THE MINISTERIAL AND THEOLOGICAL PURPOSES OF JONATHAN EDWARDS\u27 THOUGHT: ASTUDY IN SOURCE AND CONTEXT (CONNECTICUT)

Dealing with the relationship between Jonathan Edwards\u27s thought and his role as minister, this study shows why, as the leading American Calvinist thinker, Edwards drew more from his ministerial predecessors\u27 insights than he did from the enquiry of the Enlightenment. Because he seized upon Lockean psychology to develop the Puritan notion of conversion more fully, it has been assumed his philosophical voluntarism was derived directly from Locke. However, I show that his emphasis on the centrality of the will and the affections was also the emphasis of the English Puritans and continental Calvinists. They were evangelical thinkers in much the same capacity as Edwards was; and like him, they developed their voluntaristic doctrines to promote piety in their congregations. Hence the relationship between their thought and their cultural function is clear. Similarly, the concerns the Puritans wrote in answer to (Quaker Enthusiasm, the Antinomian controversy, Arminianism and the desire to promote spiritual awakening in individuals) were exact parallels to the concerns Edwards responded to in his best-known treatises. The research undertaken focused on Edwards\u27s Catalogue of books, the citations in his published works to Puritans and continental theologians, and on his lengthy correspondence with Calvinist revivals leaders in Scotland. This material has revealed that the ideas of these men Edwards read and admired reflected their pastoral concerns in much the same way that his own philosophy grew out of evangelistic endeavors in the Great Awakening and from the fear of Arminianism which often dominated his ministry. The study finally demonstrates the existence of an established tradition of Calvinist heart religion: a tradition epitomized in the career and thought of Jonathan Edwards