Pierre Du Moulin On The Knowledge Of God

By Mark J. Larson

The impact of Pierre du Moulin surpassed his colleagues, the great doctors of the Reformed world in the first half of the seventeenth century. Several scholars make this point. Roger Nicole asserts, “His stature outranks that of his theological contemporaries, as Louis XIV outranks most other kings of France before and after him.” [1] Brian Armstrong affirms that he was “incontestably the leading ministerial voice of the French Protestant Church in the first half of the seventeenth century.” [2] Émile Léonard refers to him as “ce grand intellectual.” [3] Gédéon Gory ranks him as the greatest among the doctors who followed the Reformers: “Parmi les Docteurs, de Moulin fut, au dire de ses contemporains, le plus grand.” [4]

In this article, I wish to provide a brief overview of Pierre du Moulin’s life and his Protestant scholastic method before examining in more depth his doctrine of the knowledge of God.

Pastor And Professor Of Theology

Du Moulin was born of the higher nobility in 1568. [5] It was a dangerous time for Reformed believers in France; the young boy was almost killed in the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day in 1572. Ironically, a Catholic woman hid the child under some straw, protecting him from the attackers who would have murdered him. [6]

He left his parents’ home in Sedan at the age of nineteen and began his formal education, first at Cambridge University under William Whitaker and then at Leiden University with Franciscus Junius. [7] He developed political connections throughout Europe by cultivating personal ties with the leading figures of his time. “He gravitated toward those who held the high positions of state.” [8] He established a close relationship with two monarchs of the early seventeenth century, James I of England and Henry IV of France. He served as an adviser to James I, [9] and he became the chaplain of Henry IV. [10]

As one of the premier theologians of his time, du Moulin was truly a colorful figure. He knew what it was to “smell the smoke of battle,” witnessing Prince Maurice taking the city of Groningen in 1594 and thus putting to an end Spanish rule. He became one of the pastors of the Huguenot church that met in Charenton, about one mile from Paris. [11] Du Moulin labored in this charge for over twenty years. During these years he engaged in public debates at the Louvre. Over three thousand people would come to hear these theological duels, including the king and his court! [12]

The precarious situation of the French Protestants even after the Edict of Nantes is reflected in du Moulin’s flight from Paris in 1621 and in the burning of the church at Charenton in 1622 by Parisian Catholics. [13] Du Moulin sought refuge in Sedan and became pastor of the Reformed church there and professor of theology at the Academy. [14]

This development opened a new era in du Moulin’s career; until this time he had never served as a professor of theology. Shortly after his arrival in Sedan he published De cognitione dei tractatus. [15] Having been entrusted with the responsibility of teaching a school theology, he likewise chose in this particular treatise to utilize a scholastic method in presenting his subject, the knowledge of God. [16]

The thesis of this author’s essay is that A Treatise of the Knowledge of God is in fact a paradigm of Protestant scholastic theology—a reflection of how most theological systems began with the topics of theology, Scripture, and God. It manifests the shape of Reformed scholastic systems, dealing with prolegomenon and the principia theologiae. [17] In addition, his treatment of the doctrine of God is handled in the medieval scholastic order—treating God’s existence, essence, and attributes in succession.

Protestant Scholastic Systems

Du Moulin’s treatise mirrors the layout of typical Protestant scholastic systems of his time, which usually began with the topics of theology, Scripture, and God. [18] These indeed are the three main topics which du Moulin considers in his discourse. [19]

Du Moulin dealt with typical matters taken up in the topic of prolegomenon. He established, for example, the relationship between theology and the arts and sciences by declaring, “For the Arts are the handmaids of divine wisdom, neither do they deserve a place in the rank of honest disciplines if they profess not themselves to be attendants on it.” [20] He maintained further that theologia has both a “contemplative” part and a “practical” part. “In Divinity that part is contemplative, which treats of the nature of God, and of works of creation, gubernation, and redemption; but that part which treats of the offices of piety towards God, and charity towards our neighbor is practical.” [21]

Du Moulin contended that theology surpasses all the other sciences in both its contemplative and practical aspects: “In one as in the other, divinity does infinitely excel all sciences.” [22] To cite just two of his six criteria, du Moulin affirmed that in terms of the dignity of the subject, which is “God himself,” divinity so far transcends all the arts and sciences that “there is no comparison.” [23] With reference to the criterion of the excellence of the end, he maintained that “whatsoever there is of arts or sciences [theology] by a transcendant distance does excel.” [24] The reason for theology’s transcendent excellence is that it does not “propose unto itself any particular or subordinate end, but the last end of all, viz. eternal blessedness, which consists in an union with God.” [25]

We see then that du Moulin presented a locus on prolegomenon, but he also provided a discussion on the topic of Scripture. In his locus on Scripture is a fundamental distinction between revelation and special revelation: “God therefore who with a courser pencil has shadowed himself in his creatures, has expressed himself in his Word in more bright and lively colors.” [26]

He argued at length for the necessity of the Scripture, presenting such considerations as the need for the Word of God to understand creation, the divine government of the world, and the requirements of true religion. [27] The fundamental reason for the need of Scripture is that it alone provides the message of salvation. Natural revelation is deficient in the sense that it does not reveal to us the reality of divine mercy, “without the knowledge of which there is no salvation.” [28] The Scripture, however, provides “the true and saving knowledge of God.” [29] It gives “a knowledge of him, as is sufficient to salvation.” [30]

In a fascinating passage, du Moulin maintained that it is appropriate for salvation to come by the Word: “Because that man fell by believing the words of the devil, it was fitting that man should be raised from his fall by believing the Word of God; for it was requisite that contrary evils should be cured by contrary remedies.” [31]

While du Moulin provided a synopsis of Reformed thought on prolegomenon and Scripture in his treatise, he mainly expounded upon the doctrine of God—reflecting something of the importance that the Reformed tradition has given to the principium essendi. [32] In his locus on God, we find du Moulin using the medieval scholastic procedure of teaching. To this topic we now turn our attention.

The Doctrine Of God

Protestant scholastic theology, like its medieval antecedents, used a particular order in its teaching procedure. There was an orderly procedure in examining a subject, “raising the right question at the right time.” [33] A proper teaching procedure in the scholastic mentality asked these questions in the following order: Does it exist (an sit)? What is it (quid sit)? Of what sort is it (quia sit)? [34]

When this logical teaching procedure is applied to the doctrine of God, as in Aquinas’s Summa theologiae and in Turretin’s Institutes of Elenctic Theology, it accounts for the order of presentation. First, there is a consideration of the proofs of God’s existence (Does it exist?). Second, there is a treatment of the essence of God (What is it?). Third, there is an examination of the divine attributes (Of what sort is it?).

This is precisely what du Moulin did in his development of the doctrine of God in A Treatise of the Knowledge of God. He considered, in order, the proofs of God’s existence, the divine essence, and the attributes of God. He was clearly committed to the medieval approach of handling theological topics.

Let us consider how du Moulin dealt with each of these issues in succession in his teaching on God.

Demonstrative Proofs

Protestant scholasticism was willing to look toward medieval models for teaching methodology and order. But it also had another tendency as well. There was a willingness to draw upon, not only medieval pedagogical approaches, but even medieval theology (at points). Protestant scholastic theology, Richard Muller observes, is “in continuity with the great tradition of the church.” [35] With respect to Turretin, for example, there is “a substantive use of medieval scholastic theology.” [36]

We see the same pattern in du Moulin. He had no problem with using several of Aquinas’s classical proofs, and the “absence of clear or direct citation of medieval sources is quite typical of Protestant theology.” [37] The reluctance to cite Aquinas’s name is due to the charged polemical atmosphere at the time. Muller writes, “The polemic between Protestant and Roman Catholic theologians was so heated in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries that any positive citation of a potential adversary could easily bring down charges of heresy on one’s head.” [38] Nevertheless, without mentioning Aquinas by name, du Moulin patently used some of his logical proofs.

Consider, for example, his use of Aquinas’s second way, the argument from efficient causality. Both theologians opposed the notion of a cause that goes on to infinity, without stopping at a first cause. Du Moulin stated his thesis: “Besides it is easy to be seen by evident demonstration, that in the order of efficient causes it is impossible to proceed unto what is infinite.” [39] This is precisely the stand taken by Aquinas: “Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity.” [40]

The first reason that du Moulin gave in support of his position is this: “For if there was no chief and primary cause, there would be no second, nor any third cause; and so of the rest, so that by this means, there would be no cause at all.” [41] This was likewise the position of Aquinas: “In all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or one only.” He added, “Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there would be no ultimate, nor any intermediate, cause.” [42]

The second argument presented by du Moulin against the notion of an infinite regress of causes is this: “Besides we should never arrive unto the last effect, for before we could travel to it, infinite causes must be gone over. Now that is infinite which cannot be gone through, and of which as there is no beginning, so there is no ending.” [43] Again, this is the same line taken by Aquinas: “But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false.” [44]

Du Moulin basically presented himself in this treatise as a philosophical theologian, [45] acknowledging at the outset that he wanted to “express how far human reason, having no relation to the Word of God, can advance itself.” [46] He maintained that reason takes two paths to the knowledge of God. There is the way that the common people take—”the vulgar tread in one path” [47]—and here he placed the teleological argument. [48] In addition, there is the way that the philosophers take: “the higher way” when it comes to “the true knowledge of God.” [49]

In this section of his volume, du Moulin readily used the medieval tradition in terms of Aquinas and also explicitly appealed to Aristotle and his conception of “the first Mover...who is immovable.” He was convinced that such logical argumentation in its total effect is cogent: “The scope of all this, is, that by arguments borrowed from the light of human reason...we may teach that...every being does depend and is sustained by one chief and sovereign Being.” [50] Du Moulin contended that “human reason” by “assistance of philosophy” has “come so far as to affirm that there is a God.” [51]

The Divine Essence

After du Moulin dealt with the issue of the existence of God, he turned, in the tradition of Aquinas, to consider the divine essence. Human reason, he affirmed, does fairly well in correctly asserting the reality of the divine existence. Our understanding, however, is struck with blindness when it comes to answering the question as to what God is. “When they come to describe the nature of God” a “huge and thick mist of ignorance does overspread and cloud the sense, and the light of God himself, turned into darkness, does strike the understanding with blindness and astonishment.” [52]

The difficulty in ascertaining what God is, in terms of the divine essence, is due to what God is like and what man is like. In the first place, du Moulin stated, we must recognize that God, by the nature of the case, is incomprehensible. “The essence of God, as it cannot be expressed by words, so it cannot be conceived by the understanding.” “A thing infinite cannot be comprehended by a thing finite.” [53] Later, he expounded further: “To see into the mysteries of God, and to know his essence is not granted unto any creature, no not unto the angels, because there is no proportion between a finite faculty and an infinite object.” [54] The nature of humanity also disables us from coming to an understanding of what God is. There is, as we have seen, man’s finitude; but there is also the problem of human sin, specifically pravitas and neglentia. “There is added not only man’s slowness and infirmity, but his perverseness and neglect.” [55]

This manifest difficulty in attaining a true knowledge of God has led many to embrace a position of agnosticism: “For these causes there have not been wanting some, who turning desperation into censure, have been of judgment that God could not be known, and that in vain they travail that bestow their labors in searching out his nature.” [56] Human reason then is blinded, unable to tell us what God is. Du Moulin, however, allows some exceptions, namely, Plato and Aristotle. “Plato,” he affirmed, “has delivered to the world many true and excellent things concerning God.” Aristotle was even more advanced in his theological contribution. The great Aristotle was even “more sharp in understanding” than Plato. [57]

We are reminded in these statements from du Moulin that Protestant scholasticism had a strong philosophical bent. It presented a “transition,” David Steinmetz affirms, “from the purely biblical orientation of the reformers to the more philosophically oriented theology of the Reformed scholastics.” [58] Muller calls attention to this particular phenomenon with respect to du Moulin: “The fairly positive attitude toward philosophy is, of course, a point of contrast with Calvin and Viret.” [59]

Despite widespread ignorance concerning the essentia Dei, du Moulin will set forth his own conception as to what God is. “I am of opinion, most aptly and as far as man’s capacity is able to conceive that God may be thus defined, God is the first, the most chief, and most perfect Being, from whom there flows and depends all entity and perfection.” [60] God, in His essence, is being. This is a typical scholastic conception: the divine essence consists in the fact that God exists. [61] The definition that du Moulin offered included not only the assertion that God is the fundamental and primary Being, but that all other secondary beings derive from God and depend upon Him for their continued existence. [62]

The Attributes Of God

Having referred to the nature of God in his definition of the divine essence, du Moulin then indicated that he was ready to begin a consideration of the divine attributes. He declared that “God is” the “most perfect Being.” He then added, “For other things which are his attributes, as his eternity, his simplicity, his wisdom, and of like nature are all contained under this word of chief perfection.” [63]

Du Moulin had answered the tacit questions that were traditionally posed in medieval scholastic theology: Does it exist, and what is it? He then turned his attention to one final issue in the doctrine of God, the attributes of the Almighty. He essentially at this point responds to the third classical medieval enquiry: Of what sort is it? He willingly used human reason to set forth something regarding the nature of God’s perfection. In this, he exemplifies the tendency of Protestant scholasticism to give reason “a major role” in theology. [64]

Du Moulin set forth his own conception of the divine nature by using three reasoning processes: negation, analogy, and inference. He first considered the way in which reason ought to move from its reflections upon human perfections and virtues to the examination of God’s perfections. He here proposed that we may know what God is like if we reason by way of negation, or subtraction. “Whosoever therefore will exalt his thoughts without danger to the contemplation of the Divine perfection, must run over in his own mind all the perfections that are in a creature, and abstract and sever from him whatsoever there is of imperfection, and also those perfections which are the helps and crutches of imperfections, all these being subtracted, that which remains will be God.” [65]

Du Moulin took the position that the perfection of God encompasses all the excellencies manifested in rational creatures. [66] He insisted, however, upon a certain kind of exception to this general rule that God’s perfections embrace all the perfections in the creatures: “But those perfections are excepted which are either the remedies of evils or the helps and aids of imperfections.” [67] Once du Moulin announced the exceptive principle that certain creaturely perfections cannot be enfolded by the divine perfection, he provided a number of instances of what he meant. He thereby surfaced some of the divine attributes.

One example of this approach relates to the human perfection of being able to reason logically. “So to discourse and frame a syllogism is a perfection indued by God into the mind of man.” [68] Its presence in the creature, though, is due to the creature’s frailty. “This perfection” is “the remedy of ignorance and a help unto our weakness.” [69] Thus, the human perfection of logical reasoning processes cannot be found in God, for this would indicate weakness within the Deity. “It would be prophane to look for it in God, who disputes not, nor makes it his labor to find out the truth, nor collects one thing by another, for all things are known to him alike, and he understands all things in one pure and simple thought.” [70]

Du Moulin presented God’s nature by way of negation, but he also used another approach. He reasoned by way of analogy, or eminence. He first issued a word of qualification. “Neither would I...infer that if at any time the same perfection be attributed to God and the creatures, that the same perfections are equal in the creatures as in God.” He then cited an example of what he meant: “Wisdom and righteousness are not attributed to the angels as to God, in one and the same sense.” [71]

We must recognize, he contended, that there is an inequality, a distinction, between creaturely perfections and the divine perfections. Nevertheless, there is a similarity in the perfections found both in the creature and in God. The perfections found in God are there in the most exalted sense, while the same perfections in the creature are a resemblance of the divine: “The wisdom and the righteousness of angels are resemblances of the divine righteousness and sparks shining from it, and the knowledge of one does advance our spirits to the contemplation of another.” [72]

Finally, du Moulin discussed the perfections of God by inferential reasoning. He stated his position this way: “Some of the divine attributes are demonstrated by what goes before, while one attribute is deduced from another by a necessary conclusion.” [73] What divine attributes are necessary deductions from others? Among others, du Moulin mentioned God’s immobility and incorruptibility. Immobility is to be inferred from the divine infinity: “Out of the infiniteness of God, his immobility is demonstrated, for whither can he move himself who is everywhere?” [74] Incorruptibility, conversely, may be conceived from the divine simplicity: “From the simplicity of the essence of God, we may deduce his incorruptibility, for all corruption does proceed from the dissolution of the compound.” [75]

In his discussion of God’s attributes, du Moulin proved willing to use human reason in the service of theology. [76] What specific benefits are there in reflecting upon the divine nature by way of these rational processes—reasoning by way of negation, analogy, and inference? Du Moulin mentioned two benefits. In the first place, real knowledge of what God is like may be obtained by using the “wings” of rational reflection. “The understanding of man mounted on these wings, can exalt herself to some knowledge of the divine nature.” [77] Such reasoning processes, secondly, are helpful preliminary exercises to the perusal of the biblical revelation concerning the knowledge of God: “By which preexercitations the mind being stirred up does more greedily receive, and more easily digest the instructions revealed in the Word of God.” [78]

It may be noted that Calvin would have had a problem with du Moulin’s approach to the divine attributes. He affirmed a different position regarding the capabilities of reason. “Human reason,” Calvin declared, “neither approaches, nor strives toward, nor even takes a straight aim at, this truth: to understand who the true God is or what sort of God he wishes to be toward us.” [79] Not all the Reformed, however, would have concurred with Calvin at this point. Peter Martyr Vermigli, for example, maintained that “unaided reason can attain” some understanding of God’s “attributes.” [80] Francis Turretin wrote along similar lines, maintaining that “human understanding” still possesses “rays of natural light.” [81] He even affirmed that “reason is perfected by faith.” [82] He was willing, like du Moulin, to reflect upon the attributes of God by “the three fold way of causality, eminence and negation.” [83]

This does not mean that Turretin and du Moulin were rationalists, placing reason on an equal footing with the Bible. [84] This was not the case. [85] The Reformed scholastics contrasted with the rationalists. There remained a “genuine opposition between orthodox Protestantism and philosophical rationalism.” [86]

Conclusion: Knowledge Unto Salvation

After serving as a pastor for over twenty years, Pierre du Moulin began his new career as a professor of theology at the Academy in Sedan in 1621. He was in his early fifties. Not long after his arrival in Sedan, he published his De cognitione dei tractatus, which was probably a popularized version of his theological lectures.

As we observed in the preceding discussion, du Moulin’s treatise stands as a representative model of Reformed scholastic theology. Du Moulin decided in this volume to develop the doctrine of God by using the teaching procedure of scholastic theology. Like the medieval doctors before him, du Moulin treated in order the existence, essence, and attributes of God. In addition, the treatise as a whole reflects the typical shape of Protestant scholastic systems by dealing with three standard loci: prolegomenon, Scripture, and God. [87] Throughout the treatise, one finds the characteristic tendencies of Protestant scholasticism: the propensity to draw upon medieval theology, the strong use of reason in the development of theology, a strong philosophical orientation, and the making of careful, precise distinctions and definitions. [88]

Finally, it must be noted that du Moulin’s treatise belies the broad generalization that scholastic theology is arid and lifeless. [89] Du Moulin displayed a pastoral concern that so few people ever come to a true knowledge of God: “I cannot but here lament the condition of human understanding which in trifling things does express a most subtle and ingenious industry, but in the knowledge of God alone does languish in a drowsy sloth.” [90] As a shepherd of souls, he urged his readers to avoid the extreme of “negligence” on the one hand and a “saucy curiosity” on the other. [91] In contrast to negligence, he gave the pastoral exhortation: “Labor...that you may attain to the true knowledge of God.” [92] In contrast to a cocky boldness, he warned his readers: “We must take heed, lest while too much we employ ourselves in this study we offend God by our sedulity; which comes to pass, when not content with what belongs unto salvation, we labor in things unnecessary, and by a prophane curiosity search after those things which exceed the compass of our understanding or sobriety.” [93]

The course of true wisdom for du Moulin lay between these two errors: “In the doctrine which instructs us in the knowledge of God, we must labor after those things which serve for the nourishment of our soul, and abstain from those things which break our teeth.” We must “refer all our knowledge and meditation to piety and manners, and to the love of God.” [94]

Notes

1. Roger Nicole, “Book Review,” Sixteenth Century Journal 29, no. 2 (1998): 554.
2. Brian G. Armstrong, “The Pastoral Office in Calvin and Pierre du Moulin,” in Calvin: Erbe und Auftrag, ed. Willem van ’t Spijker (Kampen: Kok, 1991), 164.
3. Émile G. Léonard, L’Établissement (1564-1700), vol. 2 of Histoirie Générale du Protestantisme (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1961), 321.
4. Gédéon Gory, Pierre du Moulin: Essai sur sa vie, so controverse, et sa polémique (Paris: Librairie Fishchbacher, 1888), 3. Cf. J. Van Der Meij, “Pierre du Moulin in Leiden, 1592-1598,” Lias 14 (1987): 32.
5. Gory, Pierre du Moulin, 7. Du Moulin was born on October 16, 1568. He died on March 19, 1658, at the age of eighty-nine.
6. Bernard Cottret, The Huguenots in England: Immigration and Settlement, c. 1550-1700, trans. Peregrine and Adriana Stevenson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 89.
7. Gory, Pierre du Moulin, 13.
8. Brian G. Armstrong, “The Changing Face of French Protestantism: The Influence of Pierre Du Moulin,” in Calviniana: Ideas and Influence of John Calvin, ed. Robert V. Schnucker (Kirksville, Mo.: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1988), 137. He was particularly devoted to King James I. Elsewhere Armstrong makes the point that du Moulin wanted “to elevate James to the leadership of the Protestant world of the time” (“Pierre Du Moulin and James I: the Anglo-French programme,” in De l’Humanisme aux Lumières, Bayle et le protestantisme, ed. Michelle Magdelaine [Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1996], 22).
9. Brian G. Armstrong, Bibliographia Molinæi: An Alphabetical, Chronological and Descriptive Bibliography of the Works of Pierre Du Moulin (1568-1658) (Geneva: Droz, 1997), ix.
10. Julien Massip, Un Vieux Predicateur Huguenot: Essai sur les Sermons de Pierre du Moulin (Montauban: J. Granié, 1888), 13. He also preached before James I in the royal chapel at Greenwich (Cottret, The Huguenots in England, 90).
11. Léonard, L’Establissement (1564-1700), 318.
12. Armstrong, Bibliographia Molinæi, ix.
13. Raoul Stephan remarks, “A Paris, les fanatiques se vengent sur de malheureux protestants qui revenaient du temple de Charenton et brûlent l’édifice” (Historie du Protestatisme Francais [Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1961], 145).
14. Stephan, Histoirie du Protestantisme Français, 152.
15. Petri Molinæi, De cognitione dei tractatus (London: Apud Iohannem Billium, 1624), was the very first edition that was published. All Latin quotations come from this original text. All English quotations come from Pierre du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, trans. Robert Codrington (London: A. Mathews, 1634). I have updated the text by removing certain archaic Elizabethan expressions. In addition, I have made spelling changes to the seventeenth-century text when it was warranted. Finally, I have followed today’s conventions in terms of when and when not to capitalize, and also occasionally with respect to punctuation.
16. Protestant scholasticism, as to its essential character, was a theology designed for the schools, institutions such as the academies at Geneva or Sedan. Richard A. Muller, in his Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastics Theology, states that “its intention” is “to provide an adequate technical theology for schools” (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1985), 8. David C. Steinmetz remarks that when scholasticism is “stripped to its bare essentials,” it is “school theology” (“The Theology of Calvin and Calvinism,” in Reformation Europe; A Guide to Research, ed. Steven Ozment [St. Louis: Center for Reformation Research, 1982], 226). Cf. Richard A. Muller, “The Problem of Protestant Scholasticism—A Review and Definition,” in Reformation and Scholasticism: An Ecumenical Enterprise, ed. Willem J. van Asselt and Eef Dekker (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2001), 53-54; Ralph Keen, The Christian Tradition (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2004), 230-31; James R. Payton, Getting the Reformation Wrong (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2010), 193.
17. The expression principia theologiae refers to the “foundations of theology.” According to the Protestant scholastics, theology has two principia: Scripture and God. There is the revelation, and there is the one who reveals Himself. Muller states, “The scholastic systems frequently begin with a definition of theology followed by a statement of its principia, viz., a locus on Scripture and a locus on God” (Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, 245).
18. Muller states, “The topics of theology, Scripture and God stand together at the beginning of most of the Protestant scholastic systems and together provide the basis for understanding subsequent treatment of all other doctrines” (Prolegomena to Theology, vol. 1 of Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics [Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1987], 20).
19. A fourth of du Moulin’s book takes up the subject of theology (55-72). He refers to this as “the elements of the Christian religion” (55). Another fourth of the volume focuses on the topic of Scripture (34-55). Half of the treatise concentrates on the locus of God (1-34).
20. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 67.
21. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 60.
22. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 60.
23. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 60.
24. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 62.
25. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 62.
26. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 34.
27. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 35-43.
28. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 35.
29. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 44.
30. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 45.
31. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 46.
32. In Reformed scholasticism, the doctrine of God was regarded as the “essential foundation,” the principium essendi. Muller notes that this term is applied to God “considered as the objective ground of theology without whom there could be neither divine revelation nor theology” (Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, 246).
33. J. A. Weisheipl, “Scholastic Method,” in New Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967.
34. Richard A. Muller, Scholasticism and Orthodoxy in the Reformed Tradition: An Attempt at Definition (Grand Rapids: Calvin Theological Seminary, 1995), 10.
35. Muller, Prolegomena to Theology, 13.
36. Richard A. Muller, “Scholasticism Protestant and Catholic: Francis Turretin on the Object and Principles of Theology,” Church History 55, no. 2 (1986): 205.
37. Richard A. Muller, God, Creation, and Providence in the Thought of Jacob Arminius: Sources and Directions of Scholastic Protestantism in the Era of Early Orthodoxy (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1991), 37.
38. Muller, God, Creation, and Providence, 37.
39. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 9.
40. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, in Introduction to Saint Thomas Aquinas, ed. Anton C. Pegis (New York: Random House, 1948), 26 (2.3).
41. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 9.
42. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 26 (2.3).
43. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 9.
44. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 26 (2.3).
45. John Patrick Donnelly writes, “In the whole history of theology there is scarcely any major theologian less influenced by philosophy than Calvin (“Italian Influences on the Development of Calvinist Scholasticism,” Sixteenth Century Journal 7, no. 1 [1976]: 82). In contrast, both Lutheran and Calvinist scholastics of the seventeenth century are unabashed philosophical theologians.” In his essay “Calvinist Thomism,” Donnelly adds this note: “Neither Martin Luther nor John Calvin were philosophical theologians” (Viator 7 [1996]: 441).
46. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 2. It should be recognized that the entire first half of the treatise is basically an exercise in philosophical theology. It is only at the halfway point that du Moulin announced that he was turning his attention to Scripture (34).
47. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 5.
48. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 7.
49. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 8.
50. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 12.
51. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 19.
52. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 19.
53. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 21.
54. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 25.
55. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 22. De cognitione dei tractatus, 45.
56. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 23-24.
57. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 24.
58. Steinmetz, “The Theology of Calvin and Calvinism,” 225.
59. Richard A. Muller, “Duplex cognition dei in the Theology of Early Reformed Orthodoxy,” Sixteenth Century Journal 10, no. 2 (1979): 58-59.
60. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 25.
61. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, 106.
62. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 26.
63. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 25-26.
64. Donnelly, “Italian Influences on the Development of Calvinist Scholasticism,” 82. Muller makes the point that “there remains in the Reformers” an “antagonism to the development of a more speculative theological system based on” the “use of philosophical argumentation” (The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Foundation of a Theological Tradition [New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000], 176). Du Moulin had no such antagonism.
65. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 32.
66. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 27.
67. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 27.
68. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 28.
69. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 28.
70. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 28.
71. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 31.
72. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 32.
73. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 33.
74. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 33.
75. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 33.
76. Donnelly makes the point that in Protestant Scholasticism “reason and revelation become closely inter-meshed in the theological process.” Cf. Muller, Prolegomena to Theology, 248. The typical linkage between reason and revelation is reflected in the work of du Moulin.
77. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 33-34.
78. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 34.
79. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, ed. John T. McNeill (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960), 1:278 (2.2.18).
80. Donnelly, “Italian Influences on the Development of Calvinist Scholasticism,” 92.
81. Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1, trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T. Dennison (Phillipsburg, N. J.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1992), 29.
82. Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 30.
83. Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 179.
84. This is the position taken by Brian G. Armstrong, Calvinism and the Amyraut Heresy: Protestant Scholasticism and Humanism in Seventeenth-Century France (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), 32, regarding the nature of Protestant Scholasticism. He affirms that the scholastics employed “reason in religious matters, so that reason assumes at least equal footing with faith in theology.”
85. Richard A. Muller makes the point that du Moulin manifests “great respect” for “reason and philosophy” in his treatise, yet du Moulin “concludes that revelation supplies man’s only hope” (Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: Prolegomena to Theology, vol. 1 [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003], 299). Reason gives man “a sense of terror, an awareness of sinfulness, and a consciousness of just punishment” (298). “Only the gospel reveals God as he wills to be toward man—as Father and Redeemer” (299).
86. Muller, Prolegomena to Theology, 243.
87. Muller asserts, “The Protestant scholastics did develop doctrinal expositions of these two principia and place them at the beginning of their theological systems, usually placing the locus de Scriptura Sacra second in order after a prolegomenon and the locus de Deo third” (“The Problem of Protestant Scholasticism,” 57).
88. Scholasticism was renowned for its precise distinctions. Muller reflects upon the contrast between the Scholastics and the Reformers: “Where the Reformers painted with a broad brush, their orthodox and scholastic successors strove to fill in the details of the picture” (Prolegomena to Theology, 19).
89. Muller refers to the tendency of the “older scholarship” to equate orthodoxy with such pejorative terms as “rigid” and “dead” and to refer to “scholasticism” with terms like “dry” or “arid” (After Calvin: Studies in the Development of a Theological Tradition, 25).
90. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 66.
91. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 72.
92. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 70.
93. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 71.
94. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 72.