The Wesleyan Quadrilateral: What is it and is it relevant today?

How do Methodists do theology and approach issues? When Methodists try to answer questions about God and the world, we use a tool called the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. A quadrilateral is any closed four-sided shape like a square or rectangle, but our Quadrilateral is a more complicated structure, though easy to grasp and easier to misunderstand. It may surprise you that John Wesley himself did not use the term, 'Quadrilateral'.

In Steven Spielberg's 2018 movie Ready Player One (but not in the original novel by Ernest Cline), the second clue in the contest to win control of the immersive, virtual universe "Oasis" begins with the line, "A Creator who hates his own creation." This refers to Stephen King, who hated the movie version of his book, The Shining

To a smaller extent, the line might also refer to the late Albert Outler, a giant of a theologian who coined the term 'Quadrilateral'. Outler, who served for decades as Professor of Theology at Southern Methodist University, later admitted, "The term 'quadrilateral' does not occur in the Wesley corpus—and more than once I have regretted having coined it for contemporary use since it has been so widely misconstrued." 1

Outler (he appears in the first video of the Disciple 1 Bible Study series) drew inspiration from the Anglican Church's Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1886. Richard Heitzenrater, Professor Emeritus of Church History and Wesley Studies at Duke Divinity School, called it the "Outler Quadrilateral" instead. The British Methodists prefer the name, "The Methodist Quadrilateral".

Whatever you call it, the Quadrilateral reflects Wesley's belief that "the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in Scripture , illumined by tradition , vivified in personal experience , and confirmed by reason ." 2 Scripture, tradition, experience and reason make up four sides of the Quadrilateral. These are not unique to Methodists—other Christians use them as well. It is just that we Methodists have a smoking hot term.

The misunderstanding lies in thinking that these four sides are equal. For Wesley (and all evangelical Christians), Scripture is primary and paramount. The Anglican Bishop N T Wright wrote, "[S]cripture, tradition and reason are not like three different bookshelves, each of which can be ransacked for answers to key questions. Rather, [S]cripture is the bookshelf; tradition is the memory of what people in the house have read and understood (or perhaps misunderstood) from that shelf; and reason is the set of spectacles that people wear in order to make sense of what they read..." 3

In the words of Chris Bounds, a Methodist professor and theologian at Indiana Wesleyan University, tradition is how the Church has historically interpreted Scripture. Reason brings logical coherence and empowers us to make sense of Scripture and tradition. When our reading of Scripture is true and affirmed by tradition, aligned with reason, then we are led to an experiential faith through the witness of the Holy Spirit. What is taught by Scripture, affirmed by tradition, and supported by reason, must be experienced in the Christian life. After all, faith must be experienced personally and there is an experiential heart dimension to head knowledge in the Christian faith.