Theologians of the Reformation

[Andrewn]

I'm interested in a comparison between the theologies of early reformers like Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli, Calvin, Arminius, etc.

I'm specifically not interested in discussing the 5 points of Calvinism in this thread.

 

[eleos1954]

I'm interested in a comparison between the theologies of early reformers like Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli, Calvin, Arminius, etc.

I'm specifically not interested in discussing the 5 points of Calvinism in this thread.

"theologies" - probably would be best to break it down according to a specific topic .... ie a specific theology about something

 

[public hermit]

The differences in how they understood the Eucharist might be interesting. For instance, Luther rejected transubstantiation, but still held that the elements are literally the body and blood of Christ. Zwingli held to a "mystical real presence," but the elements are not taken as literal, do not confer grace. and it is an act of remembrance. Calvin held that the Holy Spirit communicates the spiritual food to partakers, but Christ is not present in time and space. Christ is at the "right hand of God" in heaven; nonetheless, the Holy Spirit, who is not bound by the inexorable separation between this realm and heaven, unites Christians with Christ in partaking.

Lord's Supper in Reformed theology - Wikipedia

 

[JM]

I'm interested in a comparison between the theologies of early reformers like Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli, Calvin, Arminius, etc.

I'm specifically not interested in discussing the 5 points of Calvinism in this thread.

Luther took a strong predestinarian position in Bondage of the Will but the Book of Concord expresses single predestination. Melanchthon was even softer on soteriology especially after Luther pasted away and much of his "theological development" was corrected or flat out rejected by the time the Book of Concord was complete in the 1580's. Zwingli taught double predestination, Calvin taught single, but his theological heir Theodore Beza taught double predestination.

Arminius lived after the time of Calvin and he wrote the following about Calvin, "I affirm that he excels beyond comparison in the interpretation of Scripture, and that his commentaries ought to be more highly valued than all that is handed down to us by the Library of the Fathers; so that I acknowledge him to have possessed above most others, or rather above all other men, what may be called an eminent gift of prophecy"

Yours in the Lord,

jm

 

[Andrewn]

Luther took a strong predestinarian position in Bondage of the Will but the Book of Concord expresses single predestination. Melanchthon was even softer on soteriology especially after Luther pasted away and much of his "theological development" was corrected or flat out rejected by the time the Book of Concord was complete in the 1580's.

What differences between Luther and Melanchthon do you see?

Arminius lived after the time of Calvin and he wrote the following about Calvin, "I affirm that he excels beyond comparison in the interpretation of Scripture, and that his commentaries ought to be more highly valued than all that is handed down to us by the Library of the Fathers; so that I acknowledge him to have possessed above most others, or rather above all other men, what may be called an eminent gift of prophecy"

NT Wright considers Calvin a much better theologian than Luther. This is in spite of Calvin's mistakes on issues like Penal Substitution and Predestination. As far as their disagreement about the meaning of the Eucharist, I side with Calvin. I think Arminius sided with him also on this issue?

What is an Orthodox Protestant? Is it a Calvinist?

 

[hedrick]

There are differences in approach that may be more significant than differences in context. Calvin was more organized than Luther. His Institutes and commentaries give us a fairly complete theology that fits together. Luther tends to have moments of great insight but doesn't match Calvin as a whole.

Luther seems to have moved to single predestination in some of his later work. It's not clear whether he actually rejects predestination to damnation or believes that there are good reasons not to talk about it. I think it's wrong to say that Calvin held only single predestination. It may be what he cared about, but there are a couple of places where he acknowledges that double predestination is the result of his approach.

There's also a difference in approach to Scripture. Luther was inclined to proof-text. Calvin was very careful to look at the whole context of passages. Calvin also developed the concept of accommodation, that God used terms that would be understood by his audience, and thus sometimes said things that if taken literally would contradict what scientists currently know. It's hard to know what he would make of modern biology and history, but he seemed clear that interpretation of Scripture needed to be consistent what the new astronomy of his time knew.

 

[hedrick]

I think the biggest question for the Reformation is one that’s nearly impossible to answer: what was their approach to change? The Reformers stood at the beginning of a period of rapid change, both in science and in Biblical and historical scholarship. Calvin, at least, used the best available at his time. But his views, codified in the next couple of generations in confessions, has now for a large part of the Protestant movement turned into a Holy Tradition that is as unchangeable as Catholic tradition supposedly was.

Was that their intention? We now have a Protestant tradition divided into half that wants to preserve the Reformers’ teachings, and half that want to preserve their willingness to follow the best current understanding, even if that upsets a lot of current theology.

The majority of Protestants today have a mindset that is closer to the Catholic side of the Reformation.

The underlying issue is the doctrine of Scripture. The entire Christian tradition, including the Reformers, believed that Scripture is directly from God, and is entirely true. Catholics often interpreted it quite freely, but they still thought that this meaning came from God. The Reformers moved to a plain sense approach to Scripture. When combined with God as author of Scripture, that leads directly to fundamentalism. Was that their intent?

Calvin’s approach to the new astronomy suggests that it might not have been, but the amount of accommodation he had to do was small compared with modern issues. While maintaining the Scripture came directly from God, and the plain sense approach, still in a very small number of cases he adopted a modern approach. The best example is probably his statement that the Sermon on the Mount was a summary of Jesus' teaching, and wasn't given at a single time in that form.

Modern interpreters, Catholic and Protestant, have moved away from the basic concept that Scripture is directly from God, to a concept closer to Barth’s, where Scripture is a human witness to God’s actions. Is that appropriate for people claiming to be Lutheran or Reformed?

 

[JM]

What differences between Luther and Melanchthon do you see?

I hate to say it but Melanchthon seemed to have lost his backbone after Luther's passing. See Philippists - Wikipedia

NT Wright considers Calvin a much better theologian than Luther. This is in spite of Calvin's mistakes on issues like Penal Substitution and Predestination. As far as their disagreement about the meaning of the Eucharist, I side with Calvin. I think Arminius sided with him also on this issue?

Calvin was an excellent theologian while Luther was more of a preacher.

What is an Orthodox Protestant? Is it a Calvinist?

It just means I'm conservative, the doctrines I hold to are not 'woke' or 'modern' or 'liberal' or whatever, but old school Protestantism found in the London Baptist Confession of Faith.

Yours in the Lord,

jm

 

[J_B_]

It just means I'm conservative, the doctrines I hold to are not 'woke' or 'modern' or 'liberal' or whatever, but old school Protestantism found in the London Baptist Confession of Faith.

It seems obvious then, that you would lean toward Calvin. I lean more toward Luther.

Calvin was an excellent theologian while Luther was more of a preacher.

That's somewhat true, but we have to be careful not to make such things into fixtures of their personality. Luther was more a preacher largely by choice. Likewise, Calvin preferred academia. Yet when Luther felt someone erred in theology, he could hold his ground with the best of them, including Calvin.

Those who followed Luther were disappointed he didn't leave behind a massive treatise of dogmatics or some such thing, but that was somewhat in keeping with Luther's outlook. He didn't want to go down the rabbit hole like the Scholastics had, and felt a more "practical" theology was best. If the average layman couldn't understand it, it was probably pedantic. The Small Catechism had all you needed to know. I didn't always agree with that, but after years of chasing philosophical minutiae, I've come to appreciate that view.

I hate to say it but Melanchthon seemed to have lost his backbone after Luther's passing.

Again, somewhat true, but also again, exaggerated in Lutheran lore.

As I understand it, Calvin was a great admirer of Luther and saw himself more as explaining the finer points Luther had left unexplained than as opposing him to create a new branch of Protestantism. What happened though, was that Melanchthon was given the task of expressing Lutheran orthodoxy, and so where they differed, Melanchthon's version won out (within the Lutheran community and until the Philippist controversy as you noted).

There's an interesting book on all this, detailing how Lutherans (not just Melanchthon) felt themselves ill-equipped to fight on after Luther's death and in the process of trying to answer the Scholastics unfortunately adopted much the same approach as the Scholastics:

From Luther to Kierkegaard by Pelikan.

 

[JM]

Again, somewhat true, but also again, exaggerated in Lutheran lore.

Darn Lutherans! lol I've read Lutheran sources only to be told they exaggerate and it's 'lore.'

Yours in the Lord,

jm

 

[J_B_]

Darn Lutherans! lol I've read Lutheran sources only to be told they exaggerate and it's 'lore.'

I tried to indicate there is a grain of truth to it, but when the story's told in a beer garden, it tends to get stretched. And these stories are important to Lutheran identity, so they are told on a regular basis - sort of like hearing about Patrick Henry or Betsy Ross on the 4th of July.

 

[Andrewn]

I hate to say it but Melanchthon seemed to have lost his backbone after Luther's passing. See Philippists - Wikipedia

This is fascinating article ends by describing Melanchthon's party as Calvinist:

"But the unquestionably Calvinist work of Joachim Cureus, Exegesis perspicua de sacra cœna (1574), and a confidential letter of Johann Stössel which fell into the elector's hands opened his eyes. The heads of the Philippist party were imprisoned and roughly handled, and the Torgau Confession of 1574 completed their downfall. By the adoption of the Formula of Concord their cause was ruined in all the territories which accepted it, although in some others it survived under the aspect of a modified Lutheranism, as in Nuremberg, or, as in Nassau, Hesse, Anhalt, and Bremen, where it became more or less definitely identified with Calvinism. It raised its head once more in Electoral Saxony in 1586, on the accession of Christian I., but on his death five years later it came to a sudden and bloody end with the execution of Nikolaus Krell as a victim to this unpopular revival of Calvinism."

It is true that Melanchthon agreed with Calvin's understanding of the Eucharist. But, reading through the article, it looks like his ideas were more consistent with what later came to be called Arminianism in as far as he seemed to reject predestination in favor of some sort of synergy.

 

[J_B_]

This is fascinating article ends by describing Melanchthon's party as Calvinist:

You have to be careful with these things, as they tend to be wrapped in polemic. It's not black and white and it takes a specialist in the Reformation to untangle the thousand different threads.

There is a difference between what Luther believed, what some of his followers who called themselves Lutherans believed, what the princes who declared their states Lutheran believed, what the Catholics said the Lutherans believed, and what the Reformed said the Lutherans believed.

You can write a similar paragraph about the Reformed, Catholic, Anglican and every other faction of the Reformation. By the time you're done, your head will be spinning.

It becomes a "True Scotsman" game. Who gets to declare what is and is not Lutheran? There is no unarguable authority who can do that. We who call ourselves Confessional Lutherans have agreed the Book of Concord determines what is Lutheran. But for us the book is written. It is a completed thing of the past.

Put yourself in Melanchthon's shoes. He wrote large portions of Concord. When someone comes along and accuses him of being Calvinist - of deviating from Concord - he had to be thinking, "What are you talking about? I wrote the darn thing. I was Luther's close friend. Who are you to tell me I'm deviating from it?" There is a fascinating quote from Thomas Jefferson that falls exactly along those lines about people interpreting the American Revolution when Jefferson himself lived it.

I do think there is a sense in which we forget these were actual people, not stone statues with fixed, immovable traits. We've studied the history, picked one of the threads, and called it Lutheran. Melanchthon doesn't lie on that thread, so he gets marked as a bad guy.

However, I think that, for Melanchthon's entire life he considered himself a follower of Luther. He never intended to become a "Philippist", "Calvinist", or anything else. In fact, it probably seemed sadly ironic that people who had never met or known Calvin were misinterpreting Calvin and calling him a Calvinist when Calvin was more Luther's heir than Melanchthon's progenitor.

The fact remains that Melanchthon was willing to negotiate theological matters when Luther was not, and Melanchthon was more likely to cave to threats when Luther was not. But put what was happening in its proper context.

Luther's views also changed over time. In hindsight we can see a difference between why Luther changed and why Melanchthon changed. But for Melanchthon it probably wasn't so clear. It was probably a frightening, confusing mess. And what he saw was that Luther's views matured over time just as his views matured over time. Luther was heavily persecuted for his views just as Melanchthon was. In his mind, to the end he very likely thought he was carrying on for Luther - just as Calvin seemed to think he was carrying on for Luther and so forth.

 

[hedrick]

One of the things that strikes me is that Reformation theology isn't very different from current mainline theology. There's a community with theologians sharing many common concerns and approaches, but each of whom puts them together in slightly different ways. Later Protestant tradition gave up on the "always reforming" side of the Reformation, and thus attempted to fit all of these together into a specific normative Lutheran and Reformed theology. This then created a community that treated the Reformers much like Catholics treated the early Church: as a theology to be conserved rather than a conversation to be joined and advanced. What's worse, it did so in two different communities, each of which felt it necessary to justify their exclusion of the other.

 

[JM]

'Always Reforming' doesn't mean reforming to cultural trends and fads but reforming to scripture.

 

[hedrick]

'Always Reforming' doesn't mean reforming to cultural trends and fads but reforming to scripture.

As I'm sure you know, we are in fact reforming to Scripture. This discussion doesn't need ad hominem attacks on the motivations of participants.

 

[JM]

As I'm sure you know, we are in fact reforming to Scripture. This discussion doesn't need ad hominem attacks on the motivations of participants.

Didn't know that comment would sting. I apologize but you made an observation that confessional Lutherans and Reformed Christians were holding on to traditions like Roman Catholics. That we stopped Reforming. I wasn't offended. But I'll leave the thread since my comment was viewed as ad hominem.

jm

 

[hedrick]

Didn't know that comment would sting. I apologize but you made an observation that confessional Lutherans and Reformed Christians were holding on to traditions like Roman Catholics. That we stopped Reforming. I wasn't offended. But I'll leave the thread since my comment was viewed as ad hominem.

jm

There are real parallels between the Reformation and the early church. Both were doing new things, in an environment with opposition and sometimes death. Both started with a variety of thought, but codified it, turning into normative tradition.

The forces leading to the arguments between Lutheran and Reformed even have some similarity to the breach between East and West. Arguments that don’t look so significant now to many people, but seemed to result in part from communities that developed separately for geographical reasons, and in part the same way groups often tend to justify rivalries.

Historians I've read tend to defend the consolidation of the Catholic tradition as a reaction to persecution. The church needed to be unified and disciplined. That is relevant for the Reformation as well. They were a few countries surrounded by lots of enemies, and people did die. Internal arguments would not be helpful, and I think some confessional works were intended as defenses of their orthodoxy.

Nevertheless there are disadvantages to (theoretically or practically) unchangeable holy traditions, which show over longer time periods, as the Reformers realized of the earlier tradition, but not all of their heirs realize for their own.

I'm a bit less inclined to see positives to the Lutheran / Reformed rivalry. However once you start codifying a tradition, it gets hard to ignore differences, if you're not in a position to get agreement.

If you don't see the idea of giving into fads as attack, you're less astute than I had hoped. There’s actually at least a 200 year liberal tradition, though I would argue it’s 500, because I think we’re continuing the program of the Reformers.

 

[ViaCrucis]

What differences between Luther and Melanchthon do you see?

The short and overly simplistic answer is that Melancthon was far more willing to compromise on matters of theology than Luther; on the one hand Melancthon earnestly desired preserving peace and unity in the Church but on the other Melancthon's willingness to compromise resulted in a far more wishy-washy kind of Lutheranism.

It is this which led to the struggle between the Philippists and the Gnesio-Lutherans, the Book of Concord is the product of the Gnesio-Lutheran strain of Lutheranism and thus established orthodox Lutheranism. There were a number of pressing issues involved in this, for example while Philip Melancthon was the original author of the Augsburg Confession, he later edited it to make compromises to Reformed sensibilities; this is why you will almost always see Lutherans speak of the "unaltered Augsburg Confession", the original Confession, not the revision.

Philip Melancthon had good intentions, but his good intentions also kind of meant that he lacked the backbone to stand up in conviction to serious matters of theology.

In a sense this earlier intra-Lutheran struggle represents something we see often, throughout history. Namely: Where do we draw the line between conviction and unity; is it better to stand firm in our convictions even if it means schism? Is the threat of schism ever reason to soften our position in order to maintain unity? Can there even be unity in the Church unless we are united in our conviction?

For example, can we truly embrace one another at the Lord's Table if we don't even agree on what the Lord's Table is?

And that is the tension we see so often in the history of Christianity, between Christ's command and call for unity of His Body and also the necessity of standing firm and saying, "Here I stand!"

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

Calvin was an excellent theologian while Luther was more of a preacher.

I suspect that is more exemplifies the differences between the way the Reformed do theology and the way Lutherans do theology.

Calvin was a systematic theologian, his writings reflect that.

Luther wasn't, for Luther what mattered was being true to the theology of the cross and that, absolutely, meant being a preacher of the Gospel.

To that end, the Lutheran tradition has generally been less interested in doing systematic theology the way the Reformed have; instead our theology is is confessional and kerygmatic.

To put it another way, confession and preaching is our theology. We are less interested in offering philosophical ponderings about things we can't know, such as why if God wants all to be saved and if God has predestined us in Christ to be saved, then why are some not saved (the answer is because they choose to not be saved). Like how does that all work? Well, rationally speaking it doesn't. Now in the Reformed tradition those niggly bits seem to get ironed out through a systematic approach, often by applying reason. To wit, if God is the effective cause of our salvation by predestining us in Jesus Christ, then it must follow that the reason why some aren't saved is because they were not chosen by God to salvation, and thus their damnation follows from the same kind of decree from God--there are those who will be saved and those who will not, and this by the will and decree of God. No question that this makes sense rationally, but does it hold true biblically? Well, no, says the Lutheran. And for this reason the doctrine of predestination is exclusively a doctrine of grace, a doctrine of comfort that we might hold firm in confidence the truth of God spoken to us through Word and Sacrament: That we belong to Him because He chose us, called us, and made it happen--not through some inscrutable act of divine will, but through the visible, outward, external working of God through Word and Sacrament.

Thus we preach and confess, and this is what we believe.

So by presenting Luther as "more of a preacher" and Calvin "more of a theologian", this is less a contrast between Luther and Calvin, and really more of a contrast that exemplifies the very different ways these two traditions actually do theology. This can be seen, for example, in Luther's Heidelberg Catechism where he contrasts the false theology of glory with the true theology of the cross. One is a true theologian not by speaking of and recognizing the invisible things of God, His glory, His power, His wisdom (etc); but rather one is a true theologian by speaking of the visible things of God, namely His suffering and death on the cross.

This is why for Lutherans the chief article of the Christian religion is not the glory and sovereignty of God; but rather is the free gift of righteousness by the grace of God alone, through faith by which Christ has saved us.

It always comes back to preaching the pure Gospel as pure Gospel.

-CryptoLutheran