Some Observations On The Theological Method Of Faustus Socinus (1539–1604) -- By: Alan W. Gomes

Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 70:1 (Spring 2008)
Article: Some Observations On The Theological Method Of Faustus Socinus (1539–1604)
Author: Alan W. Gomes


Some Observations On The Theological Method Of Faustus Socinus (1539–1604)

Alan W. Gomes

Alan W. Gomes is Professor of Historical Theology at Talbot School of Theology, La Mirada, Calif.

I. Introduction

None of the so-called “radical” sects that arose in the Reformation age so agitated the varied divisions of mainstream Christendom as did the Socinians, named after Faustus Socinus (1539–1604), their preeminent divine.1 In the

theological systems and polemical summae of the seventeenth century, Reformed, Lutheran, and Roman Catholic theologians all excoriated the “execrable Socinians” and their infaustus (unfortunate) leader Faustus, attacking them in often massive works devoted solely to this purpose.2 Speaking of the Reformed in particular, Clow observes that Socinianism “troubled the Reformed theologians of the 17th cent. and invaded all their communions, so that they grappled with it as the subtlest and strongest enemy of evangelical truth.”3 For their part, the Socinians regarded their founder as accomplishing truly what the halting and half-way reformers such as Luther and Calvin did not. The Socinian attitude is well expressed by the epitaph on their namesake’s tomb: “Tota licet Babylon destruxit tecta Lutherus, muros Calvinus, sed fundamenta Socinus”: “Although Luther destroyed all the roofs of Babylon, and Calvin the walls, it was Socinus who demolished its foundations.”4

It is important to realize that Socinianism is not, as William Cunningham has observed, a dispute about a particular doctrine or set of doctrines, but represents instead a reconstruction and reinvention of the entire Christian edifice. In that respect it is unlike the breach between the Reformers and Rome. Taken as a whole, there is much more continuity than discontinuity between the magisterial Reformers and Rome on the constitutive credenda of the faith. While one ought not to minimize the Reformers’ significant course corrections on such critical issues as the source of religious authority and their effort to reclaim what they saw as a more Pauline doctrine of salvation’s appropriation in their doctrine of justification by faith alone through Christ alone, it nevertheless stands that the

Reformers shared a common heritage with Rome, at least when the totality of Christian truth is in view.5 Socini...

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