Jonathan Edwards generates perennial interest among historians, pastors, theologians, and philosophers. Some consider him America’s most influential theologian. Others think of him as the most influential interpreter of revival. Still others know him as the pastor who preached the most famous sermon in American history, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”
Ongoing interest in Edwards transcends ecclesial tradition, as evidenced by Jonathan Edwards: A Reformed Arminian Engagement—a volume edited by Matthew Pinson, president of Welch College. Pinson and his collaborators are Free Will Baptists. They describe themselves as “Reformed Arminians” because they identify with the views of Jacobus Arminius and are critical of the Wesleyan tradition that dominates so much of modern Arminianism. Thus, the authors offer two cheers for Edwards. They have a critical appreciation of the Reformed tradition, embracing many of the same theological categories while demurring on the same points as the original Remonstrants. The result is a volume that illustrates Reformed Arminian distinctives through dialogue with Edwards’s thought.
Solid Introduction
The book lays a groundwork for those unfamiliar with Reformed Arminianism or Edwards. First, Pinson offers a survey of Reformed Arminian theological distinctives, which he’s previously written on in Arminian and Baptist and 40 Questions About Arminianism. He suggests Edwards’s “nuanced Calvinist brand of Reformed theology provides a wonderful way to show how Arminians and Calvinists can take part in fruitful dialogue” (xiv). Paul Harrison, a pastor, then offers a general and pastoral biographical introduction to Edwards. With these opening chapters, the book introduces those unfamiliar with either Reformed Arminianism or Edwards to this seemingly unlikely combination.
Though it doesn’t presume expert knowledge, the book engages with particular aspects of Edwards’s theology. For example, in another chapter, Harrison addresses Edwards’s views of original sin and depravity. Following Arminius, Harrison agrees with Edwards on total depravity, but he rejects a total inability to choose salvation. He also rejects as illogical the Edwardean distinction between moral and natural ability. That distinction encouraged Baptist Edwardeans, in contrast with High Calvinists, to freely offer the gospel to nonbelievers.
Similarly, Kevin Hester, a Welch College vice president, examines Edwards’s views of justification and atonement. He rightly notes that Edwards’s writings on justification were a critique of contemporary neonomianism (a form of salvation by works) that Edwards identified with Arminianism for polemical reasons. Edwards wasn’t critiquing classical Arminianism, which affirms sola fide. As Hester shows, Edwards’s view of the atonement was rooted in an Anselmian satisfaction model but also synthesized penal substitutionary and governmental motifs. Edwards’s approach led to a downplaying of substitutionary atonement among many second-generation Edwardeans. Hester urges contemporary evangelicals to follow Edwards in embracing a multifaceted understanding of the atonement wherein penal substitution is the facet that shines brightest.
Balanced Critique
Despite the theological distance between Edwards and Reformed Arminians, there are points of agreement. For example, Barry Raper, associate dean of Welch Divinity School, affirms Edwards’s distinction between true and false signs of awakening. He shows that Reformed Arminians agree with many Calvinists who distinguish between revival (which is good) and revivalism (which is problematic).
Edwards wasn’t critiquing classical Arminianism, which affirms sola fide.
Yet there’s still substantial disagreement, as we see in Pinson’s assessment of Edwards’s doctrine of grace. Edwards believed the Holy Spirit effectually calls the elect to saving faith and ineffectually calls the nonelect, because the latter’s calling isn’t accompanied by regenerating grace. This nuanced understanding of grace is rooted in Edwards’s views that God has two wills: a general will for all people to be saved and a secret will for the elect alone to be saved.
Like all Arminians, Pinson rejects the two-wills paradigm. He advocates for what Reformed Arminians call enabling grace, “whereby the Holy Spirit calls and convicts and woos and awakens and influences sinners to come to him, a grace that God graciously grants them freedom to resist” (144). However, Pinson celebrates how Edwards’s views resulted in more evangelistic preaching focused on the free offer of the gospel to all.
In the same vein, Matthew McAffee, provost and professor of Old Testament at Welch College, engages with Edwards’s view of perseverance. McAffee shows how Edwards’s understanding of the warning passages in Hebrews was more confusing than Calvin and the earlier Reformed tradition’s understanding because of how Edwards spoke of the Spirit’s work in the lives of the nonelect. McAffee’s response resists both Calvinists who affirm perseverance and Wesleyans who believe unrepentant sin can forfeit saving grace. It reflects the Reformed Arminian position that true believers can fall from grace and be damned eternally, though only by renouncing their faith.
Together for the Gospel
The chapters in this book originated in a Free Will Baptist theological conference. As is often the case with a collection of essays, the results are uneven in their degree of agreement with Edwards and with current scholarship. The upshot is a volume that offers praise for Edwards while remaining unwilling to follow him on all points—especially areas where his views overlap with Dortian assumptions.
Pinson celebrates how Edwards’s views resulted in more evangelistic preaching focused on the free offer of the gospel to all.
This book provides clear examples of Reformed Arminian thinking. The engagement with a beloved Calvinistic figure can sharpen a Reformed reader’s understanding of both Edwards and his theology. Furthermore, it reminds us that not all Arminians are Wesleyans. Like conservative Calvinists and other confessional evangelicals, many Reformed Arminians are committed to biblical inerrancy, penal substitutionary atonement, justification by faith alone, soteriological exclusivism, and biblical complementarianism.
Jonathan Edwards: A Reformed Arminian Engagement is a helpful reminder that there are Arminians who appreciate Edwards, even if he isn’t necessarily their homeboy. Just as Reformed Arminians offer two cheers for Jonathan Edwards, those who resonate with Edwards’s thought should return the favor. We’ll likely never all fully agree on the finer points of the doctrines of grace, but by that same grace, we’re together for the gospel.
The Gospel Coalition