THE PROVENANCE OF JOHN CALVIN'S EMPHASIS ON THE ...

themselves have medieval roots. 498 On the other hand, Calvin still engaged in the
scholastic discipline of disputatio, reserving this to his collection of exegetically derived
loci in his Institutio. There "the pattern of argument . . . reflects a fairly strict
observation of the form of scholastic disputation, moving from the initial statement of a
point to various objections and replies to objections." 499 Furthermore, in dealing with
"difficulties and even potential contradictions in the text of Scripture," Calvin (like
many of his humanist contemporaries) employed the scholastic distinctiones as a device
for resolving them. 500 Even deriving loci from one's interpretation of Scripture and
ordering them according to the articles of the creed, or more or less soteriologically
from God and creation to the church and the last things, is a method that runs the course
of the church's history, from Augustine to John of Damascus to Lombard to Calvin and
his contemporaries. 501 So, as Muller measures Calvin's invective with respect to
scholastici and théologiens Sorboniques, humanism, including Calvin's humanism,
"was not posed against all things scholastic. It was posed against scholastic problems,
notably the absence of a refined use of classical languages and rhetoric that was rooted
in the absence of sound philological training, and against excessively speculative
theological argument." 502 There is, as Muller argues throughout his work, a
498 Muller, Unaccommodated Calvin, 179. Some paragraphs on, Muller writes: "it was Calvin's
humanist training in rhetoric that he brought ot bear on the nominally scholastic task of constructing
disputations" (Muller, Unaccommodated Calvin, 181).
499 Muller, Unaccommodated Calvin, 45, 113, and 181 among others.
500 Muller, Unaccommodated Calvin, 46; also 179.
501 Muller, Unaccommodated Calvin, 178-79, 113-14, and 57.
502 Muller, Unaccommodated Calvin, 44.
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