专八人文知识需知的美国名人--神学家乔纳森.爱德华滋
乔纳森•爱德华滋(JonathanEdwards)，17021758，北美殖民地时期大觉醒运动的代表人物之一，神学家，诗人，哲学家，代表作《发怒上帝手中的罪人》。他广读群书，写作题材相当广泛，包含哲学、伦理及科学在内。其中最有影响力和最重的的著作是《自由意志论》(On Freedom of the Will)、《伟哉原罪论辩》(The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended)、以及《宗教情操论》(A Treatise Concerning ReligiousAffections)。
Jonathan Edwards (17031758) is widely acknowledged to be America's most important andoriginal philosophical theologian. His work as a whole is an expression of two themes the absolutesovereignty of God and the beauty of God's holiness. The first is articulated in Edwards' defense oftheological determinism, in a doctrine of occasionalism, and in his insistence that physical objectsare only collections of sensible “ideas” while finite minds are mere assemblages of “thoughts” or“perceptions.” As the only real cause or substance underlying physical and mental phenomena,God is “being in general,” the “sum of all being.”
Edwards' second theme is articulated in accounts of God's end in creation, and of the nature oftrue virtue and true beauty. God creates in order to manifest a holiness which consists in abenevolence which alone is truly beautiful. Genuine human virtue is an imitation of divinebenevolence and all finite beauty is an image of divine loveliness. True virtue is needed to discernthis beauty, however, and to reason rightly about “divine things.”
Edwards' projected History of Redemption would have drawn these themes together, for it is in hisredemptive work in history that God's sovereignty, holiness, and beauty are most clearly exhibited.
1. Life
Edwards was born into a family of prominent Congregational ministers in East Windsor,Connecticut in 1703. In 1716 Edwards enrolled in Yale where he read Newton and Locke, andbegan “Notes on the Mind” and “Notes on Natural Science.” Locke's influence on his epistemology,philosophy of language, and philosophical psychology was profound. Edwards' metaphysics,however, appears more strongly influenced by Malebranche and, to a lesser extent, the CambridgePlatonists, and bears little resemblance to Locke's.
After briefly serving congregations in New York and Bolton, Connecticut, Edwards returned to Yalewhere he completed his Masters of Arts degree and became senior tutor in 1724. In 1725, thechurch in Northampton chose Edwards to succeed his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard the so-called “pope of the Connecticut valley.
” The most notable events of his tenure were the revivals of 1734 and 174041, the latter ofwhich came to be known as the Great Awakening. Edwards' defense of the revivals and criticismsof its excesses culminated in his first major treatise, the Religious Affections (1746). Worseningrelations with his congregation came to a head in a dispute over qualifications for churchmembership.
Rejecting the less rigorous standards of his grandfather, Edwards insisted on a public profession ofsaving faith based on the candidate's religious experiences as a qualification not only for HolyCommunion but also for church membership. He was dismissed in 1750 by a margin of one vote.After refusing invitations to pulpits in North America and Scotland, Edwards retreated to the Indianmission at Stockbridge where he had charge of two difficult congregations, supervised a boardingschool for Indian boys, and completed his last major works Freedom of the Will (1754), OriginalSin (1758), End of Creation, and True Virtue (both published posthumously in 1765). Edwardsaccepted an appointment as President of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton) in 1757. Hedied from complications arising from a smallpox inoculation on March 22, 1758, less than fiveweeks after his inauguration.
Edwards' published works were primarily designed to defend the Puritan version of Calvinistorthodoxy and his influence on Congregational and Presbyterian theology was profound. Hisextensive notebooks reveal an interest in philosophical problems for their own sake, however, andhis deployment of philosophical arguments in his private papers and published works are bothsophisticated and frequently original.
2. Metaphysics
2.1 Theological Determinism
2.2 Occasionalism, Idealism, Mental Phenomenalism,and Views on Identity
2.3 God as Being in General
2.4 God's End in Creation
3. Value Theory
3.1 Ethics
3.2 Aesthetics
4. Epistemology
4.1 A Sense of the Heart
4.2 Sanctified Reason
5. The History of Redemption
Bibliography
Primary Sources
, 182930, The Works of President Edwards, 10 vols., Sereno E. Dwight (ed.), New York: G. &C. & H. Carvill. (A widely available edition of Edwards' work.)
, 1968, The Works of President Edwards, Edward Williams and Edward Parsons (eds.), NewYork: B. Franklin. (A reprint of the 1817 ed. [8 vols.] and the two supplementary volumespublished in 1847.)
, 1957, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, gen. eds. Perry Miller (vols. 12), John E. Smith(vols. 39), and Harry S. Stout (vol. 10-26). New Haven: Yale University Press. (Supersedes allearlier editions. The extended introductions are especially helpful.)
