The author argues that Jonathan Edwards was very much a figure of the Enlightenment, having thoroughly absorbed the thought of Newton and Locke. Unlike most other Americans, however, Edwards was also a discerning critic of the Enlightenment. He was able, therefore, to use Enlightenment thought in his theology without yielding to its mechanistic and individualistic tendencies. Jenson sees Edwards's understanding as a radical corrective to what commitment to the Enlightenment later wrought in American life, religious and otherwise. He argues that weaknesses in the common American faiths (a trivial evangelicalism or a deistical secularism) can be remedied by a recovery of Edwards's vision, and that weaknesses in American public moral discourse could likewise be remedied by a reaffirmation of Edwards's God as the source and goal of all human existence.
This provocative study of the life and work of Jonathan Edwards argues that although Edwards was very much a figure of the Enlightenment, he was also a discerning critic of it, able to use Enlightenment thought in his theology without yielding to its mechanistic and individualistic tendencies. Edward's radical position stood as a corrective to the overall impact of the Enlightenment on America.
