R. Scott Clark
Puritan Board Senior
I think it's clear enough from the quotations which Don has kindly provided that, at best Edwards was confusing. His relative lack of clarity (e.g., moving between justification and salvation, i.e., between a narrower and a broader category rather fluidly) language does not compare favorably with Owen or Turretin or Witsius. One of my MA students is presently translating Van Mastricht on justification and has, in converstation, raised questions about the relations between some of VM's language and Edwards. I wonder if some of this language is not the theological corollary of his approach to Religious Affections? Certainly I don't not find this sort of ambiguity in Polanus or Wollebius for example.
In fairness, if I recall (and Don can correct me) the recently published (Yale edn) Miscellanies which has renewed interest in his doctrine of justification were notes from his notebooks and were not published works as such. I'm away from my office and don't have have access to my copy to check. George Hunsinger (a Barthian and Barth scholar at Princeton) has written on Edwards. He did an essay for MR and I think a longer piece for the WTJ and I think Bob Godfrey did a paper for the Puritan Conference in London a few years ago. Both came to similar conclusions about the ambiguities and problems in Edwards' language. I don't know what became of Bob's paper, but I believer there's an effort to get some of his heretofore unpublished research into print.
Blessings,
rsc
[Edited on 7-4-2006 by R. Scott Clark]
In fairness, if I recall (and Don can correct me) the recently published (Yale edn) Miscellanies which has renewed interest in his doctrine of justification were notes from his notebooks and were not published works as such. I'm away from my office and don't have have access to my copy to check. George Hunsinger (a Barthian and Barth scholar at Princeton) has written on Edwards. He did an essay for MR and I think a longer piece for the WTJ and I think Bob Godfrey did a paper for the Puritan Conference in London a few years ago. Both came to similar conclusions about the ambiguities and problems in Edwards' language. I don't know what became of Bob's paper, but I believer there's an effort to get some of his heretofore unpublished research into print.
Blessings,
rsc
[Edited on 7-4-2006 by R. Scott Clark]