The Metaphysics of Jonathan Edwards's "Personal Narrative": Continuous Creation, Personal Identity, and Spiritual Development

Central to evangelical piety is the theme of "conversionism". Among historical figures who embody this characteristic of evangelical piety one finds that Jonathan Edwards plays an important role, in part, because of his 1740 "Personal Narrative". In this essay I examine the metap...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Woznicki, Christopher (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: [2019]
In: Neue Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie
Year: 2019, Volume: 61, Issue: 2, Pages: 184-206
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Edwards, Jonathan 1703-1758 / Conversion / Identity / Creatio continua / Metaphysics
IxTheo Classification:CB Christian life; spirituality
KAH Church history 1648-1913; modern history
KDG Free church
NBC Doctrine of God
NBD Doctrine of Creation
NBE Anthropology
Further subjects:B Jonathan Edwards
B persönliche Identität
B Idealism
B Conversion
B Continuous Creation
B Creatio continua
B Personal Identity
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Summary:Central to evangelical piety is the theme of "conversionism". Among historical figures who embody this characteristic of evangelical piety one finds that Jonathan Edwards plays an important role, in part, because of his 1740 "Personal Narrative". In this essay I examine the metaphysics underlying Edwards's view of conversion in his "Personal Narrative". Special attention is given to Edwards's doctrine of continuous creation and to a feature that underlies his understanding of spiritual development, namely the One-Subject Criterion. I weigh two options for how Edwards may coherently hold to continuous creation and the One-Subject Criterion: Mark Hamilton's relative realism/endurance account and Edwardsean Anti-Criterialism. I conclude that given the textual evidence Edwardsean Anti-Criterialism is to be preferred over Hamilton's view.
ISSN:1612-9520
Contains:Enthalten in: Neue Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1515/nzsth-2019-0010