Calvin and the Reformed Tradition

A. Muller Richard

Description

Richard Muller, a world-class scholar of the Reformation era, examines the relationship of Calvin's theology to the Reformed tradition, indicating Calvin's place in the tradition as one of several significant second-generation formulators. Muller argues that the Reformed tradition is a diverse and variegated movement not suitably described either as founded solely on the thought of John Calvin or as a reaction to or deviation from Calvin, thereby setting aside the old "Calvin and the Calvinists" approach in favor of a more integral and representative perspective. Muller offers historical corrective and nuance on topics of current interest in Reformed theology, such as limited atonement/universalism, union with Christ, and the order of salvation.

Sujets

• Christian theology
• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 15 novembre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441242549
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

© 2012 by Richard A. Muller
Published by Baker Academic a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516–6287 www.bakeracademic.com
Ebook edition created 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-4254-9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
The internet addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers in this book are accurate at the time of publication. They are provided as a resource. Baker Publishing Group does not endorse them or vouch for their content or permanence.
To David C. Steinmetz Teacher, Mentor, Colleague, Friend with Gratitude
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Preface

1. From Reformation to Orthodoxy: The Reformed Tradition in the Early Modern Era
Approaching Reformation and Orthodoxy
Deconstructing the Master Narratives
Method and Content Once Again
Toward a Contextualized Intellectual History of Reformed Protestantism
An Overview of the Study

2. Was Calvin a Calvinist?
Defining the Question: Varied Understandings of “Calvinism”
“Calvinism” as Calvin’s own position
“Calvinism” as the approach of Calvin’s “followers”
“Calvinism” as a name for the Reformed tradition
Theological Considerations: Calvin in Relation to the Later Reformed
The problem of TULIP
The problem of predestination, christocentrism, and central dogmas
The humanist-scholastic dichotomies
Calvin, Calvinism, and covenant theology
Conclusions

3. Calvin on Christ’s Satisfaction and Its Efficacy: The Issue of “Limited Atonement”
“Atonement” and “Limited Atonement”: A Problem of Terminology
Universality of Offer and Limitation of Salvation: The Exegetical Issue
Calvin and the Traditional Scholastic Distinction: Infinite Sufficiency and Limited Efficiency
Manducatio indignorum and the Limitation of Sacramental Efficacy
Limited Salvific Intention, Limited Intercession, and Limited Union: Correlative Aspects of Christ’s Priestly Office
Conclusions

4. A Tale of Two Wills? Calvin, Amyraut, and Du Moulin on Ezekiel 18:23
Amyraut, Calvin, and Exegesis: The Issue of Ezekiel 18:23
Reading Calvin’s Exegesis: Amyraut on the Interpretation of Ezekiel 18:23
Calvin’s Interpretation of Ezekiel 18:23
Response to Amyraut: Du Moulin on Citation of Calvin and the Interpretation of Ezekiel 18
Conclusions

5. Davenant and Du Moulin: Variant Approaches to Hypothetical Universalism
John Davenant and the Gallican Controversy over Hypothetical Universalism
Davenant, Dort, and dating the debate
Davenant, the British delegation, and the Synod of Dort
Davenant’s response to the Gallican controversy
Pierre Du Moulin on the Extent and Efficacy of Christ’s Satisfaction
Du Moulin and the debate over hypothetical universalism
Du Moulin against the Arminians
From Arminius to Cameron to Amyraut: Du Moulin’s perceptions in 1637
The efficacy of Christ’s death and universal grace: Du Moulin against Amyraut
Conclusions

6. The “Golden Chain” and the Causality of Salvation: Beginnings of the Reformed Ordo Salutis
Ordo Salutis : The Term and Its Origins
Reformation-Era Backgrounds and Foundations
Reformation-era exegesis of the “golden chain”
Reformers on the causality of salvation
Zacharias Ursinus on the Causality of Salvation
Faith and its causes in the theology of Zacharias Ursinus
Ursinus on the causality of justification and conversion
Predestination, Christ, and the order of salvation
Early Orthodox Developments
Reformed commentators of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
Formalizing the chain: Rennecherus, Perkins, Bucanus, and Maxey on the sequence of causes of salvation
Conclusions

7. Union with Christ and the Ordo Salutis : Reflections on Developments in Early Modern Reformed Thought
Foundational Formulations of the Unio cum Christo
Calvin on union with Christ and the application of salvation
Other influences on the early orthodox Reformed development: Viret, Vermigli, and Musculus
Unio cum Christo in Developments Leading to Early Reformed Orthodoxy
Zanchi on union with Christ
Theodore Beza and the unio
Caspar Olevianus exegesis and the unio cum Christo
Reformed Orthodoxy and Unio cum Christo : From Exegesis to Doctrinal Formulation
Union with Christ in early orthodox exegesis of Romans 8
Perkins, Polanus, and Ames the application of salvation and union with Christ in early orthodoxy
After Perkins, Polanus, and Ames union with Christ in later Reformed orthodoxy
Conclusions

8. Calvin, Beza, and the Later Reformed on Assurance of Salvation and the “Practical Syllogism”
The Problem of the Practical Syllogism
The practical syllogism and the early modern quest for certainty
Calvin and the syllogismus practicus in contemporary scholarship
Some definition: what is a “practical syllogism”?
Calvin and the problem of assurance
Assurance and the Practical Syllogism after Calvin
Theodore Beza and the syllogismus practicus
After Beza: the syllogism in some later Reformed writers
Conclusions
9. Conclusions
Index
Notes
Back Cover
Preface
The essays in the present volume belong to the work of several decades and represent a series of related studies in the development of the Reformed tradition from the time of Calvin into the era of orthodoxy. At its most general level and approach, the book continues the basic argument posed in my other studies of the era, albeit in relation to different topics namely, that the Reformed tradition is a diverse and variegated movement not suitably described as founded solely on the thought of John Calvin or as either a derivation or a deviation from Calvin (as if his theology were the norm for the whole tradition). The present essays press the methodological point further by raising foundational issues concerning the nature of a tradition and the problems inherent in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century master-narratives concerning the changes that took place in the early modern era.
As is also the case with my previous studies of Reformation and orthodox-era Reformed thought, this work is an exercise in intellectual history that engages in an examination of trajectories of Reformed thought, not a work of dogmatics engaged in the formulation of Reformed doctrines for the present day. Its method assumes that a writer cannot simultaneously wear two hats or serve two masters and that engagement in contemporary dogmatizing in the midst of the analysis of a historical document only results in the muddying of historical waters and the loss of genuine engagement with the thought of past centuries, a problem unfortunately characteristic of much of what still passes for studies of Calvin and Calvinism. Not that theologians should avoid reading and meditating on historical sources! Rather, there is a need for historians and theologians to exercise methodological care so that the historian does not import foreign and anachronistic notions to the task of presenting an older theology to a modern readership and that the theologian does not distort the meaning of a document for the sake of contemporary re-presentation or retrieval. [1]
On a more specific level, the essays in the book pose the argument that developing Reformed approaches to the work of Christ and the order of salvation do not fit easily into a set of standard and sadly current caricatures and misrepresentations both of Calvin and of later Reformed thought on such issues as limited atonement, hypothetical universalism, union with Christ, and the order of salvation. The more closely one examines the documents, the older largely dogmatic narratives found in twentieth-century discussion of the era are revealed as fundamentally mistaken and tendentious. Thus, the narrative of Calvin as the founder of a uniformly Calvinistic Reformed tradition, the alternative narrative of “Calvin against the Calvinists,” the notions of central dogmas or of predestinarian versus christocentric or covenantal systems of theology, the more recent claim of Calvin as the lonely representative of a theology of union with Christ, and the purported connections between humanistic or scholastic methods and particular dogmatic results need to be discarded. What appears when the dogmatic dross is set aside is a variegated Reformed tradition that drew variously and eclectically on the patristic and medieval backgrounds, that does not rest on the theology of any single founder but was diverse from its beginnings, and that developed in dialogue and debate during the early modern era. When, moreover, Calvin’s thought is placed into the context of this developing tradition, he appears as one of several major codifiers or systematizers of the second generation of the Reformation, whose thought was not always appropriated directly into the theologies of later generations of Reformed exegetes, theologians, and pastors.
There are also several places in the present volume where the differences between my early work in Christ and the Decree and my present understanding of the place of Calvin in the development of Reformed thought and in relation to later orthodoxy are evident notably in the discussion of Christ’s work and its limitation and the discussion of the practical syllogism. In both instances, I recognize that my earlier analysis allowed more cogency to the neo-orthodox line of argumentation about sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sources than was warranted. Specifically, I allowed aspects of the faulty nineteenth- and twentieth-century master narratives of early modernity and elements of the neo-orthodox macro-theological generalizations about th