God's Love through the Spirit: The Holy Spirit in Thomas Aquinas and John Wesley

Introduction

Introduction Pneumatology has often been a neglected theme in Christian theology, perhaps especially in the modern West, but it was not always that way. In fact, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, far from being disregarded, has been the subject of considerable attention and elaboration throughout the history of Christian thought. While scholastic theology is not normally championed as a high point in pneumatological reflection, some significant accounts of the Spirit’s person and work originate from the theologians of that period . Among the scholastic doctors, St. Thomas Aquinas provides a particularly developed account of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Aquinas offers a vibrant and sophisticated pneumatology in which the connection between the Holy Spirit and love is especially important. According to Aquinas, this connection is complex and multifaceted, touching on his account of the doctrine of the Trinity as well as his moral theology. It comes into play, for example, in his discussion of (1) the Spirit as personal love, (2) the Spirit as the mutual love of the Father and the Son, and (3) the implications of the Spirit as love for his soteriology. Taken together, these three headings represent a convenient way to approach the topic of pneumatology in Aquinas because of their scope, ranging from questions about the inner trinitarian life of God to questions about the shape of the Christian life. There is a need for more sustained reflection on Aquinas’s pneumatology, as well as pneumatology in general, and a study of Aquinas on these questions contributes to the knowledge of his theology while establishing that he is an important source for xi xii Introduction contemporary efforts at pneumatological recovery—in other words, he is part of the solution and not the problem. The pneumatology of Thomas Aquinas also has implications for Christian theology more broadly, including a certain theological strand in the Western tradition, namely, Wesleyan theology. To be sure, any direct influence of Aquinas on John Wesley would be extremely difficult to establish since Wesley cites Aquinas only a few times in his entire corpus, but there does exist a considerable, and even surprising, degree of pneumatological resonance and compatibility between these two figures. Of course, the differences between Aquinas and Wesley must be readily acknowledged. Not only did they occupy different historical locations, but also their basic understandings of the task of theology were not the same. Put somewhat simply, while Aquinas took a speculative approach to theology ,1 Wesley was driven by more practical concerns. Nevertheless, their interests were not foreign to one another. In each case, for example, there is a clearly operative pneumatology with emphasis on love and holiness in Christian living. This basic parallel between Aquinas and Wesley has been observed in Catholic-Methodist bilateral dialogue, and it can be developed further both for ecumenical purposes and for the enrichment of theological reflection today. Chapter 1 diagnoses a vexing problem in contemporary Methodist theology, the widespread pneumatological deficit and typical reduction of the Spirit’s work to political projects. In the process the claim is made that to a considerable extent Methodism’s theological core has been obscured, and a key theme is introduced: the prospects for the retrieval and development of Methodist theology, specifically its traditional focus on sanctification. Chapter 2 addresses the question of how best to interpret Wesley 1. Aquinas considered the task of theology to be speculative, but not in the modern sense of the term; for him, speculative theology was never disconnected from praxis. So he understood sacra doctrina to include both speculative and practical dimensions (Summa theologiae I, q. 1, a. 4; hereafter ST in the footnotes). Introduction xiii through an investigation of the problem of sanctification in his works. In particular, after outlining various proposals by other scholars, this chapter seeks to rediscover the implicitly trinitarian understanding of sanctification that animates Wesley’s vision of the Christian life as one of participation in God through the Holy Spirit. In response to recent calls for Methodists and Wesleyans to describe sanctification in more compelling theological terms, such a rediscovery holds promise for advancing the constructive interpretation of Wesley’s doctrine of Christian perfection or, as Wesley often called it, perfect love. After two chapters on the Methodist side of the project (outlining contemporary Methodist theology’s struggle to find relevance for its traditional interest in holiness, and analyzing John Wesley’s view of sanctification, respectively), our attention turns...