Jonathan Edwards's sermon A Divine and Supernatural Light is a description of "divine light" and also a justification of its existence. A segment where Edwards is making an effort to rationally prove how he can recognize "divine light" is particularly interesting to me. This paragraph can be found on page 9 (on the printed-out copy of the sermon), just before the #2 during the third main section. The paragraph starts with "If Christ should now appear to any one as he did on the mount at his transfiguration."
The bottom line of Edward's argument in this section is that it makes sense for God's words, acts, and writings to be instantly recognizable when they are heard, seen, or otherwise witnessed by ordinary humans. Actually, he doesn't say that it makes sense; he says that it is "rational." His line of reasoning is that, since God is superior to humans, everything he does is also superior, and (most importantly) all humans should universally be able to recognize between divine "excellency and sublimity" and ordinary human products.
The part that bothers me is the quote at the end of this paragraph from Jer. 23:28-29, a part of which reads, "what is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord. Is not my word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?" I'm very doubtful of this explanation, because the thing that is separating the "chaff to the wheat," isn't something divine, it's the ordinary people. Edwards is saying that whatever a person feels is divine or is an act of God can be assumed to be that, and that nothing is more reliable than an individual's inner gut instinct. This is typically of sermons or any other kind of religious argument, but he is trying to say that this is somehow a "rational" proof of his point. To me, it seems like it's the opposite of rational; it is saying that individual, unexplainable instinct is the best way to prove something. This part of his sermon is particularly frustrating to read because of the misleading way Edwards characterizes this argument.
1 comment:
Joe,
Excellent job of engaging closely with the language of the text. You're struggling with an issue that was a problem for Edwards and his contemporaries as well: the problem of determining the authenticity of someone's belief that he or she had received grace.
Your reading of Edwards' analogy is very interesting. We'll talk more about this issue in class on Monday.
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