Edwards, Jonathan (1703-1758), was a famous minister of Puritan New England. As a philosopher, preacher, revivalist, and theologian, he became the leading intellectual figure in colonial America.
Edwards was born on Oct. 5, 1703, in East Windsor, Connecticut. Many of his forefathers had been Congregational pastors. He entered Yale University at age 13 and graduated at 17. In 1726, he became assistant pastor of a congregation in Northampton, Massachusetts. The chief pastor was his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, a famous Congregational clergyman. After Stoddard died in 1729, Edwards became chief pastor.
During the 1730’s and 1740’s, Edwards’s sermons contributed to a series of religious revival movements that spread through New England. These movements became known as the Great Awakening. They led to a new, more spiritual understanding of the church. At the same time, Edwards defended many traditional church doctrines. He was attacked and praised by both radicals and conservatives. His aim was to reconcile traditional Calvinist teachings with the notions of religious experience in the 1700’s. See Great Awakening ; Calvin, John .
During the Great Awakening, Edwards wrote a number of works on the psychology of religion. Edwards based these writings on his observations of how people behaved during intense religious experiences.
In the late 1740’s, Edwards tried to exclude from the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper any parishioner who had not had a distinct conversion experience. Some members of his congregation opposed this change, and Edwards was dismissed in 1750. From 1751 to 1757, Edwards was a missionary to an Indian settlement in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. There, he wrote his major philosophical work, Freedom of Will (1754). In it, he defended the Christian doctrine of predestination (see Predestination ). He argued that people’s choices in life depended on their character, “inclined” either by God or by sinful human nature. Edwards died on March 22, 1758.
