Wesley, Aquinas and Christian Perfection: An Ecumenical Dialogue. By EDGARDO A. COLON-EMERIC.

Abstract

I approached this book with various apprehensions. Was it likely that a single writer would discuss with equal competence two such diverse figures as Thomas Aquinas and John Wesley—especially as this author’s position at Duke Divinity School also includes responsibility for Hispanic studies? Is there not a danger of extracting fragments from two systems of belief and forcing them into an artificial unity—as has been done, for example, with aspects of Christian and Buddhist devotion? How far is the author’s commitment to ecumenism likely to distort his presentation of points of difference and disagreement? I am happy to declare Professor Colón-Emeric not guilty on all three counts. First, the depth and detail of his study of both Wesley and Aquinas are evident not only in his text, but also in the notes, occupying one-third of the book, which show interaction with a wide range of secondary literature. Second, the author is careful to set Aquinas’s and Wesley’s treatment of Christian perfection within the general structure of their respective theologies, even if at points he appears to exaggerate the prominence of perfection within Aquinas’s system. And third, his concern for what he calls ‘kneeling ecumenism’ (as distinct from the ‘sitting ecumenism’ of scholarly exposition and the ‘walking ecumenism’ concerned with the ‘practice of charity’, p. 183) is developed only in a final chapter of great originality.