Learning to Love Wisdom from Masters: The Value of Jonathan Edwards’ Philosophical Theology

Abstract

Jonathan Edwards is generally acknowledged as one of the most prominent American philosophers. For instance, William K. Frankena, suggests that he was ”certainly the ablest American philosopher to write before the great period of Peirce, James Royce, Dewey, and Santayana,” and William Wainwright that he is ”America’s most important and original philosophical theologian.”In my recent work, however, I have argued that there are strong reasons for reconsideration of Edwards’ status since his major arguments for the existence and attributes of divinity are invalid or unsound. This raises the issue of the ”value” of Jonathan Edwards’ thought for contemporary philosophical theology. Should contemporary philosophical theology assign a high or a low value to Edwards’ thought?