Hello Ben,
It's been quite some time since I've studied these things, and then it wasn't exhaustive, so I may need correction here on how far Wesley accepted the doctrine. I don't know precisely right now where to begin research to back up my claim, but it is my understanding and it's generally confirmed when I talk with Weslyians. Whether it is a pure stand, I don't know, but its presuppositions and thinking is present. However, I think it is important to understand the moral or governmental theory of the atonement uses all of the same language that we do, so it uses the words "substitutionary atonement," but it does not mean penal satisfaction, it is rather a token punishment.
In essence, Grotius's view is a legal fiction whereby Christ's sacrifice is a demonstration of Justice, not Justice itself, hence Christ provides a means of the legal negation of God's Judgment upon sin, not the satisfaction of His judgment.
So, in this contemplation, a man is thinking he is standing condemned at law, not because he broke the law, but because the law cannot be broken. Christ's sacrifice, then, doesn't restore the sinner, it restores the law - in this paradigm free will is then asserted as the decisive soteriological factor.
I specifically remember that when I started studying these things out my Pastor had said that Grotius developed his view by deferring to civil government as the concept of Justice and then applied it to the Atonement. While this is true, I did not grasp what he meant by that, I suppose I thought it was just a framework of thought in which he framed the argument as an analogy, so when I read it and he used all the same terms - such as substitionary atonement, propiatian - then I didn't interpret it consistent with what he was saying. In other words, I read Reformed definitions into the meanings of those words when I studied out Grotius's teaching. You can't do that - that is not what he means.
If you've read Dabney's Christ our Penal Substitute and he begins by attacking the Socianians civil government argument, he does that because they are arguing that Scripture teaches a standard of Justice for civil government, but our soteriology is inconsistent with it. This was the argument that Grotius was responding to as well, in which he developed his concepts, but completely in terms of their presupposition altering the Calvinistic teaching.
For more on this I would refer you to Charles Hodge's work on the Governmental View, but right now I don't remember the name of his book, as I had borrowed it from my Pastor.
Sorry I can't be of more help in answer to your question.
Cordially,
Thomas
Thanks for the reference to Hodge. He does summarize the theory quite well (if I'm thinking of what you're thinking of: his systematic theology). Thanks also for the reference to Dabney. I haven't read that but I'll have to check it out soon.
I took a class on Wesley's thought, which was taught by Alan Padgett at Luther Seminary in St. Paul. Padgett was successful in dispelling a few commonly held misconceptions I had (as it turns out, may Wesleyans hold to many of the same misconceptions!). One of those, BTW, was the idea that Wesley denied the imputation of Christ's righteousness. In fact, however, Wesley denied the conclusions many drew from that doctrine. Moreover, he denied the imputation of Christ's
active obedience simply because he saw no reason to separate active from passive, and he thought such a separation led to antinomianism. I wrote a paper about this an my conclusion was that Wesley affirmed something very close to orthodoxy with regards to imputation, but he ripped out the firm footing on which orthodoxy has stood since the earliest days of the Reformation.
Just one more aside: most believe Wesley' denied the possibility of irresistible grace and sovereign election. Oddly, he believed that he himself was irresistibly drawn to Christ. He just denied that this was how God always did it. (If anyone wants references to this stuff, it's going to take me a while since I just moved to Philly and all my school notes are in boxes somewhere).
Sorry for the aside.
I can certainly see why one would think he's very close to Grotius here. He uses the same language games as Grotius when it comes to his universalism. Plus, Wesley's hatred for nominalism caused him to see the law quite differently than most (though that very factor, I believe distanced him from Baxter's and New England's neonomianism and hence many of Jonathan Edwards' opponents), almost as a separate entity existing outside of God himself. So in this way he's similar to Grotius. But I think there are
huge differences between the two. Notice, I am not saying Wesley is at all orthodox in his soteriology. Far from it!
I think a good place to start, since Wesley is so strange and hard to get a handle on, would be some of the excellent secondary scholarship that's out there. One can do no better than Albert C. Outler, who pretty much started the renaissance in Wesley scholarship I guess. But a couple of other good books are:
1)Richard P. Heitzenrater,
Wesley and the People Called Methodists (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995).
2)Randy L. Maddox,
Responsible Grace: John Wesley's Practical Theology (Nashville: Kingswood, 1994).
The following is from Maddox's treatment (pg. 109, though I've omitted two of the footnotes since I have no idea how to put them in here).
However many the similarities, there appears to be a significant underlying difference between Grotius and Wesley. While Wesley could fully appreciate the need to uphold the moral order of the universe, he did not assume that our obedience to God's law can ultimatley be grounded in fear, as Grotius' emphasis on deterrence could imply. Rather, he was convinced that our obedience must spring from our love of God and others, and that we can only have such love in response to our awareness of God's love for us.
But how do we come to be convinced of God's love? Through the Cross! That is, Wesley understood Christ's role in his sacrificial death to be much more than the Representitive of humanity; he was most fundamentally the Representitive of God. In particular, he was the Representative of God's pardoning and restoring love. It is in light of Christ that we sing
My God is reconciled,
His pard'ning voice I hear;
He owns me for his child,
I can no longer fear:
With confidence I now draw nigh,
And Father, Abba, Father, cry!
In other words, the central point that Wesley consistently wanted to make about the significance of Christ is that there remains no reason for us to fear that the guilt of our sins bars renewed relationship with God. God has mercifully transcended that barrier in Christ. Christ is the pardoning Initiative of God's responsible grace. If we will respond to this pardoning love of God and allow God's Presence deeper access to our lives, then we will be liberated from our captivity to sin and the process of our transformation into the fullness that God has always intended for us can begin. One is tempted to describe this as a Penalty Satisfaction explanation of the Atonement which has a Moral Influence purpose, and a Ransom effect!
Tombes lived in Bewdley, Baxter 6 miles away in Kidderminster. 