Christianity is nothing more than a man-made religion created to assert some men’s supposed moral or intellectual superiority over others.

This statement, or some version of it, is an oft-repeated objection to Christian doctrine, and it is a postmodern idea that can be traced to the so-called “Age of Enlightenment” beginning in 18th century Europe and extending to other continents, including North America. For thoughtful Christians, however, this seemingly astute critique of evangelical Christianity rings hollow. Christianity, we understand, is not some man-made philosophical, social, or political movement. Rather, the faith we proclaim is from God.

As a pastor in mid-eighteenth century New England, Jonathan Edwards came face-to-face with this Enlightenment claim of the supposed man-centeredness of the Christian gospel. For Edwards, the claim was not merely an idle cheap shot at institutional Christianity. At stake was the very trustworthiness of the gospel message that Edwards and other Christians were aggressively spreading throughout the American colonies.

This perhaps at least partially explains Edwards’ sustained preoccupation with the nature of human salvation as an unequivocal work of the Holy Spirit, and not due to mankind’s moral or intellectual capabilities. Edwards understood the challenge presented by the emotionally ecstatic revivals of the Great Awakening that swept through New England. His answer to Enlightenment objections was both distinctly theological and deeply philosophical:

The Christian gospel is morally and intellectually superior to anything that human could ever invent.

In a 1733 compilation of sermons called The Wisdom of God, Displayed in the Way of Salvation, Edwards carefully unpacks the suppositions of the Christian doctrine of salvation and takes great pains to demonstrate how this is too lofty a philosophical worldview for man to have concocted himself. The only logical conclusion, explains Edwards, is that God himself is the author of the Christian worldview.

Here is what Edwards writes in one section:

The contrivance of salvation is of such a nature that no one can rationally conclude that man had any hand in it. The nature of the contrivance is such, so out of the way of all human thoughts, so different from all human inventions; so much more sublime, excellent, and worthy, that it does not savour at all of the craft or subtlety of man; it savours of God only. [1]

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[1] Jonathan Edwards. The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 2. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson); p. 154