Reformation Thought. Alister E. McGrath

The fifth chapter offers brief biographical sketches of some of seven significant figures of the Reformation, in preparation for the sustained engagement with the ideas of the movement in the second part of the work.

      2. The Core Themes of Reformation Thought

      The second major section consists of six chapters (6–11) which engage the main themes of Reformation thought – such as the authority and interpretation of the Bible, the doctrine of justification by faith, and the nature of the church. In each case, considerable care is taken to explain the positions of a range of contributors, including Lutheran, Reformed, Anabaptist, and Catholic. At several points, significant English contributions to these debates are noted, referencing key English writers such as William Tyndale and Thomas Cranmer. Although earlier editions included a chapter dedicated to the thought of English writers, their dependence on their continental counterparts made it more appropriate to integrate them into the thematic discussion of issues, and thus allow their significance to be better understood. A final chapter (Chapter 12) considers how the ideas of the Reformation age spread internationally, and their impact on the historical process.

      So how should you use this book? My correspondence with users of earlier editions suggests that most fall into one of two groups. I shall briefly describe these two broad categories of readers, and explain how each can get the most out of this textbook.

      Some readers will want to go deeply into the thought of the Reformation period, understanding both its historical context and evolution and wider cultural and historical significance. They should read the book in its totality in the order in which the material is presented. This allows a cumulative and progressive approach to Reformation thought, in that each chapter can build on the foundations laid earlier. It is easier to understand the nature and significance of the theological debates of the age of Reformation if you know about their historical context.

Others, however, will want to master the key ideas of the Reformation, aiming to gain an understanding of their theological significance. For such readers, the historical and cultural context is not of pressing importance, and can be explored later. These readers should begin at Chapter 6, and end at Chapter 11. You will find discussion of certain points that reference earlier chapters – especially relating to Renaissance humanism and medieval scholasticism. You can either ignore these, or follow them through later. The work has been designed to allow you to understand the theological issues debated in the age of Reformation, without requiring a detailed historical knowledge of their background and context. You may also find it interesting to consider the longer-term significance of these ideas, which is discussed in Chapter 12.

This work also includes a series of appendices that deal with difficulties which experience suggests most students encounter as they read works relating to the Reformation. What do these abbreviations mean? How can I make sense of those references to primary and secondary sources? What does “Pelagian” mean? Where should I go to find out more about the Reformation? These questions and others are dealt with at length, making this book especially valuable to those new to the field. I assume that the reader speaks no language other than English, and all Latin quotations or slogans are therefore translated and explained. Although the text of the work draws extensively upon foreign language scholarship, I have woven this seamlessly into the analysis, and limited my bibliographies to works that are available in English.

1 Introducing the Age of Reformation

      Many students approach the ideas of the European Reformation of the sixteenth century in much the same way as medieval travelers approached the vast dark forests of southern Germany – with a sense of hesitation and anxiety, in case what lay ahead should prove impenetrable. They often feel like explorers venturing into an unfamiliar world, at times overwhelmed by the unmapped wilderness ahead of them, in which they could easily become lost. Many find themselves longing for a guide who will lead them through what sometimes seems like a dense and impenetrable jungle.

      It is understandably difficult for a student who has been immersed in the secularism of modern western culture to come to terms with a movement that was so clearly motivated by religious ideas. It is tempting to marginalize these ideas and view the sixteenth century through the lens of the modern period. Like any historical phenomenon, however, the Reformation demands that its interpreters attempt to enter into its world-view. We must learn to empathize with its concerns and outlook, in order to understand how these affected the great flux of history. The Reformation in Switzerland and Germany was directly based upon religious ideas which demand and deserve careful consideration. Even in England, where local conditions led to political factors having a somewhat greater influence, a significant core of religious ideas and concerns shaped the development of the reforming programs of the age. This book aims to explain as clearly as possible what the religious ideas underlying the Reformation were and how these impacted on individuals and communities. So what do we mean by this idea of “Reformation,” or the phrase “An Age of Reformation”?

The Concept of “Reformation”

      Like many other terms used by historians to designate eras in human history – such as “Renaissance” or “Enlightenment” – the term “Reformation” is open to criticism. For example, the twelfth century witnessed a comparable attempt to reform the church in western Europe – but the term “Reformation” is not used by historians to designate this earlier movement. Other terms might be thought by some to be more appropriate to refer to the sixteenth-century movement we shall be studying in this work.

      The term “Reformation” does not designate a specific chronological period – such as “the sixteenth century” (a block of time that is easily demarcated) or “the Middle Ages” (which proves rather more difficult to define). Like the term “Renaissance,” it is an interpretative category – a way of mapping out a slice of history in which certain ideas, attitudes, and values were developed, explored, and applied. The present book uses the term “Reformation” in a restricted sense, engaging the leading individuals, ideas, and movements working for the reform and renewal of the church in western Europe over the period 1500–60. As the title of this work makes clear, its particular focus is on the ideas that lay behind the Reformation in its various forms. How did they arise? How were they understood? What was their appeal? And what were their consequences?

      The term “Reformation” has achieved wide usage, and there are no persuasive reasons for ceasing to use it. It does, however, need to be used with caution. The historian John O’Malley makes an important point that needs to be taken seriously. Terms such as “Reformation,” “Counter Reformation,” and “Catholic Reformation” are not, he cautions, “simple ideas.” Rather, they “subtly directed attention to some issues and away from others, highlighted certain phenomena and cast others into the shadows, admitted some evidence but filtered out the rest.”¹ O’Malley’s point is that we need to be attentive to the historical evidence, and not allow ourselves to become trapped by preconceived ideas about what the Reformation ought to be, or whether it was a good thing or a bad thing.

      The term “Reformation” has come to be generally accepted as the proper designation for reforming movements within church and society in the first half of the sixteenth century, partly because the movement was linked with the recognition of the need for a significant overhaul of the institutions, practices, and – though perhaps to a lesser extent – the ideas of the western church. The term, which has achieved wide acceptance, helpfully indicates that there were both social and intellectual dimensions to the movement which it designates. Christianity was woven into the social fabric of western Europe at this time, and the demands for reform included both a review of aspects of the Church which appeared to have become corrupt, and its ideas, some of which were called into question by the new biblical scholarship of the Renaissance. Reform was thus needed