In “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Jonathan Edwards uses pathos to create images that help his audience experience the consequences of sinful behavior. One such image is that God has been given the power to choose who he feels should spend the rest of eternity in either Heaven, or Hell based on their sins. In the picture I drew, I represented this image by illustrating a gate to Heaven. My artwork evokes the emotion of anxiety, which then, can cause the reader to become more mindful of their actions. This goes along with Edwards’ motive to write “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” because he wanted to influence the readers to change their actions to become better people, and to look in God’s’ direction for forgiveness, which would then ultimately help them avoid the rest of eternity in Hell.
In my drawing, there are sinners waiting in line to see the fate that God has chosen for them. God has his hand out and is deciding whether or not to send the sinner through the gate to get to Heaven or to Hell. I put Heaven at the top of my picture to signify that it is on top, and that’s where you want to be. In my portrayal of Heaven I drew a sun with blue skies, and clouds. I used colors like yellow for the sun which resembles happiness, and blue for the sky which represents holiness. The bottom of the picture is where I decided to draw Hell to signify that it is on the bottom and that is not where the sinner would want to be. When drawing Hell I drew fire to represent heat and anger, along with colors like red, yellow, and orange which help coincide with the theme of anger and hostility.
My interpretation of the image explains Edward’s message by showing how much power God really has over the Sinners when deciding whether or not they belong in Heaven or Hell. In the Sermon, Edward talks about how God can choose to send a sinner through a “great wrath and infinite misery,” or if a sinner deserves forgiveness and gets to go through “the kingdom of God.” The Sermon is portrayed through my illustration of God deciding between a happy, glorious Heaven or a fiery, hostile Hell for where a Sinner should spend the rest of eternity.
In conclusion my artwork depicts Edwards’ purpose by showing how our fate lies in God’s hands. Edwards’ morals are to influence people to stop sinning and to lie within God’s holy words, to gain forgiveness and to be able to spend the rest of eternity in Heaven rather than Hell. This is heavily shown through my illustration with God pointing at to where he thinks the Sinner should be sent for forever based on their actions. Going along with how my drawing represents Edwards’ attitudes is that, based on my artwork, viewers will be able to decide whether or not they want to change their actions in order to decide their own fate.
