Jonathan Edwards's Philosophy of History
The Reenchantment of the World in the Age of Enlightenment
Introduction
THE AMERICAN AUGUSTINE
The history of the development of man's consciousness of history
involves a large aspect of the whole evolution of his experience. It is
a major part of his attempt to adjust himself to the world in which his
life is set.
(Herbert Butterfield, The Origins of History, 1981)
[The Enlightenment mind] refuses to recognize an absolutely supernatural
or an absolutely super-historical sphere. . . . History bears the torch
for the Enlightenment; [because it was liberated] from the bonds of
scripture dogmatically interpreted and the orthodoxy of the preceding
centuries.
(Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment, 1955)
[Edwards's philosophy of history] makes him stand out against his
eighteenth-century Enlightenment background more sharply than his other
writings. Herein may lie his most impressive originality.
(Sydney E. Ahlstrom, "Theology in America," 1 ... read full excerpt from Jonathan Edwards's Philosophy of History: The Reenchantment of the World in the Age of Enlightenment ebook
