Notable Theologians “D...-E...-F...-G...-”
for classrooms, home schoolers, offices & theme decor.

Jonathan Edwards
b. 10-5-1703; East Windsor, Connecticut
d. 3-22-1758; Princeton, NJ (smallpox inoculation)

Jonathan Edwards was a colonial American Congregational minister and theologian noted for his Puritan heritage, Calvinist theology, as a leader in the “Great Awakening”, and his fire-and-brimstone revivalist sermons like “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”(1741) .

Edwards, fascinated by the discoveries of scientists like Isaac Newton, saw the laws of nature as derived from God and no inherent conflict between the spiritual and material. He was also familiar with John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, which influenced him greatly.

Jonathan Edwards served briefly as president of Princeton College and is often cited as a early feminist drawing attention to Eve’s title as “the mother of all living” (Genesis 3:20).

He was also a grandfather to US Vice President Aaron Burr, an ancestor of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and authors O. Henry and Robert Lowell.

Jonathan Edwards quotes ~
• “The best, most beautiful, and most perfect way that we have of expressing a sweet concord of mind to each other is by music.”
• “The material universe exists only in the mind.”
• “Many pray with their lips for that for which their hearts have no desire.”

• book- Jonathan Edwards: A Life

Desiderius Erasmus
b. 10-27-1466; Rotterdam
d. 7-12-1536; Basel

Desiderius Erasmus was a humanist - a teacher of grammar, rhetoric, moral philosophy, poetry and history as studied via classical authors, and a theologian.

Erasmus received his Doctor of Divinity at the Turin University.

Desiderius Erasmus quotes ~
• “A nail is driven out by another nail. Habit is overcome by habit.”
• “Fortune favors the audacious.”
• “Great eagerness in the pursuit of wealth, pleasure, or honor, cannot exist without sin.”
• “In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”
• “The desire to write grows with writing.”
• “I doubt if a single individual could be found from the whole of mankind free from some form of insanity. The only difference is one of degree. A man who sees a gourd and takes it for his wife is called insane because this happens to very few people.”
• “He who allows oppression shares the crime.”

• Desiderius Erasmus (Spiritual Leaders and Thinkers Series)
• The Erasmus Reader

George Fox
b. July 1623; Leicestershire, Kingdom of England
d. 1-13-1691; London

George Fox, founder of the Religious Society of Friends, known as the “Quakers”, or Friends, during a time of religious dissent in England. Fox held the belief that ordinary people could have a direct experience of the eternal Christ, an inward transformation not relying on outward ritual.

In 1661 Fox and eleven other Friends issued a broadside, now known as the “peace testimony”, committing themselves to oppose all outward wars and strife as contrary to the will of God.

FYI -
• According to Fox's Journal the term “Quaker” was originally derogatorily applied in court by a Justice “because we bid them tremble at the word of God”.
• George Fox and Margaret Fell (1614-1702) were married in 1669. Her home Swarthmore Hall is the namesake of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.

• The Journal of George Fox
• Margaret Fell and the End of Time: The Theology of the Mother of Quakerism
• The Peaceable Kingdom: An American Saga (novel by Jan de Hartog)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Giclee Print

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
b. 8-28-1749; Frankfur am Main, Germany
d. 3-22-1832

Goethe is considered a polymath (someone knowledgeable across many disciplines) - his work spans poetry, drama, literature, theology, humanism, and science.

Carl G. Jung was influenced by Goethe's Faust. - “Faust is not of this world and therefore it transports you; it is as much the future as the past and therefore the most living present.” - C. G. Jung, Letters.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quotes ~
• “Doubt grows with knowledge.”
• “Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws, which otherwise would have been hidden from us forever.”
• “A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.”
• “Correction does much, but encouragement does more.”
• “Divide and rule, the politician cries; unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.”
• “A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.”
• “Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.”
• “Science and art belong to the whole world, and before them vanish the barriers of nationality.”

• Theory of Colours; Goethe
• educational color posters
• Goethe had a deep friendship with Schiller and a correspondence with Bettina von Arnim.

George Gurdjieff
b. 1-14-1866(?); Armenia, Russian Empire
d. 10-29-1949; France

Gurdjieff, considered a mystic and a spiritual teacher, called his discipline "The Work”.

The feature film Meetings with Remarkable Men (1979), based on Gurdjieff's book by the same name.

Gurdjieff quotes ~
• “Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave. ”
• “A man will renounce any pleasures you like but he will not give up his suffering.”
• “It is the greatest mistake to think that man is always one and the same. A man is never the same for long. He is continually changing. He seldom remains the same even for half an hour.”
• “Religion is doing; a man does not merely think his religion or feel it, he “lives” his religion as much as he is able, otherwise it is not religion but fantasy or philosophy.”

• Gurdjieff at Amazon