{"id":1710,"date":"2021-05-17T03:40:37","date_gmt":"2021-05-17T01:40:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavenuponearth.com\/?p=1710"},"modified":"2021-06-19T05:10:24","modified_gmt":"2021-06-19T03:10:24","slug":"wesley-and-the-quadrilateral-renewing-the-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/heavenuponearth.com\/?p=1710","title":{"rendered":"Wesley and the Quadrilateral: Renewing the Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWesley believed that the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in Scripture, illuminated by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason\u201d \u2013\u00a0<em>The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church<\/em>, 1996 (p.74). These four aspects; Scripture, tradition, experience, and reason, present together what Albert Outler called the \u201cWesleyan Quadrilateral.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to Outler, the \u201cWesleyan Quadrilateral\u201d describes the methodology by which Wesley crafted his theological conclusions.\u00a0<em>Wesley and the Quadrilateral<\/em>, a book by five Wesleyan scholars, is a theological text that aims to revive conversations on the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first chapter examines Wesley\u2019s historical and ecclesiastical context in order to set the stage for the subsequent chapters. The second chapter, by Scott Jones, explains the centrality of Scripture in Wesley\u2019s theology. For Wesley, Scripture is both \u201csource\u201d and \u201cnorm.\u201d Jones explains that Wesley\u2019s most controversial doctrines \u2013 perfection and apostasy \u2013 are based primarily on Wesley\u2019s\u00a0<em>interpretation<\/em>\u00a0of Scripture. In his chapter on \u201ctradition,\u201d Campbell highlights that Christian Antiquity and Church of England represent the most prominent aspects of the content of Christian tradition for Wesley. Campbell asserts that Wesley\u2019s post-Constantinian examples of pure Christianity were\u00a0<em>Eastern<\/em>\u00a0ascetic writers, on the other hand, Augustine was \u201cconspicuously absent. \u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In chapter four, Miles highlights the centrality of \u201creason\u201d as a\u00a0<em>tool<\/em>\u00a0in Wesley\u2019s thought. He explains that \u201creason does not generate knowledge on its own, but only processes data and knowledge that originate in experience.\u201d For Wesley, \u201cthere was no inconsistency between reason and faith.\u201d Miles also explains that Wesley\u2019s stress on reason often came in response to his opponents who accused Wesley and Methodists of their enthusiasm (in their context, \u201centhusiasm\u201d was equal to fanaticism and irrationality). Randy Maddox ends this book by an interesting chapter on the fourth side of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, \u201cexperience.\u201d Maddox\u2019s chapter highlights how \u201cexperience\u201d is crucial in Wesley\u2019s theology. The heart of Wesley\u2019s theology is manifested through the experiential transformation into the image of God.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cWesley believed that the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in Scripture, illuminated by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason\u201d \u2013\u00a0The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church, 1996 (p.74). These four aspects; Scripture, tradition, experience, and reason, present together what Albert Outler called the \u201cWesleyan Quadrilateral.\u201d According to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,12],"tags":[22,15,18],"class_list":["post-1710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-theological-studies","category-wesleyan-studies-book-reviews","tag-book-reviews","tag-theological-studies","tag-wesley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/heavenuponearth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/heavenuponearth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/heavenuponearth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heavenuponearth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heavenuponearth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1710"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/heavenuponearth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1925,"href":"https:\/\/heavenuponearth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1710\/revisions\/1925"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heavenuponearth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/heavenuponearth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heavenuponearth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heavenuponearth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}