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Ethics: Questions & Morality of Human Actions, 3rd Edition

Edwards, Jonathan

by Mary E. Virginia

Identification: American cleric, theologian, and philosopher

Born: October 5, 1703, East Windsor, Connecticut

Died: March 22, 1758, Princeton, New Jersey

Type of ethics: Religious ethics

Significance: In Freedom of Will (1754) and “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741), Edwards reiterated the strict Calvinistic doctrine of communion only for the elect—those predestined to salvation—while simultaneously stressing the individual emotional conversion experience. Arguably one of America’s keenest intellectuals, Edwards was a commanding Puritan minister who emphasized traditional Calvinist doctrines of humanity’s utter depravity and total dependence upon God.

His Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended (1758) added a cornerstone to the debate regarding the fundamental depravity of human nature and provided a strenuous defense of Calvinism against the increasingly secularized Enlightenment. By combining Puritan intellectualism with a unique emotionalism, Edwards became a singularly dynamic preacher and theologian.

After assuming leadership of the Northampton, Massachusetts, parish in 1728 from his famous grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, Edwards became immediately controversial with his repudiation of Stoddard’s Half-Way Covenant, the agency by which children of the predestined—themselves not necessarily of the elect—were entitled to receive communion. Edwards preached a peculiarly complex blend emphasizing the apparently antagonistic tenets of predestination and conversion experience. Although the development of evangelical religion was antithetical to traditional Calvinism, Edwards’s emotionally charged yet intellectually compelling sermons inaugurated in New England the religious revival known as the Great Awakening.

Edwards, Jonathan (1737), A Faithful Narrative of the Surprizing Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton, London.

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Amid controversy regarding his insistence on emotional conversion as proof of election, Edwards was dismissed from his Northampton post in 1751; thereafter, he preached among Native Americans. Suggesting that the “great tribulations” of the Christian faith had passed, in his pioneer sermon “Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of Gods People...” (1747), Edwards had earlier cleared his way by lessening theological inhibitions against missionizing.

See also: Benevolence; Calvin, John; Christian ethics; Human nature.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Virginia, Mary E. "Edwards, Jonathan." Ethics: Questions & Morality of Human Actions, 3rd Edition, edited by George Lucas & John K. Roth, Salem Press, 2019. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Ethics_0782.
APA 7th
Virginia, M. E. (2019). Edwards, Jonathan. In G. Lucas & J. K. Roth (Eds.), Ethics: Questions & Morality of Human Actions, 3rd Edition. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Virginia, Mary E. "Edwards, Jonathan." Edited by George Lucas & John K. Roth. Ethics: Questions & Morality of Human Actions, 3rd Edition. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2019. Accessed October 22, 2025. online.salempress.com.