Can you guess what I’ve been reading? (amended 5 pm)
The Torrance trajectory: (Foedus or Pactum?)
* J. B. Torrance “The Concept of Federal Theology - Was Calvin a Federal Theologian?” in Calvinus Sacrae Scripturae Professor, ed. de Jonge.
* J. B. Torrance Covenant or Contract? Scottish Journal of Theology, 23: 1970, p. 51-76.
* T. F. Torrance - Scottish Theology: From John Knox to John McLeod Campbell. T & T Clark.
If you have read anything from the Torrance brothers (James and Thomas) on this question over the past 40 years, you know this line of thought. It’s either covenant or contract. In very rough form Calvin was great. Beza wasn’t. The problem is that Beza gutted Calvin and made Calvinism the mean, cold, predestinarian system it is today- word’s like bilateral contract are employed. Bilateral being a contract quid pro quo. This is contrasted with a warm gracious unconditional arrangement characterized as a unilateral covenant, a marriage as it were. In this line of thinking it is the bilateral view of covenant that causes the problems.
The Miller trajectory: (Miller, Trinterud, Møller, Baker et al …)
Down another trajectory, others have variously argued that in fact it is the unilateral view that is the problem. Geneva vs. Zurich or the Rhineland. Calvin vs. Bullinger. In this construct unilateral covenants tend towards predestination and cause problems. In this line it is the bilateral covenant theology that is what was corrupted by the Genevan predestinarianism of Calvin and Beza.
The Ramist vs Aristotelian trajectory:
Still others, in a different trajectory (Letham for instance in “Foedus Operum,” Sixteenth Century Journal, Winter 1983), maintains that the development of the covenant of works idea/theology is really the theological embodiment of the philosophical struggle between Aristotelian and Ramist logic. The claim is that Heidelberg and Cambridge were major centers of Ramism (p. 465).
Without getting into deep weeds quickly, a few cursory musings …
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