On Rejecting Reformed Scholasticism
Posted by Reformed Reader on March 17, 2008
Reading through Muller’s Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics (PRRD) is a profound experience. In these pages, one learns how the fibers of the Reformation and Reformed teaching are found in the early and medieval church. For example, one of Muller’s points is that Reformed scholastics (from early to late orthodoxy) did not totally break from all previous theological and biblical presuppositions and conclusions. Perhaps I will blog on specific examples later.
The point I want to make is this: to reject certain teachings of Reformed scholasticism is to simultaneously reject many Reformation teachings, along with the teachings of many early and medieval Christian theologians. Of course this is too much to cover in one post, so I’ll just give one example for now.
Turretin distinguishes between Adam’s faith before the fall (ante lapsum) and after it (post lapsum) (cf. Institutes II.190-191). The main point is that the pre- and post-fall situations were quite different. This is normal orthodox teaching. From the medieval church to the Reformed scholastics, the theologia hominibus communicata (theology communicated to human beings) has been divided into parts that correspond with the history of human beings – before the fall, after the fall, and in the final state of blessedness (theologia viatorum ante lapsum, theologia viatorum post lapsum, and theolgia beatorum) (PRRD, I.255-6, 264-5, etc.). No doubt Turretin utilized these distinctions (cf. Institutes, I.4-5).
Therefore, when P. Leithart calls Turretin’s distinction of pre- & post-lapse faith “a mess,” he is not just jabbing at Turretin and a few then and now who agree with Turretin. He’s going against the grain of hundreds of years of catholic teaching – before, during, and after the Reformation. He’s calling into question the historic and catholic theologia distinctions. (For Leithart’s quote, see p. 182 of A Faith That Is Never Alone ed. P. Andrew Sandlin [La Grange: Kerygma Press, 2007.])
Dear Reformed Readers: before evaluating or criticizing scholasticism, breathe the air they breathed by reading PRRD, the scholatics, and yes, even the medieval theologians. We owe it to our churches.
[One more note - at some point, I will be blogging on Turretin's explanation of faith before and after the fall, which, as I'll show, is how Bavinck later explained it. Turretin and the scholastics didn't argue that there are two different faiths in two different gods, to be sure.]
shane lems
sunnyside wa
Someone is Reading Muller! « Heidelblog said
[...] March 17, 2008 in Recovering the Reformed Confession Tags: reformed orthodoxy, Richard Muller One of the great scandals of the contemporary confessional Reformed movement is that the work of Richard Muller is more talked about than read. The FV boys shun his work the way Dracula shuns garlic. The evangelicals and (most) Barthians loathe his research because it disturbs their convenient story about how Beza corrupted all that is good. At WSC we don’t take that attitude. At WSC we like Muller’s work and we encourage our students to read it extensively for themselves and one of our grads, Shane Lems is doing just that. [...]
andrewcompton said
Killer – not only is this a great post, it’s great to have Dr. Clark weigh in as well!
Nice job! Keep up the good work! I just wish I had some time to dive back in PRRD . . . maybe over the summer! Although then I’ll be reading some more Bavinck . . . and O’Connor . . . and Berlin . . . and Seitz . . . sigh!
TurretinFan said
I’m looking forward to that discussion on Turretin’s explanation of faith before and after the fall!
-TurretinFan
rey said
In other words, the so-called Reformed faith is just a continuation of the doctrines of a bunch of mixed up Catholics from the middle ages. Well, we already knew that by the fact that you guys reject biblical baptism (believer’s baptism) and baptize babies, so what’s new about this information?
andrewcompton said
Hi Rey, thanks for stopping by!
I don’t know, though, I think you’ve missed what Lems is comparing. His point (along with Muller et al) is that Basil Hall and others are wrong in pitting Calvin against the Calvinists. He’s not saying that the Reformation is just Roman Catholicism dressed up in different garb. I’m pretty sure that even our Reformed Baptist brothers would agree with this, even though they would disagree on paedo-baptism.
Remember, any protestant faith that isn’t also “catholic” (lower case “c”) can’t really be called the “Christian” faith.
GLW Johnson said
I am not the least bit surprized that the Federal Vision folk are afflicted with blurred vision on Turretin and Reformed scholasticism- all the way down to Old Princeton. Leithart calling Turretin’s section of faith “a mess” is much like Doug Wilson declaring Warfield guilty of “re-fried gnosticism” in BBW’s book ‘The Plan of Salvation’.
rey said
“Remember, any protestant faith that isn’t also “catholic” (lower case “c”) can’t really be called the “Christian” faith.”
Says who exactly? That worn out old rule about “whatever has been believed by all Christians everywhere and in all times is the true faith” is nothing but a piece of cheese full of holes.
1. We must determine what the truth is before we can even know who is a Christian and who is not. How then can we determine the truth by a consensus of Christians? We can’t, because until we know the truth, we don’t know who’s a Christian!
2. The most important doctrines of Christianity have not been universally beleived by all “Christians.” Did the Arians beleive Jesus was God? Did they beleive the Trinity? Of course not. But you will object, “They aren’t Christians.” But in doing so, you merely prove point #1, that we have determine who’s a Christian AFTER learning the truth and don’t learn the truth by a consensus of so-called Christians.
3. Jesus is very clear that “few there be that find it,” (Matt 7:14) and he calls the church “little flock.” (Luke 12:32) He even asks the question in Luke 18:8, “when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” And again, in Revelation 12 the church is whisped away by God into the wilderness to be protected by the dragon. The church then was not inside of Catholicism writing away as a group of scholastic monks, but hidden in the wilderness.
The true Christian faith is radical and anabaptistic. It is in Scripture, not Reformed commentaries of treatises, and it is the sort of faith that fancy-pants well-to-do complacent Protestants disdain. It requires too much struggle, too much sacrifice, too much agitation for them. It is far easier to continue certain errors of Rome and (as Luther suggests) “leave this subject to the learned”–in other words, it is much easier to continue the abominable clergy-laity divide of Catholicism and many of the doctrines (infant baptism especially) that it brings with it than to have every man engaged in pursuing the truth and practicing it. It is easier to leave godly living to the pastor than to do it yourself, too.
The ‘c’atholic faith is to sit in your easy chair and let some sort of priest of pastor tell you that you don’t have to do anything really except beleive what they tell you. That’s Roman Catholicism and that’s Protestant Catholicism (Lutheranism, Presbyterianism, Anglicanism, Methodism, the Baptist church, etc. etc.) That’s all the denominations. Yet, Christ’s church marches on nearly unknown to all our various sects of modern Pharisees.
rey said
“by the dragon” should be “from the dragon”
“not Reformed commentaries of treatises” = “not Reformed commentaries or treatises”
“some sort of priest of pastor tell” = “some sort of priest or pastor tell”