Edgar S. Brightman
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Edgar Sheffield Brightman (September 20, 1884 – February 25, 1953) was an American philosopher and
Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
theologian in the Methodist tradition, associated with Boston University and liberal theology, and promulgated the philosophy known as '' Boston personalism''. Elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1928, Brightman served as president of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association in 1936 and the
American Academy of Religion The American Academy of Religion (AAR) is the world's largest association of scholarly method, scholars in the List of academic disciplines, field of religious studies and related topics. It is a nonprofit member association, serving as a profes ...
in 1942 and 1943.


Early life and education

Brightman was born on September 20, 1884 in Holbrook, Massachusetts, the only child of a Methodist pastor. He studied at
Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
from which he graduated with a BA degree in 1907, and then with an MA degree in 1908. He then proceeded to Boston University where he was awarded the Bachelor of Sacred Theology degree in 1910, followed by a PhD in 1912. He undertook further studies in Italy at the University of Berlin and
Marburg University The Philipps University of Marburg (german: Philipps-Universität Marburg) was founded in 1527 by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, which makes it one of Germany's oldest universities and the oldest still operating Protestant university in the wor ...
between 1901 and 1910. While at Brown, Brightman became a brother of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He was ordained a Methodist minister in 1912.


Career

Brightman was a professional philosopher who taught the subject at Nebraska Wesleyan University between 1912 and 1915. He then took up a post as lecturer in ethics and religion at the Wesleyan University in Connecticut from 1915 to 1919. Finally, he moved to Boston University in 1919 and taught philosophy there until he died on February 25, 1953. From 1925 to 1953 he occupied the
Borden Parker Bowne Borden Parker Bowne (January 14, 1847 – April 1, 1910) was an American Christian philosopher, Methodist minister and theologian. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times. Life Bowne was born on January 14, 1847, near Leona ...
chair of Philosophy. One of his earliest publications reflected the findings of
higher criticism Historical criticism, also known as the historical-critical method or higher criticism, is a branch of criticism that investigates the origins of ancient texts in order to understand "the world behind the text". While often discussed in terms of ...
in
Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
studies concerning the identification of sub-sources and sub-documents within the first six books of the Bible (the Hexateuch). The
Documentary Hypothesis The documentary hypothesis (DH) is one of the models used by biblical scholars to explain the origins and composition of the Torah (or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). A vers ...
that Brightman drew upon had developed in Nineteenth Century German Biblical studies and had received their definitive form in the writings of
Julius Wellhausen Julius Wellhausen (17 May 1844 – 7 January 1918) was a German biblical scholar and orientalist. In the course of his career, he moved from Old Testament research through Islamic studies to New Testament scholarship. Wellhausen contributed to t ...
. Wellhausen, and those who built on his theories, argued that the first five books of the Bible (the Pentateuch) were a composite creation drawing on four original sources and edited into their final form in the fourth century BC. These conclusions ran counter to the traditional Jewish and Christian position that Moses received the Pentateuch from God, with little if any further modification. Brightman was attacked for his pro-Wellhausian views by conservative and fundamentalist Methodists, and blacklisted. In his involvement with the Methodist Church in America, Brightman joined the
Methodist Federation for Social Action The Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA) is an independent network of United Methodist clergy and laity working for justice in the areas of peace, poverty, and people's rights since 1907. History Founding The first decades of the 20th ...
. He also supported conscientious objectors in war, was a member of the American Civil Liberties Union, and also the Committee on Peace through Justice.


Philosophical stance

Brightman's philosophical views were influenced by the thought of
Borden Parker Bowne Borden Parker Bowne (January 14, 1847 – April 1, 1910) was an American Christian philosopher, Methodist minister and theologian. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times. Life Bowne was born on January 14, 1847, near Leona ...
(1847–1910). Bowne, who was a Methodist philosopher, emphasized the importance of personality and self-image, and encapsulated his ideas in the expression "
transcendental empiricism Gilles Louis René Deleuze ( , ; 18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volu ...
". By this Bowne meant that there was an existent reality beyond mere human sensory perceptions. He held to the importance of intuition in understanding reality, and upheld the role of human free will. In many ways Bowne's work on personality anticipated some of the views of Sigmund Freud, and even Albert Einstein's findings on the relativity of time and space. Bowne's emphasis on personality led to his philosophical views being known by the term ''
personalism Personalism is an intellectual stance that emphasizes the importance of human persons. Personalism exists in many different versions, and this makes it somewhat difficult to define as a philosophical and theological movement. Friedrich Schleierm ...
''. Brightman was an advocate of Bowne's position on personality, and those who gathered around both Bowne's and Brightman's writings became known as a movement called '' Boston personalism''. In Brightman's system of thought the human self is the dominant metaphysical reality. His philosophical method in argument is known as rational empiricism. In addition to building on Bowne's position, Brightman is credited with developing a metaphysical view in the philosophy of religion called
finitistic theism Theistic finitism, also known as finitistic theism or finite godism, is the belief in a deity that is limited.Geisler, Norman; Watkins, William D. (1989). ''Finite Godism: A World with a Finite God''. In ''Worlds Apart: A Handbook on World Views' ...
. For Brightman God is a self-limited being whose good will though perfect is constrained by God's own nature. There is a dynamic relationship between God and the world that grows and develops, or is in process. In Brightman's thought God's purposes intend good for the world, yet pain and suffering occur. He did not argue for God having unlimited power over evil and suffering, but rather maintained that through the processes of the world and history evil will be overcome. In effect, God uses the tragedies of the creation as instruments that enable the world to reach its final goal. Brightman's views about the growing and developing relationship between God and the world has strong affinities with process philosophy as espoused by
Alfred North Whitehead Alfred North Whitehead (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher. He is best known as the defining figure of the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which today has found applicat ...
and Charles Hartshorne. Indeed, Hartshorne and Brightman maintained a lengthy and lively correspondence on these matters for a period of some twenty three years. Another important (yet in this case almost entirely overlooked) influence on Brightman’s later thinking was Akhilananda. As Brightman’s colleague
L. Harold DeWolf Lotan Harold DeWolf (31 January 1905 – 24 March 1986), usually cited as L. Harold Dewolf, was an American Methodist minister and professor of systematic theology at Boston University where he was Martin Luther King Jr.'s "primary teacher and me ...
noted in his contribution to a 1972 festschrift for Akhilananda: “Dr. Brightman had a deep and personal appreciation and affection for the gifted leader of the Ramakrishna Mission in Boston.” And as Brightman himself went on to conclude (1952), “mystical experience and the God realized in that experience are of the highest possible consciousness. The language of super consciousness may be used, but that is not to convey the idea of a stage that is absolutely unconscious. On the contrary it always refers to sat-chit-ananda, a combination of being, knowledge, and bliss, which utterly transcends ordinary consciousness, yet is itself consciousness of the highest possible kind. This, of course, is what Western personalists and theists mean by divine personality.“ Brightman was a teacher and mentor to Martin Luther King Jr. as King pursued his PhD at Boston University in the early 1950s. (Following Brightman's death, DeWolf, who had himself received his 1935 PhD in philosophy studying under Brightman, became King's dissertation adviser and another key influence on King's theological and philosophical thinking). King stated: “How I long now for that religious experience which Dr. Brightman so cogently speaks of throughout his book A Philosophy of Religion. It seems to be an experience, the lack of which life becomes dull and meaningless” (Papers 1:415–416); in his application to the PhD program in systematic theology at Boston University King had noted, “my thinking in philosophical areas has been greatly influenced by some of the faculty members there, particularly Dr. Brightman” (Papers 1:390). Brightman's influence is also reflected in King's philosophy of Nonviolence, most markedly in the sixth and most fundamental principle of King's philosophy of Nonviolence, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice" (the restatement of a metaphysical and ethical position articulated earlier by the Unitarian minister and abolitionist Theodore Parker (1810 - 1860)).


Bibliography

* ''The Sources of the Hexateuch'' (New York: Abingdon, 1918) * ''Introduction to Philosophy'' (New York: H. Holt, 1925) * ''Immortality in Post-Kantian Idealism'' (the
Ingersoll Lecture The Ingersoll Lectures is a series of lectures presented annually at Harvard University on the subject of immortality. Endowment ''The Ingersoll Lectureship'' was established by a bequest by Caroline Haskell Ingersoll, who died in 1893, leaving $50 ...
, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1925) * ''Religious Values'' (New York: Abingdon, 1925) * ''Philosophy of Ideals'' (New York: H. Holt, 1928) * ''Problem of God'' (New York: Abingdon, 1930) * ''The Finding of God'' (New York: Abingdon, 1931) * ''Is God A Person?'' (New York: Association Press, 1932) * ''Moral Laws'' (New York: Abingdon, 1933) * ''Personality and Religion'' (New York: Abingdon, 1934) * ''The Future of Christianity'' (New York: Abingdon, 1937) * ''A Philosophy of Religion'' (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1940) * ''The Spiritual Life'' (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1942) * ''Nature and Values'' (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1945) * ''Persons and Values'' (Boston: Boston University Press, 1952) * ed., ''Personalism in Theology: A Symposium in Honor of Albert Cornelius Knudson'' (Boston: Boston University Press, 1943) * ''Studies in Personalism: Selected Writings of Edgar Sheffield Brightman''; edited by Warren Steinkraus (Utica: Meridian, 1987)


References


Further reading

*
Randall Auxier Randall E. Auxier (born August 7, 1961) is a professor of philosophy and communication studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, a musician, environmental activist, union advocate, and candidate (2018) for the United States House of Re ...
and Mark Y. A. Davies, eds. ''Hartshorne and Brightman on God, Process, and Persons: The Correspondence 1922–1945'' (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2001). * Thomas Buford and Harold H. Oliver, ed. "Personalism Revisited: Its Proponents and Critics" (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002)


Assessments

* Edward John Carnell, ''A Philosophy of the Christian Religion'' (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1952). * James John McLarney, ''The Theism of Edgar Sheffield Brightman'' (Washington: Catholic University of America, 1936). * Joseph R. Shive, "The Meaning of Individuality: A Comparative Study of Alfred North Whitehead, Bordern Parker Bowne and Edgar Sheffield Brightman," Unpublished Dissertation, University of Chicago, 1961.


Philosophical background

* Frederick Copleston, ''A History of Philosophy, Vol. 8: Bentham to Russell'' (Garden City: Doubleday, 1967), chapters 11-13. * Alan Gragg, ''Charles Hartshorne'' (Waco: Word Publishing, 1973). {{DEFAULTSORT:Brightman, Edgar S. 1884 births 1953 deaths Methodist theologians American Methodist clergy Brown University alumni Boston University School of Theology alumni University of Marburg alumni Wesleyan University faculty 20th-century Methodist ministers Presidents of the American Academy of Religion Methodist philosophers