Lutheran scholasticism

Lutheran scholasticism was a theological method that gradually developed during the era of Lutheran Orthodoxy. Theologians used the neo-Aristotelian form of presentation, already popular in academia, in their writings and lectures. They defined the Lutheran faith and defended it against the polemics of opposing parties.

The term “scholasticism” is used to indicate both the scholastic theology that arose during the pre-Reformation Church and the methodology associated with it. While Lutherans reject the theology of the scholastics, some accept their method.Henry Eyster Jacobs writes of the scholastic method:

High Scholasticism in Western Christianity aimed at an exhaustive treatment of theology, supplementing revelation by the deductions of reason. Aristotle furnished the rules according to which it proceeded, and after a while he became the authority for both the source and process of theology.

Lutheranism began as a vigorous protest against scholasticism, starting with Martin Luther. Around the time he became a monk, Luther sought assurances about life, and was drawn to theology and philosophy, expressing particular interest in Aristotle and the scholastics William of Ockham and Gabriel Biel. He was deeply influenced by two tutors, Bartholomaeus Arnoldi von Usingen and Jodocus Trutfetter, who taught him to be suspicious of even the greatest thinkers, and to test everything himself by experience. Philosophy proved to be unsatisfying, offering assurance about the use of reason, but none about the importance, for Luther, of loving God. Reason could not lead men to God, he felt, and he developed a love-hate relationship with Aristotle over the latter's emphasis on reason. For Luther, reason could be used to question men and institutions, but not God. Human beings could learn about God only through divine revelation, he believed, and Scripture therefore became increasingly important to him.

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