Jonathan Edwards Confronts the Gods: Christian Theology, Enlightenment Religion, and Non-Christian Faiths

by Gerald R. McDermott

Overview

This is a study of how American theologian Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) battled deist arguments about revelation and God's fairness to non-Christians. Author Gerald McDermott argues that Edwards was preparing before his death a sophisticated theological response to Enlightenment religion that was unparalleled in the eighteenth century and surprisingly generous toward non-Christian traditions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195351002
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/11/2000
Series:	Religion in America
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	600 KB

About the Author

Gerald R. McDermott is the Jordan-Trexler Professor of Religion at Roanoke College and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations		xi
Introduction: A Strange, New Edwards		3	(14)
Part I: The Challenge
Deists and the Scandal of Particularity		17	(17)
Edwards's War against Enlightenment Religion		34	(21)
Part II: Strategies of Response
Our Noblest Faculty: The Promise and Limits of Reason in Religion		55	(16)
Signatures of Divine Majesty: The Reason and Mystery of Revelation		71	(16)
Trickle-Down Revelation and Religious Entropy: The Nature and History of Religion		87	(23)
Parables in All Nations: Typology and the Religions		110	(20)
A Possibility of Reconciliation: Salvation and the "Heathen"		130	(19)
Part III: Strategies Applied
Judaism: A Light among the Nations		149	(17)
Islam: The Left Arm of Antichrist		166	(10)
Greece and Rome: Very Noble and Almost Divine Truths		176	(18)
American Indians: The Devil Sucks Their Blood		194	(13)
The Chinese Philosophers: Shadows of the Trinity		207	(10)
Conclusion: Confounding the Enlightenment		217	(12)
Selected Bibliography		229	(12)
Index		241

Editorial Reviews

"This well-documented and clearly written book is proof that Jonathan Edwards's image continues to be transformed by the study of the unpublished texts in the Beinecke Library in Yale University. Even readers who are acquainted with Edwards's better-known writings will find McDermott's book a journey into terra incognita, or toward "a strange, new Edwards" (pp. 3-13) He conclusively demonstrates that Edwards devoted his final years to developing what today would be called a theology of world religions." —Journal of Religion

"This surprising and stimulating study comprises three parts and a conclusion." Anglican Theological Review.

"It is testimony to both Gerald R. McDermott's talent as a scholar and to Jonathan Edward's own genius that this new volume succeeds in exploring a virtually unknown and fascinating aspect of the thought of perhaps the most carefully scrutinized theologian in U.S. religious history."—Journal of the American Academy of Religion

From the Publisher