It is probably giving The United Methodist Church more credit than it is due to say that it has entertained a theological debate since its inception in 1968, but Wesley’s quadrilateral did receive some attention when the conservative folk raised to primacy Scripture over Tradition, Reason and Experience. My bias toward Reason is thus far painfully obvious but I’m just enough of a behavioral scientist to believe that rational thought, sentience, the ability to think—Reason—is necessarily the first step in theologizing. If the ability to think is absent it’s hard for me to imagine that Scripture or Tradition spontaneously appear on their own. I am of the opinion that Reason and Experience complement each other as the basis of theology, whereas Scripture and Tradition are the result of beliefs. Beliefs are not always accurate or true, two facets which are absolutely necessary to a legitimate theology. A study reports “that 92 percent [of Americans] believe in God or a universal spirit”, but the majority means more to politics than it does to empirical objectivity. In other words, just because nine out of ten Americans believe in God does not prove one way or the other whether or not there really is a God. In this scientific age where technological prowess is derived from empiricism, to argue that there is or is not a God demands more than belief. This contention is naturally offensive to religion because it is based in beliefs that manifest as sacred literature and practices. We are now to the point of asking whether we believe there is a God, or if we know there is a God.