ABSTRACT
I suppose that some readers of my God of Grace and God of Glory1 will have been surprised not to have seen more references to Sang Hyun Lee's The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards.2 The basic thesis of the latter, that at the heart of Edwards's theology is a novel ontological scheme based on disposition, has, after all, become a standard interpretation of Edwards, built upon by a number of other works,3 and, it would seem, generally accepted by most readers. My problem in knowing how to deal with Lee's work stemmed from two factors in my estimate of his book. First, I think it is an extremely powerful work, well written and seemingly convincing. Second, I think it is simply wrong in its main thesis. The latter meant that I could not make use of the work; the former that I could not dismiss it without considerable discussion, which would have broken the flow of my own argument. An uncomfortable silence was my, perhaps unhappy, compromise.4 This chapter is an attempt to offer the sustained engagement that Lee's excellent work surely deserves, and in the process to explain why I cannot accept his conclusions. As such, I hope it will be of interest even to those who have not seen my earlier work.
