William James on Jonathan Edwards

VIALE, CLAUDIO MARCELO

Dublin

Conferencia; The Reaches of Pragmatism; 2015

Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy; School of Philosophy, University College

Illuminating the Protestant Turning Point: William James on Jonathan EdwardsPragmatism and especially, William James are conceived as heirs of different branches of Protestantism. In James?s case, his conception of religion has been connected by several scholars only to Calvinism. In my view this is a mistake (in a separate paper, I have shown the role of Martin Luther as the key example of religious genius in the Varieties). But even if one accepts that only Calvinism plays a central role in James?s thought on religion, the question is: What is Calvinism? Or, more specifically: What kind of Calvinism has had an influence in James? The history of Calvinism is a very complex one. But if one takes their American developments, one fact is really important: Jonathan Edwards is widely acknowledged as the first great American theologian and philosopher in the Calvinist tradition. Despite his orthodox Calvinism, Edwards attempted to link religion with philosophy and natural knowledge in the century of Enlightenment. Locke was the key figure that Edwards referred to. But Edwards?s attempt hides anunavoidable tension: he infers that practices are the only way that allows one to recognize the works of grace,on the one hand; but he also maintains that beyond practices, there remains a direct certainty of the communication to the individual with God. From Edwards?s time to the end of nineteenth century, Protestantism and Calvinism suffered a notable transformation. In a way, Edwards could be seen as a thinker that prefigured Calvinism?s development from a religion of strict doctrine to a religion grounded on practices that liberal Protestantism championed. William James sawthis transformation clearly: The advance of liberalism, so-called, in Christianity, during the past fifty years, may fairly be called avictory of healthy-mindedness within the church overthe morbidness with which the old hell-fire theologywas more harmoniously related. We have now wholecongregations whose preachers, far from magnifyingour consciousness of sin, seem devoted rather tomaking little of it. They ignore, or even deny, eternalpunishment, and insist on the dignity rather than onthe depravity of man. They look at the continual preoccupationof the old-fashioned Christian with thesalvation of his soul as something sickly and reprehensiblerather than admirable; and a sanguine and?muscular? attitude which to our forefathers wouldhave seemed purely heathen, has become in theireyes an ideal element of Christian character. Without Edwards?s theological background, William James is also trapped in a similar tension: Jamesinsists that use is an essential part of religion,on the one hand; but there is also a mystical side of James?s thought that does not fit with his notion of use, on the other. Consequently, the question is: Did James give the coup of grace to the theological dimension of Calvinism taking Edwards?s tension to the extreme? If one could give an affirmative answer to this question, Edwards?s and James?s works could illuminate us on the path that Protestantism and Calvinism take between mid-nineteenth century and the end of nineteenth century.