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< 81 Notes CHAPTER 1 1 W. Reginald Ward and Richard P. Heitzenrater, eds., The Works of John Wesley, vol. 18 (Nashville: Abingdon, 1988), xviii, 249–50. 2 For an interesting set of essays on Wesley’s Aldersgate experience, see Randy Maddox, Aldersgate Reconsidered (Nashville: Abingdon, 1990). 3 For a comprehensive overview of Methodism see William J. Abraham and James E. Kirby, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Methodist Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 4 Richard P. Heitzenrater, “Great Expectations: Aldersgate and the Evidences of Genuine Christianity,” in Mirror and Memory: Reflections on Early Methodism (Nashville: Abingdon, 1989), 106–49. 5 The classical arguments are the cosmological, teleological, and ontological arguments for the existence of God. Understood as proofs they needed to meet the exacting standards of validity (the conclusion had to follow of necessity from the premises) and soundness (the premises had to be true). 6 Albert C. Outler, ed., The Works of John Wesley (Nashville: Abingdon , 1985), 2:594–95. 7 “From the creation they inferred the being of a Creator, powerful and wise, just and merciful.” See “Walking by Faith and Walking by Sight,” in Outler, 4:52. 82 Notes to pp. 5–13 8 Wesley is clearly drawn to the tradition of “o felix culpa” (O Happy Fall) in his response to the problem of evil. See “God’s Love to Fallen Man,” in Outler, 2:423–35. 9 The whole attempt to explore Wesley’s epistemology in terms of the so-called Wesleyan Quadrilateral of Scripture, tradition, reason and experience is useless at this point. The epistemic concepts deployed in the Quadrilateral are much too generic and abstract; we need to pay detailed attention to the precise epistemic moves employed by Wesley. 10 Ward and Heitzenrater, 18:249. 11 Ward and Heitzenrater, 18:253–54. Emphasis added. 12 Ward and Heitzenrater, 18:248–49. 13 Ward and Heitzenrater, 18:249–50. 14 I agree with the formula developed by William P. Alston on the logic of the issue as laid out in his “The Fulfillment of Promises as Evidence for Religious Belief,” in Faith in Theory and Practice, Essays on Justifying Religious Belief, ed. Elizabeth S. Radcliffe and Carol J. White (Chicago: Open Court, 1993), 1–34. See especially the formulation of the more general argument he deploys on page 7. This is a seminal essay on the whole topic of fulfillment of divine promises as evidence for Christian belief. 15 “A Letter to the Reverend Doctor Conyers Middleton Occasioned by his late ‘Free Inquiry,’” in The Works of John Wesley, ed. Thomas Jackson (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1979), 10:79. As Wesley tends to run the argument informally with other arguments and in a way that does not fully capture what is at stake, I have taken the liberty of stating the argument as cleanly as I can before turning to Wesley’s longer formulation below. 16 “A Letter to the Reverend,” in Jackson, 10:78–79. Wesley switches horses toward the end, moving from promise-fulfillment to perception of the divine, but we can still see the promise-fulfillment argument peeping through. 17 I have sought to articulate this vision in Wesley For Armchair Theologians (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005). 18 This insight needs to be handled carefully; it is easy to drop the theological substance of the Christian faith in the name of practicality and bogus piety. Moreover, Wesley ran the deep risk of becoming so anthropocentric that the theocentric center of gravity essential to a robust faith readily collapses. For more on [54.152.77.92] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 14:24 GMT) Notes to pp. 15–26 83 this see my “The End of Wesleyan Theology” in Wesleyan Theological Journal 40 (2005): 7–25. 19 There are interesting biographical issues in the neighborhood about the place of Aldersgate in the long-haul views of Wesley that I cannot deal with here. 20 Wesley really needs a richer and more nuanced account of both his own spiritual pilgrimage and of the Christian life as a whole, but that is a topic for another time and place. 21 “We may yet further observe that every command in Holy Writ is only a covered promise.” See Outler, 1:554–55. 22 The full story summarized here can be found in David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2003), 271–75. 23 This is one of the critical issues pursued by Wesley in his “Sixth Letter to Mr. John Smith,” in Jackson, 12:56–104. 24 For an interesting account of anecdotal evidence see Jesse Hobbes , “Religious and Scientific Uses of Anecdotal Evidence,” in Faith in Theory and Practice, Essays on Justifying Religious Belief, ed. Elizabeth S. Radcliffe and Carol J. White (Chicago: Open Court, 1993), 8–169. Alvin Goldman’s Knowledge in a Social World (Oxford: Clarendon , 1999) provides a fine discussion of the relation between epistemology and the social world. 25 I write circumspectly here because it is also the case that elements in Wesley’s theology can readily serve to undermine the faith of the church even though he thought he was upholding primitive Christianity. 26 Ward and Heitzenrater, 18:249. See n. 10 above. CHAPTER 2 1 “On the Discoveries of Faith,” in Outler, 4:28–38, and “On Faith,” in Outler, 4:188–200. 2 “The Witness of the Spirit, I,” in Outler, 1:267–84, and “The Witness of the Spirit, II,” in Outler, 1:285–98. 3 This claim stands secure even if we rework, as we should, Wesley ’s particular account of original sin. 4 See “On the Education of Children,” in Outler, 3:347–60. 5 Interestingly, Wesley believes that we will have appropriate senses when we get to heaven itself. See “On Faith,” in Outler, 4:192. 84 Notes to pp. 27–33 6 Wesley quotes the last half of this verse in “On Eternity,” in Outler , 1:369. 7 Wesley, “The Witness of the Spirit, I,” 282. 8 I follow one of the many summaries available. See Alvin Plantinga , Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 156. 9 Plantinga, 184. Chapter 7, “Sin and Its Cognitive Consequences,” is a brilliant exposition of the noetic effects of sin. 10 Plantinga, 243–44. It is striking how many of the scriptural texts that Wesley deploys show up in Plantinga’s analysis, especially Hebrews 11:1, Romans 8:16, and Jeremiah 17:9. Plantinga draws richly on Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin in his analysis. Clearly he is drawing on a network of themes that were present in the Christian tradition during the Medieval and Reformation periods . Plantinga quotes Wesley’s Aldersgate experience but prefers a reading of it that focuses on faith as a cognitive gift and rejects an analysis that works from the idea of perception of the divine. See also Plantinga, 288. 11 Alston’s book, Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991), has become a classic in the field. 12 He returned to faith much later in life. 13 Alston, Perceiving God, 224. 14 For a very different way of unpacking the logic of Wesley’s claims see Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979), chap. 13, and Caroline Franks Davis, The Evidential Force of Religious Experience (Oxford: Clarendon, 1989). 15 On this score Wesley fits into a long line of Anglican thinkers from Hooker through Butler, Newman, Tennant, Basil Mitchell, and Richard Swinburne who appeal to a constellation of considerations to secure a conclusion. 16 “Witness of the Spirit, II,” in Outler, 1:298. 17 Even then it was subordinate to the appeal to Scripture. The tension between appeal to experience and the appeal to Scripture creates interesting challenges for Wesley and for the Methodist tradition that I discuss in “The Epistemology of Conversion: Is There Something New?” in Conversion in the Wesleyan Tradition, ed. Kenneth J. Collins and John H. Tyson (Nashville: Abingdon, 2001), 175–94. [54.152.77.92] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 14:24 GMT) Notes to pp. 34–42 85 18 “Letter to Mr. Smith,” in Jackson, 12:100. 19 Moser’s more general work in epistemology is of the highest quality; he is set to become one of the leading figures in philosophy of religion in the decades ahead. 20 Paul K. Moser, “Cognitive Idolatry and Divine Hiding,” in Divine Hiddenness, ed. D. Howard-Snyder and P. K. Moser (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Other essays of Moser that are worth consulting are: “Cognitive Inspiration and Knowledge of God,” in The Rationality of Theism, ed. P. Copan and P. K. Moser (London: Routledge, 2003); “Cognitive Grace, Filial Knowledge, and Gethsemane Struggle,” in For Faith and Clarity, ed. J. Beilby (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006); and Why Isn’t God More Obvious? Finding the God who Hides and Seeks (RZIM Critical Questions Series). Much of this material is available at his home website . For a full dress articulation of his proposals see The Elusive God: Reorienting Religious Epistemology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 21 Moser, “Cognitive Idolatry and Divine Hiding.” This is readily available at http://www.luc.edu/faculty/pmoser/idolanon/index. shtml, accessed on 1 April 2009. Emphasis in original. 22 Moser, “Cognitive Idolatry.” 23 Moser, “Cognitive Idolatry.” 24 Moser, “Cognitive Idolatry.” Emphasis in original. 25 Moser, “Cognitive Idolatry.” Emphasis in original. 26 Moser, “Cognitive Idolatry.” 27 Moser, “Cognitive Idolatry.” 28 Wesley was such a workaholic that even on the other side we get to help on the side of the devil or of God. See “The Discoveries of Faith,” in Outler, 4:33, on the options available. 29 See William J. Abraham, Jason E. Vickers, and Natalie B. Van Kirk, eds., Canonical Theism: A Proposal for Theology and the Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008). CHAPTER 3 1 The critical site here is to be found in “A Letter to the Reverend,” in Jackson, 10:1–79. Wesley does not use the language of charismatic phenomena, but this is clearly what he has in mind, so it is an apt contemporary description. 2 In a way the whole charge of “enthusiasm” against Wesley and the Methodists was precisely that they were lacking in commitment 86 Notes to pp. 44–49 to reason and were carried away by illusory divine inspiration energized by emotionalism. 3 “Upon our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, IV,” in Outler, 1:531. Emphasis added. 4 1 Corinthians 15:10. 5 “Upon our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, IV,” in Outler, 1:531. 6 Conspicuous sanctity is, of course, also a matter of charismatic activity, but I will simply follow a distinction commonly made in popular Christian discourse. 7 Middleton’s target was Roman Catholic claims to perform miracles as a sign of true continuity in the church, but he took a sideswipe at what appear to be similar phenomena among Methodists. 8 “A Letter to the Reverend,” in Jackson, 10:3. 9 “A Letter to the Reverend,” in Jackson, 10:3. 10 Even then Wesley wanted to defend his favorites beyond the third century, like Macarius and Ephrem Syrus. However, he clearly wants to tackle Middleton on a specific stretch of the early history rather than ramble all over the place. 11 “A Letter to the Reverend,” in Jackson, 10:40. 12 “A Letter to the Reverend,” in Jackson, 10:41. 13 Wesley very carefully draws the relevant distinctions between the miracles he wants to defend in the first three centuries and those that occur in the fourth century. “From page 127 to page 158, you relate miracles said to be wrought in the fourth century. I have no concern with these; but I must weigh an argument which you intermix therewith again and again. It is in substance this: ‘If we cannot believe the miracles attested by the later Fathers, then we ought not to believe those which are attested by the earliest writers of the Church.’ I answer, ‘The consequence is not good; because the case is not the same with the one and with the other. Several objections, which do not hold with regard to the earlier , may lie against the later, miracles; drawn either from the improbability of the facts themselves, such as we have no precedent of in holy writ; from the incompetency of the instruments said to perform them, such as bones, relics, or departed saints; or from the gross credulity of a prejudiced, or the dishonesty of an interested, relater.’” “Letter to the Reverend,” in Jackson, 10:57; emphasis added. 14 “A Letter to the Reverend,” in Jackson, 10:73. 15 “A Letter to the Reverend,” in Jackson, 10:75. [54.152.77.92] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 14:24 GMT) Notes to pp. 50–64 87 16 “A Letter to the Reverend,” in Jackson, 10:75. 17 “A Letter to the Reverend,” in Jackson, 10:75. 18 “A Letter to the Reverend,” in Jackson, 10:76–77. 19 “A Letter to the Reverend,” in Jackson, 10:77. 20 And, we can be sure, sometimes in the very name of Wesley himself. 21 Basil Mitchell, “The Grace of God,” in Faith and Logic: Oxford Essays in Philosophical Theology, ed. Basil Mitchell (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1957), 174. 22 Things have changed dramatically in the “liberal” seminary since then, so much so that some critics now worry about its liberal identity. 23 “A Letter to the Reverend,” in Jackson, 10:2. CHAPTER 4 1 In this, of course, Wesley stood within a long line of theologians reaching back to Origen and beyond who had a very robust doctrine of the spiritual senses. 2 This is essentially the way that Basil Mitchell seeks to resolve the relation between revelation and other evidence for the reality of God in his pioneering work on cumulative case arguments for Christian theism. See “The Nature of a Cumulative Case,” in Basil Mitchell, The Justification of Religious Belief (London: Macmillan, 1973), chap. 3. 3 John Wesley, Sermons on Several Occasions (London: Epworth, 1944), 6. 4 Wesley, Sermons, 9. More generally Wesley makes it clear that Scripture is the final authority for faith. “But the Christian rule of right and wrong is the word of God, the writings of the Old and New Testament; all that the Prophets and ‘holy men of old’ wrote ‘as they were moved by the Holy Ghost;’ all that Scripture which was given by inspiration of God, and which is indeed profitable for doctrine, or teaching the whole will of God; for reproof of what is contrary thereto; for correction of error; and for instruction , or training us up, in righteousness. (2 Tim iii.16.) This is a lantern unto a Christian’s feet, and a light in all his paths. This alone he receives as his rule of right or wrong, of whatever is really good or evil. He esteems nothing good, but what is here enjoined, either directly or by plain consequence; he accounts nothing evil but what is here forbidden, either in terms, or by 88 Notes to pp. 64–71 undeniable inference. Whatever the Scripture neither forbids nor enjoins, either directly or by plain consequence, he believes to be of an indifferent nature; to be in itself neither good nor evil; this being the whole and sole outward rule whereby his conscience is to be directed in all things.” See “Witness of Our Own Spirit,” in Outler, 1:302–3. 5 “Letter to the Bishop of Gloucester,” in Jackson, 9:150. 6 “Letter to the Bishop of Gloucester,” in Jackson, 9:150. Emphasis added. It is worth noting that Wesley allowed for “mistakes” to be taken over from the Jewish historians quoted, for example, by Matthew. See his comment on Matthew 1:1 in Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (London: Epworth, 1941), 15. 7 “The Case of Reason Impartially Considered,” in Outler, 2:591–92. 8 “A Clear and Concise Demonstration of the Divine Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures,” in Jackson, 6:484. 9 “A Clear and Concise Demonstration,” in Jackson, 6:484. 10 In his review of Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Wesley criticized Locke’s position on species and their essences on the grounds that Locke did not agree with Moses. Later Wesley appealed to Scripture to overturn the claim that “It is a false supposition, that there are certain precise essences by which things are distinguished into species.” Wesley clearly thought that Scripture was a norm in epistemology, to the extent that any philosophical thesis had to be compatible with Scripture. It is hard to see how Scripture even begins to speak to the issues Wesley raised here. See “Remarks Upon Mr. Locke’s ‘Essay On Human Understanding,’” in Jackson, 13:461–62. 11 The fine works by George Mavrodes, Richard Swinburne, and Keith Ward are the exceptions that prove the rule at this point. See George Mavrodes, Revelation in Religious Belief (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988); Richard Swinburne, Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992); and Keith Ward, Religion and Revelation (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994). 12 Wesley was well aware of the importance of getting the interpretation of revelation straight. His concern was nicely exhibited in his reply to John Smith. Smith had complained that Wesley had failed to see that the issue between him and his antagonists was “not whether such words are Scripture, but whether they are to [54.152.77.92] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 14:24 GMT) Notes to pp. 72–75 89 be so interpreted.” Wesley stoutly replied: “You surprise me! I take your word, else I should never have imagined you had read over the latter Appeal; so great a part of which is employed in this very thing, in fighting my way inch by inch; in proving, not such words are Scripture, but that they must be interpreted in the manner there set down.” See “Letter to Mr. Smith,” in Jackson , 12:63. 13 2 Corinthians 10:4. See the sermon “Wandering Thoughts,” in Outler, 2:125–37. 14 Several leading Wesleyans have taken this route in the last half-century: Robert E. Chiles, John Deschner, Donald Dayton, Craig Keen, and Stanley Hauerwas. See especially Hauerwas’ Gifford lectures, With the Grain of the Universe: The Church’s Witness and Natural Theology (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2001). 15 I leave the reader to explore a variation on this analogy that would posit the potential existence of a daughter whom I did not know that I had fathered! Suppose my wife has secretly borne a daughter of mine that she had kept hidden from me. She has had the baby secretly adopted by one of her sisters. In this case too, any evidence that would convince me of this fact would not settle at all the issue of the ontological status of this daughter in my life. 16 There is, of course, the possibility of making the life of the mind more important than God; this would be a form of idolatry, but that is a rabbit I shall refrain from chasing here. 17 I have explored this tension in “The Epistemology of Conversion.” 18 I have explored the appeal to the inner witness in “The Epistemological Significance of the Inner Witness of the Holy Spirit,” in Faith and Philosophy 7 (1990): 434–50; and I have explored Hebrews 11:1 in “Faith, Assurance, and Conviction: An Epistemological Commentary on Hebrews 11:1,” in Ex Auditu 19 (2003): 65–75. 19 I have argued the more general claim at stake at length in my Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998). I have suggested that this is the case in Wesleyan theology in “The End of Wesleyan Theology” in Wesleyan Theological Journal, 40 (2005): 7–25. 20 This is the burden of Crossing the Threshold of Divine Revelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006). 90 Notes to pp. 75–80 21 It would be wonderful to have a list of those who have suffered this fate, but I leave that matter to historians. 22 Mitchell, Justification, 42. 23 “A Letter to the Reverend,” in Jackson, 10:75. Emphasis added. 24 See Ward and Heitzenrater, 22:217–18. Wesley provides a fuller account of this move in his “Thoughts on the Writings of Baron Swedenborg,” in Jackson, 13:425–48. The final parting shot makes clear the privileged place Wesley gives to Scripture in assessing new claims to divine revelation. After citing a host of relevant biblical texts, he continues: “Who illuminated either Jacob Behmen , or Baron Swedenborg, flatly to contradict these things? It could not be the God of the holy Prophets; for He is always consistent with himself. Certainly it was the spirit of darkness. And indeed ‘the light which was in them was darkness,’ while they laboured to kill the never-dying worm, and to put out the unquenchable fire! And with what face can any that profess to believe the Bible, give any countenance to these dreamers? that filthy dreamer, in particular, who takes care to provide harlots, instead of fire and brimstone, for the devils and damned spirits in hell! O my brethren, let none of you that fear God recommend such a writer any more! much less labour to make the deadly poison palatable, by sweetening it with all care! All his folly and nonsense we may excuse; but not his making God a liar; not his contradicting, in so open and flagrant a manner, the whole oracles of God! True, his tales are often exceeding lively, and as entertaining as the tales of the fairies: But I dare not give up my Bible for them; and I must give up one or the other. If the preceding extracts are from God, then the Bible is only a fable: But if ‘all Scriptures are given by inspiration of God,’ then let these dreams sink into the pit from whence they came.” Jackson, 13:447–48. 25 This point was well known to Thomas Aquinas and Richard Hooker but has been lost in the modern discussion. I explore its full ramifications in Crossing the Threshold. 26 Frank Baker, ed., Representative Verse of Charles Wesley (Nashville: Abingdon, 1962), 143. ...