Isaacson, Franklin, and Jonathan Edwards

I have just finished (finally) Walter Isaacson’s Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, and I am officially fascinated by the lighting rod maker. This really is a remarkable biography, not only for its clear presentation of an intensely interdisciplinary man, but also for its flowing narrative that never bores. Not being well-read in American history (someone mentioned Nathan Hale about two days ago and I was clueless . . . until I wiki-ed him), Isaacson provides just the right amount of contextual data to keep my head above water.

I’ll admit that I’m a bit disappointed by Isaacson’s handicapped consideration of Jonathan Edwards. To summarize him as one who “believed in an anointed elect . . . [and] tended to have . . . a sense of social class and hierarchy, and an appreciation for exalted values over earthly one” seems a bit too, abbreviated. What Isaacson apparently means is that, while Franklin was “benevolent and tolerant and . . . unabashedly striving and upwardly mobile,” Edwards was mean to others and cared nothing for secular vocations (476). Earlier in the book, Isaacson implies that Edwards was actually ‘disingenuous’ to believe in and write about the sinful condition of humanity (4).

I am assuming that Isaacson relies heavily upon Carl Van Doren’s reading of Edwards, notably his 1920 Benjamin Franklin and Jonathan Edwards. I’ll admit that I have not read this work, but it is appropriate to note that Van Doren also authored (albeit six years later) Why I Am an Unbeliever. So when Isaacson, referencing Van Doren, says things like,

“Edwards and the Great Awakeners sought to recommit America to the anguished spirituality of Puritanism, whereas Franklin sought to bring it into and Enlightenment era that exalted tolerance, individual merit, civic virtue, good deeds, and rationality (109),”

. . . I tend to doubt that Edwards is getting a fair shake. It would appear from this quote that Edwards promoted intolerance, laziness, disregard for others, avoidance of good works, and a message without rational basis. Just the “sect’s rigid dogma” at work, I suppose (490). In addition, it would seem that, prior to the Enlightenment, tolerance, good works, and hard work simply didn’t exist. I understand that such attitudes likely belonged to Franklin, and I am certain that Franklin was an appallingly bad theologian; he did, after all, quip, “from such faith alone salvation may be expected appears to me to be neither a Christian doctrine nor a reasonable one (108).” But why should Isaacson readily accept Franklin’s assumptions about Edwards without investigating Edwards better?

Look, when Franklin tells Lord Chatham in London that “America did not aim at independence,” Isaacson rightly tells his readers that, despite not having been to America in the past ten years, Franklin would have known that many colonists were very much talking about independence (284-5). Additionally, when Franklin toys with the properties of oil on waves, Isaacson refers his readers to the molecular chemistry that Franklin missed (263). So, when Franklin opposes Edwards’ preaching ministry, why doesn’t Isaacson show some evidence of having investigated Reformed theology, the mode of Edwards’ preaching, rather than trumpeting canned assumptions? Seriously, when telling the story of a man such as Franklin, who doesn’t believe in the divinity of Jesus (468-9), and whose peers doubt the integrity of his suggestion of divine prayer (451-2), ought we blindly accept his assessment of Edwards as the product of anguished spirituality of Purtanism, or should we dig a little? Is it fair to say that the “good-natured tolerance” of Franklin was “more indispensable than that of the most profound theologians of the era” (491)?