Selected Writings of Jonathan Edwards / Edition 2

Through the years Jonathan Edwards’s place in American intellectual history has remained secure. As a theologian, he stands alone; as a philosopher his peers include only Emerson and William James. As one whose insights into the human condition penetrate to the deepest levels where literary artists do their work, only the likes of Hawthorne, Melville, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, and William Faulkner share his company. As relevant in our day as in his, the essays and sermons included here demonstrate Edwards’s far-ranging perspectives in theology, ethics, psychology, and aesthetics. As we have begun to question assumptions about the natural goodness and reasonableness of all individuals, Edwards’s interpretation of Christian truths speaks more tellingly to us than ever before. His kind of theology is heard anew in American novels, plays, and poems; the recounting of humankind’s innocence and subsequent disaster, our beginning and end, provides the awesome background to what we read in newspaper headlines today. Modern readers of Edwards’s works will realize that his timeless vision indeed corroborates our own.