The Reformation of the 16th Century: An All European Concern

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The Reformation of the 16th CenturyAn All
European Concern
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vb4TeJJmQJqU
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Grace
Faith
Christ
Did Medieval Christians Hold to These?
Yes!! Of Course They Did! So What was the
Reformation About?
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The Reformation of the 16th Century

• Reformation Age terminology
• catholic
• means universal
• encompasses Trinitarian-Christological orthodoxy
  
• thus all classic Christians (Protestant,Roman
  Catholic, Eastern Orthodox)are catholic in
  THIS sense of theword think of the affirmations
  of theNicene Creed
• evangelical
• the original designation of the Reformation
  movement
• focuses on the positive dimension of the
  movement
• the idea of proclaiming the Gospel (good news
  from Greek euangelion) of Christ
• the movement in all its tributaries saw the
  needfor reform in the Church especially
  concerningthe creedal article the forgiveness
  of sins
• protestant
• originally a political designation
• 1529 overture of Evangelical Princes in the Holy
  Roman Empire protesting the harsh measures of
  Emperor Charles V against their territories and
  hence Protest - ant

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• One needs to keep in mind what was going on
  contextually
• dawn of the 16th century
• time of great socio-cultural changes in Europe
  but also
• ecclesiastically, everyone concerned with the
  life of the Church thought reform of some kind
  was needed NOW
• remember Lateran V called by Julius II (who did
  not really want to call it but felt pressure)
  which said that reform was necessary in head and
  members
• the question by 16th Century Christians of the
  church catholic in the Latin West
• does the church catholic need only r moral
  reform (Roman position)
• OR is R doctrinal Reform necessary in the
  church catholic as well as r moral reform in
  order to clarify the true Gospel (Evangelical
  position)

Pope Julius IIFountain Penby Montblanc
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• TWO main streams arose out of the concern by 16th
  century European Christians that vital reform was
  needed for the Medieval Latin Western CHURCH
  CATHOLIC the ROMAN (yes, Rome had a
  reformation) and the EVANGELICAL (which itself
  has FOUR tributaries)
• Roman (Council Trent small r reform)
• Evangelical
• Lutheran
• Reformed (Calvinism)
• Anglican an intriguing story tied of course to
  political events in England YET NOTE that the
  original Reformation Anglicanism seen in
  Archbishop Cranmers Book of Common Prayer and 42
  Theological Articles (which would become The 39
  Articles under Elizabeth) was tied to the
  Reformed in a number of ways but with a classic
  episcopal polity and a historically traditional
  liturgical structure
• Anabaptist the most radical in seeking change
  YET the Evangelical Anabaptists did uphold the
  Trinitarian and Christological beliefs of the
  church catholic and the solae of the Reformation

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• Christian Salvation andthe Medieval World
• Previous calls for Reform in a R fashion come
  close in some ways to the Reformation solae but
  the solae dont truly have full voice until the
  16th century with Luther and the other Reformers
• PRE-REFORMERS? yes in a way ex. WALDES (13th
  c.), JOHN WYCLIFFE (14th c.), GREGORY OF RIMINI
  (14th c.), TH. BRADWARDINE (14th c.), and JOHN
  HUS (15th c.)
• a number of the reform movements coming from
  these men (esp. Waldes, Wycliffe, and Hus)
  continued into the Reformation era andthe
  people in them eventually merged with established
  evangelical groups

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• Christian Salvation and the Medieval World
• Augustines mixed legacy
• iustificare a status and a process Augustine
  did not work with the Greek text so he did not
  see the contextual nuances of the Greek word for
  justification diakasûné
• YET it is crucial to note that in Augustine,
  while justification and Christian growth are
  somewhat twinned, there is the VERY STRONG
  emphasis that ALL IS OF GRACE!!!
• REMEMBER WITH THIS No express conciliar or
  creedal statement on justification prior to the
  16th Century

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• Christian Salvation and the Medieval World
• Justification before God as seen in theHigh
  (1000-1300) and Late (1300-1500) Middle Ages
• the dominant soteriological ( doctrine of
  salvation) view was the infused righteousness
  model
• some like Thomas Aquinas more oriented toward
  sovereign grace -- some like Gabriel Biel more
  oriented toward human free will
• the donum superadditum lostin the Fall leads to
  need for new righteousness our deprivation
  seen as very strong by Thomas weaker for Biel
• from Aristotle (whom almost all the medieval
  scholastic doctors used) like is known by like
  one moves toward the goal (telos) of the hoped
  for like by habitus (new habitat leading to new
  habits)

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• Christian Salvation and the Medieval World
• Justification before God as seen in the "High"
  (1000-1300) and "Late" (1300-1500) Middle Ages
• the dominant soteriological viewwas the infused
  righteousness model
• sacramental system as means ofinfusing grace
  into a person initial sacrament of baptism
  starts the habitus
• a strong sacerdotal soteriology sacraments
  mediated through the priesthood in the church
  from womb to tomb (Lateran IV in 1215 announces
  the Seven)
• the operating sacramental grace leads to
  cooperating grace seen in works of love where
  one is becoming like God habitually and thus is
  brought to full rightness before God in a
  processive way

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• Christian Salvation and the Medieval World
• Justification before God as seen in the "High"
  (1000-1300) and "Late" (1300-1500) Middle Ages
• the dominant soteriological viewwas the "infused
  righteousness" model
• Late Middle Ages tilts strongly in the Biel
  direction (focus on cooperating grace and works
  operating grace still there but in a do what
  lies within you orientation) Luthers direct
  historical context
• God will not deny grace to the one who does
  what lies within himself .
• Christ the Judgew/sword and lily
• Koldes Mirror
• the viator status

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• Ladder of Virtues Heaven               
   
• angels
• charity
• hermit
• monk in a cloister
• mendicant monk
• nun
• priest
• laywoman
• soldier
• demons
• Earth
• Whoever falls can start climbing againthanks to
  the remedy of penance

hope
faith
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• Martin Luther (1483-1546)
• Luther's "pilgrimage" to his "Reformation
  Breakthrough"
• early years Eisleben, Magdeburg/Eisenach,Erfurt
  (BA MA in shortest time possible)
• post-grad Erfurt Law then the thunderstorm
• Erfurt still 1505 (monastery) and1507
  (ordination)
• Augustinians recognize his abilities1510
  (Rome), 1511 (school in Wittenberg), 1512
  (doctorate and professorship)
• in his teaching, gradual movement away from
  Medieval four-fold method of exegesis to a more
  textual-grammatical-historical-redemptive based
  method
• seen in his lecture courses of the 1510s
• 1513-1514 (Psalms)
• 1515 (Romans)
• 1516 (Galatians)
• 1517 (Hebrews)
• 1518 (Psalms again)

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• Martin Luther (1483-1546)
• Luther's "pilgrimage" to his "Reformation
  Breakthrough"
• his struggles and his breakthrough (1510s)
• anfechtüng (seen all the way back to early 1500s)
• overwhelming anxiety, dread in response to
  reflection on the righteousness and holiness of
  God (iustitia Dei) the Medieval teaching
  whenever one encounters the idea of the
  righteousness of God, one must see God as
  righteous judge who by the very right of His
  holiness condemns all unrighteousness teaching
  terrified Luther
• YET one needs to be careful here
• ALTHOUGH Luther truly faced these struggles and
  anxieties, he also NEVERTHELESS lived a very
  normal healthy life at the monastery in the midst
  of them his fellow Augustinians fully
  recognized this and in fact kept giving him
  preferments
• the importance of Johann von Staupitz instead
  of focusing on contrition and what satisfactions
  are necessary in confession, focus on Christ and
  His cross

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• Martin Luther (1483-1546)
• Luther's "pilgrimage" to his "Reformation
  Breakthrough"
• his struggles and his breakthrough (1510s)
• his development in the early professorial years
  of the 1510s (AND YES HE WAS BECOMING FAMOUS EVEN
  BEFORE THE 95 THESES) a growing concern and
  awareness that something was wrong with the
  infusion model especially as had been taught
  him (but also overall) -- so
• step 1 a look to the mystics
• step 2 a theology of humility
• step 3 finally, a new view of
  justification/righteousness (diakasûné) comes in
  -- a new appreciation about what is meant by
  Gods righteousness/ justice (iustitia Dei) and a
  corresponding criticism of the teaching on
  justification and faith from the scholastic
  doctors of the Medieval centuries especially in
  what he deemed an overuse of Aristotelian
  categories (he was not being anti-reason here
  but thought that the tail had come to wag the
  dog)

step i moved him away from cooperation to
contemplation on Gods love and our response of a
total burning and passionate love but he knew in
his sin he couldnt love God like that step ii
brought a change from looking at the xn life in
terms of virtues gained on a balance sheet to
looking at it in terms of need for grace and
living under grace in X in humble morality BUT
still within a strongly infused way of speaking
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• Martin Luther (1483-1546)
• Luther's "pilgrimage" to his "Reformation
  Breakthrough"
• his struggles and his breakthrough
• Luther viewed his quest to see the grace of God
  as not merely personal but catholic
• it was consonant with his own calling as a
  "Doctor of Sacred Scripture
• he was continuing the conversation of 1500 years
  a conversation that was always to be obedient
  to Gods Word in the Bible
• STILL, it was also personal
• Luther had tried the three primary ways of piety
  that teachers contended could lead one to peace
  with God and found them all wanting
• those ways monasticism, mysticism, moralism of
  a Renaissance kind
• indeed after trying them all
• he found only an angry vindictive God who
  punished the sinner b/c of the sinners
  unrighteousness (God had the right to do this)
• BUT all this made it virtually impossible for the
  sinner to be right with the one true God and find
  peace in Him because the demand to be like God
  was so enormous

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• Martin Luther (1483-1546)
• The Reformation Breakthrough
• the 1545 autobiographical fragment
• turmerlebnis (tower experience) sometime between
  1513 and 1518
• note the concern not only with Scripture but
  with the Fathers (in particular Augustine
  remember as said before that even with the mixed
  legacy, Augustine always emphasized grace)
• faith is no longer seen as a virtue to be
  formed over time but rather as open handed
  trust in a totally free gift of grace found
  solely in Jesus Christ
• iustitia Dei (Romans 117) testament rather
  than pact meaning of diakasûné in Romans as
  declared given a gift
• what of good works yes we do them but because
  therefore instead of if then

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• Martin Luther (1483-1546)
• The Reformation Breakthrough
• rocking the late 1510s
• three disputations
• a true scholastic life should see less Aristotle,
  more Bible as well as Augustine and other Church
  Fathers
• the true treasure of the church
• a true theology theology of the cross
• three debates well one debate sandwiched
  between two no debate, just recant
• the material principle
• sola gratia, sola fide, solo Christo
• "passive" or alien righteousness as a KEY idea
  our active or proper righteousness only
  follows and never contributes to justification
  before God
• imputation (declared counted as
  forgiveness AND clothing Gen 156)

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• Martin Luther (1483-1546)
• the Reformation of the 1520s
• the Three Reformation Treatises of 1520
• the increasing emphasis on sola scriptura (the
  formal principle)
• sola NOT nuda
• already with Eck at the Leipzig debate of 1519
• the stand before the Emperor at Worms
• translating in the castle of the birds
• the Word did it all
• the continuing emphasis on grace
• debating Erasmus
• a testament
• The Smaller Catechism
• Augsburg 1530 letting Master Philip have the
  first standardized Confessional word

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So Medieval/Tridentine View
Christs Blessed Merits (and
indeed to some degree the
merits from the treasury of the
saints) brings
Operating Grace by the Spirit through
the Church
via the Sacraments to
the faithful recipient
(one who accepts
church teachings) who thenvia cooperating
grace works with this infused substance/operation
al grace which over timebrings full
justification justification and sanctification
twinnedC GO (Sacr) F CGW over time
J (final full) Final Faith
Formed by Charity/Love Infused and Cooperated
when this happens one is now in a fully just
state because one is in a creaturely way indeed
righteous as one stands now before the righteous
God like is known by like.
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Reformation View Christ has completely
Merited/Accomplished Salvationthrough His Once
For All Death and Resurrection through the Word
preached and the (2 Dominical)sacraments (Gods
visible words) rightly administered the Holy
Spirit brings Christ and His benefits to a person
SO Grace (the unmerited favor of God) ALONE
received through Faith (trust not in my
faith BUT in Gods promises) ALONE because of
and resting on Christ (WHO He is and What He
has done as SOLE MEDIATOR) ALONE brings
Justification (right standing before God
through the imputed merits of Christ ALONE and
thus both forgiveness and clothing in the
righteousness of Christ)which leads to Good
Works done in GRATITUDE (sanctification)
(because of NOT in order to)Heidelberg Catechism
of 1563 Guilt ?Grace ? Gratitude
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Reformation View continuedG(A) F(A) b/c C(A)
J GW
(Gratitude)Faith totally rests on Christs
work (justified through faith NOT by or
because of faith propter Christum) also if
the medieval scholastic form language used (and
generally it is not but it can be) TRUST not love
would be the form of faith thus faith would
be formed at the beginning of the Christian
pilgrimage b/c of Christ and our growth in love
would be the RESULT of true faith in Christ.