Christian Outside the Church: Exploring Prevenient Grace Through Simone Weil

Lim, Wan-Yin

doi:10.2478/holiness-2025-0010

Abstract

This article seeks to read prevenient grace through the lens of Simone Weil, interpreting the Methodist understanding of prevenient grace in terms of Weil' account of grace through attention. It highlights John Wesley's optimism of grace—his conviction that God's prevenient grace is free for all—as a framework that resonates with Weil' vision of attentive openness amid suffering. It considers how this dialogue between Wesley and Weil can inform Christian engagement in pluralistic societies. It concludes with a holistic proposal for rethinking what grace could look like in a multireligious and multicultural context as a theological authority.

References

Andic, Martin, and Eric O. Springsted. ‘Simone Weil’s Notebooks: Concordance to Gravity and Grace’. American Weil Society. Accessed 25 July 2025. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/67b7530f067f5a62672c94ea/t/67c3a5329428da04bf0c405a/1740875058635/Andic_Key_to_Gravity_and_Grace.pdf.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Ariarajah, Wesley. ‘Evangelism and Wesley’s Catholicity of Grace’. In The Future of the Methodist Theological Traditions, edited by M. Douglas Meeks, 138–48. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1985.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Beck, Brian E. Methodist Heritage and Identity. Routledge Methodist Studies Series. London and New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2018.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Cabaud, Jacques. Simone Weil: A Fellowship in Love. London: Harvill Press, 1964.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Chapman, David M. ‘Methodism and the Future of Ecumenism’. In The Oxford Handbook of Methodist Studies, edited by William J. Abraham and James E. Kirby, 449–67. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Chenavier, Robert. Simone Weil, Attention to the Real. Translated by Bernard E. Doering. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Chenavier, Robert. Simone Weil, une Juive antisémite ? Éteindre les polémiques. Paris: Gallimard, 2021.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Cobb, John B. Grace and Responsibility: A Wesleyan Theology for Today. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Cracknell, Kenneth. Our Doctrines: Methodist Theology as Classical Christianity. Cliff College Academic Series. Calver: Cliff College, 1998.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Cracknell, Kenneth, and Susan J. White. An Introduction to World Methodism. Introduction to Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Davis, Benjamin P. Simone Weil’s Political Philosophy: Field Notes from the Margins. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2023. https://doi.org/10.5040/9798881813475.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Flew, Robert Newton. ‘Methodism and the Catholic Tradition’. Edited by N. P. Williams and Charles Harris. Northern Catholicism: Centenary Studies in the Oxford and Parallel Movements, 1933, 515–30.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Gurashi, Romina. Pathways of Peace: The Philosophy and Sociology of Peace and Nonviolence. Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2019.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Lodahl, Michael E. God of Nature and of Grace: Reading the World in a Wesleyan Way. Nashville, Tennessee: Kingswood, 2004.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Maddox, Randy L. Responsible Grace: John Wesley’s Practical Theology. Nashville, Tennessee: Kingswood Books, 1994.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Manzi, Jack, ed. Between Wittgenstein and Weil: Comparisons in Philosophy, Religion, and Ethics. Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Philosophy. New York: Routledge, 2024.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Nevin, Thomas R. Simone Weil: Portrait of a Self-Exiled Jew. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Recinos, Harold. ‘In a Divided World, Methodism Matters’. In The Oxford Handbook of Methodist Studies, edited by William J. Abraham and James E. Kirby, 680–95. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Roberts, Peter. ‘Attention, Asceticism, and Grace: Simone Weil and Higher Education’. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 10, no. 3 (July 2011): 315–28. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474022211408037.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Roberts, Peter. ‘Education and the Ethics of Attention: The Work of Simone Weil’. British Journal of Educational Studies 71, no. 3 (4 May 2023): 267–84. https://doi.org/10.1080/00071005.2022.2109589.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Runyon, Theodore. The New Creation: John Wesley’s Theology Today. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1998.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Springsted, Eric O. Simone Weil and the Suffering of Love. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Cowley, 1986.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Suchocki, Marjorie. ‘Wesleyan Grace’. In The Oxford Handbook of Methodist Studies, edited by William J. Abraham and James E. Kirby, 540–52. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Tyson, John R. The Way of the Wesleys: A Short Introduction. Grand Rapids, Michigan, Cambridge UK: William B. Eerdmans, 2014.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Weil, Simone. ‘God in Plato’. In Intimations of Christianity Among the Ancient Greeks, 73–88. London and New York: Routledge, 2024.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Weil, Simone. The Iliad, or the Poem of Force. Translated by Mary McCarthy. Wallingford, Pennsylvania: Pendle Hill, 1956. https://cominsitu.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/simone-weil-the-iliad-or-the-poem-of-force-4. pdf.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Weil, Simone. The Need for Roots. Routledge Classics. London ; New York: Routledge, 2002.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Edited by Janet Martin Soskice and Malcolm Muggeridge. Translated by Emma Craufurd. Routledge Classics. London: Routledge, 2021.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Wesley, John. ‘On Everlasting Love’. The Arminian Magazine, 1778. https://archive.org/details/arminian-magazine-vol-1-1778-drew-university/page/n423/mode/2up?q=prevenient+grace.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Wesley, John. ‘Sermon 39: Catholic Spirit’. In The Works of John Wesley, Volume 2: Sermons, II, 34-70, edited by Albert C. Outler, 2:81–95. The Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1985.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Wesley, John. ‘Sermon 85: On Working Out Our Own Salvation’. In The Works of John Wesley, Volume 3: Sermons, III, 71-114, edited by Albert C. Outler, 3:199–209. The Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1984.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Wesley, John. ‘Sermon 110: Free Grace’. In The Works of John Wesley, Volume 3: Sermons, III, 71-114, edited by Albert C. Outler, 3:542–63. The Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1984.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Wesley, John. ‘Sermon 120: The Unity of the Divine Being’. In The Works of John Wesley, Volume 4: Sermons, IV, 115-151, edited by Albert C. Outler, Vol. 4. The Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1984.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Yourgrau, Palle. Simone Weil. Critical Lives. London: Reaktion Books, 2011.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Yrigoyen, Charles. ‘Prevenient Grace’. In Historical Dictionary of Methodism, edited by Charles Yrigoyen and Susan Eltscher Warrick, 299. Historical Dictionaries of Religions, Philosophies, and Movements. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2013.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article

Christian Outside the Church: Exploring Prevenient Grace Through Simone Weil

Abstract

Paradigm

My account