Reassessing the relation of reformation and orthodoxy

Abstract

"The study of late sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Reformed theology in relation to its antecedents has emerged as a fairly significant focus of scholarly investigation in the last several decades and whereas, prior to this resurgence of interest, there was basically one way of looking at the material, namely the approach conveniently summarized under the rubric “Calvin against the Calvinists,” there is now an alternative approach (or more precisely, there are various alternative approaches) that dispute the radical discontinuity claimed by the “Calvin against the Calvinists” school of thought. My purpose here is not to reexamine the entire debate but to offer a clarification of my own approach to the subject, given the level of misunderstanding present in several recent essays, both pro and con. Myk Habets’ review in the previous issue of American Theological Inquiry (Vol. 3, No. 2) of the reissue of a rather old book of mine provides occasion for that clarification"