The White Badger Inn

Catholic Protestantism
Fundamentalists Linked to Reformers?

I read an article on Nominalism & Voluntarism recently. The article argued in favour of what it called "Catholic Protestantism."
Sound like an oxymoron? It did to me too, although the author attempted to make it sound plausible. This is basically what was argued (I won't say who did the arguing):
'The original postulates of the Reformation have severed the link of Faith & Reason where man & God are concerned. This is why Evangelicals today deny any Intellectual Discernment & push only the will, only Spirit-leading, or some other spiritualized intution rather than the capacity to rationally discern.'

I am revolted. Let me rant for a moment and then I'll calm down and stop breaking things.

Here is the problem with this thought: they are attempting to link the Reformation to the universal concept (intentio secunda).
However, the Universal Concept has as its object internal representations...which means that the role of the universals is to serve, merely as a label; i.e., to hold the place in the mind of a multitude of things to which it can be attributed.

So, while - resultantly - I agree that Evangelicals (what I might call hyper-fundamentalists) probably ignorantly derive their contempt of Biblical Scholarship or Intellectual Discernment from some deviation of the Reformation (the urge that each individual know God personally), I would also say that Occam's Conceptualism applied here becomes very subjective.

Why? Because, when the abstract concepts reach the individual thing itself (as it exists in nature) the Universal no longer applies.
Ergo; voluntarism MAY be a RESULT of the Protestant Reformation, but the fundamental postulates could not have been what they may have inadvertently produced.

So, while I agree that Nominalism and Voluntarism are not the same thing (as the author tries to prove), and that Thomism was encouraged directly by several Reformers, as well as indirectly by others (Martin Luther once said: "Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason..."). I think that the ultimate conclusion falls short of the truth. The principles guiding the Reformation did not themselves (on the whole) encourage Voluntarism.

John Calvin, for instance, has been accused of total denial of philosophy. While it is true, that this reputation is rather well-earned, in another way, Calvin's consideration, knowledge, and use of philosophy in his own work refutes an obscurantist representation left by a surface-level reading.
A closer reading of Calvin's magnum opus, the Institutes of the Christian Religion, along with his commentaries and treatises demonstrates that instead of denying the importance of philosophy, Calvin generally seeks to set philosophy in what he regards as its proper place.

In this sense, there is no need to "re-visit" Catholic Protestantism (or visit it in the first place), since the Reformers weren't attempting to pull away from Thomism. They had strong affinity with Aquinas, and in many respects, with Aristotle himself. However, I wholeheartedly agree that Fundamentalist Evangelicals need to re-evaluate their approach to Biblical Scholarship/intellectual discernment.

Galileo once said something to the effect of: 'I do not believe that the Creator who endowed us with the faculties of reason and intellect intended us to forgo their use.'