Andrew Meredith’s Reviews > The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church > Status Update
Andrew Meredith
is 9% done
The second chapter traces the rise of both medieval monasticism and mysticism and delineates the Reformation's continuities and discontinuities with the eclectic movements.
— Mar 15, 2026 07:40AM
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Andrew Meredith
is 45% done
A long, long chapter on Luther beginning with his early education and ending with the Diet of Worms.
Barrett is doing well defending his main thesis: Luther never wanted to leave Rome. He wanted to REFORM it from the crazy levels of corruption it had reached in his day.
— 5 hours, 38 min ago
Barrett is doing well defending his main thesis: Luther never wanted to leave Rome. He wanted to REFORM it from the crazy levels of corruption it had reached in his day.
Andrew Meredith
is 37% done
The popular notion that the Reformers were anti-tradition is a gross mischaracterization. "No less than Rome, the Reformers stood for a tradition and were adamant they stood within the catholic tradition. Their conflict with the papacy was not a choice between Scripture and tradition, but a conflict between their view of tradition and the papacy’s view of tradition."
— Mar 30, 2026 06:43PM
Andrew Meredith
is 33% done
"Kristeller’s definition of humanism captures its essence: a return to classical antiquity with full confidence that its ancient perspective contained the seeds by which present society could be reborn."
"If classical antiquity contained the remedy, then dedication to the retrieval of classical sources—Greek and Roman—was essential. Ad fontes—back to the source—became the theme song of Renaissance humanism."
— Mar 28, 2026 10:35AM
"If classical antiquity contained the remedy, then dedication to the retrieval of classical sources—Greek and Roman—was essential. Ad fontes—back to the source—became the theme song of Renaissance humanism."
Andrew Meredith
is 29% done
Comparing and coordinating the theologies of Duns Scotus, Ockham, and Biel, Barrett traces the decay of scholasticism that Luther reacted so strongly against.
— Mar 27, 2026 09:16AM
Andrew Meredith
is 23% done
And now it's time for a brief section with Barrett extolling the wonders of Platonism...
This is where I get skeptical of "The Great Tradition."
— Mar 26, 2026 07:35AM
This is where I get skeptical of "The Great Tradition."
Andrew Meredith
is 21% done
A long, long chapter on Thomas Aquinas and the Reformers' reaction to and use of his Summa.
I expected no less from Barrett going into the book.
He takes great pains to separate Aquinas from later, "via moderna" Scholastics (e.g., Occam, Scotus), to show how the Reformers were Thomas' heirs (some more aware of this than others) even as they critiqued comtemporary Scholasticism itself, and I think Barrett succeeds.
— Mar 24, 2026 10:26AM
I expected no less from Barrett going into the book.
He takes great pains to separate Aquinas from later, "via moderna" Scholastics (e.g., Occam, Scotus), to show how the Reformers were Thomas' heirs (some more aware of this than others) even as they critiqued comtemporary Scholasticism itself, and I think Barrett succeeds.
Andrew Meredith
is 12% done
"I do not seek to understand so that I may believe; but I believe so that I may understand. For I believe this also, that unless I believe, I shall not understand." - Anselm
Chapter 3 traces the rise of the Scholastics, mostly by chronicling the life, works, and method of Anselm to show how indebted to him the Reformers were.
The importance of Lombard's "Sentences" in training the Reformers is highlighted as well.
— Mar 16, 2026 02:51AM
Chapter 3 traces the rise of the Scholastics, mostly by chronicling the life, works, and method of Anselm to show how indebted to him the Reformers were.
The importance of Lombard's "Sentences" in training the Reformers is highlighted as well.
Andrew Meredith
is 4% done
"If the Reformers’ own perception is considered, then the story of the Reformation is not a story of a rebellious departure from the church catholic but a story of renewal."
— Mar 13, 2026 02:28AM
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In many ways, the Reformation was a direct reaction to the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) which cemented four things: 1. Salvation could not be located anywhere outside the Catholic Church (that is, the institutional Church of Rome)
2. Public sanction of transubstantiation as official church doctrine
3. The priests of Rome affect the miracle of transubstantiation
4. They permanently attached the penance system to baptism
Those who do not feel united to God here and now may wonder how they can achieve such a human-divine reunion. Eckhart’s advice is to look within, to examine the soul where a spark can be found. This spark is “like the divine nature.” This spark is not limited by the confines of this temporal world—“Untouched by any createdness, by any nothingness”—but moves us beyond our physical experience to our heavenly origin. By some miracle, this spark was not extinguished by Adam’s fall but continued in all his children. It can be seen whenever creatures do what is good, and it calls each of them back to God, back to their existence prior to this earth.
Eckhart’s work did not seem to retain the Creator-creature distinction by means of participation. By finding their way back to their eternal home, Christians are absorbed into divinity itself. They emanated from God and, upon mystical reunion, emanated back into God. “In the breakthrough to God I discovered that God and I are one,” Eckhart said.