Via Moderna and

federal perspectives

Perspectives on

Christianity &

culture without the

philosophical

ideologies

The intellectual tradition that the Middle Ages took over from the Church of late antiquity was one of an intellectual synthesis between Christian doctrine and pagan cosmological ideas, mainly viewed in a neoplatonic perspective. The high Middle Ages rebuilt this pagan/Christian synthesis by a more direct appropriation of Greek philosophy, this time from Aristotle. This began the framework (via antiqua) for theology, for both the Roman Catholic Thomists and the Protestant Scholastics from the major Reformers onwards. There was, however, a medieval critique of this synthesis from a Christian perspective (via moderna), and eventually a Modern critique from a secularizing perspective. The Via Moderna page tries to find a distinction between the medieval rejection of pagan elements that entered Christianity and the modern critique of the synthesis, which is more aimed at removing the Christian elements that remained. It is an attempt to avoid the prejudices of modern philosophy as well as the earlier pagan-christian synthesis of the Via Antiqua, while also avoiding the conundrums of presuppsitional foundationalism; and to distinguish the priority of the moral over the epistemological from the construction of epistemology itself. “Theology is not a science in the sense that physics is a science. Theology may present its postulates in a systematic and logical form, but in the final analysis it rests on faith and persuasion. The great thirteenth-century scholastics all knew this. None the less, and doubtless for valid historical reasons, scholastic theology gradually was absorbed into becoming part of an organized system of studying and teaching which was more suited to promoting the ends of ecclesiastical bureaucracy or the administration of ecclesiastical law than to inducing in mankind the motivation and behavior that would presumably cure their souls for this life and lead them to salvation in the next.” “It was the very great intellectual and historical contribution of fourteenth-century nominalism to prove by the very same methods within the self-same establishment of universities and religious orders that not only the methodology but also the metaphysical content of the predecessor’s thought was irrelevant for the basic goals of the Christian religion, salvation and life according to the Gospels.” Charles Trinkaus, In Our Image and Likeness: Humanity and Divinity in Italian Humanist Thought (University of Notre Dame Press, 1970, 1995) pp. 556-557. Via Moderna  John Knox on Rebellion Against Evil Authority  Thomas Reid, Foundationalism, and Presuppositionalism  The Glover Thesis on the Origins of Modernity  Roman Catholic Logos Speculation: A New Scholastic Synthesis?  The Origins of Freemasonry and Occult Practices in Relation to Reformation Thought  Three Theories of Power and Bits of Others (Review of Authority in the Christian Life by Jean-Marc Berthoud)  The Fatal Flaws of the Thomist Greek – Christian Philosophical Synthesis, Review of Bernie van der Walt, Thomas Aquinas and the Neo-Thomist Tradition: A Christian-Philosophical Assessment  Review of Resistance to Tyrants: Romans 13 and the Christian Duty to Oppose Wicked Rulers, by Gordan Runyan  Review of The Establishment and Limits of Civil Government: An Exposition of Romans 13:1-7 by James M. Willson  Review of Patterns in History: A Christian Perspective on Historical Thought, by David Bebbington  Review of Natural Rights Theories: Their origin and development by Richard Tuck  Natural Law and Natural Rights Before Liberalism - Two books by Francis Oakley  The Manent Thesis That Natural Rights Political Theories Were Created Against Christianity  No Dispensationalism Before Darby, Review of Dispensationalism Before Darby by William C. Watson  An Overview of Millennial Systems, with a review of The Man of Sin: Uncovering the Truth about the Antichrist, by Kim Riddlebarger  Pufendorf On Civil Religion and the Church as a Mere Association  Review of Trojan Horse: Natural Rights and America’s Founding, by Ruben Alvarado

Federalism

By federal we are interested in the bottom-up, representational and law-based ideas of government that were associated with the Conciliarist Movement, and taken up by latter opponents of state absolutism Ruben Alvarado  Fountainhead of Liberalism (Review of Fountainhead of Federalism by Charles S. McCoy and J. Wayne Baker George Buchanan  De Juri Regni Apud Scotos — Title and Preface — Introduction by Charles Flinn Arrowood — Text From of the THE POWERS OF THE CROWN IN SCOTLAND by George Buchanan, translated by Charles Flinn Arrowood, notes and Introductory Essay by Charles Flinn Arrowood, Copyright © 1949 by the Board of Regents of the University of Texas. This book is being made available on the internet by permission of the University of Texas Press. According to the University of Texas Press, "A search of the Copyright Office in Washington, DC has determined that no renewal application was completed. Apparently, the book is now in public domain." 25 May 1999. Original page numbers are enclosed in [brackets] for those who wish to cite the work Robert Macfarlan translation

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