The Age of Enlightenment was an era of American history in which the rise of scientific inquiry and the rise of empirical knowledge was leading many Christians, including Puritans, to leave the faith (Smith 446). In response, Jonathan Edwards delivered the sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” in 1741, in which the author attempted to convince Puritans not to stray from their belief in Christ despite the Enlightenment-era secularism that was present during that time. However, in many more important ways, Edwards’ own perspective on God in this sermon solidified the Age of Enlightenment’s assertion that order and rationality ruled over all, by making God an innately rational, orderly figure.
One of the overarching themes of Edwards’ work is that sinners and those Puritans that were uncertain in their faith would be sent to hell if their sinning was to continue: “There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God” (Edwards). While the sermon was ostensibly meant for all those who listened, regardless of their level of belief, Edwards directed much of the sentiments in the sermon to those who did not believe in God. Sinners, it is argued, ironically violate the principles of the Age of Enlightenment through their rejection of what Edwards felt was quite natural and empirical – the laws of nature and God.
Edwards’ sermon comforted those believers who would be saved through God’s love and their own belief, while also requesting that those who sin reconsider the state of their own affairs. Edwards did not seek simply to scare sinners, since “sinners fear only for their already damned selves”; instead, he simply hoped to change their outlook on God and their own selves, accepting the divine plan He has for them out of a sense of empirical reason and sensibility. In essence, he genuinely felt that God was the supreme Enlightenment thinker, and that all those should fall in line with this thinking or else they would be punished (Zakai, 2009).
That being said, Edwards also professed Enlightenment-era ideas of rationality and order, simply adapting God’s word to these more secular ideals. Just as humans were irrational beings who sought to cause trouble by rejecting God’s word, God himself sought to correct those injustices by placing everyone in their proper position through His divine power. God’s power is said to be able to crush whatever enemies He may come across, and He alone was responsible for holding up humanity from the bowels of hell by “a slender thread” (Edwards). God creates order in the midst of humanity’s chaos, acting as the rational law of nature with great restraint but also great wrath. This solidifies Edwards’ vision of God as a just, fair and uncompromising figure, following the tenets of reason and empirical objectivity espoused in the Age of Enlightenment.
Jonathan Edwards, in “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” sought to reconcile the seemingly polarized perspectives of Puritanism and the Age of Enlightenment by painting God as the ultimate Enlightenment figure. Edwards’ argument is that nature is the supreme personification of God’s perfection, and – recognizing that perfection – all sensible beings would fall in line. To do otherwise would invite their own entry into the pits of hell, which is the major warning Edwards provides in his sermon. In this way, Edwards is both uniquely Enlightenment in his thinking, while also seemingly rejecting the empiricism and objectivity that most other Enlightenment thinkers put forward.
Works Cited
Edwards, Jonathan. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Christian Classics Ethereal
Library. July 8, 1741. <http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/sermons.sinners.html>.
Smith, Craig R., and Michael J. Hyde. "Rethinking “the public”: The role of emotion in being‐
with‐others." Quarterly Journal of Speech 77.4 (1991): 446-466.
Zakai, Avihu. Jonathan Edwards's Philosophy of History: The Reenchantment of the World in
the Age of Enlightenment. Princeton University Press, 2009.
