St. Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) is arguably the most significant Catholic thinker of all time. Aquinas was a monk, highly educated, and of noble birth. He was an intellectual and valued reason, all the while aligning his intellectual views with the teachings of the Church. Although many Christians before him had no use for pagan Greek thought, Aquinas embraced many of Aristotle’s principles and saw considerable consistency between them and Christianity.

In many ways, Aquinas is at the root of Catholic thought, much of which he expresses in his great work, Summa Theologica. His views on the role of the papacy, the role of the sacraments in salvation, the doctrine of purgatory, the relationship between the Church and government, and the doctrine of transubstantiation (see Chapter 8) are all held as Catholic doctrine today. All these ideas didn’t necessarily originate with Aquinas, but he articulated them and put them into a framework that made sense.

Martin Luther

Martin Luther (1483-1546) is known as the father of the Protestant Reformation and founder of the Lutheran Church. Luther started off as a German monk but was consumed by a terror of God’s wrath. He continued to look for the peace that was missing in his life. His mentor urged him to focus on the Bible’s teachings concerning forgiveness. Eventually, he began studying Romans, and as he did so, he saw that the Good News of Jesus Christ means that people are saved by grace through faith alone, not by anything they do (Romans 10:9-10). And that freedom in Christ changed his life.

Luther was troubled, because this wasn’t the teaching of the Catholic Church. What’s more, the Church at that time was involved in a corrupt practice of selling indulgences, which essentially means that people had to buy forgiveness for their sins. That issue pushed Luther to take action. In today’s world, Luther may have created a Web site or appeared on Larry King Live protesting the use of indulgences in this manner. But in his day, people nailed arguments (called theses) to church doors. That’s exactly what Luther did on October 31, 1517, nailing his now famous Ninety-five Theses, which condemned the sale of indulgences, on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany. His action was a protest, but he didn’t consider it outright revolution against the Catholic Church. However, that’s exactly how it turned out, as the theses spread like wildfire throughout Germany, earning him instant notoriety. Luther went on for many years after that to formulate his theology, which I discuss further in Chapter 11.

William Tyndale

William Tyndale (1484-1536) was an Englishman who lived in a time during which only the religious leaders had access to the Bible. Part of the reason for this was that the available scriptures were written in Latin, not in the language of the common person – English. Also, the Church leaders didn’t think they should allow the average man and woman to interpret the scriptures for themselves. From the Church’s perspective at the time, the Church clergy was the sole interpreter of the Bible, as I discuss more in Chapters 10 and 11. Tyndale, a supporter of the Reformation, disagreed and spearheaded the translation of the Bible into English so that everyone could read it.

The Church of England felt threatened by this and persecuted Tyndale. He left England and began living elsewhere in Europe, all the while working on his English translation of the Bible, which he then began smuggling into England. Eventually, the Church of England found him in Europe and brought him back to England, where he died a martyr’s death. Tyndale’s dying words were, “Lord, open the king of England’s eyes.” His prayer was eventually answered as King Henry VIII authorized an English Bible not many years later. And, just a few years after that, King James authorized perhaps the most well-known Bible translation – the King James Bible.

John Calvin

John Calvin (1509-1564) was an early Protestant leader and the founder of the Reformed Protestant Church, which includes such denominations as Presbyterians, Reformed Churches, and most Congregationalist and Baptist Churches. Calvin was a highly educated native of Paris and eventually became a believer of the new Protestant movement that was sweeping through parts of the European continent.

Around this time, Calvin wrote his best-known work, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995), which was the clearest explanation of Protestantism that was printed in the early years after the Reformation. The work propelled him to instant leadership within Protestant circles. He eventually took a hybrid church/state leadership role in Geneva, Switzerland in which strict and rigid adherence to discipline was civil law. Calvin had high expectations of himself and others. He had no tolerance for slackers or disobedient people. The climate of Geneva during his leadership assumed that personality. The city became a symbol of moral purity and a center for Christian training.

Calvin’s theological core was an emphasis on God’s sovereignty over human free will, meaning that God chooses people who will be saved (known as the elect) rather than vice versa. This belief is known as predestination. His theology was eventually hammered out and explained as the Five Points of Calvinism:

Total depravity: Sinful humans are totally unable to save themselves.

Unconditional election: God’s purpose for saving people isn’t based on anything that people have done, but solely on his will.

Limited atonement: Christ’s death was sufficient to save all people but only actually saves the elect.

Irresistible grace: Those who are elected by God will also choose him with their own human wills.

Perseverance of the saints: Those people who are chosen by God will never opt out, but will persevere in their faith and receive salvation.

I discuss predestination and Calvinism further in Chapter 11.