Wesleyan Philosophical Society
March 1, 2007
Conference Paper Abstracts
Title: Christian Philosophy after Fides et Ratio
Name: Christopher Anadale
Email: canadale@conception.edu
Institution: Conception Seminary College
Abstract:
I propose to review the implications of two papal encyclicals for the
practice of Catholic philosophy, and explore the framework they suggest for
future collaboration between Christian philosophers of different faith
traditions. // The 1998 encyclical Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason)
defends a vision of philosophy at odds with some trends in professional
philosophy in the United States. Additionally, the 1993 encyclical Veritatis
Splendor (The Splendor of Truth), while addressing primarily theological
questions, confronts a number of contemporary philosophical influences and
movements. Taken together, these two documents suggest the possibility of a
broad consensus that may unite Christian philosophers from many different
traditions. // My presentation will outline the main features of this vision and
consensus, including: (1) contemporary philosophical positions and schools that
are rejected or problematized by this vision, (2) philosophical questions and
tasks that are given pride of place in this vision, (3) implications of this
vision for legitimate pluralism, both in Catholic philosophy and in the wider
Christian philosophical community, and (4) possible areas for Catholic-Wesleyan
dialogue and collaboration. // I will end with a challenge and an invitation to
dialogue.
Title: The Catholic Continental Philosophers
Name: Christina Smerick
Email: Christina.Smerick@greenville.edu
Institution: Greenville College
Abstract:
When the subject of religion is broached in continental philosophy,
especially over the past 40 years, the focus is predominantly on Judaism, or at
least Jewish tropes and images. This is understandable: in part it is a
reaction and meager mea culpa for the Holocaust; in part it is because Judaism
is exotic to most continental philosophers, who, as Europeans, participate in a
culture and history dominated by Christianity. However, there has been a recent
shift in continental philosophy to Christianity, a shift led by two preeminent
continental philosophers, Jean-Luc Nancy and Gianni Vattimo. Interestingly,
both are Catholic Europeans. // This paper will focus on Gianni Vattimo’s work
on Christianity. In my paper, I will explore how Vattimo is sympathetic to
Christianity’s claims and hopes for a postmodern world, and how this sympathy
manifests itself in Catholic-Christian images, ideas, and tropes, rather than
Protestant ones. In so doing, I hope to encourage an appreciation of the rich
history of the Catholic Church, and to reveal some of the powerful imagery and
mystery that is present in Catholic thought, with the hope that ecumenical
interests may win out over divisive ‘denominationalism’, and that the Body of
Christ could someday be re-membered. I also hope to demonstrate the powerful
synergy that can exist between continental philosophy and theology, a synergy
that is, however, distrusted on both sides. I hope this as a now-Protestant,
and as a former Catholic; as a philosopher, and as a Christian.
Title: Reason, Affectivity, Holy Habits, and Christian
Philosophy
Name: Gregory B. Sadler
Email: gregsadler@netnitco.net
Institution: Department of Philosophy and Religious
Studies, Ball State University; Indiana State Prison
extension campus
Abstract:
One area of possible dialogue between Catholic thinkers and Wesleyan
thinkers is the ongoing and never fully-resolved question of Christian
philosophy. This deep question actually involves a constellation of questions
and issues, and many different, often seemingly incompatible answers to it have
been articulated. The 20th century saw much discussion of the question, largely
by Catholic and Reformed thinkers. A further contribution to the debates and its
ongoing commentary can emerge from setting Wesleyan and Catholic thought in
productive dialogue with each other. // Wesley's thought is often characterized
as "religion of the heart", rather than "religion of the head", with the
implication that affectivity and practice is considered essential, while the
content of belief and the use of reason are unimportant. Examination of Wesley's
writings, particularly Sermon 70, indicates that this truncates Wesley's
thought. Wesley neither overvalues nor undervalues reason, and he resists the
temptation of cutting reason off from the affectivity, habits, and practices
that nourish and support reason properly employed. This opens the possibility
for Christian philosophy of a specifically Wesleyan spirituality. // As a
Catholic philosopher, I leave that project to others. Instead, I discuss the
thought of two Catholic philosophers, Maurice Blondel and Adriaan Peperzak,
placing them in dialogue with Wesley. Both developed critical and reflective
positions on philosophy that similarly give affectivity, habits, and practices
their rightful places in relation to reason, neither devaluing reason or
philosophy, nor allowing unaided human reason on its own to attain the
supernatural, but indicating how Christian philosophy is possible.
Title: Sin, Irrationality and the Role of Reason in
Sanctification
Name: Timothy Crutcher
Email: tcrutche@snu.edu
Institution: Southern Nazarene University
Abstract:
Two clear points of connection between the Catholic and the Wesleyan
traditions can be found in the importance they give to
salvation-as-sanctification and in the role they give to reason in the
construction of theology and the Christian life. Both traditions have founded
strong educational institutions and are focused—at least at their best—in
producing saints. This paper will argue that those foci are integrally
connected. // The paper approaches these two traditions by means of two
representatives, two “Oxford Johns” as it were: John Wesley and John Henry
Cardinal Newman. Though both writers are complex in that their writings are
predominately “occasional” or “controversial”, there is still in each sufficient
commonality in their occasional writings to testify to a coherent perspective.
In Wesley, it is seen in the consistent concern to use reason (mainly logic) to
bring the truths of Scripture to bear on the shaping of an “experience” of holy
living. In Newman, it is seen in the polarity between the “real” and the
“notional”, a more philosophically driven approach but still one aimed at
showing how proper thinking informs proper Christian living. The paper draws out
the inter-related concerns for “Clear Heads and Holy Hearts” in both authors
separately and then shows the strong consonance between Wesley’s and Newman’s
way of integrating those concerns. It concludes with some brief implications
both for the contemporary enterprises of Christian philosophy and theology and
also for contemporary Wesleyan-Catholic dialogue.
Title: Kant’s Critique of Religious Paternalism
Name: Kevin Lowery
Email: KLowery@olivet.edu
Institution: Olivet Nazarene University
Abstract:
In identifying itself as both “mother and teacher,” the Roman Catholic
Church has often been accused of paternalism. In contrast, it might be argued
that there should be more ecclesial and scholarly influence within the Wesleyan
traditions, especially in the process of formulating doctrine. Although
paternalism does not connect the two traditions per se, it seems that a
discussion on the proper limits of ecclesial control and influence can be
beneficial for both groups. Rather than focus on theological themes or
authority itself, this paper will approach the issue by examining Kant’s
critique of religious paternalism. // First, Kant claims that paternalism in
general stifles progress. People do not learn to think for themselves, but
become too dependent on others. Second, he believes that religious scholarship
and control are only needed to support unnecessary dogma that often becomes a
substitute for morality, which is really the core of religion. Of course, Kant
makes several assumptions about human nature that need to be scrutinized, and
his concept of religion itself is certainly debatable. Obviously, it lies
beyond the scope of this paper to explore all of the foundational issues
raised. However, analyzing Kant’s critique will help clarify the dynamics of
ecclesial influence, suggesting some broader boundaries for it overall, and
informing the way that boundaries are set depending upon circumstances and
theological commitments. // The main resource for this paper will be Kant’s
writings, especially Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason and “What Is
Enlightenment?” Relevant secondary sources will also be consulted.
Title: On Whether God Has A Free Will
Name: Brint Montgomery
Email: brint@snu.edu
Institution: Southern Nazarene University
Abstract:
Generally, free will is important for establishing that humans have moral
responsibility to one another, to God, and perhaps even to creation. Is this
issue the same for God --i.e., is it necessary to argue that God has a free will
in order to establish that God can enter into types of moral relations as
earlier listed? // Again, free will in humans is controversial, especially in
light of scientific advances in genetics and MRI technology. But these advances
can tell us little about issues pertinent to God having a free will; since, (a)
God is not the result of natural biological processes which lead to God having
actions that result from genetic influences, and (b) God does not have a brain
which would constrain or shape God’s beliefs and desires toward certain specific
actions. // The method of this paper shall first be to outline some views of
the will that have been expressed both through the Catholic
and Protestant traditions. Next, I
shall then evaluate these views in dialogue with recent scientific analyses of
the will. Finally, I shall proceed to generalize these results about the human
will in order to analyze issues pertinent to God having a free will. (For
example, although God does not have a brain which constrains or shapes God’s
actions, perhaps God’s will is nevertheless shaped by similar constraints of a
metaphysical variety.) // My overall conclusion is that God
might indeed have a free
will; yet, if so, God’s will operates under certain metaphysical limitations which are
congruent to the physical limitations on human will.
Title: { Wesleyan and Catholic Similarities in Free
Will, Prevenient Grace, & Justification }
Name: Alan Vincelette
Email: icedog210@adelphia.net
Institution: St. John's Seminary, Catholic Archdiocese
of Los Angeles
Abstract:
John Wesley was known to be a defender of free will (i.e. Arminianism) and
hence a criticizer of strongly Calvinistic views of predestination. In this
regard his position is remarkably similar to that of the Catholic Church as
presented in the Council of Trent. Thus the first part of this paper will
compare the views of John Wesley with Catholics on the freedom of the will. Both
Wesley and Catholics support that idea that God does not predestine some humans
to hell, but rather that evil (resulting in punishment in hell) occurs through a
free choice of sin. // Next, I will also show that Wesleyan and Catholic views
on prevenient grace are also very similar. For both Wesley (Article 8 and
Sermons) and Catholics (i.e., Second Council of Orange and Vatican Council II)
God's grace is a free gift that precedes human action and response. // Finally,
I will discuss the Wesleyan versus the Catholic view of Justification. Here
there is more of a difference in that Wesley (Article 9, 10 and Sermons)
defended a view of justification by faith (such as in his) whereas Catholics in
the Council of Trent argued for a view of justification by faith and works. Yet
if we explore the views of Wesley and Catholics in more detail we find that the
difference is perhaps not as great as might be imagined as exemplified recently
in the Methodists joining Catholics and Lutherans in affirming a common
statement on justification this past summer.
Title: Freedom And Foreknowledge: Problems All Around
Name: Thomas McCall
Email: tmccall@tiu.edu
Institution: Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Abstract:
A common argument concludes that divine foreknowledge rules out libertarian
freedom. This argument is often wielded by both Open Theists (who reject
traditional accounts of divine foreknowledge) and Calvinists (who reject all
versions of libertarianism and endorse the view that freedom is compatible with
determinism) against traditionally-minded Wesleyans and other Arminians as well
as against traditionally-minded Roman Catholics. In this paper, I argue that
the common argument also produces problems for both Open Theism and
compatibilist Calvinism, and I conclude that Open Theists and Calvinists alike
should hope that the common argument fails.
Title: Exploring Anthropology in Two Traditions: An
Exploration of the Anthropologies of John Wesley and Karl Rahner
Name: Nathan Crawford
Email: ncrawfo@luc.edu
Institution: Loyola University of Chicago
Abstract:
In this paper, I wish to offer three sections. First, I want to offer a
look at the anthropology of John Wesley, with reference to the work of Albert
Outler. Specifically, I want to look at how Wesley’s anthropology is defined
through one’s relationship to God. The reference is to humanity in light of
God. // Next, I want to explore the elements of Rahner’s anthropology.
Specifically, I want to look at how Rahner begins with the experience of the
human person and then works his way, through this experience of the human, to
positing the human in relation to God. Again, it is primarily through the
human’s relation to God that Rahner constitutes the human person. // Third, I
want to look at the similarities and differences of Wesley and Rahner’s
anthropology. Specifically, I want to offer that the main and constitutive
difference lies with their beginning points. Wesley begins with the human in
relation to God and Rahner begins with the experience of the human. However,
the similarity is that both constitute the human as necessarily in relation to
God through God’s giving of the Godself in grace. // Lastly, I want to offer
the suggestion that in light of contemporary thought, there are some things that
a Wesleyan anthropology could learn from and ecumenical Roman Catholic
theologian’s, such as Rahner’s. Specifically, Rahner lays open an anthropology
that is engaged with the experience of the human person and with culture. The
Wesleyan anthropology tends to be insular, speaking in specifically theological
terms.
Title: Psychological Passivity in Augustine
Name: Mark Cullum
Email: mxc01e@acu.edu
Institution: Abilene Christian University
Abstract:
In Book Fourteen of the City of God, Augustine of Hippo begins to break away
from classical, Stoic psychology by critiquing the Stoic view of emotion. Grief
is not as useless as the Stoics had thought, he argues, and he adduces several
classical examples of salutary grief or penitence. But then Augustine does a
curious thing. Instead of concluding that human emotions are therefore
altogether noble, he backtracks and admits that the passivity of emotion - the
fact that we often experience them involuntarily – stands out as a clear sign of
their inferiority. And so, instead of offering a more optimistic position on
human nature than the Stoics, as he appeared at first to intend, Augustine
retreats to a characteristically more pessimistic view: our emotions do benefit
us, but they operate in a lowly manner, and so, by implication, do we. What
leads Augustine to such an unnecessarily (as it appears) negative position? The
key seems to be his conviction that emotion must never - in the rightly ordered
soul - precede volition. Passions which are experienced passively derive from
the 'weakness of our human condition.' (De Civ. 14.9) But how else can
emotion or passion be experienced, if not passively? To answer this question, I
turn in this essay to Augustine's interpretation of the Passion of Christ. The
emotions of Christ in the Garden and on the cross were genuine, Augustine
asserts, but they were not experienced passively. For instance, when Christ
cries out in agony, he is not revealing his own pain, but the pain of future
Christian martyrs - martyrs who would not have the strength to die as bravely as
Christ. The un-tenability of this and other statements by Augustine about
impassive passion of Christ points to what I will argue stands as a key
principle of Augustine's Neoplatonic psychology – a principle outlined in detail
by Plotinus. The principle amounts to this: the
primordial 'fall' of mankind represents a fall into psychological passivity.
Title: Reviving the Catholic Notion of Gelassenheit for
Environmental Responsibility within the Wesleyan Holiness Movement
Name: Sharon R. Harvey
Email: sharvey@uidaho.edu
Institution: University of Idaho
Abstract:
Our holiness shows itself by how we treat others; should not our holiness
consist in how we treat nature? Catholic thought has led the way in emphasizing
environmental responsibility in conjunction with its faith. Protestant
commitments, by contrast, have had difficulty developing environmental
responsibility within its theology.
A pivotal religious influence stemming from the thought of
the mystic, Meister Eckhart, a Dominican friar from the 14th century, is the
notion of Gelassenheit, or “letting-be.” Gelassenheit as a theological concept
made its way into Martin Heidegger’s philosophical work in the 20th century, and
beyond, in the postmodern thought of John D. Caputo. An analysis of
Gelassenheit encourages the Christian tradition to look at related themes
resulting from the term’s evolution, such as how one is to treat nature.
Eckhart’s Gelassenheit corresponds well with a Wesleyan concept of holiness, and
can be a viable notion for generating dialogue in the intersection of
sustainability and the holy life.
Title: John Wesley: Inspiration for an Anti-Catholic
Mob?
Name: Al Truesdale
Email: altruesdale@islc.net
Institution: Nazarene Theological Seminary
Abstract:
In 415 CE a Christian mob in Alexandria lynched Hypatia, the daughter of the
mathematician Theon. Hypatia was the star of Alexandrian Neoplatonic
philosophy, and a teacher of mathematics and astronomy. The Christian
archbishop of Alexandria at the time was Cyril—Doctor of the Church and known to
us as St. Cyril. Ever since the ugly death of Hypatia, historians have debated
the question, “What did Cyril know about Hypatia’s murder and when did he know
it?” // In June 1780, violent anti-Catholic riots erupted in London as Lord
George Gordon marched on Parliament to present a petition requesting repeal of
the 1778 Relief Act. The Relief Act had had reversed harsh 17th century
anti-Catholic legislation. For days, London lay helpless before the mob.
Gordon and his supporters demanded that England return to pre-Relief Act
Catholic repression. // Was the Wesley who in 1749 wrote the irenic A Letter to
a Roman Catholic in any way implicated in the anti-Catholic riots? Did he in
some substantial way supply fuel for the display of violence? Did Wesley harbor
historic resentments against Catholics that could have lent support to Lord
George Gordon’s goals? Does a careful analysis of these events require
contemporary Wesleyans to temper their presentation of Wesley as a model of
catholicity and irenicism? // In this paper I will: (1) present the historic
background behind the 1780 riots; (2) examine any related resentments against
the Catholics that Wesley might have harbored; (3) examine his 1779 Popery
Calmly Considered and his relationship to the Protestant Association; and (4)
try to assess Wesley’s culpability or lack thereof with reference to the 1780
riots.
Title: Wesley’s Methodist Movement:
What Might It Have to Offer to Contemporary Roman Catholics?
Name: Dennis M. Doyle
Email: Dennis.Doyle@notes.udayton.edu
Institution: University of Dayton
Abstract:
Some groups to which one can belong, such as the Roman Catholic Church, are
clearly organizations. Other groups, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, though not
altogether without structures, can be more readily classified primarily as
movements. It is possible to belong both to the Roman Catholic Church and to A.A.
at the same time.
Wesley’s eighteenth century Methodism was itself primarily a movement. Although
most members of the movement were also members of the Church of England, there
were also some Catholics and some Puritans among them. Wesley himself remained a
priest of the Church of England and argued against the English Methodists
becoming an independent church.
Even though the Methodist movement long ago became a church (and then churches),
contemporary Methodists express an ecclesiology that gives primacy to mission.
Methodist churches strive to remain a movement even as they are also an
organization.
A study of Wesley’s Methodist movement uncovers many interesting parallels with
Alcoholics Anonymous. The use of a number of strategies within various forms of
small groups to bring about significant and lasting changes in personality and
behavior is common to both. Both also share an openness to some degree of
religious pluralism, with Wesley including a range of Christian traditions and
A.A. a range of religions. // To be a “Methodist,” for
Wesley, meant first of all to be a person who strove to live a Christian life to
the very best of one’s ability within the context of a small, intentional
Christian community. Using this sense of the word, is it possible today to be
both a Roman Catholic and a “Methodist”? Does Wesley’s Methodism have something
to offer to the small faith communities now burgeoning among Roman Catholics?
Does Wesley’s Methodism offer something of value to contemporary ecumenical
dialogue between United Methodists and Catholics?
Title: Practicing Restorative Justice: Roman Catholic
and Wesleyan Perspectives
Name: Robert Henning
Email: rhenning@voyager.net
Institution: Spring Arbor University
Abstract:
I would like to prepare and present for the March 2007 Wesleyan
Philosophical Society a paper on Restorative Justice as advocated and practiced
by Roman Catholics and Wesleyans. Some specific sources include a statement by
Roman Catholic Bishops (“Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration: A
Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice: A Statement of the Catholic
Bishops of the United States,” 1/15/2000), United Methodist General Conference
Resolutions on Restorative Justice (2004), and Harmon Wray’s “Restorative
Justice: Moving Beyond Punishment” (a study guide done for the General Board of
Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church). Additional sources on
restorative justice will include: “Changing Lenses” (Howard Zehr), “God and the
Victim” (Lisa Barnes Lampman), “Spiritual Roots of Restorative Justice” (Allard
and Northey), and “Christian Faith and Criminal Justice” (Gerald McHugh). // I
will also prepare for this paper with further conversations with [a] former
Director of Restorative Justice Ministries which is operating thru [a] Roman
Catholic Diocese [in the my local city area]. [This director] and I have served
together for eight years on the board of directors of a [state] prison reform
organization called Citizens’ Alliance on Prisons and Public Spending (CAPPS).
I look forward to examining the theological sources of our common Wesleyan and
Roman Catholic commitment to practice restorative justice.
Title: “I Believe that I Believe”: Postmodern Catholic
Resources for Contemporary Evangelicalism
Name: J. Aaron Simmons
Email: john.a.simmons@vanderbilt.edu
Institution: Department of Philosophy, Vanderbilt
University
Abstract:
In this paper, I bring together what might seem like a very unlikely pair:
the evangelical theologian David Wells and the un-orthodox Catholic philosopher
Gianni Vattimo. The oddity of this pairing is due to more than different
theological traditions. Indeed, Wells has published a series of books in which
he has tried to rescue evangelical theology from its captivity in a postmodern
world. Alternatively, Gianni Vattimo is one of the foremost contemporary
postmodern philosophers of religion. Despite these differences, I will propose
three ways in which Vattimo offers resources for Wells’s own project. First,
Vattimo provides a clear example of how religious belief is possible after the
collapse of modern philosophy. Second, understanding God in a postmodern
context requires stressing God’s kenotic expression of love as embodied in the
life of Christ. Finally, Vattimo’s relation to the Catholic Church highlights
the importance of joining together ecclesial tradition with hermeneutic
critique. // Although it might seem that these postmodern trajectories are
precisely what Wells struggles against, I will suggest that, given Wells’s own
praise for the movement beyond modernity, his celebration of Christ’s kenotic
example, and his frustration with evangelical ecclesiology, he should view
Vattimo as opening valuable spaces for the furtherance of his own thought. We
evangelicals would do well to learn from Vattimo that humility and criticism are
central to the life of faith. Rather than starting from a definitive claim to
know God’s truth, perhaps we should simply follow Vattimo in saying that “I
believe that I believe.”
Title: Wesleyan Epistemology in Contemporary Perspective
Name: Scott Crothers and Joe
Cunningham
Email: crothers@slu.edu
Institution: St. Louis University
Abstract:
Recent discussions in religious epistemology have highlighted the
similarities between ordinary sense perception and religious experience. These
similarities are often used as a way to elevate the epistemic status of
religious experience and the resulting religious beliefs to a level on par with
the epistemic status afforded to sense perception and perceptual beliefs.
Within this general framework a debate has arisen regarding the relative
importance of individual religious experience and the revelation of God through
the Christian community. Reformed thinkers tend to emphasize the former over
the latter while Roman Catholics tend to object that the latter is to be
considered primary for grounding religious beliefs. In this essay we analyze
the epistemology of John Wesley and place his perspective in the current
debate. Drawing on the affinities between Wesley’s notion of the spiritual
senses and Plantinga’s (borrowed from Calvin) sensus divinitatis
as well as the affinities between the normative role of tradition present in
both Wesleyan theology and Catholic responses to Reformed epistemology, we argue
that Wesley provides a fruitful via media that deserves consideration in
the contemporary debate.
Title: Soteriology and God’s Relationship to Time
Name: Adam Green
Email: monk_n_dancingshoes@hotmail.com
Institution: Saint Louis University
Abstract:
Of late, Wesleyan soteriological concerns have increasingly driven Wesleyans
and other Arminians into debates between molinism, open theism, and a handful of
less well-advertised options. What all of these positions have in common is that
they assume that God is in time. Drawing on the work of Thomas Aquinas, Catholic
philosopher Eleonore Stump has developed the Eternal-Time Simultaneity account.
She claims to be able to uphold the so-called “classical conception of God” as
outside of time, simple, and robustly immutable while at the same time making
conceptual room for the dynamic, responsive interactions between God and man
which lie at the heart of Wesleyan soteriology. Although an attractive view
which can incorporate some degree of responsive interaction, it is argued here
that the coupling of the metaphysical dependence of subsequent divine-human
interactions on temporally prior divine-human interactions with the necessity of
God’s “reacting” to determinate content in his interactions with humans creates
a generalizable counterexample to this view as stated. However, it will be
suggested that the reactivity of the account may be revised in a way that
preserves a substantial (though less than optimal) amount of the soteriological
desiderata with which we started.
