Sorry that these posts are coming so late. With all the reading and other things going on this week, I haven’t had as much time for blogging as I had hoped to. So, many apologies.

Day two of the class centered around looking at Edwards as a theologian. He was presented as both a typical and an atypical theologian and pastor in New England. Typical in defining his theology against a post-Reformation Reformed background with an emphasis on the sovereignty of God, centrality of Christ, and utmost necessity for practical piety in the Christian life. Edwards was not typical, however, in focusing much of his effort on philosophical and polemical pursuits, no doubt as a result of the theological and philosophical milieu of his day (i.e., Enlightenment and British moral philosophy, and the theological challenges of Arminianism and Deism). Typical or atypical, however, it it clear that Edwards was a theologian who was thoroughly immersed in the Scriptures, his doctrine and exegesis using Scripture as their foundation and starting point, and his sermons (part of the outflow of that doctrinal and exegetical work), of course, were centralized on Scripture as well.

After this short discussion on Edwards as a theologian, the class then moved into discussing the works that we had read the night before, unquestionably the most substantial set of readings both in amount and depth. On the docket was The End for Which God Created the World, Original Sin, Freedom of the Will, The Nature of True Virtue, and A History of the Work of Redemption. Formidable texts, each one. I won’t bore you with the details of our class discussion on each of those texts, but I will say that the discussion was very lively and it’s so encouraging to see others wrestling with these difficult works in order to better understand Edwards and the God he held so dear.

At the end of the discussion we were surprised with a guest appearance by Dr. Harry (Skip) Stout, the general editor of the Yale Works of Jonathan Edwards project. Dr. Stout spoke to us on both the History of Redemption as well as a brief glimpse into what made the Great Awakening so great. Dr. Stout proposed that the American colonies went through a first democratic revolution decades before the American Revolution, this first event being the Great Awakening revivals that seemed to enrapture the whole of the British colonies. The awakenings would put religion into the hands of the people and would create many of the attitudes and lay the ground work for many of the ideologies that would lead the revolt against British tyranny including how information was disseminated, oratorial styles, audience responses, and the new style of leadership based on popularity rather than accomplishment or aristocratic stature.

Today was a very heavy class, though very stimulating as well. With all that has been written on Edwards and these greatest treatises of his, it is very evident that there is still much work to be done, particularly in making them more accessible to non-academics, as it was often questioned how we can take these ideas of Edwards and use them in church communities or high school classes, etc. A question at once daunting and exciting!

Filed under:
JEahW June 2009, freedom of the will, jec at yale, nature of true virtue