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.'

Worse & Worse?
Claiming the Promise of the Kingdom

Modern Evangelical America tells us that times for the Church are getting darker. They purport the message that things are getting worse and worse, and that soon, the End shall come, and the Antichrist shall rule (*let the lightning crash*).
The popular idea is that all is spiraling downward toward the final moment when the "Great Tribulation" shall come, and the church will be "raptured" away.

I'll bet some folks thought similarly, that things were getting grim for Christians on October 30th, 1517. However, the next day, a fellow named Martin Luther surprised them by nailing his 95 thesis to the door of the Castle Church.
Funny how - in the midst of all that darkness - he sparked a Reformation, shaking the whole of Chirstendom forever.

I'll bet some doom-n-gloom folks thought that things were nearing the end for the Protestants when George Wishart was tried by the Catholic Church and burned for "heresy."
Until this funny little fellow who had been following Wishart around, acting as his bodyguard (holding a double-bladed sword) decided to take up the cause and became a Protestant Minister. His name was John Knox.

American Evangelicals today are aggravated because their attempts to "evangalize" American culture have been frustrated. A lesson in History shows us that Christians in America and England felt a similar frustration in 1730.

As G. R. McDermott points out, "They, too, had failed to reform their societies after decades of political and social effort. Preaching endlessly for moral reformation elicited boredom and contempt; reducing standards for church membership brought in more people but few conversions; and political leaders paid lipservice to...religion while furthering the secularization of society."

Rough times? It was for Jonathan Edwards when he was refused admission to preach in a Northampton church. If Hal Lindsay had been there, he might have told us it was the end. Jonathan Edwards, however, stepped onto his Father's tombstone (yes, he really did) and began to preach.
Imagine it: standing there on the tombstone, the rain begins to fall, and two or three people passing stop to listen to this man speak. Is he drunk? They wonder. What is he doing out here in the graveyard? Then two or three more are motioned over. Someone pokes their head out of the church; Is that really John out there preaching?
His pages begin to curl in the rain, his clothes are soaked, his voice is muffled by thunder, but the crowd gathers...
Enter stage right: The Great Awakening.

So, the next time some premillenialist tells you that things are getting "worse and worse," or that evil is just a "sign of the times..."
Remember, that all it takes for things to go from worst to best, is a rainy place to speak. Perhaps an unknown follower. Or how about one little fellow with a hammer, a thesis, and a devotion to God?

These Things We Hold...
Tradition & The Word of God

Which is most important? Scripture, or Traditions of men?
Each time we ask that question, a problem rises: Some claim that Ecclesiastic Traditions are instituted by the Holy Spirit, and thus on equal footing with Scripture. Read the words of the Catholic Confession, Second Ed.:

"And [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching."
"As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, "does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence."

Then we ask the question in response; if both Tradition & Scripture must "be accepted & honoured with equal sentiments of devotion & reverence," ... what if the two contradict one another?

For instance, as Luther pointed out, that the Third Lateran Council contradicted the decree of Pope Innocent III, Fourth Lateran Council, 1215, concerning EXTRA ECCLESIUM NULLA SALUS (No Salvation Outside The Holy Roman Church), who - in turn - contradicted the the Papal Bull Unam Sanctam, by Pope Boniface VIII, 1302 (which said that all had salvation who directly fell under jurisdiction of a Roman Pontiff), while the Second Vatican Council declared that all believers constituted the Universal Church, even those outside of Rome...however, many of the Early Church Fathers, as well as St. Thomas Aquinas, the Council of Trent, The Catechism of Pope St. Pius X, Pius XII, & the Vatican II held the notion that whether or not one had implicit or explicit Faith (i.e., proper knowledge of the Roman Catholic Church), a sort of Salvific Grace covered the entire body of believers.

Ummm...so, what were we talking about? Oh yeah! The harmony of Traditions (of men) & the Scripture...yeah...well, maybe not HARMONY, but...
Ok, ok. It would take a far stretch of the Orthodox imagination to make believe that these traditions were inspired, since they contradict one another so often. It would almost tempt me to wonder whether or not one would have to be a heretic to believe in the inspiration of Tradition...
oops; did I just say that? :)

First Kiss
The Paradox of God

Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.

For centuries, mankind has asked the question: "How can a Righteous God spare or forgive my wrong?"
Langland's Pier's Plowman illustrates perfectly the picture of Christ & man when it uses the phrase "where righteousness & mercy kiss."
Martin Luther struggled with this question as he slowly moved from the darkness of Catholicism into the light of God's Grace. How, he wondered, can God forgive my sin, and yet still be holy?
The place of God's grace is, however, a place where both His Righteousness (Justice) & His Forgiveness (Mercy) meet, & the sins of God's elect are forgiven.
Yet how, we wonder, can God be Holy, if He is not meting out the punishment we deserve for sin? Is this not inconsistancy? Where is God's Justice?
Because He can accept us with sin, because He grants us that which is not ours, because we deserve nothing but death & Hell, is He no longer Just for giving us Eternal Bliss & Salvation?
Would a Just Judge surely only give what was deserved? It would be like letting someone out on bail when they deserved life in prison, or death.
And that defines the situation exactly.
The reason the modern world often finds this hard to accept is because we live in an age when trust is at a zero. Why, we might ask, would someone pay my bail, when there is nothing in it for them?
Or, even further; why would they accept my sentence and let me go free?
This, is the Paradox of a Righteous & Merciful God.
C.S. Lewis smiled at this paradox and said that he believed it because; "It was exactly opposite of anything we (as humans) could have invented."
This ought to cause Christians to rejoice in the Covenant between themselves & their God, for truly, the Truths found in His Scriptures speak of a place where Righteousness & Mercy kiss, & - as Langland wrote -
'the hearts of men shall know with joy what peace can be in Middle Earth.'

Is Calvin Dead?
The Relevancy & Implications of John Calvin's Teachings

No one can deny the awesome extent of John Calvin's teachings (1509-1564). It is difficult to lay a finger on the beginning or end of his influence, since much of it overlaps the influence of the gospel, as well as protestantism and the ideologies of the Rennaisance.
However, it is just this point which makes Calvin's teachings so relevant.
The Rennaisance owes much of its "discoveries" to the proper humanities of the Reformation. For this reason, Luther, the German Reformer, was called a Humanist...not in the sense that we now think of, but because he understood that every man (and woman) has a personal obligation to God, which cannot be fulfilled by an earthly mediator (aka: a priest).
If volume and widespread translation mean anything (they don't always), Calvin is certainly relevant, since he wrote over three massive volumes of sermons, a treatise on The Christian Life, one entitled On Prayer - A Perpetual Exercise of Faith. The Daily Benefits Derived From It, Institutio Christianae Religionis (Institutes of the Christian Religion), four volumes on the Harmony of the Law, commentaries on forty books of the Bible, and sundry other volumes which have reaffirmed the Orthodox views of the Scripture, and the foundations for much of Christendom today.
However, it is something else entirely, which makes Calvin so relevant for Christendom today...
The spirit of Zwinglianism reached its fullest development in the theological principles, political theories, and ecclesiastic thought of John Calvin. Perhaps even more so than Martin Luther, Calvin envisioned and wrought the framework that would come to dominate Western culture, even into the twenty-first century. Our own culture, staggeringly so, is decidedly Calvinistic in some form or another; thus, at the centre of the way we think and act, you will find the indominable spirit of this fiery reformer.
And, while the controversy rages over Calvin's teachings, even among those of like denominations, the key to understanding his importance lies in the Scriptures. At the heart of all that he taught, was the premis Sola Scriptura; The Scriptures Alone, or The Scriptures Alone Suffice.
With this premise, the structure for society, the church, and political authority could be properly understood and applied, Calvin maintained, though fiercely opposed by those (like Luther) who argued that all which was not expressly forbidden in Scripture was to be allowed.
Was this, perhaps the reason that Calvin's influence is still felt today...or was it the fact that he bowled on the Sabbath?
(See: Calvin in the Hands of the Philistines: Or, Did Calvin Bowl on the Sabbath? By Chris Coldwell)