John Calvin and the Medieval Tradition

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Sebastian Heck

Puritan Board Freshman
Among those who don't simply like Calvin but have actually read him too, I wonder if anyone here has thought much about whether Calvin is more to be seen as a voluntarist/Nominalist or as a intellectualis/Thomist. This is with respect to things like God's power, to the place of merit, to natural law, etc. Any thoughts? Any good sources?
 
If you haven't already, you'll have to check out Steinmetz, "Calvin in Context," and Muller, "The Unaccommodated Calvin." Both go into these sorts of issues.
 
I've heard the terms before and understood them when I heard them but I need to remember what the categories are.

I do think that we need to understand Calvin, the Reformers, and the Confessions with more of a medieval mindset. Modernity tends to see man as the measure of truth and I often think that some of the clashes on the board might have to do with a clash between medieval and modernist thinking. I don't have all the sophisticated language to propose the entire problem but, based on surveys of religious and philosophical thought, I sense this issue.
 
I've of course read both Muller and Steinmetz. The Steinmetz article is not very convincing to me, and so is anything trying to apply the category of voluntarism to Calvin's theology. I am aware that even R. Scott Clark does that in his article "Lex naturalis in Calvin". But the locus classicus for the allegation is a passage or several passages in Calvin that In my humble opinion just don't fit the clear cut categories of Nominalism and/or voluntarism.
 
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