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Scripture focus
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Matthew 28:19 KJV
At a glance
How did Edwards use his own philosophy to explain how one God can be three persons?
He argued that God's own perfect idea of himself is real enough to be a distinct person — the Son — and the perfect mutual love this generates is a third person, the Spirit.
Summary of the chapter
The Trinity sits at the center of Edwards's entire theology; he once boasted he was "not afraid to say twenty things about the Trinity which the Scripture never said." His idealist conviction that a perfect idea of a thing is, in effect, that thing gave him an original way of picturing how the one God subsists as three: the Father's perfect understanding of himself is real and substantial enough to constitute a distinct person, the Son, and the perfect mutual delight between Father and Son is likewise substantial enough to constitute the Spirit.
Edwards assigned each divine person a distinctive role without dividing the divine essence. The Father is the unoriginated "fountain" of deity, author of the plan of redemption. The Son, as God's own "idea" of himself, is the image, face, and Logos of God, whose work is to purchase for believers the communion with God that is the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, God's "sweet energy" and infinite self-delight, is identified with divine love itself, so believers who receive the Spirit are drawn into the very love the Father and Son share.
This vision was not an abstract exercise for Edwards but the ground of his aesthetics and ethics alike: because true beauty consists in mutual love between persons, the Trinity — the supreme harmony of all — is beauty's own prototype, and redemption itself is described as extending that inner-Trinitarian love outward to embrace the redeemed.
Key points
- Edwards used his idealist conviction that a perfect idea of a thing is, in a real sense, that thing to explain how the Son proceeds from the Father's perfect self-knowledge.
- By the same logic, the perfect mutual love and delight between Father and Son constitutes a third distinct person, the Holy Spirit.
- Edwards assigned distinct roles to each person: the Father as unoriginated fountain, the Son as God's image and Logos, the Spirit as divine love and 'sweet energy.'
- He treated the Trinity as the prototype of all beauty, since true beauty for Edwards consists in mutual love and harmony between persons.
- The Trinity also grounds redemption itself, since believers who receive the Holy Spirit are drawn into the very love shared eternally between Father and Son.
A line worth remembering
not afraid to say twenty things about the Trinity which the Scripture never said
McClymond & McDermott The Theology of Jonathan Edwards, ch. 13
Related Scripture
- John 1:1-3
- John 15:26
- 2 Corinthians 13:14
- John 17:24
For reflection and discussion
- How does picturing the Son as God's perfect self-knowledge and the Spirit as their perfect mutual love help you think about the Trinity?
- If true beauty consists of mutual love between persons, what does that suggest about how we were made to reflect God's image?
- What does it mean, practically, that receiving the Holy Spirit draws a believer into the very love shared between the Father and the Son?
These notes are an original UECF.NET study companion and are not a reproduction of the book. Read the full chapter — chapter 13, “God as Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” — in The Theology of Jonathan Edwards by Michael J. McClymond and Gerald R. McDermott (Oxford University Press, 2012).