I may be
> less set in theological
> terms than yourself. I think I'm quietly questioning
> the rationale of post
> reformers - intellectual feasts - because I feel an
> affinity with a more
> medieval mind set where there was a greater unity and less
> schism between
> the Christian and pagan - though I don't feel pagan -
> and that edges me
> perhaps to give greater consideration to both the orthodox
> and catholic than
> I might have previously and obviously I see the work spread
> through it all,
> the pagan too. Anyway, I'll circle round a while yet
> mulling on these
> things. I'm fascinated by the idea Homer and the
> classics had a significant
> influence on Calvin. I never came across it in his
> writings. Homer may be my
> next big read.
[This is long, but I've tried to throw down some distilled things on this subject. It's not just me talking...]
Yes, Calvin is accused by modern day Calvinists of being too medieval himself. Too mystical. Bernard of Clairviox (sp?) is referenced as much as Augustine in his Institutes.
What you see in the post reformers is scholasticism (categorization, ultra-fine definition, etc). It takes over after the organic school emerges. The Medieval time had its scholasticism too. (How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?)
Zwingli and Calvin were the two primary guys (Luther was a force - same age as Zwingli - but a different animal, which is why Lutheranism is what it is, and Calvinism founded empires.)
Calvin wrote a book on Seneca, was a humanist scholar, etc., etc., then experienced regeneration by the Word and Spirit and converted and set foot out of Paris not knowing where he was going. Zwingli died young in battle (Zwingli is associated with reform in Zurich as Calvin is associated with Geneva.)
You have to read all these guys adeptly. They all operated in the midst of a furious and intensely violent war. Calvin was forced to be a political leader including in his writings. For instance, in the Institutes you'll read him giving very Romanist-like eXoteric explanations of the sacrament of baptism. Then in his less public Sermons on Ephesians he - like Zwingli - said baptism is a ritual for stupid people. People who need the visual. Also, when Calvin came into direct contact with a Romanist like Cardinal Sadoleto he sounds like an anabaptist. For example Calvin says to Sadoleto that one doesn't need a church building and physical trappings and all that. That is the true Calvin. But as a political leader and leader in the war of the times he had a responsibility to be more accommodating to the theology of the day because he could get an entire population killed. (This is why Servetus was put to death as well. If Geneva hadn't it would have put the entire city at risk of invasion and death. You have to see everything regarding the Reformation and the reformers in the context of the times.)
But the chain of TULIP is the mystical chain the Bible teaches. When seen and accepted it effects the internal reorientation from being man-centered to being God-centered. It goes against Old Man logic and demands. It is not only new thinking but it is accepting that there is something higher than you. Five solas as well.
You don't have to think in terms of going 'Catholic' or 'Orthodox' just 'apostolic.' The school is there in all those periods of history. The reformers went 'back to the source' as did the Renaissance. What you will see in Orthodox writings that you like you'll find was actually written by a Celtic Christian from the 4th century, for instance. Arminian Baptists accuse Calvin of being Romanist because the true school can be found in medieval sources here and there which Calvin learned from and cites.
The document that is two letters, one by Cardinal Sadoleto and one by John Calvin, is must reading to know Calvin. Calvin had just been kicked out of Geneva by the political leaders and Sadoleto saw an opportunity to turn the populace of Geneva back to Rome, so he wrote a public letter to Geneva. Calvin, in exile, but feeling a responsibility to defend Geneva, wrote a public letter that answered Sadoleto point-by-point, but it is unique in that it is Calvin the warriour going up against anti-Christ. It's published with titles like 'A Reformation Debate, Calvin vs. Sadoleto' and similar titles.
Main thing is find the true school of it all. Calvin has power because he represented the true school in the most foundational and literary and on-the-mark way. (This is why his writings immediately were translated by the dynamic, poetic, action-oriented Elizabethan culture that knew real school.) He brought his Renaissance background to elucidating it. You just have to see where people go off-the-mark and not let that paint everything. It's usually in ecclesiology and sacramentology where humanity gets 'inside' and brings the usual 'group' crap and brings things down to a worldly - and worse - level. But there is a true ecclesiology (cosmos of school, C Influence, teachers, the Word of God) and a true sacramentology (the two conscious shocks, for instance, or prayer and fasting, etc.).
I've said it before but the three main branches of the faith - Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant, correlate to the three basic centers of Man #1,2,3. But it is the intellectual part, the Protestant, that keeps you honest and gives you understanding. The emotional part, the Roman Catholic, is where the devil sets up camp. That is not to say it - the emotional part - is all bad, but just that the devil plants himself 'there' because that is where - intellectual division of the emotional center - magnetic center is developed, i.e. the gateway to real understanding. The Orthodox is best summed up by practice, and the Work is mostly seen in the Orthodox division. But you can't avoid the Protestant - true Protestant - intellectual part. Once you have it you are a different animal.
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