Perfecting grace: Holiness, human being, and the sciences

In recent decades, the Wesleyan-holiness movement has experienced a crisis regarding the understanding of its distinctive doctrine and theological centerpiece: Christian holiness. This dissertation contends that this crisis is due in part to faulty anthropological assumptions, traditional holiness theologies having presumed a problematic view of human life and experience. One reason for this is that holiness theologians have relied solely upon scripture and traditional theological sources, whereas people today find their view of themselves shaped as much by the sciences as by scripture and tradition. This dissertation is the first attempt to construct an interpretation of Christian holiness upon an anthropological foundation that utilizes scientific and traditional theological resources. It finds that the human person should be understood as a multidimensional unity, an individual center of relatedness, a structured dynamism, and embedded freedom; and that holiness be understood generally as a quality of free responsiveness to the gracious call of God.; The first chapter outlines the contours of Wesleyan-holiness theology, with special attention being given to anthropological assumptions. The next three chapters explore scientific work relevant to theological anthropology. A chapter on neurology focuses on the work of Antonio Damasio, Eugene d'Aquili, and Andrew Newberg; a chapter on sociology explores the work of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann; and a chapter on psychology examines the theories of Erik H. Erikson. The next section pulls together holiness theology with the anthropological implications of the sciences. Chapter five shows the problematic nature of traditional holiness anthropological assumptions, and proposes an alternative anthropology. Chapter six elaborates a basic theory of holiness that seeks to weave together a scientifically conscious anthropology with a Wesleyan-Arminian view of grace. The final chapter addresses traditional affirmations regarding the nature and reception of Christian holiness, arguing that they be reinterpreted in light of the anthropology and general theory of holiness developed in the previous chapters.