The Question of Development: Did Edwards Change?

Scripture focus

But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

Proverbs 4:18 KJV

At a glance

Summary of the chapter

Perry Miller's influential 1949 study argued that Edwards's central ideas — beauty, being, holiness, consent — arrived essentially whole in his youth and were merely restated with increasing clarity over time, 'like a photographic plate' brought into sharper focus. McClymond and McDermott grant Miller's point that certain core convictions stayed remarkably stable, evident from the very first line of the million-word Miscellanies: 'Holiness is a most beautiful and lovely thing.'

Yet the authors argue Miller could not have known what the full publication of Edwards's Works (1957–2008) and George Marsden's definitive biography have since revealed: real turning points driven by changing circumstances. The most significant is what they call the 'Experiential-Empirical Turn' of the mid-to-late 1730s. The Northampton Awakening of 1734–35 forced Edwards, as a pastor responsible for discerning genuine grace in hundreds of parishioners, to become a careful empirical observer of religious experience.

His resulting Faithful Narrative (1737) was a genuinely new literary genre — the first full-scale revival narrative — combining close empirical description with theological analysis, and some scholars trace a line from this achievement to William James and the later psychology of religion.

Key points

• Perry Miller famously argued that Edwards's thought did not develop over time but only 'deepened' — a claim McClymond and McDermott partly accept and partly challenge.
• Certain core convictions, like the priority of beauty and holiness, remained stable across Edwards's career, visible from his earliest writings.
• The full publication of Edwards's Works and Marsden's biography have revealed real 'turns' in his thinking that Miller could not have known about.
• The pivotal 'Experiential-Empirical Turn' of the mid-1730s grew directly out of Edwards's pastoral responsibility to discern genuine conversions during the Northampton revival.
• Edwards's resulting Faithful Narrative (1737) pioneered a new empirical genre of writing about religious experience, anticipating later psychology of religion.

A line worth remembering

Today the links between his life, his social and cultural context, and his ideas are clearer than ever.

McClymond & McDermott The Theology of Jonathan Edwards, ch. 5

Related Scripture

• Philippians 1:6
• 2 Peter 3:18
• 1 Corinthians 13:11-12
• Ephesians 4:14-15

For reflection and discussion

1. Is it a strength or a weakness for a person's core theological convictions to remain the same for decades? Why?
2. How did Edwards's pastoral duty to discern genuine conversion push him toward closer, more careful observation of people's actual experience?
3. Where in your own understanding of God has real change happened — not just repetition, but a genuine 'turn'?