An Infinite Fountain of Light: Jonathan Edwards for the Twenty-first Century (George Marsden) - Review

AN INFINITE FOUNTAIN OF LIGHT: Jonathan Edwards for the Twenty-first Century. By George M. Marsden. Downer’s Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2023. Xii + 164 pages.

Jonathan Edwards is probably best known for a sermon about "sinners in the hands of an angry God." It's a fire and brimstone sermon that one might expect from a fundamentalist preacher, but probably not from someone considered America's greatest theologian, or at least one of the greatest. Unfortunately, that sermon, whatever its merits or demerits, has overshadowed Edwards' larger work. Thus, we need to be continually reintroduced to Edwards and his theology so that we can see the larger picture. While I do not share much of Edwards' theology, I do believe he is someone worthy of getting to know in his fullness.

Edwards was fully Reformed (Calvinist) in his theology. He was also fully acquainted with and utilized the philosophical movements and tools of the Enlightenment. He spent much of his life and ministry serving a church located in Western Massachusetts, which in the 18th century was the frontier. While Edwards was a creature of his own time, George Marsden, who has written two biographies (one lengthy and one shorter) of Edwards, believes he is also a person for our time. In other words, Edwards has a message that can speak to the concerns of the twenty-first century. As such, Marsden sees parallels between Edwards and C.S. Lewis. Although the two were very different, with Lewis being a theological minimalist (Mere Christianity) and Edwards a theological maximalist, Lewis reminded us that theologians often need translators and Edwards needs translating. What Marsden seeks to do in An Infinite Fountain of Light is be that translator. By serving as his translator, Marsden hopes to make Edwards accessible to the 21st-century church.

Before we get to Marsden’s study of Edwards’ life, ministry, and message, we need to know something about Marsden. George Marsden is a highly regarded historian of American Christianity, especially the history of fundamentalism and evangelicalism. He is professor emeritus of church history at Notre Dame. Before going to Notre Dame, he taught at Duke and Calvin Universities. He is the author of the important Fundamentalismand American Culture as well as the history of my alma mater, Fuller Theological Seminary, Reforming Fundamentalism. As noted, he is also the author of two previous biographies of Jonathan Edwards.

When we come to this particular book exploring the life of Jonathan Edwards, Marsden makes it clear that while the book has biographical details this isn’t a true biography. Instead, An Infinite Fountain of Light is designed to serve as a translation of Edwards' message for the twenty-first century. The biographical components are important because we need to remember Edwards’ own context. He was the product of a large family, mostly women and children. He lived before the more progressive era that led to the American Revolution, and though he lived in Massachusetts and Connecticut, he owned slaves, though he was vocally anti-racist. It should be noted that the next generation of Edwardsian theologians, including his son Jonathan Edwards Jr. and Samuel Hopkins, were abolitionists. His life on the frontier also influenced his thinking. Since his community, Northampton, stood on the frontier, at times it was fortified against attacks from Native Americans. That was even truer of his ministry at Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He was also fully British in his loyalties. Nevertheless, he lived at the edge of two overlapping eras, the age of the Puritans and the Modern era. Thus, he read the Puritan divines such as Richard Sibbes, and Enlightenment figures such as Newton and Locke.

After Marsden uses his opening chapter to lay out the foundations of Edwards' life and ministry, Marsden begins to locate Edwards in his larger context with a chapter titled "The Culture that Franklin Built" (Chapter 2). He points out that Franklin's world was much more urban and cosmopolitan than that of Edwards. Thus, Marsden suggests that we would likely feel more at home with Franklin than with Edwards. Franklin could imagine a future that might look a lot like ours, while Edwards' looked more to the past. While Franklin had a more modern view of the world than Edwards, Marsden believes that Edwards' core vision, rooted as it was in Augustinian Christianity, can help us discern the contrasts between the assumptions of our time and the Christian message. Thus, contrasting Edwards with Franklin can help us with that discernment.

While Chapter 2 places Edwards in the context of the emerging modern worldview, in Chapter 3, Marsden introduces us to a key aspect of Edwards' theology. This element of this theology focused on the beauty of God. While Edwards is known for his sermon that pictures sinners in the hands of an angry God, that message is not central to Edwards’ theology, which focuses on the beauty of God. While he began his theological work focusing on God's sovereignty, which was a foundational Reformed position, he then sought to expand that vision by drawing on philosophy to envision God's role as creator and sustainer of the universe. Thus, he was open to the teachings of science to better understand the world around him. As he did so, he also drew on theology to see the universe as being an expression of a loving God. Rather than the universe operating on impersonal laws of nature, for Edwards, these material forces are a "personal expression of the exploding or overflowing love of the loving triune God" (p. 48). As we read this chapter, we gain a very different understanding of Edwards and his theology from the one we often envision. While Edwards could be narrowly focused at times, he had a broader vision than we often credit him with.

If Chapter 3 focuses on Edwards' understanding of God, in Chapter 4 we turn to his participation in the First Great Awakening. Here Marsden compares his efforts with those of his contemporary, George Whitefield. Not only were they contemporaries, but when the Anglican revivalist toured the colonies, Edwards invited Whitefield to preach at Northampton. While the two men were friends and colleagues, Marsden points out that as time passed, Whitefield became closer to Benjamin Franklin than Edwards. That might be due in part to Franklin's location in Philadelphia, where Whitefield often visited. Nonetheless, the two were important contributors to the revivalist spirit of the 1740s and 1750s. Marsden also notes that the more populist forms of evangelicalism have more in common with Whitefield, who was a well-known celebrity than the more theologically inclined Edwards. In fact, Edwards was a strictly Reformed believer. Nevertheless, the much more reserved Edwards was just as committed to revival.

In Chapter 5, Marsden explores Edwards' attempts to discern authentic Christian experience. It is a question he explored in his A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (In Three Parts), Revised Edition. Marsden suggests we might better translate this title as A Treatise on Religious Loves. Edwards isn't speaking here of emotions or feelings, ala Schleiermacher. Rather, religious loves/affections are defined in terms of loving what God loves. While this form of love brings joy, it offers something deeper than feelings. Edwards understood that heightened emotions that often come in response to revival can be short-lived, so here he envisions a much more balanced vision of the Christian life. This vision of Christian life is behavioral, thus involving right action. What Edwards envisioned when he thought of revival was a call to pursue a life of moral excellence. We might not embrace all of Edwards’ theology, but this alone is a message that will speak to the concerns of our time. If faith does not lead to moral excellence, to right action (orthopraxis), then is it true faith?

Since Edwards is best known for his sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Marsden includes in an appendix Edwards' sermon from 1733 that he believes is a better reflection of Edwards’ theology. That sermon is titled "A Divine and Supernatural Life." In the closing paragraph of the sermon, Edwards declares:

This light, and this only, has its fruit in an universal holiness of life. No merely notional or speculative understanding of the doctrines of religion, will ever bring to this. But this light, as it reaches the bottom of the heart, and changes the nature, so it will effectually dispose to universal obedience. It shows God’s worthiness to be obeyed and served. It draws forth the heart in a sincere love to God, which is the only principle of a true, gracious and universal obedience. And it convinces of the reality of those glorious rewards that God has promised to them that obey him (p. 159).

There is much about Jonathan Edwards's theology and ministry that I cannot embrace. Nevertheless, while Edwards was a man of his time, and not nearly as open to the modern world as Benjamin Franklin, as Marsden notes here in An Infinite Fountain of Light, Edwards does have something valuable to teach us as we seek to navigate the twenty-first century. Whether we embrace the entire package, Edwards can help us ponder what it means to live an authentic Christian life, one that reflects not fear of an angry God, but the God of true beauty. Again, this is not a biography per see (as noted, Marsden has written two of them), but it offers an exploration of a message that Edwards might share with twenty-first-century Christians, especially American evangelicals, many of whom have embraced a populism that is less than conducive to loving what God loves and loving as God loves.