This seminar will be led by Dr. Elizabeth Cochran (Duquesne University).

What does the good life look like? Should ethics look different for Christians than for everyone else, and what might our answer to this question indicate about the beliefs and commitments important to us? This seminar explores these questions in conversation with the writings of 18th century Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards. Although today many know Edwards primarily as an American revival preacher important to the Great Awakening, the author of the sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” and the grandfather of notorious duelist Aaron Burr, Edwards was a significant American intellectual who wrote a number of influential philosophical and theological texts. We will explore Edwards’s contributions to contemporary Christian ethics by situating his writings in the broader tradition of what is known as “virtue ethics,” by comparing his understanding of Christian virtue with that of selected other historical thinkers, and by wrestling with some of the challenges his view holds for how Christians today think about grace, free will, and moral agency.

Reading: Jonathan Edwards, The Nature of True Virtue, selections