Wesley and the Discontents of Protestant Moral Theology

While studying at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley much was made of a Wesleyan Quadrilateral theory of sources for theology. The theory, utterly unsupported by scripture or tradition, goes that there are four sources, particularly in moral theology:

1. Scripture

2. Tradition

3. Reason

4. Experience

By “experience” is meant everything from personal experience to the “new knowledges” of psychology, medicine, etc. One can imagine how relativizing scripture and tradition with reason and experience can lead to some pretty far flung moral teachings.

This theory has been expanded by some liberal Protestants to include:

1. Scripture

2. Tradition

3. Reason

4. Experience

5. General Revelation

6. Emotions

General Revelation refers to the knowledge God has revealed in creation. Catholics call this Natural Law. Emotions are added here, which strikes me as altogether strange. How can one place emotions alongside reason? In tough cases how do we gauge between what emotion tells us and what reason/tradition/scripture tells us? Which source wins out?

For the Methodist or other Protestant, not everything is spelled out by their churches. And, when it is spelled out, it is just a reflection of the latest vote at the denomination’s general convention held on a 3 or 4 year cycle. These 4 or 6 sources are the basis for the arguments at these conventions. Remarkably, the Catholic Church has a say in these debates. The unspoken truth is that by “Tradition” is meant the teaching of the Catholic Church. Sometimes it is called the “historic faith” or some other code. But the ghost of Protestantism’s Catholic past still haunts their collective moral conscience even as denomination after denomination approves abortion, WO, and now considers gay marriage and ordination.

A Catholic critique of this schema begins with the observation that identifying souces doesnt help one prioritize among them. Second, how can we legitimately intentionally relativize Church  teaching on faith and morals and still come up with something that is Christian and not a mongrel hybrid at best?  Third, from a traditional Catholic point of view the Magisterium actually accounts for all the sources, weighs them, and gives us the teaching whole. That is, the living Magisterium is not an ingredient but the end product. Neither the theologian, nor the individual is in a position to simply create ones own moral law. One chooses with the Church or against her teaching. This is not to say that the individual never has to choose between competing moral goods or competing evils, but that the individual does not create his own moral law.

The liberal critique of the Magisterium is that it “only accounts for the experience of celibate men,” to quote a feminist friend of mine. Somehow, I dont think that moral teaching should be gender driven. Is it possible to have a world with a male morality and a female morality? I just dont see it. But, then, I am a man, as my feminist friend never neglects to point out. On that, at least, we can agree.

Modernity is a churning cauldron of ideas about morality, from the pro-abortion/animal rights activist, to the no children/reduce the carbon footprint/global warming activist, to the contracepting single 20 something playing sex in the city, to the Protestant prosperity gospel/give 10% to the pastor and get rich, to the you name it.

Can we really afford to have the institutions which are supposed to teach on morality constantly subject it to secular analysis and put that teaching up for a vote every few years? Can we really subject right and wrong to the “fickle witch of ecclesiastical democracy?” (as my Methodist minister friend puts it).

Even the Orthodox in all their jurisdictional squabbling have not had the fortitude to teach sound doctrine or otherwise on such basic questions as contraception. Not surprisingly, as a Catholic, I find the disarray of the Protestant world quite sympathetic to the immorality of the secular world and Catholicism standing alone, firm, and teaching to anyone who will listen, the ancient and unchanging moral truths authored by God and which lead us back to him.