Common Sense Regeneration
Alexander Campbell on Regeneration, Conversion, and the Work of the Holy Spirit
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20292249 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Stephen Waers (Manhattan Christian College, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 109 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 611-636 |
| Publication date | 2016-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Harvard Theological Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0017-8160 • E-ISSN: 1475-4517 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0017816016000304 |
| OpenAlex | W2605038756 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 16 |
Alexander Campbell (1788–1866), a controversialist and prolific writer, often addressed his theological opponents with an acid-tipped pen. Early in his career, few topics received as much attention as regeneration, conversion, and the role of the Holy Spirit. Campbell and his coreligionists on the frontier were hardly the only theologians who focused on these doctrines during the first half of the nineteenth century. Campbell's early polemics make it clear that he had substantially modified or rejected many of the major tenets of the Presbyterianism of his youth regarding these topics. His early writings find his literary resources arrayed against such doctrines as human inability and metaphysical regeneration that his Reformed opponents held. Campbell's biographer even tells us that Campbell's views of regeneration and conversion shifted. In this paper, I argue that one of the major factors driving Campbell's rejection of these widely held Reformed doctrines was his appropriation of the thought of John Locke and Scottish Common Sense Philosophy (SCSP). More specifically, I argue that Alexander Campbell's understanding of testimony, firmly rooted in the thought of Locke and SCSP, was the sine qua non of his conception of regeneration, conversion, and the work of the Holy Spirit
Appropriation · Archaeology · Art · Biology · Epistemology · Frontier · Literature · Metaphysics · Regeneration (biology) · Theology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · History · Philosophy · Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment · Scottish History and National Identity
The Democratization of American Christianity
A religious history of the American people
An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense
A History of Scottish Philosophy
An inquiry into the human mind, on the principles of common sense.
A History of the Churches in the United States and Canada
Cane Ridge in Context
Protestants in an Age of Science
The Philosophy of Alexander Campbell
A History of the Churches in the United States and Canada
Encyclopedia of the American Religious Experience
Conversion
The Scottish Philosophy and American Theology
Baconianism and the Bible in the Disciples of Christ
Common Sense Traditions and American Evangelical Thought
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |