On the theological pedigree of Jonathan Edwards's doctrine of imputation

Abstract

Jonathan Edwards's doctrine of imputation has long been misunderstood. This essay sets out to redress the balance on this aspect of Edwards's hamartiology, drawing on both nineteenth- and twentieth-century analyses of Edwards's theory. I argue that what previous commentators have failed to see is that Edwards's doctrine was not an aberrant version of either Augustinian realism or Calvinistic federalism. Instead, it was an attempt to forge a via media between the two, utilising the notion of a real union in Adam from Augustinianism and the representational aspect of federalism to form a new theory of imputation which, though indebted to the traditional alternatives, is independent of both.