Protestant scholasticism: some methodological considerations in the study of its development

Abstract

This present issue of the Dutch Review of Church History brings together papers by European and American church historians presented during a colloquium at Utrecht University on June 6, 2001. All of them have in common that, in one way or another, they have contributed to the development of new directions in the research of scholasticism, in its medieval, Reformation and post-Reformation forms. One of the reasons for organising this colloquium was to present the book Reformation and Scholasticism edited by Eef Dekker and the present writer.1 A second, more important, reason was to introduce the results of the new research on scholasticism — which some call 'the new school approach' — to a broader public. Let me explain this. For the adherents of this approach, it has always been a curious phenomenon that the post- Reformation period of Protestant theology is one of the least known in the history of Christian thought and, at the same time a period in the interpretation of which there are many hidden agendas. Post-Reformation theology is usually presented as a highly obscure period characterised by the return of medieval dialectic and Aristotelian logic to the Protestant classroom and, therefore a distortion or perversion of Reformation theology. For too long, this theology has been the victim of the attempt of modern theologians to claim the Reformers as forerunners of modernity. Time and again the theology of the post-Reformation period is read exclusively in the light of modern issues and not on its own terms and in the light of its own concerns and context.