I recently asked a church historian the following question:
I had a question about John and Charles Wesley. As you know, both men had a deep emotional revulsion towards the Reformed doctrine of reprobation, using epithets like “blasphemy!” “Worse that Moloch!” “Worse than Satan!” and so on.
So it was more than just a doctrinal disagreement. It really got under their skin.
This is what I was wondering. It’s a psychological truism that a man’s view of God is sometimes a projection, for better or worse, of his childhood experience with his own father. Paul Vitz did a whole book on the subject (Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism).
From what I’ve read, Samuel Wesley was a real tyrant. He was as dreadful a father as Susanna Wesley was wonderful.
I wonder if John and Charles didn’t unconsciously superimpose their unpleasant memories of Samuel Wesley onto Calvin’s God, while their own view of God was more like their beloved mother, Susannah. Do you think those emotional, subliminal associations may account for the vehemence of their reaction to Calvinism?
**********************
To which I received the following (partial) reply:
To the degree that emotional impressions may affect one’s biblical exposition and theological reflections, one would be safe to see something of the Wesleys' father as a possible suspect in the Wesleyan understanding of the decretal will of God. The Father seemed much more interested in politics than in shepherding and his arbitrariness with his daughters wrought some devastating effects in their lives, quite talented and clever in their own right.
Such absolutism perhaps seemed, cruel, unthinking, and unjust in their minds and they could not imagine that a heavenly father, infinitely perfect and loving would determine to conduct himself in the same way toward his rational creatures.
The explanations that Wesley's mother gave of certain theological ideas stayed with Wesley all his life and seemed always adequate to any occasion in polemical discussions.
"Mother God or Father God?"
ReplyDeleteEgalitarian or Complementarian?
Tangential to the topic of this post, I agree, but I wonder if, IN GENERAL, Arminians are more prone to egalitarianism than are Calvinists.
Would there be a significant correlation that Calvinists tend towards Complementarianism while Arminians are susceptible and tend towards Egalitarianism?
Aha! Male chauvinism causes Calvinism! (j/k)
ReplyDeleteJugulum,
ReplyDeleteYou better stop with the joking. If you don't, I'm gonna have the Centuri0n come over and clown you again like he did before.
;-)
P.S. I saw that and I laughed. And I remembered. You got clowned, dude!
"Aha! Male chauvinism causes Calvinism! (j/k)"
ReplyDeleteAha! Feminazism causes Arminianism! (j/k)
Heh. But in that case, I wasn't exactly joking. I've always thought that particular xkcd comic has a good deal of truth to it. *shrug*
ReplyDeleteHonestly Jugulum, I thought your comment and link to that comic panel was PERFECTLY apt for Centuri0n's thread. As on-topic as anything could be.
ReplyDeleteTo be clowned for that..., I just don't get it.
Everyone has cantankerous days. I chalk it up to that.
ReplyDeleteDoug Groothuis is a Calvinist and an Egalitarian. Facts can ruin such a nice theory.
ReplyDeleteOnce you turn Freud into an argument, everything starts to fall apart. Circumstantial ad hominem, you know.
Wesley despised Calvinism because he was deeply concerned about the salvation of others (why else would you risk all sorts of problem with the Anglican church by not limiting yourself to a parish), and hated the idea of a God who cared about souls less than he did. He may have been misguided in his thinking here, but we don't need Freud to explain why he opposed Calvinism.
Victor,
ReplyDelete"Doug Groothuis is a Calvinist and an Egalitarian. Facts can ruin such a nice theory."
Whaaaaat?
TUaD made a comment about an "IN GENERAL" correlation that "Calvinists tend towards Complementarianism". Your response is to point to a single egalitarian Calvinist and say that's a fact that ruins the "nice theory"?
Did you skim his comment, or something?
VICTOR REPPERT SAID:
ReplyDelete"Once you turn Freud into an argument, everything starts to fall apart. Circumstantial ad hominem, you know."
But you yourself proceed to psychoanalyze Wesley. You yourself ascribe specific motives to his actions. So you yourself are putting him on the couch.
Historians don't limit themselves to describing what people did. They also try to go behind the actions to explain their actions. What motivated them to think as they did and act as they did?
"Wesley despised Calvinism because he was deeply concerned about the salvation of others (why else would you risk all sorts of problem with the Anglican church by not limiting yourself to a parish), and hated the idea of a God who cared about souls less than he did. He may have been misguided in his thinking here, but we don't need Freud to explain why he opposed Calvinism."
Do you think one's upbringing has no possible formative or lasting influence on what people think and do?
Do you think John and Charles Wesley would have been the same men, with the same ministry, if they hadn't had a mother like Susanna Wesley in their lives? If they never had her inspirational example to look back on and spur them on?
Assuming you don't deny the obvious, then that cuts both ways. If mothers can influence their children, so can fathers.
And really, Victor, you have to be willfully ignorant of church history to be unaware of the fact that deficient parenting has been a factor in why some men became apostates.
How can you, a 55-year-old man, have so little real world experience that you find the notion of parental religious influence, for good or ill, even debatable?
I think I have to agree with Victor. You are imposing an atheistic paradigm on Wesley, one that you would reject in an analysis of your own position.
ReplyDeleteWesley's God had no problem judging the unrighteous, so I fail to see how your analysis works.
Perhaps we should direct this in another differently as a thought experiment. Does the Calvinist God choose her children above others like any mother would protect those who are her own?
You can see that such analyses are best left to the pagan who invented them.
BOB ANDERSON SAID:
ReplyDelete"I think I have to agree with Victor."
What a surprise. Who could have forecast that Anderson would side with the Arminians. What a real shocker!
"You are imposing an atheistic paradigm on Wesley..."
Nothing the least bit atheistic about the paradigm. The psychological dynamics are applicable to people of varied persuasions.
"Wesley's God had no problem judging the unrighteous, so I fail to see how your analysis works."
Since that's irrelevant to anything I actually wrote, you're failure to see what I didn't write is neither here nor there.
"Perhaps we should direct this in another differently as a thought experiment. Does the Calvinist God choose her children above others like any mother would protect those who are her own? You can see that such analyses are best left to the pagan who invented them."
That has absolutely nothing to do with the biographical details of the case at hand. It's just an exercise in misdirection on your part because you have no counterargument.
And do you think Paul Vitz is a crypto-pagan?
Well, at least you are consistent.
ReplyDeleteI am curious how you might know me.
BOB ANDERSON SAID:
ReplyDelete"I am curious how you might know me."
This is hardly the first time you've posted comments here. You have a track-record. Or have you already forgotten that?
Off-topic but worth bringing up: possibly the worst blog post in history
ReplyDeleteOnly posted on one other thread, where I asked for your sources, which I believe was a legitimate request, don't you?
ReplyDeleteNot too much of a track record.
I do not think what you are calling a "misdirection" is any different than your speculation on Wesley's psyche. If you recall, my point was that this type of speculation is improper on all accounts.
Exactly what are you doing with this argument, Steve? What is it supposed to show? Is it a reason to reject Wesley's reasons that he offers for being an Arminian? Is it an intellectual short cut so you don't have to examine what he's actually got to say?
ReplyDeleteI think you yourself on another post pointed out that Wesley wasn't uniformly harsh in his treatment of Calvinism. As I recall, he gave Whitefield's funeral oration.
Off-topic but worth bringing up: possibly the worst blog post in history
ReplyDeleteI prayed and prayed that it wasn't mine...
VICTOR REPPERT SAID:
ReplyDelete"Exactly what are you doing with this argument, Steve? What is it supposed to show?"
i) It wouldn't have to prove anything. It could just be an interesting historical observation.
Biographers and historians take an interest is how a historical figure may have come to his views. Do you have a problem with that?
ii) Beyond that, Arminians are constantly psychoanalyzing Calvinists. They're sure we can't be Calvinists for the reasons we give. There must be some disreputable, ulterior motive.
I'm pointing out that one can apply the same reasoning to John and Charles Wesley.
"Is it a reason to reject Wesley's reasons that he offers for being an Arminian?"
What reasons would those be?
"Is it an intellectual short cut so you don't have to examine what he's actually got to say?"
That's a stupid, petty comment coming from the likes of you. I, on a regular basis, offer very detailed counterarguments to objections raised by opponents of Calvinism.
You, by contrast, take all sorts of intellectual short-cuts, such as your vaunted "intuitions."
I didn't say it was an intellectual short cut, I asked if it was. The questions weren't rhetorical, I was actually asking you what you thought these historical observations showed.
ReplyDeleteWhat I am saying is that to use these sorts of biographical considerations to establish anything about the legitimacy of Wesley's anti-Calvinism is to commit a fallacy. That is why I backed away from endorsing Birch's attempt to draw psychological conclusions about Calvinists as the basis of any argument against Calvinism. (I don't remember Birch's comments well enough to determine whether that was what he was doing).