Edwards is tough going. Clearly he had a great mind and was fully engaged with the philosophers of his day. Yet Edwards also sounds contemporary.
Today I read about self love. Edwards has quite a different take on this . . . it all starts with the desire he has to refute the notion that humanity may be virtuous apart from divine grace. I have probably missed this in some way (Justin Taylor, please help!). My concern is with a general pattern of withdrawal from society and life that seems to be present in some Christians. It is certainly present in my heart.
If I were to summarize Edwards perspective, it would be this. The human heart, gripped by sin, is narrow, pinched, self-absorbed. He says this in Charity and its Fruits:
Sin like some powerful astringent, contracted his
soul to the very small dimensions of selfishness; and God was
forsaken, and fellow creatures forsaken, and man retired within
himself, and became totally governed by narrow and selfish
principles and feelings.
I think that paragraph is as clear a statement of the doctrine of sin as can be found. The clearest picture is how everyone in my neighborhood (including myself) opens the garage door at night, drives in, closes it behind us, and disappears into the privacy of the home.
Read Hannah Arendt's The Banality of Evil as she seeks to grasp the apparently ordinary and pleasant lives of Nazi neighbors. Sin does not wear a red suit nor growl fiercely -- it is simply self-worship. And the fruit of self worship may be a gossiping tongue, condescending intellectual pride, or a sense of racial superiority leading to Dachau.
To use another term -- sin turns us in on ourselves. All things revolve around me. My interest and their affect upon my happiness or misery is the final measurement. This, says Edwards, is the opposite of true virtue, which is a benevolent desire to all beings, founded first in delight in God.
Edwards goes so far as to assert that all "benevolence" outside of a delight in God Himself -- philanthropy, family affection, patriotism, and apparent interest in the public good -- is nothing more than self-absorption in new forms. That is offensive to our day -- as it was to his day. What is surprising is that Edwards thought loving family was not necessarily virtuous -- nor loving country -- not unless it was accompanied by wider sympathies.
What is interesting is that Edwards solution is not the end of self-love -- for he finds a concern for our happiness and well-being to be essential to our humanity -- but rather, he thinks what is needed is a displacing of the self from the center and a placement of the Triune God in the center. This is the new birth, only possible through the atoning death of Jesus applied to the heart. Sin ruled, self-interest will not produce a large hearted generous affection and beneficence to all being.
That brings us to the Gospel. The Gospel does not make our hearts small and private in affection. It enlarges our hearts to include others outside our immediate circle. The Gospel is welcoming to the new. The modern Christian retreat into the private world of family and church is not the fruit of the Gospel.
Consider this magnificent quote from a sermon by B B Warfield (Imitating the Incarnation) as he expounds on the large hearted selflessness of the Savior. I think he had read Edwards:
It is not to mere self-denial that Christ calls us, but specifically to self-sacrifice; not to unselfing ourselves, but to unselfishing ourselves. Self-denial for its own sake is in its very nature ascetic, monkish . . . . it concentrates our whole attention on self . . . narrows and contracts the soul. . . . It is not to this that Christ's example calls us . . . He was led by His love for others into the world, to forget Himself in the needs of others . . . . and self-sacrifice will lead us, His followers, not away from but into the midst of men. Wherever men suffer, there we will be to comfort. Wherever men strive, there we will be to help. . . . Self-sacrifice means not indifference to our times and our fellows: it means absorption in them. It means entering into every man's hopes and fears, longings and despairs. . . . It means not that we should live one life, but a thousand lives.
I find a powerful urging in my own heart not to greet others as we meet along the roadside while jogging, not to know the name of the person at the cash register, not to greet the receptionist at the YMCA. I do not want to be bothered -- I do not wish to open my life and affection to anyone else. It is from such selfishness the Gospel frees me -- by first placing the glory of God in the center of my being -- and by expanding my shriveled heart according to his affections.
thank you Mark. Your recent posts bring me into the light where my Savior's work and glory is revealed, as well as my heart's need for it.
keep posting! you're inspiring me to read more of Jonathan, and the like.
Posted by: David | June 08, 2006 at 08:55 AM