My unfinished essay on jonathan edwards

The life of Jonathan Edwards has undeniably effected modern literature philosophy, science and perhaps most of all, religion. His life consisted of the utmost joy and yet at times deep depression that was a result of inner conflict between his spirit and his flesh. Some have seen Edwards as a brilliant revolutionary, while others as a heretic, fire and brimstone preacher. Either assessment can only be made after taking a look into his life and teachings.
He was born in Windsor, Connecticut, and grew up in a Puritan home. His father was a devout minister who took care of the farm as well as his congregation. As a child Jonathan enjoyed learning of, and studying things of nature. Even when he was young, Edwards made amazing scientific observations which he recorded. He could very well have become a brilliant scientist, however, his religious background gave him a deeper passion to become a minister like his father. Edwards loved God’s majesty seen through his nature walks and described his experience as being “wrapt and swallowed up in God.” Though very young, he demonstrated his maturity through his desire to learn not only about nature but more importantly, about God.
At the age of 13, Jonathan Edwards entered Yale College, where he studied Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, geometry, rhetoric, logic and theology. Before the ending of his second year at Yale, Jonathan’s life changed radically when he was converted. From there on out, God was real to Edwards and his life was transformed forever. Jonathan graduated in 1720 but stayed at Yale to prepare for ministry.
In 1722, Edwards was asked to pastor a church in New York. During that period of his life Jonathan devoured the scriptures, however, the church soon ran out of funds to pay him and he had to move back to Connecticut. He then accepted the offer to teach at Yale and became head administrator as well as teacher. This time was full of bothersome tasks and depression and he soon became terribly sick. He remained ill for four months and suffered from lengthy sicknesses almost every year afterwards.
After teaching at the college, Jonathan Edwards turned back to the ministry. He became the assistant pastor of Northhampton, Massachusets where he served alongside his grandfather. After two years his grandfather died and Edwards took full responsibility of the church. During that time, Jonathan married a woman named Sarah Pierrepont who was 6 years younger than he. Jonathan became well known and loved as he served his congregation.
During the period known as The Great Awakening, Edwards wrote many works such as “Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival”, “A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections”, and "The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God.” each work spoke on the difference between false belief and the truth. He discovered new philosophies and provoked much emotion from his readers.
Jonathan Edwards was also one of the many evangelists who contributed to the Great Awakening. He began preaching in a different manner by using gestures and walking across the platform as he preached. This new style of preaching produced a new response as well. There was often screaming, crying and fainting as the crowds became eager to hear about the Lord and turn their lives over to Him. It was during this time that Edwards preached his famous sermon entitled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” On July 8, 1741 he preached this message to his congregation. The emotional response from the audience was so overwhelming that he couldn’t finish his message because so many wanted to know how they could become saved. His sermon caused the people to see their need for a savior and led many to their knees in repentance. It was then that the revival impacted his church and sparked a flame among his parishioners.
Jonathan Edwards later accepted the position of President at the College of New Jersey. (later renamed Princeton University) However, he stayed only for a few months because he died from smallpox on March 22, 1758
Edwards has about sixteen major works ranging from sermons to recorded journals, to biographies, to philosophical/theology educationals. Some of his most widely known include: “Resolutions”, “Personal narrative”, “Freedom of the will”, “Original sin”, and maybe most well known, “Sinners in the hands of and angry God”.
Resolutions, consists of a number of resolutions made by Edwards. For Edwards, resolutions were neither, moral hopes, romantic dreams, or legalistic rules. They were instructions for life. Edwards depended on the sustaining strength of his omnipotent Deity to enable him to live up to them. The Resolutions were Edwards’ guidelines for self-examination. Edwards lays out the Resolutions in a matter-of-fact style, treating them much like scientific principles. Of the seventy resolutions, the first one dated, No. 35, was written on December 18, 1722, when the Diary begins. The last, No. 70, was composed on August 17, 1723. Therefore, at least half were devised during Edwards’ New York pastorate and following stay in East Windsor, before receiving his Master’s degree in September 1723. The date and place of composition of the early, undated resolutions are unknown.
Edwards’ Personal narrative, is a revelatory account of his religious experiences. He probably wrote it in due to the request of his future son-in-law, Rev. Aaron Burr. He uses entries from his Diary as well as the very first of his Miscellanies to reconstruct his activities, thoughts, and spiritual states, largely dismissing much of his youthful religion as too works-oriented. Describing his more mature years, he hits on major themes such as God’s glory, excellence, and beauty, and the depth of his own sin, “infinite upon infinite!” In the process, he presents his own experience, much as he would his wife Sarah Pierpont Edwards’ in Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival and David Brainerd’s in the Life, as something of a model for the spiritual pilgrim. It is treasured by religious readers as an evangelical guide. The Personal Narrative enjoyed a quick business in the nineteenth century, when it was published in small tracts and sold in the hundreds of thousands.
His book Freedom of the will is listed as one of the five hundred most important books in American history. It is one of Edwards’s most lasting works. In this monumental work, Edwards is at pains to combat the “prevailing notions,” advanced primarily by Arminians, that the will is “self-determined” in the sense that our choices are not predetermined by any other cause but the exercise of will itself, or are exercised from a state of “indifference.” For Edwards, this was absurd and dangerous, because it denied the sovereignty of God as first cause. Famously, Edwards reduced such a view of the will to an absurdity by using the infinite regress argument—causes of a supposedly “indifferent” choice were actually linked, as in a chain, stretching back infinitely. In its place Edwards offered a “compatibilist” view of the will and moral agency based on inclination that attempted to reconcile freedom and necessity. A person acted according to predisposition either towards sin, if unregenerate, or holiness, if regenerate. Choice was a matter of strongest motives. Humans have a “moral inability” to resist their strongest motives. According to one’s spiritual state, then, there was a “necessity” to choices and actions that, at the same time, did not violate freedom and liberty to make those choices and perform those actions.
The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin was Edwards’s defense of the Calvinist view of human depravity in response to the increasingly accepted conception of human nature as basically good and innocent at birth, and that environment, experience, and custom made people evil. Edwards defends his conflicting view by arguing that Scripture, history, and reason prove the evident evil of mankind. Depravity, a tendency or inclination to sin, and attribution of that state from Adam, is were Edwards connected the arguments. Only divine grace could alter those natural states. He believed that God dealt with humankind not individually but, because of Adam’s representation of humankind, collectively. Adam and his posterity were not distinct agents. This Edwards referred to as a “constitutional identity.” Original Sin was in the press at the time Edwards died in Princeton.
For better or worse, the sermon for which Edwards is probably most famous is the one preached to the congregation of Enfield, Massachusetts in July 1741. Made a necessity in high school and college textbooks, Sinners in The Hands of An Angry God represents in many peoples minds the heretic, fire and brimstone outlook of Edwards and his Puritan brothers. But if it represents anything, it represents only a small part of Edwards’s view of the relationship between humankind and God. As a specially crafted awakening sermon, Sinners was aimed at a particularly hard-hearted congregation. But, at the same time, the awakening sermon and all it expressed—the incomprehensible weight of sin, the wrath of an infinitely holy God, and the unexpectedness of the moment.