Religion Online

Paul Tillich explores characteristics of Contemporary Culture and its mutual relationship with the Church.

Oord argues that God’s mission is to serve all and save all.

In this essay, Oord suggests that the categories of love might help us coherently conceive of divine action in and with the world. When asking questions related to science and culture, we best conceive of God’s action and creaturely response if we adopt a metaphysics of love. He further argues that God’s grace encourages and empowers a creaturely response in support of a life of love for all of His creations. 

In this essay, I endeavor to accomplish three tasks. The first involves briefly introducing the creative and complex constructive postmodernism of David Ray Griffin. Given that Griffin has written and/or edited massive amounts of material in advancing his distinctive postmodern proposals, I cannot cover many pertinent ideas in our present time constraints. I will, however, focus on one notion that Griffin believes crucial to his postmodern proposal:  nonsensory perception. This focus amounts to the second task I endeavor to accomplish. My third task entails briefly exploring how this insight – nonsensory perception – relates to a central element in Wesleyan philosophical theology: prevenient grace.  I am convinced the hypothesis that we perceive prevenient grace through nonsensory perception can aide theists in general and Wesleyans in particular as they traverse the unpredictable postmodern epistemological terrain.

The bulk of this paper provide descriptions of four elements in a typology. It describe types of Wesleyan philosophy in terms of interests that those in the Wesleyan Philosophical Society might pursue. When discussing the final element, the direction Oord sketches the direction he would personally like to pursue in his own Wesleyan philosophical scholarship. Part of the rationale for this essay amounts to an apologetic for the Wesleyan Philosophical Society.  And part of the reason this essay was written is to encourage those with philosophical inclinations seriously to consider becoming active in this fledgling society of Wesleyan scholars.