Salvaging Wesley's Agenda

A New Paradigm for Wesleyan Virtue Ethics

Lowery

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2008
• eBook ISBN: 9781630878429
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Kevin Twain Lowery believes that two of John Wesley's most distinctive doctrines--his doctrines of assurance and Christian perfection--have not been sufficiently developed. Rather, these doctrines have either been distorted or neglected. Lowery suggests that since Wesleyan ethics is centered on these two doctrines, they need to be recast in a schema that emphasizes the cognitive aspects of religious knowledge and moral development.Salvaging Wesley's Agenda constructs such a new framework in three stages. First, Lowery explores Wesley's reliance upon Lockean empiricism. He contends that Wesleyan epistemology should remain more closely tied to empirical knowledge and should distance itself from mystical and intuitionist models like Wesley's own spiritual sense analogy. Second, examining the way that Wesley appropriates Jonathan Edwards's view of the religious affections, Lowery shows that Wesleyan ethics should not regard emotions as something to be passively experienced. Rather, emotions have cognitive content that allows them to be shaped. Third, Lowery completes the new framework by suggesting ways to revise and expand Wesley's own conceptual scheme. These suggestions allow more of Wesley's concerns to be incorporated into the new schema without sacrificing his core commitments.The final chapter sketches the doctrines of assurance and perfection in the new framework. Assurance is based on religious faith and on self-knowledge (both empirical and psychological), and perfection is understood in a more teleological context. The result is a version of Wesleyan ethics more faithful to Wesley's own thought and able to withstand the scrutiny of higher intellectual standards.

part one

The Need to Develop Wesleyan Virtue Ethics

1

The Loss of Wesley’s Agenda

John Wesley has been called “the single most influential Protestant leader of the English-speaking world since the Reformation.”1 That Wesley should be regarded so highly should be of little wonder, for he is a central religious figure in several respects. He is most readily recognized as the founder of Methodism, which not only has been a major influence in British and American religious history over the past two centuries, but continues to be a prominent Christian tradition in the world today. Moreover, Wesley is essentially the progenitor of the subsequent Holiness, Keswick, Pentecostal, and Charismatic Movements, all of which have their roots in the Methodist tradition.

However, Wesley’s importance goes beyond his impact on Christian history, for his eclecticism makes him a key figure for understanding the diverse strands of philosophy and theology that developed in the eighteenth century. According to Albert Outler, the intricacies of Wesley’s thought have often been overlooked, and Wesley is often not fully appreciated.

Obviously, Wesley can be read, and usually has been read, without the broad and intricate tapestry of his sources unfolded as a background for interpretation. This was part of the price he paid for self-divestiture of his theological apparatus. Even so, it is just as this background is recovered and reevaluated that Wesley emerges as a more interesting and impressive theologian than his stereotypes have presented—precisely because he was a folk theologian.2

There has been a renewed interest in Wesley scholarship in the past few decades thanks to the efforts of scholars like Outler and Frank Baker.3 However, too little attention has been devoted to the intellectual development of Wesley’s ethical thought. Historically, there has been an apparent lack of interest in Wesley beyond Wesleyan circles, and those who have examined Wesley’s ethics have either limited their investigations to his casuistry (i.e., his “special ethics”) or they have predominantly focused on theological themes to the neglect of their philosophical underpinnings.

Wesley’s Two Distinctive Doctrines

Wesley did not formulate his own systematic theology, much less a comprehensive moral theory. However, he had two ubiquitous concerns that arguably represent his most distinctive contributions to Christian thought: assurance and Christian perfection. I believe that the basic elements of a Wesleyan moral theory are best reflected in these two doctrines. However, I will suggest that these doctrines have not been substantially developed since Wesley formulated them himself. It is my theory that developing these doctrines will require the concepts that support them to be developed as well. I will propose the type of development that I believe will prove the most fruitful yet remain faithful to Wesley’s own concerns. Creating a new paradigm for Wesleyan ethics will be the first step toward the construction of a more comprehensive Wesleyan moral theory.

The doctrines of assurance and perfection are actually held in tension for Wesley. On the one hand, he wants to be certain of his standing with God. He wants to know not only that his sins are forgiven, but also that God is pleased with his life. On the other hand, Wesley contends that Christians must strive to be perfect as God is perfect, at least in a moral sense. There must be both progress and attainment in the Christian life. As such, the quest for perfection requires that there be some dissatisfaction with one’s present state.

Wesley’s understanding of these two doctrines matured throughout the course of his life, and this maturation of thought was not merely theoretical in nature, because Wesley allowed his views to be shaped by the experiences that he and others encountered. Regarding his understanding of assurance, the defining moment for Wesley was his well-known experience at Aldersgate.

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate-Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation: And an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.4

This event would later become the cornerstone of Wesley’s doctrine of assurance. At first, he did not interpret this experience as the witness of the Spirit, but as his true conversion. Five days later, he related this experience to a group of people gathered at the Hutton home, alleging that he had not been a Christian prior to that event. This led to an exchange of words between Wesley and Mr. Hutton. Wesley defended himself by arguing that we are saved through faith alone, and he now believed that he had lacked real faith before that time.5 It is not surprising that Wesley should take this stance, considering: 1) his Aldersgate experience occurred while someone was reading Luther’s preface to Romans, and 2) he was being heavily influenced at the time by the Moravians, a Lutheran pietist group.

Five more months passed, and Wesley felt that he had not yet received the “witness of the Spirit” that his sins were forgiven and that he was a child of God, yet he continued to wait patiently. Doing so was difficult, since he had observed others receiving this “witness” in less than an hour.6 Within a year of his Aldersgate experience, Wesley was already expressing serious doubts concerning his status as a child of God. It is important to note here the source of these doubts. For that r...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations for Citations
• Introduction
• Part One: The Need to Develop Wesleyan Virtue Ethics
• Chapter 1: The Loss of Wesley’s Agenda
• Chapter 2: The Call for a New Paradigm
• Part Two: The Intellectual Roots of Wesley’s Thought
• Chapter 3: Wesley and Lockean Empiricism
• Chapter 4: Wesley and Lockean Ethics
• Chapter 5: The Rejection of Mystical Spirituality
• Chapter 6: The Cognitive Content of Emotions
• Part Three: Constructing a New Paradigm
• Chapter 7: The Basic Conceptual Elements
• Chapter 8: Incorporating Kantian Concepts
• Chapter 9: Reformulating Wesley’s Two Distinctive Doctrines
• Bibliography