Jonathan Edwards’s Vision for the 21st Century

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Collin Hansen
In some of our most tumultuous times, God gives us our greatest thinkers consider Augustine writing his city of God during the collapse of the Roman Empire in the fifth century. Or consider CS Lewis writing in the middle of the Battle of Britain during the Second World War. And consider Jonathan Edwards, writing in the early enlightenment as colonial America erupted in revival and began to consolidate into what would become a few decades later, the United States of America. More than 20 years ago, George Marsden gave us the definitive biography, Jonathan Edwards alive. The book released at a formative time for me to self graduating college as a history major and headed to work at Christian history and biography magazine. And almost every book I’ve written or edited since then, it’s been inspired by Edwards and explicitly credits him. So I owe George Marsden a great deal. You can see why I was excited about the publication of his latest book, and infinite fountain of light. Jonathan Edwards for the 21st century, published by IVP academic Marsden, a professor emeritus at the University of Notre Dame says we need Edwards carefully balanced analysis as much today as any other time and nearly three centuries of what he calls quote, sometimes an article or an article, evangelicalism. Edwards straddled the worlds of Puritan New England and the British enlightenment. And this combination produces theological richness with contemporary relevance. Marzen summarizes Edwards in ways that capture his unique insight. Marsden writes, The primary purpose for which the Mighty God has created this universe is so that creatures might live in the infinite pleasure of the joy of God’s love. And then he writes this quote, the greatest beauty that we can perceive is God’s redemptive love in Christ. And quote, George Martin joins me on gospel bound to discuss changes and Edward studies Benjamin Franklin, secular moral judgments, and Edwards greatest sermon, among other subjects. George, thank you for joining me. My pleasure. Let’s just start with the title George, what is the infinite fountain of light?

George Marsden
Well, that’s an image that reduces the image of light is one of is one of his favorite images, and it’s often paired with beauty, or, and and with love that the the is one of his famous sermons, the divine and supernatural, it emphasizes that conversion experience is, is recognizing the love of God, that seeing the love of God, which is at the core of the universe, and I’ve spoken of thinking of the universe and then watching terms as the explosion of the Big Bang of of God’s love that rather than explaining the universe is wholly immaterial, chance happening that we have the life happens to pop up in for Edwards, at the core of reality, is God’s creative action. And that’s not just something that happened long ago that God is constantly interacting with creation. And so the love of God is perceptible. If you see the light, and the light of God, is it seen in the beauty of God’s love? separately in Christ sacrificial love and across?

Collin Hansen
The central premise of this of this new new book is Jonathan Edwards for the 21st century. You say that he’s a man for our times. But how, how would you say that he was, of course, a man of the 18th century, a man who had many, many, many wonderful views, and also some views that we would find offensive today. How does, how does that cohere with him also being than a man of our times? Well,

George Marsden
yeah, the as with all of us, we may have insights about some things, but we’re probably dead wrong about a bunch of other things. And I think that we have as a historian, you come to recognize that and so with, so with Edwards, there’s things that are very much reflections of his time, their theological views that he has that are of the that we would find difficult. I mean, for instance, he was a post millennialist, who believed that by the year 2000, he had still pretty much of old chronology that the Millennium would literally start. And that it would be a golden age of peace and justice and so forth. And it turns out, he was wrong, quiet. It’s, it’s not that, but that doesn’t at all reduce the ways in which his really core theological insights are, are still relevant today, and really, in a way more needed today than ever. So one of the things I try to do in the book is, is to contrast the Edwardian view of the universe of this is the universe is an expression of God’s love at its essence. And contrast that with the materialistic, human centered, ideal ideals of 21st century and and see why we need to recapture that that kind of vision. And I think Edwards is really good at he sees the issue, because he grew up right at the beginning right after the scientific revolution. And he was fascinated by the work of Isaac Newton and the new. The new, the new science, and in Newton’s view, the whole world is connected with each other materially that gravitation, then when the moon moves, the tides move, and so forth, everything’s connected materially. And for Edwards, everything is connected spiritually in some way, either positively or negatively, but the world is, is, is essentially personal, that your relationship to God is the most important kind of relationship, but everything is connected everything and you can that God can be seen. For instance, in the natural world, we all have a sense of beauty of the natural world that we’re often taken by, and for Edwards, who unnatural world is the language of God, as part of the language of God, and language is not identical with God. But language is a personal expression of God. And so that language of God that points to the love of God ultimately, so if you see a beautiful sunset, or you ever just like to go out with nature, and just contemplate how the beauty of nature ultimately points to the beauty of Christ, because the ultimate beauty is moral beauty, and the ultimate moral beauty is sacrificial love. So we all recognize that if someone rushes into a burning house to save a child, we enrich risk his or her life. We think that’s just beautiful, wonderful. And so Christ’s dying for us is the ultimate beauty in that beauty. If you recognize it, that’s the light. If you have if you see that then that draws you draws you to it.

Collin Hansen
You think a divine in supernatural light is Edwards greatest sermon and the place to start in reading Edwards. Why, why do you say that? Well,

George Marsden
Edwards is not easy to read, as I say in the book, in using CS Lewis as a guide. He needs translators. And so I hope to be one of one of those who does a little bit of appearance, translating, but the demanding supernatural light is accessible. But even that’s not not that easy. I had a friend who said that or read the book and, and we were discussing the set point. I mean, that terminal is really difficult. This is the pastor of expert pastor. But if you pay attention to it, you see the wonderful insight It’s of his using the image of light and beauty and how you’re drawn to that beauty. And he’s explained to me, he says, for instance, that if you see a beautiful person, you sometimes they’re just immediately drawn to that person and sort of the love of Christ is like that if your eyes are open, if you’re given the grace of God to see that low, then then you’ll be be drawn to it. Which I think, by the way, is a nice way to help explain the paradox of free will and determinism that if you’re drawn to a beauty, if you see a beauty, you can’t help. If you recognize it, you can’t help being drawn to it. But on the on the other hand, is totally your action. If you’re not, it’s not like like you’re being made to do something you don’t want. You don’t want to do so I find that a very helpful kind of image understanding Christian experience.

Collin Hansen
A couple of questions just here about historiography, as well as where Jonathan Edwards is, is situated. Where, what would you say is the biggest change in study of Edwards since you published your biography in 2003? Certainly, there continues to be extraordinary interest in Edwards. But what would you say is the biggest change?

George Marsden
Yeah, that’s an that’s an interesting question. I, more or less caught a wave in in Edwards studies that when I went to, I went to Westminster seminary back in the 1960s. And at that time members was not all that big thing, and in that kind of Reformed theological studies, but in the next decades, Edwards began to take to catch on and I personally, when I discovered Edwards, that was in graduate school, and I thought, wow, this is this is really gives a dynamic to, to Reformed theology. So I was just fascinated by that. And by the time I got a chance to write a biography of John Edwards, it happened that scholarly interest in him had led to the publication or trend, sort of translating, but let’s say we’re taking his sermons and so forth that were in script and putting,

Collin Hansen
put digitizing grant making tising. Yeah, yeah.

George Marsden
making them available. And so often, I had all this material that was was wonderful. So by that time, Edwards was very big and reformed circles. I’m not actually I’m not sure. What the biggest change, you might know better than I have or what the biggest change in Edwards studies is, I just find that it’s let me for instance, it’s a worldwide phenomenon. And they say on the on the Edwards, Yale Edwards site, Digital’s site, they can hit from all over the world. And there are Edwards centers, I don’t know how many places 1012 places in the world where Edwards is studied. So I think just the way in which Edwards has become a part of the the canon that he has taken for granted serious of theology is is probably the most important thing.

Collin Hansen
I think that was going to be my answer George was that it’s not seen as a novelty anymore but seen as being a norm. And it was still a little bit of a novelty when can make them I came to Trinity and taught a course for me. And I started with Doug Doug Sweeney as well. Doug, my colleague here at Besian divinity school now, but yeah, there’s there’s not the sense of novelty. He’s just almost take it for granted. And in a good way. I was like, of course, we pay attention to what he has to say. Or, of course, he’s probably America’s greatest theologian. He just didn’t hear those things necessarily right

George Marsden
it’s insane Gustin Calvin Edwards in it, it doesn’t sound like you’re, I mean, you’re not. It is. It fits in some ways that may be the greatest but he is he’s right in the

Collin Hansen
in that Canon. Well, it related to that you describe Edwards as gifted even at a young age and reflecting on how modern outlooks fit with ancient theology. Now I’ve also heard Neo Calvinism describe this way this modern and Orthodox. I’m wondering, was Edwards any kind of theological predecessor or even an inspiration to the Dutch Neo Calvinists of the 19th and 20th? centuries? No,

George Marsden
I don’t think so. I don’t think he that they were aware of, of Edwards. And that’s, again, how AdWords is caught on that. Like CS Lewis, I don’t think CS Lewis was really aware of Edwards in any substantial way because Edwards just wasn’t out there. For the later 20th century, he was known, but only as sort of a Sooners an answer, maybe God got it? Right.

Collin Hansen
Yeah, it’s kind of just a figment of history and sort of an anomaly of that. Puritan New England. I didn’t think there was a connection, but I knew if anybody knew that connection, I would have thought about

George Marsden
I’ve thought about that. And there, there are some parallels because they’re both in Augustinian. Right. And so they’re, they’re compatible. And I’ve seen, I’ve thought of things where they where they say more or less the same thing from a difference. I think some of the some of the reformed philosophers have similar kinds of approaches is Edwards.

Collin Hansen
Right? Of course, you’ll know that some of my interest here is related to my work on Tim Keller, who was very much inspired by Edwards, and also the Neil Calvinists. And one of the labels that he used to define or why he resonated with them, or why he connected to them was because of that modern unorthodox Outlook. So when I saw that in your book, I thought, Hmm, I wonder if there’s any connection? I didn’t think there was. But no, you’re right, that there’s a common

George Marsden
of just some common, a common heritage and seeing some of the same things that be still to her to her ear.

Collin Hansen
You know, one of the things I like to do most Georgian in his history is just putting timelines up there. And, and it, it really blows our minds sometimes, like if people understood that people like Martin Luther King, Jr. We’re not very different age from Billy Graham, for example, doesn’t make sense because Chris King died so long ago, Graham lived so much longer. A similar example would be Jonathan Edwards and Benjamin Franklin. They were contemporaries. Edwards was less than three years older than Franklin, you right, this is part of the fascinating application of your work that you see their differing perspectives still playing out in our world today? How? Yeah,

George Marsden
well, I think Franklin would be just fascinated by the technological advances today. He’d also be very pleased with the sort of the ideal ideal of the self made person, that that’s that self individualism that’s encouraged, today, and modern civilization, and he’d be disappointed with an awful lot of things about modern civilization and our capabilities for destructing construction and so forth. And our inability to sort of live together constitutionally, as we ought to, nonetheless, it’s it’s sort of his kind of world, but it’s essentially a materialistic, human centered kind of world. Whereas Edwards, very close contemporary, both brought up as pure impure to New England offers this view of the world that the that is a alternative to that, where the spiritual realities are the most impersonal realities. And that is the most essential thing in the universe, rather than than material things are about the most essential thing in the world. So I’ve long found that it’s just a fascinating contrast with the two. The two people.

Collin Hansen
Yeah, no, absolutely. My favorite work of Edwards is the religious affections. You say that we could change that title to be a treatise on religious loves. And that might communicate more effectively today. What difference does that terminology make?

George Marsden
Well, I didn’t think affections is a word that you I mean, it’s not a strong word. You have affection for your pets, right? Which is nice. I mean,

Collin Hansen
not what Edwards was writing. About five

George Marsden
but religious loves the it that’s that’s essential to what our character is what do you love the most? And one of the saying we in religious affections is if you want to see whether you’re serving God, think about what are the things you love the most. And this is this, this is a test of how whether your loves are rightly ordered. And so I think you’ll be what the ideal is, you see, the sacrificial love of Christ is kind of the core of the of God’s revelation in the universe, and then you hope your, your, your, your loves ought to be oriented in that direction. They’re not going to make it but you can you can at least self examined Nope. That’s hope that’s what’s going on. So the the on the last level, is what should be shaping your life. And that will shape how you you be behave. And so Edwards goes through the kinds of loves that you should have and are ultimately concluding with. Do you care about charity? And that’s the longest section in religious affections is what are you actually doing for the poor? Or the poor? And I quote, are there that justification, or that justice is a sign of of, of justification, that those two things ought to be connected to each other that your regard for those who are in need, and if you’re doing something for them, and that’s a good a good test, and you see it in Edwards is very strong, emphasizing that that kind of practical outcome of what it means to your question.

Collin Hansen
Just one more question here with George Marsden talking about an infinite fountain of light. Jonathan Edwards for the 21st century. I just wonder what does reading and writing about Edwards do for you and to you? What’s that? What’s that experience like?

George Marsden
I found, it was a wonderful opportunity that I had in mid career that one of my former students Arie stout, was running the ad for Senator along with another student of mine can make about and as stout said to me, we need someone to read a big biography of Edwards and I jumped at the chance. And so I spent, I don’t know a half dozen years or so living with Edwards and I found that just very edifying even notice things that you don’t like, the things you do like are great and there’s one point integrity about Edwards he there’s there’s nothing I mean, he he’s consistent in his views of things sometimes over consistent but, but nonetheless, I found it just helpful. And and I didn’t get they never got tired of it. So I’ve talked about it and found it helpful. Personally, in my own personal religious understandings and practice.

Collin Hansen
Georgia, your work has been transformative in my life. Many other lives learn so much from me on so many different subjects. One of the first was Fuller Seminary but all the way through to Jonathan Edwards and beyond, into this book and infinite fountain of light Jonathan Edwards for the 21st century. I hope people more people will pick up your book and then ultimately go back to Edwards and have their affections and flamed for Christ. Thanks, George.

George Marsden
Thank you, appreciate it. Skip that?