Liberty and Religion

Author(s):  
Hilary Gatti

This chapter addresses the question of liberty in sixteenth-century religious debates. It first takes a look at the discussion between the Augustinian friar Martin Luther and Dutch humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam concerning the freedom of the will. The chapter then turns to the theological thinking of John Calvin and the reintroduction into the Protestant world of the notion of heresy. Hereafter the chapter details the circumstances surrounding the dramatic rupture between the friar Giordano Bruno and the Dominican order, including the philosophical doctrines which eventually landed him in the Inquisition. Finally, this chapter follows up on Bruno's insights through the commentary of theologians Richard Hooker and Jacob Harmensz, who is more widely known as Jacobus Arminius.

Author(s):  
Riemer A. Faber

AbstractBetween 1520 and 1530 Desiderius Erasmus published several treatises on education in which he provides practical advice about subjects worthy of study and the ideological assumptions which support it. Drawing special attention to his understanding of the natural capabilities of humanity, this article seeks to illustrate the relation between one of Erasmus's theological premises and his promotion of classical culture. During the same period Martin Luther wrote three influential educational tracts and also engaged Erasmus in a debate over the freedom of the will, which forced both the Christian humanist and the Wittenberg reformer to express clearly their understandings of humanity in its natural state. A comparison of their divergent theological positions reveals a fundamental difference in their views of education and its value. Whereas Erasmus justifies the study of ancient secular authors by means of his positive notion of humanitas, Luther subordinates education to the theological rediscoveries of the Wittenberg reformation. The article concludes that further comparative studies of various theological presuppositions and the educational programs they support will advance the understanding of the connections between the ideals and the realities of schooling in sixteenth-century Europe.


Author(s):  
Carolyn Muessig

Chapter 6 turns to the competing views of holiness and religion held by Reforming theologians including Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Theodore Beza, as well as Catholic thinkers like John Fisher, Laurentius Surius, and Louis of Granada. It assesses the shifting sands of the sixteenth century when well-established holy women like Magdalena de la Cruz (d. 1560) were imprisoned as sham stigmatics. It demonstrates that some Catholic and Protestants diverged and at times converged in commenting on Galatians 6:17, revealing a range of responses toward stigmatization, some less predictable than others. Far from disappearing from religious discourse, in the sixteenth century assessments of stigmatics and stigmatization took on renewed energy.


Author(s):  
Michael J. Lynch

This chapter, continuing the historical survey of the previous chapter, slows down and focuses on the reception of the so-called Lombardian formula in the Reformation and early Post-Reformation period, especially among the Reformed churches. After looking at how well-known Reformers such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Zachary Ursinus understood the Lombardian formula, concentration shifts to a few critical events that provide important background to the Synod of Dordt and intra-Reformed debates on the extent of the atonement. More specifically, the chapter covers a late sixteenth-century debate between the Lutheran Jacob Andreae and the Reformed theologian Theodore Beza on the extent of Christ’s work. Next, it looks at the back-and-forth between Jacob Arminius and William Perkins. Finally, it gives a thorough examination of the Hague Conference of 1611, which featured a discussion of the various doctrines of grace among the Remonstrants and Contra-Remonstrants.


Author(s):  
David W. Kling

By the early sixteenth century, the call to conversion had moved in other and more radical directions, resulting initially in renewed personal spiritual commitment at odds with the Catholic Church and then moving to outright schism and a change of institutional commitment. Reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin experienced new and profound reorientations through their focus on the Bible and its teaching of salvation by faith alone, by grace alone, and through Christ alone. Anabaptists such as Menno Simons embraced these basic teachings but also placed emphasis on conversion (the “new birth”) as a life of discipleship. The reformers’ success in transmitting a thoroughgoing change of heart and mind to the populace, however, had mixed results. Political resistance, spiritual indifference, theological polemics, Catholic intransigence, and the persistence of ancient magic lore and occult practices ensured that the wholesale reformation of Europe, even in Protestant-controlled areas, would never become a reality.


Author(s):  
Ronald J. Feenstra

Reprobation is an eternal decision by God that results in everlasting death and punishment for some persons. The doctrine of reprobation typically takes one of three forms: (1) that God from eternity decreed to elect some without regard to faith or works and to reprobate others without regard to sin or unbelief, both to display his glory and for reasons we do not know (sometimes called double predestination); (2) that God from eternity decreed to elect some, despite their sin, and to abandon the rest, with the cause of their reprobation being sin and unbelief; or (3) that God from eternity elected those he foreknew would believe in Christ and reprobated those he foreknew would persist in sin and unbelief. Reprobation doctrine was developed by Augustine and appears in the theology of Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther and John Calvin, who were deeply indebted to Augustine’s thought. Although some Lutheran and Roman Catholic theologians have defended reprobation doctrine since the sixteenth century, Reformed theologians have stressed it and made it the occasion of controversy.


2011 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
I.A. Nell

Calvin as “practical theologian”: the contribution of a theodramatic paradigmIn order to ask the question about the role and place of a specific discipline (in this case Practical Theology), one must realise where one comes from. This article seeks to answer the question about the role of Practical Theology within the field of theology in conversation with some perspectives offered by the sixteenth-century reformer, John Calvin. It is argued that Calvin lived in a century that scholars regard as one of the golden periods in which the world of the arts and theatre flourished. Hence Calvin’s age was characterised by a dramatic vision of human existence and such a vision also had an impact on his own theological thinking. Against this backdrop, the article engages the question of the role and place of practical theology by proposing a theodramatic approach in which the possibilities that the notion of “re-dramatisation” holds, come to the fore.


2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
James Alfred Loader

This article argues the following thesis: The distinctive characteristics of Philipp Melanchthon’s Explicatio Proverbiorum Salomonis (1525 and following years) and the differences between the several editions or versions of it can only partly be explained by the origins of the book in Melanchthon’s teaching activities during the ferment at German universities in the course of the sixteenth century Reformation. Both the peculiarities of the commentary itself and the way several differing versions of it were tolerated alongside one another only become explicable when a theological consideration is brought into the equation. On the one hand this resides in the view of Holy Scripture shared by Melanchthon and Martin Luther, and on the other hand in the humanist notion of context that Melanchthon’s exegetical work had in common with that of John Calvin.


2013 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 824-865 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Lines

AbstractIn 1550 Bernardo Segni, a member of the Florentine Academy, published an Italian translation of and commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Practically unstudied, Segni’s work represents an important moment in the evolution of vernacular Aristotelianism (and philosophy more generally) in the Renaissance. This essay examines Segni’s approach to the text, his familiarity (or not) with the Greek and Latin traditions, and his discussion of a philosophical problem, the freedom of the will. It shows that in all these areas Segni was well aware of Latin interpretations. The essay thus argues that studies of Renaissance Aristotelianism need to abondon their longstanding concentration on the Latin tradition alone and consider the complex and multilevel interactions of Latin and vernacular philosophy.


1970 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-127
Author(s):  
Iman Kristina Halawa

The history of Church reform in the sixteenth century has had an impact on various fields of life, one of which is theology. The Sola Scriptura principle is an important pillar in reform. But at this time there are many elements who claim to apply the principle of Sola Scriptura just because it quotes a verse. There are even individuals in the evangelical church who ignore this principle. Through this paper try to give a thought about the implementation of the principle of sola Scriptura by the Reformers of the XVI century, especially the thoughts of Martin Luther and John Calvin. So that theologians may relearn how to apply the principle of sola scriptura in accordance with the spirit of reform.


Perichoresis ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 33-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Brett Eccher

Abstract The Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli was a pioneering and domineering voice during the early sixteenth century, especially at the genesis of the Protestant Reformation. Despite his stature, Reformation historiography has sadly relegated Zwingli to a lesser status behind reformers such as Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, and John Calvin. However, his contribution to the changing religious ethos of Reformation Europe was pivotal, yet always accompanied by controversy. In fact, this essay will argue that almost all of the Reformation gains made by Zwingli over the course of roughly twenty-five years of ministry took place through conflict. All the Protestant reformers experienced an element of conflict as a part of their work. Such was the nature of religious renewal and reform in the sixteenth century. Still, conflict not only facilitated and drove Zwingli’s Reformation, but was also a theme woven throughout his life. And in Zwingli’s case war was both figurative and literal. His battles moved well beyond those of his contemporary reformers. Beginning with his haunting experiences as a young chaplain in the Swiss army and culminating with his early death on the battlefield at Kappel, conflict shaped Zwingli’s life, ministry and theology. His was a life characterized by volatility; his Reformation was contested every step of the way. As a portrait of Zwingli emerges against the historic backdrop of war, division and strife, his lasting contributions to the convictions and practices of Protestantism, especially in Baptist and Presbyterian life, should become apparent.


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