05 Sep 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
Last week, I posted a couple of excerpts from Richard Muller's discussion of method among the Protestant orthodox or "scholastics" and their Reformational predecessors. Later in the same volume, he includes a useful summation of their basic philosophical stance. Though "Christian Aristotelianism" remains...
Read more → 23 Aug 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
In the last post, we saw that Samuel Willard recognizes only one natural "order of superiority," that of parents over children. All other relations of superior and inferior are what he calls "political." We further saw that he divides the "political" into the two spheres of public and private, the former...
Read more → 11 Aug 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
In the first chapter of Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, "Relation of Sacred Eloquence to Biblical Exegesis," W.G.T. Shedd discusses what "originality" might mean for the "sacred orator," for he has just said that the study of sacred revelation does indeed grant an originality to "religious thinking...
Read more → 08 Aug 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
In Part 6 of the Discourse on Method, Descartes objects to the way in which the inquiry for truth was, in his experience, conducted in the schools. He writes: But though I recognize my extreme liability to error, and scarce ever trust to the first thoughts which occur to me, yet-the experience I have...
Read more → 07 Aug 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson
Mark Jones has a recent post on a subject long of interest on this site, viz. the use of Greek and Roman sources by Protestant theologians. As a case study that confirms Dr. Jones' point, one might look at the way in which John Calvin makes use of Plato in his Institutes of the Christian Religion. Below...
Read more → 07 Aug 2017
Posted by Mark Jones 
For Reformed Catholics, appreciation extends well beyond our Reformed heritage. It has to. For our appreciation of the Christian tradition to cease to move beyond our Reformed borders is in fact to cease to be Reformed. But just how far can appreciation extend? Even to pagan sources? Yes, indeed. After...
Read more → 29 Jul 2017
Posted by Steven Wedgeworth 
Dr. Hutchinson's recent post on Augustine reminded me about a point of Calvin's eschatology that I wanted to explore. Agreeing with Augustine, Calvin argues that there will come a time when Christ's mediation will come to an end, and the godman will deliver the kingdom over to the Trinity (considered...
Read more → 18 Jul 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
Everyone knows that Martin Luther hated reason and thereby destroyed Europe, culture, kittens, and organic farming. After all, he once called "holy reason" a "mangy, leprous whore." Again, "reason is the devil’s prostitute and can do nothing else but slander and dishonor what God does and says." So,...
Read more → 08 Jul 2017
Posted by Andrew Fulford and Peter Escalante 
Since Jay Adams and no doubt earlier, the Christian world has been arguing amongst itself over the relationship between its faith and the modern science of psychology. And this is not only a disciplinary division issue, for the modern field of inquiry has experienced a history of its own, with influential...
Read more → 14 Jun 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
I frequently make fun of “aesthetics.” I do so because the way in which the term is used in common parlance at the present hour is silly, and serves roughly as a synonym for “something that gives me the feels.” This is the refuge of not a few Tiber-jumpers. Some Protestants, on the other hand,...
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