The Family
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 49, No. 1 – Fall 2006
Managing Editor: Malcolm B. Yarnell III
By Josh Moody. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2005. 203 pages. Softcover, $33.95.
Jonathan Edwards continues to attract the attention of excellent scholars who wish to sharpen their skills by scaling the heights of his Everest-like mind. Josh Moody, a Cambridge trained pastor-theologian who is the senior pastor at Trinity Baptist Church in New Haven, Connecticut, has written a fine work tackling a question that has intrigued scholars for some time: What is the relationship between Jonathan Edwards and the Enlightenment? Was Edwards a pre-modern, Reformed thinker who stood strong against the theological infidelity of modernity, or did he drink deeply from the wells of modern thought? Was Edwards perhaps so far ahead of his time that he can even speak to our intellectual, postmodern situation today, not just to a group of Puritan and Edwardsean lovers? With the recent rise of the postmodern critique of the Enlightenment these questions have drawn the attention of Edwardsean scholars.
Josh Moody argues rightly that Edwards appropriated key aspects of Enlightenment thought in order to critique it. Edwards advanced a “re-formation of the Enlightenment,” and a “deliberate reworking” of Enlightenment thinking (156) in such a way that strengthened Christian orthodoxy (in his case Reformed, Puritan orthodoxy) while at the same time remaining in a position of dialogue with modern thought. Edwards thus offers contemporary thinkers and theologians a model for engaging modern thought in a creatively Christian way that neither call us back to “pre-critical” days nor to isolate ourselves from modern intellectual currents. Moody clearly is aware of the postmodern critique of Enlightenment and modern thought, and while he feels there is much bite to this critique, there is still much to be salvaged. Edwards, for Moody, provides the key for how one could salvage that which is of value in modern thought.
Moody proposes that the organizing principle in Edwards’ theology is simply making known the presence of God. “The communication of the presence of God in response to the Enlightenment is the axis around which Edwards’ globe spins” (8). Such a “center” has the advantage of necessarily including his revivalistic work in his theological vision, a point that has been overlooked by a few scholars in the past who have tried to drive a wedge between Edwards’ brilliant intellectual pursuits and his pedestrian work as a revivalist. In the first chapter, “True Salvation,” Moody surveys Edwards’ theology of making the gospel “real” to his parishioners and all the mechanics that entails (the theology of salvation, faith, preach- ing, prayer, etc.). The goal is to show how central the evangelistic mandate was to Edwards, a mandate that deeply shapes his intellectual pursuits. In
the second chapter, “True Experience,” Moody explores the dimensions of Edwards’ spiritual epistemology, his theology of authentic religious experience, and how Edwards’ views measure up against the current religious epistemologies of Hebblethwaite, Hick and Alston. Chapter three, “True Reality,” is Moody’s exploration of the Edwardsean vision of ideal reality, Edwards’ theocentric response to the mechanistic universe of Enlightenment science. The last chapter, “True Light,” treats Edwards on the relationship between reason and revelation.
This book is a fine work that needs to be read by Edwards scholars and theologians who are interested in the potential that a redeemed form of modern thinking presents us today. Key to the book’s strength is the way that Moody canvasses the literature on numerous topics in Edwards scholarship—the analysis of revival, Edwards’ theology of preparation for salvation, and Edwards’ relationship to covenant theology for instance—all within a short span of pages. The extensive footnotes promise fruitful trails of inquiry into numerous issues. Moody also briefly brings Edwards into conversation with current philosophical and theological issues in an attempt to show the potential that Edwardsean lines of thought could offer to current discussions. I highly recommend this work.
