Divine Beauty Revealed
The Aesthetics of Jonathan Edwards as Seen in His Biblical Theology
- Theology
- Publisher: Pickwick Publications (Wipf and Stock)
- Published: 2025
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Publisher's Description
This book explores the theological aesthetics of Jonathan Edwards through the lens of his biblical interpretation, presenting a fresh and much-needed perspective on one of America's greatest religious thinkers. While previous scholarship has focused heavily on Edwards's philosophical or systematic theology, this study uniquely centers his aesthetic vision on Scripture. It argues that Edwards's understanding of beauty--rooted in the Triune God, revealed through Christ, and reflected in creation--is fundamentally shaped by his exegetical writings and pastoral vocation. Engaging key works such as his Sermons, Miscellanies, Religious Affections, and The Blank Bible, the book demonstrates that Edwards's theology of beauty permeates core doctrines, including the Trinity, salvation, ecclesiology, and eschatology. In contrast to Enlightenment rationalism, Edwards upheld the Bible as the supreme source of truth, interpreted through the Spirit-enabled "new sense of the heart." This study fills a critical gap in Edwards scholarship by integrating his aesthetic theology with his biblical hermeneutics, offering new insights into his vision of divine beauty and its transformative impact on the believer and the church.
Endorsements (3)
“In this insightful and beautiful book, Youngrae Kim provides a compelling study of Jonathan Edwards’s theological aesthetics, which find their apotheosis in the beatific vision of God’s sublime beauty and glory. In a way not expected, Divine Beauty Revealed stirred my heart to doxology as it described the loveliness of God’s holiness and grace.”
“This marvelous monograph on Edwards’s theology of beauty . . . offers a crucial corrective to the small but growing literature on Edwards’s aesthetics, recentering it, as Edwards would have wished, on the Bible. It enhances the small but growing literature on Edwards’s interpretation of Scripture, illuminating it in the manner of medieval monks and emphasizing the ways in which Edwards’s aesthetics informed his work on many different texts and themes of Scripture. This is now essential reading for all serious students of Edwards and early modern Protestant exegesis.”
“In distinction from many Edwardsian studies, Dr. Kim demonstrates that this leader of the First Great Awakening, while fully cognizant of Enlightenment thinking, taught that beauty is understood through biblical exegesis, shaped by scriptural hermeneutics. Divine Beauty Revealed brings together much of value: a survey of the origin of aesthetics, a review of leading theologians on aesthetics, a critique of the deistic interpretation of Edwards, and a succinct investigation of Edwards’s loci of theology and how his view of beauty informs each one. Dr. Kim’s masterful publication is an excellent addition to the libraries of pastors and scholars alike.”
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