Since the publication of Sang Hyun Lee's revolutionary commentary, The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards, scholars have considered the possibilities of understanding Jonathan Edwards's thought in terms of dispositional laws, forces, and habits. While some scholars reject the notion of a dispositional ontology in Edwards, others have taken the concept of disposition in his thought beyond the usage the Northampton minister ever indicated, especially with respect to soteriological considerations. The preacher of "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is made to be an inclusivist, if not a crypto-universalist. Jonathan Edwards's Vision of Reality substantiates that Edwards, in an effort to combat deistic and materialistic Enlightenment paradigms, employs dispositions in his philosophy, but that his radical theocentrism and Calvinistic particularism established its boundaries within his apologetical reconsideration of spatiotemporal and metaphysical reality. Within his "spiritual vision" of reality, Edwards leaves no stone unturned: history and even the reprobate find inherent value and a positive functional role not only in God's program of self-glorification but as manifestations of divine being--the damned are "deformities" in God. The logic of Edwards's theocentric vision of reality pushes his ideas to the limits of acceptable Reformed orthodoxy, and sometimes beyond those limits.

Ten essays highlight different aspects of Jonathan Edwards's life and legacy and show how his teachings are just as relevant today as they were three centuries ago.

Among the topics considered are spiritual perception, metaphysics, spirituality, ethics, history, and apologetics."--BOOK JACKET.

The author argues that Edwards was very much a figure of the Enlightenment, but was able to use Enlightenment thought in his theology without yielding to its mechanistic and individualistic tendencies.

Kyle Strobel mines the work of Jonathan Edwards in search of the Puritan minister?s personal vision for spiritual development. "In Edwards," Strobel writes, "we find a grasp of spiritual formation that tries to balance deep thought with deep passion . . . a life of love with the contemplation of divine things."