Can I Love Myself and Glorify God? The ‘Disinterested Benevolence’ of Jonathan Edwards

ABSTRACT: At the center of Jonathan Edwards’s theology of love was the concept of benevolence to Being in general. Edwards’s careful distinctions between self-love, selfishness, and disinterested benevolence depend on his understanding of God as the fountain of love, which he pours into the hearts of believers and empowers them to return. Self-love, which is the capacity to love or enjoy that which is pleasing, is regenerated by God so that his people are satisfied in him and seek for others to