This Festschrift celebrates Professor Willem J. van Asselt's many contributions to the study of Reformed scholasticism on the occasion of his retirement from Utrecht University. The authors argue that the resurgence of interest in scholasticism, especially in Reformed scholasticism, has in turn reformed our views of scholasticism. While most of the volume's essays contribute to the reassessment of scholasticism through relevant historical case studies or new systematic analyses of the value and validity of scholasticism for contemporary theology, some authors endeavour a critical confrontation with various aspects of this reassessment. Thus, this volume not only mirrors Van Asselt's interest in the sound historical evaluation of Reformed scholasticism and its application to contemporary philosophical theology, but also provides cutting-edge scholarship on a major development in historical theology.
Maarten Wisse, Ph.D. (2003), Utrecht University, is Assistant Professor of Dogmatics and Ecumenics at VU University Amsterdam and a postdoc at KU Leuven. He has published on theological hermeneutics, Reformed scholasticism, and Augustinian Trinitarian theology.
Marcel Sarot, Ph.D. (1992), Utrecht University, is Head of the Department of Theology and UUF Professor of the History and Philosophy of Theology at Utrecht University. He has published extensively in philosophical theology, religious ethics and the philosophy of theology.
Willemien Otten, Ph.D. (1989), University of Amsterdam, was Professor of Church History at Utrecht University since 1997. Since 2007 she is Professor of the Theology and History of Christianity at the University of Chicago. She has published extensively on western medieval and early Christian theology, including the continuity of (Neo-)Platonic themes.
"It is apropriate that Van Asselt should be presented with a
Festschrift like this one, full of essays that reflect the ways in which his work has changed the historical-theological literature. [...] This symposium is a fitting tribute to the work of a careful and generous-spirited historical theologian, whose efforts have contributed to a significant revision in scholarly thought about the Reformed tradition. They will be read with profit by those with a professional interest in the historical and theological matters that his research has done so much to foster."
Oliver Crisp Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena CA (USA), in the Journal of Reformed Theology 8:2 (2014).
Introduction. Reforming Views of Reformed Scholasticism
Maarten Wisse and Marcel Sarot
PART I
REFORMED SCHOLASTICISM AND THE SCOTIST HERITAGE
Reentering Sites of Truth. Teaching Reformed Scholasticism in the Contemporary Classroom
Martijn Bac and Theo Pleizier Scholasticism and the Problem of Intellectual Reform
Willemien Otten Modalities in Francis Turrettin. An Essay in Reformed Ontology
Antonie Vos and Eef Dekker In the Steps of Voetius. Synchronic Contingency and the Significance of Cornelis Elleboogius’ Disputationes de Tetragrammato to the Analysis of his Life and Work
R. A. Mylius
PART II
REFORMED SCHOLASTICISM AT HOME AND OVERSEAS
Melanchthonian Thought in Gisbertus Voetius’ Scholastic Doctrine of God
Andreas J. Beck Gisbertus Voetius, God’s Gardener. The Pattern of Godliness in the Selectae Disputationes
F. G. M. Broeyer Justification by Faith and the Early Arminian Controversy
Aza Goudriaan Thomas Barlow on the Liabilities of “New Philosophy”. Perceptions of a Rebellious Ancilla in the Era of Protestant Orthodoxy
Richard A. Muller The Harvest of Reformation Mythology? Patrick Gillespie and the Covenant of Redemption
Carl R. Trueman The Rhetoric of Reform. William Perkins on Preaching and the Purification of the Church
Raymond A. Blacketer
PART III
SCHOLASTICISM AND MODERN SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
Understanding and Misunderstanding in the Conversation of Karl Barth with Amandus Polanus. The Main Characteristic of the homo viator in his Ectypal Theology
Rinse H. Reeling Brouwer The Inseparable Bond between Covenant and Predestination. Cocceius and Barth
Maarten Wisse Omniscient and Eternal God
Marcel Sarot An Edwardsian Theodicy
Sebastian Rehnman Reformed Scholasticism and the Trinitarian Renaissance
Gijsbert van den Brink Why a Trinitarian Dynamics Requires Open Scholasticism
Luco J. van den Brom About Method and Matter. Scholasticism and the Realism-Conceptualism Controversy in Contemporary Theology
Bert Loonstra
Bibliography of Willem J. van Asselt
Index of Names
All those interested in intellectual history, late medieval and early modern thought, the Reformation, the history of theology, as well as systematic theologians and philosophers of religion.