Truth Unites - The Best New Book on Protestantism (with Matthew Barrett)

Episode Date: April 4, 2023

In this video I interview Dr. Matthew Barrett about his new book, The Reformation as Renewal, and why Protestantism is better positioned for catholicity than the alternatives. Dr. Barrett's book: https://www.amazon.com/Reformation-Renewal-Retrieving-Catholic-Apostolic/dp/031009755X/truthunites-20 Creeds, Confessions, and Catechisms: https://www.amazon.com/Creeds-Confessions-Catechisms-Chad-Dixhoorn/dp/1433579871/truthunites-20 Truth Unites is a mixture of apologetics and theology, with an irenic focus. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai. SUPPORT: Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites One time donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://gavinortlund.com/

Hey, everybody. This is an interview that I did with Dr. Matthew Barrett about his book, The Reformation as Renewal. I'll put up a picture of this so you can see the cover. I read a PDF of it, so I don't actually have the hard copy. It's a very significant book, and I'm just grateful to be able to share about it with my audience. You know, it's interesting. One of the things that people often, I realize this is a great deal, that people have not experienced Protestants and especially Baptist theologians who are engaged significant. in the theological tradition. And so they're just not aware that that's out there.

They might associate Protestant or even certain evangelical Protestant context or the Baptist tradition or whatever with their own experience of this or that. And I'm often trying to say, oh, there's so much more to it, you know. That's easy for me to say because I've been around seminaries all my life. My dad taught at a great evangelical seminary when I was growing up. So I've seen that. But I do appreciate that a lot of people have never been exposed to that. So that's one of the things I'm hoping to do in my YouTube channel is kind of celebrate historic Protestantism and

those who are retrieving. Dr. Barrett's kind of a key person in the movement among Baptists to retrieve historic theology, to engage the tradition. So you'll get a flavor of all that. I'm grateful for you to be able to just listen to how he thinks, how he absorbs the questions I threw at him. And you'll get a very intelligent, thoughtful, and helpful perspective from a Protestant theologian about what is the Reformation? Why is it a lowercase C Catholic enterprise? I'll put up on the screen my own blurb for this book. I won't read the whole thing, but I'll just, but what I summarized is Barrett successfully demonstrates that the Reformation was a Catholic enterprise over and against both the claims of the Church of Rome as well as the shallow dehistoricized tendencies of many

contemporary Protestant circles. And that you'll see that in the interview. There's the desire to defend Protestantism from some of the attacks or criticisms of our friends in the non-Protestant traditions, but there's also the desire to identify where many evangelical Protestants today may have drifted a bit from our own history and from our own roots. So I really think this interview will be helpful in that way. Check out the book. It's worth the money. It's a really significant book. Really significant book. And it's linked in the video description. One other thing before we dive in, I wanted to share about another book.

The last answer that Dr. Barrett gives is about resources to recommend, to learn more about Protestantism. This is something I'm often saying as well. And what he basically says is he encourages diving into historic texts, classical resources. This is something I'm often saying as well. Well, but people often don't know where to start, right? So it just so happens. I last week received a copy of this awesome resource from Crossway, creeds, confessions, and catechisms, a reader's edition, edited by Chad Van Dixhorn.

It has 13 of the most significant documents from church history. Early church creeds, major Protestant confessions of faith. one has an introduction to explain what it is, and then you just get all the texts. And so, you know, for me, this is kind of my go-to resource for something like this where you just want to have a spot to, especially like the Reformed confessions, but also it's got the Augsburg Confession, the 39 articles, et cetera, early church creeds, as I mentioned. Incredible resource. And even the physical feel, you know, Crossway does such a great job with their books, with the cover and the feel of it matching the content. This has a kind of stately feel to it. Even the smell. Does anybody else like the

smell of a new book? But even just the physical makeup of it is beautiful. It's just a beautiful book and an incredible resource. So because people so frequently are asking me about that, about where to start, and because of Dr. Barrett's answer, I wanted to recommend that as a resource for you. I'll put that in the video description as well. I probably forgot something, but that's all I can think of right now. Hope you enjoy the interview. Hey, everybody. Welcome or welcome back to Truth Unites.

I'm here with Dr. Matthew Barrett, and we're going to talk about his fantastic book, The Reformation as Renewal. Matthew, thanks for taking the time. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. Excited to talk about the book. Yeah, yeah.

It's a fantastic book. How long did it take you to write? Because, boy, reading through it. I mean, so people know it's somewhere in the ballpark of about a thousand pages. Is that right? Yeah, and believe it or not, it was longer before the publisher got hold of it and said, we got to cut at least 100 pages out. So that was painful, but necessary.

But yeah, I've been teaching on the Reformation and not just the Reformation, but the medieval period that precedes it for so many years now. So I've been reading on this for the last decade. But when it came to it, it took me about a year and a half to actually put these words on paper and bring much of my research to bear in so many of the classes I had taught in the past. Yeah. It reminds me of Tolkien at one point. He said the only criticism he had of his own book, The Lord of the Rings, is that it was too short. Whereas sometimes when I'm reading it and he's going on and on about a forest or something, it doesn't feel like it's too short. But your book is it's not, you know, wasting space.

I mean, it's really dense. It's an academic book, but it really goes into detail. I mean, even before the Reformation, these medieval theologians, Gabriel Beal, Bonaventure, Anselm, you really go into a lot of detail. So it's a fantastic resource. Tell us about the title, the Reformation as Renewal. So why, what are you getting at by calling the Reformation of Renewal? Yeah. Well, as you know, many of our listeners may know this too.

There's many interpretations of the Reformation. And just for the sake of simplicity, I would say two interpretations tend to really occupy the popular imagination of contemporary churchgoers, students, teachers, and sometimes even scholars. One of those interpretations says that, well, the reformation is to be lamented. It's a tragedy, and not only that, but some go even further to blame the reformation. From everything from schism itself, a very popular interpretation that goes all the way back to the 16th century, actually. Reformers were used to hearing this.

Some more recently in the 20th century in particular have also said, well, it's not just schism, but also we should blame the Reformation for secularism itself. We can get into that more later, but you can see how that would create not just a negative interpretation, but one that actually might move the Reformation into the modern period and really leave it at fault. Others swing the pendulum the other side and say, well, the Reformation is to be celebrated. And here you have some interesting voices. You have some in Protestant liberalism who want to celebrate the Reformation, interestingly enough, but because they see figures like Luther as liberating the modern man.

So they're not so much blaming the reformers for secularism as they are celebrating the Reformation because they think, well, here is the beginning of our era in which we throw off the shackles of tradition. and we can stand on our enlightened reason. There's also another group, though, though they would hate hearing this, they actually have a lot in common with Protestant liberalism, and that would be certain sectors of evangelical thought that would say, well, the Reformation is to be celebrated, yes, but it's to be celebrated as recovering what was completely lost, perhaps even going back as far as the church fathers, maybe even further

since the apostles, but thank God, the reformers showed up, and they actually recovered the true church. And they did that by getting us past those dark ages in which tradition was so corrupted. They threw that off. And here, too, you see some of the similarities, though, with a different motive and agenda. So my book is not a... book that's trying to address all those or critique them. I just mentioned them actually in the introduction to say, I think we need to move past all of those interpretations. I think they're all faulty at one level or another. And I raise this question in the book to start to say, well, how did the reformers see themselves? I mean, it sounds so obvious, right? And here, there doesn't have to be

an agenda, at least at the start, because whether you agree with the reformers or not, that's a legitimate question to ask. Well, I mean, you could disagree with the reformers theologically, but you could still say, oh, yeah, but they thought of themselves as those who are actually in continuity with a large part of the church Catholic. By Catholic here, I'm using Catholic with a little C, the church universal. And that's where the book launches to show from the reformer's own voices how they, yes, they knew those accusations, that they were schismatics, that they were innovative, they were even heretical. But then they made the counter argument, no, actually, we are Catholic too. And not only that, but we are renewing that

Catholic heritage in a way that we think our opponents have failed to in recent centuries. Yeah. I love that. One of the things you mentioned is if people want to disagree with the reformers, okay, but at least accurately describing. what their intention was and what their claim was before rejecting that as opposed to putting words in their mouths, which I think is so helpful. Let me ask about, you brought up the word Catholicity there. And one of the things I really appreciated about your book is you're getting into the definition of that word. What does it mean when we speak of the wholeness of the church? And how do we envision that? And one of the points, I think it was when you were talking about Philip Melanchthon, the Lutheran the

but it also came up with Martin Busser that the Protestants were defining Catholicity theologically, whereas some of the non-Protestant traditions in this context, especially their Roman Catholic opponents, were defining it institutionally. And you made the comment that this raised major questions about the Eastern traditions and that the Protestants were actually defending the ecclesial status of the Eastern Orthodox. And I found a passage in Luther for with regard to the Oriental Orthodox that saying they're still churches, even though we disagree with them on things, there's still churches over and against the Roman Catholic institutional exclusivism, which was so interesting. I thought maybe I'd just give you a chance to maybe unpack that

a little further. Yeah, I mean, here you've really put your finger on the nerve itself. I don't think I could, I mean, the way you just put it, you put it so well, Gavin. Yes, I think it's probably shocking, maybe really surprising, very least to some, even Protestants, right? Here you pick up a Luther or a Martin Bootser or a Calvin, among others. And in the midst of their polemic with Rome, why are they bringing up to East? And here's the reason why, at least in part, Rome is accusing these reformers of being a sect, of being innovators, of worst case scenario, even heretical. as those who have departed from the Catholic Church, or as the Creed says, the one holy Catholic and apostolic church.

Now, how do the reformers respond? Well, the response, I think, is actually very different than the way that we often respond today. Their response is, if this is true, then what do we do with the entire Eastern Church? In other words, their point is, could it be that Rome actually is defining Catholicity in a sense that's far too narrow? Whereas the reformers, counterintuitive as it may seem, are actually defining Catholicity in a sense that's more broad, that's broader still. This comes up with Calvin, his debate with Sadoletto. You may remember that Calvin is exiled. Well, he's really fired in many respects.

Long story there. But as he is in exile, Cardinal Satelletto writes to the Genevaans saying, come back. Come back to Mother Church to Rome, because this is where your salvation is found. And Calvin is called upon to write to the Genevaans and in the midst of a very urgent situation. And Calvin basically says to them, and really to Sadoletto, that's who he has in mind here. He says, I'm paraphrasing him here, but he essentially says, you've neglected the entire Eastern Church. Are they not Catholic too? And his point is, if you are going to exclude us, well, that seems to fall in line with the way that you've excluded the entire Eastern Church.

So if you want to say to the Genevaans, hey, you have to come back to Rome specifically, to to enter back into true Catholicity, just keep in mind that half the church has been excluded in the process. And I think for Calvin, though for others like Luther, like you mentioned, this is reassuring because then Calvin can say, well, perhaps we're defining Catholicity in a way that's far too narrow. Could it be that Catholicity is fundamentally not so much about institutions and externals, but actually about something theological at its core. And this is where the reformers, I think, really shine because they make no secret about what they're doing.

They come out and they say, yeah, Catholicity has to be defined by something that is quite invisible, something that is immutable, something that is not tangible and able to be manipulated, or something that doesn't just rise and follow with a certain leader. It has to be something that actually is objective. And that's where they present the church with everything from who God is to what God is done in Christ, to the objectivity of the gospel, to its application by the spirit in everything from justification to sanctification to glorification. Now, it's not that the reformers didn't care about institutions or externals. They clearly do.

I mean, in some of their own debates, we see that. They're not going, they will not go as far as those radicals that they have no patience for who just throw off institutions and some of these externals altogether. But at the same time, that's secondary in a sense to the foundation on which they think the church stands. Really helpful. Well, probably people are already getting a sense of where they might benefit from working through this book. But let me, let's follow up on one of the things you mentioned about the secularization thesis. Brad Gregory and others have argued this, that Protestantism gave us secularization. And I'll just, if I can recall, I think one of the things you're saying is that the idea is, well, the Protestants followed Akum and Skotis and others rather than Thomas Aquinas. in terms of their metaphysics, and that is a key piece of the dominoes that are falling. And you're pointing to the scholastic Protestants and saying, actually, no, there's a lot of appropriation of Thomas. And so maybe this is great because a lot of Protestants don't know about

like Protestant scholasticism, and they've never read scholars like Richard Mueller. So maybe could you kind of unpack what is Protestant scholasticism and why is that important for us to be aware of? Well, Protestant scholasticism is unfortunately so forgotten today by Protestants, ironically enough, but it really is at the very beginning of our genesis, of our Protestant identity in many respects. There's been an old thesis. It's a tired thesis, I would say, though I still see it perpetuated from time to time. Sometimes it's called the Calvin versus the Calvinist thesis. Not that Calvin is really the center of the Reformation, but it often does come back to him.

And the thesis says essentially that there is a strong discontinuity between Calvin and his immediate heirs. So Calvin is a second generation reformer, but here we are referring to those children, first, second, third generation children after him that would occupy not just the latter half of the 16th century, but certainly the 17th century. Now, the thesis basically says that there should be this contrast between the two groups, as if Calvin is biblical and his children are rationalists, as if Calvin is about the solos and his children move, these Protestant classics move into systematizing Calvin's biblical theology and turning it into more or less a a system that's more concerned with metaphysics, which Calvin didn't have any concern for. And we could, there's, you know, 10, 20 more things we could list as examples.

It's not just about Calvin, though. As you can see, it's really a contrast between the Reformation at large. And those 16th and 17th century Protestants who took the baton and carried it forward. Now, you've really touched on something here because I think the first thing, first thing we have to recognize is that this is just good history, right, to recognize there's a historical context that explains why when you read someone like Calvin, it looks a little different than when you read Turriton, Francis Turriton. The contextual reasons are important. Some of these reformed thinkers are trying to codify the faith. Calvin's at times more concerned with some of the polemics, as is Luther and others. Some of the polemics. Some of the polemics,

that are so immediate that concern things like soteriology and ecclesiology. But their children actually are trying to write catechisms and confessions. And new challenges pop up, such as Sassinianism, which actually moves beyond just soteriology and ecclesiology to now challenge the faith when we are referring to, say, the Trinity, or the attributes of God or Christology, and so much more. So all that to say, there are good contextual reasons why at first plans it can seem like, oh, these are really different. And of course, they're writing in different styles. But actually what's happening is these children of the Reformation, they're picking up this scholastic method in order to teach the Reformed faith, the Reformation faith, to be more broad here, the Reformation faith in

schools, universities, academies, sometimes church academies, but also to codify the faith in confessions and catechisms and to even enter into polemical discourse over new, in new doctrinal domains. Now, when they use the scholastic method, well, even the way I'm saying that, right, Sometimes the word scholastic is a pejorative term today, as if, well, to be scholastic is to embody some type of corrupted philosophy or misuse of reason. But actually, the word scholastic just refers to those who taught in the schools, so to speak, during the, say, the high middle ages, to take one example. And they're using a method that is quite helpful for that task. You think of Thomas Aquinas, whom you mentioned. How can he, well, he states this right at the beginning of the suma, how can he clearly

avoid, well, articulate the faith in a way that avoids overly speculative questions and actually, in a very lucid way, communicates the faith to students in particular. Well, he will then pose an article with a question over an important issue in Christian doctrine. And then he'll actually entertain certain objections to it before he then gives his, on the contrary, followed by his reply, which oftentimes is interacting with scripture, the church fathers, philosophy, as well as exegesis, and so much more, only to then answer those objections. So this classic method becomes actually a tool that assumes there's a way.

is a compatibility, even a harmony between faith and reason, faith seeking understanding to go back to another scholastic anselm, in order to then teach those in the schools or even those who are trained for ministry. Now, we can talk about this further. You mentioned this, this is really important metaphysics, right? Because it's often assumed that this is where that secularization thesis comes through and just blames the reformers, it's often assumed that, well, the Reformation cut the chord of participation in God. Now, there's a long story here. When you look at an Augustine or an Anselm or Thomas Aquinas, among many others, they assume as they're looking at the world and using their senses that this is not all that there is. Just to put it, you know,

very crudely in a very basic form that the goodness, the truth, the beauty that they see actually participates in forms or ideas. Universals are real in their mind. They're realist in that sense. And so they have a strong notion of participation. And of course, they're picking up on that Greek conversation from Plato to Plotinus. But they're actually transforming it and advancing it in many ways. Aquinas, for example, sounds very Augustinian when he says, well, these ideas, they're actually in the very mind of God. So Plato has this idea of transcendence right, but he doesn't get it quite right because they're actually in the mind of God. They're not in this independent third realm. But then he'll turn and he'll correct Aristotle, say, well,

Aristotle has a point when he says that these ideas actually subsist and concrete particulars. but he seems to lose that sense of transcendence and participation. Could it be that, yeah, these particulars, they also participate in these ideas that actually stemmed from the mind of God. Aquinas is quite genius in this sense because he puts forward a whole theory of how you then abstract in order to gain this knowledge and so forth. But when you come to, say, Scotus and Akam and Beal, something changes. And sometimes it's gradual, but by the time you get to Occam and Beal in particular, it's fairly in your face. Long story short, but Scotus begins to not just Scots, but Occam II, begins to throw into question whether analogical predication is really the way to go. Perhaps we need to go the direction of univocal, as if things have the same meaning.

And this is a bit of a crisis, but there's more to that story. Scotis also puts forward a type of volunteerism. With Occam, things, I think, go to a much, they're escalated in a very extreme way. Occam not only capitalizes on this volunteerism, but it then becomes, with Occam and then Beal, it really becomes, what I would say, a type of volunteerism that cuts that court of participation, so that now God can simply declare something, and by virtue of that external declaration, it's to be followed. This becomes so tealologically relevant, because with Occam and then Beal, remember Beal's right on the eve of the Reformation, essentially God can say, I will be

gracious to declare a covenant in a very voluntaristic way. And here's the catch, right? If you do your best, if you do what lies within you, then I will reward you with grace and ultimately forgiveness. Who is Luther reading? Luther is, he's reading individuals like Beale. And so suddenly Luther begins to try this on for size, which creates a certain existential crisis in his life, as he wonders, well, is it the case that grace isn't primary? At least with someone like Aquinas, grace was primary. You don't do your best to then receive this reward. It's actually quite the reverse. But furthermore, Luther begins to move further than this, even though someone like Occamble promised this wasn't the case, Luther started to wonder, well, could it be that, how do I

know if God is so voluntaristic that God will come through if I do my best. And then how do I know if I've done my best? As you can see, it's a spiral. And for Luther, it's a spiral in the wrong direction. But all that to say, the reason that the secularization accusation accusation comes through is because if there is this voluntaristic, nominalistic focus, and so nominalism discards that realism that I mentioned before and says, well, no, universals are not real. You just have the particulars that, particulars that receive the names that we give to them and so on. Well, if this is the case, then haven't the reformers, then aren't they the carriers of this voluntaristic, nominalistic virus that leads to merely a focus on externals and then does away with that participation in the likeness of God? And that's where the reformers are blamed in many, many ways.

Luther in particular, though other reformers as well. I think just to say it real quickly, I think the response that Protestants have given has not been helpful because in many ways we have bought into it and said, yeah, well, either we just accept the volunteerism and nominalism, because that just must mean that just must be what it means to be Protestant. Or we're just silent. We have no idea how to answer that charge, and then the charge sticks all the more. And we don't really know how to separate ourselves from that late medieval period and what bridge then connects it to modernism. In my book, one of the things I tried to do just very briefly, and here I'm indebted to so many others, Todd Billings, for example, you mentioned Richard Moore a minute ago, David Steinmetz and countless others, is to simply say, actually, this narrative is, it's not complicated enough. It's not that the reformers had no signs of volunteerism or nominalism, but to simply paint the reformers with this broad brush is not nuanced enough. I'll take Calvin, for example. Actually, Calvin has a doctrine of participation.

believe it or not. And it doesn't just come out when he's referring to, say, the attributes of God and God is the providence of God and creation. But it comes out when he's talking about union with Christ or the Lord's supper or fellowship among the saints. And so there's been some exciting books written recently on Calvin showing actually Calvin has a doctrine of participation and he thinks this doctrine of participation is not coming out of nowhere. In fact, he's retrieving it from those patristic and medieval voices, and he's standing on their shoulders in order to even advance a Protestant understanding of participation that is relevant to soteriology and ecclesiology. So all that to say, I don't buy into that argument. Sometimes it's popularized by historians like

Brad Gregory. But as you mentioned, I also don't buy into it because as soon as you turn the corner to these Protestants who then are looking at the Protestant faith as a whole, well, Richard Mueller has done some outstanding work here to show, say with something like Scotus, to show they were very self-conscious, though there were some exceptions on the whole, they rejected Scotus's particular metaphysics here and instead went back to that ancient way instead of a more modern one in order to affirm a more realist understanding of philosophy and metaphysics. And then that had played certain dividends into their zoteriology and ecclesiology. So some good works being done.

Unfortunately, though, it ends up being lost. in journal articles. Occasionally you'll make it out into a book. And so my task was just at a very, very broad level to try to connect the dots to say, hey, actually the Protestant story is quite different. And they understood themselves, not as carriers of this voluntarist, nominalist type of virus that then explains the secularism of modernity that has no room for participation in God. actually they would have been appalled at that. Yeah. Here's a brief kind of very actionable follow-up on terms of Thomas Aquinas specifically. If the early Protestants didn't just reject Thomas, either in his theology or in his method,

what should the attitude of contemporary evangelicals be to someone like Thomas Aquinas? And do you have a concern that sometimes today Protestants are too negative about some of these medieval theologians like Thomas? Yeah, absolutely, Gavin. Even when I teach the Reformation, I think it's a mistake in many ways to just jump into the 16th century. If you do that, well, it's no wonder that we perpetuate these types of caricatures. And it's not just about Thomas Aquinas. It's about the whole Middle Ages. Another issue here is if we just jump right into the 16th century, we have no ability to differentiate between, I mean, the Middle Ages is, what is it, almost a thousand years. That's half of church history. And yet you'll hear Protestants just refer to the Reformation as, well, thank goodness the reformers did away with the Dark Ages or the Middle Ages. The reformers would, well, first of all, they didn't think in those categories. It would have been strange to them to say, this is the church fathers, and now this is the Middle Ages. That's convenient for us today, but that's actually quite a recent categorization. So there are some real pitfalls there.

I would say, just as a word of advice and encouragement, a couple of things. First of all, when we look at the 16th century and then the Middle Ages, what do we see? We have to be really careful. 1517. Here's a good example. Luther, we're very familiar with his 95 thesis, but actually just about a month before those, Luther has this disputation against scholastic theology. Now, you could say, well, here we go, right? But actually, when you look at the the theses that he puts forward, Luther is not targeting everything and anything across.

the early, high, and late Middle Ages. I just mentioned it a minute ago, but Luther is targeting, in fact, he mentions them by name, Scotus Akam and Beal. Why? Because he believes their metaphysics has actually resulted in a view of salvation that cannot be substantiated biblically, theoretically, or philosophically. And he's quite upset, in part because it's personal for him. So again, here's a good test case where, okay, we have to back up for a second and ask ourselves, okay, what is Luther doing and what is he not doing? There's even been some really good research done, a book that I don't think a lot of people know about by John Farthing, where he shows even when we look at, say, Luther and Aquinas, we can't just make assumptions. For example, we don't know exactly that Luther read a lot of Aquinas.

And the Aquinas that he did read, it seems as though, and he gives chapter after chapter of showing this and even proving this, it seems to be the case that Aquinas is more or less filtered through a Pelagian or semi-Palagian Gabriel Beal. And well, no wonder then Luther has a view of Aquinas, that's actually not a lot of. Aquinas at all. It's actually Gabriel Beal, more or less twisting Aquinas for his own purposes. But then there's a bigger question, right, besides these test cases, and that is this, when we look at someone like Aquinas, what do we actually see? Well, again, that contextual issue is important. If we only focus on, say, the first half of the 16th century, and we then only focus on, say, so teriology and ecclesiology.

Well, sure, you will have a picture of Aquinas that says it only can speak to something like justification or purgatory or transubstantiation. But of course, if you just crack open the suma just to the table of contents, you begin to discover quite quickly that Quineas wrote on the whole of Christian doctrine. And not only that, but when we look at the whole of his works, the guy was a biblical exigy as well as a philosopher as well as a theologian. So there's just so much more to say there than just those particular doctrines. When we look at those Protestant scholastics, isn't it interesting that as they move into new polemical waters over the doctrine of God, for example,

or faith and reason, they find Aquinas a quick ally, Jerome Zonke for example. But though there are others like Peter Martin Vermigley and Martin Bootser, who is trained in Thomism, you look at these examples. What do you discover? They were very reliant on Thomas Aquinas. In fact, at times, they are mimicking his treatment of the doctrine of God. Now, why would they do that? Because Rome, on the one hand, remember, Rome is saying to the Protestants, you are innovative, you're heretical, you've departed from the Church Catholic. But actually, they are saying, no, when it comes to these core doctrines of the Christian faith, even matters of orthodoxy, we have no problem. In fact, if the reformers were to take issue with Thomas Aquinas on a host of issues,

they would actually show Rome to be correct in the end. So all that to say, I think it's best to read Thomas Aquinas and the Reformation in the proper context. And when we do so, yes, of course, as Protestants, we will find ourselves disagreeing with Thomas on, say, whether justification is an infusion or an imputation of righteousness, or what's happening with the mass. Is this a transubstantiation? Yes, of course, we will have strong, and we should hold to those strong disagreements. But isn't it interesting that we will have countless agreements with Thomas Aquinas, not

just on matters of orthodoxy, but on even on secondary issues, so that the Protestant Scholastics could then appeal to that Thomist tradition, as well as the Augustinian tradition that was behind it, to say, even on issues like predestination and the primacy of grace, we, yeah, there might be some small differences, but we find ourselves in that same stream. And so in that sense, they did appeal more to that Augustinian to mystic stream to demonstrate. To demonstrate their Catholicity rather than just a throwing off of that tradition altogether. Yeah. You mentioned the mass and Luther's also come up. So let me ask you about this. In the chapter on Luther, you talk a lot about his concerns about the mass.

And I think this is helpful because a lot of people, maybe they think of Luther and they just think of indulgences and justification as though that's the thing for Luther. Of course, that's important for him. But you draw just how important were his concerns about the mass. Maybe you can just unpack. What were his concerns with the mass? Well, I think you're right to point out that we misunderstand Luther. I see this all the time. Protestant will crack Luther open and just assume, well, Luther is with us as evangelicals.

And usually what that means is something like Luther rejected Rome. and transubstantiation. So he must be far more amicable with our position. Actually, I think if we were to resurrect Luther, Luther would be, he would have some fiery words for certain evangelical understandings of the Lord's supper today. Yeah, you're right. When Luther looked at the mass, this might sound surprising. But when Luther looked at the mass and maybe transubstantiation in particular, it wasn't that Luther rejected transubstantiation because he thought, well, Rome has not, they haven't really represented the presence of Christ in exactly the right way.

it's not, that's not quite accurate. He rejected transubstantiation because Rome, according to Luther, he thought Rome did not retain the substance well enough. So his issues isn't so much, I think sometimes as evangelicals we think, a Luther has a problem with Christ's presence. I think that will lead you to misunderstand what Luther is upset about. Luther is really quite upset because he doesn't think that their understanding of Christ's presence is strong enough, which is, I know, a bit surprising in some ways. The presence of Christ, he thinks actually it's not just that they don't get it right, but he doesn't think it's substantial enough. Now, all that to say, for Luther, in his mind, at least, if we were to ask the question, why is it the case? for Luther, why is this the case?

I think Luther would respond and say, well, because of their theory of transubstantiation, Luther doesn't feel like Christ's presence is real enough. In other words, if it's just the case that the accidents seem the same in the end. And really, though, you have this transubstation transubstantiation in the priest elevating the bread and the wine. Luther feels as though, well, is this truly a real presence or is this actually just a transformation itself? And that's where Luther says, this is inadequate. And so that actually explains then why Luther then begins this journey. It really is a journey. I think part of the problem is if we just go to one year,

we don't see his full view. But it really is a journey from there for Luther to then say, well, what then does real presence look like if it's not a trans substantiation? If that's insufficient to explain the presence of Christ and the elements, Luther feels as though he must then come up with a vocabulary, even a grammar, that does a better job. So all that to say, I mean, sure, there's more to talk about in terms of how Luther feels about certain abuses. There's a social and pastoral context there as well with Rome.

But I don't think it helps us to say, well, Luther just wants to get rid of the presence of Christ. That's why he's upset with transubstantiation. Actually, he thinks that the presence of Christ isn't captured well enough. Yeah. Well, let me, to wet the viewer's appetite to dive into the book and get a little more on that, I'll read this quote from it. And I won't even give the page number because I think I don't have the final. version that has accurate page numbers. But it's in this chat section and you referenced

Trumann's, Carl Truman's point that he says Luther's problem is the absence of the substance of bread and wine rather than the presence of Christ, which is something you just hit on. And then you say Luther turned philosopher himself, why could not Christ include his body in the substance of the bread just as well as in the accidents? In red hot iron, for instance, the two substances, fire and iron, are so mingled that every part is both iron and fire. So that was really interesting to me because that's exactly what I felt in reading the church fathers, that they do seem. George Hunsinger has the word trans-elementation for this. That is what I see in Augustine, as best I can tell, and in Theodora, that it's both bread and wine and Christ, his body and

blood. It's a both and. It's not the substance of both is there. And so that's, anyway, that's just something for people to consider, maybe look into a little more. And I, you know, you hit a really important point, too, in that there's abuses in the administration of the mass, and then there's also superstitious beliefs that are concerning to him. So people also need to understand, it's not just the mechanism of real presence that's at stake here. Yeah, I mean, just to throw an example out there, isn't it interesting that the Lutherans, Luther included, will appeal to certain church fathers like Cyril, for example, to say both the bread and the wine should be distributed to the laity. Well, this is fascinating because we tend to think of these reformation debates over the Lord's Supper is this is something new. But here, this is very pastoral for Luther.

He's appealing to the church fathers. And the way he's doing it is important to notice. He is essentially saying, Rome, you have actually drifted from this ancient patristic and Catholic practice rather than staying true to it. I'm trying to go back to it. That's a bold thing to say. But as you know, Luther is very bold. Yeah. Well, that's another thing I want to ask you is, are there any points at which you think Luther went too far? Because at one point in the book, you talk a lot about Melanchthon and how his personality was different from Luther's personality.

He was a bit more moderate in his kind of temperament, perhaps. And that's something I'm kind of sensitive to is that, you know, Luther, he was not perfect. And I'm just curious if you to comment on that. Do you think Luther did us any disservice at times with his? his rhetoric and with kind of how punchy he was. Yeah. On the one hand, I praise God for Luther because I don't know if the Reformation would have burst open the way it did, at least. If God had not used someone like Luther, if God had not made someone like Luther with his gifts. What were those gifts? Well, Luther was

a powerful preacher. He was a persuasive writer. And behind both of those gifts, Luther had the ability to put everything on the table and to say, I will stand by this, even if it's death itself. Now, when you read about other reformers, they did not all have that disposition. It wasn't that they didn't have the convictions, right? But Luther had a certain disposition that made him just ideal for this task. Now, to just clarify something here, that did not mean that Luther put everything on the table and just stood by it and never budged. I think sometimes that's a false impression as if the Reformation happened in 1517 or 1517 to 1521 and that's it.

not at all. In fact, Luther, his own theological progress is evolving. It's not, it doesn't just all happen at once. Even his understanding of justification takes time. So this is fascinating because here you have this bold advocate ready to go to the flames like, like Hoose if he has to. And at the same time, he recognizes, he is, his theology is on the move. Now, on the one hand, that's an incredible advantage. And I think that the reformation occurs in part because of someone like Luther. Now, you mentioned something I think we have to be honest about Gavin. At the same time, though, it's a double-edged sword. It's a knife that cuts both ways. Because, and this is a very biblical concept, right? There's times to be bold and courageous.

There's times to tear down. But there's also times to build up. And it's not that Luther never did that. I mean, goodness, Luther was very involved with the liturgy, which was an important step towards Lutheran Catholicity for him. However, Luther was the first to admit that his friend Melangthon was the proper man to put the faith together in a way that could be read as a whole. Also, I mean, you think of like the author. Augsburg confession. Goodness, if Luther was the only person to be tasked, it's hard to see this

happening in the way it does with the success it does. And so someone like Melangthon is a bit more reserved, a bit more, a bit quieter in order to put his hands to that task, get his hands into the soil and figure out, okay, now that Luther has torn down these corruptions, how do we build the church back up, codify confessions and catechisms, and do so in a way that can actually help the church really give it a future. So there are, I think, reasons why Luther then, and this is the case with people in history. I think Protestants sometimes struggle with this, because it's not really about Luther, is it? It's about our view of history, as if we go into history and just, okay, who are the bad guys and who are the good guys?

Or where is Christ? Who's the closest to Christ and I got to get rid of everyone else? You will turn someone like Luther into something he's not. And so I would just warn against that approach to history and say, come to Luther and see him warts and all. That means at times you celebrate with him and rejoice with him. At other times it means you lament. And I think that's proper to do.

You think of not just some of his final words against the Jews, but even some of the things he said about Zwingli, about him, whether he's of the same Christian spirit as us on the Lord's Supper. I think there's reasons why Luther does that, good reasons. But at the end of the day, in those periods, in those times, I think Luther could actually hurt the Reformation when it needed to advance forward in the end. Yeah. Well, in the spirit of acknowledging our weaknesses as Protestants, one of the things you talk about for the end of the book is fragmentation and division that has occurred. You talk about in Scotland under the leadership of John Knox, some of the division that occurred there. You talk about between Thomas Cranmer and some of the continental reformers like Peter Martyr Vermeagle and Martin Boutzer, some of the tensions and divisions. And, you know, as much as I do feel a little protective, of Protestantism against some of the attacks because we hear this 30,000 denominations figure over and over and sometimes it's 40,000 or 50,000. It doesn't matter how many times we patiently explain that that's acknowledged to be an inaccurate statistic. Nonetheless, we hear it, but so it's overstated, but can we acknowledge, and how do you interpret that? You know, why, why have we, we've got about 12

minutes and I've got two more questions after this, so I hope we can get through all these, but What can we say about this in the spirit of acknowledgement? I'll be quick. I don't think we have to hide the fact as Protestants that there is unfortunate division. There's nothing, there's no reason to, right? This side of heaven, this side of the Eschaton, of course there's going to be a lack of unity. And we should lament that to a certain degree, to a certain degree, we should lament that. To your point, though, Gavin, at the same time, though, I think we're fooling ourselves and maybe others if we buy into that narrative that says, well, that's a Protestant issue.

It's not. It's not merely something that is germane to Protestantism alone. In fact, I think historians have pointed this out, and they're not even Protestant historians. They have said it's not so much that the Reformation came on the scene in the 16th century and created division. Rather, it came on the scene and noticed all the divisions that had occurred over the last, goodness, 500 years. Polks excommunicating one another. Divisions between the east and the west over the filiocque clause. Divisions within Rome, do we go the direction of concierism or curiosism? That has some outcomes for papal infallibility.

and so many other divisions. I mean, even think about this one, a theological issue, justification. It's not quite until the Council of Trent, that justification itself has more or less a formal, decided stance by Rome. So you put all of those issues onto the table, and suddenly you realize actually the reformers aren't creating a new denomination so much as they are renewing. what they think is Catholic, what they think is Catholic, do they do it perfectly? Of course not.

But nonetheless, that is their intention. The other thing I would just say to wrap this up is when we talk about our current situation today, I think we are all in this boat. In large part, just to give one example, because of Protestant liberalism. It doesn't matter in a sense, whether you go to Rome or Eastern Orthodoxy or a Protestant denomination, or a Protestant denomination, or church, you will see division everywhere because we live after modernity and now even maybe after post-modernity. So in that sense, we all have to wrestle with this issue. And what I would say in the end is, how do we then decide and determine and confirm where that unity

should lie? I think that if we just place our hope in the externals, well, this will only provide. perpetuate itself, this division. If we place it in something invisible and immutable, something objective in God and Christ, I think actually there we have a much better foundation. That is where, even though we have division on secondary issues and tertiary issues among our Protestant denominations, we do have, at least among evangelical Christians, we do have a unity around those first order doctrines. Yes. Let me ask about the topic of assurance of salvation. As I've been in these conversations amidst the different traditions, this is something that's maybe come to be the deepest thing in my heart from a pastoral angle for those who are wrestling. And you have a great section on this in the book. Could you just unpack how did the Council of Trent respond to the Reformation on this issue, the assurance of salvation? And how would you interact with that position? Well, I'm glad you mentioned assurance because sometimes when Trent and not just Trent, but the context that brings Trent about, when this is raised, folks will go to, okay, what are they saying about scripture? What are they saying about justification? What are they saying about the church? And that's right. That's good. but if we don't notice what they are saying about assurance or the lack or what can be a lack of assurance, I think we miss the we don't give enough credit to Trent that many of those at Trent are thinking through these issues pastorally, if that makes sense.

In other words, it's not that they don't understand the doctrine debates. of justification. In fact, many of those debates are driving this discussion, but they are also thinking through the doctrine of justification in relation to clergy and laity in the church. And I think that actually puts it in proper context. Now, let's just be honest here. I think the reformers were quite bold to say to the Christian, you can have assurance of salvation. if, if it is grounded on the objective righteousness of Jesus Christ. Now, the charge they often received in return was, well, then you have no place for Christian works. Now, the reformers were quite ready, actually, to answer that accusation.

And they wrote books and books and books showing biblically, no, actually, if you understand justification in a way that ground sanctification, actually the fruit comes. But that issue aside, I think it's important to emphasize for the reformers, assurance was such a bold claim and really quite provocative and offensive to Rome because they were not just, because they were claiming assurance in the first place, but ultimately because they actually removed myself from the equation. And that's where, although Trent could provide a certain degree of assurance, because remember, when this goes, this is a long story here, they do think that Grace, grace is necessary, right? They're not Pelagian, and they're very clear about that. They're not Pelagian or semi-plagian. And so there is a sense in which they can reassure the sinner that God's grace is primary.

But where the tension is, well, when the center actually looks for that assurance, where do they look? And that's where there's the tension, because even though both of them do look to the grace of God, though they define it a bit differently, the reformers are actually saying that grace is accomplished in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And on that basis, we have a righteousness imputed to us so that, yes, even though I am a sinner and I do sin, I am counted righteous in Christ. and therefore my status, my status is in Christ Jesus. That can't change. Not even the devil himself can tear down that wall. And here's better news yet. Because of that status change, there is a real change within me by means of the Holy Spirit

in which a moral transformation is occurring from, as Paul says, from one degree of glory to another. And that's where I think Trent in the Reformation found it. Even though they agreed on some of those primary issues, they ultimately had a point of tension in the end. Really hopeful. Well, let me ask one final question here. It could be. I feel like I could talk to you for a lot longer, but unfortunately, I need to pick up my kids from school in a few minutes. So we'll have to end it here, but maybe we can talk again sometime.

It could be someone's listening to this and they're realizing, wow, and this is, I think, one of the effects your book will have is there is a lot of substance and richness to the Protestant tradition. And maybe they're wanting to engage further. Now, let's suppose someone's watching this and they're not a scholar, they're not a professional theologian, but they're interested in theology and they'd like to take some next steps of learning more about the richness of the Protestant tradition. Are there two or three texts that you'd like to recommend in addition to.

to, I'll say your, this book we're talking about right now, your book is one that we should recommend. But in addition to that, are there other texts, whether contemporary or historic, that you would encourage people to look at, to learn more about Protestantism? Yeah. I think the first thing I would say is go read the sources yourself, right? This is what the reformers did. They didn't rely on themselves. They weren't shut up in a room.

They went and they read Augustine. And they wanted to know, what does Augustine? and say about grace. You should take up that same spirit if you are to take the reformer seriously. Where do you begin? Goodness, there's so much, right? Two recommendations. One is, I think it's helpful to read some of the primary sources in the between especially 1517 and 1525. So pick up, you know, of course, of course, pick up, you know, some of Luther's early works, but also read, say, his debate with Erasmus over the bondage of the will. Read one of Luther's most important books, the freedom of the Christian. Read his little treatment of two kinds of righteousness.

Remember, many of these are coming out of his sermons. And then the second thing I would say is also be sure to not just read what the reformers are. writing, but also be sure to read their confessions and catechisms. Read Luther's Catechism. Make sure you're reading, say, not just Calvin's institutes, but some of the the confessions and catechisms that are coming out of Geneva. And the other thing I would say is read beyond Martin Luther and John Calvin, as much as we love them. They are not, they are not, the Reformation doesn't end with them, right? And so I would encourage listeners out there, pick up Martin Bootser, read Philippe Melanchthon, for example, read Zwingley, read Bollinger and many others. In fact, I think what you will find is some of these individuals in the 16th century are just as popular as, say, a John Calvin, maybe even more so. So go back to the sources. I think that's the most, maybe the most important thing you could do.

Fantastic advice. Matthew, thanks so much for this great book. Thanks for taking the time to talk about it. I think it'll be really helpful for people. For everybody watching, make sure you click on the link in the video description if you want to get a copy of the book and take a look for yourself. Thanks for watching everybody. We'll see you next time.