Reviewing Implications of The Fall of Man in Discursive Theology of Jonathan Edwards

Confronting ultra mechanistic and rationalistic views in 17th and 18th centuries, Jonathan Edwards has located theological reasoning in the margins and saw it as a kind of limiter to meet the problems which challenged religious beliefs. Having the fall of man in mind, he held that it resulted in corrupting human nature and made him/her ignorant; accordingly, because of it the human reason is corrupted. He, thus, maintains that reasoning inherent contradictories, presuppositions, and perverse inclinations. Such a reverse direction cannot affect religious lifewhich is important for Edwards, therefore it remains in its simple conceptual form. But, in the other hand, reason could be cured from its perverse nature by faith; seeing, then, the evidences for affirming the existence of God. Otherwise, reason out of faith realm remains passive, erroneous, and far from being practical.