- Jun 26, 2004
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While reading volume 2 of John Wesley's Teachings by Oden I find him staggeringly inconsistent. Wesley's view of predestination has a lot to do, I believe, with prevenient grace but I'm getting off topic a little.
Is it just me or is Wesley talking out of both sides of his mouth? Oden gives the context as Wesley reaching out to Whitefield but really? It seems he affirms Calvinism but at the last minute refuses the conclusion; that God has left a people, that were not elect...to perish forever in hell. This idea is called reprobation and is the obverse side of the doctrine of predestination.
jm
With regard to...Unconditional Election, I believe, That God, before the foundation of the world, did unconditionally elect certain persons to do certain works, as Paul to preach the gospel: That He has unconditionally elected some nations to receive peculiar privleges, the Jewish nation in particular: That He has unconditionally elected some nations to hear the gospel... That He has unconditionally elected some persons to many peculiar advantages, both with regard to temporal and spiritual things: And I do not deny (though I cannot prove that it is so), that He has unconditionally elected some persons [thence eminently styled "The Elect"] to eternal glory. But I cannot believe, That all those who are not thus elected to glory must perish everlastingly; or That there is one soul on earth who has not, [nor] ever had a possibility of escaping eternal damnation." The Doctrinal Minutes of August 24, 1743 as quoted by Oden in John Wesley's Teaching vol. 2. page 158
Is it just me or is Wesley talking out of both sides of his mouth? Oden gives the context as Wesley reaching out to Whitefield but really? It seems he affirms Calvinism but at the last minute refuses the conclusion; that God has left a people, that were not elect...to perish forever in hell. This idea is called reprobation and is the obverse side of the doctrine of predestination.
jm