Moral Character, Reformed Theology, and Jonathan Edwards

Reformed theology is often thought to be antipathetic to virtue theory. However, Jonathan Edwards is a counterexample to this way of thinking. In this article, I offer an account of Edwards’s moral thought as a case study of Reformed theology that is also a species of virtue theory, focusing on what...

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Veröffentlicht in:Studies in Christian ethics 2017-08, Vol.30 (3), p.262-277
1. Verfasser: Crisp, Oliver D.
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:Reformed theology is often thought to be antipathetic to virtue theory. However, Jonathan Edwards is a counterexample to this way of thinking. In this article, I offer an account of Edwards’s moral thought as a case study of Reformed theology that is also a species of virtue theory, focusing on what he says about the formation of character. I argue that key doctrinal commitments drive his moral theology, and generate some interesting problems for his ethics. Although his work is not without shortcomings, Edwards is a thinker whose moral theology might be usefully repaired and retrieved by contemporary theologians in the Reformed tradition for whom ‘duties are founded on doctrines’.
ISSN:0953-9468
1745-5235
DOI:10.1177/0953946817701042