Thomas Jay Oord is a theologian, philosopher, and scholar of multi-disciplinary studies. He is a best-selling and award-winning author, having written or edited more than twenty-five books. A twelve-time Faculty Award-winning professor, Oord teaches at institutions around the globe, and is the director of the Center for Open and Relational Theology. To find out more about him or view more of his works, visit his website or the Center for Open and Relational Theology.
This piece was presented to the Society for the Study of Psychology and Wesleyan Theology in March 2012
SUMMARY
In this paper, Oord argues that many of Wesley’s convictions about love can prove helpful for psychologists. These convictions center on love as involving intentional desire, relationality, and promoting well-being. When properly defined, love can reside as the center of a psychologist’s research agenda and the framework upon which counselors can be effective. Love as both a particular action and as the core of Christian character becomes the means for integrating psychology and Wesleyan theology. In addition, perhaps psychology can veer more toward loving love than hating it.
In his provocative article, “Psychology’s Love-Hate Relationship with Love,” Alan Tjeltveit says the following: “Christian psychologists’ contributions to understanding love of God and neighbor have fallen far short of their potential.”[1] While Christians often say love is central to their faith, they act in their professional lives and scholarship as if they hate love.
The reasons for this love-hate relationship and for why Christian psychologists have fallen short of their potential, says Tjeltveit, vary. In his article, Tjeltveit lists a number of reasons Christian psychologists avoid the topic of love, despite their saying they are deeply committed to love’s importance. I list seven here drawn from various portions of Tjeltveit’s provocative article.
- Some Christians avoid love research, because they want to gain respectability for their field. Studying love is not a respectable scientific endeavor.
- Some Christian psychologists seem unwilling to explore love research, because love has been ill defined or defined variously. This lack of clarity is especially relevant in claims about how God may influence creaturely love. But it is also present in deciding whether love is an emotion, an action, a desire, requires relations, pertains to what is good, etc.
- Some Christian psychologists avoid research related to biblical views of love, because some biblical views are metaphysically oriented. For example, Paul talks the Holy Spirit pouring love into our hearts (Rm. 5:5) and that we are capable of love only because God first loved us (1 Jn. 4:18). Such psychologists see their work pertaining to interpersonal or ethical issues, not metaphysical ones.
- Some Christian psychologists avoid love research, because such research has primarily to do with values. Such researchers believe they cannot rightfully be deemed scientists if they pursue values rather than facts.
- Some Christian psychologists are reluctant to accept as accurate claims about love. They believe the skepticism inherent in science requires this reluctance. And some attempt to carry their hermeneutics of suspicion to its ultimate end.
- Some Christian psychologists believe love harms people. The woman who stays with her abusive husband because she says she loves him supports the worry some psychologists have that love is not the kind of activity we should promote.
- Some Christian psychologists have been reluctant to pursue love research, because they believe such research is only possible using “soft” or “qualitative” methods of science. Soft methods include literary analysis, personal testimony, theological interpretation, ethical analysis, and so forth. In general, scientists most respect the hard or quantitative methods, because these methods are perceived as being objective.[2]
Despite these reasons, Tjeltveit argues that most Christian psychologists would say they are, at a personal level, deeply committed to love. Most believe the themes of love are central to Scripture and Christian faith. They believe love is a part of if not central to Christian ethics. Christian psychologists may even say love – understood as some form of beneficence – resides at the heart of their chosen profession: psychology. In addition, Christian psychologists with interests in virtue theory and character development, says Tjeltveit, have added reasons to be committed to love, because many such claims pertain to what Christians variously call spiritual formation, discipleship, theosis, Christlikeness, or Christian character.[3]
I believe Wesleyan theologies can help psychologists – especially psychologists with Wesleyan theological sympathies and/or those living in Wesleyan communities – respond well to reasons why some Christian psychologists have failed to pursue love research. For this essay, I will argue Wesleyan theology and Wesleyan theologians offer resources to Christian psychologists to overcome some obstacles preventing them from pursuing research on love. In doing so, they can integrate some of the best of Wesleyan theology with pertinent issues in psychology of love research.
Wesleyan Resources for Integrating Insights from Psychology and Theology
Wesleyan theology has sometimes been called a theology of love.[4] John Wesley championed love as a central divine attribute, and he characterized the holy life as one devoted to loving God and loving others as oneself. Wesley’s language of love was not always consistent, but he argued that the mature Christian develops a character and “tempers” grounded in love.
In what follows, I explore issues of love as a Wesleyan theologian. The writings of John Wesley and my experience as a member of Wesleyan-oriented communities influence this exploration. These resources also influence my own love proposals. I begin what follows by defining love; I subsequently explore John Wesley’s thoughts on love. I argue that Wesley’s theology of love – with important qualifications – is fruitful for theories and practices of psychology.[5] Along the way, I offer interpretations and proposals of my own in the hope that Wesley’s views of love and my own might together prove helpful for Christian psychologists considering the issues of love.
Defining Love
When it comes to one obstacle for psychological research on love – defining love well and using that definition consistently – John Wesley is not particularly helpful. He fails to define love well. And careful readers will find his use of “love” inconsistent and sometimes confusing. Ironically, Wesley’s frequent use of the biblical love language is partly responsible for this lack of clarity. Biblical authors are inconsistent in their love language.
I do believe it possible, however, to offer a definition of love consonant with the general way Wesley uses the word. The following definition is my own, and I intend for it to be useful to theologians, social scientists (especially psychologists), philosophers, and even those pursuing some research in the natural sciences.
I define love as follows…
To love is act intentionally, in sympathetic/empathetic response to others (including God), to promote overall well-being.
While I doubt words fully capture what we want to say about love, I believe this definition is better than competitors and much better than no definition at all. I have written extensively on this definition elsewhere.[6] To explain it briefly here, I offer short comments on its key phrases.
Acting intentionally – When I say love involves intentional action, I mean at least the following four things. First, love is not accidental or unintended. Second, love requires freedom. Entirely determined creatures cannot love. The freedom of love is limited, however, because freedom is always restricted to some degree. Third, love involves motives. While we are likely never conscious of all our motives, an act of love has as its primary motive the promotion of well-being in some particular expression. Fourth, love involves a degree of desire. While love is more than mere desire, desire always plays a role – in one way or another – in expressions of love.
Sympathetic/empathetic response to others – The second phrase in my definition emphasizes relationality. To say love involves sympathetic/empathetic response to others, including God, is to stress the relational nature of love. Whether we are conscious of it or not, our relation to God is primary. The “others” to whom we respond vary greatly. These others can be factors or persons in our environment, our own histories, or even the habits and members of our own bodies.
To promote overall well-being – The most common biblical meaning of love pertains to promoting well-being. According to Scripture, for instance, to love is to do good: to be a blessing, promote happiness, embrace God’s loving leadership in the Kingdom of God, live abundant life, benefit others or enjoy mutual benefit, and/or help those in need. The list of ways in which biblical writers use “love” to talk about promoting well-being is long and diverse.
Unfortunately, some theologians use “love” as a synonym for desire, devotion, or relationship. Desire, devotion, or relationship do not necessarily pertain to doing good, however. We can desire consequences we know are evil or sinful. To overcome these limitations, I emphasize love as the promotion of well-being in my definition. In doing so, I follow the general biblical way of talking about “love” as doing good, without denying the role of desire, devotion, or relationships.[7]
To speak of promoting overall well-being also provides a conceptual basis for speaking coherently about loving ourselves. Love isn’t just about doing good to others. After all, each of us is part of the “overall” in promoting overall well-being, and sometimes we need to promote our own good as part of promoting the overall good. Of course, love may also require us to act self-sacrificially at times. When we do, we at least partially undermine our own well-being for the sake of the common good.
John Wesley and Love as Doing Good
In the majority of his writings and sermons, Wesley follows dominant love language in the Bible by simply using the word “love,” without qualification, to talk about promoting well-being. Love is “benevolence,” he says, “tender good-will to all the souls that God has made.”[8] The person who loves is one who blesses others, benefits others, enjoys mutual benefit, or overcomes evil with good.[9]
But Wesley occasionally prefaces love with “perfect” or “cold,” qualifications that occur rarely in the Bible. Sometimes, he uses the phrase “holy love,” a qualification not found at all in Scripture. Some Wesleyan scholars today speak of “holy love” to counter a popular view that love as sentimental and soft.[10] I do not advocate this linguistic practice, however, because I think all love is holy, in the sense that God is love’s source and inspiration.
Doing good is the “nature” of love, says Wesley. But he also thinks love takes various forms and produces diverse fruit. For instance, we often express love by choosing humility, gentleness, patience, self-control, etc.[11] We express love by helping the poor, being kind to strangers, encouraging those in the community of faith, forgiving one another, etc. All of these acts promote well-being. While the essence of love is singular, expressions of love are plural.
When love is understood essentially as promoting well-being – i.e., doing good – Wesley’s general statements about love and theology make sense. He considers love the heart of true faith: “Religion is the love of God and our neighbour, that is, every man under heaven.” This means “love ruling the whole life, animating all our tempers and passions, directing all our thoughts, words, and actions.”[12] Statements such as these provide a basis for regarding Wesley a premiere theologian of love.
God is the Source of Love
Although Wesley read and recommended the best science and philosophy of his day, he drew primarily from the Bible when constructing his theology. He was a biblical theologian, because the Bible was his primary resource for matters pertaining to salvation.[13] This practice of appealing first to Scripture shaped his views of love and of God as love’s source.
Like virtually all theologians, Wesley drew more from some Bible books and passages than others when constructing his theology.[14] He prized the Apostle John’s first epistle more than other books in the Bible.[15] The book offers what he believed a profound and central Christian claim, “God is love” (4:8, 16). Those who think some biblical passage or another opposes love, says Wesley, are guilty of invalid interpretation: “No Scripture can mean that God is not love, or that his mercy is not over all his works.”[16] Wesley used this hermeneutic of love in various arguments, sermons, letters, and hymns.
The Apostle John’s first epistle also provides what Wesley thought was the sum of the gospel: we love, because God first loved us (4:19).[17] The verse emphasizes God as the source of love creatures express. “Love of our neighbour springs from the love of God,” he writes.[18] John’s letter also emphasizes that God can transform human lives so that sin need no longer reign in them. Based on this passage and others, Wesley believed that love excludes sin.[19] To put it another way, to sin is to fail to respond appropriately to God’s call to love.[20]
Wesley believed creaturely love emerges from awareness – explicit or implicit – of God’s love. “It is in consequence of our knowing God loves us,” says Wesley, “that we love him and love our neighbour as ourselves. Gratitude towards our Creator cannot but produce benevolence to our fellow creatures.” The love we find in Christ “constrains us not only to be harmless, to do no ill to our neighbour,” Wesley argues, “but to be useful, to be ‘zealous of good works;’ ‘as we have time, to do good unto all men.’”[21] In these passages and others, Wesley’s language of love fits my own definition of love as entailing the promotion of well-being.
God is not only the source of our love, argues Wesley, God also enables or empowers us to love. But to express this love, says Wesley, we must cooperate. We must be “workers together with him,” he says, citing the Apostle Paul.[22] God “will not save us unless we ‘save ourselves from this untoward generation;’ unless we ourselves ‘fight the good fight of faith, and lay hold on eternal life;’ unless we ‘agonize to enter in at the strait gate,’ ‘deny ourselves, and take up our cross daily,’ and labour, by every possible means, to ‘make our own calling and election sure.’”[23] The biblical phrases in this quote all emphasize the cooperative role humans must play.
Because of God’s empowering grace, we can work out our own salvation and continue “the work of faith, in the patience of hope, and in the labour of love.”[24] Wesleyan scholar, Randy L. Maddox, calls Wesley’s belief that a loving God invites our cooperating response “responsible grace.”[25] God empowers the possibility of creaturely cooperation. This emphasis upon a necessary creaturely contribution distinguishes Wesleyan theologies of love from theologies in other Christian and nonChristian traditions.[26]
Love and Freedom in Wesleyan Theology
John Wesley emphasizes creaturely freedom – what he typically called “liberty” – and its relation to love. He believes the Calvinist doctrine of predestination undermines the Christian logic of love, because it denies that Christians freely participate in the work of salvation. “The God of love is willing to save all the souls that he has made,” argues Wesley. “But he will not force them to accept of it; he leaves them in the hands of their own counsel.”[27] God “strongly and sweetly influenc[es] all,” says Wesley, “and yet without destroying the liberty of his rational creatures.”[28]
Creaturely freedom is not self-derived, however. Wesley argues that God gives freedom to creatures. One of Wesley’s most important sermons, “On Working Out Our Own Salvation,” takes a portion of a Pauline letter as its text: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God that works in you, both to will and to do his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12-13). In light of this passage, Wesley says, “the very first motion of good is from above, as well as the power which conducts it to the end.”
This initial work of divine love is what Wesley called “preventing” grace, or what is now commonly called “prevenient grace.”[29] This is God’s grace – active divine love – preceding creaturely response. “Through the grace of God assisting me,” says Wesley, “I have a power to choose and do good as well as evil.”[30] Because God first acts on our behalf, says Wesley, we can and must respond to work out our salvation.[31]
Wesley believed Christians are not the only ones whom God’s prevenient grace blesses with the possibility of love. God offers all people “some measure of that light, some faint glimmering ray, which sooner or later, more or less, enlightens every man that cometh into the world.” “Heathens, Mahometans, and Jews,” says Wesley, “still retain (notwithstanding many mistakes) that faith that worketh by love.”[32] This means “no man sins because he has not grace,” says Wesley; he sins “because he does not use the grace which he hath.”[33] Wesley’s notion of universal prevenient grace grounds a view of inclusivism in response to those of other religious traditions.
Can a Loving God Take Away Creaturely Freedom?
In my own theological research, I have explored the question of God’s ability to take away creaturely freedom. To be more precise, I have asked whether God has the ability to fail to provide, withdraw, or override the freedom and/or agency God gives. This question resides at the heart of a number of theological conundrums, such as the problem of evil, the unjust distribution of resources and opportunities, biblical inerrancy, and the relation between science and religion. In the name of love, I have argued that God cannot take away the freedom and/or agency God grants to creatures.
I call my own position on this matter, “essential kenosis theology.”[34] This view says God necessarily gives freedom and/or agency to creatures, because God’s eternal and unchanging nature of love requires this ongoing giving. God is not voluntarily self-limited, according to essential kenosis theology. But outside forces or laws also do not limit God. God is involuntarily self-limited, because God’s eternal nature is love. God must love; God cannot not love. And part of what it means for God to love is that God necessarily provides freedom and/or agency to others that cannot be negated.
Essential kenosis theology resolves many questions in Christian theology. Perhaps the most crucial is the question why a loving God fails to prevent genuine evil. According to essential kenosis theology, God cannot prevent genuine evil, because creatures to whom God necessarily grants freedom and/or agency can choose evil.[35] Essential kenosis also resolves other questions about divine revelation, distribution of goods, and the explanatory conflict between science and theology, but I will not develop the answers here.[36]
I am uncertain whether John Wesley would affirm the essential kenosis theology I propose. Wesley generally construed God’s power in terms of empowerment rather than total control or overpowerment.[37] In a sermon on God’s providence, Wesley sounds like he would endorse something like my theology of essential kenosis: “Were human liberty taken away,” says Wesley, “men would be as incapable of virtue as stones. Therefore (with reverence be it spoken) the Almighty himself cannot do this thing. He cannot thus contradict himself or undo what he has done.”[38] In this passage, Wesley seems to agree with the basis of my assertion that God cannot withdraw, override, or fail to provide freedom and/or agency to others. But other passages in Wesley’s corpus are less supportive of my own position.
An essential kenosis understanding of divine power obviously differs from those describing God as exerting always or even occasionally the kind of sovereignty that entirely controls creatures or situations. It offers important resources for overcoming the problem of evil and emphasizing the moral responsibility of free creatures. Wesley was keen to emphasize the importance of freedom for creaturely decision-making. But he did not follow the logic of freedom and love to provide an adequate answer to the problem of evil.
Are We God’s Slaves or God’s Family?
John Wesley’s view of divine love makes a psychological difference in how Christians perceive themselves in relation to God. The logic of his view leads away from versions of eternal security typical of some theologies. The logic of love and freedom insists that creatures must themselves decide to respond appropriately to God, although Wesley claimed that this possibility for decision was itself derived from God’s initial – prevenient – actions.
Instead of what many today call “eternal security,” Wesley stressed what he called, “Christian assurance.” This assurance was not based upon God’s sovereign election of some for salvation. It was based instead upon the assurance God loves us all. Because God’s name and nature are love, we can be confident God loves us all the time.[39]
Wesley makes a distinction between those who consider themselves God’s slaves and those who consider themselves God’s children. Both types of people are Christian. But those who consider themselves children are assured of God’s love and “follow the more excellent way.” Christians should “rest not till that [Spirit of adoption] clearly witnesses with your spirit that you are a child of God,” says Wesley.[40] Christians should “cry to God that he would reveal his Son in [their] hearts, to the intent [they] may be no more servants but sons, having his love shed abroad in [their] hearts, and walking in ‘the glorious liberty of the children of God.’”[41] As one who loves us, God is “the Parent of all good”[42] and our own “Parent and Friend.”[43] And we can feel the love of this Godly parent in our hearts.
Those who know themselves to be children of God act differently. They “walk in all the good works whereunto [they] are created in Christ Jesus.” Those who consider themselves God’s children attain “a measure of perfect love.” God “enables [them] to love him with all [their] heart and with all [their] soul.” Being assured of God’s love, they “go forward” in the faith, listening to “the voice of God to the children of Israel, to the children of God.’”[44]
Considering ourselves children of God makes a psychological difference and, therefore, a practical difference in how we live. I believe a contemporary psychology research program could build upon the slave vs. son/daughter distinction Wesley makes. The program could ask Christians a series of questions to establish how each saw their own identities in relation to God. A separate set of questions might ask for self-reports or friend reports about how and to what frequency those being studied express the fruit of spirit, acts of mercy, or virtuous attitudes and habits. Wesley would not be surprised if this research demonstrated that those who consider themselves members of God’s family instead of God’s slaves more consistently lived lives of love.
Relational Community and Love
In my own definition of love noted earlier, I stressed the importance of relationships and the “other.” This stress highlights the importance of how Christians think about the individual and community in light of Christian faith.
Wesley saw the importance of both community and personal accountability. For Wesley, “Christianity is essentially a social religion.” He believed “that to turn it into a solitary religion is indeed to destroy it.” He clarifies the importance of community when he says that Christianity “cannot subsist at all without society, without living and conversing with other men.”[45]
Wesley’s view of the importance of community for love comes out clearly in his sermon, “On Schism.” “To separate ourselves from a body of living Christians, with whom we were before united, is a grievous breach of the law of love,” says Wesley. He continues:
It is the nature of love to unite us together; and the greater the love, the stricter the union. And while this continues in its strength, nothing can divide those whom love has united. It is only when our love grows cold, that we can think of separating from our brethren. And this is certainly the case with any who willingly separate from their Christian brethren. The pretences for separation may be innumerable, but want of love is always the real cause; otherwise they would still hold the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. It is therefore contrary to all those commands of God wherein brotherly love is enjoined: To that of St. Paul, “Let brotherly love continue;”–that of St. John, “My beloved children, love one another;”–and especially to that of our blessed Master, “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.” Yea, “By this,” saith he, “shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another.”[46]
Of course, Wesley often appealed to individuals to express love. As a theologian living in and influenced by the Enlightenment, he affirmed the role of personal agency. He believed individuals possess a degree of liberty when responding to God’s activity in light of and under the influence of other pressures.[47] But he believed strongly the interconnectedness between individuals and Christian community was both essential to love and a gauge of how well Christians love.[48] This Wesleyan interconnectedness has proven a valuable conceptual resource for Wesleyan Christians today as they ponder the symbiotic relationship between persons and community.[49]
Wesley’s Circle of Love
In a world of limited resources and multiple obligations, lovers must decide which recipients they will give their God-derived good gifts. Theologian Thomas Aquinas talks about the tensions that arise as “orders of love,” whereby the lover usually has greater obligations to some (e.g., family members) and others (e.g., strangers). Scholars in contemporary science and theology discussion of love sometimes appeal to Aquinas’s orders of love model both to support and criticize evolutionary theories.[50]
Like most theologians, Wesley thought God loved everyone. His favorite verse to talk about God’s universal love was Psalm 145:9, “The Lord is loving to every [person], and his mercy is over all his works.”[51] And Wesley thought his readers ought to love God and their neighbors as themselves.
Wesley did not devote significant attention to resolving the conflicts that arise when choosing between various obligations. Following the Apostle John, he argued for “a peculiar love which we owe to those that love God.”[52] By this, he meant a special love for fellow Christians. But Wesley also emphasized love of enemies, strangers and the downtrodden – what he called “works of mercy.”[53] “The love of our “neighbour naturally leads all that feel it to works of mercy,” says Wesley. “It inclines us to feed the hungry; to clothe the naked; to visit them that are sick or in prison; to be as eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame; an husband to the widow, a father to the fatherless.”[54]
Wesley did envision a kind of ordering love, but it differed from the one Aquinas envisioned. Wesley explains this ordering in terms of a series of concentric circles with love in the center. These circles represented the centrality of love for the person and the expressions derived from love. He puts it this way:
“In a Christian believer love sits upon the throne which is erected in the inmost soul; namely, love of God and man, which fills the whole heart, and reigns without a rival. In a circle near the throne are all holy tempers; - longsuffering, gentleness, meekness, fidelity, temperance; and if any other were comprised in “the mind which was in Christ Jesus.” In an exterior circle are all the works of mercy, whether to the souls or bodies of men. By these we exercise all holy tempers- by these we continually improve them, so that all these are real means of grace, although this is not commonly adverted to. Next to these are those that are usually termed works of piety - reading and hearing the word, public, family, private prayer, receiving the Lord’s supper, fasting or abstinence. Lastly, that his followers may the more effectually provoke one another to love, holy tempers, and good works, our blessed Lord has united them together in one body, the church, dispersed all over the earth - a little emblem of which, of the church universal, we have in every particular Christian congregation.”[55]
We might illustrate Wesley’s vision of the Christian who loves like this:
This diagram not only shows the centrality of love itself. It also reveals that love for those in need often lay closer to the center of Christian commitment than either pious love expressions or love for fellow believers in the Church. But the model serves best to showcase Wesley’s emphasis upon the kind of person who develops a life of love.
The “Tempers” of Love as Developing Virtuous Character
The foregoing circles illustration highlights the importance of what Wesley called “tempers” or “holy tempers.” Today, we might call these dispositions, habits, attitudes, or character. Wesley’s emphasis upon developing holy tempers identifies the importance he placed not just on loving in a particular moment but on becoming a loving person.[56]
In response to God’s grace, the Christian can develop holy tempers as evidenced in a guileless character. The mature lover has “real, genuine, solid virtue,” says Wesley. This holy character develops when love and truth “unite in the essence of virtue or holiness.”[57]
Wesley took pains to distinguish his own position on love from that of moral philosopher Frances Hutcheson. While Wesley believed humans are capable of benevolence and could develop virtuous characters, he disagreed when Hutcheson claimed this capacity is innate in humans. Benevolence and holy characters can only be developed in response to God’s initial working: we only love because God first loved us. Christians ought to work with God – co-operate – to develop loving characters. This capacity is God-derived, not innate: “Whoever improves the grace he has already received, whoever increases in the love of God, will surely retain it,” says Wesley. “God will continue, yea, will give it more abundantly; whereas whoever does not improve this talent cannot possibly retain it.”[58]
Early in his life, Wesley highlighted holiness in the Christian life, or what he called “Christian perfection.”[59] The heart of holiness and perfection, as he understood them, was love. “What is holiness?” he asks rhetorically. “Is it not essentially love? the love of God, and of all mankind? … Love is holiness wherever it exists.”[60] Of Christian perfection, he says, “the sum of Christian perfection…is all comprised in that one word, Love. The first branch of it is the love of God: And as he that loves God loves his brother also, it is inseparably connected with the second: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”…these contain the whole of Christian perfection.”[61]
The mature Christian develops habits of holiness, and this maturity allows the Christian to perceive the world differently than before. The Christian “is enabled to taste, as well as to see, how gracious the Lord is…. He finds Jesus’ love is far better than wine, yea sweeter than honey or the honeycomb.… He feels the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost which is given unto him; or, as our Church expresses it, ‘feels the workings of the Spirit of God in his heart.’”[62]
Recent work in Wesleyan theology and psychology has explored the role of affections in moral psychology.[63] While not negating the importance of cognition and rational decision making, Wesleyan scholars argue that morality stems in greater degree our responses to others in light of our own affections, emotions, dispositions, tempers, and/or character. This moral psychology draws from Wesley’s emphasis upon the “inmost soul” or “heart,” from which he believed beneficence and virtue “continually spring forth.”[64]
In his seminal work, Randy Maddox describes the transformation of the heart or tempers Wesley envisioned in his theological anthropology. It begins with the believer experiencing the love of God: “We cannot love God, till we know he loves us,” says Wesley.[65] This experience is seated in the Christian’s affections or tempers, and it is from this seat that the Christian can respond appropriately or inappropriately to God’s initial love. “The key value of the strange warming of our heart in Wesley’s mature heart religion,” says Maddox, “was that it created the possibility of a responsive heart.”[66] This means, says Maddox, that “the problem of sin must ultimately be addressed at the affectional level.”[67] Change of the affect, tempers, or heart required more than rational decision. Wesley insisted that Christians be participate in the means of grace, Christian practices and disciplines, worship and Eucharist, and activity in the community of Christ.
The transformation of the heart was so central to Wesley’s theology that he considered it more important than affirming correct theological ideas. “I believe the merciful God regards the lives and tempers of men more than their ideas,” said Wesley. “I believe [God] respects the goodness of the heart rather than the clearness of the head.”[68]
Love’s End: Happiness
My definition of love proposed at the outset has a decidedly teleological nature.[69] Love telos – the intentional promotion of overall well-being – suggests a eudemonic ethic. This fits nicely with Wesley’s own belief that the Christian life of love brings authentic happiness. In fact, this love-centered happiness is the ultimate goal of religion. [70]
To the question, “For what end did God create man,” the Westminster Catechism answered, “To glorify God and praise him forever.” Wesley thought people ought to adopt a different answer: “You are made to be happy in God.”[71] God meant for humans to enjoy this happiness on both heaven and earth. For “to bless men, to make men happy,” says Wesley, “was the great business for which our Lord came into the world.”[72]
Happiness comes from both loving God and neighbor. “Is it misery to love God? to give Him my heart who alone is worthy of it?” Wesley asks rhetorically. “Nay, it is the truest happiness; indeed, the only true happiness which is to be found under the sun.” And he asks, “Does anyone imagine, the love of our neighbour is misery; even the loving every man as our own soul? So far from it, that, next to the love of God, this affords the greatest happiness of which we are capable.”[73] In fact, the loving sympathy with the neighbor in distress, says Wesley, “actually contributes to the Christian’s genuine happiness.”[74]
This love of God and neighbor resides as the heart of Christianity and the ultimate reason for our existence. Such love is “the happiness for which we were made.” It begins in the love of God shed in our hearts, develops in a loving character – tempers – formed in relation to the Spirit, and finds evidence in the testimony of Christian’s works of love expressed in the world.[75] For this reason, love is “the queen of all graces, the highest perfection in earth or heaven, the very image of the invisible God, as in men below, so in angels above.”[76]
The happiness love brings is meant to be shared. “If you love mankind, it is your one design, desire, and endeavour to spread virtue and happiness all around you,” says Wesley. This involves acting “to lessen the present sorrows, and increase the joys, of every child of man; and, if it be possible, to bring them with you to the rivers of pleasure that are at God’s right hand for evermore.”[77] Christians are “zealous of good works,” and they imitate their Master by “going about doing good.”[78]
Conclusion
I hope to have shown in this essay that John Wesley’s theology of love can be a helpful resource to Christians in general and psychologists in particular. Along the way, I added my own love proposals in my attempt to expand or strengthen Wesley’s own work. Working from a clear definition of love that coheres with typical love language and Wesley’s typical use of “love” helps us understand both the centrality of love for Wesley and the potential importance for love in contemporary psychology research and practice.
Notes
Alan C. Tjeltveit, “Psychology’s Love-Hate Relationship with Love: Critiques, Affirmations, and Christian Reponses,” Journal of Psychology and Theology, 34:1 (2006), 8. ↑
Ibid., 9-16. ↑
Ibid., 14-15. ↑
Mildred Bangs Wynkoop wrote one of the most important books on this subject: A Theology of Love: The Dynamic of Wesleyanism (Kansas City, Mo.: Beacon Hill Press, 1972). ↑
For material addressing Wesleyan theology and psychology, see M Kathryn Armistead, Brad D. Strawn, and Ronald W. Wright, eds. Wesleyan Theology and Social Science: The Dance of Practice Divinity and Discovery (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010). Essays in the volume cover a variety of topics, but those particularly related to the relationship of Wesleyan theology and psychology include Randy L. Maddox, “Wesleyan Theology and Moral Psychology: Precedents for Continuing Engagement,” 7-20, and Ronald W. Wright, “Serving the Cause of Christ: Wesley’s ‘Experimental Religion’ and Psychology, 35-52. See Douglas Hardy, “Implicit Theologies in Psychologies: Claiming Experience as an Authoritative Source for Theologizing,” Cross Currents, 53:3 (Fall 2003): 368-377. See Warren S Brown, “Resonance: A Model for Relating Science, Psychology, and Faith,” Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 23:2 (2004): 110-120. ↑
See Defining Love: A Philosophical, Scientific, and Theological Engagement (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos, 2010); The Nature of Love: A Theology (St. Louis: Chalice, 2010), The Science of Love: The Wisdom of Well-Being (Philadelphia: Templeton Press, 2004), and several of my other books. ↑
In some biblical passages, “love” means desire or devotion. These passages are in the small minority, but they are present. Unfortunately, they have shaped influential Christian theologies in ways I find unhelpful and confusing. I soundly criticize Augustine, for instance, as one for whom “love” means desire or devotion instead of the doing of good (The Nature of Love, ch. 3). This use of “love,” I argue, negatively influences his Christian ethics and doctrine of God. ↑
Wesley, Sermon 91, “On Charity” §§1.2, Works, 3:295. ↑
Wesley, Sermon 91, “On Charity” §§1.7, Works, 3:298. ↑
Wesleyan theologian, H. Ray Dunning, advocates the use of “holy love” to describe God, because he believes “love is susceptible to being reduced to human sentimentality” (H. Ray Dunning, Grace, Faith, and Holiness: A Wesleyan Systematic Theology [Kansas City, Mo.: Beacon Hill, 1988], 194). Kenneth Collins adds “holy” to love, because he thinks the word alone is “soft, naively wishful, and likely self-indulgent” (Kenneth J. Collins, The Theology of John Wesley: Holy Love and the Shape of Grace [Nashville: Abingdon, 2007], 9). I argue that the popular characterizations of love these theologians fear are far from love’s broad biblical meaning. Love, understood biblically, is not always soft, sentimental, or permissive. It sometimes brings division (Mt. 10:34-38). ↑
Wesley, Sermon 91, “On Charity” §§1.4, Works, 3:296. ↑
Wesley, Sermon 84, “The Most Important Question” §§3.2, Works, 3:189. ↑
For analysis of Wesley’s use of the Bible, see Scott J. Jones, John Wesley’s Conception and Use of Scripture (Nashville, Tn.: Kingswood, 1995) and Robert W. Wall, “Wesley as biblical interpreter,” in The Cambridge Companion to John Wesley, Randy L. Maddox and Jason E. Vickers, eds. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 113-128. ↑
For an argument that pardoning and transforming love was Wesley’s hermeneutical key, see Randy L. Maddox, “John Wesley on the Bible: The Rule of Christian Faith, Practice, and Hope,” in The Bible Tells Me So: Reading the Bible as Scripture, Richard P. Thompson and Thomas Jay Oord, eds. (Nampa, ID: SacraSage, 2011). ↑
Wall, “Wesley as Biblical Interpreter,” 116-125. ↑
Sermon 110, “Free Grace,” §§26, Works, 3:556. ↑
Sermons, Vol. 5, Preface, §6, Works, 2:357. ↑
Wesley makes this argument often. See as one instance, Sermon 23, “Upon our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount,” §1.1, Works, 510. ↑
Sermon 43, “The Scripture Way of Salvation,” §§1.9, Works, 2:160. ↑
I argue this in a book I co-wrote with Michael Lodahl, Relational Holiness: Responding to the Call of Love (Kansas City, Mo.: Beacon Hill, 2005). Scott F. Grover and Brad D. Strawn offer a Wesleyan view of sin informed by psychology in “John Wesley and Psychological Research on the Unconscious: Toward a Reconceptualization of Wesleyan Sin,” Wesleyan Theology and Social Science, 129-142. As the title suggests, Grover and Strawn argue for the important role “tempers” or unconscious acts and dispositions play in sin. Christopher J. Adams also argues from a Wesleyan perspective that family systems theory can play an important role in understanding sin (“The Sins of the Father: Toward a Wesleyan Perspective of Family Systems,” Journal of Psychology and Christianity 23:2 [2004]: 149-54). ↑
Wesley, Sermon 120, “The Unity of the Divine Being” §§17, Works, 4:67. ↑
2 Cor. 6:1. ↑
Wesley, Sermon 85, “On Working Out Our Own Salvation,” §§ 3.7, Works, 3:209. ↑
Wesley, Sermon 85, “On Working Out Our Own Salvation,” §§ 3.8, Works, 3:209. ↑
Randy L. Maddox, Responsible Grace: John Wesley’s Practical Theology (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1994). ↑
Anders Nygren’s theology of love stands in stark contrast to a Wesleyan theology on this point of creaturely cooperation and on other points. I point out problems in Nygren’s view in chapter two of my book, The Nature of Love. ↑
Wesley, Sermon 127, “The Wedding Garment,” §§ 19, Works, 4:148. ↑
Wesley, Sermon 118, “On the Omnipresence of God,” §§ 2.1, Works, 4:43. ↑
Wesley, Sermon 85, “On Working Out Our Own Salvation,” §§ 1.4, Works, 3:203. ↑
Wesley, Sermon 116, “What is Man?” §§ 11, Works, 4:24. ↑
Michael Leffel develops the importance of prevenient grace for Wesleyan psychotherapy and spiritual formation from a Wesleyan perspective in “Prevenient Grace and the Re-Enchantment of Nature: Toward a Wesleyan Theology of Psychotherapy and Spiritual Formation,” Journal of Psychology and Christianity 23:2 (2004): 130-39. ↑
Wesley, Sermon 84, “On Faith,” §§ 2.3, Works, 3:500. ↑
Wesley, Sermon 85, “On Working Out Our Own Salvation,” §§ 3.4, Works, 3:207. ↑
For fuller explanations of essential kenosis theology, see by books The Nature of Love and Defining Love. ↑
This is one aspect of my five-fold solution to the problem of evil. The other aspects include God as the fellow-sufferer, God as healer, God as one who squeezes good from the bad God did not originally want, and God as one who calls us to cooperate in overcoming evil. I have offered this five-fold solution in a number of papers but have not yet published it in book form. ↑
On God necessarily giving freedom and agency to others and how that affects science and theology issues, see my article, “Love as a Methodological and Metaphysical Source for Science and Theology,” Wesleyan Theological Journal 45:1 (Spring 2010): 81-107. ↑
Randy L. Maddox, Responsible Grace: John Wesley’s Practical Theology (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994), 55. ↑
Wesley, “On Divine Providence,” Sermon 67, §§ 15, Works, 2: 541. ↑
Ronald W. Wright, Greg Dimond, and Philip Budd argue from a psychological perspective for the importance of a person knowing on a deep level he or she is loved by God. The authors argue that this knowledge played an important part in the formation of Wesley’s own theology (“An Experienced Presence: An Intersubjective Perspective on John Wesley’s Early Theology,” Journal of Psychology and Christianity 23:2 [2004]: 155-64). ↑
Wesley, Sermon 84, “On Faith,” §§ 1.13, Works, 3:498. ↑
Ibid., §§ 2.5, Works, 3:500. ↑
“An Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion,” §§ 20, Works, Jackson edition, vol. 8. ↑
“Advice to the People Called Methodists,” Works Jackson edition, vol. 8. ↑
Ibid., §§ 2.5, Works, 3:500-501. ↑
Wesley, Sermon 24, “Upon Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount,” §§ 1.1, Works, 1:533-34. ↑
Wesley, Sermon 75, “On Schism,” §§ 1:11, Works, 3:64-65. ↑
Virginia Todd Holeman explores the importance of a “differentiated” self from a Wesleyan Holiness perspective in “Wesleyan Holiness and Differentiation of Self: A Systems Approach,” Wesleyan Theology and Social Science, 83-93. ↑
For a Wesleyan perspective on the importance of community, see Sarah DeBoard Marion and Warren S. Brown, “Attachment, Spiritual Formation, and Wesleyan Communities,” in Divine Grace and Emerging Creation: Wesleyan Forays in Science and Theology of Creation (Eugene, Or: Pickwick Press, 2009), 198-212 and Warren S. Brown, Sarah D. Marion, and Brad D. Strawn, “Human Relationality, Spiritual Formation, and Wesleyan Communities,” Wesleyan Theology and Social Science, 95-111. ↑
See, for instance, John B. Cobb, Jr. Grace and Responsibility: A Wesleyan Theology for Today (Nashville, Tn.: Abingdon, 1995). ↑
A helpful book in this tradition is Stephen J. Pope, The Evolution of Altruism and the Ordering of Love (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1994). ↑
See Maddox, “John Wesley on the Bible.” ↑
(Sermon 39, Catholic Spirit, 1.1) ↑
Kevin Reimer’s work on love for disabled persons fits well with Wesley’s emphasis upon helping those in need and being transformed as a consequences of that helping. See Reimer, Living L’Arche: Stories of Compassion, Love, and Disability (Continuum, 2009). ↑
Wesley, Sermon 84, “The Important Question,” §§ 5, Works, 3:191. ↑
Wesley, Sermon 92, “On Zeal,” §§ 2.5, Works, 3:313. ↑
See Brad Strawn and Warren Brown, “Wesleyan Holiness through the Eyes of Cognitive Science and Psychotherapy,” Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 23:2 (2004): 121-29. ↑
Wesley, Sermon 90, “An Israelite Indeed,” §§ 2.11, Works, 3:289. In light of these statements and others, many Wesleyans have constructed various virtue ethics theories to account for the formation of the loving person. See, for instance, G. Michael Leffel, “Putting on Virtue: A Motivation-based Virtue Ethics of Caring for Practical Theology,” Wesleyan Theology and Social Science, 143-158, and Craig A. Boyd, A Shared Morality (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos, 2007), ch. 7. ↑
Wesley, Sermon 90, “An Israelite Indeed,” §§ 1.5, Works, 3:284. ↑
For the relationship between holiness and psychology, see especially Holeman, “Wesleyan Holiness and Differentiation of Self,” and Mark H Mann, Perfecting Grace: Holiness, Human Being, and The Sciences, New York: T & T Clark, 2006. ↑
John Wesley, “The Doctrine of Original Sin,” in The Works of John Wesley, Thomas Jackson, ed. 14 volumes. London: Wesleyan Conference Office; reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, Vol. IX:292. ↑
Wesley, Sermon 76, On Perfection, 1, 4 ↑
Wesley, Sermon 130, “On Living Without God,” §§ 11, Works, 4:173. ↑
See, for instance, Randy L. Maddox, “A Change of Affections: The Development, Dynamics, and Dethronement of John Wesley’s ‘Heart Religion,’” in “Heart Religion” in the Methodist Tradition and Related Movements, Richard Steele, ed. (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 2001), 3-31. See also Randy L. Maddox, “Psychology and Wesleyan Theology: Precedents and Prospects for Renewed Engagement.” Journal of Psychology and Christianity 23:2 (2004):101-109. See also Brad D. Strawn’s article, “Restoring Moral Affections of Heart: How Does Psychotherapy Heal?” Journal of Psychology and Christianity 23:2 (2004): 140-148. ↑
Wesley, “An Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion,” § 4, Works, 11:46. ↑
Wesley, Sermon 10, “The Witness of the Spirit I,” § I.8, Works 1:274. ↑
Maddox, “A Change of Affections,” 16. ↑
Ibid., 17. ↑
Wesley, Sermon 130, “On Living Without God,” §§ 15, Works, 4:175. ↑
This includes what Brad Strawn calls the telos of psychoanalysis: "the restoration of an individual's capacity for personal relatedness and subsequently their capacity for love" (Brad D. Strawn, “Toward a Wesleyan theology of psychotherapeutic activity. In Between nature and grace: Mapping the interface of Wesleyan theology and psychology,” in Conference Papers of the 2nd Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Psychology and Wesleyan Theology ]Point Loma, CA: Wesleyan Center for Twenty-First Century Studies, 2000], 39). ↑
See Rebekah L. Miles, “Happiness, holiness, and the moral life in John Wesley,” in The Cambridge Companion to John Wesley, Randy L. Maddox and Jason E. Vickers, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 207-224. See also Sarah Heaner Lancaster, The Pursuit of Happiness: Blessing and Fulfillment in Christian Life (Eugene, Or.: Pickwick, 2010). ↑
Wesley, Sermon 120, “The Unity of the Divine Being,” §10, Works, 4:64. ↑
Wesley, Explanatory Notes, Matthew 5:2. ↑
Wesley, Sermon 84, “The Most Important Question” §§3.2, 3, Works, 3:189. ↑
Wesley, Sermon 84, “The Important Question,” §§ 6, Works, 3:192. ↑
Wesley, Sermon 120, “The Unity of the Divine Being” §§17, Works, 4:67. ↑
Wesley, Sermon 92, “On Zeal” §§3.12, Works, 3:321. ↑
Wesley, “Serious Thoughts Occassioned by the Earthquake at Lisbon,” Works, 11:11. ↑
Wesley, “Preface” in List of Poetical Works Published by the Rev. Messrs. John and Charles Wesley. With the Prefaces Connected with Them. § 5 ↑
I have written several books on love, including most recently Defining Love: A Philosophical, Scientific, and Theological Engagement (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos, 2010) and The Nature of Love: A Theology (St. Louis, Mo.: Chalice, 2010). ↑