In June we continue to look at Edwards’s sources in John Locke. On this occasion we shall examine the influence of one of the last chapters in Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ‘Of Faith and Reason, and their Distinct Provinces’. Though the provinces are distinct, they are nevertheless related.
I shall argue that on this topic too Edwards is a Lockean and that one of his aims in writing the Religious Affections is to show that the possession of holy affections falls within the province of what Locke thought was ‘reasonable’ and that it was not a case of 'enthusiasm'. We shall develop the Lockean shape of Edwards’s arguments in the Affections, and the influence of his chapter on enthusiasm on Edwards in July, God willing.
In the second of the June posts I shall have something on the relation between justification and sanctification. The question of whether or not justification causes sanctification is being currently discussed, but in my view a little more light is required. To get such light on this we need to think a bit more carefully about causes than is usual, particularly the Aristotelian approach to causation which Calvin and the Reformed Orthodox utilised, following the medievals. Some of the RO thought that Aristotle’s approach was ‘common sense', long before the advent of ‘Common Sense Realism’ and its allegedly malign influence on Reformed theology.
In the middle of the month, the latest Taking a Line is a short piece of a different kind, ‘A Twenty-Minute Bike Ride Away’.
