Additional information
by Louis J. Mitchell (Author)
Jonathan Edwards on the Experience of Beauty relates Edwards' idea of beauty to his understanding of the psychology of religious experience. In his vocabulary of the language of beauty Edwards articulates a traditional understanding of beauty in the various relations that constitute primary and secondary beauty. All beauty, however, is ultimately founded on the beauty of God's Trinitarian being. Edwards' concept of the sense of the heart, related to his psychology of religious experience, is articulated as an infusion of God's beauty. This experience results in a new perception and manifestation of holiness and beauty in the lives of the saints, both individually and corporately. True believers are to be proportioned Christians, showing forth beauty in their affections. Edwards explicated this perspective in sermons, treatises--especially Religious Affections--and in a number of cases he presented, including the religious experiences of David Brainerd, Sarah Edwards, and his own awakening and conversion. In these cases, the language of beauty plays a prominent descriptive role. In summary, Jonathan Edwards on the Experience of Beauty shows the importance of Edwards' idea of beauty for his understanding of genuine religious experience. Edwards defines true or genuine religion as an experience of God's beauty that becomes manifested in the beauty of the affections. Further, in articulating that understanding, he utilized the vocabulary of his language of beauty. For Jonathan Edwards, beauty is the structure of genuine religious experience.
Author Biography
Louis J. Mitchell is a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and a graduate of Duquesne University. Ordained as a Presbyterian minister, he served in two churches in the Boston area before returning to Pittsburgh to become the Senior Pastor of an active congregation on the urban campus of the University of Pittsburgh, where he was also a chaplain of the university. Although Dr. Mitchell again left Pittsburgh, he continues to be a Steelers fan. For the past seventeen years he has been the senior pastor and head of staff of the historic First Presbyterian Church, Cranbury, New Jersey, which in the 1740s partnered with missionary David Brainerd in the Native American community of Bethel.
Dr. Mitchell holds a Master of Divinity degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and both a Master of Theology and Doctor of Theology degree from Harvard University. His doctoral dissertation, directed by Richard R. Niebuhr, focused on the idea of beauty in the thought of Jonathan Edwards. Dr. Mitchell's work on Edwards and beauty has been published in Theology Today, Theology Matters, and in Princeton Theological Seminary's monograph series, Studies in Reformed Theology and History. Dr. Mitchell has been an adjunct professor at Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he currently serves in that capacity. Additionally, he has lectured in the Summer Theology Program at Princeton Theological Seminary. He has also been a participant in the Pastor-Theologian Program at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey.
