Exalting Christ and God’s Sovereign Grace

Augustinianism and Anti-Arminianism in Samuel Rutherford’s Covenant of Works

Bibliographic Data

ID21718241
AuthorsJaekook Lee (0009-0008-2336-9739, Seegwang Presbyterian Church, Seoul, Korea, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume25
Issue2-3
Pages158-184
Publication date2023-09-02
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueReformation & Renaissance Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1462-2459 • E-ISSN: 1743-1727
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14622459.2023.2275308
OpenAlexW4388821895
LanguageEN
References cited52

This article examines how Samuel Rutherford, a leading Reformed theologian in seventeenth-century Scotland, discussed Adam’s obedience and merit within the doctrine of the covenant of works and underscored grace as given by God’s free will. Rutherford utilised the late medieval Augustinian Thomas Bradwardine’s voluntarist thought on grace and ethics and highlighted the prevenient nature of grace. The distinctive features of Rutherford’s covenant of works stem from his rejection of the Arminian elevation of human ability and imposition of necessity on God’s ad extra activities by binding these activities with divine goodness and love. Thus, Rutherford’s doctrine of the pre-fall covenant was shaped by anti-Arminian and anti-Pelagian concerns. To pursue this polemic, two late mediaeval traditions of Bradwardinian Augustinianism and God’s covenantal acceptance eventually converged in the development of Rutherford’s covenant of works

Biography · Covenant · Doctrine · Political science · Theology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Classics · History · Law · Medieval Literature and History · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity

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