Theological Overview

Theological Overview

Nowadays , there exists a number of approaches to interpreting the Scriptures , all of them have advantages and weak points , but given the changes which have taken place over the last hundred years , many accounts are no longer relevant for modern Christians . Given that the Church is supposed to address the society 's spiritual needs , it is important to identify the methods which would be effective in addressing contemporary believers and communicating to them the core messages of Scriptures . The present is intended to compare the Medieval and Reformation churches

' theological contributions and discuss the hermeneutics of the specified historical epochs

In the Middle Ages , the novel ideas and theological contributions were coming predominantly from the Western part of the former Roman empire whereas the Byzantine theology greatly continued the Patristic tradition , whereas the West , dominated by barbarians , had obtained an alternative developmental axis (Lindberg , 2006 Neufeld , 1964 . The first efforts to reconcile science and religion were undertaken during Charlemagne 's reign (Ratramnus , Radbertus , Gottschalk , Felix of Urgel but the true uniformity in theological thought was achieved only by the 12th century , when Scholasticism emerged . This new theological movement consisted in logical view on faith and utilized Aristotelian apparatus of inquiry in interpreting scriptures , so there were born new ideas of providential government in the universe , divine nature of state importance of the satisfaction of God 's justice in atonement immateriality of the soul and , finally , the concept of collectivism as God 's for humans into society (Lindberg , 2006 Gerberding and Cruz , 2004 . Therefore , human freedom as expressed in the earlier writings was gradually turned into detailed prescriptions concerning man 's destiny . On the contrary , Reformation was marked with a split of theological views and the emergence of more materialistic ' Protestant ideas and beliefs . Instead of elaborating the sacred texts with logical techniques and dialectics as their predecessors were doing , the most outstanding representatives of the Reformation simplified Bible and curbed the number of texts to be studied by each religious person instead , they adapted Scriptures to a simplified version and explained that God 's blessing could have been obtained through certain society-oriented deeds rather than through mere faith and observance of specific religious rites . Furthermore , the Reformation eliminated the role of clergy as the intermediaries between human and God and the last resort of truth in interpreting the sacred texts . There is a direct interrelation between the Reformation and Renaissance , given that the Reformation of the church was one of the main stimuli among the factors which caused the social change

The difference between the Medieval and Reformation hermeneutics is obvious as well . In the Middle Ages , Christian commentators viewed certain text simultaneously as an instruction concerning the structure and functioning of religious institution , as a moral lesson , as an allegory , as well as a prefiguration of the successive narratives . The rationally-oriented Reformates , on the contrary , simplified the exegesis and interpreted Scriptures as originally secular classical texts , which reflected the spirit and realities of the corresponding...