Author: Geordan Hammond
Prevenient grace has a foundational place in John Wesley’s theology. Why is this so? Because salvation is central to the Christian faith. Wesley stated, “salvation begins with what is usually termed (and very properly) ‘preventing grace.’”1 Prevenient grace, as a crucial aspect of Wesley’s doctrine of grace, needs to be set in the larger context of that doctrine and his theology as a whole.2 This enables us to have a clear view of prevenient grace and its functions in Wesley’s theology and, hopefully, to avoid misunderstandings. For Wesley, prevenient grace was not his innovative contribution to Christianity but an essential, gracious gift of God to fallen humanity revealed in Scripture and rooted in and reflected upon in the Christian tradition.
Because of borrowed words from other languages into English and the resulting changes in word meanings, the term prevenient grace, like Christian perfection, can appear odd and even confusing. Prevenient
Geordan Hammond is director of the Manchester Wesley Research Centre and senior lecturer in Church History and Wesley Studies at Nazarene Theological College in Manchester, United Kingdom.
Holiness Today, September/October 2020
Please note: This article was originally published in 2020. All facts, figures, and titles were accurate to the best of our knowledge at that time but may have since changed.