What is Reformed Scholasticism?

For many readers, “Reformed” and “scholasticism” might appear to be a strange conjunction. In Reformation and post-Reformation thought, “the scholastics” were often short-hand for the “bad guys.” Martin Luther even wrote an early work against scholastic theology.[1] Scholasticism is often pitted against a commitment to scripture in popular thinking, substituting exegesis with complex and muddled arguments about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

Yet many scholars have recognized that Reformed theology from around the 1560’s to the mid-eighteenth century revived the scholastic method in order to teach theology to ministerial students in Reformed universities.[2] Some scholars have even traced hints of scholastic influence in earlier authors, like Luther and Calvin, despite their vitriol against scholasticism.[3] No less than Karl Barth (1886-1968) asserted, “The fear of scholasticism is the mark of a false prophet.”[4] Though this author disagrees with Barth in most things, Barth noted rightly that modern theologians and pastors need to learn something from Reformed scholasticism to understand and transmit Reformed ideas to the present generation. The fear of scholasticism is the mark of a false prophet. -Karl Barth Click To Tweet

The primary questions before us are, what is Reformed scholasticism, what are its benefits, and what are ways we can abuse it? This essay seeks to answer these questions, arguing primarily that we must understand Reformed scholasticism both to use it rightly, and to avoid abusing classic Reformed dogmatics.

What is Reformed Scholasticism?

“Scholastic” is a somewhat nebulous word. Like the term “Puritan,” we often think that we understand it until we try to define it.[5] Also like “Puritanism,” “scholasticism” often becomes a ill-defined derogatory term for something people don’t like. Following Ulrich Leinsle and others, this author primarily defines scholasticism as a method of teaching in the schools (hence the name “scholastic”), which began in the Middle Ages and stretched into post-Reformation theology.[6] Though this definition remains somewhat vague, this section seeks to give it concrete shape primarily through illustrations.

Our two key terms are “Reformed” and “scholasticism.” If scholasticism refers to a method conveying ideas, then “Reformed” indicates a particular brand of confessional orthodoxy. Without judging which kind of orthodoxy is the right one, orthodoxy, as a historical term, includes Lutheran, Reformed, and Roman Catholic orthodoxy.[7] Defining each form of “orthodoxy” is a body of normative confessional statements. While the Book of Concord and The Decrees of the Council of Trent characterized post-Reformation Lutheran and Roman Catholic orthodoxy, respectively, many confessions defined Reformed orthodoxy, most notably the so-called Three Forms of Unity, the Second Helvetic Confession, and later the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms. Though not describing each form of “orthodoxy” here, orthodoxy referred to the normative doctrinal content of each movement. If scholasticism refers to a method conveying ideas, then “Reformed” indicates a particular brand of confessional orthodoxy. Click To Tweet

As Protestant universities developed, teachers required an appropriate method to convey orthodoxy to students. Reformed scholasticism spans roughly from the 1560’s, in which some of the early major Reformed confessional statements appeared, to at least the mid-eighteenth century, when Enlightenment philosophical shifts furnished authors with new categories through which to convey ideas. Illustrating the nebulous character of scholasticism, Leinsle argues that the scholastic method began as early as Augustine (354-430), though most authors use Anselm (1033-1109) as a starting point. The Anselm start date is a bit tidier, having the advantage of connecting the rise of the scholastic method to the rise of medieval universities. The main question surrounding scholasticism is, How did people teach theology in the schools?

What features, then, make the scholastic method identifiable, both in the Middle Ages and in post-Reformation thought? Some of its main relevant features were the ability to define terms clearly and to make sharp distinctions, using the current scientific terms available at the time.[8] This could include categories drawn from Neo-Platonism, or more famously (or infamously) from Aristotle, starting in the late twelfth century onward. It is important to recognize that scientific categories drawn from philosophical sources served primarily to furnish theologians with the needed distinctions to convey ideas. Thomas Aquinas (1226-1274) is commonly noted for his use of Aristotelian categories, but he often transformed them to suit the needs of his theology.[9] In the post-Reformation period, Peter Ramus (1515-1572) sought to revise and simplify Aristotle’s logic in search of a better teaching tool, illustrating the utilitarian role of scholasticism as a method.[10]

The primary forms or vehicles of scholastic theology were questions (quaestio), disputations, and declamatory speeches, all drawing from careful scientific terms and definitions. To give some medieval examples, Aquinas is an easy illustration of the quaestio method, since each chapter of his Summa Theologiae begins with a question, followed by negative answers to it, leading to his responses and answers to objections, resulting in a clear statement of doctrine. Reformed scholastic Francis Turretin (1623-1687), among others, largely followed this method in his Institutes of Elenctic Theology, which became a standard text of Reformed orthodoxy.[11]

Disputations, similar in form to the quaestio, posed a question in response to which students sought to defend their answers, after narrowing the issue at hand and defining it clearly. Often Reformed professed published theological works answering the disputation questions themselves, such as the so-called “Leiden Synopsis,” which countered the Arminian system of doctrine in the Netherlands in the early seventeenth century.[12]

Declamatory, or didactic theology, simply presented the system of doctrine in a compendious straightforward manner, often bypassing questions and disputations for the sake of brevity. Bonaventure’s (1217-1274) Breviloquium fits this form, giving readers concise summaries of each doctrine and all its related distinctions in brief chapters in a single volume,[13] in contrast to say Aquinas’s multi-volume Summa. Reformed authors followed this form as well, represented by the concise and direct theological systems of William Ames (1576-1633) and Johannes Wollebius (1689-1629),[14] though authors like Amandus Polanus (1561-1610) could expand this method into massive texts.[15] Using current scientific terms to convey ideas through precise definitions and distinctions spilled into other sciences, such as medicine, which still retain some of these distinctions today.[16] It is important to recognize that scientific categories drawn from philosophical sources served primarily to furnish theologians with the needed distinctions to convey ideas. Click To Tweet

Though sometimes hard to distinguish, and not entirely separate, scholastic theology was distinct from popular theology. On the surface, one can “feel” the difference between Bonaventure’s Breviloquium and his work on the mind’s journey towards God, though both aimed at the true knowledge of God.[17] Similarly, Andreas Hyperius (1511-1564), the first Reformed author to write on theological method, distinguished scholastic from popular theology.[18] Scholastic precision and terms informed popular theology, yet with less explicit distinctions and more direct address. John Owen (1616-183) illustrates the point if readers compare his Christologia with his Meditations on the Glory of Christ, both in volume one of his works.[19] Christologia is dense, detailed, and often challenging, while the Meditations present the same material, teashing his congregation how to live and how to prepare for heaven.

The Scholastic method is, in many ways, better illustrated than defined. For instance, following the quaestio method, Aquinas asked whether a divine person can assume a human nature without assuming human personhood. After presenting Nestorian arguments that assuming human nature without assuming human personhood is impossible, Aquinas defined his position that Christ was one divine person with both human and divine natures, answering objections against it. Ultimately, since the suppositum in Christ lies in his identity as God the Son, and since we cannot divide divinity and personhood in the Trinity, Christ must be a divine person who took on a human nature, the personal identity of his humanity subsisting in hypostatic union with the divine nature.[20] All Reformed authors effectively followed the same lines of argument in Christology.

Polanus provides a solid illustration of the scholastic method in treating the perspicuity of Scripture against Roman Catholic views of the obscurity of Scripture, whose interpretation rested on the church’s magisterial tradition. After arguing that Scripture is clear, and that all should read it,[21] he presented a Protestant view of the proper relationship between Scripture and tradition. Rather than being magisterial, tradition had ministerial authority, teaching the church to understand the Scriptures considering (correctible) historic dogmas. Priority went to ecumenical creeds and councils, then to the fathers and other notable teachers, next to ordained ministers, and finally placing private interpretation last in order of priority.[22] Like a student learning from a professor, Polanus’s point is the church should be biased in favor of her teachers without following them slavishly. Such examples show how using scientific categories eclectically (dare I say pragmatically) enabled scholastic theologians to say what they wanted to say about biblical doctrines using precise and clear definitions and distinctions.

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