In his pithy biography of Edwards, Marsden shows why he is a household name
among students of American religious history. The sheer number of theological tidbits passed along in the final chapter alone are worth its weight in gold. For those of you crunched for time and cannot plow through Marsden’s big Jonathan Edwards, I would encourage you to pick this up; it will pay great dividends in your pursuit of America’s greatest theologian.
Here is Marsden waxing eloquent about Edwards’s, The Nature of True Virtue and The End for Which God Created the World.
So for Edwards the universe is most essentially personal; it is the creative expression of a person. Edwards’s emphasis on personality at the center of reality presents a sharp contrast to most modern views. Since the Enlightenment many modern thinkers have built their theories on the premise that the universe is essentially impersonal, controlled by natural laws. Edwards challenged the view with a vital alternative: that at the core of reality is a loving God, and that love is the dynamic behind the creation of the universe and everything in it.
Starting with a sense of God’s love at the center of reality then shapes the way we think of true virtue. At the core of reality is the beauty of the love of God pouring forth, so that the highest good is to return that love to God. If we truly love God, then we should also love what God loves, which is everything in creation, excepting evil or the negation of love. Modern philosophies, said Edwards, typically start in the wrong place, with humans and their needs. They see human happiness as the end of creation and then judge God by their limited standards.
Unfortunately, so much of what Edwards was concerned about has come to pass in American evangelical church life – esp., his point in the last two sentences.
