The Calvinist International
The Reformed often employed a sort of communicatio idiomatum for the sacraments, applying the name of the thing signified to the sign. The obvious example is “This is my body.” In his Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, Zacharias Ursinus gives three reasons explaining why this is valid. Number 3 is important for understanding the term exhibitio as […]
Christians often talk about the transforming power of the Gospel of Christ, but for many who do not completely grasp the basic principles of human nature, the nature of this transformation may seem a complete mystery. And, when the inner struggles of faith are met with the ignorance of these basic principles – or if […]
By many modern accounts, the value of Protestant scholasticism, which reached its zenith in the seventeenth century, is dubious. But as Willem van Asselt observes in his introduction to the new translation of Franciscus Junius’ A Treatise on True Theology, no less a modern theologian than Karl Barth observed that the methodological merits of the Protestant […]
Over at the Gospel Coalition, Julian Gutierrez reviews Richard Muller’s latest book, Calvin and the Reformed Tradition: On the Work of Christ and the Order of Salvation. The book seems to be a sort of summary of Professor Muller’s overall working historical thesis, and this paragraph could adequately sum up Prof. Muller’s career project: Overall, […]
One helpful way of viewing the Reformation’s relationship to the phenomenon of scholasticism is to consider it to be, in modern terms, a kind of “reboot.” Various accounts of decline were in circulation among the reformers, but there was common agreement that something had gone wrong by the end of the fifteenth century. There needed […]
D.G. Hart Calvinism: A History Yale University Press, 2013 Usually the reader beginning a book by D.G. Hart can expect a good deal of polemic and a rather narrow historical narrative. The introductory section to his latest work, Calvinism: A History, might give the same impression, as Dr. Hart says that “Reformed Protestantism” greatly impacted the […]