Date: 25-Apr-1995 03:36pm EST
Subject: Jonathan Edwards
Jan, thank you for your note, and thanks for sending the series of ten messages which you sent in response to the messages I posted from Evan Howard on Jonathan Edwards.
You indicated that you felt that the comments in the ten messages that you sent were more along your own thoughts on Edwards' writings than what Evan had written, and you asked, "could it be that he [Edwards] is being grossly mis-represented [by Evan Howard]? Would hate to think so."
The summaries of the three works by Jonathan Edwards that I posted from Evan follow an outline that Jonathan Edwards himself incorporated into his text. You should take a look at these three works for yourself, and you'll see that the same Roman numerals were used for the same topics, and that what Evan has done is simply to quote the first sentence of each section of what Edwards wrote.
Evan is sound in his scholarship. When he and I and my wife Kathryn were all students at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield Illinois (1980-1985), he and his wife Cheri lived in an apartment directly below us. We spent a lot of time together, and he was in many of the same classes that Kathryn and I were in. His scholarship was always sound, and he always did very well as a student.
Contrary to some of the statements in the ten messages you sent, I don't think that the Toronto movement maintains that feelings and physical manifestations necessarily prove a person's sprituality, any more than Jonathan Edwards did. In and of themselves, the manifestations mean nothing. When good fruit results, it is then we know that God has been at work in those who have experienced them.
There are several reasons why Edwards is quoted so often by those involved in the Toronto blessing. First of all, the writings of Jonathan Edwards demonstrate that many, if not most, of the manifestations that we've seen in the past several months were also observable during the great awakening, indicating that what we're now seeing isn't some great aberration, or deviation from the general stream of God's workings. Secondly, Edwards was a champion of the Great Awakening, and defended it against the attacks of some of its enemies, such as Charles Chauncy. And, of course, he was a tremendous theologian of the revival, and was able to interepret things in such a way as to satisfy many of the critics of the awakening.
Jonathan Edwards was not against the manifestations, but in fairness, I must also concede that he also advocated restraining them to a degree, in order not to cause to much of a stumbling block for those who really didn't understand what was going on. He wrote, "I am far from ascribing all the late uncommon effects and outward manifestations of inward experiences to custom and fashion, as some do; I know it to be otherwise. . . . It would be very unreasonable, and prejudicial to the interest of religion, to frown upon all these extraordinary external effects and manifestations of great religious affections--A measure of them is natural, necessary, and beautiful, and the effect in no wise disproportioned to the spiritual cause, and is of great benefit to promote religion. Yet I think they greatly err who suppose that these things should be wholly unlimited, and that all should be encouraged in going to the utmost length that they feel themselves inclined to. There ought to be a general restraint upon these things, and there should be a prudent care taken of persons in such extraordinary circumstances" (SOME THOUGHTS CONCERNING THE PRESENT REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN NEW ENGLAND, Part IV, Section III, part II [vol. 1, p. 414 of the Bannner of Truth Trust's edition of THE WORDS OF JONATHAN EDWARDS]).
So, while Edwards accepted the manifestations, he did not think that they should be completely unlimited. It is probably because of this that both advocates and opponents of the current revival have seen Edwards as supporting their views.
All of this is complicated by the fact that Edwards is often hard to follow, and sometimes seems both to accept and reject some of the same things. For example, toward the end of his SOME THOUGHTS CONCERNING THE PRESENT REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN NEW ENGLAND, he discusses the informal, spontaneous singing by groups of people going to and from church meetings in such a way as to sound as though he both approved of this and also disapproved of it because of the criticisms of the awakening that this new, unheard-of practice was generating. Whenever I read this, I can never quite figure out whether he is defending this practice or warning against it. In some places it definitely sound like he's defending it, but in other places, it sounds just the opposite.
The same sort of thing could be said about his views on some other issues, including cessationism. Sometimes he talks like a cessationist, and at other times, it sounds like he believes that the gifts of the Spirit, including prophecy, are still in operation.
So, Edwards can be used as ammunition by advocates of the revival, and he can also be used as ammunition by those who do not think that what is happening is a genuinely of God.
I haven't taken the time here to interact with many of the other specific criticisms of the revival in the ten messages you sent, but it does seem clear to me that most of them tend to misrepresent what is actually happening, and can therefore easily be answered. But if you wish me to interact with them at some future time, I'd be glad to do that.
Thanks for taking the time to write, and to be willing to interact with me on these questions.
With every good wish to you in the Lord,
Richard M. Riss
RRISS@DREW.EDU