Latest / Reformed Thinking / God’s Righteousness: The Eternal Standard of Good and Evil (Psalm 119:142) | Jonathan Edwards

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God’s Righteousness: The Eternal Standard of Good and Evil (Psalm 119:142) | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reform Thinking. So today we are taking you on a
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  deep dive into something that honestly feels like it was
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  written yesterday. Yeah, even though it is from
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  what, 1699? July 2nd, 1699, to be precise.
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  Jonathan Edwards stepped into a pulpit in Cambridge and he
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  basically declared A philosophical war.
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  He really did. I mean, you have to think about
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  the setting. The Enlightenment is brewing.
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  The scientific revolution is just totally shifting how people
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  view reality. Yeah, everything is changing.
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  And into that specific cultural tension, he preaches this
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  sermon. The title alone gives you a
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  sense of the scale he's working with.
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  Ohio for sure. The eternal and intrinsic
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  reasons of good and evil. It is a massive title for a
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  massive topic. It is, and he anchors the entire
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  argument in just one single line from the Psalms.
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  Psalm 119, verse 142. Which says, Thy righteousness is
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  an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth.
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  Yeah, that one verse carries so much theological weight.
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  Edwards uses it to build this absolute fortress against a
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  rising tide of moral relativism. Which is our goal for this deep
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  dive. We are going to unpack his
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  premise that right and wrong are not human inventions.
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  They are not arbitrary customs that some society just agreed
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  upon to keep the peace. No, not at all, He is saying.
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  They're eternal realities. They are built right into the
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  fabric of human nature and into the universe itself.
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  And for you, the listener, this is incredibly relevant.
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  We live in an era of just constant information overload,
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  right? Where morality often feels like
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  shifting sand, like what society accepts today might be condemned
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  tomorrow. Totally.
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  It is largely dependent on, you know, an algorithm or just the
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  current mood of public opinion. Well, Edwards offers a
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  permanent, unchangeable standard of truth.
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  He argues for an objective reality that sits beneath all
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  the shifting opinions of the world.
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  So let's start at the absolute top of his argument, because if
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  we follow his logic, we are looking at a divine blueprint.
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  Right, the very source of it all.
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  If morality is eternal, it begs the question, where did it exist
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  before humans were even around? Before the earth was even
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  formed? Yeah, we are talking about the
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  state of things before Genesis 1.1.
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  Edwards establishes his first major point right out of the
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  gate. Here he asserts that the rules
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  of what is just and right were determined and fixed from
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  eternity. Because they are based directly
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  on God's own nature and mind, yeah.
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  He states that goodness could not be derived from angels or
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  from men for the simple reason that angels and men were
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  themselves created by God. So the created things cannot be
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  the source of the absolute standard.
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  Well, precisely. The standard has to predate the
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  creation. Human goodness is just a copy of
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  the original. It is an echo of the essential
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  goodness found in the Supreme Being.
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  He even brings in a Gentile philosopher to back this up,
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  which I found fascinating. Plato.
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  Yeah, Plato called the law of nature the finding of Being.
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  Goodness is not something God just invented on a whim on a
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  Tuesday. It is an extension of his very
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  existence. That distinction is so vital.
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  I think we often confuse positive law with natural law
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  all the time. Like think about traffic laws.
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  We drive on the right side of the road here, but in the UK
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  they drive on the left. Neither side is intrinsically
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  more moral than the other. Right.
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  It is just a positive law we establish to avoid crashing into
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  each other. It's an arbitrary institution.
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  But mathematics is different. 2 + 2 = 4.
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  That is universally true. It is a constant.
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  It was true before humans existed to count apples or build
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  pyramids. And Edwards is saying morality
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  is like mathematics, not like traffic laws.
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  It has that same unalterable status as a mathematical truth.
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  Wait, hold on though. If goodness is just baked into
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  God's nature, isn't that still arbitrary?
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  Like it is just arbitrary based on whoever happens to be sitting
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  on the throne of the universe. That is a really common
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  objection. Because if goodness is just an
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  eternal mathematical constant, does that make it impersonal?
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  Doesn't make God into this cold calculator, just enforcing an
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  equation. Edwards anticipates that line of
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  thinking. Actually, he describes the mind
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  of God in a way that shatters the idea of a cold equation.
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  How so? He says this eternal law is
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  highly personal because it reflects the understanding and
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  the will of God Himself. Edwards writes that God's
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  understanding is fraught with truth and his will is
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  replenished with goodness. Fraught with truth and
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  replenished with goodness, Those are striking phrases.
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  They carry a real sense of overflowing abundance.
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  They do. They show that this standard is
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  living and breathing. It is tied to a perfect, supreme
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  mind. The moral law is the pattern of
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  God's holy nature. So when humans participate in
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  goodness, they are partaking in something that reflects the
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  divine nature? Yeah.
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  It is the root of all rectitude and justice.
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  Because God is unchangeable, the moral laws based on His nature
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  are unchangeable. OK, so if this eternal law
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  exists in the mind of God, we have to figure out the mechanics
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  of how it gets down to us on earth.
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  Right, we have to move from the creator to the creature.
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  How does Edwards explain mankind's innate sense of this
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  morality? Because we obviously have some
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  sense of it. He argues that innate notions of
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  good and evil are imprinted on the human soul at its creation,
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  and the reason for this is that man is made in the image of God.
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  OK, that makes sense if truth and goodness are essential to
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  the divine nature and we are made in his image.
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  Then those excellencies are inseparable from the human soul.
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  They are built in. But the immediate objection that
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  critics of natural law raise here is the developmental
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  argument. The infant argument, yeah.
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  People look at an infant and say well a baby doesn't show any
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  understanding of right and wrong.
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  They just cry when they are hungry and take toys from other
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  kids. Right, they ask, if morality is
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  baked into the hardware, why doesn't it show up on day one?
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  And Edwards handles that objection brilliantly.
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  He uses a structural comparison. He points out that an infant
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  also does not show rational thought.
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  A baby cannot do algebra. They cannot engage in a
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  philosophical debate. Yet we know the human soul is
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  rational by nature. Yeah, the faculty simply exert
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  themselves later in life as the child matures.
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  The mental impressions of morality are the first
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  emanations of our natural frame. So the hardware is installed
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  from conception, but the software just takes time to boot
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  up and run the programs. That is a great way to put it.
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  He also brings in John Calvin to address the reality of the fall,
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  which is crucial here. Yeah, because he knows mankind
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  suffers from an early apostasy. Our faculties are corrupted, and
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  we have this strong inward pull toward vice.
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  Right. And you, the listener, probably
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  know the reformed view of total depravity, the idea that every
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  part of our nature is affected by the fall.
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  But Edwards highlights a crucial nuance in Calvin's theology.
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  Here Calvin strongly asserted the original depravity of
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  mankind, but he was also positive that there remains a
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  natural instinct of divinity in the soul.
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  The sense is divinitatus. Yes, the sense of the divine.
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  Calvin spent an entire chapter proving the existence of this
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  inbred principle in the minds of all men.
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  So even in our fallen state, we retain this inward signature.
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  Total depravity means the corruption is extensive,
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  affecting every faculty, but it does not mean the original image
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  of God is entirely eradicated. And we see this practically
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  applied by the Apostle Paul. In Romans chapter 2, Paul writes
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  about the Gentiles who do not have the written law.
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  Right. They do not have Moses.
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  They do not have the 10 commandments carved in stone.
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  But they still do the things contained in the law by nature.
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  Because they have this inward law in their own minds, God's
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  hand engraved these original characters onto their hearts.
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  It instructs them on the great duties of natural religion.
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  Edwards paints A vivid picture of this inward director acting
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  as an active spark, and it is constantly fighting against a
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  massive deluge of vice. Yeah, he lists impediments like
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  passion, prejudice, interest and pleasures, things that are
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  constantly trying to put out that spark.
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  But if we have this internal alarm system, look at the world.
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  The world is a mess. People ignore the alarm
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  constantly. All the time.
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  So how does Edwards reconcile the existence of the alarm with
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  the sheer volume of historical atrocities?
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  Well, the tension you are identifying is central to his
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  world view. This inward law acts as a
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  preserving force. Its primary function is to keep
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  humanity from being wholly bereft of justice.
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  So it is just holding the line. Yeah, Edward says.
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  It buoys up goodness when it is sinking.
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  It supports it when it is falling.
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  Wow. Without this internal principle
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  constantly pushing back against our base or passions, the world
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  would have long since been absorbed by atheism and
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  profaneness. So it functions as a stabilizing
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  mechanism. It prevents total societal
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  collapse. God took care to engraft these
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  moral impressions into the heart of every person, whether they
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  are learned or illiterate. This ensures that we are never
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  completely alienated from a sense of what is virtuous.
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  The fact that there is still any face of religion or morality in
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  the world, despite our general corruption, is proof that this
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  act of spark is still burning. And Edwards does not just leave
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  this in the realm of theology. He actually acts like a
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  psychological detective. He really does.
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  He points to five universal human behaviors as proof that
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  this telltale heart actually beats inside all of us.
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  Let's walk through those because they are fascinating.
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  The first one is excusing sins. Think about the Garden of Eden.
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  The immediate reaction to the fall wasn't confession, It was
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  PR. It was spin.
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  Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent.
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  Edwards argues that when we use titles of virtue to disguise our
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  bad actions, we are secretly admitting that virtue is
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  superior. Yeah.
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  If someone is acting out of selfish ambition to destroy a
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  rival at work, they rarely admit it openly.
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  Right, They will say they are acting out of concern for the
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  company's future or protecting the integrity of the team.
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  They disguise the vice in the clothing of virtue.
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  Because if vice was actually a good thing, we would just own
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  it. We would proudly state our
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  selfishness. But we don't.
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  We emulate the likeness of virtue because deep down we know
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  vice is base and reproachful. Our constant need to spin our
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  bad behavior is palpable proof that we recognize an objective
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  standard. Which leads to his next point.
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  Our bodies betray us even before we get caught.
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  The physical reaction of blushing.
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  Why do we hide in corners to do wrong?
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  Why do we fly to coverts and fear discovery?
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  We don't commit crimes in the town square.
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  We wait for the cover of darkness.
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  The text brings in an ancient father of the Christian Church,
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  St. Chrysostom and he asked a
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  brilliant question about Adam. Yeah, why did Adam hide after he
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  sinned, seeing as there was no written law at the time, There
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  was no Bible yet, there was no Leviticus.
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  And Chris Awesome's answer is that Adam was self instructed in
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  the knowledge of virtue. He had a natural inbred
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  knowledge that he had done I'll. Edwards also points to Cain, who
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  refused to say where his brother Abel was.
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  Vice is so ugly and deformed that humans naturally want to
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  mask it. Virtue, on the other hand, is
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  daring. It carries confidence.
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  It does not need to hide. So the inward bash, peacefulness
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  and dejection of soul we feel when we do wrong proves we are
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  acting against our native design.
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  And that bashfulness often turns into something much darker.
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  Remorse and regret. The internal torture of guilt.
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  This is the third proof the Telltale heart beating so loudly
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  it drives a person mad. Cain complained his burden was
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  too great to bear. Judas sank into absolute despair
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  from the horror of his guilt. Edwards quotes a Latin satirist
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  who said they swept with the secret consciousness of guilt.
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  Think about the neuroscience of that the physical manifestation
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  of a troubled conscience. Your heart rate increases, Your
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  palm sweat. Your stomach drops.
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  The physical feeling is proof of an eternal moral reality.
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  Your body is physically reacting to a spiritual violation.
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  Edwards provides incredible psychological insight here.
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  He says that sin causes extreme anguish because it is a violent
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  distortion of our primitive natural temper.
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  So when we do something immoral, we are acting contrary to our
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  rational nature. It is like putting diesel fuel
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  into a car that requires unleaded gasoline.
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  The engine starts. It's knocking and breaking down
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  because it is receiving something contrary to its
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  mechanical design. The inward inquietude and
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  torment we feel is our own mind establishing the equity and
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  goodness of the moral law. Then we see the 4th proof, the
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  dread of consequence that haunts the minds of evil men, the fear
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  of punishment. Belshazzar, the great Babylonian
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  monarch, fell into fits of shaking and trembling when he
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  saw the handwriting on the wall. His conscience reminded him of
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  his profaneness. King Herod hallucinated that
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  John the Baptist had risen from the dead to torment him as the
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  Herod had murdered. Roman emperors experienced this
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  as well. Tiberius was unable to conceal
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  his terrors after his unnatural lusts and cruelties.
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  And Nero, after his prodigious villainies, was haunted by
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  spirits and flames in his own mind.
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  Now there is a counter argument to this that has been around for
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  centuries, long before Karl Marx called religion the opiate of
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  the masses. Right.
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  Some argue that this fear of punishment is just a political
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  invention. They claim that wise rulers
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  invented the concept of divine judgment to all their subjects
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  and keep the peasants in line. But Edwards dismantles that
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  argument by pointing to the absolute monarchs themselves.
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  Yeah, if the fear of judgment was just a tool invented by
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  rulers to control the lower classes, why are the rulers
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  themselves terrified? Belshazzar, Herod, Tiberius and
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  Nero had absolute earthly power. They had no human authority to
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  fear. No police force was coming to
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  arrest them. Yet they.
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  Were consumed by dread. This proves the dread flows from
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  natural dictates of the mind. They know they have broken an
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  obligation, and that knowledge unavoidably breeds fear of a
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  final recompense. Even the dictator cannot escape
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  his own conscience. That brings us to the 5th
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  behavioral proof, which is perhaps the most ironic.
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  Even vicious people esteem virtue.
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  Yes, bad people hate pride in others.
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  The most arrogant person you know probably cannot stand being
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  around other arrogant people. Thieves hate being robbed.
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  A common thief would rather find something than steal it from
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  someone else. When he does steal, he
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  disapproves of the practice in himself, or the very least, he
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  detests it when others steal his stolen goods.
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  Perfidiousness and treachery are universally abhorred, even by
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  those who employ traders. The assassin wants to be paid,
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  which shows there is no natural temptation in the act of murder
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  itself. It requires an external reward.
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  Edwards quotes Julius Caesar, who was quoting Euripides.
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  Caesar said if right at all may be violated, it must be for the
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  sake of a crown. But in other matters, let us be
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  exactly just. Wait, I think the phrasing is
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  let us be entirely just. Yes, entirely.
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  Just even an invader who is overthrowing Republic
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  acknowledges that justice is good.
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  He just lets his personal interest warp his judgement in
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  one specific area to get what he wants.
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  It proves that virtue is praiseworthy in its own nature.
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  We have an inward principle making us pay respect to honesty
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  and disparage what is unlawful, even if we hypocritical fail to
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  live up to it in our own actions.
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  So from there, Edwards moves from internal psychology out to
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  the global stage. He argues for universal consent.
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  Right. Does everyone agree on these
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  moral realities? He quotes the ancient Roman
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  orator Tully, who said that when all people agree in a thing, we
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  must look upon it as the law of nature.
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  He also quotes Valerius Maximus. Maximus noted that even the
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  barbarous Scythians, whom the Romans considered utterly
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  uncivilized, took careful religious care of their father's
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  tombs. So respect for parents and
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  ancestors spans across totally disconnected civilizations.
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  Maximus remarked that nature is the mistress of piety, so we do
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  not need to be taught it. Solid virtue is born with us
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  rather than fashioned by society.
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  Just and right are everywhere the same.
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  To borrow from Aristotle, fire burns here, and it burns in
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  Persia too. The natural law is universally
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  applicable. But we have to address the
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  glaring historical exceptions, because Edwards deals with
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  scholars like Mr. Selden who argued against this.
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  Selden argued that there is no universal law because Pagan
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  cultures are far too vicious. What about cultures with totally
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  different morals? Edwards mentions tribes eating
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  the dead or even dispatching their old, sick parents.
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  How can he claim universal consent when practices like that
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  are documented? It seems like a massive
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  contradiction. Edwards navigates this by
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  differentiating between primary principles and secondary
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  deductions. OK, break that down for us.
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  The primary principle is the core inbred notion of morality.
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  The secondary deduction is how a culture applies that principle
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  to a specific situation. Got it.
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  He uses idolatry as an example. The primary dictate of natural
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  religion is that a deity ought to be worshipped.
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  Every culture shares that primary principle.
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  The. Corruption, The idolatry happens
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  when they apply that worship to the wrong object, like a golden
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  calf or a celestial body. Yeah, the primary principle
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  remains intact. The application is flawed by a
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  darkened understanding. Applying that to the extreme
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  examples like killing a sick parent, how does that fit the
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  theory? He points out that those
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  specific barbarous cultures viewed dispatching a suffering
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  parent as a courtesy. Oh wow.
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  They saw it as an act of mercy to end their misery before their
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  bodies failed them completely. So the primary principle,
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  honoring and caring for one's parents, was the motivating
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  factor. They just drew a false, twisted
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  conclusion about how to execute that honor.
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  Exactly. The essential laws of good and
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  evil are acknowledged even when the cultural application goes
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  terribly wrong. Edwards also dismisses the
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  behavior of those who willfully debauch and distemper their
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  reasons. He says the universal rule
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  applies to sound minds. If someone deliberately shuts
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  their eyes against the light and gives themselves over to their
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  lusts, they distort the law of nature.
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  But we do not judge the existence of a universal
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  mathematical law by the behavior of a person who is actively
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  trying to fail a math test. That is a great analogy.
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  Edwards is setting up a defense against the chaos of relativism
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  here. He asked us to run a thought
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  experiment. What happens if we reject this
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  entire premise? Let's assume right and wrong are
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  completely arbitrary. Let's assume morality is just
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  whatever society decides it is at any given moment.
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  He outlines 3 logical disasters that occur if morality is not
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  intrinsic. The first is a direct hit to
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  human reason. He says that if virtue and vice
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  are casual and contingent, that our faculties were given to us
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  simply to cheat and abuse us. We have a deep, innate sense of
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  justice, fairness and truth. If none of that is real, if it
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  is all just a social construct, then our own minds are
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  constantly lying to us. About the most significant
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  aspects of existence, no less. Edwards argues This would
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  destroy the concept of a deity entirely.
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  Because if there is a God, it would be a reproach to his
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  goodness and wisdom to implant such false and erroneous notions
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  into the souls of all men. The second logical disaster is
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  honestly jarring. If there are no fixed laws of
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  goodness, we could live however we want.
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  What is lawful today could be unlawful tomorrow.
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  Edwards goes further. He says that without intrinsic
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  morality, God could command us to hate him or to hurt our
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  neighbors, and it would technically become our duty.
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  This touches on the classic youthy for a dilemma from Greek
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  philosophy. Is something good because God
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  commands it, or does God command it because it is good?
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  Edwards firmly plants his flag in the latter camp, but with a
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  Reformed clarification. It is good because it reflects
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  God's eternal nature. Right.
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  Some volunteerist thinkers argue that goodness is just whatever
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  God commands, regardless of what the command actually is.
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  God's will is so absolute that he could declare cruelty to be
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  virtuous. Edwards rejects that entirely.
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  If goodness were merely arbitrary, the universe becomes
• 19:39
  terrifyingly unstable. Imagine a universe where God
• 19:43
  commands cruelty and you have to obey it to be considered
• 19:46
  righteous. It strips away the meaning of
• 19:48
  the word good. God commands goodness because
• 19:51
  goodness is intrinsic to His character.
• 19:53
  He cannot deny Himself. That leads directly to the third
• 19:56
  consequence. Our happiness would be totally
• 19:59
  precarious and uncertain. The happiness of rational
• 20:02
  creatures depends on the goodness of their actions.
• 20:04
  If the rules are arbitrary and constantly shifting, we would
• 20:07
  never know the true end of our lives.
• 20:09
  We would have no stable direction to steer by.
• 20:12
  We would just be floating in the void hoping the arbitrary rules
• 20:15
  do not change while we are sleeping.
• 20:17
  Edwards doesn't just build a positive case, though.
• 20:19
  He goes on the offensive. He engages in a philosophical
• 20:22
  battle Royale against thinkers spanning thousands of years.
• 20:26
  Let's spend some time analyzing these.
• 20:27
  These opponents understanding what Edwards was fighting
• 20:30
  against clarifies his own position immensely.
• 20:33
  He starts with the Ancients. He mentions the skeptic Piro,
• 20:36
  the Epicureans, and a Gnostic named Carpocrates.
• 20:40
  Piro taught that there is no difference between good and evil
• 20:43
  by nature, but only by law and custom.
• 20:46
  So the idea was that a wise man wouldn't hesitate to commit
• 20:48
  theft or adultery if he had a fit opportunity, because there
• 20:52
  is no natural turpitude in those acts.
• 20:54
  Turpitude being an inherent baseness or depravity.
• 20:57
  For Piro, the baseness was a fiction created by the rabble of
• 21:01
  fools. And the Epicureans, according to
• 21:03
  Tully, believed that justice was a vain and frivolous thing, an
• 21:06
  empty sound of words and. Carpocrates.
• 21:08
  What is the gnostic angle there? Well, Carpocrates was an early
• 21:11
  Gnostic who avowed that all moral actions are indifferent.
• 21:15
  Gnosticism generally held a deep disdain for the physical,
• 21:18
  material world, seeing it as a corrupt creation of a lesser
• 21:21
  deity. For some Gnostics this meant
• 21:23
  strict asceticism, but for car pocrates it meant extreme
• 21:27
  antinomianism. Since the physical body and its
• 21:29
  actions don't matter to the pure spiritual realm, physical
• 21:33
  actions like stealing or sexual immorality are morally neutral.
• 21:37
  Good and evil are founded entirely on human fancy, not
• 21:40
  spiritual truth. Edwards points out that this
• 21:43
  ancient heresy is basically the root of all modern relativism.
• 21:47
  He then moves closer to his own time, addressing writers within
• 21:51
  the Church of Rome. He specifically targets
• 21:53
  Bellermine, a highly influential Catholic theologian.
• 21:57
  Edwards outlines Bellermine's argument that the Pope has such
• 21:59
  a plenitude of power that he could dispense with the laws of
• 22:02
  right and wrong. Bellermine argued that if the
• 22:05
  Pope were to command the practice of vice and forbid
• 22:08
  virtue, the Church would be obliged to believe vice to be
• 22:11
  good and virtue to be evil. Edwards counters the staggering
• 22:15
  claim by utilizing the writings of Hugo Grotius, a famous
• 22:18
  Protestant jurist and philosopher.
• 22:20
  Grotius argued that even God himself cannot change the law of
• 22:23
  natural goodness. God cannot make what is
• 22:25
  intrinsically evil to be no evil, because that would require
• 22:28
  God to change his own nature, which is utterly impossible.
• 22:32
  If God cannot alter the natural moral law, then certainly no
• 22:35
  human authority, regardless of how much ecclesiastical power
• 22:38
  they claim, can alter it either. Edwards is forcefully arguing
• 22:42
  against any system that makes morality subject to human
• 22:45
  decree, even religious human decree.
• 22:48
  He then takes aim at the Gallic philosopher Rene Descartes.
• 22:52
  Descartes leaned toward a strong form of voluntarism, the idea
• 22:55
  that goodness and truth depended entirely on the free divine
• 22:59
  will. Descartes suggested God could
• 23:01
  have determined the laws of math and morality.
• 23:03
  Otherwise, if he had pleased, God could have made 2 + 2 equal
• 23:06
  5. Edwards respects Descartes
• 23:08
  intellect, but says he made a catastrophic mistake by
• 23:12
  separating God's will from his real intrinsic nature.
• 23:15
  Goodness is invariable because God's nature is invariable.
• 23:19
  We then arrive at Thomas Hobbes. Edwards summarizes Hobbes's view
• 23:22
  bluntly. He says the magistrate is Mr.
• 23:25
  Hobbes is God. For Hobbes, writing in his
• 23:27
  famous work Leviathan, mankind in the state of nature is in a
• 23:30
  war of all against all. In that primitive state, nothing
• 23:34
  is just or unjust. Morality only arises from the
• 23:37
  social compact. The Prince or the state decides
• 23:40
  what is right and wrong to maintain order, and the state
• 23:43
  can unmake those rules at will. Edwards dismisses Hobbes's logic
• 23:48
  rather sharply. He notes that the system only
• 23:50
  makes sense if you believe, as Hobbes essentially did, that a
• 23:53
  human being is nothing more than a body or a carcass in motion.
• 23:57
  If there is no soul, no eternal image of God, then sure, the
• 24:02
  physical power of the state is the ultimate authority.
• 24:04
  But Edwards has already spent half the sermon proving the
• 24:07
  soul's rational moral nature through the five behavioral
• 24:11
  proofs. If the conscience exists, the
• 24:13
  state is not God. There was another group gaining
• 24:16
  traction at the time who wanted to reduce everything down to
• 24:19
  matter and motion, the mechanists or the experimental
• 24:22
  philosophers. These thinkers argued that all
• 24:24
  moral notions come purely from physical senses.
• 24:27
  They believe that God delineates ideas of moral actions onto our
• 24:30
  minds through the physical motion impressed upon our
• 24:33
  sensory organs. Edwards offers 4 distinct
• 24:35
  refutations to this empirical, mechanistic view.
• 24:39
  First, he asked how abstract ideas of goodness can come from
• 24:42
  mere bodily objects. Right.
• 24:44
  Try to weigh a poem on a digital scale.
• 24:46
  Try to find the exact atomic weight of justice.
• 24:48
  You cannot see, smell, or touch justice, so how does a physical
• 24:53
  atom hold the concept of it? It is a category error.
• 24:56
  Spot on. Second, he points out a glaring
• 24:59
  theological problem. If morality only comes through
• 25:03
  physical senses, then angels separate souls and God himself
• 25:07
  would not be capable of understanding morality.
• 25:09
  Because they lack physical bodies.
• 25:11
  If morality is entirely physical, God wouldn't know
• 25:13
  right from wrong. Occurred, he says.
• 25:15
  It is a confusing jumble of physics and ethics mixing up the
• 25:19
  material cause with the moral reality.
• 25:21
  And 4th, it makes all morality contingent and uncertain.
• 25:24
  Physical objects and sensory inputs are constantly shifting.
• 25:27
  Our physical bodies decay and alter.
• 25:29
  If morality is based on shifting physical motions in our brain
• 25:32
  chemistry or sensory organs, it can never be a stable eternal
• 25:36
  law. Edwards also offers an implicit
• 25:38
  critique of John Locke. He does not name him directly,
• 25:41
  but he targets the popular argument that denies innate
• 25:44
  ideas because children and individuals with severe
• 25:47
  cognitive impairments lack them. Edwards uses a simple logical
• 25:50
  counter. Those individuals also lack the
• 25:53
  full exercise of reason and prudence, but that does not mean
• 25:57
  reason and prudence do not exist as standard faculties and
• 26:00
  mankind. The logic of the blank slate is
• 26:02
  fundamentally flawed. What Edwards heavily criticizes
• 26:05
  here is the downstream conclusion of that logic.
• 26:08
  The idea that virtue is simply whatever gains public esteem or
• 26:13
  the consent of private men. If there is no innate standard,
• 26:16
  then vouchu is just what the public praises and vice is just
• 26:20
  what the public blames. Edwards calls that Leviathan
• 26:23
  epitomized. It is just Hobbes dressed up in
• 26:26
  different clothing. It subjects eternal truth to the
• 26:28
  whims of the crowd. Having waged this massive
• 26:31
  philosophical defense, Edwards moves to the practical
• 26:34
  application. What are we supposed to do with
• 26:36
  this massive theological reality?
• 26:38
  How does it change the way a Christian actually lives?
• 26:40
  He gives a clear mandate. Let this doctrine be a mighty
• 26:43
  incentive to all virtue and goodness.
• 26:46
  Because virtue is consonant with our natural principles and
• 26:48
  dispositions, we have every reason to comply with it.
• 26:51
  Edwards asks A penetrating question.
• 26:54
  Why should we contradict our own propensions and be rebels to
• 26:57
  ourselves? He uses an analogy from physics.
• 27:00
  In natural motion, things aim for right and straight lines,
• 27:03
  not crooked ones. A drop stone falls straight down
• 27:06
  due to gravity. In the same way, man's
• 27:08
  reasonable nature aims at direct and plain duty.
• 27:11
  When we deviate from the right path, we are acting against our
• 27:14
  true primitive temper and genius.
• 27:17
  We ought to be virtuous because our very nature obliges us to
• 27:19
  it. The intrinsic beauty of goodness
• 27:21
  itself invites us. Edwards acknowledges the reality
• 27:25
  of our condition. Our wills are miserably
• 27:27
  shattered by original depravity. We cannot execute this natural
• 27:30
  law perfectly. But these original impressions
• 27:33
  are the indelible stamp of God in every soul.
• 27:36
  They cannot be wholly expunged. Stop fighting your own design.
• 27:39
  Let reason, not passion, dictate your actions.
• 27:42
  He calls the congregation to manfully breakthrough all
• 27:44
  obstacles and impediments. We must be vigorous and zealous
• 27:48
  in the ways of religion. He ends by noting that this
• 27:50
  natural morality is a stepping stone.
• 27:53
  It points us toward the higher strain and improvement which is
• 27:56
  the institution of the Blessed Jesus.
• 27:58
  Conformity to Christ is necessary for salvation.
• 28:02
  The natural law condemns us by showing us our failure, driving
• 28:07
  us to the perfect obedience of Christ.
• 28:09
  We must be firm and constant in our duty, letting it appear in
• 28:12
  our lives that our love for goodness is based on solid
• 28:15
  judgement, not just fleeting passion or imagination.
• 28:18
  I want to circle back to the warning Edwards gave about
• 28:21
  public esteem. He warned against the idea that
• 28:23
  virtue is simply what the public praises.
• 28:26
  In our highly connected world, public opinion shifts by the
• 28:29
  hour. We have constant, immediate
• 28:31
  access to external validation through social media and
• 28:33
  cultural consensus. If we train ourselves to rely
• 28:36
  solely on external validation that public esteem Edwards
• 28:39
  warned about, do we risk permanently muting the internal
• 28:43
  innate moral alarm system? If you are constantly looking
• 28:46
  outward to a screen for approval, are you ignoring the
• 28:49
  very image of God stamped on your own soul?
• 28:51
  If Edwards is right, you don't need a cultural consensus to see
• 28:55
  the truth of your moral condition.
• 28:57
  The diagnostics are built into your very design.
• 29:00
  You just have to be willing to feel the pulse of that tell tale
• 29:03
  heart. Thank you for joining us on this
• 29:05
  massive intellectual deep dive. We will see you next time on
• 29:08
  Reformed Thinking.