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Jonathan Edwards and The Environment


CONFERENCE:  “JONATHAN EDWARDS & THE ENVIRONMENT”

 
A conference was held from October 5th through October 7th, 2007 at The First Churches in Northampton, Massachusetts to consider the relevance of the thought of Jonathan Edwards to our current environmental and ecological concerns.  Edwards was a keen observer of nature, and filled his voluminous notebooks with exact and sometimes poetic descriptions of a wide variety of natural phenomena.  He conceived of the world Neo-Platonically as an emanation of God’s external glory.  He interpreted nature as a book of types or symbols, coordinate with scripture, which shadowed forth moral and spiritual lessons.  He highly valued natural beauty since for him it was an image of divine beauty or love.  His ethics of benevolence or “consent to being in general” morally enfranchises not only human but all other sentient beings.  Clearly, then, Edwards has much to say to those working in the general fields of ecology, environmental philosophy and theology, and in the more specific fields of environmental ethics and aesthetics. 
 
Direct inquiries to:
Richard Hall
Dept. of Government & History
Fayetteville State University
1200 Murchison Road, NC 28301
Telephone:
(Home) 910-484-9478
(Office) 910-672-1573
Fax:  (910) 672-1090