I have just learned that Steven Wedgeworth converted to Anglicanism

Was he? How so. Don't tell me you're reading the ABlaze unhinged blog again. Just a few quotes from Nowell will suffice.

 

I will let you do your own research as any source I present is just too biased for you. Having arrived at the fun, jokes, and exaggeration stage of this discourse, I don't see any point in continuing the conversation. Might I suggest another thread on WO or why the ACNA is schismatic? Or why God is clearly a woman? Or why we should celebrate sodomy and abortion?

 

I would just like to say that you can be a reformed Anglican and be an Anglican in great and good standing. I just am not one and find it wrong but it does not change the fact that yes you can be reformed and be an Anglican and things are all fine

 

I have, that's why I know he's not a Calvinist. This idea that the Elizabethans were Calvinists is a propaganda meme spread around by folks like the ABlaze blog and a few other hysterical voices that played fast and loose with history in service of their ideology. None of the great Elizabethans were Calvinist: Jewel, Nowell, Whitgift, Bilson, Bancroft, and others.You have a few Calvinists arise later, most notably Archbishop Abbot, but it is a notable departure from Anglican orthodoxy, and a blip on the radar at that. There aren't any substantial Calvinists before or after that.

 

Good luck on your crusade against this conspiracy.

 

I agree. What I am saying should not be seen as an attack on the Reformed tradition. Anglican orthodoxy precedes anything like Calvinism or Arminianism. We are an ancient church, rooted in the fathers. Our reformation was a Patristic reformation; church fathers against the Pope. We did not bend the knee to some modern theologian as our arch-leader. To the extent that we embraced Reformation doctrines (and we did), it was only to the extent that they were patristic doctrines; eg. sola fide, sola scriptura. We simply did not follow any modern johnny-come-lately theologian. And Calvinism, along with Arminianism, are johnny-come-lately schools of thought, that a serious ancient-minded Christian should not give much thought to, because they are modern (and therefore ipso facto flawed).

But of course not everything under "reformed theology" is bad or modern. Many of reformed doctrines can be maintained within the bounds of Anglican orthodoxy, and I'm cool with that. In my opening post, I made room for unlimited atonement AND hypothetical universalism (espoused by the more reformed types). I'm not against Reformed theology, except in the places where it is outright forbidden by our formularies. Beyond that, we're on the same page.

If you can find even one calvinist quote from Nowell, you'll have shown me wrong. I'm not anti-calvinist, I'm just pro-facts and pro-history.

 

I think you’re getting @Stalwart confused with someone else…

 

Not sure what the point of that was. I’ve been a consistent opponent of WO, because of our patristic roots. If we are that, we can’t consistently hold to WO in any shape or form, including the diaconate. At the same time I’ve been a firm supporter of ACNA, because as Anglicans we have to have embodied jurisdictions; invisible church is not our thing. So then to be embodied, to live in a visible church which has jurisdictional authority over us, we need to have a Province. And I believe that ACNA has the best ability to become a new province for orthodox Anglicanism, as things shake out with the Episcopal Church over the next few decades. I’ve also been an outspoken opponent of sodomitical practice and obviously abortion. So I’m not sure why you’re gunning after me on these issues. Just because I take St Augustine over Calvin?

 

I'll pose a question at this juncture.

Arminius was a theologian who wrote down his understanding of things.
Before that, Calvin was a theologian who wrote down his understanding of things.
Before that, Augustine was a theologian who wrote down his understanding of things.

Is Augustine the better theologian on this matter simply by merit of his having written (quite a bit) prior to the others?

If we reject Calvin's and Arminius' stuff because they're "Johnny come latelys" relative to Augustine, then similarly Augustine (354-430 AD) was a "Johnny come lately" relative to the Apostles. Augustine lived many multiple generations removed from the Apostolic era in which people sat and Jesus' feet and then taught what He taught, so there was ample opportunity for people to have 'mucked things up' and gotten bad ideas in all that time. We know, in fact, that Augustine was not a right-thinking, right-believing person for a good part of his life. But near the end of his lifetime he wrote a ton of stuff, and somehow that gets him quoted as a huge authority. Even if he got a bunch of things correct in his writings, it's a fair bet that he got some stuff wrong, too. And this sort of puts him in the same category as all the other people (including Calvin and Arminius) who've written their thoughts on theology through the centuries. So I'm wondering, are we to be dismissive of all theological thinkers after a certain date just because they're "too late to the party," or what?

I'm not exactly advocating a position here. More like, I'm writing my musings, but curious to see what answers pop up.

 

Isn’t this why historic Anglicanism has relied on a Prayer Book rather than a Confession? Surely the catholic tradition is bigger than any individual ever could be. One can derive great insights from reading Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Schleiermacher, Barth, etc., without having to endorse every opinion they expressed.

 

Yes, Scripture remains the only revelation, but outside of scripture, I’d say we should always privilege an earlier teacher over a later one. Why, because to me that’s a uniquely Anglican distinctive. The other church traditions seem to prefer to privilege the latest theologians. I’ve learned from the Anglican way of thinking, that earlier theologians are better than later ones, because:
1. they still shared the culture of the Scriptures, and thus are more capable of understanding it.
2. They also precede any of the modern divisions, so it’s a tremendously ecumenical aid (in a good way). Both a Calvinist and an Arminian can agree on Augustine. So great, why don’t we all follow Augustine and thereby be more united?
3. Following the latest theologians carries with it the easy danger of quickly careening off the tracks.

But if you mean, why not literally take, say, the epistle to the Romans and treat it as our “even earlier” theologian who’s prior to Augustine?

To me it’s simply because the Epistle to the Romans is far harder to understand. People have wrestled with it for thousands of years. It is just 10-20 pages. The works of the Fathers and Anglican divines (upon the epistle to the Romans) are whole books which are easier to understand.

 

1. they still shared the culture of the Scriptures, and this are more capable of understanding it............... If we take this, and I actually agree with it here, we should privilege the Greek and Eastern Fathers over the Western Ones as they were even closer to the culture and language than the Latin Fathers.

 

On some topics they just don’t have a lot written until his time. But either way to my mind, our Article 17 remarkably captures the wisdom of all the fathers, Greek and Latin.

I just want to register my disagreement with @Invictus on this point, and affirm our formularies as the doctrinal bounds of the Anglican tradition. Historically that is the function they seem to have served.

 

I never said they weren’t. I am saying that those formularies are nowhere near as precise as the Continental Reformed and Lutheran Confessions or the later Westminster Confession, nor were they intended to be. To lump them all together in one category is a false equivalence.

 

Well our formularies have instituted a doctrinal uniformity, right? Even the Apostles Creed instituted a doctrinal uniformity along its lines.

On the other hand it is possible for a Church to demand too much, go haywire on its own authority, “get high on its own supply”, and institute an incorrect kind of uniformity. It is not always the case that “more precise” is “better”. There’s a reason why the patristic church never wanted to publish a detailed catechism of all its beliefs; and it’s not because they didn’t expect a common theology from their members.

So for that reason I would argue that Anglicanism has sought the right kind of doctrinal uniformity, and all the other ones hadn’t.

 

Yup.

 

That depends on one's point of comparison. Some doctrinal positions seem to allow for only one interpretation (e.g., monotheism), while others seem to allow for a diversity of interpretations that the Continental Confessions largely did not. I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, only that I cannot defend viewing the Anglican formularies as fulfilling the same doctrinal role, or at least certainly not to the same degree, as the Continental Confessions (especially the later ones). It's "apples and oranges".

 

If you follow the debates held among the Reformed, you'll see that they have just as many debates within their (smaller) confines, as anyone. The smaller confines actually did not lessen the amount of disagreement.

The same with Roman Catholics: the Council of Trent never addressed or resolved the question of predestination, and thus both Molinism and Thomism became source of incredible acrimony for centuries.

The point is, each confession will create confines; and then people will go wild debating within the confines.

So the question is, where do you put those confines. (Not whether to have them.) How wide or narrow should the confines be. And the Anglican answer, which I think is an incredible one, is to put the confines only around that which is easily determined from Scripture. This creates an incredibly solid, robust, orthodox, and ecumenical doctrinal uniformity, that's broad enough to avoid silly debates, but narrow enough to exclude what would be heresy for the Apostles and Fathers.

 

I don’t disagree with any of that.

 

Well therein lies the disagreement no doubt but Rev Wedgeworth is under no obligation to do so while being faithful to his vows and the Anglican formularies.