A Short Defense of Sola Scriptura

One common criticism of the doctrine of sola scriptura is that it relies on a “list of books” or table of contents that is not contained in scripture. One way to put this objection is the following: if all doctrine or the “rule of faith” is contained in scripture alone and the list of books …

“The Chief Task is to Assess the Protestant Adjustment of Traditional Scholastic Categories in the Light of The Reformation”

A Clearer Understanding of the Meaning of the Reformation Itself This entry concludes the section of Richard Muller’s work under the heading, “Doctrine and Method in the Era of Early Orthodoxy (ca. 1565-1618-1640)”. What’s been most notable for me, in publishing selections from Muller, is to notice the continuities of thought through the Reformation period. …

Philosophies that didn’t help: Philosophical Issues and Developments in the Post-Reformation Era 2

Man is created for worship. And if he will not worship the one true God, he will find something else to worship. “Atheists”, “deists”, “practical atheists”, even followers of ancient Hermes all found something to hold onto with the resurgence of the various “reappropriations” of classical philosophies. In some respects, it was the second century …

Steve Hays on the Best in Current Biblical Scholarship

Steve Hays as produced a blog post with the humble title “An OT and NT bibliography”, but honestly, if you care to understand the Scriptures, you’ll want to make this your first stopping point as you begin to research any or all Scriptural topics. (Well, maybe not “all”. But Steve has reviewed Scriptural introductions and …

Natural Theology 3: Vermigli on the Natural Knowledge of God

Richard Muller rounds out the Reformers’s view of “natural theology” with a section on Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562). Vermigli was a “Thomist-trained” Italian who, “of all the early Reformed codifiers of doctrine, produced the most extended treatment of the problem of the natural knowledge of God in relation to theology.” It is telling that “in …

“Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics” Volume 2: Scripture

I’ve been publishing selections from Muller’s Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Volumes 1 and 3 (“Prolegomena” and “Doctrine of God”), here at this site. But I’ll be publishing selections from Volume 2, Scripture, at Triablogue. The beginning of that volume is here.

Natural Theology 2: Calvin’s Conception of the Knowledge of God

Jacob Aitken writes, “Any discussion of the imago-dei (“Image of God” in man) is better served, not by speculating on essences and accidents, but on man’s role as priest-king-prophet in creation and New Creation”. Down below, you’ll see much the same conclusion from Muller regarding Calvin’s understanding of the imago dei: it must be informed …

Warfield on Calvin: General and Special Revelation

In John’s recent posts (here, here, and here), I’ve expressed some concern over Richard Muller’s characterization of Calvin’s view of the relationship of special revelation (scripture) to general revelation (or natural revelation). I cited Benjamin Warfield as support. Some of my concerns, I admit, were due to a misreading of Muller, my phobia of nominalism …

Aquinas gets this wrong, and much confusion follows

There are a lot of moving parts in this discussion, I admit. Here we have a discussion about a concept, in which the discussion moves from Aristotle to Aquinas to Scotus to Luther to Calvin to Turretin and Warfield. In my recent blog post, Luther’s Theology of the Cross and Metaphysics, I cited Muller as …

“What God Knows” and “What He Reveals”

What is “theology”? Richard Muller shows how the Reformed Orthodox began to define the term in using some pre-existing categories; in doing so, he also fleshes out the difference between an epistemology of Thomas Aquinas and that of other writers. A. To “define theology”: Muller writes: The theologies of the Reformers, particularly those that took …