, 20 n.53, 21, 23– 4, 35, 37–9, 40, 42, 91–2 n.1, 95, 167, 171, 195–8 on affections 178–9, 180 –1, 183–5, 190 –1 Charity and Its Fruits 108–10 on conversion 116, 119–20, 122–3, 124 – 6, 131–2, 134 on divine hiddenness and accessibility 146 –8, 154 –9 on divine providence 140 –1 on emotions 174, 175, 178–9, 183– 4, 190 –1 End for Which God Created the World, The 141, 147, 154 on faith 100 –1, 106, 108–11, 130 on freedom 159, 160, 161, 162–3 Justification by Faith 123 Justification by Faith Alone 119, 131 Life of David Brainerd, The 132 Miscellany 702, 147 Miscellany 712, 108 on necessity 162–3, 165– 6 On Freedom of the Will 1, 37 Treatise on Religious Affections 101–2, 120, 125, 192 Two Dissertations 192 on will 179–80 emanation 155

emotions 15–17, 41, 44 –5, 68–9, 72, 81– 4, 85– 6, 87–8, 173–5, 193– 4 see also apatheia cautions about 175–85 and moral life 4 moral status, and virtue 185–93 and vocation 176 –8 and will 178–85 Engberg-Pedersen, Troels 32, 33 n.104, 49–50, 117 n.6 Enlightenment 9 Epictetus 14, 16, 51, 52–3, 57–8, 59– 60, 67–8, 70, 74 –5, 78–9, 80, 86, 87–8, 92 n.3, 167 Discourses 52, 87 Enchiridion 52 Erasmus 142, 150, 151, 167 De libero arbitrio 142 Eucleides 49 eudaimonism 12, 58–9 eupatheia 75– 6 eupatheiai 87 evangelicalism 94 n.7 evil 152– 4 faith 91–3, 169, 195 and belief 94, 95 cognitive dimension 95–7 moral dimension 97–102 structure in Protestantism 93– 4 and virtue 102– 6 virtuous 106 –11 fate/fatalism 14 –15, 65– 6 Fedler, Kyle 188 n.64 feminism 167 n.129 Fiering, Norman 35, 38, 38 n.128, 154, 154 n.70 Frede, Michael 53, 53 n.37, 72–3 freedom 78, 79, 159– 66 see also free will free will 43, 73, 78, 79, 159, 162 Gadamer, Hans-Georg 30 –1 Gellius, Aulus 86 God 8, 14, 15, 17, 50 n.19, 54 –5, 59– 60, 62–8, 71–2, 73– 4, 74 –5, 97, 98–9, 101, 105– 6, 128, 132, 140 –1, 171 and creation 62–3, 154, 158 self-revelation 2, 141, 142, 143, 144, 146, 171, 195

Index transcendence of 158 will of 143–5, 153 goodness, divine 42, 74, 75, 80, 92, 94, 102, 146, 147, 150, 155, 157, 171 goodness, natural 108, 134, 192 grace 122, 128, 133 Graver, Margaret R. 81, 87 Gregory, Eric 17, 33 n.107 grief 83– 4, 187–8 Gustafson, James 98, 115 n.2, 178 habitual dispositions 102 habituation, Aristotelian 19–20, 61 Haines, C. R. 54 Hampson, Daphne 105, 115 n.2, 127 happiness, and virtue 59 Hardwick, Lorna 31 Harnack, Theodosius 143 Haubold, Johannes 31–2 Hauerwas, Stanley 6, 14, 17, 19 Henderson 55 Herdt, Jennifer A. 123– 4 n.39, 135 Holmes, Stephen R. 156 n.77 Holy Spirit 107, 128 human agency 43, 137, 159– 66 humanism 8 human nature 15 human person 13 human will 159, 160, 161, 164, 166 Hume, David 21, 180 humility 128, 134 Hursthouse, Rosalind 92 n.2 Hutcheson, Francis 21, 38, 39, 39 n.133, 40, 54 Huttunen, Niko 32 identity vi–vii, 10, 94, 114, 115–16, 121– 6, 134, 172 impartial love 17, 42, 75– 6, 75 n.165, 76 n.168, 93, 105 incarnation 2, 5, 15, 44, 63, 142, 149, 171, 174, 185, 193, 195 see also Jesus Christ Inwood, Brad 49 n.5, 85 Irwin, Terence 20 n.53 Jeden, Christoph 50 Jensen, Henning 39 n.133 Jesus Christ 2, 5, 80, 95, 97, 121, 171, 174, 177–8

213

judgments 58, 69–70, 72, 81–8, 96, 179–80, 181–2 justification 113, 115, 116, 119, 121, 122– 4, 126 –9, 130 –3, 134 – 6, 164 – 6 Kantianism 10 Kirby, W. J. Torrance 29 n.9 Laertius, Diogenes 58, 61, 63, 78 Lane, A. N. S. 119 n.18 Lee, Sang Hyun 38 n.125, 156 Leithart, Peter J. 26 n.68, 28 Lewis, Paul 183– 4 Lipsius, Justus 7–8 Locke, John 161 Essay Concerning Human Understanding 161 Long, A. A. 34, 52, 53, 53 n.37, 54, 60, 67 n.119 love 191–2, 195– 6 and faith 92, 93, 106 –11 impartial 17, 42, 75– 6, 75 n.165, 76 n.168, 93, 105 universal 59, 75–7, 88, 105, 140, 170, 171, 172 and virtue 59– 60 Luther, Martin vi, 3, 4 –5, 19, 20, 20 n.53, 21, 23– 4, 35, 36, 40, 42, 91 n.1, 134, 135– 6, 166 –7, 195–8 Against Latomus 122, 123, 128 on Christian progress 127–8 Commentary on Galatians 96, 98, 104, 106 on conversion 116, 122, 127 De servo arbitrio 142 on divine hiddenness and accessibility 143– 4 on divine providence 140 –1, 143, 148–54 on emotions 175, 176 –7, 186 –7 on faith 95–7, 98, 99, 103–5 on freedom 159– 60, 163 Freedom of a Christian, The 95, 98, 103, 130 on God's transcendence 141–2 on justification 117–18, 127, 128, 164 Lectures on Genesis 143 Lectures on Romans 95, 128 on necessity 162, 163 Sermon on the Mount, The 176

214

Index

Sermons on the Gospel of St. John 186 Tischreden 35 MacIntyre, Alasdair 6, 9–10, 10 n.21, 12, 21, 39 n.133, 92 n.2 After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory 9 Christians Among the Virtues 19 majesty, divine 147–8 Mannermaa, Tuomo 121 Marsden, George 38, 38 n.126, 171 McClymond, Michael 119, 120 n.23, 155 n.74, 184 McDermott, Gerald 103, 109 n.85, 119, 120 n.23, 184 Meilaender, Gilbert 20, 121–2, 127 Melanchthon 36 Miller, Christian 55 modernity, and Stoicism 6 –18 Moor, James 40, 40 n.135, 54 moral agent/agency 73– 4 and emotions 186 Reformed conception of 166 –72 moral bricolage 24 –9, 40 moral formation 41, 42–3 moral freedom 79 moral goodness 192–3 morality 61–2, 68–77 moral life 125 – 6, 127 moral necessity 162, 165– 6 moral personality 53 n.37, 73 moral responsibility 78, 79–80, 168, 169 natural gift 163– 4 n.119 natural goods 58 natural necessity 162 necessity, in human agents 159, 162 Neoplatonism 63, 155, 174 neo-Stoicism 7–8, 197 New Testament 22, 33 Niebuhr, H. Richard 197–8 Nolan, Kirk 20 Nussbaum, Martha C. 17, 18, 57 n.61, 68–9, 72, 78 n.128, 81, 83–4, 181, 183 Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions 68, 181 omnipotence, of God 140, 142, 145, 150, 151–2 n.58, 158 original sin 5, 15, 94, 115, 115 n.3, 136, 145, 168, 171, 176

Orthodoxy 14, 63, 155 panentheism 154 –9 pantheism 27, 63 Partee, Charles 29 n.9 passions 16, 17, 33, 78, 86 n.224, 178–9, 180 –1, 184, 188 persevering faith 100 –1, 132 personhood 170 –1 phantasies 70 Pharoah 152–3 Pinches, Charles 14, 17 Placher, William 142 n.4 Platonism 9, 86 n.224 Plutarch, 57 Polenz, Max 23 n.58 practical intelligence, and virtues 56 Procope, J.F. 52 prohairesis 41, 53, 53 n.37, 54, 72–3, 78, 79, 93– 4, 100 Protestant ethics 2, 196 providence, divine 41, 43– 4, 54 –5, 62–8, 72, 73– 4, 75, 77, 79, 92, 140 –1, 146 –7, 163– 4 n.119, 166, 169, 195 mechanics of 148–54 Roman Stoic account of 62–8 Puritanism 28–9, 38 Raath, Andries 35– 6 Ramsey, Paul 101, 155 n.74 Rand, Benjamin 39, 39 n.132 reason, and virtue 11, 15, 48, 56, 70 –1, 72, 180 reception history 30 – 41 redemption 147 Reformed Protestant 1, 2, 4, 18, 20, 139, 166 Reid, Thomas 21 religious affections see affections Renaissance 27 Renaissance humanism 26 n.68 righteousness 104, 129, 130 –1, 136 alien and actual 129 passive 98 Rist, John 49 n.5, 54, 60 –1, 73 Roman Stoics 21 divine providence 62–8 ethics 2, 34, 41 Rorty, Amélie 10 –11 Rowe, Kavin 25 n.64

Index Saint Paul 22, 32–3, 188, 196 salvation 5, 15, 19, 35, 91, 100 –1, 103, 108, 108 n.83, 109–10, 130, 131, 135, 136, 149, 186 n.53 Scholasticism 106 –7 Scottish Enlightenment 21 Scriptures 25 n.64, 37, 94, 97, 99, 100, 107, 107 n.72, 117 n.6, 120, 142, 143, 144, 146 –7, 150, 162–3, 163 n.119 secularism 7, 9 self-love 59– 60, 125 Seneca, Lucius Annaeus 23, 51–2, 57, 58, 64 – 6, 74, 75, 81– 4, 86 n.220, 92 n.3 On Anger 82 Consolation to Marcia 83 De beneficiis 37 De constantia sapientis 7 On Favours 75 On Providence 64, 65 Senecan morality 36 –7 sentimentalism 38 Sextius, Quintus 51 n.24 Shaftesbury, 38–9, 39 nn.132, 133 Philosophical Regimen 39 Sher, Richard 40 Silverthorne, Michael 40 n.135 Smith, Adam 21 Socrates 56 Protagoras 56 Solomon, Robert 181–2, 183 Sorabji, Richard 16, 33 n.106, 73, 75– 6, 78 n.178, 81, 87 soul 182–3 sovereignty, divine 139, 140 –1, 162 spiritual knowledge 101–2 spiritual sense 125 spiritual understanding 126 Steinmetz, David 119 n.18 Stobaeus, 58 Stoics/Stoicism vii, 1– 6, 47–8, 133, 169, 174, 190, 195, 197–8 apatheia 80 –88 bricolage 25 – 6 divine providence 41, 43– 4, 54 –5, 62–8, 72, 73– 4, 75, 77, 79 historical overview 48–55 negligence in contemporary Christian ethics 6 –18 and reception history 30 – 41

215

reconsideration for contemporary Christian ethics 18–22 relation to modern philosophy 6 –13 Roman Stoics 2, 21, 34, 41, 62–8 theological concerns about 13–18 transformative good, virtue as 55– 62 unified/singular good, virtue as 41, 55– 62, 79 virtue 9–11, 19 virtuous assent 77–8, 81, 84, 86 –8 Storms, Sam 180 Stout, Jeff rey 24 –5, 25 n.64 Strange, Steven K. 77–8 Stray, Christopher 31 suffering, and virtue 64 –5, 188 n.64 Tanner, Kathryn 141, 142 n.4 Taylor, Charles 7, 8–9, 10, 15 teleology 9–10, 11, 12, 49, 51, 62 telos 9, 11, 12, 92 n.2, 127 Thomas Aquinas 24 –5, 186 n.53 Thorsteinsson, Runar 32 Trinity 63, 196 true virtue 108, 125, 165, 171, 192 trust 4, 75, 94, 98, 99 understanding, and will 179–80 unified/singular good, virtue as 41, 55– 62, 79 unity thesis, of virtues 11, 55– 62 universal love 59, 75–7, 88, 105, 140, 170, 171, 172 VanderMolen, Ronald J. 145 n.22 virtue vi–vii, 4, 9–11, 19, 77–8, 81, 84, 86 –8, 99 as assent to providence 62–80 ethics, and Stoicism 7 and faith 102– 6 formation in 55– 62 and happiness 59 and love 59– 60 moral status of emotions and 185–90 and practical intelligence 56 and reason 11, 15, 48, 56, 70 –1, 72, 180 Stoic 9–11 and suffering 64 –5, 188 n.64 as transformative good 55– 62 true virtue 108, 125, 165, 171, 192

216 unity thesis 11, 55– 62 and vice 61 virtuous assent 68–77 intellectual dimension 68–72, 74 moral or volitional component 72–7 virtuous faith, and love 106 –11 virtuous love 191–2 Vlastos, Gregory 56 vocation, and emotions 176 –8

Index Wilcox, Peter 118 n.12, 124 n.42 will see also free will; God, will of; human will and emotions 178–85 prohairesis as 72–3 Wilson, Stephen A. 19 n.51, 38 n.125 Wolterstorff, Nicholas 12 Word of God 95 Yearley, Lee 17

Ward, Roger 120 n.22 Watson, Philip 142 n.6 Waugh, Barry G. 99 n.27 Wesley, John 115 n.3

Zachman, Randall 96 n.16 zeal 186 –7, 194 Zeno 48–9, 57, 58, 63, 78, 81