Three Fresh Prompts for Practicing Reformed Catholicity

When I was early in my ministry, I was serving on the candidates and credentials committee of my presbytery and thus participated in numerous interviews of ministerial candidates and transfers. One of the common questions we asked was, “What types of theology books do you enjoy reading?” On one occasion a ministerial transfer retorted, “I only read Reformed authors.” As I reflected upon that comment, I wanted to ask a follow-up question, “Who do the Reformed authors you read cite?” My mind drifted back to works written by John Owen (1616-83) and how he frequently cites patristic and medieval theologians.[1] The same is true of John Calvin (1509-64).[2] Many people read the works of Reformed authors and do not recognize that early modern Reformed theologians did not wipe the slate clean, grab their Bibles, and start from scratch to build the Reformation. Some well-informed writers make this very claim.[3] The twentieth-century Reformed tradition saw the Protestant Reformation as being sui generis and virtually re-writing all theology thus giving the impression that all that went before the Protestant Reformation was darkness whereas all that followed was light. As common as this misguided narrative is, history tells a different story. Recent developments on three different fronts reveal that the tradition of the twenty-first century has a different outlook upon the patristic and medieval past.

The first positive development has arisen with retrieval. Unlike the twentieth-century, Reformed theologians of the twenty-first century labor in the wake of the Oberman-Steinmetz-Muller revolution. These three historians shined much-needed light upon the Reformation and showed that it was not a movement aimed at discontinuity with the past but that there were also significant continuities. Rather than seeing each period of history as a silo, separated from the previous period, historians like Heiko Oberman proved that each period grows out of the previous cradle of history.[4] Each period grows out of the soil of previous periods. No period of history arises ex nihilo. David Steinmetz showed the connections between the Reformation and its past by highlighting the exegetical continuities with the patristic and medieval periods.[5] Richard Muller has noted that the Reformation did not re-write all of theology. In fact, Muller observes that the reformers altered the doctrines of justification, sacraments, church, among others, but “they did not alter the doctrine of God, creation, providence, and Christ, and they maintained the Augustinian tradition concerning predestination, human nature and sin. The reform of individual doctrines, like justification and the sacraments, occurred within the bounds of a traditional, orthodox, and catholic system which, on the grand scale, remained unaltered.”[6] Given the catholic nature of the Reformation, theologians of the twenty-first century have sought to retrieve Reformation teaching in its fullness—not a shallow scraping of Reformation doctrine but one that digs deep to study its medieval and patristic roots.

A second key development revolves around publishing. The twenty-first century Reformed tradition has benefitted from an embarrassment of publishing riches previously unavailable to earlier generations. Today we live in the wake of the publication of works like Francis Turretin’s Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Petrus Van Mastricht’s Theoretical-Practical Theology, The Leiden Synopsis, the translation by the Emmaus Center of the works of Aquinas, which includes not only a diglot of his Summa Theologica but also Thomas’s biblical commentaries. But to this coterie of texts, we can also add the translations of the works of Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) and Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920). In addition to these newly translated texts is the St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press Popular Patristic Series. While the twentieth-century Reformed tradition had access to many works of the church fathers in the Ante-Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers set edited by Philip Schaff (1819-93), for many Reformed theologians these works were irrelevant. But with these newly translated texts, readers have been able to see catholic roots of the Reformation from a front row seat. While there is a host of positive quotations that we could draw from these newly translated texts, Bavinck’s observation about the catholicity of the Reformed tradition is both insightful, emblematic, and timely. Bavinck believed we needed to take advantage of

our communion and fellowship with generations past. That is why more attention is paid in this work to Patristic and Scholastic theology than is often the case in a Protestant dogmatics. Irenaeus, Augustine, and Thomas do not belong exclusively to Rome; they are Fathers and Doctors to whom the whole Christian church has obligations. Even the post-Reformation Roman Catholic theology is not overlooked. In general, Protestants know far too little about what we have in common with Rome and what divides us. Thanks to the revival of Roman Catholic theology under the auspices of Thomas, it is now doubly incumbent on Protestants to provide a conscious and clear account of their relationship to Rome.[7]

Bavinck’s observation brings us to a third development and relates especially to footnotes. How often have readers passed over footnotes and ignored them—in so doing, they give the lion’s share of their attention to the main body of the text. Yet, some of the best parts of a book come in the footnotes. This truth is especially relevant as it pertains to the retrieval of catholicity. Despite the loud protestations of some Reformed theologians who truly believe the Reformation was sui generis, footnotes reveal a commitment to catholicity not easily ignored. The recently annotated edition of Stephen Charnock’s (1628-80) Existence and Attributes of God provides a perfect example. In his opening discourse on the existence of God, Charnock writes: “The book of creatures is as legible in declaring the being of a God as the Scriptures are in declaring the nature of a God.”[8] What authority does Charnock cite to support this claim? Charnock works from Scripture, but he approvingly cites Aquinas’s Summa Theologica, “Whether it can be demonstrated that God exists?”[9] He also positively cites the Thomistic insight, “Faith supposes natural knowledge, as grace supposes nature.”[10] Following the footnote footpath enables readers to see firsthand the catholicity of the Reformed tradition.

In following the footnotes, we can “stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is” (Jer. 6:16). We can dig deep into the patristic and medieval heritage of the Reformation. We can learn and continue to give thanks to God that the teachers Christ has given to the church in the wake of his ascension are not restricted to one period of history but that they are present throughout (Eph. 4:11-13). Acknowledging Reformed catholicity can give us a greater appreciation for the faith once delivered to the saints as we seek to teach future generations of the glories of our triune God.

[1] See, e.g., Christopher Cleveland, Thomism in John Owen (Milton Park, Abingdon: Routledge, 2013).

[2] See, e.g., A. N. S. Lane, John Calvin: Student of the Church Fathers (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1999).

[3] E.g., John Frame, History of Western Philosophy and Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R, 2015), 174.

[4] Heiko A. Oberman, The Dawn of the Reformation (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1986), 19-20.

[5] E.g., David Steinmetz, Calvin in Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

[6] Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 1, Prolegomena to Theology (Grand Rapids MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 97.

[7] Herman Bavinck, “Foreword to the First Edition (Volume 1) of the Gereformeerde Dogmaiek,” trans. John Bolt, Calvin Theological Journal 45 (2010): 9-10.

[8] Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God, 2 vols., ed. Mark Jones (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023), I:46.

[9] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (repr.; Allen, TX: Christian Classics, 1948), Ia q. 2 art. 2.

[10] Charnock, Existence and Attributes of God, I:46.