Wesley, Whitefield and the 'Free Grace' Controversy

The Crucible of Methodism

Joel Houston

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429848179
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

When approaching the most public disagreement over predestination in the eighteenth century, the 'Free Grace' controversy between John Wesley and George Whitefield, the tendency can be to simply review the event as a row over the same old issues. This assumption pervades much of the scholarly literature that deals with early Methodism. Moreover, much of that same literature addresses the dispute from John Wesley's vantage point, often harbouring a bias towards his Evangelical Arminianism. Yet the question must be asked: was there more to the 'Free Grace' controversy than a simple rehashing of old arguments?

This book answers this complex question by setting out the definitive account of the 'Free Grace' controversy in first decade of the Evangelical Revival (1739-49). Centred around the key players in the fracas, John Wesley and George Whitefield, it is a close analysis of the way in which the doctrine of predestination was instrumental in differentiating the early Methodist societies from one another. It recounts the controversy through the lens of doctrinal analysis and from two distinct perspectives: the propositional content of a given doctrine and how that doctrine exerts formative pressure upon the assenting individual(s).

What emerges from this study is a clearer picture of the formative years of early Methodism and the vital role that doctrinal pronouncement played in giving a shape to early Methodist identity. It will, therefore, be of great interest to scholars of Methodism, Evangelicalism, Theology and Church History.

Part 1
Historical development of the doctrine of predestination

1 The ‘location’ of the ‘Free Grace’ controversy

Historical and theological precedents

Introduction

Arthur Schopenhauer’s oft-repeated maxim ‘man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills’ is a pithy way of articulating the mysterious relationship between fate and free will.¹ Expressed similarly, Tolstoy believed that in a given moment a person may feel as though their choices are freely conducted; however, once a course of ‘action’ is chosen, it ‘becomes irreversible and makes itself the property of history, in which it has not a free but a predestined significance.’² Within the various theological traditions of the church, the doctrine of predestination casts perennial questions about determinism and free will within the mould of the Christian narrative. Does God predetermine the destiny of all persons regardless of merit or human action? Or, does he create humanity with a meaningful sense of freedom and personal agency? Far from an abstract theological debate, the doctrine of predestination has long proved to be a source of both comfort and contention throughout the history of the church. To address John Wesley and George Whitefield’s dispute over predestination as an historically isolated incident would be to miss the much more significant way in which the doctrine of predestination has the tendency to exert an acute pressure on the human psyche.

Some key questions must therefore be asked before coming to the ‘Free Grace’ controversy itself. What was it about predestination in particular that caused it to become such a flash-point between Wesley and Whitefield? How did two different and rather robust theological interpretations of predestination come to co-exist within the Church of England? And, finally, what is at stake in these divergent interpretations? Is this not a variation of asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

This chapter explores the theological history that is vital to contextualizing the ‘Free Grace’ controversy. Through the identification of three distinct forms of predestinarian thought through the lens of three theologians, the overarching argument is that as the doctrine of predestination developed over the first 11 centuries of the church, it accrued an almost uncompromising rigidity. The first mode, the idea of unconditional predestination, was articulated and defended by Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (354–430). The second mode was the development of active reprobation (so-called ‘double-predestination’), and an emphasis on limited atonement was espoused by John Calvin (1509–64). The final mode is the development of supralapsarian predestination in the thought and work of Theodore Beza (1519–1605). As the severity of the doctrine of predestination grew more pronounced, it was inevitable that it would strike a nerve in the human experience and threaten to corrupt basic human intuitions concerning justice, free will, and the nature and character of God—ideas that became the essence of the theological disagreement between Wesley and Whitefield amidst the ‘Free Grace’ controversy. In this sense, the ‘Free Grace’ controversy may be seen as one that took centuries to develop, with a multitude of twists and turns, yet all returning to the same question: ‘why does God choose some and not others?’³ Indeed, few, if any, doctrines have invited more debate and disagreement than Augustine’s conception of the God who chooses.

Augustine and predestination

In the Western tradition of the Christian church, much of the turmoil over predestination finds its genesis in Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (354–430).⁴ As historian Peter Thuesen pointed out, however, there are antecedents, and in many cases, they disagreed with Augustine.⁵ For example, Justin (Martyr, 100–65) believed that because of a divine gift of ‘free-will,’ humanity was therefore ‘capable of vice and virtue. For neither would any of them be praiseworthy unless there were power to turn to both.’⁶ Likewise, Irenaeus (130–202) asserted that ‘man, being endowed with reason, and in this respect like to God, having been made free in his will, and with power over himself, is himself the cause to himself, that sometimes he becomes wheat, and sometimes chaff.’⁷ Demonstrating the effect to which Justin’s perspective influenced John Chrysostom (c. 347–407), Thuesen argued that the Eastern Church adopted a perspective that saw predestination as fundamentally divergent from the Western tradition.⁸

It must be noted, however, that Augustine’s own views experienced a marked shift. Augustine’s early perspective aligned much more closely with the aforementioned Eastern view.⁹ John Rist explained that before To Simplician, ‘Augustine held that God predestined those whom he had foreseen would believe. Later he abandoned this, for faith itself is a gift: “What have you which you did not receive? (1 Cor. 4:7).” ’¹⁰ Augustine did not link notions of foreknowledge and predestination until his later career, around 397, ‘after he has arrived at his definitive reading of Romans 9.’¹¹ However, Rist continued, even if Augustine’s early thought on predestination was predicated on God’s foreknowledge, his ideas were constructed so as to accommodate the logic of causality: something predestined must be known beforehand. Augustine’s early thought on predestination does not ascribe redemption to humanity in any form and remains solely within God’s providence.¹²

Nevertheless, Augustine’s theology of predestination may be divided into two stages.¹³ Dennis Creswell posited that Augustine’s unfinished commentary on Romans (394/5) is indicative of the general pattern of his early predestinarian formulation.¹⁴ Augustine rhetorically asked how it was that God’s favour in Christ was shown to the world. Was the gospel given only to the Jewish people, as a result of their righteous keeping of the law (a meritorious achievement), or was righteousness imputed to Jew and Gentile apart from any inherent worthiness? In Augustine’s words, if the gospel was given as a purely gratuitous act and not a reward for obedience, then the result would be that,

people would believe not because they were just but, justified through belief, they would begin to live justly. (2) This then, is that the apostle intends to teach: that the grace of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ came to all men. He thereby shows why one calls this ‘grace,’ for it was given freely, not as the repayment of a debt of righteousness.¹⁵

Creswell has shown how Augustine was at pains to make God the sole author of salvation, yet also preserve the notion of God acknowledging the faith that the believer volitionally exercised. A position distinct from earning salvation as a product of ‘good works,’ Creswell argued, ‘which Augustine’s understanding of Romans 9:11–13 does not allow him to hold.’¹⁶

Augustine’s answers in To Simplician, however, show evidence of a shift in Augustine’s thought prior to his settled convictions on predestination. No longer is God’s predestination predicated on his foreknowledge; rather, God’s foreknowledge was predicated on his predestination. Augustine arrived at his understanding after an extended consideration of Jacob and Esau, convinced that Jacob’s election was solely the product of a ‘free gift of God’s grace.’¹⁷ Eric Jenkins explained that these conclusions troubled Augustine and the question of fairness remained.¹⁸ Augustine asked: ‘here we must inquire why [Paul] says, “that the purpose of God according to election might stand.” How can election be just, indeed how can there be any kind of election, where there is no difference?’¹⁹ In answer, Augustine made brief recourse to a kind of ‘hidden merit’ that informed God’s selection from the ‘massa perditionis,’ which, as Jenkins suggested, was on account of the nagging suspicion that God must base his choice on something, being that God is ‘no respecter of persons.’²⁰ Wetzel remarked that this contradiction of gratuitous versus warranted redemption was purposely left unresolved.²¹ Augustine’s conclusion remained—the foundation of election is solely the ‘mercy of God’:

Unless, therefore, the mercy of God in calling precedes, no one can even believe, and so begin to be justified and to receive power to do good works. So grace comes before all merits. Christ died for the ungodly. The younger received the promise that the elder should serve him from him that calleth and not from any meritorious works of his own. So the Scripture ‘Jacob have I loved’ is true, but it was of God who called and not of Jacob’s righteous works.²²

Creswell concluded (following F. E. Cranz) that in Augustine’s The City of God (426), the whole of created humanity has been bifurcated into two distinct categories: ‘the sinners and the saved—and that this reality is based not on the eternal order, but upon the predestination of human wills by the action of God.’ God’s reordering of the will was paramo...