Analysis Of Jonathan Edwards Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God

“Bullying is repeated, aggressive behavior intended to hurt another person and with the purpose of gaining power over the person being targeted,” by Joy Huffman. Bullying is described as having power over someone else, therefore, power is the essential aspect in gaining control of anyone. The people who are being bullied are targeted to feel powerless and hurt because they are under the control of another person. In “Sinners In the Hands Of an Angry God”, Jonathan Edwards vividly conveys God as a harsh and superior bully through the representation of spiders, floods, and storms. God is controlling and vigilant which is easily exemplified through the use of spiders. First, even all of a person’s goodness and virtue “would have no more influence

God’s power “is like great waters that are dammed for the present; they increase more and more, and higher and higher, til an outlet is given” (Edwards 109). God’s anger builds up from the people who sin, and eventually he unleashes his madness and irritability towards people who are at fault. He’s the ruler of all people and with only the movement of his hand, he can send a disaster of punishments. As more people commit sins, God’s desire to retaliate becomes sufficiently greater. He has dominance over humans and when he sees the right time to strike back, he easily does. God is shown as rude when he threatens people with his bountiful power to send them to hell if they cross him. Likewise, at any given time, God can extract “his hand from the floodgate, [and] it would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God, would rush forth with inconceivable fury, and would come upon you with omnipotent power” (Edwards 109). Whenever God feels it is necessary to let out his rage, just by lifting his hand, he can release his overflowing power which will swallow the population of sinners and send them all to hell. God is a bully because his violence and power is at the tips of his fingers ready to use against guilty and disobedient humans. God is in total control for making decisions to lead people to hell, which demonstrates his dominant impact over humans.

The thunderstorms are filled with “black clouds of God’s wrath now hanging directly over [everyone's] heads, full of the dreadful storm, and big with thunder” (Edwards 109). God flaunts his power over people’s heads to make sure everyone clearly understands how mighty and forceful he is. He wants to make it apparent to people that when his rage is unraveled, it will be unimaginably excruciating. Because of God’s desire to exemplify his power and openly hang it over the sinners heads, he is proven to be an omnipotent and cruel conqueror. God is represented as an abusive bully because he goes out of his way to threaten people with his sufficient supervision. When someone sins, “[their] destruction would come like a whirlwind, and [they] would be like the chaff of the summer threshing floor” (Edwards 109). The chaff is like a seed, so the analogy is representing God as a powerful wind who is able to move humans around, whom are shown as the chaff. When someone commits a sin, they can expect God to take them to hell and pay for their punishments. God is presented as a strong tormentor because of his desire to send humans to hell. With God’s control, he is represented as a bully because he can destroy humans and send them to hell.

Conclusively, in order to maintain power over anyone, control is the most crucial part. Bullies use power and control to restrain people to listen