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John-Owen

New Credo Podcast! Can we be Reformed and Scholastic?

Reformed and Scholastic are often considered antithetical to one another, as if the use of the scholastic method or the retrieval of its philosophy and theology is a betrayal of the Reformation. Such a popular narrative is more fiction than fact, a convenient caricature that misrepresents some of the Reformed heritage of the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. In truth, a wide spectrum of Reformed Orthodox theologians appropriated the tools of Scholasticism to codify their Reformed faith in universities and churches. The Reformed Scholastics were unembarrassed in their critical appropriation of medieval Scholastics (Anselm, Aquinas, etc.) for the sake of defending their reformed, orthodox convictions against heretical groups like the Socinians.

On this episode, theologian Ryan McGraw joins Matthew Barrett to define Reformed Scholasticism, introduce theologians like Francis Turretin and John Owen, and explain why we should retrieve these post-reformation reformers for the sake of renewing theology today. Far from a contradiction, Reformed and Scholastic is our heritage.

Matthew Barrett

Matthew Barrett is the editor-in-chief of Credo Magazine, director of the Center for Classical Theology, and host of the Credo podcast. He is professor of Christian theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the author of several books, including Simply Trinity, which won the Christianity Today Book of the Year Award in Theology/Ethics. His new book is called The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. He is currently writing a Systematic Theology with Baker Academic.

Ryan McGraw

Ryan McGraw is the Morton H. Smith Professor of Systematic Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylors, SC. He is the author of numerous books including By Good and Necessary Consequence, The Day of Worship: Reassessing the Christian Life in Light of the Sabbath, and Christ’s Glory, Your Good: Salvation Planned, Promised, Accomplished, and Applied.

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