Bernard of Clairvaux and John Wesley on Perfection
Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153) is one of the most influential figures in the history of high medieval Christianity, known as “Doctor Mellifluous” (‘the honey-flowing doctor’) in the Catholic Church. Not one word can categorize Bernard’s distinctive careers and characteristic statues as a monastic reformer, a mystical theologian, and a fervid preacher, etc. Arguably, he is the most cited Middle age writer not only by Catholics but also by Protestants, including the French Reformer John Cavin.
In his On Loving God,[1] Bernard defines the four degrees of love in terms of how we approach God. The first degree of love is driven by our selfish attempt to serve our human nature, which represents the notion that we love ourselves for our own sake. The second degree of love is the notion that we love God, but our true motive is to love ourselves for our good, not for God’s. The third degree of love is the notion that we love God for God’s sake. This degree of love is “acceptable because it is given freely. It is chaste because it is not made up of words or talk, but of truth and action (1 Jn 3:18)”. However, Bernard asserts that “for he who loves in this way loves as he is loved.” The problematic issue of this degree of love is “seeking in return not what is his own (1 Cor 13:5), but what is Jesus Christ’s, just as he has sought not his own but our good, or rather, our very selves (2 Cor 12:14).” The fourth and highest degree of love is to love oneself for the sake of God based on the “pure and sinless intention of the will.” In practicing and experiencing this kind of love, we will be able to declare the truth that “the satisfaction of our needs will not bring us happiness, not chance delights, as does the sight of his will being fulfilled in us and in everything which concerns us.” For Bernard, “to love in this way is to become like God.”
I see Bernard’s way of characterizing the four degrees of love to engage a fruitful dialogue for enriching our understanding of the heart of John Wesley (d. 1791)’s doctrine on Christian perfection. As the key concept in Wesley’s teaching on holiness, Christian perfection is the term that Wesley found to be the best when describing his distinctive position on holiness. In his vision, Christian perfection is the goal of salvation for all Christians. According to Wesley, the fundamental character of Christian perfection (or entire sanctification) is to live out Christ’s great commandment to all God’s children: to love God with all one’s heart and one’s neighbor as oneself (cf. Mat. 22:37–40). Hence, the essential substance of Christian perfection is “perfect love” (1 John 4:18). Wesley himself affirmed that love is “the sum of Christian perfection.” He always held that faith is the condition of salvation as well as of sanctification. He also confirmed that faith must always be active through love. For Wesley, then, Christian perfection is the result of faith in love.
It is worth to heed Bernard’s enthusiastic affirmation for the possibilities of partaking “the fourth degree of love” in this life concerning Wesley’s theological conviction and preaching of the option of participating “perfect love,” the foundation of Christian perfection in this life within an eschatological hope for eternity. Let us listen to the voice from his On Loving God. Bernard declares that “happy is he who has been found worthy to attain to the fourth degree, where man loves himself only for God’s sake…That love is a mountain and a high mountain of God…I should call him blessed and holy to whom it is given to experience even for a single instant, something which is rare indeed in this life.”
[1] Bernard of Clairvaux, On Loving God, in Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected Works (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), 173-205.
