The Egoism of Jonathan Edwards

As a preacher, revivalist, philosopher and theologian, Jonathan Edwards echoes through the history of America as the foremost Christian thinker of the 18th century. Reported as "the only intellectual, modern revivalist of the Church" by the Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Geisler, 209), Edwards remains a pivotal piece of Christian America. Often connected with the strong Puritanical restraints that reflected the late colonial period of America, Edwards ethical philosophy is branded with this stereotype, not allowed to …

…off-center. The influence of such thinking on his ethic and his theology dominates too much of his writings to validate such a claim. Edwards did preach the condemnation of selfishness and all other 'sinful' actions of the Bible, however he also advocated an ethic that promoted the definition of egoism. While his attempt to unite the two under altruism ultimately fails, in Kantian terms, the argument for Edwards the egoist, however subjective, is firmly established.