Blasts From the PastThe Wesleyan Doctrine of Sinless Perfection

I am presently reading (though very slowly) B.B. Warfield's work called "Perfectionism". In it, he traces and critiques what came to be known as Oberlin Perfectionism, named after the College seminally founded by John J. Shipherd, established by Asa Mahan as President and joined by C.G. Finney as Professor of Theology. It is an interesting read.

Oberlin Perfectionism, though different from the Wesleyan variety, nevertheless owes something of its emergence to Methodistic teaching on the topic. Whether Oberlin or Wesleyan, I agree with Warfield that Perfectionism is a dangerous and unorthodox doctrine which has lent much to later movements, such as the "Higher Life Movement", "Pentecostalism" and others.

I was pleased the other day to stumble upon a short article entitled "Wesleyan Doctrine of Sinless Perfection", published over at Michael Bremmer's blog, Sola Scriptura! The original is from the mind and pen of R. L. Dabney - a 19th Century theologian and teacher whom we have quoted with pleasure before, on the nature of the will.

So I decided to record this article, not only for my own enrichment as an adjunct to the Warfield book, but also to share with others the intricacies, arguments and dangers of perfectionist teaching. I'm not reprinting the article here. If you want to read along with the audio, or if you want to download/read the original article, it can be found here. Enjoy...

Wesleyan Doctrine of Sinless Perfection - R. L. Dabney