Natural and Supernatural Principles
The relationship between nature and grace is a question that has troubled and intrigued the church since its earliest days. At least since the Pelagian controversies, orthodox Christianity has insisted on the priority of grace, but precisely how nature and grace relate has been a source of tension.
Jonathan Edwards and Deification: Reconciling Theosis and the Reformed Tradition, by James R. Salladin
Grace comes first. But just how does grace come first? And what comes second? These questions remain a source of tension in Christian theological thought.
One way this distinction is described (albeit a bit too simply) is “once born” thinking vs. “twice born” thinking. Once born: grace is a matter of developing and influencing that which is given in nature. Twice born: grace breaks in from the outside, imparting something new, something above or outside of our human ability.
Another way to frame this debate is in terms of this question: Is that which undergirds nature continuous or discontinuous with the grace that effects salvation?
To this question, Edwards holds to a decisively “twice born” answer: there is a strong distinction between nature and grace. He holds this in spite of, or in the face of, his strong view of nature’s dependence and participation in God for its being (as we saw in the last post).
Genesis 1: 2(a) The earth was without form, and void…
Edwards sees this as applying to all of creation. All of creation is without form and void (is empty and vain) without God. Edwards writes:
“… [the creature’s] fullness or goodness is not in itself but in him and in the communications of his Spirit, animating, quickening, adorning, replenishing, and blessing all things … Thus the fullness of the creature is from God’s Spirit. If God withdraws from the creature, it immediately becomes empty and void of all good. The creature, as it is in itself, is a vessel, and has a capacity, but is empty; but that which fills that emptiness is the Spirit of God.”
In this quote we see many things. First, there cannot be a creature that does not exist through God’s immediate action. If God withdrew His immediate action, the creature would cease to exist. Yet, it is a creature that exists without any of God’s fullness – the vessel is empty.
Stated more directly, this implies that Edwards’s notion of nature’s dependance and participation in God still does not mean that God communicates any proper good when he communicates being. Nature exists by a common participation in God, but in spite of this, it is still “empty.”
This distinction is foundational to the idea of common participation and special participation. Which comes to the second point: the emptiness of the vessel. This emptiness implies a teleology: the creature in itself may have no good, but it has the capacity for good. The vessel exists for a purpose: to be filled. This points to where Edwards is headed, and that is the divine fullness that comes with special participation.
Third, this natural emptiness is what informs Edwards regarding the concept of total depravity. Without the vessel being filled from above (where goodness comes from), it is filled with corruption. As Edwards states:
“Created nature of itself will necessarily be corrupt without something divine added to it.”
Fallenness and depravity do not derive from an active change of something in nature. Instead, it is just that the cup remains empty. What is interesting here is that Edwards is coming to an idea that I have seen in Eastern Orthodoxy: sin isn’t something that God created; sin is an absence of something in the creature. Adam could have walked in the path of having the cup filled with God’s divine fullness, but he chose the other path.
To put it in Edwards’ words: sin is a result of the absence of the cup being filled with God’s divine fullness. I am not saying the two ideas are identical (nor am I saying that I have represented these perfectly), but the similarity is of interest.
The natural capacity is left unfilled, and the result is inevitable corruption.
Common participation can never lead to salvation; it only leads to enmity between creature and Creator. Common participation leads to deformity.
Thus, what Edwards has achieved is a view of nature that is grounded in participatory metaphysics, with God as the immediate source of all nature, and yet still retaining a strong distinction between nature and grace.
The fourth thing to draw from these quotes is that there are two principles in created existence: natural principles, and supernatural (or divine) principles. Edwards connects these divine principles in the category of divine fullness. In order for holiness, goodness, virtue and salvation to obtain, God must fill nature (our empty vessel) with this divine fullness.
Following his Augustinian tradition: “Grace does not destroy nature, it perfects it.” Edwards might phrase it, the supernatural does not destroy nature; it fills its emptiness.
For Edwards, nature after the fall has not changed; it is only that the supernatural principle is gone from the vessel. Nature without the supernatural principle is corrupt. Edwards takes the two principles (natural and supernatural) and, while keeping them distinct, holds them as being complimentary.
For Edwards, grace is a radical transformation, and insofar as it is a participation in divine fullness, it is a sort of participation that is above nature in itself.
What Edwards is describing here in some ways recalls the earlier metaphysic in Christian thought. All created nature is dependent on God for its being. Call this common participation. Duns Scotus rejected this view, holding that creaturely being and divine being have being in the same manner. The word “being” means the same thing in both cases.
As an aside, Martin Luther is often chided for railing against the Scholastics (keeping in minds, “Scholastic” is a method, not a tradition, so the chiding is a bit silly in any case). I am reminded that those he railed against specifically were Scotus and Biel (and Ockham, I believe). I am not saying that I know a straight line can be drawn from Scotus to Luther’s rejection of Scotus to Edwards’ reversion to thought before Scotus, but I just note this point.
Returning to Salladin, what began with Scotus developed into the complete separation of God and created nature. Edwards lived in this era – nature was autonomous. He would press against this with the idea of common participation.
All things partake of God for being, and therefore there is no autonomy for the created sphere, and also no space to consider created nature without respect to God.
Salladin then throws in a teaser: in the last chapter of this book, he will “reveal God and created nature as so closely linked that God’s love for the creature is not inconsistent with God’s own self-love” (God’s self-love being seen in the Trinity, which is where Edwards identifies our participation in divine fullness). God and created nature are distinct, but never separate.
Nature was designed for this divine fullness – an empty vessel to be filled. Again, the filling is not something of common participation, but of special participation; it is not natural, but supernatural. Created nature is fulfilled in divine fullness.
Conclusion
Where other theologies speak of a natural desire for the supernatural, Edwards speaks of emptiness and candles snuffed out.
Here again, nuances in language can lead to disagreement. All men have a desire for God; perhaps, if I may speak for Edwards, he might say that this desire is driven by a hint, a remnant, of this empty vessel and what was possible for its fulfillment.
A cup’s emptiness points to its purpose. Nature’s emptiness in itself points to its teleology in divine fullness.
Our common participation points to the need for special participation in order to overcome the tragedy of sin. It is this special participation that will be examined next.
Epilogue
Perhaps Edwards’ idea and this “twice born” view can be seen through the language of being born again or born from above. we are born once, in our natural state; but salvation (in the fullest meaning of the word) – to have our empty cup filled, to participate in special participation, to receive this divine fullness – this requires being born again or born from above.