….in favor of Reformed.

Sorry to sound provocative, except that I’m not sorry because being provocative provokes reading.

I talked to Jon Barlow today and found that the did not know about Cynthia Nielsen’s post on Richard Muller when he wrote his own. So I thought it might be worth reporting that two Reformed doctoral students are both blogging about him independently of one another.

I have a couple of Muller’s first two book on Reformed Scholasticism, one of which looks like it was typed off an old dot-matrix printer. I suppose I will read them some day. Earlier, I read Christ and the Decree, which I remember liking but don’t remember anything else beyond the title.

I do want to say something about what sounds plausible in various proposals of how Reformed theology has developed. Listening to Jeff’s lecture on Beza and baptism, it seems pretty clear that Beza developed from Calvin in some ways that might have some affinity to some of the Calvin v. Calvinists revisionism.  But no matter how influential a teacher Beza was, he wasn’t the only one transmitting “calvinism.”  John Knox was actually in Geneva and became a means of further transmission to Scotland.  I’m sure there were others as well.  One ought to expect diversity within basic Reformed commitments.  It shouldn’t surprise anyone that there is variety in the Reformed heritage.

I remember distinctly, many years ago, asking Peter Leithart why the Wesminster Confession and Catechisms were so good on the sacraments.  I’m pretty sure I had more of the Calvin v. the Calvinists myth clouding my expectations back then.  I simply could not understand how “Puritans” could produce a document with such a robust affirmation of sacramental instrumentality.