The Limits Of Love Divine

This volume provides a corrective to traditional views of the theological development of Methodism by describing John Wesley's struggles with enthusiasm and against antinomianism among his followers. Gunter assesses Wesley's theology as he traces its evolution, showing how Wesley defended himself and his movement.

This volume offers an array of newly commissioned essays, addressing the topic of love in the Christian tradition. Drawn from a range of expert theologians and philosophers in contemporary analytic and non-analytic theology, these essays join current debates within the theology of love, and aim to propose new avenues for future research. Including the last essay written by Marilyn McCord Adams, Love, Divine and Human deals with a rich variety of issues related to divine and human love. The broad scope of the book includes divine transcendence and its methodological bearing on the doctrine of divine love, the nature and scope of divine love, the interrelation between God's love and wrath, the plausibility of an impassable God of love, and the application of various conceptions of divine love to the problem of divine hiddenness, human ethics, and human free will, among other topics. This unified collection of cutting-edge papers will advance discussion for all those focused on the theology of love.

Love Divine provides a systematic account of the deep and rich love that God has for humans. While the associated theological territory is vast, the objective is to contend for a unified paradigm regarding fundamental issues pertaining to the God of love who deigns to share His life of love with any human willing to receive it. Realizing this objective includes clarifying and defending specific conclusions concerning how the doctrine of divine love should be approached, what God's love is, what role love plays in motivating God's creation and subsequent governance of humans, how God's love of humans factors into His emotional life, which humans it is that God loves in a saving manner, what the punitive wrath of God is and how it relates to God's love for humans, and how it might be possible for God to share the intra-trinitarian life of love with human beings. As the book unfolds, the chapters interlock and build upon one another in the effort to trace nodal issues related to God's love as it begins in Him and then spills out in the creation, redemption, and glorification of humanity—a kind of exitus-reditus structure that is driven by the unyielding love of God.

The important questions in ecumenical dialogue centre upon issues of authority and order. This book uses the development of ministry in the early Methodist Church to explore the origins of the Methodist Order and identify the nature of authority exercised by John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church. Showing Methodism as having been founded upon Episcopalian principles, but in a manner reinterpreted by its founder, Adrian Burdon charts the journey made by John Wesley and his people towards the ordination of preachers, which became such a major issue amongst the first Methodist Societies. Implications for understanding the nature and practice of authority and order in modern Methodism are explored, with particular reference to the covenant for unity between English Methodists and the Church of England.

In Witnesses of Perfection Amy Caswell Bratton explores how the eighteenth-century doctrine of Christian Perfection spread in the early British Methodist communities. Alongside leaders such as John and Charles Wesley teaching about Christian Perfection, Methodist men and women told narratives of Christian Perfection which transmitted the doctrine. Using narrative to spread Christian Perfection was effective because it both communicated the content of the experience of Christian Perfection and also commended this experience to the listener. This study is noteworthy for its detailed analysis of several first-hand narratives that testify to the experience, and which were made public for the edification of the Methodist community in the Arminian Magazine and other publications. The narratives of four Methodist people are examined at length: Sarah Crosby (1729-1804), George Clark (1710-1797), William Hunter (1728-1797) and Bathsheba Hall (1745-1780). In addition to observing the transmission of the doctrine through narrative, the study of these stories illuminates early Methodist spirituality and the doctrine of Christian Perfection (or entire sanctification) through the embodiment of Perfection in the life of real people. This lived-out expression of Christian Perfection draws attention to unique elements of the doctrine as each narrative illustrates nuances of Christian Perfection. Finally, the narratives of Perfection offer the embodiment of transformation which resulted in lasting change.

John Wesley claimed to be a man of one book, and early Wesley scholarship accepted uncritically that the Bible was his supreme authority. In the late twentieth century, American Wesley scholars discussed what has been termed the Wesley Quadrilateral (the authority of the Bible, tradition, reason, and experience), and this to some extent helps explain the method by which Wesley read and interpreted the Bible. However, modern biblical reader-response criticism has drawn attention to the central role of the reader in his/her interpretation of scriptural texts. Donald Bullen argues that Wesley came to the Bible as a reader with the presuppositions of an eighteenth-century High Church, Arminian Anglican, in which tradition he had grown up. He then found his beliefs confirmed in the scriptural text. Claiming to base all his beliefs on the Bible, he found himself in controversy with others who made similar claims but came to different conclusions. The implications of this are explored in depth.

John Wesley’s Doctrine of Justification provides updated scholarship on this pivotal doctrine of Methodism, providing a deeper understanding of a major tenet of the Christian faith. Mark Olson offers a comprehensive treatment of the development and exposition of Wesley’s doctrine of justification and how it changed throughout Wesley’s life, including his early views rooted in Anglican heritage, the significant developments in Wesley’s career, and contributions from notable figures like John Fletcher to his doctrine of general justification. The doctrine of justification was pivotal to John Wesley’s understanding of a person’s relationship with God. In Wesley’s view, it defined one of the two general parts of salvation. It touched every aspect of the spiritual journey from birth (general justification) to conversion (present justification) to final judgment and glory (final justification). To properly understand Wesley’s via salutis and theology, one needs to grasp the particulars of his doctrine of justification. The best way to do this is to tell the story of how he came to understand the doctrine over the course of his life. It is a complex story, with many twists and turns, that deserves to be fully told.

Explores the nature and function of bhakti or devotional involvement in religious practice in India in areas where it is seldom sought or where its existence has been doubted or even denied.