The Protestant Reformation was, among other things, a reaction to the late Medieval church and a return to the Church Fathers. The sixteenth-century Reformers were highly critical of the doctrine of faith espoused by their Catholic contemporaries, the Schoolmen (the Catholic theologians at the various universities). By and large, later generations of Protestants seem simply [...]
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Ronald Wallace notes that the response of the believing individual to the Church is seen by Calvin as identical to responding to Christ. This is affirmed by Calvin in his Commentary on Isaiah 45:14:
When he says that the Israelites shall be victorious over all the nations, this depends on the mutual relation between the [...]
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I recently presented (in class) a study concerning the placement of Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin within Henri de Lubac’s historical scheme (in his Corpus Mysticum). I concluded that they were men of there times but that they both retained a strong ecclesiology. I also concluded the following: Neither Thomas nor Calvin believed Christ’s presence [...]
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In explaining the relationship between the sign and the seal in the sacraments Calvin shows the similarity between the sacramental offer to unbelievers and the free offer of the gospel to unbelievers:
They are not reasoning closely enough when they argue that the sacraments are not testimonies of God’s grace because they are also offered to [...]
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Catherine Pickstock has demonstrated that the aporia of learning, the proverbial gap between neumena and phenomena, is solved by Aquinas in the personal desire created by the tension between presence and absence of Christ in the Eucharist. If there is no anticipation of presence then desire would be turned to apathy. If there is no [...]
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