Haeralis
Puritan Board Freshman
So, I've been doing a bit of reading about both Jonathan Edwards and John Witherspoon lately. I've long been a fan of Edwards and have studied Witherspoon as well, since the American Founding is one of my primary interests. From what I have read, one of the first things that Witherspoon did after ascending to the presidency of Princeton was to banish all of the Edwardsians from the school. Apparently, Witherspoon, who was deeply informed by the Scottish Enlightenment, saw Edwards' philosophical idealism as a threat to the intellectual environment he wanted to create.
Admittedly, I've long been wary of Witherspoon for various reasons. I don't appreciate his dedication to Lockean political philosophy and its basically secular attitude that the only purpose of the state is the protection of natural rights, not—as in Edwards—the cultivation of a Christian community characterized by a common devotion to God and to one another.
A big part of how one answers this question, I suppose, would depend on whether or not they view Scottish common sense realism as preferable to Edwardsian idealism. I don't know enough about Scottish common sense realism to evaluate it, but I do go into it somewhat skeptically since Thomas Reid, Francis Hutcheson, and other thinkers who developed that school of thought were kind of weak in their doctrine of sin. The fact that Witherspoon imported it into Princeton might explain why Presbyterianism became more "liberalized," as can be seen in its modification of the Westminster Confession to accommodate the secular state created by the Constitution.
Admittedly, I've long been wary of Witherspoon for various reasons. I don't appreciate his dedication to Lockean political philosophy and its basically secular attitude that the only purpose of the state is the protection of natural rights, not—as in Edwards—the cultivation of a Christian community characterized by a common devotion to God and to one another.
A big part of how one answers this question, I suppose, would depend on whether or not they view Scottish common sense realism as preferable to Edwardsian idealism. I don't know enough about Scottish common sense realism to evaluate it, but I do go into it somewhat skeptically since Thomas Reid, Francis Hutcheson, and other thinkers who developed that school of thought were kind of weak in their doctrine of sin. The fact that Witherspoon imported it into Princeton might explain why Presbyterianism became more "liberalized," as can be seen in its modification of the Westminster Confession to accommodate the secular state created by the Constitution.