Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 66:2 (Fall 2004)
Article: Jonathan Edwards’s “Ambiguous And Somewhat Precarious” Doctrine Of Justification?
Author: Jeffrey C. Waddington

WTJ 66:2 (Fall 2004) p. 357

Jonathan Edwards’s “Ambiguous And Somewhat Precarious” Doctrine Of Justification?

Jeffrey C. Waddington

[Jeffrey C. Waddington is a Ph.D. student in apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pa.]

I. Introduction

A. Prolegomena

In 1951 the gifted, prodigious, and influential Edwardsian scholar Thomas A. Schafer penned an article in which he alleges that Jonathan Edwards had placed his doctrine of justification by faith in an “ambiguous and somewhat precarious position.”1 While Schafer recognizes that Edwards had clearly affirmed his allegiance to the doctrine in a series of sermons originally preached in 1734 and subsequently published in revised form in 1738 as part of the Discourses on Various Important Subjects,2 Schafer believes that Edwards failed to stress the doctrine as

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strongly later in his life, given its importance at this early stage in Edwards’s career: “In view of the circumstances surrounding Edwards’ discourse on justification and its prominence among his first publications, the almost total lack of emphasis on the doctrine in the great works of his last twenty years needs some explanation.”3

Schafer admits that other concerns, such as defending doctrines that were actually under attack in Edwards’s own day (e.g., original sin and freedom of the will), and the pressures of events (perhaps his deposition from the Northampton pulpit?) may account in some way for the perceived lack of emphasis on justification in Edwards’s later life, but he thinks there are other things that provide further and perhaps more adequate explanation for this phenomenon.4 Schafer singles out three aspects of Edwards’s theology, especially related to the role of faith, that undermine or compromise the doctrine of justification that Edwards ostensibly embraced.5

The three critical areas of compromise in Jonathan Edwards’s formulation of justification, as divined by Thomas Schafer, are (1) Edwards’s grounding of the legal imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believer in the believer’s real union with Christ, (2) Edwards’s placement of sanctification before justification, and (3) Edwards’s use of the notion of formed faith, a notion rejected by the Protestant Reformers and more in line with Roman Catholic thinking.6 ...