Edwards, Jonathan

(1703-58)

   A congregational minister in colonial New England, Edwards was a leader in the Great Awakening and was important both as a philosopher and as a theologian. While his impact on theology has been great, sustained interest in his philosophical achievements only began in about the 1950s. Edwards's philosophical theology is dominated by a conception of the absolute sovereignty and aesthetic perfection of God. To this end Edwards defends a strong sense of divine determinism coupled with occasionalism. Like Malebranche, Edwards believes that any indeterminacy beyond God's immediate causal control impinges upon the divine majesty. In Freedom of the Will he argues that the libertarian conception of freedom leads to an absurd infinite regress of self-causation for each allegedly self-determined act. Further, he defends compatibilism by noting that the only plausible criteria for free actions are desire and absence of constraint. Edwards also (apparently independently) developed a version of idealism similar to that of Berkeley. Like Berkeley, he rejects Locke's distinction between primary and secondary qualities, arguing rather that all sensory input derives not from external objects, but rather as a direct communication of God's divine thoughts. Edwards so stressed dependence upon the divinity that he saw God as divinely creating everything anew each moment in the same way as the initial creation. Based on these beliefs Edwards developed novel treatments of a number of doctrines including original sin. Edwards also composed an important psychological and epistemological study in Religious Affections and a powerful discussion of divine Trinitarian aesthetics. At his untimely death he left behind 60,000 pages of written text.

   See Berkeley, George; Calvinism; creation, continuous; determinism; occasionalism

   Further reading: Edwards, Jonathan 1970, 1971 and 1974; Helm and Crisp 2003; Lee 2005; Lesser 1981 and 1994; Marsden 2003; Smith, Stout and Minkema 1995; Stein 1996