June 1, 2018 Show with Jeffrey Waddington on “The Unified Operations of the Human Soul: Jonathan Edwards’ Theological Anthropology & Apologetic”

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all a happy Friday. On this first day of June 2018 and boy

I am so grateful to God that I went to the Banner of Truth U .S.

Ministers Conference which just came to a conclusion yesterday. It started on Tuesday the 29th of May and concluded on the 31st of May yesterday and I am just totally amazed that, sorry

I was just interrupted by a text from the studio in Dublin, California that's airing the show.

They just wanted to let me know everything's working fine, okay. But I was amazed at how many people as compared to last year when

I was at the Banner of Truth, how many people came up to me very excitedly and enthusiastically raving about how much they love

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. People that I had never met or heard from before, people who have never emailed in questions for the guests with the exception of a few, just totally blew me away.

It really made my year knowing how many people are out there, especially in the audiences of a ministry like Banner of Truth or should

I say, how would you phrase it, I guess you could say audiences since they have conferences but also their readership obviously since they have not only, since they are most well known for publishing the finest in reformed literature but also they do have a magazine as well.

But I was just totally blown away. I can't even think of words to adequately describe how the

Lord blessed me. That happens a lot at other reformed conferences but last year for some reason when

I went to the Banner of Truth there was only a tiny handful of people that greeted me so they listened to the program.

This time there were every day about 15 or more people that came up to me to rave about the show and I just was blown away.

And one person in particular that really blessed me, I was sitting down in the cafeteria to have lunch.

There was already seated there an Indian gentleman who I'd never before met and he looked at my name tag, looked up at me and said,

I listen to Iron Shepherd's Iron Radio in India. I am a Reformed Baptist pastor. Samuel Bupuri is my name.

I've sent you questions and now I hope that Pastor Samuel Bupuri who is the pastor of Reformed Baptist Church of Vinukonda in India, and I hope

I didn't mispronounce that, but I hope that we have begun a friendship that will last a very long time.

I hope he's listening today actually to Iron Shepherd's Iron. But enough of that for now anyway.

Oh, one more thing about that. I'm so delighted that not only did the president of the

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who I have had the privilege of interviewing once before on Iron Shepherd's Iron Radio, not only did he tell me that he would be delighted to be interviewed once again on Iron Shepherd's Iron Radio, and he assured me that he would be very enthusiastic to accept another invitation.

And of course, I am speaking about the one and only Dr. Al Mohler, but also

Alistair Begg, who I have not interviewed in years. I interviewed him once in the old show and he also reassured me that he would love to come on the show.

So pray that those two interviews develop very quickly before they both forget they ever saw me. But anyway, now to move on to the subject at hand today,

I am so delighted to have as my guest again on Iron Shepherd's Iron Radio, somebody who has quickly grown to be a very dear friend of mine, somebody who actually texts me a good morning message every single day, seven days a week, and I'm not even exaggerating.

Jeffrey C. Waddington, who is stated supply of Knox Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Lansdowne, Pennsylvania.

He's also the Secretary of the Board of the Reformed Forum. He's a panelist at Christ the

Center and East of Eden, and he is the articles editor for the

Confessional Presbyterian Journal. And today we are going to be addressing a book that he has written and also an encyclopedia that he has contributed to.

We are going to be addressing during the first hour, The Unified Operations of the Human Soul, Jonathan Edwards' Theological, Anthropology, and Apologetic.

And then in the second hour, we'll be discussing the Jonathan Edwards Encyclopedia. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Shepherd's Iron Radio, Pastor Jeffrey C.

Waddington. Oh brother, it's my privilege to be here, and I'm glad you brought up the banner because I was going to ask you how that had gone.

I had at least two friends who were there, so I was getting some feedback, and I did watch a little bit of the live streaming of that event.

Caught David Strain on the one slot in which he was speaking.

Loved that Scottish accent. Yes, I had the pleasure of meeting him and getting my photo taken with him, and I hope to have him back.

Perhaps you've heard Carl Truman say that he could prepare 10 % less for his sermons on Sunday simply because he had an

English accent in America because we love the accent, and that is really true.

I'm glad that the conference went well, and I was going to say,

Chris, just as an addendum to your comment about the brother from India, is that your friendship that you now are aware of, that this gentleman brother is listening to Iron Shepherd's Iron, that's going to go on into eternity.

It's not just a long time here, but you'll be able to cast your crown at the feet of our

Lord in the new heavens and the new earth, so that's a beautiful thing to get it started here and now.

The book that we're going to talk about, The Unified Operations of the Human Soul, which is of course a very sleek short title, was basically my

PhD dissertation at Westminster Theological Seminary, which

I submitted and graduated from that program in 2013. The book was published in 2015, and here we are in 2018, so that's five and three years back.

Hopefully, I will remember some of what I wrote in the book. You laugh, but as I'm getting on in years,

I find myself more forgetful than I like to be. Yeah, that's very comforting because I think you're younger than me, aren't you?

I'm 53. Yeah, you are. You're three years younger than me, so thank you for the insult, but anyway, before we go on to the book, tell our listeners, those who have not heard you before on this program, and by the way,

I'm amazed to learn that you are somewhat of a celebrity amongst Reformed people.

I'm amazed how many people know who you are and are blessed by your work. I think it's especially because of the

Reformed Forum, but I would say that at least three quarters of the

Reformed people who I mention your name to say, oh yes, Jeff Waddington, the Reformed Forum, great, you have

Jeff Waddington on your show? Wow! I'm like really taken aback by that, but before we go on to that, since we do have new listeners that seem to be joining us every day, tell our listeners about Knox Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Lansdowne, Pennsylvania.

Sure, Knox OPC is an original congregation that came out of the

PCUSA, the Mainline Presbyterian Church, around 1936 when the

OPC, then the original PCA, was formed.

Many of your listeners no doubt would be familiar with the whole modernist fundamentalist controversy of the 1920s and prior to that, and the whole situation at Old Princeton Seminary, and the congregation comes out of that.

It's a unique congregation within the OPC, exclusive psalm singing, etc., so it is also the congregation that Professor John Murray, hint, banner of truth,

Professor Murray was when he was not preaching elsewhere, he would attend the worship at Knox.

He was, of course, Scottish, and so he was an exclusive psalm singer, or nearly so himself, so this was his home base when in the

Philadelphia area. Now, did he go there because Knox Orthodox Presbyterian Church, unlike most

OPC congregations, was already exclusive psalmity and exclusive acapella, or did the church develop that view just to accommodate

Dr. Murray? No, it would actually, it was another pastor who introduced, so it wasn't exclusive psalm singing and non -instrumentation at the beginning.

It became that at some point after leaving the Mainline Church and becoming a part of the

OPC, and the congregation has not always been in Lansdowne, which is near Upper Darby.

In fact, it's right next to Upper Darby and Yadin, if anybody knows the suburbs and the communities around Philadelphia.

We're right on the Blue Route, that's the 476 South going toward 95.

We're not far from the Philadelphia International Airport, and I've been there almost six years.

It'll be six years in August that I've been the stated supply. By the way, your denomination really has to come up with a better term.

That is the most ridiculous term I've ever heard. That's not linked to the OPC. That's standard

Presbyterian. Sometimes you'll say regular supply, and what that means is

I'm not periodic. I do all of the things that a pastor does, which is not necessarily expected of a stated supply, but I had told the congregation, the session, when they asked me to come on board that I would want to do all those things, even though they weren't required by our

Book of Church Order. Well, I think it's a lousy term, and you've got to change it anyway.

I mean, you know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of a commercial you might see at two o 'clock in the morning. Stated supply, everything from lumber to licorice, half price.

All right, we're not a hardware store. I'm not a hardware store. Well, I actually, when

I was originally publicizing your interview, I had mistakenly put pastor there, and I said to myself, oh,

I don't want to get any flack from the Presbyterians about this. I better put stated supply. Mm -hmm.

And tell us about the Reformed Forum. Well, the Reformed Forum has now been around 10 years.

As of in January, it was our 10 -year anniversary. We just had a board of directors summit in Grand Rapids, where we met for five days, actually four days, to discuss the movement going forward in the future, vision and so forth.

Not vision in the sense of seeing things, but what we wanted under God's guidance to do.

And we had the privilege, I should say, of meeting at the

Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, where Dr. Joel Beakey is the president many thanks to Hank Klein, who is the plant operations manager there at the seminary, had a beautiful room to do recordings.

The Reformed Forum is basically an internet Christian education ministry.

We do podcasts, not unlike Iron Sharpens Iron.

We do several different kinds of podcasts. We also have written blog posts, etc.

And we now have a conference where this one, Lord willing, coming in the fall, will be our fourth annual

Reformed Forum conference. And that is typically held at our

OPC church in Grays Lake, Illinois, just outside of Chicago. Great.

And by the way, Dr. Joel Beakey is a friend of mine. I've known him for quite a long time, even before Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary existed.

And in fact, I was one of the first people to get

Dr. Beakey on the radio when I first met him. He was still in the

Netherlands Reformed denomination, and they prohibited the use of radio. Quite a hyper -Calvinistic bunch of folks there.

And they viewed using the radio to evangelize and spread the gospel as an Arminian thing.

So thankfully, he left and he and like -minded brethren formed their own denomination, the

Heritage Reformed congregation denomination. And it started out being called the

Netherlands Heritage Reformed, but they dropped the Netherlands. At least most of the congregations dropped the

Netherlands. I think he might have retained that. But anyway, he's a great brother in Christ. I always love to see and hear him preach.

I love reading his books and send my regards to him if you happen to see him. Well, I will do that.

His book, Assurance of Salvation, Assurance of Faith, I'm forgetting the exact title, was published by Banner of Truth.

Again, that was the modified version. The original was Peter Lang publishing.

Yeah, an academic press where you pay $100 plus for a book.

Which, by the way, is one of the reasons I went with the publisher I did, because the price is, you know, folk might think $25 or $35 is expensive.

But for an academic title, that's actually pretty cheap. Yeah. Tell us quickly about Christ the

Center and East of Eden. Sure. Christ the Center is the flagship podcast that the

Reformed Forum does. We fly at a rather high level academically.

That's on purpose. Basically, it grew out of table talks that I had with colleagues of mine,

Camden Busey and Jim Cassidy, who were both OP ministers and now ably amplified by Glenn Clary, among others, who are regular panelists on the program.

I'm not on the program all the time. Scheduling doesn't always allow that. It covers a whole host of theological and biblical topics.

We have other programs, but that's our flagship. Every Friday for the last 10 years, there has been a new episode.

We're in the 500s at this point. You would relate to that, Chris, with the number of views you've been doing.

Iron sharpens iron. East of Eden is dedicated to the biblical and systematic theology of Jonathan Edwards.

We haven't done a new episode for some time simply because of logistics, but we're praying that our schedules will free up at some point.

That's a program that I do with Nick Batzig, the Reverend Nick Batzig, who's pastor of New Covenant PCA outside of Savannah, Georgia, and the

Reverend Dr. David Filson, who's also in the

PCA. He's the pastor of something or other like discipleship or executive pastor at Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee.

That's a large congregation that also has a Christian school. Do you remember a couple of years ago, there was a

Christian school teacher who had a severe illness.

The students went to his house, stood out in his yard, and sang to him. It actually made the national news, like NBC, ABC, CBS, and CNN.

That teacher was the teacher at the school that has a connection with Christ Presbyterian Church.

We all do the East of Eden, and that comes from the name of one of Edward's sermons.

Actually, it wasn't the name he gave it. It's the name that the editor of the

Yale edition works of Edward's volume gave to it. We are unique in that we are unique among Edwardsians in that we are

Vantillians and Vostians and Geffenians. When we come to Edwards, we come to Edwards with a certain perspective that is unique.

It's not that we purposely set out to do that, but it's who we are. You can find those podcasts also on the

Reform Forum website. Great. We'll be announcing all of that before we go off the air with Pastor Jeff.

Last but not least, in regard to your resume here, tell us about the

Confessional Presbyterian Journal. Confessional Presbyterian Journal is actually the type—we've published stuff by—article stuff is not a very precise word—material by Reformed Baptists, Continental Reformed folks.

In fact, most recently, Richard Marcellos, who is a

Reformed Baptist pastor out in California— Yes, I've had Rich on the program. In fact, just very recently, actually,

I've had him on the program. So he's been published at least once, maybe twice, in the pages of the Confessional Presbyterian Journal.

It's a once -a -year journal ranging, I guess, around 275 pages or so.

It's an academic or learned journal, but it's also got practical concerns in terms of the life of the

Christian in the church. Very often, we have a theme that each issue is built around.

We had one issue that was built around John Murray, one around B .B. Warfield. I think we had one on Machen, one on Calvin when we had the five -anniversary of Calvin a few years back.

I guess the one thing that I've added to my resume is I'm an adjunct professor of systematic theology at Westminster Seminary in Glenside now.

Oh, yeah, I did forget to mention that. I'm sorry. That's okay. I mean, I got off to an auspicious start by having my course on Edwards canceled.

Wow. I didn't have enough students. It was announced late. Normally, they give a month or two of time for students to consider what courses they want to take.

I'm hoping to offer it again. It's really based upon the book that we're talking about. I taught it in Taiwan a year ago.

I was over in Taiwan at the China Reform Theological Seminary in Taipei and for two weeks

I taught there. I had a wonderful time, by the way, with brothers and sisters in the

Lord. I had an opportunity to preach as well as to teach the course and also to deliver the graduation sermon to the seminary graduating class.

Great. That was exciting. That's all by God's grace. I would never have guessed 30 -plus years ago that I would have these opportunities.

Well, going back to the confessional Presbyterian, it does sound like a redundancy.

It's almost like saying the dunking Baptist. I'm guessing that the reason that title was chosen for this journal is there is a view by those involved in the journal that although technically all

Presbyterian denominations are confessional, I'm assuming the view would be that many are not actually adhering to it.

That would be putting it nicely. You're right.

It is somewhat very redundant, but of course you know that the mainline Presbyterian Church departed from the confessional standard of the

Westminster Confession and larger and shorter catechism many years ago and made it official in 1967 when they turned the confession into the equivalent of a painting on the museum wall.

I read that somewhere. That's what they did with all the confessions.

Going back to the Apostles' Creed, they basically turned them into museum pieces. There is a remnant of faithful men in the

PCUSA, even in the pastorate, but you could hardly say that the denomination at large is at all faithful to the confession.

In fact, you even have apostasy in that denomination as far as I'm concerned. Remember, I'm OPC, so I'm going to take a hard line on the

PCUSA. The journal may be another way of saying it, and we mean it.

Confessional Presbyterians, we mean it. We try to take those things seriously, theological and biblical commitments.

Well, moving on to the book, The Unified Operations of the Human Soul, Jonathan Edwards' Theological Anthropology and Apologetic.

Obviously, you were joking earlier when you talked about the brevity of the title, but this is your doctoral dissertation in print, and it makes sense when you see this theme or this title because aren't doctoral dissertations purposefully supposed to be written on something that has not been done before?

In the abstract or in the ideal sense, it's supposed to be original research.

With Jonathan Edwards, it gets pretty hard to say something that hasn't been said by someone somewhere at some point in the past.

As of 2005, there were 5 ,000 pieces of secondary literature on Edwards.

In other words, people writing about Edwards or some aspect of his theology. I realize that's now 13 years ago, so that figure has probably multiplied geometrically, if not astronomically.

By the way, a wise guy in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, who's a regular listener to our show,

Ted, says, Did you know that J. Gresham Machen once played canasta at Jeff's church?

Well, there are stories of Machen used to host students to play checkers in his room.

I believe he did it at Princeton, but also carried on the tradition when he established

Westminster. And remember, when Machen was alive, Westminster was downtown, not far from 10th

Presbyterian Church on 17th and Spruce in Philadelphia, Center City, as we like to call it.

I remember that church well because that's where I went for a number of years to the precious memories of cutting my teeth on the

Reformed faith at those conferences. You can actually find a beautiful marble plaque in the sanctuary dedicated to him.

Back when Westminster was still located in that neck of the woods in Center City, it used to be the nickname for Westminster was

Barnhouse Theological Seminary because that's when in the heyday of Donald Gray Barnhouse being the pastor at 10th.

And of course, he was well known as not only as a world -renowned preacher, but also as a radio preacher in his own right back in the 20s and 30s and 40s.

Well, we are going to go to our first break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air the question for Jeffrey C.

Waddington. By the way, I just want to get an update on how to properly introduce you.

Are you a doctor yet? I've been a doctor since 2013. So I've been wrongly or insufficiently inadequately introducing you ever since I met you then.

That's okay, brother. It's not a problem. Okay. Well, Dr. Waddington, if you have a question for him, he will be returning after the break.

And by the way, Dr. Waddington, I have to tell you that since you are on Skype, and that's one of the things, the only thing that's disappointing me about this interview is that you normally come into the studio here, and we have a nice time of fellowship typically even over a meal before and after the show.

So I am a bit saddened by the lack of your presence here. But just to let you know that if you are going to be speaking with anyone, if you're going to be flushing a toilet or anything like that during the station break, put your microphone on mute because it will be heard over the airwaves.

I have no way for some reason unless somebody can show me in the studio equipment how to mute a

Skype guest. I don't see any way. I do know how to do that at my end, so don't have no fears.

All right, great. But if anybody would like to join us with a question of your own for Dr. Waddington, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

chrisarnson at gmail dot com. Please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old

USA. Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages with Dr. Jeffrey C.

Waddington and our discussion on The Unified Operations of the Human Soul, Jonathan Edwards Theological Anthropology and Apologetic.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnsen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. If you just tuned us in, my guest today for the full two hours with about 90 minutes to go is

Jeffrey C. Waddington, Dr. Jeffrey C. Waddington. We are discussing his book, The Unified Operations of the

Human Soul. Jonathan Edwards, Theological Anthropology and Apologetic. Then we'll be moving on to announcing the

Jonathan Edwards Encyclopedia to which our guest contributed. If you'd like to join us on the air with questions of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

USA. By the way, the voice you just heard, Pastor Bill Shishko, formerly the pastor of the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Franklin Square, New York, now retired and operating

Reformation Metro New York, a power church organization under the headship of the

Orthodox Presbyterian denomination, and host of a visit to the pastor's study, which I hope you all are listening to, or at least will begin to this

Saturday, tomorrow, from 12 noon Eastern time to 1 p .m.

Eastern time on wlie540am .com, or in the

New York tri -state area, parts of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island on 540 at the a .m.

or on the a .m. dial. But Pastor Bill Shishko is a mutual friend of my guest today,

Dr. Jeffrey C. Waddington, and myself, and he is quite a dear brother in Christ, is he not,

Dr. Waddington? He is, and we not only know him, but he's a close friend of one of the members of my congregation who used to be a member of the

OPC work in Franklin Square. Amen, and he speaks very highly of you,

Brother Jeff, and is delighted that I have been interviewing you. But let's move on now to this very interesting and unusual title.

I feel like going through the title, just like John MacArthur exegetes a pastor of scripture, by one, each word at a time, he'll do, he'll spend at least a half hour on each word.

Let's start with the, no, I'm only kidding, unified operations of the human soul.

That is an interesting phrase, so if you could, what is that?

Well, it's dealing with Edward's concern that the human soul, or personality, or the heart, or the, if you want a more technical term, dispositional complex.

Our human, the center of our being, is created by God to operate in a unified fashion.

That means the intellect, or understanding, the will, and the emotions, that these operate together.

And what I'm responding to, and what Edward was responding to, was what is often referred to in the technical literature as faculty psychology.

And faculty simply means a power, or a capacity of the human mind, or the human soul.

Ah, I see, and I think, if I'm not mistaken, doesn't this then perhaps delve into Edward's view of the human will prior to the fall, which actually there is some disagreement amongst

Calvinists over his approach to this, am I correct in assuming this? Yes, Edward's, as you may know, is appreciated.

Even I don't, I'm not, I don't, I'm not, I wouldn't call myself an Edwardian. I'm an appreciator of Edward's in the way

I think that the professors at Old Princeton would appreciate him. And so, but on this point,

I think Edward's is exactly right. And I understand that there, because it's a doctoral dissertation, there is someone

I have to disagree with. And that person happens to be the venerable

John Gerstner. Ah, yes, I love Dr. Gerstner, but he did have some unique views that were not shared even by someone who, now in glory with him, viewed

Dr. Gerstner as his mentor. Dr. R .C. Sproul did not even agree with some of the things that our dear brother in Christ, now in glory,

John Gerstner, believed, including the free offer of the gospel. Yeah, it's, with regard to Dr.

Gerstner, it's a very fine point. In other words, I want to, and I say this in the book, that I'm not disagreeing with the, you know,

I guess you would say the majority of what Dr. Gerstner did in his work with Edwards.

I would be on this, I would be in the trenches with Dr. Gerstner in terms of the larger

Edwards academic community. I remember, you know, talking with people who had comments to make about Dr.

Gerstner, and I'm thinking, if only you knew what I thought, you'd be equally, you know, disturbed with my views.

So on this, and the particular issue is, in his book on classical apologetics, which he co -authored with R .C.

Sproul and Art Lindsley, he talks about the fall affecting the intellect indirectly.

Yeah, they were opposed to presuppositionalism. Yes. But not now. Now they know better.

That's a joke, John, right? Everybody that we disagree with, if they're believers, they're in glory and they know better.

But, so the fine point is, what does it actually, what did he mean by indirect noetic effects of sin?

And I challenge that, but that really is the occasion for my study, but it is not like I spend all my time dealing with Dr.

Gerstner. He's kind of the excuse, to put it another way, of doing the research.

It's what got me interested and and sent me off on looking at the human soul, the heart.

Biblically, and I think this is where Edwards was, and this accounts for the subtitle,

Jonathan Edwards Theological Anthropology is another way of saying doctrine of man, okay?

And apologetic would be defense of the faith. So if you need to translate that, you could say Jonathan Edwards doctrine of man and his defense of the faith and how they relate.

So I'm arguing that Edwards, and the other argument that I'm making against Gerstner is that Edwards is not the nice, clean, classical apologist that Dr.

Gerstner portrayed him to be, if for no other reason, because he predates these distinctions that we now take for granted at different schools of apologetics.

It's quite interesting that you would find, well it just shows you that something that even

Dr. Gerstner believed was true, that we are fallible, finite, and far from perfect on this earth, but it's amazing that a man, you would find disagreement with a man over Edwards when he immersed his life into the teaching and history and life and legacy of Jonathan Edwards.

Next to the Bible, that is probably what he immersed himself into more than anything, and yet here you are disagreeing with the great

Dr. Gerstner. That may say more about me than him, but Dr.

Gerstner, understand Dr. Gerstner himself, a student of Edwards, did not hold to Edwards' idealism, and if we need to,

I can explain what that means. Yeah, well, why don't you, but whenever you can, because it is kind of interesting how he is in many ways,

Dr. Gerstner was in many ways, very close to the theology of the

Protestant Reform denomination, and that would seem to militate against Edwards in many points, but anyway, if you can.

What I was thinking of is Dr. Gerstner did his PhD work at Harvard in the 1940s, and Gerstner came up in the ranks with the great names of the broader, the resurgence, the academic resurgence amongst evangelical scholars like Carl Henry, Kenneth Conster, E .J.

Carnell, all these folks that I read about as a new

Christian and wanted to learn more about, and I did, and I have, and Van Til, so all these great, great folks, and Gerstner went to Harvard, and he did his work on, broadly speaking,

Scottish common sense realism. It's specifically the work of James MacCosh, who was a

Scottish Presbyterian minister and president of Princeton back about the time,

James MacCosh came to Princeton at the same time that B .B. Warfield entered into his studies at what is now

Princeton University, and MacCosh was an advocate of this school of philosophy called

Scottish common sense realism. Now, Scottish common sense realism is a reaction to idealism, and it's also a reaction to David Hume's form of,

I would call it, skeptical empiricism. Idealism as a philosophical school goes all the way back to Plato, and the concept,

I can't even get away from the use of words that are similar, the idea of forms, patterns, you may be sitting at a table, it's not a perfect table, it's one particular instance of a table, but there is, it does exist in another dimension, in the realm of forms, the perfect table, or the pattern of the perfect table.

That's a form of idealism, but specifically, Edwards embraces what

I would call Trinitarian theistic idealism, and in his day, it had the sense of building on, although not being slavish, to John Locke, the

British philosopher, and also, Edwards has some similarity to the

Bishop George Berkeley. If you read his name in print, it looks like Berkeley, but it's pronounced

Barkley, and specifically, the idea of what is real is what is perceived, or to be is to be perceived.

You know the question, if a tree falls in a forest and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?

Right. That's an idealism question. Only an idealist would really, or someone who's familiar with idealism would appreciate that question.

That sounds like a philosopher's question, rather than a theologian's. It is, and my response is, yes, it makes a sound, because God is there.

I mean, that's how I, and that's, I think, how Edwards would answer, but anyways, getting back to the larger question, is

Edwards is challenging in his day, and it's partially in defense, although not only in defense of the

Great Awakening, but he's defending the idea that true

Christianity involves the whole person. Intellect, will, and if you include the emotions as distinct from the will, he didn't.

He follows in a grand tradition of thinking of the human soul as having the intellect and the will, and the emotions are simply vigorous actions of the will.

That's his understanding. So, I hope just from all of this that I've said, you can kind of get a sense of how this would connect with apologetics.

If you think that the fallen human being is someone whose intellect and will are equally fallen, but in different ways reflective of how

God has made the intellect is over against the will. The intellect is the means whereby we understand, the will is the means whereby we are attracted to or repulsed from something.

Okay, and so Edwards would say that a human being, whether created or fallen or restored or in the consummation, a human being does not have inside himself little critters running around who are miniature people.

Sometime, and this is one of the caricatures that John Locke makes in his essay, his treatise on human understanding, that the faculties, the understanding of faculties in the philosophy of Edwards' day and Locke's day before that, often treated the intellect as over against the will, as over against the emotions, as if there were three people battling it out for supremacy in the human soul.

And that doesn't square with scripture, is basically Edwards' point. So that anybody that argues for the absolute primacy of the intellect or the absolute primacy of the will, and there is disputes in the history of the

Christian church. One movement is called intellectualism and is manifested in the work of Thomas Aquinas, and then there's voluntarism, which is the primacy of the will, and that's exemplified in the work of Duns Scotus.

It just happens to be two major medieval theologians, and this was a big debate in the

Middle Ages, and it still is carried on today, believe it or not. Well, we have to go to a break, and I want to read you a question that has a lot to do with what you're talking about, actually, and then

I'm going to have you answer the question when we return from the break. And by the way, when we're on this break, this is our long 12 -minute midway break that we have to have that length because Grace Life Radio 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, who broadcasts this program a day after the live airing of it, they require a 12 -minute break because they air their own commercials and public service announcements and things.

So I would strongly urge you to mute your microphone because that's a long time to not be able to make any noise, and I'm sure whether they are voluntarily or involuntarily made, those noises will be heard by our listeners.

But Jennifer in Gardnerville, Nevada says, how would you compare

Jonathan Edwards' apologetic methodology to others such as Van Til, Gordon Clark, Francis Schaeffer, or Edward Carnell?

And in your opinion, whose apologetic was most consistent with a biblical anthropology?

Very, very wise question from a very learned woman. Which I have an opinion.

And we will have you, and I'm going to forward you her email so you can have it right in front of you, and you can answer that when we return.

If anybody else would like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. I will allow people to have pastoral questions for our guest since Dr.

Waddington is a pastor. So you can ask off topic since we are talking about Edwards, but I'm not going to restrict anyone from asking a pastoral question.

So I can understand a pastoral question being requested to remain anonymous.

But otherwise, please give us your first name, city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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Waddington and the Unified Operations of the Human Soul, Jonathan Edwards Theological Anthropology and Apologetic.

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I have to enlarge the question from Jennifer from Gardnerville, Nevada, so I can read it because I'm going blind, and the question says, how would you compare

Jonathan Edwards' apologetic methodology to others such as Van Till, Gordon Clark, Francis Schaeffer, or Edward Carnell, and in your opinion, whose apologetic was most consistent with a biblical anthropology?

Well, that's a detailed question. I am a

Van Tillian in terms of my approach to apologetics, so that's, as I consider

Edwards, my perspective is that Van Till offers the best, most biblical, confessionally reformed, consistent form of apologetic.

That doesn't mean I can't learn from others with whom I have differences. Now, Jennifer asked specifically, how does

Edwards compare to Van Till, and Gordon Clark, Francis Schaeffer, and EJ, or Edward Carnell?

Understandably, Edwards was a reformed pastor theologian, pastor apologist, so there are going to be points of contact, points of similarity.

It's interesting that Ava Chamberlain, who, as far as I know, is not a believer.

She's one of the editors of the 26 -volume Yale edition of the works of Edwards. She says that Edwards argued for belief in the biblical

God from the perspective of the truth of that doctrine. In other words, he argued from belief in the biblical triune

God and not to it, which is typically the classical method. In my book,

I describe the classical method, which would be advocated by someone like B .B.

Warfield and John Gerstner and R .C.

Sproul. The others that Jennifer asked about are actually Clark, Schaeffer, and Carnell are variations of what has historically been called presuppositional apologetic.

That designation is not particularly helpful. In more recent days, the expression covenantal apologetic has been adopted, and for lack of anything better at this point, that's what

I go with. Van Til is often considered a revelational presuppositionalist, and Clark and Schaeffer and Carnell are varieties of rational presuppositionalists.

Edwards is none of those. Depending on what you're reading, he could look like Clark, Schaeffer, Carnell, Gerstner, or Van Til.

He's eclectic. He historically predates the hard and fast distinctions we make between various schools of the ways of doing apologetics, evidentialism, classical presuppositional or covenantal apologetics, reformed epistemology, and cumulative case.

Those are the standard forms of doing apologetics, and they obviously share many things in common.

However, Edwards comes before the watershed of Immanuel Kant and G .F

.W. Hegel, two relatively well -known German idealist philosophers who are also key to the rise of postmodernism, but that's another subject for a different day.

Edwards, insofar as he's arguing for the unified operations of the human soul, whether it be considered as fallen, that is, every aspect of human nature is fallen.

It's not as if the intellect is somehow exempt from the fall. It's not as if the will is somehow exempt from the fall.

The professors at Old Princeton, the early ones, Samuel Miller and Archibald Alexander, embodied

Edwards' view, by the way. They shared the same view, as did Warfield and as did

Old Princeton as a whole. Their anthropology,

I would argue their apologetic didn't always match their understanding of the human soul, but they all understood the human soul as being not a hierarchical structure of intellect, will, and emotions, but that they were all equally created good, equally fallen in the fall, equally being restored in salvation, and specifically in sanctification, and then will one day be glorified.

That affects how we do apologetics. We don't assume that an intellectual argument by itself will win a person.

It takes the Holy Spirit to do that, and Edwards will say that over and over again. That's the short answer to the question.

He looks like each one of those apologists at different points, but I'd say he's his own guy insofar as he reflects his era.

There'll be much in common with Van Till, and you would have to be familiar with the whole development of Reformed theology and what's now called

Reformed scholasticism for me to fill out the details. Well, thank you,

Jennifer. Excuse me, what was that about? A long answer to a relatively short question.

Oh, okay. Well, it wasn't that short of a question, actually. I think the depth of the question required the response that you gave.

Thank you, Jennifer, in Gardnerville, Nevada. Please give us your full mailing address there in Gardnerville so we can mail you a free copy of the book,

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for doing that. And we have Gordy in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who says,

R .C. Sproul considered Jonathan Edwards' Freedom of the Will the greatest piece of American literature ever published.

Would you agree with his assertion? And given the difficulty of reading much of Edwards' writings, would

Luther's Bondage of the Will be more digestible for the average reader?

I would say Freedom of the Will, it took me two or three readings before I finally, you know, it clicked.

Bondage of the Will, I think you would get in your first pass. Luther, as anyone who's familiar with Luther, his life and his writing style is very energetic.

Both books are actually, they're a debate with other people.

Luther, of course, is debating Erasmus, the Dutch Roman Catholic priest and humanist scholar.

Bondage of the Will by Luther is just a wonderful book in its own right.

Freedom of the Will is much more philosophical, you know, a different style.

But I would say Freedom of the Will is one of those books that is iconic and is ignored more than it's addressed.

Although it is being addressed recently because there are people, for instance,

Richard Muller, the great scholar at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, has given a lecture that I think you can find online at the

Jonathan Edwards Center at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where he says that Edwards' view of the

Freedom of the Will is different from the classical Reformed understanding. It would take a lot of time to explain all of that.

And there's been a full book published by someone following in his footsteps. So, it'll be interesting to see what influence that may have in the assessment of Edwards.

But Freedom of the Will is an iconic book. But yeah, to answer the question,

Luther would be probably for the average person in the pew, if there is such a person, would be,

I'd say both, but start with Luther and then go to Edwards. Well, thank you,

Gordy. And since you live in Mechanicsburg, why don't you swing by Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service on North Hanover Street in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, since it's only probably 10 minutes away from you, why don't you swing by there on Monday and pick up your free copy of The Unified Operations of the

Human Soul by our guest Jeffrey C. Waddington. They do not have them there yet. In fact, they're already closed by now anyway, so you'll have to go by Monday to get that.

Thanks a lot for contributing a great question. Let's see. Oh, by the way, we have a questioner that asks of you something that you are just hinting at, so you will have an opportunity.

Oh, okay. We have RJ in White Plains, New York. RJ says, about a year or so ago you interviewed

Walt Chantry, the very well -known and beloved Reformed Baptist, one of the pioneers of Reformed Baptist thinking in the

United States in the mid 20th century, and he said during your interview that he radically disagreed with Jonathan Edwards' understanding of the freedom of the human will, in fact laid partially the blame for the spread of Arminianism in the

United States to this view. Can your guest please explain what

Pastor Walt Chantry was speaking about and whether or not he disagrees or disagrees with Pastor Chantry's assertion?

By the way, Pastor Walt Chantry was the second or third pastor of the church where I am a member, and he was there the longest period of time having served there for 40 years, but of course that doesn't mean that you have to agree with everything that he says or writes just because he was an iconic or is an iconic figure amongst

Reformed Baptists. But anyway, go ahead. Well, I don't know why he in particular rejected

Edwards. Do you remember, Chris? He didn't really go into the issue at depth from what

I recall. It was quite a while ago. It may have been two years ago. I do remember him saying though that he did lay a part of the blame to the switch over, if you will, from Calvinism being a dominant view amongst

Protestants to becoming a minority view. He laid partially the blame for that in his opinion to Jonathan Edwards' understanding of the freedom of the will, which he seemed to link more with something compatible with Arminianism, but he didn't go into great depth about it.

Yeah, if it's not compatible with Arminianism at all, in fact, that's what it's arguing against.

If you could include in your answer, why would he come to that conclusion, and also others?

Well, I don't know anybody. That's the first time I've ever heard someone actually attribute the rise of Arminianism to Edwards' freedom of the will when

I would say it was the busyness of evangelism on the part of Free Will Baptists and Methodists, you know, circuit riders riding from town to town, not requiring the level of education that typically

Reformed, whether they be Baptist or Presbyterian or, you know,

Continental Reformed, require. So that is a multifaceted, complex issue.

I can tell you that some of the issues that come into play would be whether Edwards believed in the distinction between creation and providence or primary and secondary causality.

So there are plenty of things that I might pick at bones with Edwards were he alive here and able to talk with me, with us on the program.

But I think the larger argument that Edwards makes in freedom of the will has never been refuted.

And with all due respect to the great Richard Muller, I don't think what he's done refutes it either.

In fact, there's a fair bit of scholarship that I have on my computer, which undermines his whole argument, but that's perhaps if we want to do a follow -up program at some time, we could address that.

But I suppose what Reverend Chantry might have been talking about would be the fact that the followers of Edwards, the ostensible followers of Edwards, sometimes referred to as the

New Divinity or New England theology, they did veer toward Arminianism, but not in the sense of being followers of Arminius, but being not

Calvinistic. Something like when we watch the news and we're seeing something about the

Middle East, and they talk about Christians and Muslims, and when they say

Christians, what they mean is not Muslim or not Hindu or not Buddhist. It's not referring to their spiritual condition.

Right, right. Just like in Great Britain, Christian really just meant you were an Englishman.

Right, exactly. And so in this case, there were followers, so -called followers of Edwards, who ended up teaching the exact opposite of what

Edwards believed. And the Edwards writing, not only in Freedom of the

Will, but his book on original sin and religious affections and the end for which God created the world and the nature of true virtue, these are all interwoven.

They form a cohesive whole, and I'd be curious, maybe you can act as an intermediary,

Chris. Is Reverend Chantry still alive? Yes, he is. Okay, ask him if you can, ask him what he meant.

In fact, I would love to have you on the program with him, perhaps. Yeah, no, that would be fine, because I would be curious as to what he was getting.

All right, let me just say something that, and I could be totally off base here, but perhaps you could just flesh out what is like wandering through the sewers of my mind here.

I seem to recall that there was some disagreement that Edwards had with some other

Reformed believers about the will over the ability issue.

Oh yeah, moral versus natural ability. Yeah, like for instance, you know, in Romans 8, where it's clearly stated that because the mind is set on the flesh, it is hostile toward God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so.

I thought that I remember hearing that Edwards took more of a view regarding the affections of non -believers not being conducive to coming to Christ, rather than an inability, but I might be wrong on that.

Well, he wouldn't distinguish in the two ways that you've talked about it.

He would say that those sweetly comply. In other words, when he talked about not that we lack natural, that the unbeliever, the fallen sinner, doesn't lack natural ability, but lacks moral ability.

Now, for him, understand that moral and natural, one is not less absolute than the other.

So to say that something is morally so, in other words, the intellect still functions, even though in the fallen sinner, right?

Not the way it was meant to. In other words, we are created to, you know, as the

Westminster shorter and larger catechism put it, to glorify God and to enjoy him forever, right?

And so the highest thing that the human intellect can do is worship

God and to glorify him and to enjoy fellowship with him.

And when a human being is not doing that, then the purpose for which

God created him is not being fulfilled. Now, just a few moments ago, you had mentioned that there were some that thought that Edwards had a different approach to the human will than other

Reformed theologians. What were you talking about? Richard Muller says that Edwards' view departs from the classic

Reformed view, which distinguishes between primary and secondary causality, and the second is that it's necessity and contingency.

In fact, he does not differ from that. And Dr. Muller is a brilliant man, and we owe so much to him in terms of learning about Reformed scholasticism.

That is the period, those theologians who came after the Reformers up until about the time of the

Westminster Divines shortly thereafter. That period of time of development of Reformed doctrine is referred to as Reformed scholasticism.

And the Westminster Standards and the London Baptist Confession all are examples of Reformed scholasticism.

Okay, so and Edwards has inherited that. And if you cherry -pick a writer, you're bound to be able to create a

Frankenstein quite easily. Now, do you think that that could be where...

Well, as I said, I better have Walt back on the show. Yeah, I'm not accusing him of that.

I do think that Dr. Muller was reading portions of Edwards and not the whole thing.

And so he made some accusations that Edwards denied secondary causality, basically.

It's the common view that Edwards held to both occasionalism and continuous creationism.

Seeing as we're in this quagmire, we might as well make the most of it. Edwards, continuous creationism is the idea that God recreates the world, the universe every moment.

And occasionalism is the view that God is the only agent, active agent in the universe.

You can see how those two doctrines, if Edwards held them, and if he did, and that's debated.

Everything is debated in scholarly circles. But those two issues are debated, or at least the nature, if he held those views, the nature of them.

But you can see how that would undermine the distinction between creation and providence.

He would simply say, well, what's the difference between creation and providence? The creation is the first instance, and providence is the second, third, fourth, and fifth, and so on.

But Edwards does not deny secondary causality. That's where I think

Richard Muller runs afoul of his understanding. His presentation, his lecture, is actually about 19th century, or reception of Edwards' freedom of the will in Scotland, the whole thing.

So it's a bit indirect. He's actually dealing with William Cunningham, and his acceptance of Edwards' freedom of the will.

It would be great to talk with Reverend Chantry and find out exactly what he had in mind.

I've not met any Arminian who ever accredited Jonathan Edwards' freedom of the will. Oh, I don't think that...

...becoming an Arminian... I don't think that an Arminian might necessarily do that himself.

I'm just saying that Walt was looking at the big picture. He seemed to come to that conclusion, and he did have some negative feedback from fellow

Reformed Baptists on that. But also, Arminians, though, as you know, and please forgive me if you think

I'm broad brushing. I don't mean to. But many Arminians, let me put it that way, do, as you were saying, cherry -pick the greatest heroes of Calvinism and try to make

Arminians out of them very often, like Charles Spurgeon is the greatest example of all, of course.

Yeah, I mean, which is laughable. If you're familiar, in -depth familiar with someone like Charles Spurgeon or Jonathan Edwards, again, these are not perfect men, and they're not always consistent with themselves, let alone with the word of God and the confessional heritage that we have.

But so that's an interesting question. I would say freedom of the will, the argument itself is basically that there is no such thing as an unmotivated act of the will.

We're going to our final break right now. In fact, let me just read a brief question here from another listener.

We have, oh, we have Pastor David Bissett from Clifton Park, New York, who says,

I met you at the Banner of Truth conference this week. Thought you resembled John Marshall of the

UK. And I will have to find out what John Marshall looks like so I can know whether or not I should be insulted by that.

He says, great to finally get the chance to listen to the show online while catching up on my office here in upstate

New York. Enjoying your guest, Dr. Jeffrey C. Waddington, as well. Sorry, no question at present.

Oh, OK. Well, Pastor Bissett, if you have a question, please submit one before we run out of time.

I should say, Chris, before you jump, is that I'm from, I grew up in the Albany, New York area, and Clifton Park is just north of that, below Saratoga, so I'm familiar with that neck of the woods.

Great. Well, send us a question, Pastor Bissett, and let me, in fact, give a plug to Clifton Park Community Church there in upstate

New York. The website is cliftonparkcommunitychurch .org. That's cliftonparkcommunitychurch .org.

I always like to plug a good, solid, reformed church when I get an on -air question or comment from a pastor.

We're going to our final break right now, and if you'd like to join us, email us at chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. If you just tuned us in, our guest has been for the last 90 minutes or more,

Dr. Jeffrey C. Waddington, who is going to be our guest for another 20 minutes approximately.

We are now discussing the Jonathan Edwards Encyclopedia edited by Harry S.

Stout. And if you'd like to join us, please send an email immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Tell us about this enormous volume, the

Jonathan Edwards Encyclopedia. It is over 614 pages long.

Tell us about it. Sure. This came out, I believe, last

December. So it's been out for a few months. It is unique in that it was created by,

I guess, what we call crowdsourcing. In other words, the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University, which is the center that handles the

Yale edition of Edwards' works. That's Harry Stout, the general editor for the

Yale edition of the works of Edwards. Adrian Neal is a professor, among other places, at Puritan Reform Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids that we talked about earlier.

An expert on reform scholasticism that I mentioned. Emails were sent out to those in the

Edwards scholarly community about the desire to put together an encyclopedia.

They had a list of some, I think it was 2 ,000 or so, subjects.

Those of us who were interested had to sign up for a particular topic.

We were given a deadline for when those topic entries had to be. We were given a word count.

Then, some articles were longer than others. They had long, medium, and short, basically, depending on the subject matter.

Over a period of two or three years, or whatever the length of time was, they finally gathered all of those together.

In this volume, it's alphabetical. It covers pretty much everything related to Edwards in terms of theology, biblical studies, political situations, theological and philosophical trends, science, and everything that would be relevant to the study of Edwards in one place.

It's a one -stop shopping experience, if I can put it that way. I had the privilege of contributing four of the entries.

They were all one, one -and -a -half, two -page -length articles on Calvinism, the history of the work of redemption, on the mind, and the will.

So, as you can see, those were related to various interests that I have with regard to Edwards.

It looks like it's a must -have for every pastor, especially.

As I said, it's a one -stop shopping experience. There are two other books that have been similar, but I think it can be said that this is the most comprehensive, and that's why it's called an encyclopedia.

It covers everything that, in other words, if you were wanting to introduce someone to the thought of Edwards, and you knew that they were really serious about it, this would be the book that I would recommend they turn to.

And they're short, they're brief. As you can see, Chris, if you've got a copy, and I think you do, you see that the entries are not long.

Yes. Well, we have a listener in Hilltop Lakes, Texas.

Linda. Dear Chris, Jonathan Edwards is esteemed by the

Reformed community as America's greatest theologian. However, by and large, Reformed people no longer hold to his eschatology.

Edwards stated he believed that the Great Awakening of the 1740s was a prelude to that glorious work of God so often foretold in Scripture.

Edwards was the first to clearly articulate a post -millennial eschatology, even if not by name.

It seems that other Puritans and Reformers held this optimistic eschatology. The Civil War and World Wars I and II burst the bubble for many, but God's word should be filtered through our experience.

We have the actual question that she has for you. Does your research, meaning you,

Dr. Waddington, on Jonathan Edwards confirm that he, Edwards, in fact, was post -millennial, and do you think the renewed interest in the writings of Jonathan Edwards and other

Puritans is bringing about a renewed interest in his eschatology? Well, those are good questions.

I, for the longest time, thought that Jonathan Edwards was a pure post -millennialist.

That's the designation that the world is getting increasingly Christianized until the Lord comes back.

That's what post -millennialism means primarily. More recently, more details have been filled in in terms of the background behind Edwards' view, the development of what

I would call a post -millennialism with some pre -millennial flavor, spices thrown in.

That's how I would describe it. There's a connection with a gentleman by the name of Joseph Mead.

He taught at either Oxford or Cambridge. I forget right now. He was a well -known commentator on eschatology, the

Book of Revelation, etc. Became very influential amongst independents in the

UK, and then that came over to the colonies. I, myself, am an amillennialist, or I would prefer to call it present -reign millennialist.

Whether Edwards' views, renewed interest in Edwards generally, is contributing to a post -millennial eschatology,

I don't see that. Probably the one area where people disagree with him, who do like Edwards, this would be the one area where there's a consistent disagreement with him.

Of course, it's related to the whole question of whether the

Great Awakening was, in fact, a precursor to the coming in of the kingdom, the

Christianization, and that's all tied into what we call

American exceptionalism. Of course, that's an issue debated today, isn't it?

Is America exceptional? That very question is built upon, for instance,

Edwards' notion of the role of America. For Edwards, he's

British. He sees himself as a citizen of the king, as a loyal citizen.

Would he have supported the revolution had he lived long enough to see it?

That's an interesting question. It's pure speculation. He did interact with the political leaders in Massachusetts.

He had regularly corresponded with the governor, with the secretary, what we would call the state secretary of the

Commonwealth, the colonies, etc. He knew the movers and shakers in the political realm in his day.

But being called the last Puritan, I'm assuming he would have had his radical opposition in some ways to the state church of England.

Oh, certainly he was not an Anglican by any stretch, nor a Roman Catholic.

Those things are pretty straightforward in Edwards. So yeah, he is a

Congregationalist. Although he... Not to be confused with modern -day

Congregationalism. Although there are excellent Savoy declaration -loving

Congregationalists today, they are very rare, and most of them are totally apostate in the

United Church of Christ. And he ended up being president of Princeton, which was a

Presbyterian institution. And he said, after his deposition from the pulpit in Northampton, getting kicked out, he said, you know,

I actually kind of like that Presbyterian form of government as opposed to the chaotic stuff we have in New England.

And of course, I'm sure that was highly colored by his experience of being let go from the ministry in Northampton, Massachusetts.

I was going to say, Chris, the questions that I've been getting, it reminds me of a poster that was on the door of the late

Dr. Harvey Kahn, a professor of missions at Westminster, and it was a mock test. And I often ask myself, is this a mock test in the sense of being, this is a pretend test, or is it mocking me?

It went like this. Here was the question. Give a history of the world from creation till now.

By the way, Jeff, are you there? Because you have to repeat everything you said, because we lost connection moment, very temporarily lost connection.

And I apologize for that. It was my fault. No, that's okay. I was just saying, did you? Okay, I was, you heard the part about the mock test, right?

That's the last thing I think I heard. Oh, okay. Well, the mock test, the question was, give a brief history, give a history of the world from creation till the present.

Include every salient detail, relevant detail, but be concise. Give every relevant detail and then be concise.

Yeah, that's how I feel answering these questions, because you could actually get a whole college -level course or book out of each of these questions, the answer.

I mean, you could spit it out. So this is actually a compliment to our listeners then. Yeah, it really is.

These have all been very good questions. And this is where some of this would be answered in the encyclopedia.

Yeah, now I should say about the encyclopedia is that because it's a mix,

I know several of the contributors, they're friends of mine or acquaintances of mine, and I can speak to them, but it's not everybody who contributes as a

Christian or professed Christian. Right, just because that's the heart of the history on Edwards and the documented writings and history of Edwards is in Yale, which is largely an apostate university.

I mean, and this is true with even John Calvin. All the great theologians, for some reason, are attractive to people who don't make any profession of faith.

And very often when you read them, they've reduced what is a magnificent glimpse into the biblical teaching on whatever topic, and they reduce it to,

I don't know, literary form. Like the sermons of Edwards are often studied for their literary contributions.

Freedom of the will can be looked at as purely iconic in the sense of what was its influence in American culture.

And that's why I said more ignored than debated. Mentioned in passing, not really engaged.

Well, by the way, Linda in Hilltop Lakes, Texas, you have won.

In fact, you're the only one that can win a free copy of the

Jonathan Edwards Encyclopedia, which retails for $60. This is a hardback, gorgeous book.

And because of the price, the retail price, Eerdmans only gave me two copies, one for me and one for a co -host.

And my co -host did not show up today. He could not be here, even though he would love to be here.

He could not be here. So you're getting his copy of the Edwards Encyclopedia. And I want to just,

I know this may embarrass Linda from Hilltop Lake, Texas, although I've never met her in my life, never even spoken audibly with her.

She and her husband were kind enough to pay the electric bill for Iron Sharpens Iron Radio not long ago.

And I just cannot thank you and your husband, Glenn, enough for your generosity and your benevolence and your kindness and your encouragement because you love this show so much.

And make sure that we have your full mailing address in Hilltop Lakes, Texas, and you will receive this free over 600 -page hardback encyclopedia, the

Jonathan Edwards Encyclopedia, retailing for $60. It's yours free. Linda, thank you so much. Now we have an actual question.

This is the last question we have time for. And when I mean an actual question, I mean an actual question from Pastor David Bissett, who before didn't have a question.

He was just saying hi, basically. And now he says, I love the

Jonathan Edwards discussion. My question is, what is your, meaning Dr. Jeffrey C.

Waddington, what is your estimation of the biography by Marsden? Ah, good question.

I think it's probably the best thing out there. This is a biography of Jonathan Edwards.

Yes, it came out in 2003, the 300th anniversary of Edwards' birth. There is a short one, a little one, a short life.

I think it's called the subtitle. I believe he's probably talking about the full -length, several hundred -page biography, well -written, well -researched.

I disagree with Dr. Marsden, of course, at points, but it's beautifully written.

And I think it captures the essence of Edwards in its historical setting, which is what

Dr. Marsden was trying to do. So he makes him understandable in his own context, is what

I'm saying. And well -written and easy, I think, fairly easy to track with.

Well, we are out of time. And thank you so much, Pastor David J. Bissett. Please give us your full mailing address there in Clifton Park, New York, so we can mail you a free copy of the

Unified Operations of the Human Soul, Jonathan Edwards Theological Anthropology and Apologetic.

And Dr. Jeffrey C. Waddington, can you please give our listeners the website for Knox Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Lansdowne, Pennsylvania?

Well, you would ask me that. I don't know it. I have it. I have it.

I have it. You do have it. Knox -Presbyterian .org, and that's K -N -O -X -Presbyterian .org.

And for those of you who want to listen to the Reformed Forum, as my pastor John Miller of Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, does regularly, go to the

ReformedForum .org, ReformedForum .org. And if you want to find out more about the

Confessional Presbyterian Journal, go to CPJournal .com,

CPJournal .com. Do you have any final words before we go off the air, Brother? Oh, just to say that I have been drawn to Jonathan Edwards because he heralds the gospel of the

Lord Jesus Christ. And there's not a time that I dip into Edwards that I don't almost always—I don't want to say always, but almost always—come away with a greater appreciation of my

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And at the end of the day, that's the payoff. Well, I am so delighted that you were able to be on the show today, even though there was a schedule, a mix -up between the two of us.

And I look forward to the next time you being here in the studio, so that we can actually share fellowship before and after the show.

Thank you for having me. And I want you all to have a blessed and safe and joyful weekend and Lord's Day.

And I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater