In honor of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, I thought it would be appropriate to hear from Jonathan Edwards on something celestial. This is an interesting miscellany in which he muses on comets as proof that the world and all that is material could not have been from eternity, but must have been created, and that they will someday come to an end. While Edwards is primarily known as a theologian and pastor, he had a profound interest in the sciences and wrote frequently on them. Of course, this was partly to further reinforce his God-centered theological system. If all came from God, then so did the sciences. And if this is so, then we must be able to see God–whether God’s wisdom, power, benevolence, etc.–in the study of those sciences.

1038. Those kinds of heavenly bodies called comets give great evidence that the WORLD IS NOT FROM ETERNITY AND WILL COME TO AN END,

and that this is true not only of the globe of the earth, but also of the whole visible creation. For,

1. These celestial bodies are very considerable parts of the frame of the universe: they are large bodies and there is a great number of them, much greater than of planets; and they have ever appeared from age to age, as far as any history reaches back. It would therefore be unreasonable to suppose any other, than that they are coeval with the frame of the universe. But these bodies cannot have been from eternity, for nothing is more manifest than [that] they are constantly spending them [selves], sending forth in vast and continual streams parts of themselves clear off from their own bodies and atmospheres, to a vast distance into the immense, ethereal expanse. And there is nothing appears of any continual reflux or constant stream of matter to them, to answer it. Yea, ’tis very manifest there is no such thing, these bodies moving nowhere but to and fro in the empty ethereal spaces, where are no bodies with which they have communication to repay their expenses and restore their loss. Therefore it must be that they suffer a constant diminution, and therefore cannot have been from eternity, and will, in length of time, if the frame of the world continues long enough, be totally spent. And it being so, that ’tis so manifest that a very considerable part of the frame of the universe, that has hitherto stood through all past ages, will come to an end, it is a great argument that the whole is to be dissolved.

2. What must be naturally and almost necessarily supposed to be the use of these bodies argues that the whole universe is corruptible, and must come to an end. For seeing they are constantly expending and wasting themselves and sending forth their own substance, and that substance that they emit is not annihilated, it must necessarily be that other parts of the frame of the universe must receive what they expend. And since the ethereal spaces are not replete with what they emit, but still remain empty spaces, and since also there is no part of these spaces but where the attraction of the heavenly bodies reaches, as the sun and planets, it must necessarily follow that this matter gradually gathers to them. And since the attraction of the sun throughout all parts of these ethereal spaces, excepting what is very near the bodies of the planets, is vastly greater than all other bodies, it will follow that most of this matter is drawn to the sun. Hence we may argue that the use of it is continually to repair the sun’s expense, by its constant, immense profusion of beams of light. Whence we may suppose that when these comets are all spent and wasted, as they can’t last always, the sun must want this nourishment and, having no new supplies, must be gradually spent, and so the solar system be destroyed. The same may doubtless be said of the fixed stars, those bodies shining by their own light: their expense of beams must gradually waste them as necessarily is the sun, and hence all must, in time, come to an end. See further, No. 1041.

Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 20, The “Miscellanies:” 833-1152, ed. Amy Plantinga Pauw (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 378-379.

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miscellany mondays, the miscellanies