Did the Reformation Ruin Everything? with Michael Lynch

[00:00:00] Protestantism gets blamed for a lot of things. rampant individualism, denigration, authority, deviation from tradition and the disenchanted of the world in general. But is this the true story of the Reformation? Michael Lynch from the David and Institute of Begs to Differ.

[00:00:15] We're going to talk about the theological and political underpinnings of the Reformation as well as the philosophical shifts in society that affected both Protestants and Roman Catholics. We're also going to talk about the contribution of Protestants to art, music and aesthetics by looking at the post-reformation generations.

[00:00:32] Specifically, the reformed scholastics. So enjoy this episode and we're going to find out that history is a little more complicated than we often think. Welcome to the show. We've got a guest back with us again, Dr. Michael Lynch.

[00:00:54] We had him on a little bit ago talking about hypothetical universalism and limited at home and all that fun stuff and had a great time. Such a great time that we wanted to have him back on again. This time to talk a little more broadly about the Reformation.

[00:01:09] Dr. Lynch teaches ancient language and humanities at Delaware Valley Classical School in New Castle, Delaware. It's also the author of John Davenin's hypothetical universalism, the defense of Catholic and reformed orthodoxy. He's also just recently edited and retranslated John Davenin's on the death of Christ,

[00:01:26] which is available from the David and Institute of Michael. Thanks for having me, Michael. Thanks for having me, Brian. So part of why I wanted you on is because I was bummed that I wasn't able to take your

[00:01:37] class, which was titled the Reformation and Moderna D, or at least one of the main themes in the syllabus and some of the things that we're going to be talked about. And that's an interesting conversation that I've heard more and more about, especially

[00:01:53] between Roman Catholics and Protestants with reformed retrieval movement and all these types of things. People are more interested in the Reformation and really digging into what these guys were doing and what that time was all about. And I'm kind of curious, because you've done a lot of work.

[00:02:10] You have a lot of thoughts on the Reformation as it relates especially to Moderna D. And I'm just curious what got you interested in thinking through this topic and doing research in this area. Well, I think that most Protestants, if they're self-consciously Protestant,

[00:02:30] should be prorinially asking themselves why they're Protestant as opposed to Roman Catholic and how their choice of a religious sect is influenced by history and whether or not you're making the right choice, right? I mean, any self-conscious, Mormon, any self-conscious Protestant,

[00:03:02] Roman Catholic, Muslim, whatever has to at some point or another wrestle with the question of are they seeking the truth and is that truth found best in the religious kind of movement they've attached themselves to?

[00:03:21] So to my mind, it's just a simple question of if I'm going to be Protestant, I'm going to be self-consciously Protestant and therefore I need to have a reason for being Protestant rather than whatever else. That's interesting.

[00:03:39] I have noticed that the Protestant identity often is seen merely in distinction to Roman Catholic, like we're not Catholics and there's not a sense of okay, but what does the actual tradition look like? What's the positive kind of case for Protestantism?

[00:04:00] And I feel like today a lot of people talk about disenchantment and the Ils and modernity and all those types of things. And tied into that are people drifting towards things like Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, they seem to have this more robust kind of, you know,

[00:04:19] I don't know what other word the word that people keep using in jam and then part of the rhetoric is that the reformation is part of what kind of screwed up the world.

[00:04:29] I mean, one of the things that you guys had advertised in the class was that as many great things as Protestants are credited for, freedom, prosperity, civilization, as attitudes on modernity have soured people are turning things around and saying

[00:04:46] that Protestants are the reason for licentious greed and all the exploitation that we see around us. What is what's your take on that? Why is there suddenly this kind of bad take on Protestantism or a view of Protestant that's more skeptical and even derogatory toward the reformation?

[00:05:08] Yeah, I think people have different motivations for why they might say certain things. And motivations are always very tricky because rarely do people tell you their motivations and instead they say things and then you look into their background or whatever else

[00:05:26] and then you surmise that they have an ulterior motive for saying such things right. So it's no surprise that Notre Dame Professor would hate on Protestantism. Well, he's a Notre Dame Roman Catholic. So I mean, this seems kind of obvious to me, right?

[00:05:46] This is a way of justifying his not being Protestant and his being Roman Catholic or whatever. It's totally fair. And that's the question is whether or not the sorts of claims made are warranted or merit these sorts of things?

[00:06:07] I generally find such mono causality to be somewhat ridiculous and myopic. And so far as many of the problems that one finds and say later early modern Protestantism, you can also find in the intellectual life of Roman Catholics.

[00:06:33] For example, you have an increasing kind of materialistic kind of philosophical kind of movement going on which is downplaying the soul in upplaying material causality in the universe. And that's found as much in Roman Catholic philosophers in later early modern Roman Catholic philosophers,

[00:07:00] as it is being found in Protestant philosophers, of course not all. I'm just speaking generally. And so I think that there's many reasons for kind of the de-enchantment, the disenchanting of our world that aren't so much religious but are symptoms of the sciences becoming dominant in universities,

[00:07:39] materialism, certain philosophical streams. Right? I mean, hum is being driven by Protestantism to kind of undermine classic a recitilian causality or anything like that. And so anyways yeah. So just the story being told these like grand overarching stories where a kind of religious principle

[00:08:12] that somehow Protestant surviving too much into kind of nominalism or scotist philosophy and these sorts of things. I mean you find just as many scotists, Roman Catholic philosophers as you do, reform guys indeed you find perhaps more pure scotist guys anyways in early modern Roman

[00:08:34] Catholic philosophers. So anyways, as someone who studies kind of reformed Orthodox Protestantism or Lutheran Orthodox theology, I don't see a lot of disenchantizing of the world. Right? All I see is Richard Beckster talking about haunted houses and believing that there's

[00:08:57] alien life forms on other planets and these sorts of things. And he's a late 17th century theologian Protestant theologian non-conformist theologian. I don't see his disenchantizing. Indeed, he is fighting truth and nail against the certain rising philosophies that are materialistic

[00:09:18] and that are undermining the spiritual nature of the human being and wanting to tie all emotion and thought to some physical phenomena in cause. So anyways, as someone who's just studies early modern theology and philosophy more generally, that story doesn't resonate with me at all.

[00:09:45] And I study largely 17th century theology in philosophy and I can see some of the philosophical movements doing this but I can't see Protestantism or even Roman Catholicism as being the cause for

[00:10:03] some of our modern malaise that we like to hate upon. You know, simply put, I just think that something Protestantism is to blame for there being a McDonald's on every corner or something like that, right? Like that just to my mind is insane. I don't understand it makes

[00:10:24] no sense to me. Talk to me about Richard Beckster and aliens what's going on there? Yeah, I mean, Richard Beckster says given what we know about our own planet and given the fact that we know about all these other planets, it just seems unlikely that God wouldn't

[00:10:43] populate other planets. And this is in a day of day and age which, in where we're in I think he they only believed in seven or eight planets. And now we know that there's whole galaxies, right?

[00:10:56] Like not just hundreds but I think thousands or thousands of thousands. I don't know what modern scientists now, right? So all that to say is that he was taking a very limited knowledge of how

[00:11:07] many planets that were and saying it would be insane for God not to populate those other planets. Now as far as I understand it we have we have never even believed in any of the planets in

[00:11:17] our galaxy or populated but he just thought it was well he thought it was quite likely that other planets would be populated like our own. Yeah man. Yeah. Well did dig a bad question?

[00:11:30] Well I have a quote somewhere I'd have to find it but anyways, well quote. Well I think I could hear somebody saying okay sure in the 70th century there are Protestants who aren't

[00:11:42] buying into the spirit of the age or they're not causing modernity or disenchanting in the world but there's some principle in Protestantism that inevitably leads there whether it's the breakdown of authority whether it's the I mean it you know banishing the beauty of the sacraments you know

[00:11:59] rampant individualism religious liberty all these types of things that the reformation is that there's something intrinsic to the reformation as far as I know the great Renaissance in music and in art was just as much if not more so a Protestant thing than a

[00:12:21] Roman Catholic thing being a Rembrandt is not a Roman Catholic as far as I know he was Dutch in the 70th century late 60th maybe early 70th century maybe even Med and of course in music

[00:12:37] right like as far as I know again I don't know my classical music well enough but I'm pretty confident that plenty of the our famous like Bach or we're Protestants so I'm not quite sure that that just

[00:12:54] really holds any water and it is true that we have great cathedrals built by Roman Catholics but Protestants were involved in a great number of beautiful cathedrals as well so like if we just look at art for example Protestants were just as involved in those sorts of projects

[00:13:15] Roman Catholics so anyways again that just doesn't seem to be to make much sense intuitively but again I don't I don't really study or all that much but from everything I know

[00:13:30] from the limited knowledge that I have that does not seem to be that you would think that you would see Roman Catholics having a particularly artistic bent in which Protestants were not but many of our most famous painters and musicians were Protestants after the Reformation so

[00:13:54] I'm not sure what to make of that you know well a lot of times there's an aesthetic draw today to Orthodoxy the Roman Catholicism and but it's kind of like what you said in the beginning being self-consciously Protestant which I think above all is a doctrinal consideration

[00:14:14] I mean I think it's got to be about theology not necessarily about you know what kind of seems countercultural the time or what kind of draws in this maybe a traditional aesthetic

[00:14:27] and I think those theological issues are still very relevant today but they might get lost in the weeds a little bit yeah I do see I do see the Reformation is largely theological and political there were political ramifications there were theological ramifications

[00:14:49] whether or not there were these grand philosophical ramifications or not I just don't see that as being necessarily true I indeed in the early modern period I see a lot of diversity philosophical I see as much philosophical diversity among Roman Catholics as I see among Protestants

[00:15:13] and Protestants are picking certain Roman Catholic philosophies that they really like and other Protestants are picking other philosophical kind of strands that they really like and and so there's an eclecticism on both sides and I just don't see a lot of kind of

[00:15:32] I don't see a Roman Catholic philosophy as opposed to a Protestant philosophy in the early modern period that that is just that's completely foreign to my knowledge but perhaps I just have it read

[00:15:47] the right thing or something but at least studying the 17th century I don't see it I haven't seen well talk about open that up a little bit more when you talked about there were theological but also political considerations what sparked their Reformation and that's a large

[00:16:03] question but what's your take on and how to understand that time period yeah um yeah I'm not an expert on all the references you know that historians like to talk about Reformation today because what's happening in Germany and what's happening in England and what's happening in the

[00:16:23] Netherlands and in France and wherever else um they're kind of happening at the same time but there's not necessarily any sort of organic unity at least at the very beginning um but I think what you have

[00:16:37] happening in Europe more generally is a breakdown of kind of this holy Roman Empire business you have a kind of a more localistic kind of a desire to get out of these structures of

[00:16:58] kind of the universal jurisdiction that the Pope had over people that were living in Kent in England or in Liden in the Netherlands or in Fittburg right uh it's a simple matter of why is the Pope

[00:17:15] telling our German priest German speaking priests are Dutch speaking ministers are clergy in England uh what to do and why does not our King or our Prince or whatever else why doesn't he have the right

[00:17:35] to determine who gets the right to preach in kind of our city or our town village or whatever else why does some guy you know thousands of miles away get to decide these sorts of things so that there's

[00:17:50] that element to it and then there's also this element of why are we having to fund it's not unlike the sort of magas american first sort of stuff that we hear today but it's just

[00:18:06] applied to these local areas why are we paying for a basilica you know 1500 miles away or something when we have poor people I mean you see it's very early on in Luther indeed his sermon on

[00:18:21] indulgences which I highly recommend it's better than is 95theces it kind of explains it was a defense of his uh 95theces otherwise but his sermon on indulgences which I believe was also

[00:18:37] published a lot more than his 95theces and it was published in the same like a few months later something he makes this point he says you can give to the Pope if you've fed all of the hungry in your

[00:18:52] city then given to all the churches in your city and if they don't need anything and if there's no poor people in your town then you can get you start giving too right um you you see there that um so

[00:19:07] I mean anytime you ask why the reformation happens there's a whole bunch of things going on but that's one of the things that's at the center I mean there's see a lot as you've noted and obviously as anyone knows there's also theological motivations there's clerical abuses right um

[00:19:29] there's all sorts of factors that are in play but the bottom line is that I don't think you have the reformation unless magistrates are getting on board in other words you're not going to have

[00:19:44] it stick unless you have magistrates who are willing to say this is what we're going to hold to contra-rooming Catholic theology contra-rooming Catholic jurisdiction or whatever else I mean it's just

[00:20:00] not going to happen um so because magistrates have the final say in the early modern period of what happens in their district and their territory so they bear the sword they can shut you down

[00:20:18] they they have the army so if you don't have magistrates on board then then it's not you're not going to have a reformation in that in that nation state or whatever right this is why

[00:20:32] France doesn't have a reformation right this is why Italy doesn't have a reformation this is why France doesn't have did I say France already anyways actually France poor school or whatever anyways yeah but the reformation is very appealing to many magistrates

[00:20:55] because what the magistrate gets is some of that political power that had been granted to the Pope being redirected and given back to the civil magistrates so one of the things that's true in

[00:21:10] the early modern period is that the Pope basically had quasi political jurisdiction over all of these Roman Catholic states because he could decide that a magistrate was illegitimate because he was a heretic or whatever and indeed he calls King James a heretic he calls Elizabeth a heretic

[00:21:39] Edward a heretic and kind of in by doing that that was not just the logical claim but it was also an undermining of his authority saying that he had the power of the magistrate illegitimately and so

[00:21:57] you know Elizabeth doesn't care she says we'll come take it from me then right in this banish armata tried and fail so anyways all they'd say is that when you ask what the reformation about is about it's about a confluence of religious and political

[00:22:27] novelties that modernity is bringing in that allowed the reformation to virgin but I would want to emphasize that at least on the religious side of the well both on the political and religious side these murmurings these impulses were and can be found well before the reformation actually

[00:22:53] took root in these various locations in Europe right so um uh more silliest of Paujua is saying a lot of the political making some of the same political complaints that the reformers make later

[00:23:12] right and he's making that in the uh 15th century um and then you have um as Hikoh Obermann's book four runners of the reformation which is really just a reader of pre-reformation texts he notes how basically all the kind of solas the five solas um you can find

[00:23:38] kind of those roots co-going again well before the reformation in what we would just call roaming Catholic theology right and so some of these guys are really just um continuing strands of late medieval theology um and they're just continuing to preach it and what happens at the

[00:24:01] reformation is that you have magistrates who are now giving them the power and keeping them from getting burned to be able to promulgate at continued teaching those sorts of things whereas in earlier centuries they got burned or ex-sized ex communicated from the the church so

[00:24:20] that's a fascinating survey of what was going on and I think it's helpful because there's a little bit of a romanticized view I think of the reformation just just from hearing what you're saying it's like you imagine it's these you know guys were going around and they're

[00:24:36] preaching and teaching and and writing things and it's just a theological movement where they're changing hearts but there's also you know dukes on their side kings on their side princess on their side political intrigue all kinds of things happening around that the reformation was also sort of

[00:24:51] buoyed by all these other historical events around it um it wasn't just sort of this uh it's not a romanticized type of thing. No no no it's often a dirty political game right and it's played

[00:25:07] on both sides um because everyone agrees whether you believe it's the pope and kings together or you just think it's magistral and without the pope involved everyone believes that the magistrate has the duty and obligation to enforce true religion and so therefore everyone is looking

[00:25:30] to their magistrates to enforce true religion and so you have to have ministers and subjects convincing the magistrates that their view is the biblical view the right view true religion

[00:25:51] and to enforce it and so that's what you have going on um it's as much a top down the fair as it is a bottom up affair indeed um I think at least in England there's no doubt that it it would have

[00:26:07] England would not be a reformed church unless the magistrates enforce it from top down right without King James's reforms of like getting rid of monasteries and these sorts of things like he did

[00:26:21] which was a very dirty business and it was very politically advantageous for him because he got he basically sold all that money and they are are sold all these monasteries and took all the funds

[00:26:31] and got public land from selling all these monasteries um so what I'm saying is is that it was kind of dirty business but at the end of the day you uh you don't get the reformation in England

[00:26:46] without some of that dirty business going on and yeah that's just it wasn't like they were like let's let's get politics involved in religion that's just what it was it sounds like that they didn't

[00:26:58] have another concept it's just it wasn't like they were they were trying to if they're appealing to the magistrate they're not saying they're not trying to add something new but that's just

[00:27:06] simply what they had to do oh oh yeah I mean I just I just tweeted this famous passage from Augustine that almost all early moderns this goes back all the way to the early English reformers

[00:27:23] like John Jewel and others were were regularly citing but here here's what it says this is this is Augustine in in one of his letters he has many letters you can find it in the published you know English

[00:27:42] of Augustine I can't remember what letter this is at the moment but it's him commenting on Psalm 2 which is the famous song kiss the son less db angry oh kings you know anyway he says

[00:27:56] how then do kings serve the Lord with fear except by forbidding and punishing with religious severity actions done against the Lord's commandments for he serves in one way because he is a man

[00:28:08] and he serves in another way because he is king for because he is man he serves him by living a life of faith but because he is also a king he serves him by upholding with appropriate force laws

[00:28:21] that command what is just and forbid what is unjust in that way and now he looks to the altest and it kings in that way has a chia served God by destroying the groves the temples of idols

[00:28:33] in the high places erected contrary to the commandments of the Lord in that way Josiah served God by also doing the same sorts of actions in that way the king of the Ninevites served God

[00:28:43] by compelling the whole city to play Kate the Lord in that way Darius served God by entrusting the smash the smashing of the idol to the power of Daniel and by throwing Daniel's enemies to the

[00:28:57] in that way Nebuchadnezzar about whom we have already spoken served God by forbidding with a terrifying wall all those who live all those living in his kingdom to blaspheme against God

[00:29:08] kings then in so far as they are kings serve the Lord when they do these things to serve him that only kings can do that view that a gusts and just kind of lays out here

[00:29:22] everyone in the early modern period believes is that as he's talking about the Roman Emperor in that uh oh well I mean in a gusts and time of course he would be talking about the Roman

[00:29:33] Emperor right um uh that the Christian Roman Emperor although I don't know if at that time that the Emperor was in fact Christian but uh we're regardless of course he's talking about kings

[00:29:45] in his day but this has been true well at least the Ever since Constantine I'd say Paul but or I'd say the Old Testament but uh regardless this is just a presupposition that they all have

[00:29:58] and that only kings can do right uh the enforcement of true religion um as much as Tindale might want to do that as much as Luther may want to enforce it he cannot because he sees that he does not

[00:30:13] have those keys he has the keys of the kingdom which are spiritual which are spiritual and form word and sacrament he has the spiritual sword he cannot enforce to religion so to whom can he

[00:30:26] turn to ask for the uh the city of Wittenburg or whatever to be a reforms church rather than a idolatrous where we Catholic people churches he would put it um right um he would look to magistrates

[00:30:46] to enforce that so this goes into an a larger issue of uh the the political theology of the reformers and especially so there's a phrase two kingdoms theology and I think the popular conception is you know it's like you have your frozen chosen in church that's one kingdom

[00:31:07] and you got the world out there and you just stay separate you know something like that like that that's kind of a part of it but um talk about how the reformers understood the church is relation

[00:31:20] to the state because a lot of criticism is that they brought in sort of uh oftentimes from Catholics or it looks like read them saying that the reformations are responsible for secularism

[00:31:29] for the event for the removal of uh Christianity from the public sphere and uh could you just tease out what what is their theology of of two kingdoms what does that look like in mean?

[00:31:41] Yeah so they're they're they're does seem to be quite a bit of diversity in the way that you'll find various uh reformers the religion's talking about these things but as I understand it

[00:31:55] I'm not an expert on this I would uh you know recommend someone like Brad little John or others you do more heavy work in kind of political theology in the early modern period but as I understand

[00:32:07] they're kind of two kingdom or two fold kingdom theology is that uh God um works um uh kind of through two principles one principle is by his spirit through his word and anytime a preacher gets up and administers the sacraments or preaches the word of God

[00:32:36] he establishes that is the establishing that is the establishment that's God's ruling people's hearts via um uh his word and that is this spiritual kingdom it's spiritual because it's invisible and it uses that spiritual sword so anytime anytime a the church is uh exercising the word or

[00:33:02] exercising the sacraments they are exercising and bringing about that spiritual kingdom when you go to church and you participate in that you are participating in gods in the kingdom of heaven however

[00:33:20] God also has another uh kind of area or sphere or kingdom we might say and that kingdom is um is the kingdom that includes everything that's temporal that which is not going to last right um

[00:33:41] marriages apart of this right because marriages are going to last into the kingdom of heaven right we won't be buried right and so on and so forth everything that happens in our uh world that is not

[00:33:55] attached to that word and sacramental ministry that uh clergy are tasked with um uh having the keys of as it were um is part of God's earthly kingdom and that doesn't mean that he's not interested in it

[00:34:13] but it is not driven or it is not ruled so much by word and sacraments but it's ruled um by kings who um take natural law and apply it it's ruled by parents who bring their children up

[00:34:39] in the nurture and admonition of the world it's nourished by various institutions in our world governance which are seeking to nurture the people such that it is working in tandem with that spiritual

[00:34:59] kingdom. In other words the the the the earthly kingdom is specifically designed to nurture and be something like a prologue to the spiritual kingdom right uh not unlike we hear that uh so you know

[00:35:21] the famous to kind of use a domestic language right uh grace doesn't just show in nature but it perfection so nature is like that that that that that earthly kingdom that is supposed to uh fit us

[00:35:38] to be prepared and ready for that spiritual kingdom that we get in the church and so that that that that that's how it's supposed to work they're supposed to be working in tandem even though everyone agrees

[00:35:53] that that spiritual kingdom is a higher kingdom right god you so is that in distinction to a Roman Catholic inception do Roman Catholics have a two kingdom by death i don't know it doesn't strike

[00:36:09] me the way that I was representing it um uh ought not to be all that uh after all i i tried to tie to kind of domestic ways of thinking about these things um here's one of the concerns the concern

[00:36:28] about how these spheres relate to each other coves back to various medieval people um bulls and people kind of uh doctrines one is by Pope Boniface the other one is by innocent the third and

[00:36:51] both of them uh conceived of the way that these two kingdoms function was that um so one of the descriptions that's used is a sun moon analogy that the sun is this is the spiritual kingdom

[00:37:09] and the uh the the moon is the earthly kingdom and of course if you press that too much what you have is that the sun gives light to the moon such that the Pope in as the vicar of Christ on

[00:37:30] earth is the one that gives power to the earthly kingdoms of this world and this is where you have the Protestant pushback what they want to say is that um no these two kingdoms are both ruled by God

[00:37:48] they're both given power directly by God instead of the the sun moon illustration where God gives power to the sun and then the sun gives power to the moon no no no no no these are two kind of

[00:38:04] planets both of which the God that God gives power to independently so he gives power to the church he gives power to magistrates independently and they both exercise those kingdoms as it were each having received their uh their jurisdiction independently of each other such that

[00:38:32] kings don't give clergy power or jurisdiction also so also so it's not that the not that the magistrate gives power to clergy nor do clergy including the Pope does he give power to earthly magistrates know they're called directly by God and they're just

[00:38:58] recognized or consent is given to both right so a magistrate consents to clergy and clergy consent to them being subject to the magistrate in his kingdom so so there is so to answer your question

[00:39:18] there is some kind of fundamental differences of opinion on how you understand those two kingdoms engaging each other or relating to each other or interacting with each other but as I said

[00:39:37] mercilious Apogua at least it does seems to argue and he's a really Catholic although he's kind of seen to be a problem because of these sorts of teachings in the 15th century he himself is

[00:39:56] arguing for these this later Protestant understanding as well and so and again you know innocent and uh bonafest or necessarily Augustine either right I mean they're well after Augustine and so all that to say is is that um yeah I really could Catholicism or kind of medieval theology

[00:40:20] I don't want to grant Roman Catholicism to uh to all of medieval theology but what I'm saying is is that there's there's medieval difference as well here um there's difference of opinion but

[00:40:32] once a Pope says it again the question is can the Pope air right um for for kind of medieval theologians and well it depends on the medieval theologian you're talking to so well you brought up tomism you brought up principles of natural law in terms of how the

[00:40:49] civil magistrate is supposed to order things and what's interesting is you I mean you spend a lot of time with the 17th century reformers would they be are those of reforms scholastics is that

[00:41:00] other generally referred to as well yeah I mean I mean I'm thinking when I talk about reforms scholastics I'm talking about those that are often connected to universities or those that are sure addressing right I'm not necessarily thinking about your average minister you know of some

[00:41:18] local literature right right I'm talking about those that are doing the heavy theological work but yeah I mean early rot modern reform theology 17th century reform theology more generally yeah what what drew you to that generation because they're they're kind of the second and third

[00:41:36] generation after the initial reformers yeah and a lot of times when you talk about the reformers people just make Luther calvins wingly the foil yeah and they don't realize there's there's there's continual reform there's continual clarification of some of those ideas that

[00:41:52] were in seed form yes and so that's interesting that you spend some time in that in that sort of next generation I'd like the generation more or those generations more right you're even talking

[00:42:05] about like third fourth fifth generation at that point I like those generations more for a variety of reasons one is that the Renaissance has basically finished at this point so all you're getting the full fruit of all of these universities having taken in fully the Renaissance

[00:42:29] at Fontes sort of stuff so that that's one so you're getting like better you're getting guys who are educated in better sources than you had in the past right I also enjoy the 17th century more

[00:42:52] because of the intense interaction that you get between philosophy, theology and the various theologians that you get there's a much there's uh if the city's entry was a classic the 17th entry is even more a classic it means you have more you have a greater flavoring

[00:43:17] the various flavors of Protestantism interacting with each other and then those flavors of Protestantism are or interacting with various flavors of Roman Catholicism and also I will say as well I find 17th century Roman Catholicism much more interesting than 16th century because of course

[00:43:43] after this is after Jesuitism right that the rise of Jesuitism right the Jesuit movement doesn't start until the 16th century right and so so post a kind of re-refer or kind of a reforming

[00:44:01] of the Roman Catholic Church this is post council of trend you have a more established Roman Roman Catholicism indeed it is what I think of when I think of Roman Catholicism is really a post-trint

[00:44:16] Catholicism what you have previous to trend is just not it's just another side of of of the Catholic Church or of European religion but trend is when they dig their heels in a little bit it becomes self-consciously this sort of yeah and I like self-conscious Roman Catholics

[00:44:39] arguing against self-conscious Protestants rather than what you get between like Luther and and say codjathon right which is two guys coming from two different parts of Roman Catholicism really right they they they they just kind of drawing on different

[00:45:05] kind of strands of it and when they meet and start talking they're surprised at how different they are right because they don't know right it's just not known that there's just so many different

[00:45:18] stripes and strands but by the 17th century everyone kind of knows everyone knows that there's different sorts of Protestants and that there's different sorts of Roman Catholics and that Jesuits and Dominicans have their disagreements and everything like that so is that what you mean by

[00:45:33] the Jesuit you mentioned how that's this before the Jesuits what was that on the last time yeah so Dominicans the Dominican traditions starts in the 13th century right so to so do the Franciscans but those monastic traditions traditions in the Roman Catholic Church but the Jesuit tradition or

[00:45:53] the society of Jesus that tradition doesn't begin until until the 16th century right in the somewhere when it would it's cananized or whatever I don't I don't know the Roman Catholic

[00:46:07] here about all this that's fine at the end of the day right and and and the Jesuits are cold to be the kind of theological apologists for the Roman Catholic Church and they're also seen to be the

[00:46:24] academics of academics now the Dominicans in many ways had been playing that role but the Jesuits become a new society within Roman Catholicism that Roman Catholics look to as being the great defenders of Roman Catholic kind of anti-protocent Roman Catholic theology and so right

[00:46:44] it doesn't get really fun until you get the Jesuits. Protestants in the 17th century particularly have a strong hatred towards Jesuits because Jesuits are seen to be the worst of Roman Catholicism because oftentimes they're the most liberalizing philosophically and otherwise

[00:47:10] but they're also seen to often be the most hard fiercest. They're the ones that are that they play the dirtiest political and the logical games of all and so Jesuit tricks is kind of a well-known trope in the 17th century that

[00:47:32] that's Jesuit trickery right is a spinning biblical text into ways to promote or to justify certain Roman Catholic readings of certain biblical texts the Jesuits that are doing these

[00:47:50] things and so I don't know 17th centuries fun. I mean this is like it's not much a part of it's the age of great thinkers not just Renaissance thinkers right I think of the 16th centuries oftentimes

[00:48:04] the age of the great kind of Renaissance thinkers like Erasmus and Louis Veevas and others but the 17th century is the great kind of is the world of great Protestant and Roman Catholic thinking.

[00:48:25] It is the pinnacle of 17th century is the pinnacle of in my mind philosophy, theology and but dare I say I mean at least paintings and stuff like that that type of art is some of my

[00:48:42] favorite so that's why I'm particularly I just think of the best educated people that we've ever had in the whole world ever ultimately. Were they all Thomas? Oh no no this is what makes it great

[00:48:57] you had Thomas, you had skotists, you had lakomists or whatever they would be called I mean if we're talking philosophy right you had you had materialists, you had atomists, you had epicurians, we're just hooking philosophically, theologically you had Lutherans and reformed and

[00:49:22] baptists and you had kind of the rise of deism and other strange hermitic philosophies and theologies I mean it was a wild time with just a lot of brilliant people wrestling with various ideas

[00:49:43] and so there's my love for the 17th century but I can also see how people would say that's where things got unspooled. In the 18th and 19th century you know you got higher criticism,

[00:49:54] German liberalism all these types of things that are coming in. Yeah I mean that starts to creep in the 17th century but it isn't that doesn't really creep it until even the 18th century and

[00:50:05] and what I would say to that is that the only reason we make a big deal about kind of the higher criticism stuff is because I think we are particularly because most of our theology,

[00:50:28] Protestant theology was focused on like 19th century German higher criticism but that sort of higher criticism is still being done in Roman Catholic circles it's just the simple fact that you

[00:50:43] don't have a lot of Roman Catholic teachers in America in the 19th century or if you're if you're a Protestant and you want to go to Europe you're not going to Roman Catholic universities to study you're going to Protestant universities and those Protestant universities unfortunately are teaching

[00:51:02] Protestant liberalism and so they come back and they teach Protestant liberalism. In other words what I'm saying is that it's only because we know of the liberalism from Protestantism yes liberalism was being promoted by later Protestants but it wasn't as if there's not a lot of

[00:51:23] liberalism going on in Roman Catholicism as well it's just that we don't know a lot about it I mean right no one's going to argue with me I think that if you study Vatican II and much of what

[00:51:42] Vatican II represents I know of a lot of Roman Catholics traditional Latin-mass Roman Catholics who think that lots of the stuff being taught at Vatican II was just straight up liberal kind of Protestant stuff anyways and so what I'm saying is is that this isn't just a problem

[00:52:09] that you found going on in Roman Protestantism but liberalism was infecting the the West in general including Europe or including European universities in Roman Catholic territories as well and so I think it's unjust to say that just because we are very familiar with the Protestant liberalism

[00:52:35] that somehow Roman Catholicism was immune to those sorts of things you don't get hones or some of these other German liberal Roman Catholic liberals that you find if at it can do merely because of Protestantism right right well what do you think are the

[00:52:58] downstream effects of the reformation today that you can see that are that positive or maybe even negative if you could think about the last thing legacy of those 16th century 17th century thinkers. Once you deny people jurisdiction both religiously and politically it is inevitable

[00:53:23] that nations and states and localities are going to begin diversifying because ultimately what's going to happen is if you're not taking your cue from a pope and the whim of a pope deciding what is what is truly holy and Catholic and faithful and Orthodox then ultimately

[00:53:53] you're going to have clergy and magistrates deciding those things and once you start localizing those things you're going to start getting diversity and that diversity is inevitable and differences of opinion are going to result. Now I think it's important to realize

[00:54:14] that it's one thing for the pope to make a claim that this is what the Roman Catholic Church believes. It's another thing to believe that people Roman Catholics, a thousand miles or two thousand

[00:54:31] miles away are practicing or believing that which the pope has claimed to be true Roman Catholic theology. Often often this is a point that Karl Truman makes that's absolutely valid.

[00:54:46] It is one thing to look to Rome or to Notre Dame and say this is what Roman Catholicism is but if you take a trip to say Bolivia or Portugal or some of the small towns in Italy

[00:55:09] and you go and visit and try to determine what Roman Catholicism looks like there. I think you'd often be surprised at how different it is from what pope so in so says Roman Catholic

[00:55:27] Catholicism ought to be after all. All you have to do is follow James Martin on Twitter to start to discern that what the pope says Roman Catholicism teaches and what James Martin believes Roman Catholicism teaches are two different things. The difference between a Protestant church

[00:55:51] and a Roman Catholic Church is the Roman Catholic Church oftentimes does very little exercises their jurisdiction very minimally whereas oftentimes in Roman Catholic or in Protestant circles the exercise of discipline whether you have a minister who's pro LGBTQ

[00:56:16] ex communicating the Trump supporter or you have the OPC minister who's ex communicating the lay person who's blogging about pro LGBTQness they exercise their ecclesiastical jurisdiction in a way that the pope and Roman Catholicism often doesn't

[00:56:39] so well as many Protestant churches or narrow in this way in their teaching their members are often just as narrow but Roman Catholicism teaches oftentimes a very narrow set of doctrines but their practice oftentimes permits this wide range of funny business that it's easy for

[00:57:03] a Roman Catholic theologian head-noderdam to say well that's not Roman Catholicism to which my response is well in practice it seems to be right James Martin is he still a minister clergyman and the Roman Catholic Church. So yeah right so so if you can get away saying

[00:57:25] with saying the sorts of things that he is why can I not say that that is Roman Catholicism in the OPC for example if a minister starts saying the sorts of things that James Martin starts saying he will very quickly not be a member of the Orthodox Christian

[00:57:44] church anymore and so we're all going to draw lines in the sand the question is where we're going to draw it in the Roman Catholic Church I don't I'm less interested in where the pope or some

[00:57:56] document what some document says I'm more interested in what is actually permitted because that is de facto what the church actually allows for in teaches. Maybe to wrap things up you know just

[00:58:12] summing up some of the things you talked about I mean if you're thinking about late people today and this retrieval movement you know that's going around with people wanting to retrieve you know whether it's classical theism or you know Christian information theology whatever it is

[00:58:33] what do you think the modern church needs to retrieve from the reformation even beyond just at first generation but but the reformed scholastics that you study what do you think are things that we can

[00:58:45] what are some cues we can take from them. I don't think we'll be able to fully receive or retrieve the depths of early modern theology more generally until we've revived or reformed our

[00:59:07] education no system more generally these are guys who were trained from six seven eight years old to be experts in the great texts of theology philosophy politics medicine whatever else now of course you know they're great texts on medicine we wouldn't perhaps

[00:59:38] call very great right I'm not a big proponent of early modern medicine necessarily yeah how would take a pencil that early modern theologians who are who are figuring out how blood circulates

[00:59:51] for the first time in all sorts of things I mean they are hearing out some things but it's you know this is on the cusp of kind of the scientific revolution right so they're learning things no

[01:00:01] no doubt I mean we just learned what grab the gravity existed right and in these sorts of things so I'm not trying to hate indeed what but what I'm saying is that I don't think that early

[01:00:15] modern folk more generally or the early modern elite I mean intellectual elite were any smarter than our intellectual elite today but I do think their educational system was better it trained them to be able to use their skills more wisely and their and it incoated intellectual and

[01:00:42] moral virtues in ways that are intellectual class isn't incoated with that near as much today so I don't think you're going to get a full retrieval unless we retrieve some of the educational instincts that earlier earlier Protestants and Roman Catholics realized in the early

[01:01:11] modern period and in practice so one of the things that I've been a big proponent of is reinfices on things like English grammar logic and rhetoric right this is the trivia in the ancient and medieval and early modern kind of educational program but they they took

[01:01:38] those things very seriously because they did not believe that their society could could flourish without an educational elite I'm not talking about an elite that's financially elite I really am talking about an intellectual elite that was bias that had the

[01:02:05] good religious virtue moral virtue but was also trained in the art of grammar in the art of logic in the art of rhetoric the ability to speak well to be able to reason well and to be able to

[01:02:25] understand the language well and I think that anyone who simply starts watching YouTube videos of the 1960s and 1970s and listens to conversations between intellectuals even 50 years ago will realize how bolder eyes our educational system has brought our

[01:02:54] intellectual elite today even listening to debates on the floor of Congress from the 60s and comparing those to the sorts of debates that we have on the on the floor in Congress today it's depressing we'll put it that way so there's there's you know

[01:03:17] yeah I don't think you can you can expect high-end commentary on scripture high-end theological imaginations without having taught people to read carefully to argue and think clearly and to express their ideas persuasively and I don't think our education's

[01:03:50] as educational system does this at all so I think we'll just continue to see the ammunition of education and of theological education in our society and that is not a Protestant problem that is not a relative falls as a problem that is a Western problem particularly in

[01:04:13] American problem I actually think that there's some I think some European countries still do a relatively good job at some of these things but our educational systems are trotians what it looks like before we need to retrieve doctrines of the reformation we need to retrieve

[01:04:31] a whole host of other things too yeah and that but man that is that really puts things in perspective and how you know it's it's not just you can't just read a bunch of scholastics there's actually

[01:04:43] a whole world an intellectual formation that they had that we don't you don't have yeah I mean anyone who reads early motor theology or philosophy will have a very difficult time even

[01:04:56] understanding it and one of the reasons you all have a hard time understanding it I mean there's a linguistic barrier of course muster of its in line although that's changing somewhat right there's a linguistic barrier there's a barrier with the fact that we just have not mastered the

[01:05:12] sorts of material that they have mastered but there's also an educational barrier in other words they have been taught to read more carefully to think more carefully and to explain things more

[01:05:27] carefully than we're able to do and therefore it is it is simply the fact that these writings are just written at a higher level than most of our own intellectuals are capable of doing not capable

[01:05:41] naturally I don't mean up here I don't think they were smarter like IQ wise I don't think that at all but just trained well I don't think they've been trained well Michael thank you for joining us again

[01:05:54] it's a great conversation learned a ton and had a lot of fun doing it appreciate what you've been doing and I'll put some links to your books and yeah we appreciate you coming on and chatting with us

[01:06:07] thank thanks for having me Brian it's fun thanks for listening to this episode if you liked it please support the show and consider becoming a Patreon supporter you can find all the links

[01:06:17] to our YouTube channel and our Instagram account in the show notes thank you guys for joining us