Jonathan Edwards's Philosophy of History: The Reenchantment of the World in the Age of Enlightenment

Jonathan Edwards's Philosophy of History: The Reenchantment of the World in the Age of Enlightenment. By Avihu Zakai. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 2003. xvii + 348 pp. $49.95 (cloth).

In this book, Avihu Zakai, professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, analyzes and assesses Jonathan Edwards's understanding of history in relation to competing Enlightenment views and preceding theological views, such as those of Augustine and Edwards's more immediate Protestant forebears. Zakai argues that Edwards's key theological convictions concerning the sovereignty of God arose out of his conversion experience (p. 81). Edward's theology, which imdergirded his preaching and pastoral work, developed as a reasoned apologetic defending these convictions against the challenge of anthropocentric forms of thought characteristic of the Enlightenment. Edwards's understanding of history was also influenced by the revival in Northampton in 1734-1735 and the tradition he inherited of reading Scripture as a blueprint for history. In seeking to understand God's active presence in history and the "little revival," Edwards came to see God's redemptive work advancing in history through successive effusions of the Holy Spirit. This led him to conceive history not as a story of human progress from ignorance to secular enlightenment, but rather as the progressive unfolding of God's redemptive work in the face of multiple forms of sin and evil. This understanding undergirded his critical defense of the Great Awakening in the face of attacks from the religious establishment.

Zakai has produced an important and multifaceted study. It shows that while Edwards repudiated the anthropocentricism of the Enlightenments main currents, he accepted the notion of the possibility of progress, but insisted that progress be measured in terms of the advance of the work of redemption (pp. 233-234). This differentiates Edwards's view of history from Augustine's (p. 161). Like Augustine, Edwards stressed the human need for conversion to God and that the work of redemption could not be completed in history. But unlike Augustine, Edwards affirmed that redemption is not from history, but rather advances through it. Zakai characterizes Edwards as an American Augustine in terms of the depth and influence of his thought. Indeed he was, but while Edwards was realistic about the depth of human sin and the need for grace, he lacked the pessimism of Augustine or Reinhold Niebuhr, in part because of the impression made upon him by the revivals.

Zakai s attention to the democratic and revolutionary impulses beneath the surface in Edwards's thought adds to the understanding of Edwards's relationship to the emerging independence of the American colonies developed by Alan Heimert. As he notes, Edwards's independence of thought was indicative of and further stimulated a growing sense of American independence from European traditions and British authority, which led to the American Revolution. His tracing of how Edwards arrived at his understanding of God's relationship to history and his comparison of this to Augustine's view reinforces Sang Hyun Lees argument that Edwards made a distinctive contribution to Christian theology on this topic.

Early on, however, Zakai invokes Luther's distinction of a theology of the cross versus a theology of glory, and characterizes Edwards s theology as an example of the latter (p. 58). For Luther, a theology of glury was bad, even perverse, theology. Zakai uses this term to describe Edwards's theology, hut does not discuss whether Luther's criticism is accurate to Edwards's thought. This is a far-reaching question. Considering this might require another book of equal length. Theologically, this would be as important as Zakai's comparison of Edwards to Augustine.

On the whole, Zakai's study is well organized, well researched, and though sometimes repetitious, generally well written. It will be important primarily for those studying Edwards, but also for graduate students and scholars interested in the history and thought of colonial New England. It makes a valuable contribution to the study of an influential American intellectual and a major Christian theologian of the early modem era.

DON SCHWEITZER

St. Andrew's College

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

Copyright Anglican Theological Review, Inc. Winter 2004
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