Selective Readings: Edwards and the New Divinity

Scripture focus

...that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

Jude 1:3 KJV

At a glance

Summary of the chapter

Edwards left no formal school, yet a chain of self-identified followers — first called “New Divinity” as an insult, later “Hopkinsian,” “New Haven Theology,” or “New England Theology” — carried on a version of his project for roughly a century. Leading figures included Joseph Bellamy and Samuel Hopkins in the founding generation, and later Nathaniel William Taylor and Charles Finney, whose views moved well beyond anything Edwards himself taught.

Scholars disagree sharply about the relationship between Edwards and his heirs. Some read the New Divinity as arid systematizers who drained Edwards's warm piety into dry metaphysics; others see them as moralizers softening his Calvinism to suit a more optimistic age. Even the movement's starting point is contested, with proposals ranging from Edwards's 1731 sermon “God Glorified in Man's Dependence” to the doctrinal controversies of the 1760s and Hopkins's 1793 System of Divinity.

What united the Edwardseans across these disputes was less a fixed doctrine than devotion to Edwards's memory: as one historian observed, even when they consciously disagreed with him, they believed they were only expressing his true meaning more clearly. Timothy Dwight's youthful tribute to Edwards as “that moral Newton, and that second Paul” captures the almost reverential esteem in which the founder was held.

Key points

• Edwards founded no formal school, but a line of self-described followers sustained and revised his theology for roughly a century under shifting names: New Divinity, Hopkinsian, New Haven Theology, New England Theology.
• Leading Edwardseans included Joseph Bellamy, Samuel Hopkins, Sarah Osborn, Nathanael Emmons, Jonathan Edwards Jr., Timothy Dwight, Nathaniel William Taylor, and Charles Finney.
• Historians dispute whether the New Divinity faithfully developed Edwards's thought or diluted it — some call them arid metaphysicians, others moralizing accommodators of a more optimistic culture.
• There is no agreed starting date for the movement; candidates range from Edwards's 1731 sermon to the 1760s Hopkins-Mayhew controversy to Hopkins's 1793 System of Divinity.
• The Edwardseans were united less by exact doctrinal agreement than by devotion to Edwards's memory, even when their own positions moved considerably beyond his.

A line worth remembering

that moral Newton, and that second Paul

McClymond & McDermott The Theology of Jonathan Edwards, ch. 37

Related Scripture

• 2 Timothy 2:2
• Titus 1:9
• 1 Corinthians 3:6
• Galatians 1:6-9

For reflection and discussion

1. What are the dangers, and what are the benefits, of a theological movement organizing itself around loyalty to one towering figure's memory?
2. Where might sincerely trying to ‘agree with’ a respected teacher, as the Edwardseans did with Edwards, actually drift into changing what that teacher taught?
3. Who has shaped your own theological convictions most, and how would you know if you had begun, without noticing, to revise their teaching while still claiming their name?