Andrew Meredith’s Reviews > The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church > Status Update

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."

"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."

Comparing and coordinating the theologies of Duns Scotus, Ockham, and Biel, Barrett traces the decay of scholasticism that Luther reacted so strongly against.

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."

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.

"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.

The second chapter traces the rise of both medieval monasticism and mysticism and delineates the Reformation's continuities and discontinuities with the eclectic movements.

"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."