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Refo500 Academic Studies (R5AS), Vandenhoeck
& Ruprecht |
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Benjamin T. G. Mayes
Counsel and Conscience
Lutheran Casuistry and Moral Reasoning after the Reformation
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 211, 250 Seiten, Gebunden,
978-3-525-55027-4
69,95 EUR  |
Vol 1:
In Lutheran Germany of the post-Reformation era (ca. 1580–1750), a genre
of pastoral, ethical writings arose that consisted in casuistry and in
topically or thematically related theological counsels. In this first
volume of the new Refo500 series Mayes shows that this casuistry
literature was intended to instruct and comfort the consciences of
Christians. Lutheran casuistry, related to but also distinct from Roman
Catholic and Reformed counterparts, arose especially as pastors looked
within Holy Scripture, the medieval tradition, and the writings of
Martin Luther and other Lutheran authorities for answers to ethical
problems and doctrinal disputes, and then catalogued their findings. As
an extensive example from this genre Mayes examines the Thesaurus
Consiliorum Et Decisionum, published in 1671 by Georg Dedekenn and
Johann Ernst Gerhard. This Thesaurus was an anthology of wise advice
from Lutheran theologians and jurists, published to encourage readers to
avoid individualistic ethical choices and instead to engage in an
“aristocratic” process of moral decision making in which one would
consult the wise men of the past and present. The counsels included in
the Thesaurus address inter-confessional disputes, intra-Lutheran
disputes, sacraments, church government, pastoral ministry, social
ethics, marriage, sexual ethics, and many other topics. The topics of
divorce and remarriage, especially, show the different ways in which
Lutherans reasoned about moral matters. The author shows that in the
Thesaurus the Lutheran casuistry literature, which has been overlooked
in most scholarship of the 20th and 21st centuries, was in bloom. It
arose to meet the needs of people who had doubts, and it continued to
instruct and console Christian consciences for many generations. |
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Joar Haga
Was there a Lutheran Metaphysics?
The interpretation of communicatio idiomatum in Early Modern Lutheranism
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012, 304 Seiten, Gebunden,
978-3-525-55037-3
84,95 EUR  |
Vol 2:
Two natures of Christ and the difference between philosophy and theology.
Joar Haga traces the Lutheran doctrine of communicatio idiomatum, the
exchange of properties between the natures of Christ, as it developed in
some important controversies of the 16th and the early 17th Century.
Regarding it as the nerve of his soteriology, Luther stressed the
intimacy of the two natures in Christ to such a degree that it
threatened to end the peaceful relationship between theology and
philosophy. At the same time as the Wittenberg reformers broke with
certain strains of their philosophical heritage, they would insist that
the continuation of Christ’s bodily presence was a reality in sacrament
and nature (!), irreducible to a sign or to a memory. On the other hand,
they did not want to be ignorant of the claims of reason. By rejecting
the classic framework for a peaceful coexistence of philosophy and
theology on the one hand, and insisting on Christ’s bodily reality on
the other, the quest for a new concept of how philosophy and theology
related was implicitly stated.
Earlier research identified two traditions of Lutheran Christology: One
train of thought follows Luther in emphasising the difference between
philosophy and theology. This can be seen in the Tübingen solutions
where Johannes Brenz and Theodor Thumm are the most interesting thinkers.
Another train of thought can be found in the conservative pupils of
Melanchthon, where Martin Chemnitz and Balthasar Mentzer are the most
prominent theologians. This research does not merely group the thinkers
within the confines of a tradition, but underlines their individual
contributions to an open-ended history.
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Jordan J. Ballor
Covenant, Casuality and Law
A Study in the Theology of Wolfgang Musculus
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012, 304 Seiten, Gebunden,
978-3-525-55036-6
84,95 EUR  |
Vol 3:
Wolfgang Musculus as a significant figure worthy of further
consideration.
Jordan J. Ballor takes its point of departure in the doctrine of the
covenant as it appears in the theology of the prominent
second-generation reformer, Wolfgang Musculus (1497–1563), who is
perhaps the earliest Reformed theologian to give the topic of the
covenant a separate and distinct treatment in a collection of
theological commonplaces. Musculus’ covenantal teaching is characterized
by an important distinction between general and special covenants and is
rooted in his exegetical work on the book of Genesis. Where Musculus’
Loci communes evidence an anti-speculative, soteriologically-focused,
and pastorally-driven approach, his exegesis is intended to provide
fulsome guidance in the study of Scripture. This examination of Musculus’
views on covenant and related doctrines is followed by
thematically-related explorations of questions of causality and
metaphysics, concluding with considerations related to law and social
order. By focusing on Musculus’ theology as found both in his Loci
communes, as well as in his extensive and voluminous exegetical work,
and in comparison and dialogue with a host of antecedent and
contemporary figures, this book is the first full-scale study to place
Musculus’ theology within its broader intellectual context. Musculus’
positions with respect to doctrines connected to covenant, causality,
and law embodies the eclecticism of Reformed reception of medieval
traditions, and the final section of this study places Musculus within
the later development of Reformed orthodoxy in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, finding that Wolfgang Musculus is a significant
and often-overlooked figure worthy of further consideration. |
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