Erasmus, Desiderius (c.1466–1536)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erika Rummel
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Christian Humanism ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
Articles Of Faith ◽  
Absolute Knowledge ◽  
The Church ◽  
Textual Critic

Although Erasmus was not a systematic philosopher, he gave a philosophical cast to many of his writings. He believed in the human capacity for self-improvement through education and in the relative preponderance of nurture over nature. Ideally, education promoted docta pietas, a combination of piety and learning. Erasmus’ political thought is dominated by his vision of universal peace and the notions of consensus and consent, which he sees as the basis of the state. At the same time he upholds the ideal of the patriarchal prince, a godlike figure to his people, but accountable to God in turn. Erasmus’ epistemology is characterized by scepticism. He advocates collating arguments on both sides of a question but suspending judgment. His scepticism does not extend to articles of faith, however. He believes in absolute knowledge through revelation and reserves calculations of probability for cases that are not settled by the authority of Scripture or the doctrinal pronouncements of the Church, the conduit of divine revelation. Erasmus’ pioneering efforts as a textual critic of the Bible and his call for a reformation of the Church in its head and members brought him into conflict with conservative Catholic theologians. His support for the Reformation movement was equivocal, however. He refused to endorse the radical methods of the reformers and engaged in a polemic with Luther over the question of free will. On the whole, Erasmus was more interested in the moral and spiritual than in the doctrinal aspects of the Reformation. He promoted inner piety over the observance of rites, and disparaged scholastic speculations in favour of the philosophia Christi taught in the gospel. The term ‘Christian humanism’ best describes Erasmus’ philosophy, which successfully combined Christian thought with the classical tradition revived by Renaissance humanists.

Saint Thomas and His Sources

2021 ◽  
pp. xxi-20
Author(s):  
Jean-Pierre Torrell
Keyword(s):  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
The Bible ◽  
High Regard ◽  
The Church

St Thomas’s sources are to be found in the ‘authorities’ he quotes; he uses them according to precise criteria that make it possible to put them in a hierarchy. First, citations from the Bible have an authority that is absolute in principle. The argument from authority is the weakest of all in human reason, but it is the most efficacious if it is based on divine revelation. Second, the authority of the Fathers of the Church is great in the realm of faith, but not in other matters; they are susceptible to an expositio reverentialis. Third, when they speak the truth, the authorities of human reason represented by the philosophers likewise carry weight, since reason is not in itself contrary to faith. Since grace does not destroy nature, it is legitimate to have recourse to the philosophers. Thomas holds them in high regard, and the manner in which he behaves in respect to them remains exemplary for us all, whether we be philosophers or theologians.

“Not to Be Trammeled”

2019 ◽  
pp. 241-270
Author(s):  
Terryl Givens ◽  
Brian M. Hauglid
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Joseph Smith ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Boundary Maintenance ◽  
Articles Of Faith ◽  
The Church

Christian creeds go back to the first Christian centuries. Catholics produced creeds largely to establish the lines demarcating orthodoxy and heresy. Protestants at first were hostile to creeds and often invoked the Bible as the lone and sufficient creed for Christians. Joseph Smith’s hostility to creeds was common, especially among other restorationists. Eventually virtually all Protestants realized that without a creed, boundary maintenance was impossible. Early missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints found it necessary to summarize and define the uniqueness of their message—effectively creating the first creeds. Joseph Smith, explicitly hostile to creeds as too circumscribing of belief, found himself forced by the same imperative to articulate his own summation of Mormon teachings. His Thirteen Articles of Faith are, however, wholly inadequate as a creed, since they omit many of the most core doctrines of the church. They are best understood, in Rodney Stark’s formula, as establishing an optimum tension with competing religious faiths—not too radical and not too familiar.

scholarly journals Die aktualisering van die gemeenskap van die gelowiges binne die erediens

1991 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. F. Van der Merwe ◽  
M. J. Du P Beukes
Keyword(s):  
Public Service ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Youth Experiences ◽  
Articles Of Faith ◽  
The Church ◽  
Public Worship

The actualising of the commimity of believers within public worship The youth experiences the public service in the Nederduitsch Hervormde Church of Africa as cold and dead. According to investigations it feels that the public service lacks warmth and intimate atmosphere. Therefore this article wants to investigate the community of believers in the church. The question of how the church can realise the community of believers is raised. To reach this point, firstly the Bible and the articles of faith is investigated, and after that a look is taken at the nature of the public service, and the actualising of the believers.

Moses and the Magistrate: a Study in the rise of Protestant Legalism

1975 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. D. L. Avis
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Law ◽  
Civil Laws ◽  
The Church

‘It is now disputed at every table’, declared Whitgift in 1574, ‘whether the magistrate be of necessity bound to the judicials of Moses’. Edwin Sandys told Bullinger of Zürich in the previous year that it was being maintained, to the great trouble of the Church, that ‘The judicial laws of Moses are binding upon Christian princes, and they ought not in the slightest degree to depart from them’. Though often neglected by historians as an important factor in the Reformation, the question of the validity of the Old Testament judicial (as opposed to moral or ceremonial) law frequently arises in the writings of the Reformers, and their various answers made no slight impact on the course of events. It bears directly on Henry VIII's divorce and the bigamy of Philip of Hesse; the treatment of heresy and the possibility of toleration; the persecution of witches; usury and iconoclasm; Sabbatarianism and the rise of the ‘puritan’ view of the Bible as a book of precedents, and the corresponding shift to legalism in Protestant theology. The question is also of fundamental relevance to the thought of the Reformers on natural law, the godly prince and magistrate, and the so-called ‘third use of the law’. This article is an attempt to survey, up to the end of the sixteenth century, the various interpretations of the Mosaic penal and civil laws, with particular reference to the development of legalistic tendencies after Luther.

Bible and Biblical Theology in the Early Reformation

1962 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-65
Author(s):  
J. N. Bakhuizen Van Den Brink
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Theology ◽  
Historical Event ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The People ◽  
God's Word ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Church

The Reformation gave back the Bible to the people, that is to say the Bible in the vulgar tongue. We may enter now into some of the theological problems implied in this important historical event, by revealing the well-known circumstances of the first religious disputation held at Zürich on 29th January 1523. Zwingli's first thesis was that those who do not recognise the Gospel but by the authority of the Church, err and insult God. The same conviction is repeated in quite the same words and with still greater completeness in the Scots Confession, art. 19. Some months before the disputation, Zwingli had sent his treatise Von Klarheit und Gewissheit des Wortes Gottes, to the Black Friars of Oetenbach. For three years already he had himself been preaching daily in Our Lady's Münster in the capital. In his correspondence with the vicar of Constanz, who seriously disapproved of Zwingli's activity, he published his Apologeticus Archeteles, 1522, in which he said: ‘to this treasure, I mean the certitude of God's Word, our heart should be directed’, and in his second answer to the objections of the vicar he ventured to give the assurance that ‘the people will always surrender themselves with the simplicity of a dove to the sole Gospel, and in proportion as it is the less stained by the dust of human traditions, the people will be the more susceptible to the celestial doctrine in which they take their refuge with all confidence as to a holy anchor’.

scholarly journals A Reforma Luterana e suas relações com a educação

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martha Regina Maas ◽  
Katilene Willms Labes
Keyword(s):  
Educational System ◽  
German Language ◽  
Open Letter ◽  
The South ◽  
Public Discussion ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Education Change ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The University ◽  
The Church

Resumo: Em 1517, ao afixar suas teses na porta da igreja do castelo de Witenberg,Lutero não fazia ideia das mudanças no campo da educação, que hojesão constatadas como desencadeadas a partir do movimento da Reforma. Elepróprio passou pela experiência de uma educação severa, marcada por castigosfísicos. A forma de debate estudantil na universidade preparou-o para os embatespolêmicos de sua luta reformadora. Na sua “Carta aberta” sobre a reformada Cristandade, em 1520, ele propôs também a reforma das Universidades.Sua tradução da Bíblia para o alemão fluente foi uma contribuição importante,mesmo decisiva, para as mudanças no sistema educacioal. Seu modelo deeducação incentivou e construiu uma sociedade mais crítica, influindo tambémnas comunidades luteranas imigradas para o sul do Brasil no século XIX.Palavras-chave: Educação. Mudança. Reforma. Debate. Crítica.Abstract: In 1517, when he affixed his theses at the door of the church ofWitenberg castle, Luther had no idea of the changes in the field of educationwhich today are recognized as proceeding from the Reformation movement.Luther himself had the experience of a severe education, marked by physicalpunishments. The method of public discussion in the university prepared him tothe polemical clashes of his reforming struggle. In his “Open Letter” about thereform of Christianity, in 1520, he proposed also the reform of the universities.His translation of the Bible to the German language was a very important, evendecisive, contribution to the changes in the educational system. His model ofeducation encouraged and built a more critical society, having influence also inthe Lutheran communities immigrated to the south of Brasil in the XIX century.Keywords: Education. Change. Reform. Discussion. Critics.

The Inspiration of the Bible

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald O’Collins, SJ
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Word Of God ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Efficient Cause ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
The Church

Dealing with biblical inspiration within the scheme of the Word of God in its threefold form (as preached, written, and revealed), Karl Barth distinguished between divine revelation and the inspired Bible. He insisted that the revelation to prophets and apostles preceded proclamation and the writing of Scripture. He interpreted all the Scriptures as witness to Christ. While the human authors of the Bible ‘made full use of their human capacities’, the Holy Spirit is ‘the real author’ of what is written. Raymond Collins, in dialogue with Thomas Aquinas, Barth, and others, interpreted biblical inspiration in the light of the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on Divine Revelation. He spoke of the Holy Spirit as the ‘principal, efficient cause’ (with the human authors as the ‘instrumental’ causes), rejected dictation views of inspiration, and examined the scope of biblical truth and the authority of the Bible for the Church.

Medieval Heretics as Protestant Martyrs

1993 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 185-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Euan Cameron
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Church History ◽  
Medieval Church ◽  
Church Polity ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Articles Of Faith ◽  
The Church

Two themes which figure repeatedly in the history of the Western Church are the contrasting ones of tradition and renewal. To emphasize tradition, or continuity, is to stress the divine element in the continuous collective teaching and witness of the Church. To call periodically for renewal and reform is to acknowledge that any institution composed of people will, with time, lose its pristine vigour or deviate from its original purpose. At certain periods in church history the tension between these two themes has broken out into open conflict, as happened with such dramatic results in the Reformation of the sixteenth century. The Protestant Reformers seem to present one of the most extreme cases where the desire for renewal triumphed over the instinct to preserve continuity of witness. A fundamentally novel analysis of the process by which human souls were saved was formulated by Martin Luther in the course of debate, and soon adopted or reinvented by others. This analysis was then used as a touchstone against which to test and to attack the most prominent features of contemporary teaching, worship, and church polity. In so far as any appeal was made to Christian antiquity, it was to the scriptural texts and to the early Fathers; though even the latter could be selected and criticized if they deviated from the primary articles of faith. There was, then, no reason why any of the Reformers should have sought to justify their actions by reference to any forbears or ‘forerunners’ in the Middle Ages, whether real or spurious. On the contrary, Martin Luther’s instinctive response towards those condemned by the medieval Church as heretics was to echo the conventional and prejudiced hostility felt by the religious intelligentsia towards those outside their pale.

Bible and Biblical Theology in the Early Reformation

1961 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 337-352
Author(s):  
J. A. B. van den Brink
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Biblical Theology ◽  
General Situation ◽  
Lord's Prayer ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Ten Commandments ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

Everywhere in Europe the translations of the Bible into the evernacular languages have been the strongest help towards Reformation. It would be a very attractive task to study in detail, to compare and to summarise the history of the Bible in the Reformation movement, from West to East and from South to North in Europe.2 John Knox tells us that, when the Act of Parliament of 1543 allowed the Scriptures to be read freely, this was ‘no small comfort to such as before were held in such bondage that they durst not have read the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, nor articles of their faith, in the English tongue, but they should have been accused of heresy. Then might have been seen the Bible lying almost upon every gentleman's table. The NT was borne about in many men's hand.3 By these words is given no doubt a true and striking picture of the general situation in Scotland in those days and this may be true also for the beginnings of the Reformation in other countries some decades earlier. The Scots reformer adds that, although for reasons of profit many acted in an inexcusable way with the new book, ‘yet thereby did the knowledge of God wondrously increase and God gave his Holy Spirit to simple men in great abundance’.Now this is my first thesis: that the Bible in the early Reformation was passionately desired, not for the book as such, nor to have it as a weapon against the Church and its superfluous appendages, but as a help to find a better way to God.

scholarly journals Sacred Covenant and Huguenot Ideology of Resistance: The Biblical Image of the Contractual Monarchy in Vindiciae, Contra Tyrannos

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 589
Author(s):  
Andrei Constantin Sălăvăstru
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The People ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Political Works ◽  
The Church ◽  
Constitutional Monarchy

The Bible had been a fundamental source of legitimacy for the French monarchy, with biblical imagery wielded as a powerful propaganda weapon in the ideological warfare which the kings of France often had to wage. All Christian monarchies tried to build around themselves a sacral aura, but the French kings had soon set themselves apart: they were the “most Christian”, anointed with holy oil brought from heaven, endowed with the power of healing, and the eldest sons of the Church. Biblical text was called upon to support this image of the monarchy, as the kings of France were depicted as following in the footsteps of the virtuous kings of the Old Testament and possessing the necessary biblical virtues. However, the Bible could prove a double-edged sword which could be turned against the monarchy, as the ideological battles unleashed by the Reformation were to prove. In search for a justification for their resistance against the French Crown, in particular after 1572, the Huguenots polemicists looked to the Bible in order to find examples of limited monarchies and overthrown tyrants. In putting forward the template of a proto-constitutional monarchy, one of the notions advanced by the Huguenots was the Biblical covenant between God, kings and the people, which imposed limits and obligations on the kings. This paper aims to examine the occurrence of this image in Vindiciae, contra tyrannos (1579), one of the most important Huguenot political works advocating resistance against tyrannical kings, and the role it played in the construction of the Huguenot theory of resistance.

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