Hobbes and Calvinist Scholasticism

https://regensburgforum.com/2016/12/12/political-theology-modernity-and-late-scholasticism/

The context for this discussion is the epistemological crisis that emerged with the Magisterial Reformation. The Protestant Reformers looked to the state to legislate their religious reforms and counter the authority of the Roman Catholic Church - which in many parts of Europe had lost its standing with the state. The Magisterial Protestant rebellion had to be justified philosophically and ethically and as such there were various appeals to Scripture, lesser magistrates, conscience, and early forms of social contract theory.

Natural Theology, the Reformed Tradition, and Another Way

https://credomag.com/article/natural-theology-and-van-til/

Classical Theology in this case is in reference to Aristotelian-driven Scholastic Theology and Thomism. This group (Credo Magazine) represents the Thomist revival in Reformed theology. It's sort of ironic that all of this is starting to really take off after the 2017 death of RC Sproul who championed it - but didn't live to see it.

That said, the issues are complicated as there are also strong Scholastic tendencies and tensions within Van Tillian circles as the commitment to Confessionalism is retained. The advocates of 'Classical Theology' have a point in that the Scholastic ethos was dominant at the time the confessions were produced in the 17th century.

The Dangers of Viewing the Godhead Through a Scholastic Lens (II)

Dolezal's admission of mutabilist language being present in the text and his resort to nonliteral, accommodationist, and anthropomorphic arguments in order to fit the language of Scripture into his theological grid has the potential if not the tendency to generate more problems than it solves. Once again, one is driven to think of the patterns exhibited in historical theology and the role such 'rationalist' systems-driven thinking has played. The road from rationalist scholasticism to theological liberalism is in fact a short one. The dynamics of Scripture don't lend themselves to such rigid constructions and there's a tendency (even a drive) to refine and ultimately compress both Trinitarianism and the hypostatic union into ever monistic and more coherent frameworks. It begins innocently enough, pushing to the edge of orthodoxy. But in another generation it's redefined and in another lost altogether.

The Perils of Viewing the Godhead Through a Scholastic Lens (I)

https://frame-poythress.org/scholasticism-for-evangelicals-thoughts-on-all-that-is-in-god-by-james-dolezal/

After following the Dolezal-Divine Simplicity controversy for some years now, I found this review of his book 'All that is in God' to be helpful. I have been quite open over the years that I'm not a real fan of John Frame. I remember being rather put off by his Worship in Spirit and Truth back in 1996 and yet despite my differences I'm always curious to read his works and see what he has to say. His take is often a bit different and always challenging, even when I think he's wrong.

Crossing the Authority Line

I recently had a nice long chat with an Anglo-Catholic priest and we discussed the issue of authority and how their understanding differs from Rome and its Magisterium, from the models that seek to place Scripture, Reason, and Tradition on par, and Protestant understandings of Sola Scriptura.

The Covenant of Works and Mosaic Law Misapplied

https://www.douglasvandorn.com/post/a-christian-nation-or-the-covenant-of-works-applied-to-the-nations-undoing-bad-christian-argument

If it was our duty to redeem culture or apply Christian teachings to society, the end result would not be in keeping with the vision of Right-wing Republicanism. A study of Europe and the rise of Christian Social Teaching (of which Abraham Kuyper is the Reformed representative) reveal that those wrestling with these questions are just as likely to come to very different conclusions than what has emerged within the American theological and political spectrum. For these Americans, 'Biblical' turns out to be something that arose within a specifically American context and mindset.

Berkhof on the Early Church (II)

The problems involved that Berkhof refers to concerning the Godhead and the Incarnation are dilemmas only for the systematician who thinks he can dissect the very nature of God. Our task is not to parse, disassemble, and re-engineer Biblical doctrine into a form that fits our limited, temporal, and fallen notions of symmetry or aesthetics (as some have argued) but rather to submit to what has been revealed.

Scholasticism and Muller's Concession

https://derekzrishmawy.com/2015/06/30/dont-underestimate-the-scholastics-or-gleanings-from-richard-mullers-prrd/

Critics of the Calvin vs. the Calvinists thesis often seem to suggest that those who posit the notion have erected a straw man – the supposed epistemological and methodological divide between the first generation of Magisterial Reformers and their seventeenth century descendants just isn't there.

Sacralist Judaizing and Church Architecture

https://mereorthodoxy.com/church-architecture/

This was another offering at The Aquila Report. A ridiculous article and all the more in that it's being promoted by a Reformed-affiliated website that ostensibly stands on historic and traditional principles such as the Sufficiency of Scripture and the Regulative Principle of Worship.

Sola Scriptura and Divine Simplicity (II)

To my mind, it makes perfect sense that this dispute over the doctrine of God has arisen in the context of Reformed Baptist circles as I have long argued Baptist doctrine and understandings regarding concepts such as the covenant and sacraments tend toward reductionism and result from a kind of rationalism at work that will not tolerate ambiguity, tension, and paradox – even though a true Biblicist hermeneutic demands the embrace of such mysteries.

Sola Scriptura and Divine Simplicity (I)

https://www.ironsharpensironradio.com/podcast/june-17-2022-show-with-dr-sam-waldron-on-do-we-still-believe-sola-scriptura-a-word-of-caution-to-reformed-churches-leaders-about-present-day-dangerous-paths-slippery-slopes-on-the-rise-among/

Though I've made it abundantly clear in the past that I'm not a fan of Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron, when I saw that Sam Waldron was to be the guest I decided to give the show a listen. I was all the more intrigued by the suggestion that there were problems or challenges with regard to Sola Scriptura.

I was mostly pleased by what I heard. I feared that the show would be about Critical Race Theory, alien epistemologies and things of that order, but that wasn't it at all. They were talking about a debate taking place within Reformed circles and given Arnzen and Waldron – specifically within Reformed Baptist circles.

Dangerous Roads in the Realm of Natural Theology

https://evangelicalfocus.com/science/10764/john-polkinghorne-saw-the-doctrine-of-the-trinity-as-consonant-with-the-entangled-world-of-quantum-theory

Superpositioned unity of distinct states, entanglement, dual identity and other concepts associated with the quanta remain more than a little intriguing. And indeed I have often thought of this realm of science as a case of science breaking down, even of a hint of the metaphysical imposing itself on empiricist assumptions. It has a real value in terms of apologetics – not in what it can say, but in what it can destroy. It casts doubt on the certainty and epistemological assumptions of Scientism. It declares not only that there's something more and something beyond but that these questions end in mystery and incoherence. It painfully reveals the limitations of human epistemology.

Postscript: An Aesthetic both Transient and Transcendent

Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (XXII/Final)

We ought to understand that technology and art are not easily separated and both are to some extent inseparable from questions of epistemology and morality. Additionally, if we grasp that socially conservative attitudes toward the arts and culture (while inconsistent) cannot be divorced from their larger cultural narratives surrounding epistemology and previous generational progress and values, it behooves us (lest we be swept away by these powerful cultural forces and heavily promoted arguments) to apply the otherworldly and non-conformist ethos of the First Reformation to the present day. Our culture is in crisis and thus to many, the arguments made by conservatives seem very persuasive and grounding but from a New Testament perspective they are flawed at almost every level.

An otherworldly and non-conformist ethos leads us to a cultural posture and interaction that embraces neither the Classic nor the Enlightened. In fact in many ways we are better able to resonate with the postmodern critique and even the cynical. We benefit from critiques that expose the world system's inherent flaws and contradictions, that reveal it to be an idolatrous fraud and resting on transient and degenerating foundations – as Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 7.29-31 and Romans 8.19-23. This should not upset us but rather drives us all the more toward the inescapable choice between dependence upon revelation and the hope it grants or a collapse into nihilism.

The Moral Law: Ezekiel 20, the Sabbath, and the Decalogue

Moreover I also gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between them and Me, that they might know that I am the LORD who sanctifies them.(Ezekiel 20.12)

The Sabbath was a covenantal sign that was to 'mark out' the people of God as distinct from the Gentile nations. The Sabbath therefore was not universal, it was not a law that was to be applied in all places and at all times. This is actually fairly clear when one reads the Old Testament and it is even explicit in places like Ezekiel 20.12. It was a covenantal sign and as such was only binding upon those in union with Jehovah.

But this presents a real dilemma for some Christian groups today.

The First Reformation and the Present Ecclesiastical Crisis

Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (XV)

The time is now. Dominionism and the reactionary re-casting of Sacralism in the wake of 19^th and 20^th century secularism is on the verge of swallowing up the remaining (if paltry) testimony of the First Reformation, its lifeline to the Early Church and New Testament Christianity.

First Reformation Primitivism and the Second Constantinian Shift

Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (XII)

The First Reformation it would seem embraced theological primitivism – unelaborated and limited doctrinal concepts. Like the Early Church they weren't terribly worried about seeming contradictions or doctrines that seemed to defy sense-experience or logical categories tied to it.

Inbox: An Elaboration of Biblicism (III)

A third consideration which while hinted at above, requires further elaboration, this is the relationship between Authoritative Sufficiency and Biblicism:

Worldviewism is a philosophical construct rooted in Sacralist assumption and inference and as such posits the Sufficiency of Scripture in terms of a holistic vision for the transformation and sanctification of culture. This is in fact a de-covenantalised abuse of the doctrine of Sufficiency.

Trueman, Biblicism and Oberman's Contrived Tradition Schema (Part 1)

https://journal.rts.edu/article/reforming-god/

Trueman has been talking about Socinianism as of late so this article wasn't a surprise and as expected he raises some interesting points. And yet, as usual I also take some exception to his argument.

Of course the Trinity is central to Christian thought and while Trueman acknowledges the importance of one's view of Scripture, I think he loses his way on this overall point. Scripture is indeed the central authority and our doctrine of the Trinity must necessarily flow from it.

Calvinist Narratives, 19th Century Princeton and Christmas (Part 2)

What would Paul say of those who would borrow from Hellenistic practice and try to bring it into the Church? Actually I think that very thing was happening in Colossae and in the letters to the Seven Churches and let's just say that neither Paul nor Christ (via John) have any time for it.

Calvinist Narratives, 19th Century Princeton and Christmas (Part 1)

https://calvinistinternational.com/2019/01/24/charles-hodge-and-a-19th-cent-presbyterian-christmas/

 It's a little disturbing to me but for some the idea seems to be that if Charles Hodge said Christmas was okay, then it's okay. I suppose some might feel they have some ammunition for their pro-Christmas/revisionist argument if they can pull out a 'big gun' like Hodge.