The Anxieties of Calvinism

I recently finished reading George M. Marsden's excellent biography of Jonathan Edwards. Highly recommended. Edwards is often described as one of America's greatest theologians, if not our greatest theologian, but since Edwards was both a Puritan and a staunch Calvinist, two things that don't hold great allure for me, I'd never given him much of my attention.

In reading about Edwards' life as a pastor in Calvinist New England, one of the things that struck me was how anxious and uncertain Calvinists were back then. And can still be even today.

This was surprising to me because, if Calvinism has an appeal, that appeal comes from being a theology of grace, assurance, and security. Since election and salvation is wholly the work of God, and because Calvinism preaches the perseverance of the saints, God's elect stand on secure, unassailable ground. The elect have assurance of salvation.

On paper, that's how Calvinism is supposed to work. As a message of God's sovereign power and grace, Calvinism provides its adherents with one of the most comforting soteriological visions on offer. You can do absolutely nothing to save or help yourself, all is the work of God, and because of God's mercy and grace we have absolute confidence that we will stand vindicated at the judgment. Nothing can separate us from the love of God.

Again, on paper that is how Calvinism is supposed to work. But pastorally speaking, practically speaking, that's not how Calvinism is experienced. At least that's not how it was experienced by the Calvinists in Jonathan Edwards' New England. Instead of being filled with comfort and assurance, the Puritans were a very anxious, worried bunch.

There were two related problems, two recurrent locations of anxiety. 

The first had to do with the doctrine of election. On paper, if you were one of God's elect you were golden. Grace and salvation were yours. But the pastoral problem was in discerning if you were one of God's elect. How could one tell? The standard answer was that the elect would show the effects of sanctifying grace in their lives. That makes sense. But the trouble with this, as everyone knows, is that sin can be a pretty stubborn thing. It's hard to maintain a consistent and improving moral witness across the lifespan. Our moral progress isn't consistently up and to the right. We all experience seasons of moral struggle and regression. And as the Calvinists of New England experienced these seasons of struggle it raised questions about their election. If they were still struggling mightily with sin wouldn't that suggest that they were not one of the elect?

You can see the conflict here, between a bulletproof theological system and the raw experiences of life. As a logical system, Calvinism has a compelling crystalline beauty. Calvin, let's recall, was a lawyer. Many rationalistic types, if you've ever chatted with a staunch Calvinist, find this analytical system captivating. Like a complex puzzle, Calvinism is a vast logical structure to be explored. So down they go, into this dogmatic, analytical rabbit hole. But the realities of life, especially our interior lives, are messy, complicated, and ambiguous. And as the Puritans peered into their souls they just could never get a clean look or a clear answer about their status as one of the elect. Theology was clear, but life was murky.

A related problem had to do with religious revivals. Not every Puritan approved of revivals, but Jonathan Edwards did. In fact, Edwards first achieved international notoriety with his book. A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton, recounting, as the title says, the religious revival that took place in Edwards' church and town in 1734. In A Faithful Narrative Edwards shares how practically the entire town of North Hampton became converted and displayed various fruits of God's grace.

Trouble was, the revival didn't last. They never do. A few years after the publication of A Faithful Narrative many in North Hampton had reverted back to their old ways. This raised snarly theological and pastoral questions. Had the revival been fake? If so, how could anyone tell if a revival was authentic or not? Every revival looked authentic when it was happening. The North Hampton revival sure looked legit when Edwards penned A Faithful Narrative. But few revivals have staying power. In hindsight, revivals looked more and more like flashes in the pan, temporary outbreaks of religious enthusiasm, making it hard to say if any of the experienced "conversions" had been real or not. 

This problem of discernment proved so distressing to Edwards that he responded by writing what many consider to be his greatest work, A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, which attempts to set out pastoral criteria for how to discern true from false conversions. 

The problem with revivals was the same problem noted earlier about the difficulty of determining one's own status as elect. Revivals feature ecstatic conversation experiences and dramatic testimonials, but after the peak experience has passed the moral journey to follow is long, hard and uneven. And that rocky road caused the Calvinists of New England to question if the revival had been legitimate or not. We see similar problems with revivals in our time and place. 

I don't have a big point to make about all this, just these observations. In reading Marsden's excellent biography of Edwards, I got to live inside the heads of Calvinists and Puritans. And what I observed was strange and surprising. Advertising itself as a theology of God's sovereign election and grace, Calvinism should have produced peace and assurance. But among the New England Puritans, Calvinism produced a lot of worry and anxiety.