Notes, Chapter 3

  1. As I use them in this book the words feeling and emotion and affection do not generally carry different meanings. If something distinct is intended in any given case, I will give some indication in the context. In general I use them synonymously and intend by them what Jonathan Edwards did in his great Treatise Concerning the Religious Affections (in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. I [Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1974], p.237).

Edwards defined the affections as "the more vigorous and sensible exercises of the inclination and will of the soul." To understand this we need to sum up briefly his view of the human soul or mind.

God has endued the soul with two principal faculties: The one, that by which it is capable of perception and speculation, or by which it discerns and judges of things; which is called the understanding. The other, that by which the soul is some way inclined with respect to the things it views or considers: or it is the faculty by which the soul beholds things-not as an indifferent unaffected spectator, but-either liking or disliking, pleased or displeased, approving or rejecting. This faculty is called by various names; it is sometimes called the inclination; and, as it respects the actions determined and governed by it, the will; and the mind, with regard to the exercises of this faculty, is often called the heart . . .

The will, and the affections of the soul, are not two faculties: the affections arc not essentially distinct from the will, nor do they differ from the mere actings of the will and inclination, but only in the liveliness and sensibility of exercise . . .

As examples of the affections Edwards mentions (among others) love, hatred, desire, joy, delight, grief, sorrow, fear and hope. These are the "the more vigorous and sensi ble [ i . e. sensed or felt] exercises of the will . " Edwards is aware that there is a profound and complex relationship between the body and the mind at this point.

Such seems to be our nature, and such the laws of the union of soul and body, that there never is in any case whatsoever, any lively and vigorous exercise of the inclination, without some effect upon the body.... But vet, it is not the body, but the mind only, that is the proper seat of the affections. The body of man is no more capable of being really the subject of love or hatred, joy or sorrow, fear or hope, than the body of a tree, or than the same body of man is capable of thinking and understanding. As it is the soul only that has ideas, so it is the soul only that is pleased or displeased with its ideas. As it is the soul only that thinks, so it is the soul only that loves or hates, rejoices or is grieved at, what it thinks of.

The biblical evidence for this is the fact that God, who has no body, nevertheless has many affections. Also Philippians 1: 23 and 2 Corinthians 5:6 teach that after a Christian's death, and before the resurrection of the body, the Christian will be with the Lord and capable of joys "far better" than what we have known here.

  2. E.J. Carnell, Christian Commitment (New York: Macmillan,1967), pp.160-61. Carnell's whole book resounds with this emphasis (pp.162,176,196,206,213,222,289,301). Consider this insightful section from page 222.

The more we make rectitude a calculated object of striving, the further we recede from moral fulfillment; for moral fulfillment is spontaneous, affectionate fulfillment. Love carries its own sense of compulsion. It is borne on the wings of the law of the spirit of life. When we must be motivated by either rational or legal necessity, love gives way to forecast, interest, and calculation. Suppose a mother rushes to help her terrified child. She acts out of spontaneous love. She would be offended by even the suggestion that she must help her child from a legal sense of duty....

Moral striving is paradoxical because we shall never love God unless we make a conscious effort; and yet because we must strive for legal righteousness, we prove that we shall never be righteous. If our affections were a fruit of the moral and spiritual environment, we should fulfill the law with the same unconscious necessity with which we breathe.

The paradox can perhaps be illustrated by a painter who deliberately tries to become great. Unless he strives, he will never be an artist at all, let alone a great artist. But since he makes genius a deliberate goal of striving, he proves that he is not, and never will be, a genius. A master artist is great without trying to be great. His abilities unfold like the petals of a rose before the sun. Genius is a gift of God. It is a fruit, not a work.

So is worship!

  3. From a letter to Vanauken in Vanauken's book A Severe Mercy (New York: Harper and Row,1977),p.189.

  4. Christian Hedonism is aware that self-consciousness kills joy and therefore kills worship. As soon as you turn your eyes in on yourself and become conscious of experiencing joy, it's gone. The Christian Hedonist knows that the secret of joy is self-forgetfulness. Yes, we go to the art museum for the joy of seeing the paintings. But the counsel of Christian Hedonism is: Set your whole attention on the paintings and not on your emotions, or you will ruin the whole experience. Therefore in worship there must be a radical orientation on God, not ourselves.

  5. Quoted in E. M. Bounds, The Weapon of Prayer (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House,1975), p.136.

  6. Christian Commitment, p.213.

  7. Christian Commitment, pp.213- 14.

  8. C. S. Lewis, "The Weight of Glory" in The Weight of Glory and other Essays (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), pp.1-2.

  9. Cited in Virginia Stem Owens, "Seeing Christianity in Red and Green as Well as Black and White," Christianity Today, September 2, 1983 (vol. 27, no.13), p.38.

  10. For example, Carl Zylstra wrote (in "Just Dial the Lord," The Reformed Journal [October,1984], p.6): "The question is whether worship really is supposed to be a time for self-fulfillment and enjoyment or whether it should be, first of all, a time of service and honor to God, a sacrifice of praise." When the question is put like this, it cannot be answered truthfully. It is very misleading. Of course worship is a time to honor God. But we kill that possibility by warning people not to pursue their own enjoyment. We should be telling them again and again to pursue their own enjoyment in God!

  11. For the intellectual, (New York: Signet,1961), p.32.

  12. The Habit of Being, ed . by Sally Fitzgerald (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1979), p.126.

  13. Cited in C. H . Faust and T. H . Johnson, eds. Jonathan Edwards: Selections (New York: Hill and Wang, 1962), p. xviii.

  14. Jonathan Edwards, Some Thoughts Concernin,g the Revival in The Great Awakening, ed . C. C. Goen (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), p.387.

  15. Treatise Concerning the Religious Affections, p. 238.

  16. "The True Excellency of a Gospel Minister," The Works of Jonathan Edwards vol.2, p.958.

  17. John Broadus, On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, 4th ed., revised by Vernon Stanfield (New York: Harper and Row,1979), p.117.

  18. These pairs are from a sermon by Jonathan Edwards entitled "The Excellency of Christ." In it Edwards meditates on the image of Christ in Revelation 5:5-6 as both the Lion of the tribe of Judah and the Lamb that was slain. The sermon is in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 1, pp 680ff.