Did Jonathan Edwards Undermine Calvinism?

Another good one. As Tyler said, it’s best to read them in their own words though.

http://www.apbrown2.net/web/PrevenientGrace_BillCombs.pdf

There is a lot of deflection going on here. Not one person has actually engaged Olson’s point. I am neither Calvinist nor Arminian, although I lean more to the former, but I have read both in depth. From my experience most Calvinists don’t have a clue what Arminius taught (and I went to a Reformed seminary), preferring to label Arminians as semi-pelagian, which they are not. Many Arminians don’t get Calvinism either, but that is hardly the case with Roger Olson.

Prevenient grace is sort of the Arminian version of common grace, although they address different issues. Neither are exegetically solid. Both are deductions.

So what if Olson has uncovered a weak point in Calvinism? Try to address it! I would say the same thing if the shoe were on the other foot. Olson makes a legitimate point. Ad hominem doesn’t change it one iota.

I don’t particularly care about Olson’s point, or about Edwards. I just popped in to offer a point or two about prevenient grace! Olson can continue his quest to criticize Calvinism, and Lord bless him. His discussions with Michael Horton didn’t convince him, so I doubt he can be convinced. He occasionally pops up with these little broadsides against Reformed soteriology. He’ll likely issue another one in a few months …

I’m generally unmoved by these “theologian X is allegedly inconsistent, so whaddya say now, sucker!?” articles. I can’t bring myself to care what theologian X thought or wrote; especially this theologian X. As I said earlier, I leave the passionate responses to young seminary students from both sides!

I did not have you in mind in my comment since you signaled you lack of interest. You did call attention to Olson’s excellent book. I do wonder why you comment at all if you lack interest in the subject (but it is not for me to say what you ought to do or refrain from doing).

As for me, i think this stuff is important, and I also find it interesting. I enjoy the joust. But I see no jousting.

I understand. The prevenient grace aspect has always been intriguing to me. I’ve read Olson’s essay twice, and I confess I don’t understand his point. I’ve always found Edwards hard to follow, so perhaps that’s my trouble. I’ve personally never had qualms with playing the mystery card on this angle, as long as we don’t play it too soon and too conveniently.

As I see it the Bible does not tell us everything we want to know. That means that we will either have to pull up shorter than we’d like, or continue deducing doctrines without biblical light. If we do the latter, we are sure to commit logical fallacies. The fact is we are not given the mechanics of the new birth.

I don’t read any attacks on Olson above? Perhaps some eye rolling… and pointing out inconsistency in his arguments.

I wish I had the time to write a long reply on what I think “good” means, but I don’t. Sorry to disappoint you Paul.

There are several varieties of this fallacy. Some of the “pot shots” have been against Arminians in general or Arminianism itself. But that is not what the article is about. It’s about Calvinism, and noone has joined the argument. Mark quibbled about the word “good”, which is bye the bye, because Olson is saying that many Calvinists (e.g. Edwards) claim that something is good because God does it, whereas in his book on Virtue Edwards defines “good” as a value within God that God must be. There lies the contradiction.

What you dismissed as “bye the bye” is a response to the last paragraph of the piece:

“I ask: How can God be truly virtuous, truly good in a meaningful way, and foreordain the fall of humanity into sin and certain individuals to eternal torment in hell? It is impossible to reconcile Edwards’s account of God and virtue and “goodness” with what he believed as a Calvinist about God’s sovereignty with regard to reprobation.”

Olson’s main point is not in the last paragraph; it is in the middle of his piece:

Now, in order to keep this relatively brief, let me turn to my one main point. Over and over again I have heard Calvinists say “Whatever God does is good just because God does it.” That pops out like a mantra when I or anyone asks them how God can be good and predestine sin and hell. As I have argued here before many times, that makes the word “good” meaningless. And Edwards agreed! I now throw his words back at them.

In “Virtue” Edwards adamantly asserted that God’s own “temper and nature” is virtue meaning love, benevolence, “the cordial consent or union of being to being in general.” And he argued that such benevolence toward being in general did not exclude anyone or anything that has being. Being itself draws forth God’s benevolence. Love of misery in anyone, Edwards argued, is a contradiction of the true nature of reality.

Then comes the “kicker.” On pages 106 and 107 of “Virtue” (the edition specified above), Edwards rejected any idea or argument that “good” can have other meanings than he has identified—namely, benevolence toward being. He specifically labels any notion or argument that “good” in God means something different from “good” in general as “abuse of language.”

His fire is aimed at the position which claims that whatever God does is good because He does it. Edwards calls such a claim “Abuse of language.” That kicks a leg out from under the stool of many Calvinists who resort of nominalism to account for God’s decree of reprobation.

the only thing that we can discuss is the “main point” of an article, or a paper, or a thesis. Who knew the rest was irrelevant? Thanks for letting me know. You should probably tell your students this. It saves a lot of time if all they do is outline the main point and skip the introduction, supporting points, and the conclusion.

For the record, I didn’t address that point of Olson because I never argue that point. It means little to me. I addressed what is important to my life, not some abstract argument.

you are within your rights to comment on whatever you wish to. But what I am saying is that no one has engaged the main argument. If you don’t believe that something is good because God does it then it doesn’t mean others in fact do believe it and assert that very thing. i have encountered it many many times… in fact, in Edwards!

And hence to Olson’s main point… Anyone?

Here is my comment on the main point.

Let me outline what I think Olson’s point is, and you let me know if I am wrong.

1- Some Calvinists today say “What God does is good because he is God. Everything God does is good by default because he is God.”

2- Olson reads this as Calvinists saying there is no moral component to God’s being good. No required benevolence to be good. Olson sees this as absurd to the meaning of the word good.

3- Olson, in his lifelong quest to write as an anti-Calvinist, has finally read something that contradicts this common statement. He has found a book written by Jonathan Edwards, published after he died, where he (Edwards) argues that God has virtue, meaning love and benevolence. In fact, no meaning of good can be otherwise, Edwards said.

4- So, Edwards just attacked the position of all the Calvinists in statement 1. Thus contradicting Calvinism!!!

QED. Strike up one for the home team….

My responses:

1- No Calvinist other than maybe a few kooks believe God being good has no moral, love, or benevolent component to it. Often the “what God does is good” argument is about sovereignty and death and “reprobation.” It isn’t an all encompassing claim about God.

2- Edwards died 280 years ago. He is not accountable for what people said after him.

3- Like I pointed out above, if the reprobationist Calvinist’s God is not good because he sends people to hell, then the free will Arminian God is guilty of the same thing when a person goes to hell! An all-powerful God is allowing or choosing someone to pay a finite amount of sin for eternity. If “good” and “benevolence” is the issue, God is in trouble in either system.

As Tyler pointed out, Olson thinks he can dodge this with prevenient grace paying for mankind’s sin debt except for unbelief. So he thinks he has transferred the guilt for going to hell to man rather than God. But this is nonsense. The fact remains, and all-powerful God is presiding over a system where sinners pay for sin eternally. That is a fact in either system. If God is not benevolent in Calvinism, neither is he in Arminianism.

4- So I think Olson’s argument is weak.

5- To the extent that prop 1 is true, Calvinist’s need to adjust their argument. But it is not a “death blow” to Calvinism and Edwards certainly is not attacking his own “team.”

Mark, you deserve credit for your engagement of Olson’s argument. However, your answer is somewhat skewed I’m afraid. This is because it seems you have not followed Olson’s reasoning carefully enough.

The basic premise is that Edwards believed and taught that “Whatever God does is good just because God does it.” Olson backs that up by referencing Edwards’ occasionalism, but asserts that all Edwards scholars know that he believed this statement.

The statement “Whatever God does is good just because God does it.” is nominalistic. That is, it asserts that because God is God He makes the rules, and if He wants to call something good that we would call bad He can. There is no ethical standard that God is held to; not even within Himself. You deny this (except for kooks) in your reply #1, but you don’t tackle Edwards known assertions of it nor his occasionalism which requires it.

You say, “No Calvinist other than maybe a few kooks believe God being good has no moral, love, or benevolent component to it.” But you miss the point. The assertion “Whatever God does is good just because God does it.” does just that, and occasionalism demands it. Moreover, I myself have encountered it numerous times.

Olson’s further argument is that Calvinists often assert (and Piper definitely does!) that God’s justice must be satisfied by objects of wrath. Ergo, God has to predestine some to wrath (which also threatens His aseity btw).

But if God’s goodness as defined in The Nature of True Virtue is the only kind of goodness there is, then Edwards’s occasionalism and nominalism are impossible. And, (although Olson only hints at it) neither does God need to damn people to serve the requirements of His justice, since His benevolence glorifies Him more than His wrath.

All this is predicated by Edwards’ (and classic Calvinists) rejection of libertarian free will. Hence classic Arminianism is not troubled by these concerns.

I personally believe that both systems are valiant but flawed attempts to see behind the veil. I do not have a horse in this race.

Never mind.