Wednesday, February 10, 2016

The Wesleyan Notion of Prevenient Grace

Wesley speaks so wonderfully about this gift of prevenient grace that I could not refrain from quoting him at length in order to begin this blog post:

Salvation begins with what is usually termed (and very properly) preventing grace; including the first wish to please God, the first dawn of light concerning his will, and the first slight transient conviction of having sinned against him. All these imply some tendency toward life; some degree of salvation; the beginning of a deliverance from a blind, unfeeling heart, quite insensible of God and the things of God."Sermon: On Working out our own Salvation

...‘preventing grace’; --all the drawings of the Father; the desires after God, which, if we yield to them, increase more and more; --all that light wherewith the Son of God ‘enlightens every one that comes into the world’; showing every man ‘to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with his God’; --all the convictions which His Spirit, from time to time, works in every child of man--although it is true, the generality of men stifle them as soon as possible, and after a while forget, or at least deny, that they ever had them at all. Sermon: The Scripture Way of Salvation

... preventing grace. Every man has a greater or less measure of this, which waits not for the call of man. Every one has, sooner or later, good desires; although the generality of men stifle them before they can strike deep root, or produce any considerable fruit. Everyone has some measure of that light, some faint glimmering ray, which, sooner or later, more or less, enlightens every man that cometh into the world. And every one, unless he be one of the small number whose conscience is seared as with a hot iron, feels more or less uneasy when he acts contrary to the light of his own conscience. So that no man sins because he has not grace, but because he does not use the grace which he has. Sermon: On Working out our Own Salvation

In order to facilitate this topic further I juxtapose Wesley’s notion of prevenient grace and what he considered “the natural man”.

In the Methodist Conference in 1745 Wesley stated that he and his preachers had come “to the very edge of Calvinism” in certain respects. That is “in denying all natural free-will, and all power antecedent to grace.”[1] Likewise, in his What is an Arminian? Answered by a Lover of Free Grace Wesley claims that his view of original sin is in conformity with Calvinism: “…In this respect, there is not a hair’s breadth difference between Mr. Wesley and Mr. Whitefield.”[2]

Although Wesley maintained that by nature all men are totally depraved and incapable of any motion towards God, by grace, the free will of man in some measure is supernaturally restored. In his Predestination Calmly Considered Wesley states: “But I do not carry free-will so far: (I mean, not in moral things:) Natural free-will, in the present state of mankind, I do not understand: I only assert, that there is a measure of free-will supernaturally restored to every man, together with the supernatural light which 'enlightens every man that comes into the world'.”[3] In his Remarks on Mr. Hill’s Review Wesley asserts that “every man has a measure of free-will restored to him by grace.”[4]

Even though Wesley’s notion of total depravity, “the natural man”, is more of a logical abstraction, he nevertheless maintains that every man who is born into the human condition can not have any thoughts of God, or any conviction of sin, apart from grace. We can see this expressed in his sermon Working out our own Salvation where he states that “For allowing that all the souls of men are dead in sin by nature, this excuses none, seeing there is no man that is in a state of mere nature; there is no man, unless he has quenched the Spirit, that is wholly void of the grace of God”.[5]

This measure of restoration from being in a mere natural state, apart from prevenient grace, is an unconditional benefit of the universal atonement at work in all men. Several Wesleyan scholars clearly recognize this initial working of prevenient grace. In his John Wesley’s Theology Today Collin Williams states that “It is through Prevenient grace that he is given the power to respond or resist. Prevenient grace creates within us the power to accept faith or to refuse it.”[6] In his Christian Theology H. Orton Wiley explains that “…Arminianism maintains that through the prevenient grace of the Spirit, unconditionally bestowed upon all men, the power and responsibility of free agency exist from the first dawn of the moral life.”[7] In his The Theology of John Wesley Kenneth Collins states that “Prevenient grace must not be confused with free will. In the Fall, man completely lost his freedom for God… in the loss of what Wesley called the ‘moral image’. Thus freedom for God is not now a human possibility but is restored by the grace of God.”[8]

This main discussion centers upon what had been proposed by a Wesleyan scholar concerning the manner in which the initial work of prevenient grace in all those born into grace is affected. In his The Theology of John Wesley Kenneth Collins explains that “…since men and women in the natural state, according to Wesley, do not even have the freedom to accept or reject any offered grace, then this gift itself must be graciously and irresistibly restored”[9]

This language of an “irresistible grace” can unnerve some folk so it is advisable to replace the word with “efficacious grace”, that is a grace given us that is effective on its own merits, effecting the purpose for which it was sent. But is this not the clear meaning of how prevenient grace is conceived in its initial work upon all men who come into the world?

The notions of total depravity and prevenient grace are not placed successively in order of time, as if at the moment of conception we are in a state of mere nature and that within seconds the prevenient grace of God initiates a work of restoration. But rather we could take these two teachings in the order of thinking, that is, by inheritance, all men who are conceived, all who participate in human nature, are recipients of a depraved condition, that by nature, all are slaves to sin. Yet, at the same time we are born in a state of nature, we are in that very moment conceived in the realm of prevenient grace, and as a preservative power, we are prevented from the full effects and consequences of our inheritance. By the law of nature we have an inheritance of a fallen condition, but by the principle of prevenient grace we are gifted with a work of grace that is for all purposes efficacious in the lives of all men, as the immediate effect of the universal atonement.

See my forth coming blog post on the nature of original sin for a comparison between the Wesleyan and Catholic perspectives, and also my previous blog post on the Wesleyan notion of irresistible grace.


[1] Jackson, Wesley's Works 8:285
[2] Jackson, Wesley's Works 10:359
[3] Jackson, Wesley's Works 10:229-30
[4] Jackson, Wesley's Works 10:392
[5] Jackson, Wesley's Works 6:512
[6] Williams, John Wesley’s Theology Today, 41
[7] Wiley, Christian Theology Vol. II, 357
[8] Dunning, Grace, Faith, & Holiness, 339
[9] Collins, The Theology of John Wesley, 80

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