Thread by @SytsmaDavid

🧵 Some treat Aquinas as if he’s the only important scholastic theologian for Protestants, or think of Protestant scholasticism as a kind of neo-Thomism. But historically Protestants read, and even adopted doctrines from, a variety of medieval and early modern scholastics. /1

After Luis de Molina SJ introduced the concept of God’s “middle knowledge” (scientia media), Protestants took various positions for and against. 17th c. Arminians, following the early appropriation by Arminius, adopted this Molinist doctrine. /2
doi.org/10.1163/978900…

Many 17th c. Lutherans, notably Johann Gerhard, also accepted the concept of middle knowledge and cited Jesuits like Martin Becanus in support. /3

https://twitter.com/SytsmaDavid/status/1491030551288901634

But even among the 17th c. Lutherans there appears to have been diversity, with Johannes Andreas Quenstedt at the end of the century discussing those both for and against middle knowledge. /4

https://twitter.com/SytsmaDavid/status/1491078848720797698

Reformed theologians took sides with Dominicans against Jesuit and Arminian Molinism, and as a result we find a number of Reformed theologians adopting Domingo Báñez’s doctrine of “physical premotion” as a variation on Thomism. /5 academia.edu/38346188/Beyon…

It is also surprising, given general Reformed suspicion of Jesuits, that they read and even praised various Jesuits. John Davenant, a famous 17th c. English theologian, often cited the “learned Jesuite,” Diego Ruiz de Montoya (1562-1632), among others. /6 doi.org/10.1163/978900…

Prof. Aza Goudriaan notes many instances where Gisbertus Voetius praised the work of Francisco Suárez. Of Suárez’s Disputationes metaphysicae (1597), Voetius wrote: “where he is good, nobody is better” (p. 289). /7 doi.org/10.1163/978900…

The Puritan Richard Baxter read and drew from a wide variety of scholastics. Carl Trueman called Baxter’s knowledge of the medieval scholastics “remarkable, possibly second to no other Protestant in the seventeenth century.” /8

https://twitter.com/SytsmaDavid/status/1489595580640677888

“I have higher thoughts of the School-men, than Erasmus...I much value the method & sobriety of Aquinas, the subtility of Scotus & Ockam,the plainnness of Durandus,the solidity of Ariminensis,the profundity of Bradwardine,the excellent acuteness of their followers...” — Baxter /9

Baxter also openly chose sides with Scotus against Aquinas on important points relating to intellect and will. Although the precise place of Scotism in Reformed theology is debated by historians, there are certainly many examples of Scotist interest. /10

https://twitter.com/SytsmaDavid/status/1471438957938237444

Finally, for a sense of the variety of scholastics being read by 17th century Protestants, take a look at Richard Baxter’s advice for reading “schoolmen” in the “Poor Students Library” at the end of Part 3 of Christian Directory (1673). /11

Addendum: I forgot to add the image for Goudriaan’s discussion of Voetius (Beyond Dordt and De Auxiliis, p. 289).