oa Natuurlijke theologie als uitleg van openbaring? Ectypische versus archetypische theologie in de zeventiende-eeuwse gereformeerde dogmatiek

*Mijn dank gaat uit naar het H. Henry Meeter Center for Calvin Studies te Grand Rapids waar ik tijdens mijn sabbatical in het najaar van 2001 gebruik kon maken van de bronnen waarop dit artikel is gebaseerd. Dank ben ik ook verschuldigd aan dr. Marcel Sarot (Universiteit Utrecht), die een eerdere versie van dit artikel van leerzaam commentaar heeft voorzien.

In the past many historians and theologians (for example F.A.G. Tholuck, H.E. Weber, P. Althaus, E. Bizer, and K. Barth) defended the thesis that post-Reformation Reformed (and Lutheran) scholasticism was an essentially rationalistic movement leading up to the Enlightenment. First, it was argued that Protestant scholasticism created an abstract doctrine of God as opposed to a God whose love for us is revealed in Jesus Christ. Secondly, it was asserted that Protestant scholasticism developed a positive locus of natural theology independent of Scripture and soteriology and that, in the final analysis, revelation was seen as no more than a completion of our natural knowledge of God. In this article it is shown that the Protestant orthodox scholastics posited the distinction between natural and revelation theology within a much broader epistemological context. This broader context was discussed in terms of the categories of theologia vera and, subordinate to that, theologia archetypa and ectypa. The main thesis of this article is that by mispresenting the fundamental trinitarian and christological structure of post-Reformation Reformed (and Lutheran) theology one unfortunately perpetuates the myth that identifies Protestant scholasticism with rationalism.