What did the Reformers reform that needed reforming?

[Wesley Briggman]

JonC said in "Do you accept NT Wrights theology, specifically regarding Atonement?" #183
"So while I believe Wright's justification focuses too much on secular 1st century Judaism, I respect it more than I do Reformed theology because Wright leaves his view open to correction and debate while Reformed theologians hold their theology as absolute and beyond examination."

While I consider reformed theology to be a "bucket of worms", I am interested in learning more historical facts to justify my conclusion.

Where can I find a source that says: "Reformed theologians hold their theology as absolute and beyond examination."

 

[atpollard]

JonC said in "Do you accept NT Wrights theology, specifically regarding Atonement?" #183
"So while I believe Wright's justification focuses too much on secular 1st century Judaism, I respect it more than I do Reformed theology because Wright leaves his view open to correction and debate while Reformed theologians hold their theology as absolute and beyond examination."

While I consider reformed theology to be a "bucket of worms", I am interested in learning more historical facts to justify my conclusion.

Where can I find a source that says: "Reformed theologians hold their theology as absolute and beyond examination."

I cannot speak for 16th Century Reformers, but if you visit the Christ Centered Apologetics Ministries forum and suggest anything except hardline Penal Substitution, you will encounter MODERN Reformed Theologians that will happily demonstrate that they hold THAT theology as absolute and beyond examination.

 

[JonC]

JonC said in "Do you accept NT Wrights theology, specifically regarding Atonement?" #183
"So while I believe Wright's justification focuses too much on secular 1st century Judaism, I respect it more than I do Reformed theology because Wright leaves his view open to correction and debate while Reformed theologians hold their theology as absolute and beyond examination."

While I consider reformed theology to be a "bucket of worms", I am interested in learning more historical facts to justify my conclusion.

Where can I find a source that says: "Reformed theologians hold their theology as absolute and beyond examination."

It is observation.

For example, for years NT Wright was "the" expert scholar on Paul in Reformed circles. What changed? Wright identified an error in how the Reformers understood justification in Paul's letters. At the time he claimed no perfect solution and invited his fellow theologians to join together and work through the issue. Hecwas met with scorn.

John Piper, one of my favorite pastor-authors, wrote in a rebuttal that Reformed theology was essentially beyond reproof (who are we to challenge beliefs held since the Reformation?).


But to be fair, my comment was a generalization. NT Wright is Reformed. He is a Calvinist. And there have been a few movements within Reformed theology to move towards a stricter adherence to the text of Scripture, especially where the Atonement is concerned - reforming Reformed theology....which I believe is still a wrong approach as it is how we ended up with Reformed theology (the Reformers tried to reform Roman Catholic doctrine, but in so doing carried a lot of that doctrine with them).

 

[kyredneck]

What did the Reformers reform that needed reforming?​

Perspicuity of the Scriptures. The Right of Private Judgment​

"The Bible is a plain book. It is intelligible by the people. And they have the right, and are bound to read and interpret it for themselves; so that their faith may rest on the testimony of the Scriptures, and not on that of the Church. Such is the doctrine of Protestants on this subject......."

 

[Charlie24]

JonC said in "Do you accept NT Wrights theology, specifically regarding Atonement?" #183
"So while I believe Wright's justification focuses too much on secular 1st century Judaism, I respect it more than I do Reformed theology because Wright leaves his view open to correction and debate while Reformed theologians hold their theology as absolute and beyond examination."

While I consider reformed theology to be a "bucket of worms", I am interested in learning more historical facts to justify my conclusion.

Where can I find a source that says: "Reformed theologians hold their theology as absolute and beyond examination."

To answer the question in the OP, Martin Luther stated what needed to be reformed in his 95 thesis that he nailed to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany. To sum up his 95 thesis, he stated, "The just shall live by faith."

That is not what the Catholic Church was teaching. Thank God they got us out of that heresy.

The reformers were divided among themselves with the atonement. But they did succeed in bringing us back to faith in Christ rather than the Church.

 

[JonC]

JonC said in "Do you accept NT Wrights theology, specifically regarding Atonement?" #183
"So while I believe Wright's justification focuses too much on secular 1st century Judaism, I respect it more than I do Reformed theology because Wright leaves his view open to correction and debate while Reformed theologians hold their theology as absolute and beyond examination."

While I consider reformed theology to be a "bucket of worms", I am interested in learning more historical facts to justify my conclusion.

Where can I find a source that says: "Reformed theologians hold their theology as absolute and beyond examination."

Sorry....I didn't answer the title question.

Yes, Reformed theology is a bucket of worms. The Reformers did not agree with one another on doctrine and the Reformation started, in part, prior to Luther.

Each Reformer saw an error from their own experience and viewpoint.
With Luther we see a larger movement.

Luther observed Catholic abuses, specifically having people pay for their salvation or the salvation of a loved one. People who had very little were being asked to give what they had in order to fund Church infrastructure with the promise the sacrifice would purchase forgiveness. He addressed justification by works in the Catholic Church seeking to correct what he viewed as an error.

Calvin was trained in secular law. He specifically identified with the humanism movement. Calvin saw Aquinas' theory of Atonement (the Roman Catholic view) as wrongly focusing on divine merit as this focus did not meet the requirement of justice under the judicial philosophy he had studied. He reformed that position by replacing merit with divine justice and imposing his judicial framework around Scripture. Calvin also identified the Catholic use of icons as problematic. He decreed that churches would be plain.

The various non-Catholic groups during the Reformation were encouraged as they faced a common enemy (granted, the Reformers would prove just as much an enemy to baptistic churches as was the Roman Catholic Church). They saw the Catholic Church as not worth reforming and encouraged the Reformers to move towards biblical doctrine, lamenting that Reformed theology maintained Catholic doctrine in some form.

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

JonC said in "Do you accept NT Wrights theology, specifically regarding Atonement?" #183
"So while I believe Wright's justification focuses too much on secular 1st century Judaism, I respect it more than I do Reformed theology because Wright leaves his view open to correction and debate while Reformed theologians hold their theology as absolute and beyond examination."

While I consider reformed theology to be a "bucket of worms", I am interested in learning more historical facts to justify my conclusion.

Where can I find a source that says: "Reformed theologians hold their theology as absolute and beyond examination."

In Catholism…though Reformers at times can be harsh as well as challenging, they exist as a means to adjust existing doctrine and practices… therefore the element of adjustment is present providing you have a good argument to support any errors but you better be prepared to backup that argument

 

[Dr. Bob]

English Baptists arose in a "Second Wave" of the Protestant Reformation, "reforming the Reformers". This differed from the first wave that focused on egregious errors of Roman Catholicism. They held that the shift of the initial 1517-1580 reformation was not "radical" enough; that there were great theological errors and weaknesses of biblical interpretation of the Luther/Calvin/Knox and Anglican camps.

Reforming the Reformers added great emphasis on KEY OMISSIONS not emphasized in any of the church groups coming from early 1500's

>Regenerated church membership, with sinners repentant and believing at a point-in-time experience, not emphasized in any of the church groups coming from early 1500's

>Believer's baptism upon personal confession of faith, again absent in all the pedobaptism groups that never went far from Catholic error in the eyes of many (even today, most non-Catholics who sprinkle babies believe it somehow salvific - I have Lutheran and Presbyterian family members who rest salvation on their christening)

>Separation of Church and State (abolish state religion and taxes to pay state church clergy)

>Autonomy of local churches without hierarchy or denominational bureaucratic mandates

How Zwingli or Calvin or Luther et al did NOT reform damnable doctrinal error (like infant baptism) showed that that first-gen reformers are to be commended for their stand against Catholicism, but demonstratively faulty of allowing millions to follow other errors just as grievous.

 

[JonC]

English Baptists arose in a "Second Wave" of the Protestant Reformation, "reforming the Reformers". This differed from the first wave that focused on egregious errors of Roman Catholicism. They held that the shift of the initial 1517-1580 reformation was not "radical" enough; that there were great theological errors and weaknesses of biblical interpretation of the Luther/Calvin/Knox and Anglican camps.

Reforming the Reformers added great emphasis on KEY OMISSIONS not emphasized in any of the church groups coming from early 1500's

>Regenerated church membership, with sinners repentant and believing at a point-in-time experience, not emphasized in any of the church groups coming from early 1500's

>Believer's baptism upon personal confession of faith, again absent in all the pedobaptism groups that never went far from Catholic error in the eyes of many (even today, most non-Catholics who sprinkle babies believe it somehow salvific - I have Lutheran and Presbyterian family members who rest salvation on their christening)

>Separation of Church and State (abolish state religion and taxes to pay state church clergy)

>Autonomy of local churches without hierarchy or denominational bureaucratic mandates

How Zwingli or Calvin or Luther et al did NOT reform damnable doctrinal error (like infant baptism) showed that that first-gen reformers are to be commended for their stand against Catholicism, but demonstratively faulty of allowing millions to follow other errors just as grievous.

I agree. But at the same time many who were never associated with Roman Catholic doctrine remained critical of these sects arising from the "Radical Reformation" for reforming Reformed doctrine rather than going back to Scripture to develop doctrine.

Baptists ended up maintaining some Roman Catholic doctrine (either in its traditional form or in a reformed form) and held (still holds) doctrine that grew from both Reformed/Catholic and non-Catholic groups. Baptists are indebted to both Reformed and "Anabaptist" doctrines.

The issue I have is Reformed doctrine carries a lot of Catholic doctrine (some of these doctrines were revised). The "Second Wave" does the same, only in a more revised or reworked form.

For example, rather than tweaking and reforming doctrines concerning "original sin", atonement, general structure of the church, etc. I believe these Baptists should have abandoned Reformed theology and developed doctrine from God's Word (and the Reformers should have abandoned Cathokic doctrine and done through same).

I also realize this was almost impossible because these Christians developed an understand and religious thought process from the theologians they were seeking to reform. They changed existing doctrine where they saw an error, but by holding on to the whole they carried with them many presuppositiins and extra-biblical ideas.