John Locke and Jonathan Edwards, Locke’s Influence on Edwards

Locke’s Influence on Jonathan Edwards: A Brief Note

It was Perry Miller, a prominent Edwardian scholar, who declared decades ago, that “Jonathan Edwards was the greatest philosopher/theologian ever to grace the American scene” (Perry Miller, Jonathan Edwards, 1949). D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said “No man is more relevant to the present condition of Christianity than Jonathan Edwards.”
Mark Noll wrote ”Edwards’ piety continued on in the revivalist tradition, his theology continued on in academic Calvinism, but there were no successors to his God-entranced world view . . . The disappearance of Edwards’s perspective in American Christian history has been a tragedy(Mark Noll, “Jonathan Edwards, Moral Philosophy, and the Secularization of American Christian Thought,” Reformed Journal [1983],  26). Noll insisted that Edwards posited the notion of  (a) God-entranced world which was the driven force of his life and theology. Nonetheless, Edwards’ vision of life, his theological pursuit and philosophical reasoning  are not without outside influence. He was foremost a student of  John Locke.

Jonathan Edward’s reception of John Locke’s philosophy came as early in his thirteenth years of age when he first read the treatise On Human Understanding, which he savored with great delight and profit (David Laurence, Jonathan Edwards, John Locke, and the Canon of Experience 38).  Locke’s influence on Edwards cannot be overstated—enormous in matters of philosophical idealism and reasoning, and significant in rhetoric and argumentation.  Peter Gray demonstrated how Edwards made use of Lockian sensationalist philosophy (A Loss of Mastery 113). The latter is witnessed most strikingly in Edwards’s famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741).  James P. Carse presented evidence in how Edwards incorporated Locke’s teaching on the nature of substance and rationalism into his own. He consented with others that “rationalism” was the basis of Edwardian philosophy (Mr. Locke’s Magic Onions 332-3). As Locke, Edward sustained that there exists in “the mind categories that are identical in their operation to categories in the divine mind and that, therefore, all knowledge can be excogitated” (ibid).  This is evidenced in Edwards’ perhaps most important treatise on theological determinism and free will, “The Freedom of the Will” (1754). Locke is best known for his theory of sense experience and perception which arguably were well received in Edwards’ “A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections” (1746). In the same line as Locke, Edwards emphasized the place of emotions of the human individual and the assertion that spiritual affections “do arise from these influences and operations on the heart, which are spiritual, supernatural, and divine.” According to Laurence, Edward reworked Locke’s sensationalism “for use in a supernaturalist system” (108).  Edwards employed Locke’s epistemology to explicate the doctrine of biblical revelation (Robert E. Brown, Edwards, Locke, and the Bible 361). As Brown argued both Edwards and Locke attempted to bridge the gap between faith and reason and solve the tension between reason and revelation by “maintaining that religious knowledge could be rational even when it lacked the evident qualities of knowledge… thereby maintaining the philosophical prerogative of biblical revelation for religious discourse” (362). Finally Perry Miler observed that Edwards learned from Locke the “technologia” curriculum which Locke was taught at Oxford from his former teachers: Boyle, Syndenham, Huygens, and Newton. Techologia as a learning approach stresses that “men can acquire the materials of reason and knowledge soley from experience” (55). Unremittingly and incontestably Edwards embraced the system.

In conclusion, not only the Bristish political theorist and philosopher occupied the mind and thought of America’s most original and greatest philosopher theologian (Jonathan Edwards), John Locke’s ideas have also pervaded the American political landscape and its government. Locke was instrumental in drafting drafting the “Fundamental Constitution of the Carolinas,” and his ideas on various issues including social contract, human nature and rights, the limits of government and separation of its powers, civil society have influenced American thought and life. Ast it turned out,  Locke’s political thoughts have had profound influence on both  the “Constitution of the United States” and the “Declaration of Independence.” Although he’s no longer with us, his ideas live, his tribes are many.

For Further Study

Brown, Robert E. “Edwards, Locke, and the Bible,” The Journal of Religion 79 (1999): 361-384.

Carse, James P. “Mr. Locke’s Magic Onions and an Unboxed Beetle for Young Jonathan,” The

Journal of Religion 47 (1967): 331-339.

Gay, Peter. A Loss of Mastery: Puritan Historians in Colonial America. Berkeley and Los

Angeles: University of California Press, 1966.

Laurence, David. “Jonathan Edwards, John Locke, and the Canon of Experience,” Early

American Literature 15 (1980):107-123.

Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. New York: Penguin Books, 1997.

Miller, ED. L. Questions That matter: An Invitation to Philosophy. New York: University of

Colorado, 1994.

Miller, Perry. Jonathan Edwards. Westport: William Sloane Associates, Inc.