Jonathan Edwards and the Life of God: Toward an Evangelical Theology of Participation

W. Ross Hastings

Jan 2015 · Fortress Press

About this ebook

Jonathan Edwards and the Life of God aims to offer a retrieval of Edwards’s theology of participation for contemporary evangelical theology. It critically expounds and elucidates the concept of participation in God, or theosis, in Edwards’s Trinitarian theology as it relates to around three unions: the three persons of the Trinity, the hypostatic union of the divine and human in Christ, and that of believers with Christ. This volume brings Edwards’s rich theological work into conversation with the patristic (Augustine and the Cappadocians) and Reformed traditions (Calvin and, especially, Barth), in order to construct with Edwards a more hopeful, liberating, and truly human version of Christian life. Consideration of the life of God in Edwards thus moves “beyond” in two senses: first, perspectives on participation beyond those of Edwards from Barth, Volf, the Cappadocian Fathers, and others in the tradition, are engaged in order to locate and critique and enhance it; and secondly, in the sense that, as Hastings argues, participation leads, for Edwards and others, into the “beyond” of the beatific vision—the glory of God.

About the author

W. Ross Hastings is associate professor of pastoral theology at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada. He is the author of Missional God, Missional Church: Hope for Re-evangelizing the West (2012), as well as articles in peer-reviewed journals such as the International Journal of Systematic Theology and Scottish Journal of Theology.