Pursuing Christian Love According to the Theology of John Wesley

Abstract

In this project, we will be exploring John Wesley's view of pursuing Christian love, the greatest goal of Christian living. When exploring this matter, an important theme emerges. It is the theme of gift. Over the course of this project, it will be argued that according to the view of John Wesley, a person's pursuit of the greatest goal of Christian living is an expression of God's gift and that the giftedness of this blessing is illuminated by a critical examination of the work of the Spirit with respect to the active and passive dimensions of a human being. In order to support this thesis, we will carry out two general tasks. The first task will be to clarify the features of the soul. For Wesley, the soul includes a person's spirit composed of understanding, will, and liberty. In order to illuminate the work of God's grace as a person pursues the highest end of Christian living, one must first clearly show what the features of the soul are and how they work. This is because such a pursuit is rooted in the interplay of the features soul. The second task of this project will be to consider in more depth how the features of the soul relate to each other as an agent performs right action and pursues the highest goal of Christian living. For Wesley, the gospel is foundational for the pursuit of the highest end. It is through Christ's atonement that one is able to receive the grace necessary for spiritual transformation. This spiritual transformation is integral to a person's pursuit of the highest goal. During the Christian life, a person's soul spiritually develops depending on his or her location along the "way of salvation," Wesley's roadmap for the Christian journey. In other words, the Christian life involves stages. Therefore, the second task of this project will consider Wesley's view of the pursuit of the highest goal for each of the various stages of the Christian life. Once these steps are complete, it will have been shown to a greater degree how for Wesley, the pursuit of the greatest goal of Christian living is an expression of God's gift.

Date of Award	31 Dec 2017
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Geordan Hammond (Supervisor)