J onathan E dwards, Anselmic Satisfaction and God's Moral Government

J onathan E dwards' doctrine of atonement has recently become a source of interest amongst some contemporary systematic theologians. This article sets out to redress two longstanding and historically strident claims regarding E dwards' doctrine of the nature of atonement: first, that E dwards espoused an Anselmic satisfaction theory of atonement; second, that E dwards also laid the theological foundation for the moral government theory of atonement, popularized in nineteenth‐century A merica by those of his intellectual tradition. In this article, I lay out the conceptual core of both A nselm's satisfaction theory and the moral government theory of atonement. I argue that the claims noted above lack the explanatory resources needed to account accurately for E dwards' understanding of the nature of the atonement.