At this point, I wish to turn to the second part of my Third Question:
Could the Reformed Approach lead out of Biblical Christianity, more generally than just the issues of the Eucharistic bread and role of relics in miracleworking?
I. The context of the development of Calvin's ideas was the Age of Discovery. People were developing, seeking, and finding out scientific and philosophical beliefs that differed from those of the institutions of the Christian community of their time (the Church). Good examples were Copernicus and Galileo, whose heliocentric model went enough against Catholic institutional beliefs that the inquisition procured a retraction from Galileo of his beliefs. Thus, populations were beginning to believe that they no longer needed to conform their beliefs about reality to the beliefs of the institutional Christian community. And this was the larger early modern philosophical social context in which Calvin developed his teachings, which took hold among major populations like the Swiss, Scots, French Huguenots and Dutch.
II. The two main bases on which Calvinism professed to develop its teaching were the Scriptures - as its theologians interpreted them- and Reason. Some Reformed also see their sense of guidance by the Spirit as another major factor. According to the Reformed approach, Tradition is recognized as having some role, but it's a minor one.
Before we look at these elements, let's note that in practice, very conservative Reformed, who don't want any new ideas introduced beyond what they currently have, will find it difficult for that very reason to go beyond whatever divergences from the Bible that it has already attained. By strongly holding onto whatever interpretations they already have and passing those explanations down through centuries, the teachings
effectively act as a very strong, central "Tradition". However, others those who have come out of the larger Reformed movement who follow the Reformed approach without holding to the substance of the original Reformed "traditions" may diverge considerably from them. That is, the Reformed approach does not openly require following early Reformed traditions, but rather emphasizes "sola scriptura". Thus, if one concludes that the "true" teachings of scripture diverges from the current Reformed traditions, under the Reformed approach, one is obliged to follow the newly discovered "true" meaning of scripture. In such cases, the Reformed who does not feel compelled to follow the original "Reformed" interpretations diverges from them.
Let's look at these elements more closely:
A. Sola Scriptura... and the Formal Sufficiency of Scripture?:
Reformed teach that one definitely must follow the meaning of scripture and its teachings, a principle that of course Catholics and Orthodox would agree with.
But AMR added in the Semper Reformanda section that Reformed also teach "formal sufficiency of scripture", whereby the Bible is "perspicuous" he said, that is, "easy to understand and lucid". And per its formal "sufficiency", there is no need to bring in outside sources to understand its meaning- the Bible stands on its own and a reasonable, normal, literate human should by default be able to understand it.
Where Bible passages are certainly "perspicuous", this is not problem. It is pretty hard to argue that the Torah does not teach Jews to observe the Sabbath as a rest day.
Unfortunately, for those who don't adhere to "formal sufficiency of scripture", this doctrine looks unrealistic. That is, theoretically, it's true that the Bible verses each have some specific meaning, and so any person could understand that meaning. The problem in reality is that we are dealing with texts 1850 to over 3000 years old. I don't even know how far back these fascinating narratives go. Since we don't have the authors directly with us, we can't question them to get a straight, full answer on each meaning.
So in practice, educated, sincere Protestant theologians who adhere to sola scriptura and read these verses occasionally come to divergent or even opposite understandings of these verses. Some cases we already discussed are Lutherans and Reformed on whether Christ's body is in the Eucharist bread, the relationship of the Church to Israel, and Dispensationalism. So in reality, it looks like sometimes sincere adherents of sola scriptura diverge in their teachings from the actual Biblical teachings due to a failure to understand the Bible's correct meaning.
Perhaps however, this is too broad a portrayal of the Reformed, and many of them don't hold to "formal sufficiency of scripture"? In any case, while there is a common agreement with Catholics and Orthodox on the principle of the Bible's centrality, if not infallibility, there is a major disagreement in practice in whether Tradition's writings outside the Bible should be treated as a central, crucial authority to understand the Bible.
B. The Role of Reason
Of course, the Bible demands interpretation for it to be understood. And what is the operation and tool for achieving that understanding? For Calvin, the role of Reason, a philosophical science being sharpened in his era, played a major role.
Calvinist theologian Hans Mol writes in
Calvin for the Third Millenium:
To Calvin, reason is the most excellent blessing of the divine spirit and 'one of the essential properties of our nature.' (p. vii , citing the Institutes)
Calvin assumes that science, intelligence, and reason... exist harmoniously within God's order. To Calvin, God comes into the picture in the realm of mystery and revelation beyond what reason can discover. (p. 20)
God, he says, is the only governor of our souls and if princes and magistrates claim 'any part of God's authority' one has the right not to obey them any further... Conscience also has an individual right's aspect that Calvin assumes and the Bible clearly adopts... This may also explain why Calvin puts so much emphasis on individualism. Not only does he start the Institutes with a clearly unBiblical, Greek principle of self-knowledge, but he elevates both conscience and individual reason as God given. (pp. 42,44)
Kilian Mcdonnell notes that the Lutheran Joachim Westphal complained of Calvin's use of Reason against the Lutheran view of Christ's bodily presence in the Eucharistic bread, and Mcdonnell writes in
John Calvin, the Church, and the Eucharist:
Calvin... invokes reason in his polemic against both the Lutherans and the Romans. (p. 55)
[Calvin wrote:]"A doctrine carrying many absurdities with it is not true. The doctrine of the corporeal presence of Christ is involved in many absurdities; therefore it follows that it is not true..." (pp.207-208)
"There is nothing more incredible than that things severed and removed from one another by the whole space between heaven and earth should not only be connected across such a great distance..." Though Calvin would not admit that he was measuring the divine by the human, he did insist that even in these mysteries reason and common sense had a role.... "there is a third kind of reason which both the Spirit of God and the Scripture sanction." It is this third kind of reason which Calvin invokes to prove whether a theological statement has... become involved in absurdities. This kind of reason functions within the faith, and permits no theological declarations with regard to one doctrine, which are.. in contradiction to, theological declarations... [E]ucharistic doctrine must be in harmony with Christology...(p. 208)
First, one problem is that to assert that "
A doctrine carrying many absurdities with it is not true" makes an arbitrary judgment - "absurdity" - based on Reason that has the potential to go against basic Christian beliefs. Thais bis because what one set of scholars or teachers finds to have multiple absurdities (ie. ridiculousness, preposterousness, things to be laughed at) may in fact be Biblically Christian. The Greek pagans, like Celsus and like the nonChristian rabbis since, find it absurd that God who is One could have another Person in Him who would incarnate and get brutally crucified by pagan enemies, and that by this "God-man's" death, others' own sins would be removed.
As Paul wrote:
"But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness". (1 Cor. 1:23)
Reformed might respond that "Christ crucified" is not
really absurd in multiple ways like the Greek pagans with their philosophical learning perceived it. But in truth, since one community finds it absurd and another does not, an arbitrary standard is created. Just as Greeks and Christians argue whether Christ Crucified is "really" absurd, so the Calvinists argue against more traditional Christians whether the Lutheran/Catholic/Orthodox teaching Christ's direct presence in the bread is "really" absurd.
Second, one of Calvin's bases for deciding whether something was absurd, or as he said above, "incredible", (could not be
believed) was in fact whether they violated the "ordinary laws of nature", as he himself complained in his
Institutes of the doctrine of Christ's presence in the bread itself. (Chp. 17, s.29
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.vi.xviii.html) That is, to say that a body could be in heaven and on earth would mean that a body was in two places at once, and for a body to be in two places at once was to him "incredible".
However, it is only incredible in normal naturalistic modern-era Reason. This is because it is
conceivable that a body could be in two places at once, crossing two planes of existence, just as Lutherans were able to
conceive that Christ's body was in the bread. (And in fact, Einstein taught centuries later that a body
could be in two places at once
: "Einstein was right, you can be in two places at once" www.independent.co.uk) But it
appears absurd, unbelievable, ridiculous - all arbitrary criteria based on
normal human scientific understanding of nature.
Third, it's true that theological doctrines, including Christology should be harmony and not in contradiction, as Calvin proposed. However, this cannot be understood in an absolute way that excludes anything that sounds like a contradiction on first notice. One of the rabbis' claims for example, was that for God to consist of another person would contradict Monotheism - the belief that God was one. The rabbis claimed that for Jesus, a man, to have his death take away another's sins would contradict the Psalm that "Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life". (Psalm 49:7)
The traditional Christian answer is that many things in theology should be considered a mystery, rather than discarded just because we in our human Reason we fail to understand it fully. Job may not have been able to understand fully why God tested him, but it did not prove that God did not exist. The rabbis did not understand how God could include in Himself persons, but for a Christian viewpoint, that does not mean that it did not really describe Him. Calvin found it "absurd" and "incredible" that a body could be on earth and in heaven at once, but for Catholics and Lutherans it
was conceivable and the "absurdity" that appeared on first glance was insufficient to rule it out... even centuries before Einstein taught that according to Science, a body really could be in two places at once.
Calvin used the standard of "perplexity" and "repugnancy to Reason" again in his Institutes:
For, had it not occurred to the apostles that the bread was called the body figuratively, as being a symbol of the body, the extraordinary nature of the thing would doubtless have filled them with perplexity. For, at this very period, John relates, that the slightest difficulties perplexed them (John 14:5, 8; 16:17)... How, then, could they have been so ready to believe what is repugnant to all reason viz. that Christ was seated at table under their eye, and yet was contained invisible under the bread?
http://www.theologywebsite.com/etext/calvin/institutes/bookiv19.htm
Calvin must have been using a more modern, scientific, rationalistic standard for Reason than just basic comprehension. The apostles need not have found the Presence in the Eucharist so unthinkable if most of the world's Christians conceive of it. (Probably at least 2/3 of the world are Lutherans/Catholics/Orthodox)
It's true though that some disciples
did have trouble with the concept of eating Christ's body and as Credo House explains about John 6, those "perplexed" disciples who found Jesus' teaching about eating his body "repugnant" left. These apostles then at the Last Supper were those who stayed despite many other disciples who found it repugnant leaving previously.
Luther repeated this evaluation of Calvin's and Zwingli's theories about the Eucharist and Christ's omnipresence. Calvin's Institutes had stated:
(18) Though Christ withdrew his flesh from us, and with his body ascended to heaven, he sits at the right hand of the Father; that is, he reigns in power and majesty, and the glory of the Father... Christ can exert his energy wherever he pleases, in earth and heaven, can manifest his presence by the exercise of his power, can always be present with his people, breathing into them his own life, can live in them, sustain, confirm, and invigorate them, and preserve them safe, just as if he were with them in the body, in fine, can feed them with his own body, communion with which he transfuses into them.
(19) The presence of Christ in the Supper we must hold to be such as neither affixes him to the element of bread, nor encloses him in bread...
The Evangelical John Payne explained Luther's objection to the description of God's right hand laid out by Calvin (above) and Zwingli:
As to the other text concerning Christ’s ascension, Luther argues that Zwingli is too literal in his understanding of “right hand of God.” It refers not to some place in heaven but to God’s “almighty power” which makes it possible for Christ’s body to be present anywhere he chooses. Zwingli’s argument concerning the necessity of a body to be circumscribed by place and time Luther rejects as an offspring of that harlot, Reason.
https://www.christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/zwingli-and-luther/
C. The Spirit's Guidance as a possible key tool
As Paul Cook explains in his essay on the Library of Calvinism website:
Within Protestantism an appeal to personal experience has frequently been elevated above the authority of Scripture. We have all met those self-opinionated popes of Evangelicalism who pronounce with a note of infallibility upon any question by declaring “God has told me — so I know!” Too many of our popular beliefs and practices have been upheld by the authority of subjective experience.
We need to be careful about using phrases such as “I feel led” and “The Lord has guided me.” They can become an excuse for self-will. Our “guidance” must always be examined by the Word of God otherwise we may find ourselves claiming to be guided by the Spirit quite contrary to the Scriptures which He inspired. When our experiences are truly spiritual they are confirmed by Scriptural authority. But if the teaching of Scripture conflicts with our experience, then that experience is brought into question.
It is true that
the Reformers spoke of the internal authority of the Spirit as well as the external authority of the Word. But they never separated the witness of the Spirit from the testimony of the Word. They taught that the internal witness of the Spirit constantly confirms to the believer the external authority of the Scriptures.
The Roman Catholics transfer to the Church this function which is the prerogative of the Spirit and in this way elevate the authority of the Church above that of the Scripture and the Spirit.
http://www.the-highway.com/scripture_Cook.html
That is, for Cook, the teaching authority that Catholicism gives to the Church, Reformed give to the Spirit. By analogy, if Catholicism says: "The Church confirms that this passage means ____", Reformed would say: "The Spirit confirms that this passage means _____". But in fact, what is considered to the spirit's guidance can be the "teacher's" own subjective sense of that guidance, as Cook says at the beginning of the passage.
If, however, Reformed disagree with Cook and don't find "the Spirit" or "feeling led" to be a major authority for them (eg. AMR said that "burning bosom" was not a criterion that Reformed use), this makes the analysis of the Reformed Approach simpler for purposes of this thread.
D. Tradition as a minor potential tool
In the Second Helvetica Confession, there are a few references to early Church fathers. In Calvin's Institutes, he does refer to them, although not often. He had a good opinion of Augustine and sometimes used Augustine in formulating his own theological teachings.
In practice however it is commonly something that they downgrade considerably. When the Second Helvetica confession goes to talk about the Church Fathers' importance, the thrust is to talk about ways that they don't need to be respected, how the Fathers sometimes contradicted Scripture, etc. The Second Helvetica Confession doesn't teach that the Fathers are a crucial or major authority.
To give an example, multiple Reformed writings that I have seen on the issue of Covenantalism/Replacement Theology have an occasional, but serious practice of disdaining the Church fathers, saying that the Church fathers were wrong in their teaching about the relationship of the Church to Israel, even though in substance it looks to me on closer evaluation that the Church fathers taught the same thing as nonZionist conservative Reformed do on this question. For their part, those nonZionist Reformed who teach the substance of the Traditional theology on the question do not generally emphasize the Church fathers to do so.
The approach of Reformed, therefore, when it comes to Tradition is not to use it as a major authority. What then is the result of this severe downgrading of Tradition in deducing theology? It must be that Reformed Theology relies on just the Scripture itself and on the "Reason" of the individual theologians or their Reformed groups in interpreting that scripture, and only marginally on the Traditions of the rest of the Christian community (Church) passed down over the last 1900 years.
III. How Rejecting the Crucial Role of Tradition can Lead Away from Biblical Christianity
Under the Reformed approach, one starts with the scripture. But here Calvin added another crucial authority or tool- Reason. And by reason he did not just mean basic comprehension - like basic acceptance that Christ was present in the bread, making it his body, but higher "Reason" that rejects contradictions and "absurdities" and what Calvin finds not believable, or "incredible". Previously, Christians could point to the Traditions passed down since the 1st-3rd centuries in order to help decide debates to a major extent, but this was not part of the Reformed paradigm as a central authority. Nor were appeals to Church leadership (bishops) or unity, since everyone could go and start their own "church". (Ironically, Calvin was harsh against those whom he considered to have schismated from his own "church", like those who rejected infant baptism)
In practice what this treatment of Tradition means is that many educated scholars can look at scripture, take it on its own without much regard for Tradition, and read it as it speaks to them, interpreting what they see as its own meaning based on their own tools of Reason. So long as everyone agrees on their own based on what the Bible says and means, based on their own sense of Reason and their own judgments, there is not much divergence. But it need not take long before, cut from the anchor of Tradition, scholars begin to sail their own way on what passages in scripture on crucial issues of theology "really" mean.
As the novelist William Simpson explained over 100 years ago in his book hypothesizing about a fictional religion of aliens:
The intention of the new church (reformed church) was to do away with those rituals and ceremonies, which had been adopted from paganism a compromise in the second and third centuries, and to bring their church back as far as possible, to that simplicity which characterized the first teachings of Christianity. ... There were questions enough however within the limits of safe discussion, to set agoing those unending controversies which distinguished Protestantism to this day. The newly acquired privilege of discussing sacred affairs among laymen as well as others, were indulged in to such an extent that the debate between the sects, in defense of their several interpretations of scriptural texts, monopolized in society its hours of intercourse and conversation...Questions that had been settled centuries before by authority in the old church were dragged forth to renewed discussion.
If we have, for more than fifteen centuries, yielded ourselves to doctrines conveyed to us through all the highways of life, so assiduously, that neither infancy, youth, manhood, or old age, have escaped their tireless importunities for acceptance’ doctrines, which consign seven eighths of humanity to eternal torture for no faults to most of them but a lack of opportunity, which under (Calvin’s) Providence has been denied, it is not unreasonable to conclude, with this experience of the mutability of human understanding, that there are other beliefs fastened on our minds by ages of custom and mistaken thought, equally untenable, which may be as justly placed in our catalog of errors.
http://www.frederick.com/The_Expurg...ting_the_Doctrines_of_John_Calvin-a-1151.html
Cutting free from the Traditions of the Church and its understandings of the meaning of scripture opened the floodgates. For example, even though
I believe that the Old Testament intentionally teaches that the Messiah would get killed and resurrect, based especially on Isaiah 53, numerous Protestant Bible commentaries are taking an opposite view. We are talking about a fundamental of the Nicene Faith, that the scriptures predicted the Messiah's death and resurrection, mentioned in the Nicene Creed (and incidentally in the "Our Faith" document of ChristianForums.com), and even in the NT (eg. Acts and 1 Peter). This has long been the point of view of Christians in their debates with the rabbis going back to at least the time of Origen, when he debated the jewish elders on the question. Yet the Protestant commentaries in question take the view that Isaiah 53 was intentionally talking about the ancient Israelite nation's suffering and that the Christians used this inherently nationalist prophecy to their own ends:
The HarperCollins Study Bible (Wayne Meeks,
et al., edd.; HarperCollins, 1993) says: "The early church identified the servant in this passage [
Isaiah 52:13-15:12] with Jesus, and Jesus' own sense of identity and mission may have been shaped by this figure. In the original historical context, however, the servant appears to have been exiled Israel." (p. 1089)
Revised Standard Version - Oxford Study Edition
Footnote on p. 889 52.13-53.12: The fourth Servant Song (see 42.1-4 n.) 52.13-15: God will exalt his brutally disfigured Servant (Israel) to the numbed astonishment of the world's rulers (49.7,23).
The New English Bible - Oxford Study Edition
Footnote on p. 788: 52.13-53.12: Fourth Servant Song. The suffering servant. See 42,1-4 n. Israel, the servant of God, has suffered as a humiliated individual. However, the servant endured without complaint because it was vicarious suffering (suffering for others). 13-15:
Nations and
kings will be surprised to see the servant
exalted. 53.1: The crowds, pagan nations, among whom the servant (Israel) lived, speak here (through v. 9), saying that the significance of Israel's humiliation and exaltation is hard to believe. ...9: The death probably refers to the destruction and Exile of Israel.
The Interpreter's Bible
From the commentary, p. 614: 52:13-53:12. The Exaltation and Suffering of the Lord's Sin-bearing Servant. -- This is the most influential poem in any literature. Its insight that the suffering of the righteous may bring redemption to many is an answer to pain and grief which supplies courage and comfort. Its interpretation of the God-appointed role of Israel, his servant, furnished to the Christian church the explanation of the death of the Son of God which has formed a principal part of her gospel.
Concise Bible Commentary (by the Reverend W. K. Lowther Clarke)
From the commentary on p. 542: 13-LIII The fourth Servant-song. For the purposes of the Commentary the Servant will here be identified with the ideal Israel or with the purified remnant of Israel. But no interpretation is wholly satisfactory.
That is, when these educated Protestants go to read the scripture on its own and by their own Reason, without considering Christian Tradition a key authority, they conclude that Isaiah 53 is originally talking about the Israelite nation's sufferings in exile (eg. the Old Testament Babylonian exile), not the sufferings of the Messiah. Personally, I disagree with their belief and interpretation. But that is where going by just the Scripture and their own Reason without caring much about the longstanding Christians traditions has led these major, influential, educated Protestants.
Most importantly, some non-Traditional scholars are claiming that the New Testament does not actually teach that Jesus rose bodily or that Jesus is God or one of the Trinity. Even though I believe that the New Testament actually intends to teach both, I have found it intensely frustrating trying to argue and persuade those who teach the opposite from my and the Church's interpretation, as per modern Protestant and Enlightenment sentiments I cannot resort to the "authority" of other early Christian writings to prove this.
Personally I consider this a huge error on the part of those who fully "spiritualize" the resurrection narratives in the Bible and who exclude Jesus' divinity. I think that it should be part of common sense and even Reason that it's crucial to read a religion's main book in light of the other major writings by that same religious community and its bishops and theologians from that era. The Hadiths should be important to understanding the Quran, and the writings of other major Lutherans besides Luther and the official documents agreed on by the Lutheran Church should be crucial to understanding Lutheranism too.
Be that as it may, how can I, in practice, persuade a "spiritualist" that the gospels teach Jesus' bodily resurrection? To prove the bodily resurrection, I can point to the fact that the women found the body empty, and they claim that someone else took the body, maybe the gardener. I can point to John 21, where it says that Jesus has flesh and bones after the resurrection, but they can argue that here that flesh and bones is not "literal".
Even harder to argue with are those who claim that the gospel, taken by itself (ie. without resort to traditions surrounding the Bible), is just a parable or allegory. For me, this is untrue, and the Bible is presented at face value to an audience as a real account. However, they argue that we are not living in 36 AD, so we don't know how that story was originally presented. When these symbolists or allegoricists read the gospels, they read them as "a story", not as a real history. For example, many times in the gospels, Jesus gave parables. He narrated how a certain group of people had certain experiences. But he didn't always preface it with "this is a parable". Taken by itself outside the context of the Bible, one might not clearly see whether such a parable was a real historic account or just an allegory. Likewise, taken by themselves, outside the context of later Tradition, these allegoricists don't accept that the gospels are meant as real historic accounts, but rather see them as embellishments and allegories.
Then there are the Jehovah's Witnesses who teach that Jesus was not God, and they go through interpret the Bible according to that teaching. Indeed there has been a long trend of those who deny the Trinity, and some of them are even on ChristianForums.com, claiming that their rejection of this teaching accords with Scripture.
IV. How Calvin's use of the Ordinary Laws of Nature to Deny Christ's Direct Bodily Presence in the Eucharist Bread itself Could Lead away
Calvin wrote of the Lutherans:
These men [Lutherans] teach that he is in every place, but without form. They say that it is unfair to subject a glorious body to the ordinary laws of nature. But this answer draws along with it the delirious dream of Servetus[burned by Swiss Reformed], which all pious minds justly abhor, that his body was absorbed by his divinity. I do not say that this is their opinion; but if it is considered one of the properties of a glorified body to fill all things in an invisible manner, it is plain that the corporeal substance is abolished, and no distinction is left between his Godhead and his human nature. Again, if the body of Christ is so multiform and diversified, that it appears in one place, and in another is invisible, where is there anything of the nature of body with its proper dimensions, and where is its unity?
...
The objection, that Christ came forth from the closed sepulchre, and came in to his disciples while the doors were shut (Mt. 28:6; John 20:19), gives no better support to their error. ... To enter while the doors were shut, was not so much to penetrate through solid matter, as to make a passage for himself by divine power, and stand in the midst of his disciples in a most miraculous manner. ...They gain nothing by quoting the passage from Luke, in which it is said, that Christ suddenly vanished from the eyes of the disciples, with whom he had journed to Emmaus (Luke 24:31). In withdrawing from their sight, he did not become invisible: he only disappeared. Thus Luke declares that, on the journeying with them, he did not assume a new form, but that “ their eyes were holden.” But these men not only transform Christ that he may live on the earth, but pretend that there is another elsewhere of a different description. In short, by thus trifling, they, not in direct terms indeed, but by a circumlocution, make a spirit of the flesh of Christ; and, not contented with this, give him properties altogether opposite.
For Calvin, to object to subjecting a glorified body to the ordinary laws of nature is delirious and would deny his body's humanity.
Biblical Christianity, of course does not fit Christ's body into the "ordinary laws of nature". A mentality that does so can eventually end up denying those events that defy the "ordinary laws of nature", such as the Ascension, and the other extreme miracle stories about Jesus that defy those "ordinary laws".
Calvin objects that a body cannot be in two places. Putting aside that Einstein taught that actually a body can be in two places, Calvin's problem is that again he relies on the "ordinary laws of nature". Ordinarily, a body is not in two places at once. But nor are many other mysteries found to accord with our ordinary conceptions of reality, like whether God can be one yet in three persons, or God can become man, or God or an angel can speak real words out of a burning bush, or matter can be created out of nothing (ex nihilio). Theoretically, God can do whatever He wants, including with normal matter itself! To deny this is to send us back to the scientific drawing boards of the late Renaissance in order to judge whether Jes's experiences and teachings could occur or not.
Calvin's explanations to avoid the Lutheran objections that Christ could be invisible in the bread are themselves a contradiction. Calvin claims that when Christ multiple times vanished in front of the apostles, Christ "did not become invisible: he only disappeared". This is a distinction without a difference. If something is right in front of you and disappears while still there, that means it is invisible. To argue otherwise is irrational and thus flunks Calvin's "absurdity/incredibility" test.
Likewise, Calvin's excuse that Christ did not penetrate the closed door, but only made "passage" through it and that it was a miracle is another distinction without a difference. If Jesus did not penetrate a door, but fit inside or "make passage through" it, he can fit inside or pass into a piece of bread too.
Since Calvin has just used "absurd", "incredible" logic to escape the Lutheran explanations and to justify subordinating Christ's body to the "ordinary laws of nature", it is only natural that eventually scholars of the Reformed tradition who choose consistency while holding to Calvin's precepts of the ordinary laws of nature will conclude that Christ did not pass through doors or lose appearance in front of the apostles, because that would violate his "human nature" too.
Indeed, many things throughout the gospels that Christ does are contrary to human nature, including walking on water, ascending, turning water into wine miraculously, transfiguring on the mount, sitting up on the clouds in the sky where Stephen saw him in Acts, and perhaps even having a virgin birth as a male (because there would be no human father to give a Y chromosome) and then resurrecting after being fully dead.
Calvin's and Zwingli's solution to what they saw as the contradiction between the concept of Christ's body being in the bread and Christ's body being in the sky was that the bread was itself only Christ's body as a "symbol" or "token". For Calvin (not Zwingli), the bread was also a tool in the ritual for uniting the believer's spirit with Christ. But it was not actually Christ's transformed body.
Were I to make my own theology, perhaps I might imagine that Christ's spirit is directly present in the bread, and that as such the bread becomes the "body" for Christ's spirit. But anyway, I could imagine multiple ways to resolve the contradiction while upholding Christ's direct presence.
For Calvin, things were different - the bread itself was just a symbol and a ritual tool for effecting the believer's union with Christ.
The modern "spiritualists" and "allegoricists" use this style of reasoning when it comes to the Resurrection. They reason that Christ did not "transform", which Calvin himself denies, and demand Christ's body's obedience to the "ordinary laws of nature". Since Christ's body could not violate those laws, they reason, it did not do such "incredible" things as resurrect after being fully dead, pass through walls, Ascend bodily, etc. The Resurrection is a symbol. These "incredible" miracles are "symbols", allegories, and "stories". Jesus' Resurrection was "spiritual". The Christian believers are just "spiritually" changed, and the gospels are a tool or vehicle for that.
The Calvinist approach to demanding obedience to the "ordinary laws of nature" and viewing departures from them as either physical absurdities or "symbols" is thus analogous to modern claims of those who see the extremely supernatural gospel miracle stories as allegories and spiritual tools.
V. How Reformed Principles against Holy Objects' Involvement in Miracles Could Lead Away from Biblical Christianity
Calvin repeated his principle many times that holy objects' involvement was superstition:
In short, the desire for relics is never without superstition, and what is worse, it is usually the parent of idolatry...
Paul... protests that he knew him[Christ] not according to the flesh, but only after his resurrection, signifying by these words, that all that is carnal in Jesus Christ must be forgotten and put aside, and that we should employ and direct our whole affections to seek and possess him according to the spirit...
Consequently the pretense that it is a good thing to have some memorials either of himself or of the saints, to stimulate our piety, is nothing but a cloak for indulging our foolish cravings which have no reasonable foundation;
http://www.godrules.net/library/calvin/176calvin4.htm
Calvin's logic is that Paul said he did not know Christ according to the flesh, but only after the Resurrection,
therefore we must forget what is carnal about Christ,
and since objects that give memory of Christ are carnal in form,
and therefore they are just a cloak for "foolish cravings" that aren't "reasonable".
There's that word "reason" again. Yet do we see that Calvin's "reasoning" requires multiple jumps? What about the memorial of the cross and the "memorial" meal that requires physical bread? it can't even be said that mainstream Reformed "forget" anything "carnal".
But regardless, the point is that Reformed Principles are against holy objects' involvement in miracles.
And this principle can lead Reformed away from the Biblical stories on miracles. (Elisha's bones, Moses' staff, the water in the pool of Siloam having the ability to heal people after stirred by an angel in John 5, Peter's shadow, Jesus' robe and his use of spit and mud and the instructions to wash in this specific pool, Paul's garments in Acts 19)
For example, when I proposed that the story of Elisha's bones showed relics were involved in a miracle, one low Church Protestant expressed his skepticism that touching Elisha's bones really brought someone to life:
"Remember also the time in 2 Kings when an Israelite resurrected after touching Elijah's dead bones..."~Rako
"It does not say the man they cast down there was dead, does it? You are assuming something that is not stated." ~Civil War Buff
http://www.christianforums.com/thre...-of-christianity.7929431/page-7#post-69196526
So their reaction as a Reformed was to be very skeptical that this was a major miracle, even though at face value the Bible does present it as a major miracle. Otherwise, why was the Israelite being buried when he touched Elisha's bones?
Likewise, when I explained the contradiction to Hedrick, he replied:
There are few examples of relics in the Bible, and the three or so are pretty restrained compared to later practice. That allowed Calvin and other Reformers to draw a line between Scriptural examples and medieval practice. I think the few examples that do occur in Scripture show the same kind of popular piety that resulted in later relic-mania. With Elisha’s bones, Jesus’ garment, and Peter’s shadow, we have holy figures whose holiness became a force in itself. It’s not so clear whether that is true of Paul’s effects. But the principle is there.
If you agree that the late medieval situation is unacceptable, one can take several approaches:
* try to make a distinction between the Biblical examples and what was done
* accept that in principle relics can have power, but demand more careful investigation
* reject the principle
Calvin seems to have done both 1 and 3. I think the Catholic tradition has ended up doing 2. My reading of Calvin’s treatise is that he rejected relics completely. I don’t think he just called for more care.
I believe modern theology would be likely to do just 3, and see the Scriptural examples of popular piety having made its way into Scripture. Critical scholarship does not, of course, reject the supernatural as a matter of principle. However it is aware of the tendency for supernatural accounts to be attached to holy figures. Hence not all supernatural elements in Scripture will be accepted.
I’m sure the OP will see this as rationalism. I’m not so sure that’s actually a correct use of the word. But it is surely the case that Calvin’s attitude is a precursor to the modern one.
http://www.christianforums.com/thre...of-christianity.7929431/page-16#post-69230667
Here, Hedrick upholds Reformed principles against saints' objects' use in miracles, and this has led him to see Biblical accounts involving them as "popular piety", concluding naturally that "not all supernatural elements in Scripture will be accepted."
Continuing this trajectory one can see how other Christian miracles can become rejected too. Tens or hundreds of thousands of Catholics have claimed miracles involving holy relics. However, the Reformed principles would have us say that this is "superstition" and does not have a "reasonable foundation", per the Institutes. Consequently, if tens or hundreds of thousands of Catholics' miracle claims with relics turn out to be "superstition", what does that say about comparable numbers of miracle claims by Reformed over the last 450 years or so that don't involve relics? Plenty of Reformed, particularly Evangelicals, claim miracles with visions and healings. What is to make their testimony more "reasonable", if they go against "ordinary laws of nature" as we commonly understand them? Perhaps we are to teach an extreme form of Cessationism, so that Christian miracles after the mid second century or so are "superstition". But then what are we to make of the "reasonableness" of the Biblical miracles themselves? Is it really "reasonable" and consistent with "ordinary" science to claim that about a dozen people saw Jesus in a physical body appear and "disappear" in a closed room?
It appears that if we follow the modern, naturalistic or rationalistic Reformed approach that does not treat Christian tradition as a key authority to its ultimate conclusion, we could end up teaching that the extreme Biblical miracles were just "spiritual", "allegories", or otherwise didn't physically happen because they would be "superstitions" that violate "the ordinary laws of nature".
VI. How Some Major Scholars and Groups in the broader Reformed Community have Come Away from the foundations of Biblical Christianity
There are many examples of this in real life. Reformed and Calvinism make up by far the largest branch of Protestants in America, so there are many opportunities as well.
- I cited numerous modern Protestant Bibles teaching that Isaiah's authors did not intend for their 53rd chapter to be about the Messiah.
- As a youth, I wanted to study Mark's gospel, so I read it over a dozen times and then read a commentary by early 20th century Methodist pastor Vincent Taylor, wherein he described Jesus' miracle healings as not really "supernatural", but cases where Jesus encouraged handicapped people to use willpower, in effect, to walk and see, etc. Seeing this kind of thinking may have created my first doubts about what I was reading in the gospels, ie. my own "critical scholarship", in a way. Taylor was not Reformed, but I imagine his approach to Tradition, the Eucharist and relics would be similar.
- A relative attended an officially Reformed college (PCUSA), where the chaplain told him that the apostles were, to use an analogy, on drugs. (I think this was about their visions)
- The Protestant "Jesus Seminar" was founded by pastor Marcus Borg, who said in a debate with William Lane Craig that the post-Resurrection events were "stories" and he asked rhetorically about the appearance to the apostles: "If you were there with a video camera, do you think you could film it?"
- The "Christian Zionist" Protestant theologian A.R. Eckardt, who coined the term "Replacement Theology" to describe the Biblical/Traditional belief that the Christian community "replaced" ancient Israel as the visible community with a right understanding of theology, decided that the Old Testament didn't predict Jesus as the Messiah, and that the Holocaust proves that Jesus didn't resurrect. (See eg. The Author Replies to Alice and Roy Eckardt https://www.jstor.org/stable/27943775?seq=1#fndtn-page_scan_tab_contents) A major section of Reformed now profess rejection of "Replacement Theology".
- Quakers, which developed during the rulership of the Reformed military commander Oliver Cromwell, took Zwingli's teaching to its natural conclusion. Since, per Zwingli, the Eucharist was only an outward symbol, and as Calvin said, we must get rid of "carnal" "memorials", it followed that we should get rid of these outward memorials in the rituals too. As such, the Quakers read the Bible to mean that the Eucharist meal just referred to fellowship meals that everyone had together like Jesus did in the last supper, and they shouldn't be ritualized. Communion meals just meant our hearts came together in meals with other believers.
- Unitarians in Romania and Poland in the 18th century emerged from the Reformed communities. In the US, I heard that they emerged from Reformed communities too. The Unitarians, at least originally, accepted the New Testament, but interpreted the Bible to say that God was not a "Trinity". I think that they were in a sense, therefore, Arians, who taught that Jesus was in some sense divine, but still not God Himself.
- Then there is the field of critical scholarship itself. "Historical criticism began in the 17th century and gained popular recognition in the 19th and 20th centuries. The perspective of the early historical critic was rooted in Protestant reformation ideology, inasmuch as their approach to biblical studies was free from the influence of traditional interpretation." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_criticism). Once you become free of traditional interpretations as your guide, you can move into the direction of the Jesus Seminar, use "historical criticism" to decide whether Jesus' Resurrection physically occurred, and reaching opposing conclusions on this question.
So in summary, if one takes the Reformed approach of just going by what the Bible says and understanding that in terms of Reason, submitting Jesus' post-incarnation experiences to tests of "absurdity," "incredibility", and the "ordinary laws of nature", while simultaneously severely downgrading the authority of Tradition, such an approach can ultimately lead away from Biblical Christianity. Protestant-educated scholars can and have fundamentally diverged on interpretations of major doctrines and passages, and to submit these interpretations to those tests of "reasonableness", excluding those interpretations and teachings, however longstanding, that seem to have "superstition", "absurdity", and contradict the application of the "ordinary laws of nature" to Jesus' body can ultimately lead away from Biblical Christianity in the course of those divergences among Reformed scholars. This is because Christianity does fundamentally have supernatural teachings about the post-incarnation Jesus and about many miracles that could appear "incredible", "absurd", or "superstitious".
The apostle Paul said this himself:
19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
20 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:
23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
(1 Corinthians 1)
