Back to human nature...

This is going back a bit to a previous discussion, but I was recently in dialog with my friend John Hay, a former Free Methodist pastor and committed Wesleyan-Arminian.  He had recommended to me a book called "Let Your Life Speak" by Parker Palmer, a Quaker.  I had asked him about to what extent we have an "inner light" within us that we can follow in our path to God.  I thought his reply was very appropriate for this blog:


"Here's how I see the distinction: Wesleyan theology begins with humans created in the image of God.  This is prior to the fall and it always has the power to trump the behaviors associated with the fall.  So, "self," though self-seeking in its fallenness, also has capacity to see through this shallowness, this emptiness, and see and seek what is deeper, higher, most original, i.e., "wholeness" beyond pathology.  Calvinistic theology, on the other hand, begins with the fall.  So, it would not and cannot appreciate this nuance (this reality). Calvinism can't see "self" as anything but completely depraved and unable to see or seek anything but "pathology."  To me, this is one of the most important and powerful distinctions between Wesleyan (and Wesleyan-related theological orientations, which Quakerism is) and Calvinistic understandings of the human condition.  Wesleyans see the human salvation project as a recovery of something good that has been badly sabotaged but that still, by its very creation and imago dei, has capacity to seek even apart from Christ's salvific work.  Christ's salvific work moves us from reckless seeking (groping about in darkness, self-inflicting and inflicting others in an effort to desperately survive, etc.) to seeing as light shines into our darkness.

The confidence that the self seeks not pathology but wholeness is based on a presumption that being created by God and in the image of God has "hard-wired" us for seeking wholeness in spite of everything that's been done (by others, historically and presently) or that we've done.  Even though we may engage in pathological behaviors and initially "seek" them, our we also "know" that these are just that: pathologies.  The self, even in its depravity and out of the experience of pathologies, seeks wholeness. Christ's work shines the light and opens the way to wholeness."

Do you think, Oscar and readers from the Reformed tradition, that John gives an adequate description of the difference between our traditions?  Is it fair to say that Calvinist anthropology "begins with the fall"?  Was the fall a total corruption of all human faculties or are there parts of human nature that have been preserved "through" the fall?

Clarifying "Election" & Wesley's "Assurance"

Thanks for that informative post, Oscar.  I had never had anyone explain to me the difference between Calvin and Barth's views on election.  And I'm sure you could say plenty more!  I do have a couple of questions, though, as I process what you are saying:

1.  Are you saying that individuals are no longer elected, but only the community (i.e. Church) of God?  If so, I want to say that I fully agree.  I believe in a doctrine of election -- that God has elected a chosen people for Himself and "predetermined" that the Church would be His primary vehicle for ushering the kingdom.  Wesleyans prefer to speak of election in terms of a community rather than of individual election.  Is that what Barth was teaching?

2.  Some of what you say seems to point to human free will in choosing to "live into their election" or choosing not to.  So how would that be any different than choosing to be saved or to reject salvation?  I guess I always thought that Calvinists like to insist humans have absolutely no role in their own salvation -- even in choosing to accept or reject the gospel.  Am I misunderstanding the Reformed tradition here?

It is very interesting to me that both those of the Reformed and Arminian traditions have wrestled on an existential level with the question, "Am I really saved?"  I remember hearing that great Calvinist band Caedmon's Call sing, "Sometimes I fear / maybe I'm not chosen / maybe You've hardened my heart like Pharaoh's."  That always struck me as odd because I had thought that this existential crisis over one's salvation was peculiar to Methodists (after all, we're the ones who insist that "without holiness no one will see the Lord").

John Wesley developed a doctrine of "assurance" which has lived on ever since then in the Methodist tradition to respond to many who feared for their salvation.  He divided it into objective and subjective types of assurance.  "Objective assurance" comes from the Word of God which promises us that "The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children" (Romans 8:16).  "Subjective assurance" is an inner, spiritual experience in which God grants the believer an overwhelming sense of peace that s/he rests in God's hands.  Do you find the same tradition of "blessed assurance" within the Reformed church?


We have spoken together before that I am still plagued by too much worry over my salvation -- thoughts that I have to do something for God in order to earn my way to heaven.  Of course, this is not true Wesleyanism or true Christianity (it is Pelagianism).  But I do appreciate about the Calvinist tradition the emphasis on "chosenness" and perhaps sometimes I just need a good healthy dose of Calvinism to cure me! 


Learning and Growing,
Greg the Arminian