Reformers and Pietists
Bavinck says that, in order to distinguish the “knowledge” that was essential to saving faith from the “assent” of Catholic definitions of faith, the Refoemrs insisted that “the knowledge of saving faith [is] a matter of the heart rather than of the intellect.”
On this point, then, Pietists are doing nothing more than recovering the Reformation when they protest the re-Catholicization of Orthodoxy. Bavinck’s comment also suggests an internal conenction between the Reformation and Romanticisms of various kinds. Plus, he implies that the Reformation had a richer grasp of human knowing than the Catholic church, which tended to restrict knowing to the intellect.
Peter Leithart
Peter J. Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute. He is the author of numerous books on theology, literature, and culture, including Theopolitan, Defending Constantine, and Baptized Body.
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