Trajectories in Aristotelianism and Rationalism in Early Reformed Orthodoxy

I am often asked, “at a time when there is a flood of people leaving Roman Catholicism, why does it seem that so many intellectuals seem to be moving in the opposite direction?” There are a number of reasons for this – some Anglicans are converting because of the rampant liberalism and decline in morality …

Fudging Aristotle: A Digression (Part 7): Logic and Categories

[Subtitle: How Aquinas Fudged Aristotle to Settle Transubstantiation]: In recent posts, I’ve cited Willem van Asselt with an overview of the Works of Aristotle, and also Arthur Lovejoy noting that “the God of Aristotle had almost nothing in common with the God of the Sermon on the Mount”. But that doesn’t mean that Aristotle didn’t …

Fudging Aristotle: A Digression (Part 5): The Starting Point

In this series, and following the work of Richard Muller (“Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics”), I’ve been making the claim that the Reformed Orthodox writers, who wrote in the two centuries following the Reformation, borrowed from Aristotle’s methods, but not much at all from his own lines of thinking. As a reference for those who may be …

Fudging Aristotle: A Digression (Part 3): Borrowing methods, not concepts

In two recent blog posts describing the methodology of the Reformed Orthodox writers, I noted first that it was “nominally Aristotelian”, stressing, however, that it was so because that methodology was ancient and familiar, and second, that while they employed that methodology, they did so while avoiding Aristotelian concepts, employing Scriptural “content” instead. William J. …