: The study of gratitude has become an increasingly important topic among psychologists to address the nature of human flourishing. Of more recent interest is how gratitude to God specifically functions within an account of human flourishing, with theologians seeking to provide a distinctively Christian account of the nature of gratitude. This article enters into the ongoing conversation by attending to Jonathan Edwards’s theological anthropology and development of natural and supernatural gratitude. In particular, Edwards’s anthropology includes within it an account (...) of how the self can, and should, enlarge to receive another in love. This “enlargement” is the creaturely mirror of God’s self-giving and is the supernatural response to the creature who has received God’s grace and been infused with divine love. As a supernatural response based on God’s action in the soul, this account of gratitude differs from its natural counterpart. On Edwards’s account, therefore, there is a need to develop studies that differentiate natural and supernatural gratitude. Furthermore, this article ends with a suggestion for a study that could pick up this task based on recent psychological studies that attend to how gratitude affects self-relation. On Edwards’s account of the enlargement of the self, as well as his notion of supernatural gratitude, there is meaningful research to be done on how these can help assess development in the formation of gratitude and human flourishing. (shrink)

Contemplation is at the heart of the Christian faith, and, more specifically, is the driving mechanism of both theology and prayer. Unfortunately, theologians and writers on the Christian life have often succumbed to the temptation to utilize a “secular” or commonsensical notion of contemplation rather than one forged in the context of Christian belief. In response, this essay delineates the possibility and ground of contemplation, looking to the doctrine of God to provide the necessary contours for Christian rationality and spirituality. (...) In so doing, particular attention is paid to the work of Son and Spirit, and the truth of the Christian person who is caught up in God's work of grace. Contemplation, it is suggested, must be determined within this reality rather than a general notion of focused intellection. (shrink)