Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism

I want to make a few comments on this book, but not a full-fledged review.  This is an excellent doorway into the world of post-Reformation Reformed theologians.  It condenses the best in some of the most recent scholarship, particularly from the Netherlands.  It continues the program of deflating anti-scholastic biases.  For example, the authors illustrate in a number of places ways in which John Calvin employed scholastic methods in his writing and teaching.  Calvin’s issue was never with scholasticism as a method in general, but with the specific theologians of the Sorbonne.  The authors demonstrate how the high orthodox period was not, as is often portrayed, rationalistic, nor did it contain the seeds of the Enlightenment.

One of the important contributions of this volume is to the history of apologetics in this period.  It includes a translation of a disputation from Gisbertus Voetius on “The Use of Reason in Matters of Faith.”  There is also a reading guide to assist the novice in understanding his approach.  Elsewhere Van Asselt briefly surveys the development of “physico-theology,” a form of theology based on the study of nature, developed in response to the pressures of Enlightenment skepticism and atheism.  Fascinating stuff, this.

Richard Muller is usually touted as the go-to man for getting to know the post-Reformation.  Rightly so.  However, novices to this field can sometimes find him difficult to access.  Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism is now the best place to start.  Albert Gootjes deserves our thanks for translating it and Reformation Heritage Books for publishing it.  I’m going to be turning to it often.

Book Review of James R. Payton’s Getting the Reformation Wrong

I’ve just posted my (longish) review of James Payton’s new book, Getting the Reformation Wrong: Correcting Some Misunderstandings.  You can find it here.  This is my concluding paragraph:

“There are many more things in this volume on which I could comment, both good and bad.  I wish that I could recommend it; after all, we need more solid and accessible Reformation literature.  As noted above, there are some good chapters and some excellent insights scattered throughout.  On the whole, however, the book is evidence that old ways of writing Reformation and post-Reformation history die hard.  Using this volume as a guide, many will continue to get the Reformation wrong on some key points.”

Trueman: Was Scholasticism Rationalistic?

I’m reading Carl Trueman’s Minority Report.  The first chapter is his inaugural lecture at Westminster Theological Seminary.  It’s an entertaining and insightful read.  He spends a lot of time interacting with faulty historiography, particularly that of Stanley Grenz and John Franke.  In Beyond Foundationalism, they claimed that Protestant Scholasticism was rationalistic.  Here’s Trueman’s evaluation of that claim:

…the authors of such works have failed to engage either with the range and complexity of the seventeenth-century sources of Reformed Orthodoxy, or with the problem of historical development, or with the relevant secondary scholarship in the field.  Had they done so, they would have realized that, for example, their definition of scholasticism as essentially rationalist is historically untenable.  Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, William of Occam, Jacob Arminius, Francisco Suarez, John Owen, Johannes Cocceius, Thomas Barlow, Francis Turretin: all were scholastics, yet represent a diverse and, in some cases, mutually exclusive range of epistemologies, philosophies, and theologies.  Scholastic method does not demand a particular doctrinal or philosophical position; it is simply a basic way of arranging, investigating, and describing objects of study, which was developed in the schools (hence it is scholastic), and which demands no single philosophical or theological conviction. (27-28)

Trueman goes on to note how the categorical distinction (archetypal/ectypal theology) demonstrates that Reformed scholastics and their progeny rooted their theological reflections “not in any true rationalism but in the free, condescending revelatory acts of God himself.”  This is, therefore, “not rationalism in any recognizable Enlightenment sense” (29).  He argues that the Arminian rejection of this distinction “left the theology of the Remonstrants peculiarly vulnerable to incursions of rationalism in the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries” (30).  There may have been rationalistic elements in Reformed scholasticism, especially in the late period, but to paint scholasticism as a whole as rationalistic is facile.  Yet people keep on doing it.

Niet Gereformeerde

Rev. Jim Witteveen has some helpful reflections on the developments at Reformed Academic over the last week or so. I would add that I find it curious that some seem to think our tradition begins with Calvin and then skips over to Bavinck, as if nothing good happened in Reformed theology during the intervening period.  I find it even more curious that somebody like Cornelius VanTil, who had solid Afscheiding (Secession) credentials, fails to meet the criteria for being part of our tradition, especially since he was so indebted to Bavinck (as was Louis Berkhof).