Although Protestants are familiar with the doctrine of sola Scriptura, they are less familiar with the equally important Reformation teaching that God reveals himself through the “two books” of Scripture and nature, and how the two relate. This course, with readings from Aquinas, Calvin, Hemmingsen, and Hooker, along with key Scriptural passages, will help students understand the meaning of sola Scriptura and the use of moral reason in classical Protestantism.
How did theology become systematic? What is the history of the literal interpretation of Scripture? Thanks to the adoption of Aristotelian scientific methods, learned from his philosophical methodology, theologians transformed the allegorical and mystical interpretation of Scripture into literal interpretation.
See how Peter Lombard, Albert the Great, and Aquinas transformed theology into the systematic theology we have today.
Special revelation is God’s instruction book. But what device is it an instruction book for? Which is prior, the device or the instructions? Can someone figure out how to use it properly without the instructions, even if imperfectly? Advocates of the natural law say “Yes.” God created human nature to function in a certain way. The way God ordered humanity and the rest of creation is an expression of his own orderly nature.
Aristotle’s On the Soul along with his Categories helps us define the soul and its powers., and consequently different essences, like human nature. It lays the groundwork of a Christian psychology as Thomas Aquinas develops Aristotelian psychology in a Christian way. In both Aristotle and Aquinas, this psychology establishes the groundwork for the natural law and Aristotelian ethics.
Semantic anti-realism holds that statements cannot have truth value if their truth criteria are beyond the ability of humans to recognize them. John Haldane proposes moderate compatibility with Aquinas. I disagree, and the denial of verification-transcendence denies the possibility of the analogy of being.
