Examine the philosophical approach used in "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."

I think
that one of the strongest examples of a philosophical approach employed in Edwards' sermon is
the construction of the divine as a force of anger.  Edwards borrows from the time period of the
Great Awakening in the belief that God is angry.  This notion of the divine places the divine in
the philosophical paradigm of a wrathful and rather vengeful notion.  In this, Edwards hopes to
control the ethical conduct of the listener or the reader in aligning their own actions towards
the anger of God.  This is philosophical in its approach to constructing the nature of reality
as one in which individuals cannot escape the wrath and anger of God.  The relationship that
individuals must carry with their divine is one of immediate subservience to the anger of God,
caused by the actions of the individual.  Edwards seeks to ensure that the philosophical
rendering of the divine is one in which individuals recognize that their own actions represent
the reason that God is angry and that they continue to carry themselves in the light that
ensures individual compliance with the will of the divine.  The use of Biblical passages to
illuminate this brings out the idea that individuals lack hope without understanding the
construction of God as one filled with anger at the transgressions of
individuals.