Brad S. Gregory - Augustana College

More documents

Recommendations

Info

to the authority of scripture. Whereas radical Protestants, it is sometimes alleged, indeed favored scripture alone and opened the way to an individualistic, hermeneutical anarchy, magisterial reformers such as Luther, Zwingli, Bucer, and Calvin maintained the importance of many aspects of tradition, such as the writings of the church fathers, in addition to scripture. 55 But this distinction is untenable, because magisterial Protestant reformers rejected patristic theological claims and interpretations of scripture, just as they rejected medieval exegesis, papal decrees, canon law, and ecclesiastical practices, precisely wherever any of these contradicted their own interpretations of the Bible. In no sense was “tradition” for magisterial Protestant reformers an authority to which they deferred relative to their respective readings of scripture, as it was for their medieval and early modern Catholic counterparts. This was the whole point and part of the power of “scripture alone.” Neither magisterial nor radical Protestant reformers modified their hermeneutical judgments when these were at odds with traditional authorities; instead, they rejected the latter at each point of disagreement. In principle and as a corollary of sola scriptura, tradition retained for them no independent authority. Luther was clear by the Leipzig Disputation in 1519 that the church fathers belonged on the same side as popes, councils, and canon law in contrast to the authority of scripture: “[e]ven if Augustine and all the Fathers were to see in Peter the rock of the church,” he said, “I will nevertheless oppose them—even as an isolated individual—supported by the authority of Paul and therefore by divine law.” 56 Zwingli cast aside the entire patristic and medieval 55 See, for example, Alister McGrath, Reformation Thought: An Introduction (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), pp. 106-109; Heiko A. Oberman, “„Quo vadis, Petre?’ Tradition from Irenaeus to Humani Generis,” in idem, The Dawn of the Reformation: Essays in Late Medieval and Early Reformation Thought (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1986), pp. 284-286. 56 Luther, Disputatio inter Ioannem Eccium et Martinum Lutherum [1519], in WA, vol. 59, p. 465/1004- 1006, quoted in Manfred Schulze, “Martin Luther and the Church Fathers,” in The Reception of the Church 26
theology of baptism because it conflicted with his biblical interpretation relative to the sacrament. 57 Like Zwingli, both Bucer and Calvin followed suit more generally in their respective ways: the church fathers and ecclesiastical tradition were criticized and rejected or simply ignored wherever they failed to corroborate a given reformer‟s interpretation of scripture. 58 Radical reformers proceeded in the same way—but did so based on their different interpretations of scripture, despite the shared commitment of both groups, radical and magisterial, to the principle of sola scriptura. The difference between magisterial and radical reformers was therefore not that the former accepted some patristic writers and ecclesiastical tradition as authoritative and the latter none. Rather, they all rejected every putative “authority” whenever the latter diverged from what each regarded as God‟s truth, based on scripture as they respectively and contrarily understood it. Their respective distinctions between what in the church‟s tradition was acceptable and unacceptable were themselves a function of their respective understandings of the Bible, which was of course the underlying bone of contention in the first place. Political support was the sine qua non in determining which forms of Protestantism became influential in the Reformation era, and the default outcome of the commitment to scripture alone and its adjuncts was neither Lutheranism nor Reformed Protestantism but rather an open-ended proliferation of countervailing truth claims about God‟s truth. If this is correct, then we should expect to find a couple of historical Fathers in the West: From the Church Fathers to the Maurists, ed. Irena Backus, vol. 2 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997), p. 621; see also ibid., pp. 601, 612. 57 Zwingli, Von dem Touff, vom Widertouff und vom Kindertouff [1525], in ZW, vol. 4, ed. Emil Egli et al., vol. 91 in CR (Leipzig: M. Heinsius Nachfolger, 1927), p. 216/14-25. 58 See Irena Backus, “Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Bucer and the Church Fathers,” in Reception, ed. Backus, vol. 2, pp. 644, 650; Johannes van Oort, “John Calvin and the Church Fathers,” in ibid., p. 690; Anthony N. S. Lane, John Calvin: Student of the Church Fathers (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1999), pp. 35-40, 53-54. 27
Page 1 and 2: Reforming the Reformation Brad S. G
Page 3 and 4: Christianity must include both of t
Page 5 and 6: Julian II called the Fifth Lateran
Page 7 and 8: church‟s teachings and enacting a
Page 9 and 10: sich selbs].” 20 So too, Balthasa
Page 11 and 12: gutduncken].” 27 In September of
Page 13 and 14: disagreed with Zwingli and the latt
Page 15 and 16: view salvation and the soul had not
Page 17 and 18: tumultuous years of the early Germa
Page 19 and 20: and New Testaments or the permissib
Page 21 and 22: English monasteries and friaries, H
Page 23 and 24: centuries. 52 These do not include,
Page 25: pursued by niche specialists while
Page 29 and 30: A second, different kind of example
Page 31 and 32: 1578, and indeed, into the early 15
Page 33: empirical range of divergent claims

Brad S. Gregory - Augustana College

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?