Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 05:4 (Winter 2001)
Article: The SBJT Forum: Key Points in the ECT Debate
Author: Anonymous

SBJT 5:4 (Winter 2001) p. 98

The SBJT Forum:
Key Points in the ECT Debate

Editor’s note: Readers should be aware of the forum’s format. Thomas J. Nettles, James White, Mark Dever, and John Armstrong have been asked specific questions to which they have provided written responses. These writers are not responding to one another. The journal’s goal for the Forum is to provide significant thinkers’ views on topics of interest without requiring lengthy articles from these heavily-committed individuals. Their answers are presented in an order that hopefully makes the forum read as much like a unified presentation as possible.

SBJT: Are there historical precedents to encourage hope that evangelical/Roman Catholic dialogue might have positive results?

Thomas J. Nettles: No one can rule out the possibility, given the power of the gospel, that honest dialogue might benefit the individuals involved. This was the case in the Reformation when Luther defended and expanded his views in the early attempts of the Papacy to bring him to recantation. Notably, the Dominican, Martin Bucer, came under the influence of Luther and embraced the gospel at the Heidelberg Disputation in 1518. After that his zeal for reformation and his influence for the leading principles of the Reformation were immense. Hopefully, some of the Roman Catholics might be led to believe the gospel in the same way.

The best chance for the success of this kind of dialogue in the Reformation occurred during the colloquies of the sixteenth century. A Colloquy, as distinct from a Confutatio or disputation which aims at victory and an imputation of heresy to one’s opponents, focuses on friendly discussion with a view of achieving conciliation. The concept of the colloquy developed at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530 when Melancthon objected to a “devilish” strategy of John Eck. Eck sought to fix on reformation churches extremist positions he had culled from a number of reformation writings and have those churches denounced as heretical should they not be able successfully to defend those ill-conceived positions. Due to Melancthon’s counter strategy, the colloquies used the Augsburg confession as a basis for the discussion.

The participants, appointed by Charles V and including theologians as well as civil rulers, agreed on fifteen articles after brief discussion. On issues such as the doctrine of God, the Son of God, baptism, civil government and the return of Christ they found little reason to dispute. Surprisingly, brief discussion brought substantial agreement on such issues as justification and the freedom of the will. The colloquy at Worms, 1540, brought about agreement concerning the original integrity of humanity in its creation, the cause of sin, and original sin. The agreement included John Eck’s expl...