August 3, 2021 Show with Jeffrey D. Johnson on “A Critical Appraisal of Thomas Aquinas”

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth, who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this third day of August, 2021.

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I'm thrilled to have back on the program someone who I've always loved to interview,

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Dr. Jeffrey D. Johnson, who is founder of Free Grace Press and pastor of Grace Bible Church in Conway, Arkansas, which is the home of Grace Bible Institute.

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And today we are going to be addressing a latest book by Dr.

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Johnson, The Failure of Natural Theology, a Critical Appraisal of the

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Philosophical Theology of Thomas Aquinas. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

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Jeffrey D. Johnson. Thanks, Chris. It's great to be on the show again. It's great to have you back.

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And we also have joining us as a special co -host today, my dear friend,

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Dr. Jeffrey C. Waddington, pastor of Faith Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Fawn Grove, Pennsylvania.

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He is also an author, a conference speaker, and vice president of the board of directors for the

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Reformed Forum. It's great to have you back on the program, Dr. Waddington. Yes, Chris, it's wonderful to be here on this day.

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And especially with the topic that we're going to tackle and to meet, at least,

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I can see him on our technology, but anyways, it's good to be here.

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It's great to have you back as well. And for those of our listeners who are interested in hearing more about the topic that we are addressing, which is basically a critique of the philosophical theology of Thomas Aquinas, you can also, after this show is over, look up an interview we did with Dr.

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Jeffrey C. Waddington on the same issue on October 11th, 2018.

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I can't believe it was nearly three years ago, Jeff, that we discussed this.

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The specific title was, The Debate Over Retrieving Thomas Aquinas for Reformed Theology.

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And Dr. Waddington took the same position as our guest today,

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Dr. Jeffrey D. Johnson. Before we go into our discussion, Dr. Johnson, please let our listeners know about Grace Bible Church in Conway, Arkansas.

03:52

Yeah, we're a Reformed Baptist church in the middle of the state of Arkansas. We've been, we just celebrated 20 years, we founded the church 20 years ago, right out of college.

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And then 10 years ago, we started Good Grace Press, where we've got about 50 titles to our name now, so it's a growing publishing company.

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We're doing two, almost three books a month. So things are ramped up. We're really putting out some books now.

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And then we are in our fourth year with our new seminary,

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Grace Bible Theological Seminary. We've just brought on Dr. Owen Strand from Midwestern, has moved over, and now he's a residential professor, provost.

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What a gem he is, I tell you, he's mind -blowing. Yeah, he's right across the office from me right now, he's one office down.

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It's been a blessing to be able to eat lunch with him almost every day and get to rub shoulders with him, and he's a blessing to us.

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That's brought in a lot of inquiries to the seminary, we're going from 20 students to probably 2 ,000 students overnight, it's quite a lot.

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Wow, yeah. And I'm exaggerating, but it feels that way. Just a small seminary that's in the middle of a lot of growth, and we just want to be a solid, reformed, non -woke seminary in an age where people are going liberal on us.

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Yeah, well if anybody wants to know more about Grace Bible Church of Conway, Arkansas, go to gbcconway .com,

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gbcconway, c -o -n -w -a -y dot com. And you can also find out more about Free Grace Press at freegracepress .com,

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freegracepress .com. Dr. Waddington, please let our listeners know a bit about Faith Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Thorn Grove, Pennsylvania.

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Sure, we're a small congregation here on the Mason -Dixon line. The congregation has been in existence since 1936.

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It was an independent Presbyterian church until 1964 when it came into the

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OPC. So it left the mother denomination, the Presbyterian Church USA, in 1936, but then aligned with the

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OPC 28 years later. And so we are pleased to say we had three new members added just about a month, month and a half ago, and looks like we may have two more new members joining in September or October.

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So that's very exciting to see that. And I just love serving here in this beautiful region.

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It really is. We're, as you know, Chris, about an hour from you, about an hour from Gettysburg, about 45 minutes from Antietam, and Harper's Ferry, all you

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Civil War aficionados, it's a beautiful area.

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And God is blessing us, lots of challenges that go with being a small rural congregation, but I love it here with all of the various challenges that are present.

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It's a great, great place to serve. And now tell us about the Reform Forum. Oh, yes, the other organization of which

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I'm a part. The Reform Forum is an internet -based

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Christian education outreach. We host the

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Crisis Center podcast, which is now, I think, in its 13th year.

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And we drop a new episode every Friday. It's discussing all things biblical and theological from a

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Reform perspective. There are other podcasts, and we have a new outreach called the

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Reformed Academy, where we are in the, you might say, the infant stages of building a curriculum and creating online courses for those who are interested in building their knowledge base of Reformed theology, biblical theology, systematics, church history, and the like.

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So that is a growing enterprise internationally.

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Well, the last time I had a figure, we were in 1 ,700 students in the

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Reformed Academy involved in various courses at this point.

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So that is totally online.

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There's no bricks. It's just the clicks at this point, with no plans at this point for other than the

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Reform Forum offices, which are out in Grayslake, Illinois, where our executive director,

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Reverend Dr. Camden Busey resides and works. And we do conferences as well.

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We have one annual conference this year being held in Texas in Pflugerville, outside of Austin.

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It will be the first time it has not met at HOPE OPC in Grayslake in the several years we've been doing it.

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Then we have occasional regional conferences as well. I'm hoping to do something even here with Dr.

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Lane Tipton, my good friend and colleague who's a member of the faculty at the

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Reformed Forum. Okay, well, if anybody wants information on Faith Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Fawn Grove, Pennsylvania, the website is faithopc .net,

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faithopc .net. And for more information on the Reformed Forum, you can go to reformedforum .org,

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reformedforum .org. Well, I think it'd be wise for us, first of all, to get two things established.

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Dr. Johnson, perhaps you could give us a little background on Thomas Aquinas, who is revered as a hero by the vast majority of Roman Catholics and even quite a substantial number of Protestants, and then get a definition from you of what exactly natural theology is.

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Yeah, two good questions. Thomas Aquinas was an interesting man. He lived in the 13th century, born in 1224 in Rocca Seca, Italy.

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It's interesting that he almost died in infancy. There was a lightning strike that came into the window and killed his twin sister.

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And he survived. And it led to his mother thinking there was something special about Thomas. He would grow up and was born into royalty, basically.

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But he sometime in his, you know, he went off to university in Naples.

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And being there, he was drawn to the Dominican order, a newly established order of preachers that had to take a vow of poverty.

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And unlike normal monks, this order of preachers would go and take their message to the streets.

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And his parents were very upset with that decision because, one, there's not a lot of money in that type of decision.

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And so they, strangely enough, they kidnapped him on his way to Paris and brought him.

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For about a year, they had him locked up. And it's reported,

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I don't know if this is true or not, but most biographies count it as a true event, where his brothers throw in a prostitute to try to get him to break his vow of chastity.

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And, yeah, he withholds that resistance and doesn't fall into that temptation. And after a year, his mother felt sorry for him.

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And basically, off to Paris he goes. He sets under one of the leading theologians of that day,

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Albert the Great, who was already heavy into Pseudo -Dionysius and Aristotle, the two main men that would influence

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Thomas's life. And so he was set under Albert the Great, even went with Albert the

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Great to Cologne to help him start a new college there. Then he goes back to Paris and ends up teaching at the

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University of Paris. And then from that point forward, he would go back and forth to the rest of his life, all over Europe, essentially teaching.

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But he had one main objective. His main objective was to try to reconcile

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Aristotelian philosophy, which at the time the Catholic Church had censored because Aristotle didn't believe in a

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God that could create a world out of nothing. And that's against the Catholic orthodoxy.

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So Aquinas was deemed as a heretic, unorthodox literature.

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So he had the task of trying to redeem Aristotle from his own unorthodoxy and bring him under the banner of the

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Catholic Church. And he spent his whole adult life trying to accomplish that task.

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And then he died before he reached the age of 50, at the age of 49, on his way to Lyon.

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And some say that he hit a low -hanging branch. Others say it was just a matter of being sick.

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We're not for sure what caused him to die. But he died prematurely.

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And then within 10 years, his theology was debated, censored. But within 30 years, the

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Catholic Church is basically adopting Aquinas' theology. And within 50 years, he's deemed as the hero of the

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Catholic Church. And ever since that time, basically Aquinas is really considered the angelic doctor, the principal theologian right next to Augustine for the

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Catholic Church. And if you want to understand Thomas Aquinas' theology, you just need to read the

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Council of Trent. For almost everything besides the view of Mary, the

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Council of Trent is almost verbatim in agreement with Aquinas' own theology.

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So that's a little bit about Aquinas. The second question is his natural theology.

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And that's a big question because a lot of people confuse, even good people confuse natural theology with natural revelation.

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And we believe in natural revelation. That's the revelation that God gives all humanity through creation.

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So it's not necessarily innate knowledge that we're just born with, this innate knowledge that's just there.

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It's revelation that comes through the mechanism of creation, through the universe, through looking at the stars and the trees, and even observing your own self.

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Creation identifies certain truths about God. It tells us certain things that are true about God.

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And what it reveals to us is that which is not only universally known, but is immediately made known.

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And so that's natural revelation that we hold to. The Bible affirms that in Psalm 19 and Romans 1 and Acts 17 and other places.

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We have that, which we affirm, but then you have natural theology, which is not natural revelation.

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It's really more or less philosophy. It's a philosophy of a religion, what we can know about God through reason or through sense experience.

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What can we deduce or induce about the nature of God by studying creation? So it's not immediate awareness of God.

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It's built on a blank slate of agnosticism, and then studying the world, the universe, and trying to figure out how

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God is like by studying what he's made. It's studying God or trying to have a knowledge of God by looking at creation and deducing back to God.

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So that's philosophy of religion or natural theology. And my book is trying to critique that, that natural theology doesn't lead to the

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God of the Bible. Now, I'd like to start now that we have that outline of the main theme of our discussion.

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I'd like to start with having both you and Dr. Waddington share anything that you can think of that you view positively about Thomas Aquinas' contribution to the

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Christian church, if any. If you could, we'll start with you,

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Dr. Johnson, if you can say anything in a positive vein that you might have in mind, knowing of his life and legacy.

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Yeah, there's two things I admire about Thomas Aquinas. I don't know of any other person in history that I've ever studied that had the fortitude to think deeply and extensively about a single topic without distraction.

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The man literally wrote over 100 books, and like his summa, his magnum opus, is of 1 .5

18:37

million words. So one of his books is a million and a half words, and most of his books are just big tomes.

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Very few people write to that level, even with word processors. We don't have that ability to put out the product that Thomas Aquinas was able to produce in a relatively short time.

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We're looking at the age of about 25 to 49. He's putting out an average of three books a year.

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One year he put out 14 books. It's phenomenal. The man was able to think deeply and longingly and stay focused on a single topic.

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He only ate one meal a day, which is phenomenal, and he would basically wear himself out and stay up late at night, wake up early, gave himself completely to this task.

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He had three secretaries. At one time, he had three secretaries that he would dictate to him. And when

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I look at that, I'm impressed. Of course, he wasn't married, and he refused every type of promotion that he could have got that could have distracted him.

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He stayed focused to teaching and to lecturing and to writing. I love that about him.

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That's commendable. I've read 50 biographies about Thomas Aquinas.

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I'm exaggerating a little bit, but I've lost count of all the biographies I've read about him. The guy seemed to be very kind, gentle, kind of a loving, respectful person.

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People loved him. He was a gentle, kind, I would say maybe even humble type person.

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I would imagine if I knew him, I would like him as a person.

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I'm not crazy about his theology, but as a person, he's very commendable.

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Yeah, I have the same sentiments towards a living individual, Mitch Pacwa, who you may have heard of.

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He is a Roman Catholic priest and also a theologian and apologist, and he has been involved in at least two debates that I orchestrated with Dr.

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James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries. I'm not sure why we're getting that high -pitched whistle occasionally, but please excuse me, folks, for that.

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Dr. Waddington, if you could now let us know any positive thoughts that you have on Thomas Aquinas, just so our listeners don't get the idea that we're just being nasty and totally dismissing him.

21:15

Well, I would echo what Reverend Johnson has said.

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I think probably the benefit of wrestling with someone like Thomas is that he is such a brilliant theologian, philosophical theologian, and anyone who is like that is going to make you think.

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And Reverend Johnson's book is one that shows clearly that he has carefully read

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Thomas himself, as well as various studies on Thomas's thought.

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I don't know that beyond the two things that he has noted that there would be anything that I could add, because when you look at his theology, because he's so brilliant, it is so well -coordinated, each facet of the diamond, if we can use that analogy, is interrelated with every other facet.

22:32

So, because he's, and he made the comment, and I think,

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Jeff, you noted this in your book, if you start at the wrong place, you're going to end up at the wrong place, basically.

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And there are so many assumptions that he starts out with that are problematic, so that I cannot commend his theology, and I don't.

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Now, he is known for being, you know, generically orthodox, although I think, and you're only going to get the bare tip of the iceberg,

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I might say, in our program today. But when you look at the details, and the presuppositions, the assumptions that he starts with, the big one being, of course, the synthesis between Aristotle and Christian theology,

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I think the projects, it's brilliantly conceived, but it's, you know, brilliantly wrong.

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So, I guess I'm the wrong person to ask for more than what

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Reverend Johnson has said are the high points. He's a fascinating figure to read about in terms of his biography, fascinating to wrestle with his thinking, but at the end of the day,

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I just, I cannot commend him beyond the fact that he is in the bloodstream of the

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Western Christian tradition, although me thinks that people have not always read him as carefully and as thoroughly as they could.

24:24

And Dr. Johnson, when you said that if you just, if you want to get an idea of who

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Thomas Aquinas was, just look to what the Council of Trent taught, with the exception of the

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Marian dogmas. Obviously, you're speaking of someone who lived centuries before the

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Council of Trent, but you're saying that the Council of Trent would later, in their protest against the

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Reformation, crystallize Romanism. Yeah, that's exactly right.

25:00

The Council of Trent was made up of many delegates around Europe, but the majority of them were made up of convinced

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Thomists. Some of the leading theologians of the Council of Trent were

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Thomists. And the only book laid next to the Bible on the altar during the

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Councils that they met in Trent was the Summa of Thomas Aquinas. And I'm convinced,

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I've done a lot of study on the Reformation, and they were linked to the Reformation with Thomism or Thomas, and the leading opponents towards Luther and Calvin were convinced

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Thomists, like Cajetan, a guy named Colin from Cologne.

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These guys were heavy hitters. They were Thomists, the leading theologians of their days.

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They're the ones that, like Billamore, Robert Billamore, these guys are the ones that challenged the

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Reformation in the Counter -Reformation period, and these guys are the ones that were trying to carry on Thomism.

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And they would argue against the Reformation, not according to Scripture, but according to deviating from their principal theologian,

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Thomas Aquinas. We have to go to our first break right now. And if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. Please only remain anonymous. If your question involves a personal and private matter, don't go away.

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We'll be right back with our critique of Thomas Aquinas, right after these messages from our sponsors.

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Welcome back, and by the way, Dr. Jeffrey D. Johnson, Pastor Bill Sasser, right before this program, wanted me to extend his greetings to you.

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Pastor Bill, and everyone at Grace Church at Franklin. If you just tuned us in, our guest today is

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Dr. Jeffrey D. Johnson, and he is discussing his new book,

37:49

The Failure of Natural Theology, a critical appraisal of the philosophical theology of Thomas Aquinas, and we have also been joined by our special co -host,

38:00

Dr. Jeffrey C. Waddington, Pastor of Faith Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Fawn Grove, Pennsylvania.

38:06

If you have a question, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com, chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

38:12

give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. And a couple of other things

38:18

I wanted to address, Dr. Johnson. You said that the

38:24

Council of Trent went further, perhaps, in their exaltation of Mary, the mother of Jesus, than Aquinas did.

38:36

If you could explain that in more detail. Yeah, Aquinas would hold to, his view of Mary is stronger than what

38:43

I'm comfortable with. He had a very strong view, a very high view of Mary, but didn't view

38:49

Mary as having an immaculate conception of herself. He didn't view her as sinless.

38:58

He would definitely use the word that she's the mother of God, that she was maybe sustained sinless after the fact.

39:11

So there was a little bit of Mary worship more than I'm comfortable with, but the

39:18

Council of Trent and the doctrine of Mary took off after Aquinas.

39:25

It really developed to where it is today in the Catholic Church in the centuries that followed

39:31

Aquinas. So he kind of, the trajectory was there in Aquinas' day in the 13th century, but it wasn't as fully developed.

39:39

So in that way, he was a little bit more orthodox than what would later come, but at the same time, he was headed in that direction, or he had the trajectory of that direction.

39:51

So we would still have a more modest view of Mary than Aquinas did. Now I have heard from defenders of Aquinas that had he lived during the 16th century, they are confident he would have joined the

40:06

Reformers. I know that that is really requiring the gift of prophecy, but as far as what you know of him, is there anything that would make you inclined to agree with that opinion?

40:19

No, I'm 100 % opposite. There's no way he would have done that, not unless he rejected his own theology, not unless there was a conversion experience of his own.

40:29

Only the Lord knows that, but based upon what he taught. He was, again, he's the leading theologian that the

40:40

Counter -Reformation leaned on. He definitely wasn't pro -Protestant theology in any sense of the word.

40:50

The truth is, during his time, he joined the Dominican Order.

40:55

The Dominican Order was established by this man named Dominique in the year 1215, and what he was established was to be a counter -measure to the new problem that they had in Lyon, France.

41:11

The Waldensians, with Peter Waldo. The Waldensians were preaching out in the pew, they had unsanctioned preaching, and the

41:18

Waldensians challenged the Catholic Church in three areas. The doctrine of purgatory, the doctrine of the abuses of the

41:28

Church, and they wanted to get the scriptures and the language of the common person.

41:33

And so Peter Waldo, that was his conviction. Now, later they would become more and more convinced of not just sola scriptura, but they would come to the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

41:45

They become more and more what I would consider orthodox, but they were challenging the

41:51

Catholic theology of that day, and the Dominican Order was established as a counter -measure to the

42:00

Waldensians, and they were the ones given the instructions to carry out the inquisition against the

42:08

Waldensians. Now, the Waldensians were the ones that joined the Reformation. They integrated into the

42:14

Reformation, and it was the inquisition held by the

42:20

Dominicans that fought against the Reformation. So not only is his theology contrary to the doctrines espoused by the

42:29

Reformation and the Reformers, he was a Dominican, and though he didn't take part of the inquisition that was raging during the 13th century where they would go and massacre the

42:43

Waldensians, his gave doctrinal support for the

42:50

Dominican putting to death, especially civil authorities, to put to death heretics, and he clearly argued against the

43:01

Waldensians. He names the Waldensians as heretics, partly because the Waldensians rejected purgatory, and two, because the

43:10

Waldensians rejected the Pope as the supreme authority of the church on earth.

43:17

So they rejected those two things, and thus Aquinas deemed the Waldensians as heretics.

43:23

So it's hard for me to say that Aquinas could reject the Waldensians in his days, but yet receive the

43:29

Reformers if he had happened to live three centuries later. It's hard for me to come to that conclusion.

43:35

So are you saying that the inquisitors with the Spanish Inquisition were the first to say,

43:44

Where is Waldo? Sorry, I couldn't resist that. They were establishing peace in 1250 for that very purpose, to find

43:54

Peter Waldo. Dr. Waddington, if you have any questions.

44:03

Well, just an observation that Thomas obviously was thoroughly

44:13

Roman Catholic, which we would expect unless he had been in the Eastern Church, of course.

44:20

So I know that John Gerstner back in the 70s or 80s wrote a series, he wrote on Thomas a fair bit, as did his disciple

44:33

R .C. Sproul. And I have high regard for both men, but on this issue,

44:39

I think they are, well, they're no longer Thomists of a sort, because I believe they're in glory.

44:48

So they've been corrected on that point. But Thomas, yeah,

44:57

Gerstner wrote a, basically, I think it might have even been for Table Talk or for Eternity Magazine.

45:04

He wrote an article on Thomas the Proto -Protestant. And I just find it hard to believe, and this goes in both directions, right, that those who have referred to themselves as Reformed Thomists clearly are putting

45:22

Thomas through a major filter in order to do that.

45:28

And to think that Thomas would have become a Protestant is, I think, an exercise of a very vivid imagination.

45:39

Yeah, if you could describe the Council of Trent as a crystallization of the thought of Thomas Aquinas, when the

45:49

Council of Trent condemned anyone who were to believe in the salvific teachings of the

45:58

Reformers to hell, it's mind -blowing how anyone could have this idea.

46:04

Yeah, Thomas Aquinas didn't believe in the imputation of Christ's righteousness.

46:09

He didn't believe in substitutionary atonement. He didn't believe in justification by faith alone. He didn't believe in sola scriptura.

46:15

He didn't believe, he believed in purgatory. He believed that your own sufferings, that you're made righteous through the sufferings that you experience.

46:26

He believed that there was merit to be received through going to Jerusalem and fighting in these crusades.

46:38

And he believed that there's no salvation outside of being in submission to the Pope. The very things that the

46:45

Reformers fought against are the very things that he taught. These things are not just suddenly developed in the 14th, 13th, 14th, 15th century.

46:56

They were developed principally by Aquinas. They predate Aquinas. He's not necessarily the origin of these things.

47:03

But he codified many of these theological beliefs that Roman Catholics still hold today.

47:11

And he is considered by all Roman Catholics to be, along with Augustine, he's considered to be their chief theologian.

47:20

So it's strange that Protestants want to baptize this

47:25

Catholic theologian that the Reformers fought against. Now, obviously, there's going to be some doctrinal continuity.

47:34

There's going to be certain truths that we say, oh, that's true. I would agree with that.

47:39

But as a whole, he's truly a Roman Catholic in the true sense of the word.

47:47

And it's hard for me to see that people think that he's a pre -Reformer.

47:53

Now, one of those things that fellow

47:58

Reformed Christians say in his defense, who tried to redeem

48:05

Aquinas, they will say he shared our understanding of double predestination. Do you know anything about that?

48:11

And I'll let both of you comment on that, starting with Dr. Johnson. Yeah, they do look at that.

48:17

They look at his strong view of predestination. But you've got to understand that that's rooted in his theology proper.

48:23

That's rooted in his view of the nature of God. And if you understand his nature of God, there's only one conclusion that you would draw.

48:32

And it would be the strong, strong view of double predestination.

48:39

Of course, I even consider myself a superlapsarian. But Aquinas has a lot of overlap in that area.

48:50

But I want to look at the theological framework in which led him to that.

48:56

And I would reject that theological framework that led him to that. And though he may be intersecting with us in certain areas that we can affirm, it doesn't mean necessarily that that particular doctrine is something that I would look to as a good explanation of predestination.

49:14

Dr. Waddington, any comments on that? Yeah, going back to what I said earlier, and what

49:19

Dr. Johnson has said, that because Thomas is so brilliant, each part of his theology, each loci of his theology connects with each other.

49:36

So if there's, yes, the bare statement that he affirmed double predestination is true.

49:44

But when you look at how he got there and what he meant by it in all the details, we're going to differ with him in those details.

49:55

His doctrine of God is of a particular shape and color, and that will work itself out through every department of his theology.

50:10

Every department. Now, Dr. Johnson, is the area of Aquinas' philosophical theology that a significant segment of Reformed scholars agree with?

50:31

Is it involving his natural theology? I think that's where, like, R .C. Sproul and some of these men that we love, that's where they gravitated towards Aquinas.

50:41

It's always strange to me, R .C. would say that Aquinas is his favorite theologian, but when you read his books and listen to his lectures, he'd quote

50:49

Luther, he'd quote Calvin, he'd quote the Puritans, Turretin, all these people that I really treasure.

50:56

He would quote these guys and very rarely quote Aquinas. But in word, he would say Aquinas was his favorite theologian.

51:02

But in practice, he didn't really cite him much, and he didn't really allude to him. And I want to be careful here because I don't know for sure, but from what

51:12

I've read of Sproul and his usage of Aquinas, I'm not confident that he had a clear understanding of Aquinas.

51:20

For instance, R .C. Sproul makes the basic categorical mistake of confusing natural revelation with natural theology, and he's looking at the cosmological argument of Aquinas, and then he goes and looks at Romans chapter 1 and Psalm 19 as proof texts.

51:41

And that's exactly what Aquinas did. He used these proof texts to give biblical support to his philosophy.

51:50

And it's just a categorical mistake, and I would challenge

51:56

R .C. Sproul on that particular point. But that's where Protestants lean towards Aquinas is they don't lean to him when it comes to their doctor of sociology, or especially not ecclesiology.

52:09

They lean upon him on theology proper and natural theology, and that's where they find him useful.

52:18

But that's where my book, I'm trying to go, no, he's not even useful in those categories as well.

52:23

He's deficient there. He's inconsistent with himself. And that's what

52:28

I want to do in my book is to show that Aquinas was not able to reconcile

52:34

Aristotle with the God of the Bible, and he ended up with a theology that is incongruent, and it's self -contradictory.

52:45

And so I want to put my finger on where that contradiction is and where the tension is in his own philosophy and show how that tension wouldn't be there if he wasn't trying to bring in Aristotle into his theology proper.

53:01

And we have to go to our midway break right now. And please be patient with us, folks, because the midway break is always a little longer than our other breaks in the show because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

53:11

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show because the

53:17

FCC requires of them to localize geographically all of their programming to Lake City, Florida.

53:24

They do that with their own public service announcements and other local things that they air during this break, while we simultaneously air our globally heard commercials.

53:37

So please use this time wisely. Write down as much of the information as you possibly can from as many of our advertisers as you possibly can so that you can more frequently respond to them, even if that just means thanking them for sponsoring the show.

53:50

And also send in questions to Dr. Jeffrey D. Johnson at ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

53:55

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages. I'm James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

54:08

My friend Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I are headed down to Atlanta, Georgia once again for the

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September 30th through October 2nd at G321. This is James White reminding you that Christ is supreme over all.

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Wow, that's some compliment. How much do I owe you for that? You don't have to owe me anything.

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Before I return to Dr. Jeffrey D. Johnson and Dr. Jeffrey C.

01:11:02

Waddington, and our conversation on the failure of natural theology, a critical appraisal of the philosophical theology of Thomas Aquinas, I just have a couple more very important announcements to make.

01:11:14

First of all, I thank all of you, from the very depths of my heart, for your prayers for my oldest brother

01:11:21

John, 76 years old, in a skilled nursing facility in Denton, Texas.

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As anyone who listens to this show regularly knows by now, my brother

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He received a very grim prognosis recently that he has six months to live. Of course, only

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God knows that for certain. But I'm asking you to continue to pray, not only for physical healing for my brother and an extension of life on this earth, but infinitely more important, pray that it becomes more and more crystal clear that my brother is truly a child of God, a new creation in Christ, born again and headed for heaven.

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He has been saying very promising things about his trust in Christ, and perhaps

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I should just be overjoyed right now and consider him my brother in Christ.

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I just have some apprehensions knowing that people of different religious understanding can use the same words that we use but have a different dictionary.

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So, just please pray that the Lord makes his profession even more crystal clear of his total trust in Jesus Christ, his death on the cross, his resurrection, and the salvation that only he provides for sinners and that my brother's goodness has absolutely nothing to do with it.

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01:18:44

to 2 p .m. here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. So if anybody wants to attend this, if you're a man in ministry leadership, this is exclusively a male event.

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01:19:00

That's also the email address to send in a question to Dr. Jeffrey D. Johnson about the failure of natural theology, a critical appraisal of the philosophical theology of Thomas Aquinas.

01:19:10

That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Chrisarnsen at gmail .com, give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

01:19:19

USA. Well, if you could, Dr. Johnson, go through some more of the most critical areas in Aquinas' philosophical theology specifically that make him not worthy of the embracing of theologically reformed or any heir of the

01:19:44

Reformation as a hero and someone whose teachings should be embraced and followed.

01:19:50

Well, the main thing is that he ends up denying the sufficiency of scripture, and he does it in a way that I don't think he intended to do.

01:19:59

He was a student of Aristotle, and going back to his philosophy,

01:20:05

Aristotle wanted to understand the metaphysical realm, understand God, by studying the physical realm or by studying the world.

01:20:18

And by studying the world, he observed that everything in the world, everything in the universe is in motion. And then he came to the conclusion that nothing that's in motion set itself in motion.

01:20:32

From that, he deduced certain attributes or certain characteristics that are associated with motion.

01:20:40

Now, basically, there are certain attributes that are identified with everything that's created, and so he's basically saying these attributes that we would say are central to a created object, anything that's not self -sufficient, anything that's derivative or contingent have certain attributes.

01:21:00

But Aristotle placed those attributes in the mother attribute of motion, and he concluded that everything that's in motion is contingent, everything in motion is not just contingent but mutable and finite.

01:21:19

And there's other attributes that he placed to that, and therefore God must be the opposite of all the things that are in motion.

01:21:28

He must be the first cause, the unmoved mover. He must be without motion.

01:21:34

Thus, he is infinite, he's not finite, he's not mutable, but he's immutable. He's not complex, he's simple, and he deduced certain attributes that must exist in God based upon his study of the physical world.

01:21:51

And then that becomes his theology proper. Aristotle sought to understand

01:21:59

God essentially by understanding the world, and God becomes the opposite of what the world is.

01:22:05

Whatever the world is, God is not that. He's removed from that. And Aquinas found that intriguing, and Aquinas sought to develop that into his own philosophical thinking, but there was a problem with Aristotle that made the

01:22:20

Catholic Church prior to Aquinas reject Aristotle. He was among the forbidden literature.

01:22:27

Though the logic of Aristotle was still maintained within the Catholic Church, his metaphysics was rejected, principally because Aristotle believed in this unmoved mover, and this unmoved mover, according to Aristotle, cannot create.

01:22:42

He cannot interact with creation. He can't govern through providence.

01:22:47

He can't create something, he can't destroy something, because those type of actions would require movement in God.

01:22:56

And thus the universe, according to Aristotle, has to be eternal. It has to be, you have to have something non -movable and something movable that is both co -eternal and co -dependent, if you would.

01:23:11

So that ends up leading to a God who doesn't know the universe at all, and can't interact with the universe, has no relationship to the universe, and it leads to kind of a deistic

01:23:23

God. Wow. And so that's obviously against orthodoxy. Sounds like the

01:23:29

Mormon understanding of the universe. Well, it's quite problematic, for sure.

01:23:35

But not to mention that Aristotle wanted to redeem, I mean, Aquinas wanted to redeem Aristotle, but he had to figure out how to get this unmoved mover to be the creator of the universe, how this unmoved mover could have free acts that is not necessary acts, that the creation is not necessary, it's a free act of God's volition that he could have not have created if he didn't want to create, and this creation's out of nothing.

01:24:03

Those are orthodox teachings that the Catholic Church affirmed, but yet it's incompatible with Aristotle's philosophy.

01:24:10

And so Aquinas spent his whole life trying to reconcile that dilemma, and I'm convinced that all he did was bring in tension, and he ended up bringing in that dilemma into his theology, and it undermined his theology proper, and it led to an unorthodox view in the end of God and who

01:24:36

God is, though he would affirm that God is Trinitarian, he would affirm that creation's out of nothing, he would affirm these things, but he was not able to reconcile them with his philosophical commitments.

01:24:52

And, well, we have some listener questions that I think we should go to before I ask any more of my own.

01:24:59

And, well, let me first go to Dr. Waddington. Do you have any follow -up comments or questions of your own? Yes, see,

01:25:05

Chris, Dr. Johnson has shown, just in the brief comments he's made, that Thomas' doctrine of God proper, what we usually call theology proper, is problematic, and he's only touched on one, basically one element, well, many elements, but he's rightly focusing on the problem of what's called divine immobility in Thomas, which

01:25:35

I think contradicts his doctrine of pure action in God, but that's maybe a discussion for another time.

01:25:45

What I was going to add is that on top of, and there are other elements, if we wanted to spend eternity talking about the problems in Thomas, I think we could unpack and show where, even where he affirms doctrines we would agree with, his method of arriving at or explicating those doctrines is very problematic.

01:26:14

His understanding of the processions of the Son and the Spirit are an issue, I think, for another day.

01:26:21

But epistemologically, that is, with regard to knowledge, Thomas embraces Aristotle's empiricism, and therefore, if you look at his commentary on Romans, which

01:26:33

I have on my shelf behind me, Thomas clearly reads the

01:26:39

Apostle Paul as backing up what he thinks, and that is that we can only have indirect knowledge of God through his effects.

01:26:52

And even then, it's not adequate knowledge, I would argue, because God is simple and we are not.

01:27:01

So there are all sorts of issues that are a problem that get

01:27:06

Thomas into trouble because he's doing this classical synthesis project of trying to harmonize

01:27:13

Aristotle. Now that's not the same thing as saying that, you know, we can find truth among unbelievers.

01:27:23

The problem is, this is a bigger project than finding truth wherever God places it.

01:27:31

Aristotle did say some true things about logic, for instance, but with regard to the big project that Thomas was after, the harmonizing of Aristotle with Christianity, he often doesn't really do a good job in saving

01:27:57

Aristotle, in quotes, right? He doesn't do an adequate job.

01:28:03

In other words, he doesn't, you know, where he says, for instance, that the universe is eternal, he affirms, he has to affirm the creation out of nothing as a voluntary act on God's part.

01:28:21

But it clearly goes up against the teaching of Aristotle that he embraces.

01:28:30

And I don't remember off the top of my head, but maybe Dr. Johnson can inform us.

01:28:38

Neoplatonism, and Thomas as was Aristotle, is not a completely new thinker.

01:28:47

In other words, Aristotle is building on Plato, and Thomas is retrieving

01:28:56

Aristotle in a context of, through the history of philosophy, which also included

01:29:03

Neoplatonic thought. In Neoplatonism, God creates but doesn't know he's doing it, and he doesn't do it on purpose.

01:29:15

Where was Aristotle on that question? I don't remember off of all the reading I've done, I don't remember that issue.

01:29:22

The difference between Aristotle and Plato is the difference between how do you define good. Good is the ultimate being, you know, that's who

01:29:29

God is, is that which is good. And Aristotle defined goodness as that which is lacking nothing.

01:29:37

And so God doesn't, it's not a charity which you give of yourself. We think of goodness as a charity you're giving.

01:29:46

Aristotle viewed goodness as that which needs nothing. And so he's self -contained, independent, autonomous, self -contained being, and he's there.

01:29:56

And creation is not created. Obviously the universe is just existence as a necessary entity.

01:30:03

So it kind of leads to this dualistic pantheism model with Aristotle.

01:30:10

Well, Plato understood goodness a little bit different, that it's something that gives of itself, which allows,

01:30:17

Plato allows for creation to come out of God. Where Aristotle didn't.

01:30:23

Now, they both lead to some form of pantheism, both models do.

01:30:30

But with Plato, it's God is prior to the universe.

01:30:36

The universe is derivative from the being of God. Now, like you said, it's not an act of choice.

01:30:41

The universe is necessary, and it flows out of God. It radiates out of God like the sunbeams radiate from the sun, even if the sun is unaware of what the sun is doing.

01:30:54

Creation is just flowing out of God into this chain of being.

01:30:59

Creation is a lesser being, and ultimately it travels so far away from the source that it becomes non -being.

01:31:07

But nevertheless, at least Plato allows for the universe to come from God, which allows

01:31:14

God to be the moving cause. So, Aristotle, God couldn't have been the moving cause of the universe, so that's why

01:31:22

Thomas needed Plato. He needed Platonism to fix the unorthodoxy of Aristotle.

01:31:29

So he's blending philosophical systems to create a philosophical theology that's somewhat more congruent with the theology derived from the

01:31:43

Bible. Okay, we have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, with a question who asks,

01:31:54

Did Aquinas have a role in the

01:31:59

Aristotelian concept of accidents and substance that the

01:32:05

Church of Rome would later make a very important understanding of transubstantiation where the elements of the mass, even though they appear to be bread and wine, are in reality the literal body and blood of Christ?

01:32:23

The answer is yes. Aristotle gave them the terminology and the framework in which they could articulate what they already believed.

01:32:31

Just like Thomas Aquinas was the origin of that, he just gave them some terms to help them articulate their understanding of the mass and how the physical objects became the literal body of Christ.

01:32:48

I would add that I doubt Aristotle would recognize his distinction between substance and accidents because what

01:32:58

Thomas does is turn them on their head. Substance in Aristotle is the thing that makes a thing what it is.

01:33:07

Accidents are things that can be gained or lost without changing the essence of something.

01:33:13

For instance, Dr. Johnson and I have beards that are graying.

01:33:21

The graying of the beard doesn't change the fact that we both have beards. My beard at one point was dark brown.

01:33:29

It no longer is. That's an easy illustration of a substance accident.

01:33:37

But when you get to the doctrine of transubstantiation, it gets turned around so that you're losing the substance while retaining the accidents.

01:33:50

In other words, you're retaining the taste and texture of bread or wafers and you're retaining the texture and the flavor and the bouquet of wine, but you're losing the substance.

01:34:13

It's changing. The things that can change don't change. It's an interesting thing where I think

01:34:20

Aristotle would go, what? But yes, it's clear that he's using the categories offered up by Aristotle, even though he's using them in ways that I don't think

01:34:33

Aristotle would find acceptable. Okay, we have, oh, by the way,

01:34:40

Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. You have won, by virtue of your question, the book we are addressing today.

01:34:50

And that book, as we have been saying throughout the broadcast, is the book which is a critique of Thomas Aquinas, The Failure of Natural Theology, A Critical Appraisal of the

01:35:04

Philosophical Theology of Thomas Aquinas. That is yours if you give us your full mailing address there in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, and CVBBS .com,

01:35:15

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, will ship that book out to you at no charge to you or no charge to Iron Troupe and Zion Radio.

01:35:25

And we thank Free Grace Press for providing these free copies. We have a question from John in Bangor, Maine.

01:35:36

Have either of you read a critique of Thomas Aquinas by Dr.

01:35:43

K. Scott Oliphant titled Thomas Aquinas? Is it worthy of recommending and reading?

01:35:52

I'll go first if I may. The answer is yes and yes and no.

01:36:01

Yeah, I'm, of course, I'm a biased person, so you just need to know that up front.

01:36:10

It's not long enough. You know, the biggest, the major critique

01:36:16

I would offer is that it's, and it was, it's part of the Great Thinker series that PNR Books is publishing.

01:36:23

It's still an ongoing project. So it's almost too brief, in my opinion.

01:36:31

Let's just say that Dr. Johnson's book is longer.

01:36:37

I don't know that it's a lot longer, but it's, it's, I have other issues, concerns about the book.

01:36:45

I think it treats Thomas almost as if he were a modern analytical philosopher, which he would most assuredly was not.

01:36:52

What I mean by that is analytical philosophy tries to understand propositions by breaking them down into their basic elements and dissecting them.

01:37:05

If you're familiar with Alvin Plantinga, the Christian philosopher, he is an analytic philosopher.

01:37:14

And Thomas most assuredly was not an analytic philosopher in that vein.

01:37:22

All of that to say, also, speaking for myself,

01:37:28

I don't have a visceral reaction to Thomas in the way that Dr.

01:37:35

Oliphant does. I think we agree that Thomas is a problem.

01:37:46

I think he was, Dr. Oliphant may have been raised Roman Catholic, so there's that element in his background that I was not raised in that tradition.

01:37:56

So now I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Johnson so he can give his views on the matter.

01:38:02

I did read the book. In fact, I read it twice and enjoyed it.

01:38:09

I like Dr. Oliphant and appreciate his work. Appreciate reading that book. I take a little different approach.

01:38:16

My critique's a little different approach. I don't think it's necessarily, you know, congruent with Scott's approach, but it's just a little different.

01:38:25

I view things a little bit differently. I'm not necessarily trying to argue against Thomas by looking at the noetic effects of the

01:38:33

Fall, though I do believe in those. I do believe that sin has affected our thinking, and that gives us a disposition to run from the

01:38:41

God of revelation, from natural revelation and special revelation. And it taints us if we become willing fools.

01:38:48

So I believe in the noetic effects of the Fall, and that has to be overcome by saving grace. But I don't believe the noetic effects of the

01:38:56

Fall makes us inherently illogical. It does in the sense that we knowingly reject the truth, and we'll knowingly become fools to grasp after our sins and reject the

01:39:09

God that we know. So that makes us illogical and foolish. But the problem with natural theology is not that man's logic is incapable of deducing a solid worldview.

01:39:30

It's the fact that natural theology doesn't have the information needed outside of divine revelation.

01:39:38

If you reject divine revelation, which is what we know through natural revelation, and you reject special revelation, you cannot get to the

01:39:47

God of the Bible. So it's not so much that we don't have the logical tools to get there.

01:39:53

We don't have the content to get there. And we need special revelation. We need the doctrine of the

01:39:59

Trinity to make sense of the greatest problem in philosophy, and that's the problem with the one and the many.

01:40:06

And the Trinity is the solution to that. That comes through natural special revelation, and it makes sense.

01:40:11

Special revelation makes sense of what we already know in natural revelation.

01:40:17

So I've kind of just approached my critique a little bit differently. And so I'm not saying that mine's better.

01:40:24

It's just the way I think. Well, I think Dr. Waddington already said it was better.

01:40:30

Yeah, I was going to say, I'm happy to recommend both books, but I can stand behind Dr.

01:40:41

Johnson's book, I think, without reservations. I don't think I read a thing in that book that I could disagree with.

01:40:49

Okay. Yeah, I'm serious. And I was looking, but no, I didn't find anything.

01:40:55

So, I mean, I thought it was, it will be in, you know, it's a top -notch work and it will be useful in the serving the

01:41:08

Lord and strengthening his church, which is the most important thing, you know, we can do.

01:41:13

Okay, and guess what, John and Bangor Mayne? You've also won a free copy of this book that we are discussing today by Jeffrey D.

01:41:26

Johnson, the book that Jeffrey Waddington just heaped a lot of praise upon,

01:41:33

The Failure of Natural Theology, A Critical Appraisal of the Philosophical Theology of Thomas Aquinas. Please make sure we have your full mailing address in Bangor, Maine.

01:41:43

And we'll have CVBBS .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, ship that out to you. And once again, we thank

01:41:49

Free Grace Press for providing the books. Before I go to the final break, which will be a lot more brief,

01:41:56

I just want to ask a question from a listener, and then you can answer it when we come back.

01:42:03

We have Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, who asks, Can you list some prominent thinkers that you view as valuable men in our day and age?

01:42:17

Who uphold Aquinas as a hero in opposition to your views?

01:42:23

I'm not saying this as a way to out these men, but I'm saying this just so our listeners have a more broad view of the fact that there are people who disagree over this issue.

01:42:35

We'll have you answer that when we come back. Anybody else wants to join us, send in your question now because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:42:44

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

01:42:50

We'll be right back after these messages. Don't go away. Hello, dear ones.

01:43:02

My name is Justin Peters and my friend Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I are frequently blessed to share great times of fellowship with one another at conferences all over the

01:43:13

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01:43:25

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That's hopereformedli .net. Or call 631 -696 -5711.

01:49:40

That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

01:50:00

Welcome back. And the question that we received from, that was Bobby in Hartsdale, New York.

01:50:07

He wanted you to list some folks that you respect and look up to, but who still, nonetheless, disagree with you on Aquinas and uphold

01:50:15

Aquinas as a hero. Yeah, the easy one to point out initially is

01:50:21

R .C. Sproul, one of my heroes of the faith. He's so clear, such a great teacher, able to take big concepts and put them down on a shelf for all of us to understand.

01:50:35

He's a rare jewel that God has given to the church, and so thankful for his ministry and for his works.

01:50:42

Profited much from R .C. Sproul. But yeah, he was a huge fan of Thomas Aquinas.

01:50:48

At least he said he was. Like I said earlier, I didn't see a lot of citations of Aquinas in his books or his lectures.

01:50:59

But yeah, he would make it clear that Aquinas was one of his favorites, if not his favorite theologian.

01:51:05

So we respect Sproul and disagree with him on that point. But it shows you that there are some good men like Aquinas.

01:51:16

I would also add, of course, his own mentor, John Gershner, where he taught along similar lines.

01:51:28

And I'm trying to think. There are, of course, other theologians who interact with Thomas, but I don't know that they don't necessarily come out and say they're pro -Thomas.

01:51:42

I appreciate the work of Dr. John Fesko. A lot of his work, but I think he's dead wrong on reformed apologetics.

01:51:53

And trying to go back to Thomas and the classical method of apologetics, rather than the presuppositional apologetics of Cornelius Van Til.

01:52:08

So, yeah, I mean, just because someone likes or appreciates Thomas doesn't mean

01:52:13

I dismiss that thinker. I just, I would perhaps, you know, be a little more sober in my,

01:52:20

I would read with more care and hopefully with my thinking cap on.

01:52:26

Hey, thanks. Thanks, Bobby. Make sure we have your mailing address because you have also won a free copy of Jeffrey D.

01:52:33

Johnson's book. We have Grady, a very faithful listener in Asheboro, North Carolina, who's also a generous supporter of this program.

01:52:42

Greetings, brothers. Dr. Johnson, did I understand you to say that the Roman Catholic Church considered

01:52:48

Thomas Aquinas a heretic when he was living and didn't accept him until he had been dead?

01:52:55

If so, what did they consider him heretical about? No, that's a little misunderstanding there.

01:53:04

After he died, three years after his death, there were certain doctrines, certain points that Aquinas taught that was censored.

01:53:15

The University of Paris, there was a professor there that rose as kind of a, he was upset about Aristotle coming into the church, and he had a list of theses that he said were unorthodox, and three of those theses came from Aquinas.

01:53:35

And so doing, it kind of censored Aquinas initially. It doesn't mean that the

01:53:41

Catholic Church viewed Aquinas as a heretic during his life or even after his life, but it meant that his theology wasn't readily received.

01:53:51

There was some debate, and it took about 30 years of debate about his beliefs, kind of figuring out what he actually taught for the

01:54:02

Catholic Church to embrace, kind of his system, not just his beliefs, but many of his beliefs were just what the

01:54:09

Catholic Church already taught. It wasn't like he coined or solidified all the doctrines of the

01:54:15

Catholic Church. He just taught it in a way that brought clarity or affirmed the

01:54:21

Catholic Church's teaching on many of these things. But he introduced a kind of a framework,

01:54:27

I would say a grid. I consider it kind of a worldview grid in which to understand theology, and it basically shaped how you understand scripture.

01:54:37

So, you're viewing and reading scriptures from this framework, and that's why I believe it's ultimately, it challenges the sufficiency of scripture rather than scripture identifying its own framework in which it's to be understood and interpreted.

01:54:50

It's being interpreted through the framework of Aristotelian philosophy. And that, as a grid of thinking, was eventually adopted and became the standard kind of framework of the

01:55:04

Catholic Church after his life. But he was never deemed a heretic by the

01:55:11

Catholic Church. Okay, great. You gave us your address, and you've also won the book. We have

01:55:17

Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York. Have you ever read

01:55:23

Richard Muller's defense of Thomas Aquinas, which appeared in a

01:55:29

Reformation 21 article? I haven't read that article, but I've read most of his works.

01:55:37

He's got a four -volume set, a three -volume set, it looks like. He's a premier historian when it comes to historical theology.

01:55:50

There are some things I disagree with Muller on, and this is one of the areas that I strongly disagree with him on.

01:55:59

I'm definitely not in the same caliber of researcher that he is, so I understand

01:56:04

I'm a small guy from Arkansas disagreeing with Richard Muller. But in this particular case,

01:56:11

I think he's straining at gnats. Paul Helm does the same thing. He strains at gnats, finds some similar threads that you can link the

01:56:23

Reformers with Aquinas. Look, here's a little thread that runs through their thinking, and the

01:56:29

Reformers didn't question this thread of thought and embraced it as their very own. That's true. There's no doubt about it.

01:56:35

There's these little threads that run through their thinking that can connect them. That's not wrong or not actually saying much at all.

01:56:46

There's just some categorical distinctions, big distinctions that the

01:56:51

Reformers rejected, and these things are blaring rejections. And I think you're straining at a gnat and overlooking the elephant in the room that there are some major categorical distinctions between the

01:57:05

Reformers. The main Reformers, not all of them, but the main Reformers, Luther, Calvin, Zingley, Bollinger in particular, these guys rejected philosophical theology, and they rejected

01:57:18

Aquinas in particular. Bollinger was trained at the University of Cologne, and they had the leading

01:57:24

Thomas scholar, and Bollinger sat under that. He's very familiar with Aquinas' thinking and comes out and rejects it.

01:57:33

Melanchthon rejected the scholastic schoolmen of the Catholic Church as well, and he was very familiar with scholasticism.

01:57:41

Luther as well. Luther maybe went too far with his understanding of fideism, but nevertheless, they rejected, in a good way, they rejected this notion of extra -biblical sources as authority of our faith.

01:57:59

And that's what I think they're good at. And I think even Calvin himself, he only quotes Aquinas three times, twice, negative one, he was just neutral on.

01:58:08

But his view of natural theology and natural revelation is completely different than that of Aquinas.

01:58:16

So I differ with Richard Muller on his understanding of the link between Aquinas and the

01:58:25

Reformation. Ronald, you've also won the book. Get us your mailing address. We are out of time. I also just want to chime in very quickly to say, unless anybody has the wrong impression, interestingly, although both

01:58:38

Thomist scholars, Dr. R .C. Sproul and his mentor,

01:58:45

Dr. John Gerstner, neither were ecumenists with the Church of Rome, and they both, or at least

01:58:51

Dr. Sproul, vehemently opposed the ECT document, the Evangelicals and Catholics Together.

01:58:57

I just wanted to make that clear. If anybody wants more information about the Church, where Dr.

01:59:04

Geoff Johnson pastors, go to gbcconway .com, gbcconway .com.

01:59:13

And if you want to find out more about Free Grace Press, go to freegracepress .com, freegracepress .com.

01:59:19

And of course, don't forget about the church where Jeffrey Waddington is the pastor.

01:59:26

That's Faith Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Fawn Grove, Pennsylvania, faithopc .net, faithopc .net.

01:59:33

And the Reformed Forum website is reformedforum .org, reformedforum .org. I want to thank everybody who listened today, especially those who took the time to write in.

01:59:42

I want to thank my guests, Dr. Jeffrey D. Johnson and my co -host, Dr. Jeffrey C.

01:59:49

Waddington, for the superb job they did today. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater