# Reformed Scholastics and Epistemology



## Justified (Nov 26, 2016)

What was the reception of the scholastic dictum and epistemological tenet in Reformed Orthodoxy: nihil in intellectu nisi non prius in sensu (nothing is in the intellect which is not first in the senses). I understand that Thomas Aquinas held to a form of a tabula rasa, though not quite in the way Locke did.

What was the Reformed view? How else did they believe we arrived at knowledge if not through the senses?


----------



## Dachaser (Nov 28, 2016)

Just a question... Would not all religious truth come from divine revelation from God to us in His word?


----------



## RamistThomist (Nov 28, 2016)

Dachaser said:


> Just a question... Would not all religious truth come from divine revelation from God to us in His word?



Yes, though not the terminology (e.g., Trinity, supralapsarianism, etc).


----------



## Puritan Sailor (Nov 29, 2016)

In Ch. 6 of Muller's Post- Reformation Reformed Dogmatics (Volume 1) has a helpful review of how later Reformed Orthodoxy interacted with rationalism in their approach to natural theology vs. supernatural theology. The whole book deals with prolegomena issues but that chapter deals with the influence of Descartes and rationalism and what we can truly know apart from Scripture (which for the Reformed Orthodox wasn't much). Have a look...


----------

