“An Holy and Beautiful Soul”: Jonathan Edwards on the Humanity of Christ

Abstract

Several authors have highlighted the difficulties associated with constructing Edwards’ Christology from his corpus, and the further troubling conclusion that, once such constructions have taken place, he does not seem to fit within the Reformed tradition. This tension exists in Edwards’ thought since a number of his “Miscellanies” were left unsystematised, and since he made several peculiar claims on the subject; meanwhile, difficulties also exist among Edwards’ interpreters because of the methods they employ and the selectivity of the texts they examine. Since Edwards did not leave us a single document presenting his Christology, it has to be gleaned from the whole range of his corpus. With the exception of The Excellency of Christ, the sermonic and exegetical corpora have generally been neglected in this field of research. The contention of this study is that a fuller picture of Edwards’ Christology would be yielded by examining his exegetical and sermonic corpora in addition to those traditionally used. This method will be applied to the humanity of Christ with the intention of answering some of the recent criticisms of Edwards’ Christology