The title of this book’s final chapter is “Four Criticisms”:
Dane C. Ortlund. Edwards on the Christian Life: Alive to the Beauty of God. Theologians on the Christian Life. Wheaton: Crossway, 2014.
Ortlund qualifies,
Jonathan Edwards is way out ahead of me, and probably you, both in living and in theologizing on the Christian life. But the student, standing on the teacher’s shoulders, may on occasion glimpse something the teacher doesn’t. Cautiously, we proceed. (p. 178)
Ortlund unpacks four criticisms (my paraphrases):
- Edwards often failed to apply the gospel. He missed the gospel’s functional centrality. (a) He missed opportunities to bring the gospel home, and (b) he practiced and encouraged an unhealthy introspection.
- Edwards didn’t consistently teach that God’s creation is good, that we should enjoy God by enjoying God’s gifts. (Ortlund qualifies, “We will quickly forgive this, because for every one Christian today who fails to enjoy God’s gifts, another twenty fail to enjoy God himself.”)
- Edwards sometimes imported meaning into Scripture rather than exported meaning out of it.
- Edwards tended toward an overly positive view of the regenerate and an overly negative view of the unregenerate.
The way Ortlund does this is a model of how to critique a theological giant. He spends the rest of the book exulting in what Edwards teaches us about the beauty of God. His final chapter is merely a grace-filled, non-hagiographic footnote to that.
Related:
1. Justin Taylor interviews Dane Ortlund about this book:
2. A funny outtake (though not as awkward as this one):
3. My first noteworthy exposure to Edwards was by reading John Piper’s fascinating biographical sketch in this book (free PDF).
