To my mind [ Jonathan Edwards] is an interesting figure because he is both a canonical Reformed thinker, and yet also someone that pushed the envelope in a number of key areas of theology.

For instance, the notion of non-penal substitution. This idea, found in the work of the nineteenth century Scottish Reformed theologian John McLeod Campbell and based upon his reading of the letter to the Hebrews in particular, is that Christ offers up his life and death as a penitential act on our behalf, rather than as a punishment in our stead.

[Calvinistic tradition] has fashioned and shaped my thinking since I was a teenager.

No confession is inerrant; Reformed Christians are supposed to be those who seek to be constantly reformed according to the Word of God - and that includes our confessions as well.

The expansion I have in mind isn't the same as distortion. Of course, there are those who say their views represent Reformed thought, but what they end up with is a caricature of what Reformed thinking is really about. I hope I am not one of those people, but readers [of the Saving Calvinism] will have to make up their own minds on that score!

[Jonathan Edwards] he has to be engaged with on this issue if you're writing about Calvinism as I am in this book.

The Reformed tradition at the beginning of the twenty-first century is different as a consequence of this - and different in nontrivial ways. Some may scoff at this, saying that such "developments" don't represent Reformed thought. But by what standard? Perhaps by the Westminster Confession. But this is only one Reformed confession, and it was only ever a subordinate standard.