“The Influence of Patristic Literature upon the Reformation”, Part 2

Nathan Rinne has just published Part 2 of a series with the rough title of “The Influence of Patristic Literature upon the Reformation”:

“In his groundbreaking work on the Italian monk and theologian Ambrose Traversari (1386-1439) Charles L Stinger, professor of history at Buffalo University, describes the revival of patristic studies at the beginning of the 15th century.

According to Stinger, significant catalyst for that revival was the desire on the part of humanists to confront Aristotelian scholastic theology with what they considered to be a superior alternative.

While Stinger’s treatment of the topic ends with the Council of Basel-Ferrara-Florence (1431-47), he makes the somewhat startling claim that a revival in patristic studies would continue all the way into the 17th century as a discernable conflict between patristic and scholastic theology, a conflict that would only come to an end when Protestant theologians “began to return to [Aristotelian] dialectics to analyze the orthodox creedal formulations of the Augsburg Confession and Heidelberg Catechism.”…

Read the entire piece here.

Here is Part 1: “Was a significant aspect of the Reformation a revival of patristic theology?”

The Influence of Patristic Literature upon the Reformation

The Influence of Patristic Literature upon the Reformation

Relatively unknown is the fact that by the beginning of the 17th century, over 1600 volumes had been printed that contained the writings of the church fathers of both the west and the east. It is these works that provided the content for Jacques Paul Migne’s (1800-1875) massive 386 volume Patrologiae cursus completes. But even more startling, by delving into the question of the publication of just the collected-works editions of the church fathers that appeared between the years of 1460 and 1570, the distinct impression is made that the works of the church fathers in their entirety must have been much more influential in the Reformation period than has up until now been acknowledged. Simply an awareness of the common availability of the writings of the ancient church in the 16th century thus affords a new vista from which the theological developments of the period can be assessed.

An overview of different methods of apologetics

From Nathan Rinne:

“We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.” — 2 Cor. 10:5

There are generally thought to be three approaches to Christian apologetics. Definitions will vary, but here are what I think are some good ones.

One approach is known as fideism which says that the best defense of the faith is preaching the Gospel, and that “rational evidences” have nothing to do with the process. Faith and reason, while both having their place, are opposed to one another like oil and water.

Presuppositionalism has its roots in Calvinist theology, emphasizes the unbelievers darkened reason and the power of the Word of God to convert, and, according to John Frame, “should present the biblical God, not merely as the conclusion of an argument, but as the one who makes argument possible” (Cowan, Five Views on Apologetics, 2000, p. 220).

Evidentialism looks to engage a persons’ rational capacity and takes advantage of accepted methods of doing scientific and historical research. It examines the claims made about Jesus Christ by the eyewitnesses of the Biblical narratives, and looks to determine whether or not the claims are, as the Apostle Paul put it, “true and reasonable” (Acts 26).

What is one to make of the variety of approaches to Christian apologetics?

Nathan cites writers as diverse as Kierkegaard, Plantinga, John Warwick Montgomery, and Sye Ten Bruggencate. In the comments, Richard Swinburne is cited (“On my view, Christians can quite properly offer any arguments for the truth of Christian belief they think are appropriate. I doubt that these arguments are sufficient to warrant the firmness of belief involved in faith (as traditionally understood) but it doesn’t follow that they have no use at all. On the contrary; they can be extremely useful, and in at least four different ways....”).

Read the whole article here, which promises to turn into a series....

Where are the “sexual outliers” now?

From infant theologian Nathan Rinne:

Polygamy is no longer an outlier for many social scientists, and much serious work has already been done laying the groundwork for its defense (see here, as well as this recent Slate article arguing for it).  Polygamy, however, is small potatoes.  Polyamory, the idea that many persons sexually involved with one another should be able to accrue government support, benefits, and legal structure to assist in their lifestyle, has a serious academic following (see here and here ; also note it’s happening in Brazil here).  And what about the many “gay marriage” advocates in academia who admit that they want to get rid of – move “beyond” –  traditional marriage altogether? (see here and here)  What about those in the gay rights movement – not a small number – who believe the “next step” should be to help straight people get over their obsession – the hypocritical obsession! – with monogamous marriage?  (see here and here and here).  And what about the fact that for many, their conception of “civil rights”, grounded on just what I do not know, is the card that would trump all factual reality?  In other words, whether or not children in general do better with a mom and a dad, to take one example, is irrelevant (see here – so what is the point of insisting that conservatives provide evidence that pornography is harmful?).  Jerry Sandusky aside, pedophilia has been gradually losing its stigma – as long as it is done ethically of course! – and there have been serious academic books written defending it (see here and here; interesting related links here and here).

On mining for support for doctrines “after the fact”, and finding “100% certainty” “under certain conditions”. Or: “Dogma-appreciation 101”

This is something that Nathan Rinne picked up on a couple of weeks ago:

Earlier in the thread [the “Visible Church” thread], in post # 221, John Thayer Jensen wrote: “… people often seem to me to make the mistake of deciding, first, what things are true – which implies some external canon – and then looking around for the body that teaches that.”

Michael Liccione, responded to that in post # 222 saying, “And that is the very essence of Protestantism. One assumes that the deposit of faith is knowable independently of ecclesial authority, and that one knows its content. Then one chooses a church whose teaching conforms with that.”

That comment by Mike prompted me to write my comment citing Beale on Adam, Eve, and Sola Scriptura, but there is another way to approach this.

In his comment “people often seem to me to make the mistake of deciding, first, what things are true … and then looking around for the body that teaches that”, John Thayer Jensen has described perfectly well what I’ve called the “Roman Catholic Hermeneutic”.

This is an almost perfect description of “how the Magisterium operates”. It, of course, has the body of doctrine for which it is responsible, “the formal proximate object of faith”, which it “infallibly” hands on, and thus you all have 100% epistemological certainty as to what is “divine revelation” contrasted with “mere human opinion”.

Michael Liccione finds ‘the Lutheran IP’ ‘utterly unsatisfactory’

I thought this was funny:

NathanRinne is a Lutheran writer, and Lutherans are quite fond of holding out to Reformed folks that there are things that God just consigns to mystery, and we are  best not to inquire about them. [Reformed theologians go with the things which “by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture”, but that is a no-no for Lutherans, as I understand it].

So here we have a Lutheran, who is more than willing to have those “rough edges” at the border of the “formal proximate object of faith”, in a discussion with a Roman Catholic, who blows right beyond “good and necessary” deductions and resides squarely in the infallible certitude “of a principled, rather than an <i>ad hoc</i>” way of arriving at the boundaries of “the formal proximate object of faith”. A “principled” way of determining the content of “divine revelation” as opposed to what is merely “human opinion”.

I hope these two men continue the discussion.