zwinglian/zurich reformation

[Esdra]

I don't know if anyone of you know sth about the history of fhe zurich reformation of zwingli and bucer and co.

how similar were and are those reformed churches in comparison to the Genevan/Calvinst reformed churches?
Do/did they also believe in unconditional election and double predestination?

Esdra

 

[AMR]

Esdra,

Thank you for the good questions.

I am quite familiar with church history and do not see a disconnect between Zurich and Geneva reformations, other than of course, Zwingli's psychological versus objective view of the Supper:

To eat the body of Christ sacramentally, if we wish to speak accurately, is to eat the body of Christ in heart and spirit with the accompaniment of the sacrament...You eat the body of Christ spiritually, though not sacramentally, every time you comfort your heart in its anxious query 'How will you be saved'...When you comfort yourself thus, I say, you eat his body spiritually, that is, you stand unterrified in God against all attacks of despair, through confidence in the humanity he took upon himself for you.

But when you come to the Lord's Supper with this spiritual participation and give thanks unto the Lord for his kindness, for the deliverance of your soul, through which you have been delivered from the destruction of despair, and for the pledge by which you have been made sure of everlasting blessedness, and along with the brethren partake of the bread and wine which are the symbols of the body of Christ, then you eat him sacramentally, in the proper sense of the term, when you do internally what you represent externally, when your heart is refreshed by this faith to which you bear witness by these symbols"

Src: Fidei Expositio, Zwingli dated 1531, in Reformed Confessions of the 16th and 17th Centuries pp.190-191.
​

Both Geneva and Zurich were staunch unconditional election proponents. I cannot answer your question about "double predestination" until you explain what you think that means. Given that you are a Roman Catholic, I cannot assume you are using the term as would a Presbyterian.

If you could review this: "Double" Predestination by R.C. Sproul

And then get back to me about how you were using the term "double predestination" we could proceed. Barring that, the short answer is that both Geneva and Zurich affirmed double predestination, but neither affirmed any view that would be considered "equal ultimacy" in predestination (as discussed in Sproul's article). Such a view is Hyper-Calvinistic--a minority view rejected by the Presbyterian majority.

 

[Monseigneur_Gentilhomme]

Zwingli is properly understood as the father of the Reformed tradition. Calvin would be a second generation theologian in compared to him and builds upon the work of Luther, Zwingli, Butzer, as well as Farel in Geneva. Calvin straddles the line between the 1st and second generation (the theologians discussed by Muller in his Post-Ref. Dogmatics).

The view concerning predestination which is often associated with ''calvin'' really has nothing to do with personalities no with protestantism. It was a minority view held by several within the Augustine and Dominican order during the middle ages.

Example: ''I answer that, Predestination is not anything in the predestined; but only in the person who predestines. We have said above that predestination is a part of providence. Now providence is not anything in the things provided for; but is a type in the mind of the provider, as was proved above (Question 22, Article 1). But the execution of providence which is called government, is in a passive way in the thing governed, and in an active way in the governor. Whence it is clear that predestination is a kind of type of the ordering of some persons towards eternal salvation, existing in the divine mind. The execution, however, of this order is in a passive way in the predestined, but actively in God. The execution of predestination is the calling and magnification; according to the Apostle (Romans 8:30): "Whom He predestined, them He also called and whom He called, them He also magnified [Vulg. 'justified']."

SUMMA THEOLOGICA: Predestination (Prima Pars, Q. 23)

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

I don't know if anyone of you know sth about the history of fhe zurich reformation of zwingli and bucer and co.

how similar were and are those reformed churches in comparison to the Genevan/Calvinst reformed churches?
Do/did they also believe in unconditional election and double predestination?

Esdra

Actually, Zwingli did not believe in the Augustinian/western doctrine of original sin. It seems he may have been a compatibilist.

 

[Monseigneur_Gentilhomme]

Actually, Zwingli did not believe in the Augustinian/western doctrine of original sin. It seems he may have been a compatibilist.

What is your source? I just placed an order, and I'll be getting Zwingli's works soon to verify (I wanted them anyways!), so I do not know. But I think you may have confused the distinction between original sin (the fact/reality that Adam sin is imputed to all humans) and whether God does in reality damn people based on that vs. all humans merit and deserve God's damnation. It has always been a division in Reformed theology whether children who die (in and/or outside the Covenant community) in infancy are indeed damned. Most now a days say no. However the Westminster Confession only specifies children of believers- as well as The Canons of Dort. Luther, like Augustine, did believe non baptized (in which their theology baptism is the means by which Regeneration becomes reality) infants are indeed damned. Zwingli COULD be responding to that point of view (perhaps with less than precise language) and say no, children do not go to hell. But this is not an explict denial of the original sin. Original sin refers only to the fact of imputation of Adam's sin as a reality.

 

[AMR]

It has always been a division in Reformed theology whether children who die (in and/or outside the Covenant community) in infancy are indeed damned.

Error.

The view is clearly stated in our Confession.

The WCF Chapter X:

III. Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated, and saved by Christ, through the Spirit,(m) who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth: (n) so also are all other elect persons who are uncapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.(o)

m. Lk.18:15,16 and Acts 2:38,39 and Jn.3:3,5 and 1 Jn.5:12 and Rom.8:9 (compared).
n. Jn.3:8.
o. 1 Jn.5:12; Acts 4:12.​

"Debates" are among those who do not commit to the confessional basis of their church within the Reformed community. No conservative Reformed church would debate this issue as you have implied. The "debate" takes place within the fringe groups beyond the bounds.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

What is your source? I just placed an order, and I'll be getting Zwingli's works soon to verify (I wanted them anyways!), so I do not know. But I think you may have confused the distinction between original sin (the fact/reality that Adam sin is imputed to all humans) and whether God does in reality damn people based on that vs. all humans merit and deserve God's damnation. It has always been a division in Reformed theology whether children who die (in and/or outside the Covenant community) in infancy are indeed damned. Most now a days say no. However the Westminster Confession only specifies children of believers- as well as The Canons of Dort. Luther, like Augustine, did believe non baptized (in which their theology baptism is the means by which Regeneration becomes reality) infants are indeed damned. Zwingli COULD be responding to that point of view (perhaps with less than precise language) and say no, children do not go to hell. But this is not an explict denial of the original sin. Original sin refers only to the fact of imputation of Adam's sin as a reality.

Zwingli straight-up denies original guilt in infants in his 1525 treatise Of Baptism, and the editor of the LCC volume (G.W. Bromiley) concurs in that reading.