20 May 2008

Happiness and Holiness

Never knew about this book that I just discovered: Profile of the Last Puritan: Jonathan Edwards, Self-Love, and the Dawn of the Beatific (1991). David Brand is the author, and this is his Westminster Seminary Th.M. thesis under Sam Logan.

Brand argues a conclusion I have myself come to in reading Edwards, and has helped my own heart and war against sin:

For Edwards, there was a direct connection between holiness and happiness. One could not have one without the other. . . . Edwards' view of happiness, unlike the view of the secular moral philosophers, was inseparably linked to holiness. The very foundation of God's own happiness, in Edwards' view, was God's own holiness. (pp. 76-77)

No comments: