Reformed Natural Theology – Part 3 (Pictet)

Part 1 and Part 2 Our discussion of Reformed natural theology concludes with an analysis of the work of Benedict Pictet (1655-1724). Pictet was Francis Turretin’s nephew and studied theology and philosophy under him. He was also Turretin’s assistant in the theology department of the Academy of Geneva. He later replaced Turretin as the chair …

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. …

The Rise, Decline, and Fall of Reformed Orthodoxy

Richard Muller traces the arc of “Reformed Orthodoxy” through three periods (early, high, and late orthodoxy), and William J. van Asselt spends a great deal of his work (“Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism”, Reformation Heritage Books) looking at these three periods as well. The post-Reformation development of Protestantism can be divided, for the sake of convenience, …