Michael McClymond and Gerald McDermott’s new book, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards, has just been published by Oxford University Press.
It’s massive (784 pages) and expensive ($60)—but apart from Edwards’s own writings, this is (to use Alistair McGrath’s words), “unquestionably the best starting place for anyone wanting to grapple with the ideas of America’s greatest theologian.”
Kenneth Minkema, executive editor and director of the Works of Jonathan Edwards at Yale University, writes, “With interest in Jonathan Edwards at an unprecedented high around the world, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards is a truly useful and unmatched digest of his times, thought, and influence. Edwards is one of the most-written about religious figures of the eighteenth-century, and with such a mountain of literature to navigate, this volume provides the single best entry point into Edwards’ writings and ideas for the specialist and general reader alike.”
The book has also been highly praised by George Marsden, Mark Noll, and David Bebbington.
Later this week (DV) I’ll have an interview with Drs. McClymond and McDermott, but for now, you can get a good overview of the topics covered by simply scanning the table of contents:
Part One: Introduction: Historical, Cultural, and Social Contexts
1. Overture to a Symphony
2. Jonathan Edwards: A Theological Life
3. Edwards’s Intellectual Context
4. Edwards’s Spirituality
5. The Question of Development: Did Edwards Change?
Part Two: Topics in Edwards’s Theology
Section One: Methods and Strategies
6. Beauty and Aesthetics
7. Metaphysics
8. Typology: Scripture, Nature, and All of Reality
9. Revelation: Scripture, Tradition, and Reason
10. Apologetics
11. Biblical Exegesis
12. The Concept of a History of Redemption
Section Two: The Triune God, the Angels, and Heaven
13. God as Trinity: Father, Son, and Spirit
14. The End of God in Creation
15. Providence and History
16. The Person and Work of Jesus Christ
17. The Role of the Holy Spirit
18. The Angels in the Plan of Salvation
19. Heaven is a World of Love
Section Three: Theological Anthropology and Divine Grace
20. The Affections and the Human Person
21. Edward’s Calvinism and Theology of the Covenants
22. Free Will and Original Sin
23. Salvation, Grace, and Faith: An Overview
24. Conversion: A Divine and Supernatural Light
25. Justification and Sanctification
26. The Theme of Divinization
27. The Theology of Revivals
Section Four: Church, Ethics, Eschatology, and Society
28. The Church
29. Edwards On (and In) the Ministry
30. The Sacraments: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
31. The Voice of the Great God: A Theology of Preaching
32. Public Theology, Society, and America
33. True Virtue, Christian Love, and Ethical Theory
34. Edwards On (and In) Missions
35. Eschatology
36. Christianity and Other Religions
Part Three: Legacies and Affinities: Edwards’s Disciples and Interpreters
37. Selective Readings: Edwards and the New Divinity
38. Mixed Reactions: Princeton and Andover Seminaries, and Nineteenth-Century American Culture
39. New Beginnings: The Twentieth Century Recovery of Edwards’s Theology
40. Interpretations, I: Edwards and Modern Philosophy
41. Interpretations, II: Edwards and the Reformed Tradition
42. Interpretations, III: Edwards and the Revival Tradition
43. Interpretations, IV: Edwards and the Catholic and Orthodox Traditions
44. Interpretations, V: Edwards and Contemporary Theology
45. Conclusion: Edwards as a Theological Bridge
