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6. Toward Greater Love: Aquinas, Wesley, and Life in the Spirit
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Six Toward Greater Love Aquinas, Wesley, and Life in the Spirit So far this book has included two main sections, an assessment of the problem of sanctification in contemporary Methodist theology and in John Wesley (chapters 1 and 2) and an investigation of Aquinas’s amor-based pneumatology (chapters 3 through 5). Now the time has come to integrate the findings discovered in the two main sections above. Doing so will reveal that in distinctive and yet largely complementary ways, Aquinas and Wesley provide resources that can be used to reclaim a richer pneumatology, specifically in relation to the theological virtue of love. Aquinas and Wesley as Sources for Pneumatological Recovery While the thought of each of these figures has nuances of its own, Aquinas and Wesley both discern a connection between the Holy Spirit and love and explore that connection in their theological writings. In order to demonstrate how Methodists might learn from Thomas Aquinas, how Thomists might learn from John Wesley, and 181 182 Toward Greater Love how these two traditions might contribute to a pneumatological ressourcement for the advancement of ecumenical and constructive theology, this final chapter examines a number of issues pertaining to the compatibility and distinctiveness of Aquinas and Wesley on the Spirit as love, both within God’s life and in the lives of believers. Again, the often considerable differences between these two figures should not be overlooked, lest they be brought into conversation too quickly, even if on an area of common ground. Not only are there differences in the style of theological reflection in which each has characteristically engaged (with Aquinas known for a speculative theology of a high order, and Wesley for his decidedly practical orientation) but also certain conceptual differences must be recognized . Sometimes Aquinas and Wesley do not use exactly the same theological terminology, and at other times they use the same language in what appear to be contradictory ways. Illustrative of the former are the concepts of virtue and the tempers. Virtue and the Tempers Aquinas, of course, devoted much attention to reflection on the virtues, and in his preferred definition of virtue he slightly modifies Lombard’s Sentences: virtue is “a good habit of the mind, by which we live righteously, of which no one can make bad use.”1 Aquinas included in his analysis the cardinal virtues2 of prudence,3 justice ,4 fortitude,5 and temperance6 as well as, in the more particular Christian sense, the theological virtues of faith,7 hope,8 and charity .9 While an extended analysis of Aquinas’s account of the virtues exceeds the scope of this book, it is certainly worth mentioning that crucial to his account is the distinction between virtues that are ac1 . ST, I–II, q. 55, a. 4c. 2. Ibid., I–II, q. 61; and the more detailed account in II–II, qq. 47–169. 3. Ibid., II–II, qq. 47–56. 4. Ibid., II–II, qq. 57–122. 5. Ibid., II–II, qq. 123–40. 6. Ibid., II–II, qq. 141–69. 7. Ibid., II–II, qq. 1–16. 8. Ibid., II–II, qq. 17–22. 9. Ibid., II–II, qq. 23–46. [54.205.116.187] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 14:29 GMT) Toward Greater Love 183 quired and those that are infused. The acquired virtues perfect the powers of the soul and, through habituation, orient the person to the good that is natural to the person.10 Meanwhile, the infused virtues, rather than being acquired through the correct use of one’s natural powers, are given freely by God for the purpose of raising the human person to an even higher order, the supernatural order, and thus bring the person closer to God as end through the acts of believing, hoping, and loving.11 In Aquinas’s theology the importance of virtues, both the acquired virtues and especially those that are infused by God’s grace, is indicated not only by the large number of questions that he devotes to the virtues but also by the location of these questions. In the Summa, his account of the virtues comes in the second part, on the movement of the rational creature to God. The virtues in general, and above all the theological virtues, are central to this movement in Aquinas’s understanding.12 By contrast, Wesley has not provided nearly as orderly or developed an account of the virtues.13 One related and prominent theme in his moral theology, however, is that of...