By Michael Vendsel
The medievals generally favored Aristotle’s conception over Plato’s. For them, then, the metaphysical portrait of human choosing was an inner drive channeling through the intellect to influence the human will. The same basic debate just described, however, re-emerged within this tradition. Some, in a more Platonic fashion, thought that the intellect exerts a [...]

By Michael Vendsel
This begins a series of posts by Mike Vendsel on the doctrine of free will as understood and taught by Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562) and Francis Turretin (1623-1687). Mike is a colleague of mine and a very good friend. He holds a Master of Arts in philosophy from the University of Dallas, a [...]

The Catholic scholar, John Patrick Donnelly, S.J. in his book, Calvinism and Scholasticism in Vermigli’s Doctrine of Man and Grace, shows that Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562) was thoroughly acquainted with Aristotle and St. Thomas, as well as a number of other medievals (Lombard), patristics, and numerous ancient philosophers. In fact, Vermigli wrote a commentary on [...]

This year’s guest speaker for the Aquinas Lecture (which occurs each Spring at the University of Dallas) is Dr. Timothy Noone, who will present a lecture entitled, “Nature, Freedom and Will: Sources for Philosophical Reflection.”
Additional information:
Timothy B. Noone is a professor at the Catholic University of America and is the director of the Center of [...]

By Stephen Grabill
This post sketches out the rough outline of Jerome Zanchi’s understanding of natural law. An interesting difference between Zanchi and Martyr is that Thomistic elements are far more important in Zanchi’s theology than in Martyr’s theology.
The historian John Patrick Donnelly thinks Zanchi is the best example of “Calvinist Thomism,” meaning a theologian who [...]

By Stephen Grabill

This post examines Peter Martyr Vermigli’s understanding of natural law, while part 6 will take up the natural-law thinking of Jerome Zanchi, Martyr’s former student and colleague.
Martyr was born in Florence in 1499, entered the Augustinian Canons, and took a doctorate in theology at the leading center of Renaissance Aristotelianism, the University of [...]

By Stephen Grabill
As promised in part 3, this post will begin a discussion of natural law in the thought of the Reformer Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562), but first I want to touch on the broader issue of natural law in the context of Reformation theology.
More than any other Reformer, John Calvin is appealed to for [...]

By Stephen Grabill

As I mentioned in part 2, a common stereotype of Protestant ethics is that it is wedded to nominalism. While this may be true for some (particularly modern) Protestant ethicists, it is false for Peter Martyr Vermigli and Jerome Zanchi, two older Reformed moral theologians. Before showing how this is so, and still [...]

By Stephen Grabill
As I mentioned in part 1 of this series, my aim is to probe the natural-law doctrines of only a few influential sixteenth-century Protestant theologians.
Some, such as John Calvin, may already be familiar to you, while others, such as Peter Martyr Vermigli (known as Martyr) and Jerome Zanchi, may be entirely new. What [...]

Since I am somewhat immersed in reading Protestant scholastic-related texts at the moment, I thought that this new series by a guest post-er would be a nice complement to the Muller series and would perhaps stimulate a good deal of discussion.
***
By Stephen Grabill
Dr. Grabill has kindly given me permission to edit and re-publish a series [...]

[This post concludes my brief introduction to Muller’s thesis].
In a section titled, “The Design and Scope of the Present Study,” Muller begins to explicitly state the various assumptions and aspects of his continuity thesis, or better his “double” continuity and discontinuity thesis. As we saw in the previous two posts, Muller contends that the [...]

As we highlighted in the previous post, Muller argues that the Protestant scholastics were not a great departure from the early Reformers but were in essentially agreement with teachings of their predecessors and continued in a distinctively Reformed trajectory. Moreover, just as the early Reformers themselves constituted a pluriform movement exhibiting continuities and discontinuites [...]

According to Richard A. Muller, Protestant scholasticism (which he uses synonymously with “orthodox Protestantism”) has been woefully neglected when compared to the attention given to the study of early Reformers (e.g., Luther) and second generation Reformers (e.g., Calvin). The Protestant scholastics of the late 16th and early 17th centuries were the confessional and doctrinal codifiers [...]

As the title indicates, this post concludes our brief introduction to Avicenna’s thought. Avicenna postulates the “flying man,” i.e., a human born in space who does not have the use of any of his senses. The question is, “What would he know?” Avicenna’s answer is that he would know that he is [...]

According to Avicenna, Alla is that being who is necessary through himself and is radically simple. This necessary-through-itself being explains the beings that exist through him and have only possible existence. These latter beings are composite beings—composed of essence/existence and form/matter. Allah, as we said, is simple and cannot be composed of [...]

Patrik H. at God in a Shrinking Universe has “tagged” me with a new meme. This meme exists because of an effort to create a kind of canon of contemporary theology. The originator of the meme desires that the focus of your selection be theology (not biblical exegesis, historical studies etc., unless these are of [...]

Because I am in a kind of “medieval” mood, I decided to review my notes from a course taken at UD on medieval philosophy taught by Fr. Lehrberger. What follows (which includes subsequent posts in this series) is based largely on his lectures notes. I am, however, not a specialist on Avicenna.
***Avicenna [...]

Geoff H. at the church and postmodern culture blog recently posted a brief article of mine called, “Bringing Musical Insights into Conversation with Biblical Hermeneutics.” If you are interested, please join us.

In the last section of his essay, “Gadamer’s Hermeneutics and the Question of Relativism,” Echeverria argues that Gadamer is a kind of realist about truth and reality. This is not to say that Gadamer explicitly develops his position as a realist in his writings; however, it is to point to certain aspects of Gadamer’s hermeneutics [...]

Eduardo J. Echeverria, in his essay, “Gadamer’s Hermeneutics and the Question of Relativism,” begins by citing a passage from Truth and Method in which Gadamer claims that human reason is both situated in and limited to historical circumstances. Though Gadamer rejects what Echeverria calls “absolute reason”—a kind of universal, objective human reason transcending history—Echeverria argues [...]