Andrew Meredith’s Reviews > The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church > Status Update
Andrew Meredith
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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."
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Andrew’s Previous Updates
Andrew Meredith
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"Liberation from the papacy was not substituted with a captivity to the individual but the freedom to interpret the Scriptures with the church catholic (universal), according to the analogy of faith."
— Apr 17, 2026 11:25AM
Andrew Meredith
is 75% done
In Calvin’s own words, “When I ponder the intended use of churches, somehow or other it seems to me unworthy of their holiness for them to take on images other than those living and symbolical ones which the Lord has consecrated by his Word.”
— Apr 16, 2026 09:21AM
Andrew Meredith
is 70% done
"If the contest were to be determined by patristic authority, the tide of victory—to put it very modestly—would turn to our side." - John Calvin
— Apr 14, 2026 07:09AM
Andrew Meredith
is 65% done
The Anabaptists were an eclectic group of schismatics; some were unbelievably violent, some were seditious, most were separatist, some heretical, etc.
In short, they were everything Rome accused the Reformers of being. They threatened to legitimize every inculpation, and the Reformers strenuously opposed them for it.
— Apr 10, 2026 12:22PM
In short, they were everything Rome accused the Reformers of being. They threatened to legitimize every inculpation, and the Reformers strenuously opposed them for it.
Andrew Meredith
is 60% done
"The Reformers would not recognize the modern impulse to keep doctrine at bay until the Scriptures are understood."
— Apr 08, 2026 12:45PM
Andrew Meredith
is 52% done
"I testify on my part that I regard Zwingli as un-Christian, with all his teachings for he holds and teaches no part of the Christian faith rightly. He is seven times worse than when he was a papist."—Martin Luther
— Apr 05, 2026 11:47AM
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.
— Mar 31, 2026 06:51PM
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
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You are your body, and your mind, and your soul (and other parts too) all in one, a unity. You are not a spirit that interacts with the world and others through a disposable flesh machine. You interact with everything with all of you. Hellenistic philosophies like Platonism drive a wedge between your immaterial spirit ("who you really are") and the "mortal coil" (the material) that traps it. It claims that real communion with God (or, perhaps more mildly, the best communion with God) takes place "without words" in a direct, mystical soul-to-God interaction.
This is a lie. This is gnosticism.
Whether it is with God or other people, we can only ever communicate and be communicated to through our bodies, which are us just as much as our immaterial animating selves.
Looking forward to getting there. Almost done with chapter 4. I am on the page where he interacts with Van Til now. What do you think the relationship should be between philosophy and theology?
I will happily label myself a biblicist when it comes to theology's relationship with any other discipline, philosophy included.I do think that theology and philosophy are inextricably entangled such that they will inevitably inform one another (there is no such thing as neutrality), but theology as "Queen of the Sciences" should always have jurisdiction.
Part of our task as theologians, then, is to become critically aware of the philosophies that influence our perspectives (especially their shortcomings) and guard against their excesses. Which, of course, is a task we can't do consistently, much less perfectly, hence why theology is an ongoing multicultural, mutligenerational dialectical conversation in the Body of Christ.
"In one sense, the post-Enlightenment interpreter unfamiliar with the continuity of pre-Enlightenment Christianity could assume that Christianity and Christian Platonism are two separate streams. That is often assumed in the common objection that Platonism is being foisted upon Christianity, as if Christianity is forced to fit the Platonist worldview or even corrupted by the Platonist worldview. That assumption is mistaken, however. The designation “Christian Platonism” merely identifies the metaphysical framework that must be in place so that Christianity—and its many transcendental beliefs—is possible in the first place. Stated otherwise, Christian Platonism does not demand that the Christian impose an unnatural and foreign grid on its sacred text, but it’s logic is original to the text."
Specifically the sentence: "The designation “Christian Platonism” merely identifies the metaphysical framework that must be in place so that Christianity—and its many transcendental beliefs—is possible in the first place."
Christianity is impossible without Platonism? That is the claim. I wanted to highlight that in full context to show you that I am not misquoting Barrett here. I disagree with him (depending on what he means by "Christianity").
The Christian Faith and it's beliefs are fully possible outside of Platonism. They do not depend upon Platonism in any sense of the word. Perhaps they can and have been somewhat helpfully articulated and defended through a platonic framework, but quasi-helpful does not equate to necessary.
The Hellenization of Christianity (or as Barrett wants to argue, the Christianization of Hellenism) has yielded as much bad fruit as it has good. Widespread latent gnosticism being the outstanding example, but there are others.
Here's a concrete example pulled straight from the book:
“All those schools must be ranked below those philosophers who have found man’s true Good not in the enjoyment of the body or the mind, but in the enjoyment of God.” - Augustine
Me: Here is where I have objections. It is impossible to enjoy God except through the body and the mind. To bypass the physical for a bodiy-less, mystical enjoyment of God is gnostic. It compromises the psychosomatic unity of humanity, denies the sacramental nature of creation, and creates a material/spiritual dichotomy where there is none.