The Metaphysics of Jonathan Edwards's End of Creation
JETS 59/2 (2016): 339–59 THE METAPHYSICS OF JONATHAN EDWARDS’S END OF CREATION WALTER SCHULTZ* Abstract: In his dissertation ConcernIng the End for which God Created the World, the American theologian and philosopher, Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), argues precisely and validly for a particular view of God’s purpose and motive in creating and sustain- ing the world on the substantive assumptions that creation is ex nihilo and that only God is absolutely independent and self-sufficient. He asserts that his is the only conceptually possible counterexample to Baruch Spinoza’s contention that no specific position on God’s end and mo- tive in creation combined with a commitment to God’s aseity and creatio ex nihilo can escape incoherence. His argumentation entails a complex metaphysics, which—with careful qualifica- tion—may be referred to by the following terms: dispositionalism, emanationism, idealism, panentheism, anti-platonism, continuous creationism, and occasionalism. This paper briefly de- scribes Edwards’s argumentation for God’s end and motive in creation, summarizes each of these seven positions, and shows how they logically follow. Key Words: emanation, disposition, idealism, platonism, panentheism, continuous creation- ism, occasionalism. Jonathan Edwards’s argumentation in his 1765 dissertation Concerning the End for which God Created the World entaIlS a partIcular verSIon of emanatIonISm, dISpoSI- tionalism, Idealism, antiplatonism, panentheism, continuous creationism, and occa- sionalism.1 ThIS paper brIefly deScrIbeS Edwards’s argumentation for God’s end and motive in creation then Summarizes each of these seven positions and how they logically follow.2 My aImS are to preSent a précIS of EdwardS’S theory of God and creation only in so far as it is expressed in End of Creation.
[Show full text]