Wesleyans and Calvinists Together?
Portrait of John Calvin, artist unknown. (Source: WikiCommons)
When Donald Thorsen published his carefully-argued book, Calvin v. Wesley: Bringing Belief in Line with Practice in 2013, American Wesleyans, broadly understood, were not surprised to learn that their Calvinist counterparts, despite their very Reformed theology, were actually living more like Wesley. And though some Wesleyans took comfort in the notion that their theology and practice were largely in accord without any hint of Calvinism, in other words, that Wesleyan doctrine would invariably lead to Wesleyan practice, this truism as well would eventually be challenged. For Calvinists, their practice belied their theology with hints of Wesley. For Wesleyans, however, both their theology and their practice at times belied each other with hints, if not of Calvin, then at least of Calvinism. Accordingly, this essay will explore the theological similarities between the basic teachings of popular Calvinism reigning in the pew today and the theology of the Wesley brothers, particularly that of John, a theology that has not always found its way into Wesleyan pews.
When my seminary students (and some are Baptist and Presbyterian) think of Calvinist theology, they immediately reach for the acronym TULIP, and then they compare these basic teachings with the theology of John Wesley as found, for example, in his sermons. Some Wesleyan historians, however, are quick to point out that Wesley’s Arminianism is not best understood in terms of the historic Canons of Dort that only much later were repackaged in the early twentieth century in the acronym TULIP. Instead, these historians will appeal to an indigenous English ecclesiastical setting, deeply rooted in Ante-Nicene Christianity, the English Reformation, seventeenth-century Caroline Divines (Jeremy Taylor) and eighteenth-century, high church, Anglicans such as William Law, as informing the very substance of Wesley’s Arminianism. According to these scholars, this interpretive shift from the European Continent to the British Isles is crucial. This salient historical issue, however, will not be resolved here, for there is, after all, another side of the argument. Indeed, the focus of this current essay is popular, not historical. It will therefore explore how laypeople, college and seminary students, and others actually compare Calvinism, popularly understood in the form of TULIP, with the basic teachings of John Wesley.
Total Depravity
Given the practices of many Wesleyan believers today, regardless of denomination, in which their Arminianism has largely defaulted to divine and human cooperation, they would likely be surprised to learn that an early British Methodist conference had feared that it had “come to the very edge of Calvinism.” To be sure, the Methodist shift, theological and otherwise, to the very edge of Calvinism, easily demonstrated from a careful reading of early conference records, would likely be one of the very last considerations on Wesleyan minds today. This state of affairs may be due in large measure to a failure to reckon with what John and Charles Wesley and the early Methodist conferences had actually taught. Kindly read the following theological selection very carefully, even aloud if necessary:
Here is the shibboleth. Is man by nature filled with all manner of evil? Is he void of all good? Is he wholly fallen? Is his soul totally corrupted? Or, to come back to the text, is `every imagination of the thoughts of his heart evil continually'? Allow this, and you are so far a Christian. Deny it, and you are but a heathen still.”
Who is the author of this theological statement? If you are like several of my students and many of those sitting in pews on Sunday mornings, the reply will be quickly offered and confidently spoken: John Calvin. This answer is, of course, wrong. Its author is none other than John Wesley. The responders will then try to recover quickly by mentioning something about prevenient grace, but because this phrase is uttered so rapidly, with very little thought, they once again fail to consider in a serious way the theological depth and significance of what Wesley wrote as well as its strong theological similarity with Calvinism. Elsewhere in his writings, Wesley elaborated: “A denial of original sin contradicts the main design of the gospel, which is to humble vain man, and to ascribe to God's free grace, not man's free will, the whole of his salvation.” Put another way, the language of “wholly fallen” and “totally corrupted” does indeed humble all aspirants of God’s grace and reveals that whatever grace is offered, given this dire condition of original sin, must be ascribed to God’s free grace, not cooperant grace, and therefore can only be received as the sheer gift that it is. The resonances with Calvinism here are strong, very strong.
Moreover, the immediate appeal to prevenient grace in order not to grapple with what “wholly fallen” and “totally corrupted” mean in a larger theological trajectory, may prevent contemporary Wesleyan believers once again from seeing ongoing similarities with Calvinism. Take for example the restoration of the faculties through prevenient grace in the form of 1) conscience, 2) grace-infused freedom, 3) knowledge of the basic attributes of God, and 4) knowledge of the moral law. How are such faculties restored? Do we cooperate with God in order to receive them? Do we exercise our freedom in the course of their reception? Given the condition of “wholly fallen” and “totally corrupted,” these faculties must be and can only be restored in one way, that is, sovereignly! In other words, such action even in the area of prevenient grace, at least in terms of the reception of the four faculties enumerated above, represents the work of God alone and is best understood therefore as a species of free grace, not cooperant grace.
Unconditional Election
In his own eighteenth-century setting, John Wesley was well aware that several Calvinist leaders such as George Whitefield taught that election was unconditional; in other words, that it did not depend on human working in any way. So understood, God sovereignly elects persons based solely on the divine will and freedom. However, John Wesley in his own age and many Wesleyans today would immediately reply that election, as well as the salvation that it entails, is never painted in Scripture, particularly in the New Testament, as unconditional. Instead, the condition repeatedly lifted up is faith in Jesus Christ. Accordingly, Wesley elaborated: “But I believe this election to be conditional, as well as the reprobation opposite thereto. I believe the eternal decree concerning both is expressed in those words: "He that believeth shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned."
Not content with this initial observation, Wesley developed his line of thought further and discovered a blatant inconsistency in the Calvinist affirmation of unconditional election. For though this teaching eliminates all human working from consideration, in underscoring the sovereignty and freedom of God, it nevertheless, oddly enough, eliminates faith as well. “But neither is it by faith:” Wesley reasoned, “For [an] unconditional decree excludes faith as well as works; since, if it is either by faith or works foreseen, it is not by unconditional decree.”
For many Wesleyans today this is about as far as this particular story goes—if they even get this far. However, by stopping the narrative at this point, these contemporary believers miss a crucial theological point that Wesley did indeed make in this area. And though this point does not detract from the basic biblical truth that salvation is after all conditional, nevertheless it does offer an understanding of faith itself that most Calvinists, then as now, would warmly appreciate. What is that faith which is properly saving? Wesley quoted an earlier statement from Peter Böhler with hearty approval: "This faith, indeed, as well as the salvation it brings, is the free gift of God. But seek, and thou shalt find. Strip thyself naked of thy own works, and thy own righteousness, and fly to him.” In other words, saving faith itself is not a species of cooperant grace but of free grace. It is a gift that is received and then expressed along the way of salvation. In short, there is a “receiving” before there is ever any “responding.” All of this has been missed in the usual Wesley-Arminian-cooperant-grace triumphalism that often plays out in this area.
Limited Atonement
Calvinist theologians throughout the ages have often argued that the atoning work of Jesus Christ is the formal cause of redemption. In other words, the atonement shows how redemption is structured and applied to the redeemed whose circle would only include the elect. For their part, Wesleyan theologians, following the lead of John and Charles, have maintained that the atoning work of Jesus Christ is the material cause of redemption. In other words, the atonement is the basis upon which all are offered salvation. Indeed, the glory of Wesleyans, both scholars and laity alike, has been the repeated affirmation that Christ died for all people—and all means all!
To set up this important theological issue in such a manner makes it seem that Calvinists and Wesleyans are very far apart. But are they really as distant from each other as it may initially seem? For one thing, it must be remembered that Wesleyans are by no means universalists. Like Calvinists, they will readily acknowledge, on the authority of no one less than Jesus Christ himself, that those who are redeemed are not many but few: “But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matt. 7:14b, NIV). While it is theologically significant, even in terms of a revelation of who God is, to affirm that Christ died for those sinners who in the end will reject him, a truth that needs a clear and careful affirmation by all Wesleyans, nevertheless Calvinists and Wesleyans alike do not disagree that at the end of days the atoning work of Jesus Christ will be efficacious only for a few.
Irresistible Grace
That God’s offer of saving grace in Jesus Christ can be rejected is a basic teaching found in the writings of both John and Charles Wesley. At the heart of this view is a profound understanding of the nature of the image of God with its grace-infused liberty. Such a freedom is a reflection of the glory of having been created as a Thou, and not as an It, to borrow the language from the Jewish theologian Martin Buber, in the radiant beauty of personhood. With such a lofty view of humanity in place, God will never force or coerce those created in the image, for holy love, the very substance of salvation, ever entails the deepest and richest freedom imaginable.
It seems then that this may finally be an area in which Wesleyanism and Calvinism sharply diverge, period. However, if the distinction between doctrine and practice is back on the table, with a focus this time on the latter, then the picture changes significantly. Being the good pastoral leader the he was, John Wesley recognized, after listening to so many conversion stories, that the experience of Methodists, Calvinists and other Christians was in many respects remarkably similar. Indeed, though divine and human cooperation will likely lead up to the threshold of saving grace, with many opportunities to reject what the Holy Spirit is clearly offering, nevertheless justifying and regenerating graces themselves so often seem to be ineluctable at the moment of their reception. Of this redemptive experience, Wesley observed: “It seems also, that, at the moment of our conversion, he [God] acts irresistibly.” Beyond this, Wesley not only pointed out “That the grace which brings faith, and thereby salvation into the soul, is irresistible at that moment,” but he also recognized “That most believers do, at some other times, find God irresistibly acting upon their souls.” To put this basic experiential truth, along with its numerous testimonies, into a more contemporary idiom: at the moment of conversion Jesus is color; everything else is gray. However, none of the psychological and spiritual dynamics of the personal reception of saving grace, as important as they are, contradict the clear doctrinal truth that Wesley ongoingly affirmed: “Yet I believe that the grace of God, both before and after those moments, may be, and hath been, resisted.”
Perseverance of the Saints
The teaching of the perseverance of the saints is more popularly known today, especially among both Calvinists and Wesleyans, as “once in grace, always in grace.” According to the champions of this largely Reformed teaching, if one is genuinely born of God then one will never fall away. Many Wesleyans will intuitively reject this teaching, due to their fear of lawlessness, even if they cannot cite the pertinent passage from Wesley’s Serious Thoughts upon Perseverance of the Saints in which this specific issue is addressed: “Those who see the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and who have been made partakers of the Holy Ghost, of the witness and the fruits of the Spirit, may nevertheless so fall from God as to perish everlastingly.” Indeed, if this passage from Wesley’s writings is properly cited, and the only one brought forward, then most Wesleyans will simply conclude that the whole matter is over. There is nothing to see here. Move on. But this, once again, would be a mistake.
In the early 1740’s as Wesley and Whitefield were exploring their theological differences, Wesley “in an attempt to cut off needless dispute,” wrote down his views “as plain as I could.” In terms of the perseverance of the saints, Wesley penned the following:
“With regard to the third, final perseverance, I incline to believe,
That there is a state attainable in this life, from which a man cannot finally fall: And
That he has attained this, who can say, ‘Old things are passed away; all things’ in me ‘are become new,
And I do not deny,
That all those eminently styled the elect will infallibly persevere to the end.”
Given the teaching of these two passages, has Wesley contradicted himself? The answer, of course, is "No." Once one pays attention to the specific language of these two very distinct passages, it can easily be discerned that the first one, given its wording of "the witness and the fruits of the Spirit," is referring to the new birth while the second one with its concluding line, "That all those eminently styled the elect will infallibly persevere to the end," is referring to the elect. Put another way, John Wesley consistently taught that those who are genuinely born of God may yet fall away through stubborn, unrepented, willful sin. However, Wesley also recognized (how could he not?) that the elect throughout the course of their lives will never fall away. Simply put, he affirmed two truths, not just one.
The main difference then between Calvinists and Wesleyans in terms of perseverance is best understood in light of the distinction between the new birth and election, the one representing human knowledge, the other divine. In other words, it seems from the Wesleyan perspective that Calvinists are presumptuously concluding that if one is born of God then one is therefore a part of the elect. However, Wesley taught that one who is truly born of God may in the end fall away but the elect (by Scriptural definition) will never fall away. Again, the former truth has been heartily affirmed by most Wesleyans; the latter, however, has either been ignored or outright repudiated by Wesley’s heirs.
When a larger framework is considered, there is indeed something to learn from our Calvinist brothers and sisters, especially in terms of the reception of persevering grace over time. That is, with the Wesleyan emphasis on increasing degrees of assurance over the course of the Christian journey, those who are born of God, and even entirely sanctified, may come to realize, perhaps at the end of their days, at the sunset of their lives, that they are indeed the elect after all and that they will shortly be with Christ in glory. Simply put, divine knowledge, in place from all eternity, is now becoming human knowledge, in the warp and woof of life, in an abundance of grace and power. Wesley clearly recognized such a state or condition of grace though his heirs, for the most part, have not. Indeed, the hard-nosed Wesleyan today might rush in and claim, even here, despite this deep reception of grace, and all the faithfulness and love of God enjoyed throughout the decades, that these holy souls may yet fall away. Really? Really? While this is of course theoretically possible in Wesleyan Arminian theology, it nevertheless remains highly unlikely given this deep state of grace over time and this particular juncture of the Christian journey. There is, after all, such a thing as persevering grace even for Wesleyans. Or as John Wesley himself had put it, there is such a “state attainable in this life, from which a man cannot finally fall.”
Conclusion
Not only do our Calvinist brothers and sisters share with us Wesleyans basic Christian doctrines such as the authority of Scripture, an affirmation of the Trinity, and a proper Christology, among other key doctrines, but also it must now be recognized that even in those areas where we are supposed to sharply disagree, more accord can be found than has been popularly acknowledged. Bringing the reality of free grace back into the Wesleyan theological mix, where it belongs, has functioned as a catalyst to clear the way. Accordingly, given the challenges that the church faces in the 21st century from a broader North American culture that has clearly lost its way, is it time to issue a clarion call, as Richard John Neuhaus did in his own age for evangelicals and Roman Catholics, of now calling for nothing less than Wesleyans and Calvinists together? This may be, after all, the Wesleyan and Calvinist moment.
Kenneth J. Collins is Professor of Historical Theology and Wesley Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, KY, and a member of Firebrand’s editorial board. He has just published a new book on Wesleyan theology entitled: Generous Divine Love: The Grace and Power of Methodist Theology.