{"id":32894,"date":"2014-05-14T06:00:33","date_gmt":"2014-05-14T13:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=32894"},"modified":"2015-02-03T23:42:09","modified_gmt":"2015-02-04T06:42:09","slug":"the-reformers-and-the-fathers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2014\/05\/14\/the-reformers-and-the-fathers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Reformers and the Fathers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several months ago\u00a0I had a lively online exchange with a Protestant from the Reformed tradition. The conversation got really interesting and I had intended to write\u00a0a series of posts based on our discussion. Alas, before I could do this, his blog<\/a> was suddenly taken down, meaning that I was unable to use the record of our exchange to save me some work in constructing my posts (yes, I’m rather lazy).<\/p>\n

To make sure the same thing doesn’t happen again, today I wanted to do a short post which is effectively a slightly expanded reproduction of my comments on an article<\/a> over at Reformed Reader<\/a>, in response to\u00a0the blog\u00a0author’s claims concerning Christian history and the Early Church Fathers.<\/p>\n

\"john-calvin\"<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Historical Claims<\/h2>\n

During the discussion in the article<\/a>‘s\u00a0comments, a\u00a0user who identified himself as a Protestant made the following observation:<\/p>\n

If we are going to argue that the church has always existed, our Orthodox and Catholic friends will nod in agreement. But they will point to themselves as being the church that always existed. That is a concrete, historically verifiable claim.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

To this comment, the blog’s author was extremely dismissive of this,\u00a0responding\u00a0“That their claim is verifiable is laughable”<\/em><\/span>. If I were him, I\u00a0wouldn\u2019t be so quick to dismiss it. After all, there is an impressive list<\/a> of former Protestant ministers and scholars down through the years who converted to Catholicism after assessing these historical claims (Newman, Hahn, Kreeft, Beckwith, …). The Coming Home Network<\/a> is a Catholic apostolate committed to telling the stories of these converts. Frankly, \u201cDiscovering The Early Church Fathers\u201d<\/em> is so much a standard part of every Catholic conversion story, it\u2019s practically clich\u00e9\u2026<\/p>\n

Cal & Gus, Best Friends Forever?<\/h2>\n

When talking about the Reformers, here’s what Reformed Reader had this to say:<\/p>\n

The Reformers clearly understood the fact that there was a church before the Reformation (check out the citations in Calvin from the early church fathers and medieval theologians<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

On this point, he is correct. I think Calvin quotes Augustine over four hundred\u00a0times in his\u00a0Institutes<\/a>. Calvin\u00a0even boldly claimed:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cAugustine is so wholly with me, that if I wished to write a confession of my faith, I could do so with all fullness and satisfaction to myself out of his writings\u201d <\/span><\/em>
\n– John Calvin, A Treatise on the Eternal Predestination of God<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The problem is\u2026Clavin cherry-picked. There is a long, long, looooong list of issues were Calvin was certainly\u00a0not<\/strong>\u00a0in agreement with Augustine: Sacraments, Papacy, Purgatory, Relics, Saints, \u2026 \u00a0If you’d like to see a full collection issues, Dave Armstrong has compiled a pretty compelling list<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, Calvin had other problems. Not only did he\u00a0cherry-pick within an individual Father\u2019s works, he also cherry-picked between Fathers. For example, Calvin completely rejected Ignatius of Antioch<\/a> because of\u00a0\u201cthe absurdities\u201d<\/em><\/span>\u00a0he found in his letters.<\/p>\n

In fact, it gets even worse in that! Not only did the Reformers find many things within the Fathers which they could not affirm, the Reformers also believed things which found no support\u00a0among\u00a0the Fathers. For example, Alister McGrath, a Calvinist scholar and biographer, concedes that Calvin\u2019s views on forensic justification and imputed righteousness were \u201ctheological novum\u201d<\/span><\/em>, not found in antiquity.<\/p>\n

So, back to the original point, yes, some of the Reformers did go to great lengths to demonstrate that their version of the Faith was in accordance with that of the Early Church. However, I\u2019d assert that they could only do that with some\u00a0very<\/strong>\u00a0careful quotation selection.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also worth noting that, although\u00a0some<\/em>\u00a0of the Reformers saw continuity with the Early Church as important, not all did.\u00a0In fact, it\u2019s probably worth pointing out that many Protestant leaders urge people\u00a0not to read the Fathers<\/a> because they\u2019re so Catholic\/Eastern Orthodox!<\/strong><\/p>\n