Reformation Themes

Comment

Spring 2021

Created: 2021-01-06 Wed 10:16

Key themes of Reformation

  • Faith alone
  • Grace alone
  • Scripture alone
  • Solus Christus or Solo Christo ("Christ alone" or "through Christ alone")
  • Soli Deo gloria ("glory to God alone")
  • Law vs. Gospel

Sola Fides

Justification by faith alone

  • foundational belief of Reformation
  • "works" are a fruit of faith
  • growing out of Luther's experience
  • the established church (Western Catholic, Eastern Orthodox) never argued the opposite i.e. justification by works alone

Sola Gratia

  • salvation is accomplished entirely by God's grace, not our doing
  • even the benefits or fruit of God's grace working in us, does not effect salvation

Sola Scriptura

  • scripture is the primary source of authority
  • scripture should be used to interpret scripture
  • pitted against the authority of "tradition", or later in the Anglican tradition a 3rd category of "experience"

Law vs. Gospel

a "Polarity" of the Reformation

  • this is typically used to contrast the standards, authority, and effectiveness of the old covenant vs. the new covenant
  • Luther established the pattern of using the contrast as a standard for interpreting scripture

Authority

  • the nature, range, source, extent of authority has been consistently a part of theology controversy from the earliest days of the church
  • it raises issues of political vs. spiritual authority
  • it raises local vs. global (i.e. "catholic") tensions
  • in the context of the reformation it pits the authority of scripture vs. the authority of the church or the authority of "tradition"

Free will and Predestination

  • this polarity seems very modern, where "free will" seems self-evident
  • contemporary science continues to provide less self-evident evidence that all might be determined
  • the Reformation provides considerable background to the debate
  • both Luther and Calvin provided strong arguments intended to contrast the fallen nature of human will vs. majesty of God's will

References:

Created by Dale Hathaway.