Charles Johnson
Puritan Board Junior
Hi friends, I have translated a section of Voetius dealing with scholastic theology for the first time. I feel that the scholastic/Aquinas retrieval movement has not been entirely honest about the reception of medieval scholasticism in the Reformed Church, especially when they make statements like that the Reformers adopted the method but not the contents of scholasticism, or that scholasticism is primarily the use of Aristotle's four causes and metaphysical categories for theology. As you can see, that is not how Voetius understood scholasticism, which he maintained a very negative view of. It just does not make sense to me that, since the Reformers had a similar idea about the attributes of God as Aquinas (all of which can be found in Augustine), they are "scholastic" and "Thomist," or that, because they used some Aristotelian logic, they are in line with medieval scholasticism (it seems to me that would make them Aristotelian, not Thomist.) I don't want to go to the other extreme either; yes, they general read Aquinas, and they positively referenced his discussion of certain matters, but I feel the point has been greatly over-exaggerated by some, while their animosity toward Papism has been greatly downplayed. Most of the guys who rant and rave about how Thomist the Reformers were won't talk about how they treated transubstantiation as idolatrous and heretical, or how they thought the Pope was the antichrist, or the criticism they directed toward scholasticism, both in its method and contents.
On a related note, Jason Papador (I forget his PB name) suggested I share a post I made about the reasons why Roman Catholic writings on the doctrine of God are not better or more profound than Protestant ones, since in certain circles that has been a popular line (Ryan Hurd especially has been pushing that idea).
On a related note, Jason Papador (I forget his PB name) suggested I share a post I made about the reasons why Roman Catholic writings on the doctrine of God are not better or more profound than Protestant ones, since in certain circles that has been a popular line (Ryan Hurd especially has been pushing that idea).