It is remarkable that Jonathan Edwards wrote two major single-volume commentaries on the Bible, a commentary on the book of Revelation, numerous comments on the Bible in his enormous private notebooks, plus 1200 sermons still extant—and we still have no major book on Edwards as biblical exegete (although one is in the works).1 Some day we hope that Edwards will be recognized as one of the church’s premier scholars of Scripture.
Brooks Holifield, Anri Morimoto and I have written about the fact that Edwards uses Catholic-sounding “infused grace” in his lengthy discussions of justification. This points to the need for more work on Edwards’s relevance for ecumenical theology, and more importantly, the need to get Edwards on the radar screen of European intellectuals. “America’s theologian” was a world-class thinker, but very few European intellectuals read him. The first international conference on Edwards was held in Budapest in May 2007, and then a second in Glasgow in March 2009. But more scholarly work needs to compare him with European thinkers and issues, and thereby include him in the ongoing discussions of international philosophy and theology.
Other areas demanding future study include the influence on Edwards of Petrus van Mastricht, the seventeenth-century German-Dutch theologian whose major work Edwards called the best book besides the Bible.2 For that matter, we also need a careful study of what Edwards knew and when he knew it—of the classical theological tradition. What did he know of Augustine and the Fathers, Thomas, and Luther? Or even Calvin? How did he use or depart from their approaches? We also need a study of the uses for systematic theology of Edwards’s massive typological system, which has relevance for how we understand the Bible, the world and the history of salvation.
And there is more. Now that his entire corpus is available—for the first time—through the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale, a new generation of scholars will mine his papers asking new questions and finding new answers from this intellectual giant.
1. Robert Brown’s superb Jonathan Edwards and the Bible (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002) is not concerned with Edwards’s use of Scripture in his sermons or even theology. Instead it focuses on Edward’s encounter with nascent biblical criticism, and the result of that encounter for Edwards’s understanding of both Scripture and the history of salvation.↑
2. Adriaan C. Neele, Petrus van Mastricht (1630–1706): Reformed Orthodoxy—Method and Piety (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2009), has started this work. But more needs to be done.↑
Thank you very much Dr. McDermott for your comments and suggestions for future Edwards study. I am planning to work on Petrus van Mastricht and his influence on Edwards as my Ph. D. dissertation project, especially in the field of pneumatology. Although Holifield points out the practicality of theology as a prominent feature of theology in America, Edwards seems to inherit the legacy of faith and theology as practice of “living unto God” from this Dutch theologian Van Mastricht. It would be interesting, if possible, to trace how this practicality of theology was accepted and developed in theology in America in its own way.
And this would indicate an intersection between the seventeenth century European Reformed scholastics and the eighteenth century American theology: their continuity and also the American departure from its European context.
Reita Yazawa
I am thrilled to hear this! I have been waiting for years for someone to do this. But I would encourage you to broaden your scope, beyond the Holy Spirit, to report on vM’s global influence (i.e., in all the ways he might have influenced) on Edwards.
Praytell, who are you and where are you doing your PhD?
Gerald McDermott
Dear Dr. McDermott:
Thank you so much for your response.
I am Reita Yazawa, a Ph. D. student in systematic theology at Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Thank you for the suggestion. I will broaden the scope as I work on Mastricht.
Reita Yazawa