Here's a short essay from Grace, our 9th grade daughter. It's based on reading in the first several chapters of George Marsden's biography on Jonathan Edwards that she is reading and studying for U.S. History to start the year. I assigned her an essay on Edward's formative years as he wrestled with the dominant philosophies of his day. We had recently studied the Empiricist and Enlightenment periods in philosophy so that made a nice blend of ideas to work with. I had her type the essay as part of her typing practice. The essay text was part of her weekly assignment she worked on over a 3 day period. 1st day for rough ideas, 2nd day for draft, 3rd day to finish.
Here it is cut/pasted with no other changes from me:
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In the music of J. S. Bach, there is portrayed an element of the order of existence, the character of God. Of course, it is impossible to completely "capture" the essence of the Lord of heaven and earth, but few things come so close as Bach's music.
Jonathan Edwards' thinking and writing were to the same purpose as Bach's composing. He wanted to get in touch with the eternal; to portray God in his writing. Edwards' thinking was similar also to that of Liebniz and Berkeley, The common factor was focus on God, and the belief that He is always working in the world and that material things are God's ideas.
Edwards realized, along with these like-minded philosophers, that the materialist philosophies that were being introduced would ultimately lead to skeptcism. He knew it was important to refute the beliefs of Locke and Hobbes who argued that all things are matter and that God Himself is matter. In planning a book he was writing, he made a note to point out, " that nothing that is matter can possibly be God and that no matter is, in the most proper sense, matter.''
Edwards certainly loved to study the creation and gained a great deal from the physical realm, but he knew that man was not created to focus on the temperal. Indeed the universe in its entirety was created for one purpose only: to glorify the Creator. For God is the only one who deserves the praise and the honor. In Bach's music we see this truth, and it is evident in Jonathan Edwards' many works. They both continue to have profound influence on the world today and so continue to live up to their beliefs, even after death, giving God all the glory.
——-by Grace, age 14