¶ … Self-Made Man and the Recipient of Divine Grace:
Benjamin Franklin vs. Jonathan Edwards
Despite the fact that both Benjamin Franklin and Jonathan Edwards are honored as two of the greatest authors of colonial America, they could not be more different in their ideological orientations. Edwards (1703-1758) is perhaps most famous for penning the image of the human soul as a spider in the hand of a merciful God, suspended above the flames of hell in his sermon "Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God." All human beings, Edwards implied in his image, were essentially fallen beings. A true Puritan, Edwards believed there was no way for hard work to win divine favor; one could only hope to be the recipient of divine grace. In contrast, Franklin (1706-1790), despite living during roughly the same time period as Edwards, was the consummate self-made man. As well as being credited as one of the most important Founding Fathers of the new nation, Franklin is also remembered for creating the persona of Poor Richard, the author of Poor Richard's Almanac, who stressed that 'God helps those who help themselves.'
In his 1734 sermon entitled "A Divine and Supernatural Light, Immediately Imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of God, Shown to be Both Scriptural and Rational Doctrine" Edwards stresses how such insight is bestowed solely by the divine will upon humanity, not by human engineering. In his exposition of a short exchange between Jesus and Peter, Edwards in the first words of the sermon, Edwards states the following: Jesus' words to Peter, he says, imply that Jesus is saying that "thou art distinguishingly happy. Others are blinded, and have dark and deluded apprehensions…none of them thinking right, all of them misled. Happy art thou, that art so distinguished as to know the truth in this matter. 2. The evidence of this his happiness declared; viz., that God, and he only, had revealed it to him. This is an evidence of his being blessed (Edwards, "A Divine and Supernatural Light"). In short, even Peter only received the insight of Jesus' ability to save souls through divine grace, not intellectual insights or because Peter was particularly 'good.' (Interestingly enough, though, Edwards seems extremely confident in his ability to...
As activists in women's liberation, discussing and analyzing the oppression and inequalities they experienced as women, they felt it imperative to find out about the lives of their foremothers -- and found very little scholarship in print" (Women's history, 2012, para. 3). This dearth of scholarly is due in large part to the events and themes that are the focus of the historical record. In this regard, "History was
Again, this feminine passivity outshines masculine action in its ability to experience divine and even human love. As Crashaw continues, the erotic imagery becomes more emboldened and perhaps slightly more ambiguous, not clouding or confounding interpretation but suggesting several alternatives that work towards the same end of demonstrating the purity of passivity in its relation to the divine. After setting up the concept of virginity, love, and an active passivity
All human beings are, however, impure and imperfect, which does not make it very difficult to rise above the rest in terms of self-perceived perfection. In comparison to God, however, this changes. The human being who is never dissatisfied with him- or herself, however, never becomes aware that there is a contrast to be made with God. This is what Calvin appears to mean by piety. People with true knowledge
Essentially, the power was held by the individual, and the individual was lacking of all incentives to make his understanding more universal. Bacon sees this as a major obstacle to widespread progress and sees development of easily understandable tables, graphs, and illustrations necessary to the proper sharing of scientific knowledge. He writes: But natural and experimental history is so varied and diffuse, that it confounds and distracts the understanding unless it
Ethics Abe and Mary had an extremely difficult decision to make. The couple did indeed have a child to save the life of Annisa. It could be possible that in the future Marissa-Eve's relationship could be harmed by this truth. Eve may feel as though her sister's life is more important than her own. In many ways Eve was treated as a means to an end because her life was
Euthanasia The power to control the destiny of another person's life is an opiate which no person should have the ability to ingest when the control is over the persons life, or death. While medical technology has been creating new conditions by which individuals can live longer, and medical science has entered a new era regarding treatment of conditions which only a few years ago would haven the lives of those
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