Section Ten. Christian Morality

Reflections on the Reformation

Martin Luther Huldrych Zwingli John Calvin

John WesleyJacobus ArminiusThomas Cranmer10.1

Reformatio Semper Reformanda

The Protestant Reformation wanted to throw off what it considered the accretions of the

Catholic Church over the centuries and return to first generation Christianity. Ironically,

the Reformers succeeded beyond their wildest dreams in that wish.

If we look at the Book of Acts, the letters of Paul and histories of the time, Christians

were severely divided from the very start.

Acts tells us that in the Jerusalem Church, the widows of Jewish Christians who spoke

Greek complained that they were being short-changed in favor of the widows of those

Jewish Christians who spoke Aramaic. Stephen and several other Deacons were

appointed to deal with this issue.

The Council of Jerusalem had to deal with complaints from Gentile converts that some

Apostles were telling them that they had to obey the Jewish Law while others said no.

Paul indicates in 1 Cor. 1:12 that there was division within the Church of Corinth over

who their teachers were (of Paul, of Cephas, of Apollos). Clement, a companion of Peter

and a Bishop/Presbyter in Rome had to write yet another letter to the Corinthian church

to deal with yet other divisions there about thirty-five years later.

I don’t think that it is far fetched to see Luther as somewhat of a conservative reformer

especially compared to Zwingli and Calvin. Those two had much in common but not

everything. If Calvin’s Reformed Christianity could be seen as a reformed version of

Lutheranism, Jacobus Arminius was a reformer who reformed the reformed movement

of Calvin. Arminius led a group called the Remonstrants against the Dutch Reformed

Calvinist Church. John Wesley was a great sympathizer of the Remonstrants. 10.2

The Success of the Catholic Reformation

It is true that the Catholic Reformation owes a lot of its success to the Jesuits, but it

also owes much of its success to the divisions that were breaking out within

Protestantism. This does not mean that Catholicism didn’t have its own issues.

Before discussing the impact of all the various movements of reform within Western

Christianity, it might be useful to survey the situation as the seventeenth century

began.

10.3

The Jansenists were essentially Catholic Calvinists. They were popular in regions of

Europe such as Southeastern France and the Netherlands where Calvinism had taken

root. The movement was largely quashed by the Jesuits but remnants of it remain

today in what is called The Old Catholic Church.

Western Christianity After the First Surge of Reformers

Once the series of reformations had ended, Protestantism showed its greatest success

in the largely Germanic countries of Northern Europe. Calvinist groups were present in

Switzerland, Scotland (John Knox) and portions of France and the Netherlands.

Calvinists also managed to overthrow the Anglican English Monarchy for a brief time and

replace it with a Calvinist protectorate under Oliver Cromwell. Before Cromwell’s

success, some English Calvinists fled Anglican repression and came to the New World

by way of Holland. They were known as the Puritans or the Pilgrims. 10.4

General Comments on the Reformation

There is no question that the Roman Catholic Church was in great need of reform long

before the time of Martin Luther. Church practices had become corrupted. Monasteries,

once designed to eschew the things of the world, became centers of wealth and luxury.

Celibacy, a central part of Catholic practice (not of dogma), became almost a joke

because the letter of the law was actually being faithfully upheld. Celibacy does not

mean abstinence from sex . Celibacy is a vow not to marry and Catholic priests did,

indeed, abstain from marriage. That left too many of them free to take advantage of

concubines. Of course, there was the ever-present sale of indulgences.

Martin Luther deserves the credit for the Reformation but not because he was the first

serious reformer. John Wycliffe and Jan Hus were serious reformers well before Luther.

Luther is credited for being the first successful reformer. I do not mean to diminish the

accomplishments of Luther. The map showed how the largely magisterial Luther

succeeded into linking his religious Reformation with politics. The Churches of Norway,

Sweden, Finland and Denmark were all official state Churches and all were Lutheran.

Yet, John Calvin, who himself was magisterial in principle having no problem with the

mixing of Church and State in the Cantons of Switzerland, was far less magisterial in

practice. The Presbyterian Church of Scotland is probably the most successful mix of

Church and State of all the churches that have adopted Calvinism. As mentioned,

England was ruled by a Calvinist leader, Oliver Cromwell, who ran what was called a

Protectorate that desired no King and no Bishop. But Calvinism became the foundation

of many of what were once smaller and later movements within Protestantism. Many

newer Protestant denominations as well as independent Protestant churches tend to

follow the beliefs of Calvin and, in that way, Calvin can be said to be at least as

important as Martin Luther. Lutherans and Anglicans are sometimes called Catholic Lite.10.5

The Problem of Causality

In the middle of the Golden Age of Islam, the Muslim philosopher al-Ghazali wrote the

Incoherence of Philosophers. Ironically, he used his quite formidable skills as a

philosopher to question the use of reason in general and of philosophy in particular to

try to better understand the nature of Allah. Al-Ghazali felt that what Aristotle believed

was effect flowing from cause was unproven and, worse, seemed to diminish the power

of the divine will of Allah.

I’ll use a pretty poor example to give an illustration. We know that the works of al-

Ghazali were made available to those in Western Christianity through translations by

such men as the Jewish scholar Maimonides. We know that William of Ockham

produced a theory very similar to al-Ghazali’s called Nominalism and we know that

Ockham’s work came after those translations. That, of course, does not in any way

prove that al-Ghazali influenced Ockham though it is my opinion that he did.

Most readers would understand that it is a fallacy to say that just because A happened

before B that B was caused by A. Al-Ghazali took that understanding to an extreme. He

seemed to be saying that God could have an effect without an obvious cause. OK, most

people could accept that. It is possible that a miracle could happen. Yet both al-Ghazali

and Ockham seemed to distrust any use of cause and effect in trying to understand

truths about God. Both Ockham and al-Ghazali believed that the use of reason, which

employed cause and effect as a primary tool, diminished the power of the Divine Will

which transcended all space, all time and all human reason. What makes this ironic is

that both men believed in the use of reason to prove the existence of God. They also

used that same reason, and used it very well, in their arguments against those who

opposed their ideas.10.6

The Reformers on Human Reason

In the middle of the Golden Age of Islam, the Muslim philosopher al-Ghazali wrote the Incoherence of Philosophers. Ironically, he used his quite formidable skills as a philosopher to question the use of reason in general and of philosophy in particular to try to better understand the nature of Allah. Al-Ghazali felt that what Aristotle believed was effect flowing from cause was unproven and, worse, seemed to diminish the power of the divine will of Allah. Ockham believed that Aristotelian categorizations such as species and phylum, order, genus and species were human inventions given human nomina or names (nomina is the plural of nomen).

Martin Luther had the following to say about human reason;

"But since the devil's bride, Reason, that pretty whore, comes in and thinks she's wise, ad thinks that

what she says, what she thinks, is from the Holy Spirit, who can help us, then? Not judges, not

doctors, no king or emperor, because [reason] is the Devil's greatest whore ." -- Martin Luther's Last

Sermon in Wittenberg. Second Sunday in Epiphany, 17 January 1546. Dr. Martin Luthers Werke:

Kritische Gesamtsusgabe . (Weimar: Herman Boehlaus Nachfolger, 1914),Band 51:126,Line 7ff.

The Reformation replaced the teleological social ethics of Roman Catholicism based on virtue with

formal social ethics based on rules and enforced by magistrates, because they regarded human

reason as too depraved to acquire virtue

Pagan philosophers set up reason as the sole guide of life, of wisdom and conduct; but Christian

philosophy demands of us that we surrender our reason to the Holy Spirit; Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life. Page 27

John Calvin had this to say about human reason;

In his book, The Unintended Reformation, Brad Gregory, holder of the Dorothy G.

Griffin Chair in the Department of History at the University of Notre Dame wrote this;

10.7

Ockham, Luther and Calvin

Both Luther and Calvin had a self-admitted distrust of human reason when it came to

matters concerning God. Both believed that Revelation alone (and Luther made it clear,

and Calvin agreed, that Revelation alone was to be found in Scripture alone) provided

human beings all the things that they needed to know about God. Oddly enough, it was

Calvin who believed that reason had a place in the affairs of a religious state that was

more distrustful of reason than Luther in matters theological. Calvin’s five points make

that clear. The acronym TULIP explains the five major beliefs of Calvinism.

Total Depravity of the Soul The free will of the human soul was so corrupted by Original

Sin that it was unable to cooperate with the Holy Spirit to perform any good works. All

good works derived completely from the action of the Holy Spirit.

Unconditional Election Any soul who is saved was selected by God to be saved before all

time. Any soul that was damned was damned by God before all time. Human morality has

nothing to do with salvation. Everything is of God lest humans should boast. This

principle is called Double Predestination. (Makes Tim, 2:3-4 interesting)

Limited Atonement Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was only meant for those who were

elected to be saved

Irresistible Grace Since the human will is too corrupted to play any role in salvation,

those who are elect cannot resist God’s grace

Perseverance of the Saints Once saved, always saved. Salvation, once gained, can

not be lost. (The situations of the Biblical Scholar Bart Ehrman and the once Calvinist

Christian radio personality Hank Hanegraaff make this point interesting.)

10.8

The Reformation of the Reformed Church (I)

There was a denomination of Protestantism named after Luther but there was never a

denomination named after Calvin. However, there were denominations clearly identified

as following Calvin’s principles; The Presbyterian Church, the Dutch Reformed Church

and many affiliated and non-affiliated Evangelical Churches. But there was a group that

rose up among the members of the Dutch Reformed Church that were not happy with

Calvinism. They were called the Remonstrants and they were led by Jacobus Arminius.

The Remonstrants preferred traditional Christian ideas of salvation. That branch of

Protestantism that agreed with the Remonstrants is called Arminian Protestantism,

named, of course, after its founder.

John Wesley, an Englishman of some renown both in his homeland and in the New

World, was interested in the Remonstrant movement. From 1649-1660, he had seen

how England ceased to be a Kingdom and was referred to as a Commonwealth. Oliver

Cromwell, a Calvinist, had led troops into Ireland in 1649 bring that island into the

Commonwealth. In 1653, a new Parliament (the Rump Parliament) appointed Oliver

Cromwell as Lord Protector. In that same year, King Charles I was executed. In 1657,

under Cromwell, Scotland was forced into the new Commonwealth by the Tender of

Union. Cromwell then died and was replaced by his son, Richard who proved an

ineffective leader. By 1660, the monarchy in England was restored under Charles II and

the Church of England was once again joined to the state.

John Wesley wanted very much to revitalize Christianity both in England and in British

territories in North America. Given England’s recent experience with Calvinism, Wesley

and his new Methodist Church were, like the Remonstrants, in favor of a more

traditional Christianity. The next slide contains the beliefs of the Remonstrants10.9

The Reformation of the Reformed Church (II)

Salvation or condemnation on judgment day will be conditioned by either the faith of the

believer, graciously enabled by God or the lack of faith of the one who does not believe.

(Election is conditioned. Negates the U of TULIP. It also denies the Double

Predestination of Calvin.)

Believers are able to resist sin through grace, and Christ will keep them from falling;

but one must look to scripture to determine if their sin is deadly or not (this negates to

some degree the P of TULIP). Most of the viewpoints of Arminians are not far different

from Catholic and Orthodox views. This viewpoint is uniquely Protestant.

The atoning suffering and death of Jesus is qualitatively adequate for all human beings

(atonement is not limited, negates the L of TULIP)

No human being gains saving grace by himself, nor solely by the energy of his free will.

Without the work of the Holy Spirit, no one is able to respond to God's call. (This is a

slight negation of the T of TULIP because it implies some human action in response to

God’s call. Every Nicene Christian believes that salvation begins with the prompting of

God and the life of the Holy Spirit)

The grace of God is the beginning, continuance, and accomplishment of any good,

nonetheless, humans may resist the Holy Spirit. (grace is resistible, this negates the I of

TULIP)

Over time, the term Arminian began to be used for Churches beyond those established

by the Remonstrants. Very often the Methodist Church, the Anglican Church and others

may be grouped under this label. Arminian beliefs are far more in line with traditional

Christian beliefs, but Arminian Churches are, and always have been, Protestant. 10.10

Matthew Henry: Calvinism and the Scriptures (I)

Salvation in Reformed (Calvinist) Christianity is elegant in its straightforwardness and

simplicity. Those who are saved have been destined for salvation by God before all

time. The same can be said for those who are damned. Those who are saved are

justified when they are born-again by committing themselves to Christ, not by Baptism

which is merely a response of obedience to Christ’s call to be baptized.

Matthew Henry was a Welsh-born Presbyterian (i.e. Calvinist) minister who did most

of his work in England in the late seventeenth century. His commentaries on

Scripture are well regarded in Calvinist thought. Below are selections from his

commentary on Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 9 verses 14 to 24. I chose them

because they are an eloquent and honest representation of Reformed Christian

thought

All the children of men being plunged alike into a state of sin and misery, equally under guilt and

wrath, God, in a way of sovereignty, picks out some from this fallen apostatized race, to be

vessels of grace and glory. He dispenses his gifts to whom he will, without giving us any reason:

according to his own good pleasure he pitches upon some to be monuments of mercy and grace,

presenting grace, effectual grace, while he passes by others. The expression is very emphatic,

and the repetition makes it more so: I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. It imports a

perfect absoluteness in God's will; he will do what he will, and giveth not account of any of his

matters, nor is it fit he should. As these great words, I am that I am (Ex. 3:14) do abundantly

express the absolute independency of his being,

Rev. Henry’s version of Calvinism sees no role at all for the human individual in working

out his salvation. God, like the Islamic Allah, is all will. God is the puppet master and

humans are his puppets.10.11

Matthew Henry: Calvinism and the Scriptures (II)

If that assessment seems too harsh, let’s see what else Rev. Henry has to say on the

issue.

The truth, as it is in Jesus, abases man as nothing, as less than nothing, and advances God as sovereign Lord of all. Who art thou that art so foolish, so feeble, so unable to judge the Divine counsels? It becomes us to submit to him, not to reply against him.

Islam underwent a Golden Age of learning until al-Ghazali wrote The Incoherence of

Philosphers questioning the role of human reason in matters of faith. Allah told the

faithful all they need to know in the Qur’an and it the job of the faithful is to submit to

God’s word, not to question it or ponder it. The word Islam means submission. Rev.

Henry goes on;

Would not men allow the infinite God the same sovereign right to manage the affairs ofthe creation, as the potter exercises in disposing of his clay, when of the same lump he makes one vessel to a more honorable, and one to a meaner use? God could do no wrong, however it might appear to men. God will make it appear that he hates sin. Also, he formed vessels filled with mercy. Sanctification is the preparation of the soul for glory. This is God's work. Sinners fit themselves for hell, but it is God who prepares saints for heaven; and all whom God designs for heaven hereafter, he fits for heaven now. God is bound no further than he has been pleased to bind himself by his own covenant and promise, which is his revealed will.

Rev. Henry uses the potter and his clay as his example rather than the puppet master

and his puppets but the point is clearly the same in both comparisons. 10.12

Matthew Henry: Calvinism and the Scriptures (III)

At the heart of what al-Ghazali. Ockham and Calvin seem to concern themselves with

is the supremacy of the will of God. They all believed, each in his own way, that

salvation was the work of God alone lest man should boast.

Yet the response to that concern, oddly enough, can be found in a statement by

Reverend Henry.

God is bound no further than he has been pleased to bind himself by his own covenant

and promise, which is his revealed will.

God can bind Himself, specifically, His own will to respect his two great gifts to

humanknd; an intellect capable of knowing love and a will sufficiently free to say yes

or no to love. Isn’t this what being made in the image and likeness of God s all about?

Didn’t God intend us to experience the abiding happiness of sharing in his life of

unselfish love. Did he not give that same opportunity to the first humans? Did he not

send his only begotten son to re-open the gates that the first humans closed behind

them out of love and for love. Wouldn’t giving the human will freedom to cooperate

with the Holy Spirit of God’s love really be God’s will revealed at Eden, at Sinai at the

Sermon on the Mount ad finally realized at Calvary?

Is it possible that the union of church and state that started in the fourth century has

caused us to look at salvation as a matter ot the courtroom and law rather than as a

matter of love. In the context f love, I can really agree with the statement of Rev. Henry

as shown and explained in this slide.

More Problems With Reason

As mentioned, Protestantism had real concerns with human reason trying to place

God into a box, diminishing the power of his will. There is the other side of this though

that has its own set of problems. We have the famous saying by the TV minister

Kenneth Copeland that God is about 6 feet, two inches tall. Rev. Copeland claims that

he comes to that from the revelation of scripture alone.

I like to cite sources and here is my source for that statement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPUCL5qDmkM

More Problems With Reason

If you listen to the Rev. Copeland, you will note another danger of reading only the

words of Scripture, the danger of misquoting. In his message, Rev. Copeland says the

following “is uncanny that he (God) is very much like you and me.” Scripture tells us

that we were made in the image of God, not the other way around.

Yes God did create human beings in his image and likeness. We have an intellect, that

is, our reason, capable of understanding revelation and probing ever more deeply into

its meaning, and a will. Our will is that part of us that is capable of making a choice. I

think many Christians would agree that faith is that choice put into action. Calvinists,

especially, would disagree that the human will played any role in that choice. They

would say that it was all of the Holy Spirit, lest mankind should boast. Arminian

Protestantism, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy would all agree that our

response was due to the prompting of the Holy Spirit but also that our will played its

role by cooperating with the Spirit.

10.15

Reason and Faith In Balance

Faith and Reason were in balance when the Good News was first preached to the

Jewish world. Jesus first preached his message to people of faith who were familiar

with their Scriptures. Jesus and the first generation of his followers used reason to

show how Jesus was the Messiah, not Messiah in the style of the Judges, or of David

and Solomon but the Messiah of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah and the Paschal Lamb

of the Torah.

Most Christians today would agree that God was using the Hebrew Scriptures to

gradually prepare his Chosen People for Jesus. Is it possible, however, that God was

also preparing the Gentile world for Jesus by what was going on in Athens. Most of the

Gentile nations had a pantheon of Gods headed up by a father figure, be he Zeus or

Jupiter or Thor or Odin. Yet Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle had paved

the way to a belief in a single God by use of their reason. When Jesus was preached to

a world that did not have the faith of the Scriptural context that the Jewish people, the

Apostles and disciples had to preach a different way to explain Jesus in a context that

they would understand. Paul, who had said that he became all things to all people for

the sake of the gospel (1 Cor. 9:22-23), did just that in Athens when he saw the altar to

“the unknown God” (Acts 17:22-31) and used it as a basis for preaching Jesus. This is

another example of faith and reason working together.

The Council of Nicaea also used faith and reason to explain the relationship of the Son

to the Father in response to Arius. Arius believed that there was a time when the Son

was not, so the Son was beholding to (and therefore less than) the Father. Nicaea

understood that God transcended space and time. For God there is no before and

after. That is why Nicaea said that the Son was “eternally begotten by the Father”. This

is a very reasoned explanation of an article of faith. 10.16

Faith and Reason Becomes Faith or Reason

Did al-Ghazali’s mistrust of reason really move Islam away from the great discoveries

of its Golden Age which ultimately were passed on the Western World during the High

Middle Ages and proved to be fodder for the Renaissance a century or so later. It’s

almost ironic that, in this case, cause and effect cannot be proven but the linkage

between the two remains highly probable and highly likely.

In the same way, it’s hard to say that Ockham’s Nominalism caused the Reformation.

We do know for certain that Nominalism was a foundational part of the Protestant

Reformation because the Reformers themselves said so. There were two more obvious

candidates for the cause of the Reformation; the politics and corruption of the Roman

Catholic Church and the invention of the printing press. But the splintering of

Christianity that came soon after the Reformation, both within Protestantism itself and

between Protestantism and Catholicism both Eastern and Western was not inevitable

and remains a blot on Christianity to this day.

While Faith and Reason were tightly tied together at the University level during the

High Middle Ages, Theology (faith and matters religious) became set apart at the

University level during Ockham’s time. The Reformers’ distrust of the use of reason in

matters of faith fostered a growing skepticism about human reason where faith

touched science. On reason that the Roman Catholic church hierarchy was reluctant to

accept Galileo’s theories because they were afraid that it might provoke a negative

Protestant response. Protestants put great faith in the Bible and took Joshua 10:12-14

very seriously. In response, scholars of the physical sciences at the University level, in

their turn, began to question the usefulness of religious studies in Universities. The

gap between men of faith and men of reason was starting to grow exponentially. That

gap would widen even more during the Enlightenment. 10.17

In Defense of Faith and Love

Both Judaism and Christianity were meant to produce a society where faith and reason

were joined to bring an example of selfless love, the agape that Jesus taught, to the

nations of the world. This is preached in the Gospels and in the Epistles of Jesus’

disciples. Both the gospel of John and the letters of John were full of that message

including the famous “God so loved the world” of John 3:16. Did anyone ever write

more eloquently of love than Paul did in Chapter 13 of First Corinthians. Consider also

these words of the Christian philosopher, Aristides of Athens, as he described

Christian morality to the Roman Emperor Hadrian in 125 CE.

They honor father and mother, and show kindness to those near to them; and whenever they are

judges, they judge uprightly … Falsehood is not found among them; …and whatsoever they would

not that others should do unto them, they do not to others;… from widows they do not turn away

their esteem; …They go their way in all modesty and cheerfulness. and they love one another,

Consider also these simple and honest words of the Christian Tertullian in 200 CE as

he overheard one pagan speaking to another about Christians.

See these Christians how they love one another.

Now compare these words with the words of Rev. Matthew Henry. Jesus preached at the

Sermon of the Mount that Judaism had forgotten the selfless love that formed the

foundation of the Torah and focused too much on external obedience to a growing

number of precepts. The Union of Church and State by Theodosius, the Rise of Islam

and its skepticism of reason that was passed on to the West by Ockham’s Nominalism

and the division of Christianity the was the Reformation combined to take Christians

back to where Jesus and Paul warned them about. In both Roman Catholic and

Protestant Christianity, the internal transformation from selfish to selfless love had

taken a back seat once again to external observation of a growing list of laws. 10.18

Summary Statement

If men of faith during the time leading up to and including the Reformation had shown

increasing skepticism about the use of reason, an age was coming where men of

reason were about to get their revenge. A divided Christianity was moving on from the

Renaissance and the Reformation and into the Enlightenment where men of reason

would demonstrate their own skepticism, especially when it was skepticism about

those very men of faith the Christian faith, both Catholic and Protestant.

10.19