John Wesley's Moral Theology

by Long, D. Stephen

• ISBN13: 9780687343546
• ISBN10: 0687343542
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-04-15
• Publisher: Kingswood Books

Summary

The public theology of the Wesleyan tradition is best understood as moral theology rather than as philosophical and applied ethics. Long asserts that the ethical nature of the Wesleyan tradition can be best understood using the frame of moral theology stemming from the virtue tradition, particularly the work of Thomas Aquinas. This recognizes that the gathering of the faithful for the purpose of seeking holiness is the public voice of the church. Because we squeezed the Wesleyan tradition in the academic discipline of philosophical and applied ethics, we distorted our tradition. This distortion led us into our current ethical impasse, particularly with money, war and peace, homosexuality, and technology. An excerpt from the Circuit Rider review: "In John Wesley's Moral Theology , D. Stephen Long offers a radical proposal: By letting Wesley be Wesley in his context and thus being out of step with ours, Wesley actually has more to say to us in our postmodern context. Here, our problem with making him relevant for today is implied in the difference between 'œethics' and 'œmoral theology.' As a 'œmoral theologian,' Wesley believed that doing and knowing what is good can only be achieved by being united with Christ. In other words, the Good and the True cannot be known outside of God. Thus, there is no separation between ethics and theology since the former is only intelligible in the light of the latter." (Click here to read the entire review.)

Author Biography

D. Stephen Long is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Introduction	xiii
John Wesley: Modernist Theologian?	1	(36)
The Practical Wesley ``for Today''	3	(12)
From Metaphysics to Epistemology: The Mathematization of Morality	6	(5)
Overcoming Epistemology with Fergus Kerr: A Dominican at Oxford Helps Methodists Understand Wesley, ``Dominus Illuminatio Mea''	11	(4)
Modern Methodist Ethics	15	(22)
Ethics as Technology	18	(3)
Neo-Protestant Ethics	21	(8)
Contradicting Heidegger	29	(3)
The Direction of a Conclusion: A Medieval and Anglican Sacramental Metaphysics	32	(5)
John Wesley: Moral Theologian?	37	(34)
Liberty of Indifference	39	(4)
What Moral Philosophy Did Wesley Know?	43	(19)
Gerard Langbaine	46	(6)
Henry More	52	(3)
John Norris	55	(7)
Wesley's Practical Reason	62	(5)
Before God and Goodness Divorced: The Will as Rational Appetite	67	(4)
From Moral Theology to Ethics	71	(54)
God Subordinated to the Good (Kant and Locke)	74	(12)
The Good without God (Hobbes and Hume)	86	(14)
The Good with or without God, yet Dependent on Our ``Public Parent'' (Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and Adam Smith)	100	(8)
God and the Good Combined---The Christian Platonists (Malebranche and Cudworth)	108	(9)
Wesley and the Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Conversation on Moral Philosophy/Theology	117	(8)
Wesley's Moral Theology	125	(46)
The Lord Our Righteousness	130	(7)
The Lord Our Righteousness	137	(4)
The Lord Our Righteousness: Beatitude as True Religion	141	(24)
Matthew 5: The Religion of the Heart and Doing Good	146	(11)
Matthew 6: A Holy Intentionality through Attending to the Ordinances of God	157	(4)
Matthew 7: Avoiding Evil	161	(4)
The Lord Our Righteousness: A Christological Law	165	(6)
Wesley, Aquinas, and Moral Theology	171	(38)
The Image of God Renewed	174	(11)
The ``New Law'' of the Gospel	185	(3)
Deification as Embodiment of Theological Virtues: Metaphysics of Participation and Illumination	188	(7)
Gifts, Virtues, Beatitudes, Law, Grace	195	(8)
Second Peter 1:4 and the Theological Virtues	196	(2)
Wesley's Moral Theology: Gifts and Beatitudes	198	(3)
Virtue as the Basis for Law	201	(2)
But Is This ``Social Ethics''?	203	(6)
John Wesley as Public Theologian?	209	(34)
Troeltsch's Question	213	(3)
The Niebuhrian Consensus and Its Dissolution: Either Niebuhrian Realism or Wesleyan Perfection	216	(9)
Fallibilism	220	(2)
Anthropology Begetting Tragedy	222	(1)
Theological Limitations	223	(2)
The Social and Political Significance of Different Dogmatic Contexts	225	(3)
Wesleyans and Thomists Must Say No to Fallibilism	228	(2)
A Wesleyan Alternative?	230	(13)
Appendix A: Wesleyan Themes in Malebranche	243	(2)
Appendix B: Wesley's Holy Tempers: The Theological Virtues	245	(4)
Abbreviations	249	(2)
Name Index	251	(4)
Subject Index	255