Friday, December 13, 2019

T. Edgar Lyon on the Problematic Nature of the theology of the Magisterial Reformers and their Followers


In the manual for Melchizedek Priesthood Quorums for 1960, T. Edgar Lyon wrote about some of the problems of John Calvin’s theology:

Calvin’s Inconsistencies

In Calvin’s teachings there is an obvious strain of contradictions. While insisting that the Bible must be the sole standard for Christian guidance, he accepted Augustine’s doctrine of original sin in its most extreme form. He did the same with Augustine’s doctrines of predestination and the depravity of man, except that he went farther than the ancient bishop of Hippo, Calvin made the doctrine of depravity into one of total depravity and turned Augustine’s predestination into such absolute predestination, that it appears he believed even God could not change the status of one of the elect or the damned, once the election had been made. In these three doctrines there is an example of the Protestant Reformation furthering the apostasy rather than a striving to return to original Christianity. (T. Edgar Lyon, Apostasy to Restoration [Course of Study for the Melchizedek Priesthood Quorums of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1960], 274-75)

Later, he addressed some of the problems of the theology of the Magisterial Reformers (not just Calvin’s) and their followers:

Why the Reformers Could Not Establish the True Church of Christ

There are at least five major explanations why the reformers of the sixteenth century could not effect a restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ.

1. The false assumption concerning pristine Christianity. The reformers assumed that the Roman Catholic Church, which they declared to be an apostate institution, had represented true Christianity until the eighth or ninth centuries.

As a result, the Protestant churches which they founded adopted such doctrines as original sin, predestination, election, and the traditional interpretation of the “Fall,” all of which were not part of apostolic Christianity. They thought that the decisions of the first seven or eight general councils of the church represented original Christian norms. They thus laid a foundation for their reformed churches on teachings and practices far removed from the Church of Jesus Christ of the first century. Their ecclesiastical institutions could be no better than the foundations on which they were built. True Christianity could not be built upon a changed church.

2. The false assumption concerning the authenticity of the Bible . . . the reformers found themselves, having withdrawn from the Roman Catholic Church, with no claim to authority or doctrine except the New Testament. This was a very insufficient guide to Christian faith and living, as its original authors had not concentrated on producing a handbook for complete Christian living. It had been the outgrowth of Christianity, not Christianity itself. The reformers appear to have forgotten that the Christian church was a thriving, vigorous organization for many years, before the New Testament books had been composed.

In the Reformation literature it is astonishing to note the frequency with which the expression “God’s Word” appears. The reformers assumed that the bible contained all that God intended his children to know and that it was sufficient for both Christian faith and church government. Some of the reformers reached the stage where they accepted the theory of “verbal inspiration,” that is, every word in the Bible was just as though it had been dictated by God.

3. The false assumption concerning Priesthood. While still functioning within the Roman Catholic Church, the reformers had been acquainted with an ordination type of priesthood. This was based on a theory of authoritative descent since the days of the apostles. The reformers were excommunicated from the church which professed to have this power concentrated in their bishops. Obviously they would have to find a new basis for ecclesiastical power. Luther arrived at the conclusion that the priesthood was a power which the Christians received automatically by church membership. This “Priesthood of all believers” gave rise to the theory that the congregation could delegate its priesthood to any minister whom they employed. When retained by the individual, this priesthood was insufficient to authorize one to perform church functions. When the congregation combined its priesthood by delegation to the priest, it was sufficient to constitute a valid power to act in the name of God.

Calvin’s doctrine of priesthood was less explicit than that of Luther. Calvin adopted an idea that the sovereignty of the people in any church congregation gave sufficient authority for that congregation to delegate its minister to function for it. But there was a prerequisite to functioning at the call of a congregation: the individual must have scholastic preparation for the ministry.

4. The false assumption concerning God. First century Christianity was characterized, in its theology, by a close adherence to the Hebrew concept of God. Throughout Old Testament dispensations, as well as during the dispensation of the Meridian of Time, the patriarchs and prophets of Israel, and the early Christian leaders had faith in God who created mankind. This mortal creation, however, had not been the beginning of man’s existence. Man had a pre-existent entity who was “ . . . in the beginning with God.” This placed man and God in the same category as far as the time cycle was concerned. It made God a participant in the same universe in which man resides.

A second characteristic of Hebrew-Christian theology was belief in God as a tangible Being—One who was real, who had spoken to mortals and had been seen by their prophets. Though of more refined matter than they, He was not something merely ethereal, but, like mortals, occupied space.

During the third and fourth centuries of the Christian era theologians rejected these original concepts of early Christianity. In their place they brought into changing church explanations concerning God which came from Neo-Platonism. These held that any matter, regardless of how fine it might be, was inherently evil and of temporary duration. Hence, they reasoned, that if God were composed of matter, and, like matter, occupied time and space, he would be evil, and ultimately crease to exist. This, of course, was unthinkable, so the theologians replaced the God of the Old and New Testaments with a philosophical abstraction. This changed theology was adopted by the reformers of the sixteenth century and has been perpetuated unchanged in Protestantism down to the present time.

5. The false assumption concerning revelation. Somewhere between the close of the New Testament writings and the Council of Nicea in the fourth century the Christians had given up the belief that God gave personal revelation for public declaration to a universal head of the entire church. It was assumed that the church organization of bishops which had developed contained in the office of the bishop sufficient guidance for the church. The Protestant reformers, reared in this tradition continued to believe that revelation had ceased about the close of the apostolic period. It was assumed by the reformers that the Bible had sufficient revelation in it to supply the human race with all essential guidance. (Ibid., 290-93)

For further reading on the points T. Edgar Lyons raised, see for e.g.:








After the Order of the Son of God: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Latter-day Saint Theology of the Priesthood (2017)