DEFINITION
Reformed theology is the term used to refer to the belief system(s) of those
Protestant churches which trace their origins to the work of Reformers such as
Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin.
SUMMARY
Reformed theology, originating in the Swiss Reformation, developed in response both
to late medieval Catholicism and Lutheranism, breaking with the latter on the issue
of the nature of Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper. Defined
confessionally by the Three Forms of Unity and the Westminster Standards, it
maintains the generic Protestant emphases on the sufficiency of scripture and on
justification by grace through faith, being distinctive in its approach to
Christology, sacraments, certain approaches to politic and culture, and worship.
The term “Reformed Theology” has a range of meanings in contemporary
church life and theology. It can be used to refer to the beliefs of any Protestant
movement that adheres to a broadly anti-Pelagian understanding of salvation, as, for
example, in the Young, Restless, and Reformed phenomenon. At a more technical level
it refers specifically to Protestant churches that hold as confessional norms the
Three Forms of Unity, the Westminster Standards, or (in the case of Reformed
Baptists) the Second London Confession.
History
The Reformed churches trace their origins to the Reformation in Switzerland,
specifically to that which originated in Zurich in the 1520s under the leadership of
Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531). Zwingli’s reformation was distinguished from
that of Luther theologically in its emphasis upon Scripture as the normative rule of
liturgical practice (hence, for example, Zurich churches removed stained glass
windows and developed a very simple, Word-centered form of worship) and in its
denial of the Real Presence in the Lord’s Supper. This latter point led to a
formal break between Luther and Zwingli at the Marburg Colloquy in 1529, an event
which divided Reformed and Lutheran churches in perpetuity.
While Zwingli provided the initial formative impulse for Reformed theology, others
soon came to play prominent roles. Heinrich Bullinger continued the Zurich
reformation after Zwingli’s death; Martin Bucer implemented similar reforms in
Starsbourg; John Calvin, Pierre Viret, Guillaume Farel, and Pierre Viret, among
others, implemented reform in Geneva and its environs. Then, in the later sixteenth
century, Reformed churches spread across Europe. To France, the Low Countries,
England, and Scotland. By the end of the seventeenth century, churches adhering to
Reformed theology were found.
During this period, Reformed theology also planted itself within the university
system and this led to a flowering of Reformed thought in the late sixteenth and
throughout the seventeenth centuries, of which John Owen in England and Gisbertus
Voetius in the Low Countries are perhaps the two greatest examples. Such a fertile
period was not to last, however, and the impact of Enlightenment patterns of thought
on universities by the end of the seventeenth century meant that Reformed theology,
rooted as it was in traditional metaphysics, was soon either modified beyond
recognition or displaced within the curriculum.
In more recent centuries, Reformed theology played a significant role in the
political and cultural life of the Netherlands, particularly through the figure of
Abraham Kuyper who founded a denomination, a newspaper, a university, and a
political party. He also served as Prime Minister. In Kuyper, Reformed theology came
to take on a cultural ambition not seen since the Reformation of the sixteenth
century and, through Kuyper’s friend and colleague, Herman Bavinck, found one
of its most articulate and talented theologians. The latter’s four volume Reformed
Dogmatics represents the last great attempt to offer a comprehensive
account of Reformed theology in dialogue with modernity. One unfortunate dimension
to Dutch Reformed theology was the role it played in South Africa where it was used
as partial justification for apartheid, although, in a more liberal form, it also
proved a resource for those who opposed the regime such as Alan Boesak.
In Scotland, the Free Church of Scotland and its educational institution, New
College, provided some theological leadership particularly through its preeminent
theologians, William Cunningham and James Bannerman. In America, Princeton
Theological Seminary was the center of Reformed theology in the nineteenth century,
and its two most famous faculty, Charles Hodge and Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield,
also made significant contributions to Reformed thought, particularly on the issues
of evolution and scriptural authority. Further, thanks to American missionary
endeavors, Korea, and then after partition, South Korea, became a center for
Reformed theology in the non-Western world.
In the mid-twentieth century, the most significant Reformed theologian was Karl
Barth, although his own theology, particularly on the issues of election and
scripture, represented a significant departure from the Reformed confessional
tradition on these points. The more orthodox and confessional streams of Reformed
theology after the era of Bavinck tended to be represented outside of the mainstream
denominations and academy by theologians who essentially repristinated the earlier
traditions. The later work of John Webster, the Anglican theologian, who taught at
the Universities of Oxford, Aberdeen, and latterly St. Andrews, marked something of
an exception to this pattern.
Reformed Theological Distinctives
Reformed theology shared with Lutheranism and Anglicanism a commitment to the generic
doctrines of the Protestant Reformation: justification by grace through faith; the
sufficiency and normative authority of Scripture alone; and a basic opposition to
the sacramental system and the magisterial authority of the church.
Salvation
As with Luther, the Reformed followed Augustine and the medieval anti-Pelagian
tradition in stressing the sovereignty of God in salvation in eternity via
predestination and election. This was the corollary of a belief in the significance
of original sin and human depravity as rendering human being impotent to initiate
their own salvation. Reformed theologians nevertheless exhibit some variation on
whether the decree to predestine was single (involving election to life and a
“passing over” over others) or double (involving both a positive will to
elect some and to reprobate others) and also on the question of supra- or
infra-lapsarian (the issue of whether God, in his eternal election, conceived of
human beings as hypothetically unfallen or fallen).
On the issue of the atonement, there is again diversity among the Reformed regarding
its so-called extent. While all orthodox variations of Reformed theology reject the
concept of universal salvation, debates about the hypothetical sufficiency and
intention of the atonement have marked the history of the Reformed tradition since
the Reformation, most famously in the rise of Amyraldianism, associated with the
Academy at Saumur in France, members of whose faculty advocated a hypothetically
universal atonement whole rejecting the notion of universal salvation.
Sacraments and Christology
At the heart of that which distinguishes the Reformed from the Lutherans as the two
primary representatives of Protestant theological traditions, lie the sacraments.
The Reformed understand baptism in covenantal terms, as replacing circumcision and
as pointing back to God’s unilateral commitment to his people in the covenant
of grace. As such (like the Lutherans) the Reformed hold to infant baptism but
(unlike the Lutherans) do not see baptism as the moment of regeneration so much as
the sign of entry into the visible church. Reformed Baptists reject infant baptism
but retain a covenantal understanding, seeing God as the agent rather than reducing
baptism simply to an outward means of profession of faith.
On the Lord’s Supper, there is some diversity within the Reformed tradition,
with both Zwinglian memorialism and Calvin’s position being found within the
confessional tradition. The counterpoint to both is primarily that of Luther and
Lutheranism. Luther famously asserted the real presence of the whole Christ, divine
and human, in the elements of bread and wine. In later Lutheran theology, this was
expressed as the whole Christ being present in, with, and under the
elements. Key to this was the idea that, in the Incarnation, the attributes of
deity were communicated directly to the humanity (and therefore the humanity of
Jesus could, for example, partake of the omnipresence of his divinity and being
present in the elements). Further, the Lutherans were adamant that this meant that
unbelievers receiving the sacrament really did receive Christ, albeit to their
damnation.
The Reformed position rejects the idea of direct communication, asserting instead
that the properties of Christ’s divinity are communicated to the person of the
mediator, and only therefore indirectly to the human nature. This position became
known as the extra Calvinisticum: the idea that though the divinity of
Christ is truly united to the humanity, it is not circumscribed by the humanity.
Thus, the humanity of Christ remains finite and cannot be present in the bread and
wine because it is currently seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven.
While Zwinglians and Calvinists agree on this Christological point and also in their
rejection of the Lutheran claim that unbelievers truly eat the body and blood of
Christ in the Lord’s Supper. Yet there are key differences. Zwinglians tend to
view the Lord’s Supper as then being a mere memorial whose significance lies
in reminding Christians of Christ’s death and of binding them together in the
present. Calvin and those who follow him regard the Lord’s Supper not simply
as a memorial but also as a sign and seal of the covenant of grace. In the act of
eating, the Holy Spirit enables the believer truly to feed upon Christ by faith and
thereby makes Christ more real to the one partaking. It is the same Christ but
received in a different way. Like the Lutherans, however, the Reformed all regarded
the proclamation of the Word as the only context in which the sacraments could be
properly administered and received. Only when understood relative to God’s
promise in Christ could the sacramental action avoid become an idol.
Politics and Culture
Reformed theology in the last hundred years has offered various models for
understanding the relationship of the church to broader social concerns. On the
left, the work of Jurgen Moltmann provided inspiration for Liberation Theology. On
the right, theonomy or Christian reconstructionism, a movement associated with
Rousas J. Rushdoony and his followers, argued for the need to apply Old Testament
law to contemporary society. More recently, the work of David VanDrunen has
rehabilitated the natural law tradition in Reformed theology which played a signal
role in both the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Combined with his emphasis on
Two Kingdoms, this represents a fruitful new development in Reformed ethics at a
point in time when Protestantism is having to reassess its social thought in
relation to new political and ethical challenges in a post-Christian context.
Worship
While there is no single liturgical form demanded by Reformed theology, Reformed
churches typically regarded Scripture as regulating worship in a manner which
presses towards an aesthetic and formal simplicity focused on prayer, the reading
and preaching of the Bible, the sacraments, and singing, the latter of which was
historically psalmody but now generally includes hymns as well. Such worship is seen
as a practical manifestation of the Reformed commitment to the sufficiency of
scripture, not simply for doctrine and ethics but also for church practice.
