God's Love Through the Spirit: The Holy Spirit in Thomas Aquinas and John Wesley

God's Love Through the Spirit: The Holy Spirit in Thomas Aquinas and John Wesley

by Kenneth Loyer
God's Love Through the Spirit: The Holy Spirit in Thomas Aquinas and John Wesley

God's Love Through the Spirit: The Holy Spirit in Thomas Aquinas and John Wesley

by Kenneth Loyer

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Overview

Although the doctrine of the Holy Spirit has often been a neglected subject in theology, it remains vital for understanding both the Christian confession of God as Trinity and the nature of the Christian life. In view of those two topics, God's Love through the Spirit examines the relation- ship between love and the person and work of the Holy Spirit in Thom- as Aquinas and John Wesley—two very different figures whose teachings on the Spirit and the Christian life are found to be, on the whole, surprisingly compatible. An investigation into Aquinas's amor-based pneumatology, including a groundbreaking analysis of his recently dis- covered Pentecost sermon, and a fresh assessment of the doctrine of sanctification in Wesley show that in distinctive yet largely complementary ways, Aquinas and Wesley provide resources that can be used to reclaim a richer pneumatology, specifically in relation to the theological virtue of love. Despite the obvious differences between these two figures in method and style, there are certain conceptual parallels in their writings—such as the central themes of love and holiness—that create the possibility for mutual enrichment among their respective theological heirs. Aquinas's pneumatology can be illuminated and amplified by the emphasis on the Holy Spirit and sanctification that is found in Wesley, even as the insights of Aquinas can aid Methodists and Wesleyans in accounting more fully for the properly theological, and indeed trinitarian, basis of sanctification. The conclusions reached in God's Love through the Spirit, particularly concerning an understanding of love both within God's own life and in Christian participation in God by grace, challenge the claim that Western theology suffers from a pneumatological deficiency, and represent a significant contribution to the study of Aquinas and of Wesley, to ecumenical dialogue between Catholics and Methodists (and Protestants more broadly), and to the retrieval and development of a genuinely constructive pneumatology.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780813225999
Publisher: The Catholic University of America Press
Publication date: 05/28/2014
Pages: 295
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

KENNETH M. LOYER is a United Methodist pastor and an adjunct professor of theology at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction xi

1 Methodism and the Work of the Spirit: Making Good on the Deficit 1

The Spirit of Methodist Theology: Pneumatological Deficit and Reduction to Political Projects 3

Prospects for Retrieval and Development 16

2 Sanctifying Love: The Holy Spirit and Sanctification in John Wesley 17

A Theology of Christian Perfection 18

Wesley's Trinitarian Understanding of Sanctification 29

Conclusion 61

3 The Holy Spirit as Personal Love in Thomas Aquinas 63

The Trinitarian Basis of Pneumatology 69

The Holy Spirit: Love in Person 71

Conclusion 100

4 Aquinas on the Holy Spirit as Mutual Love 101

The Spirit as Mutual Love in Aquinas: Two Interpretations 103

Mutual Love in the Summa 113

Conclusion 140

5 Gift of the Spirit: The Holy Spirit, Love, and the Christian Life in Aquinas 141

The Holy Spirit, Gift of the Father and the Son 142

The Spirit's Gift of Love 146

The Christian Life as Gift 165

Conclusion 179

6 Toward Greater Love: Aquinas, Wesley, and Life in the Spirit 181

Aquinas and Wesley as Sources for Pneumatological Recovery 181

Thomists and Wesleyans: Mutual Enrichment on and in the Spirit 225

The Holy Spirit and the Sharing of Gifts in Catholic-Methodist Dialogue 256

Lessons from Wesley and Aquinas on the Spirit: The Politics of Participation in the Life and Love of God 268

Conclusion: Further Paths to Mutual Thomist and Methodist Enrichment 277

Bibliography 281

Index 293

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