The Two Kingdoms Doctrine and the Relationship of Church and State in the Early Reformed Tradition

Among its important features are a much greater recognition of the scholastic theologians' immersion in biblical studies,5 of scholasticism as more a development of method than a change in theological substance,6 of the international character of Reformed orthodoxy,7 and of the complex and variegated character of Reformed theology within a single tradition,8 which includes the conviction that Calvin, for all his importance, should never be taken as the sole standard for assessing later Reformed thought.9 While the present essay does not seek to contribute directly to this scholarly debate, the conclusions certainly add supporting evidence to the case for continuity between Reformation and post-Reformation Reformed theology and for early Reformed theology as a variegated yet single tradition. A number of influential schools of thought among contemporary Christian theologians take a decidedly negative view of the concept of the "secular," identifying it with an Enlightenment quest for autonomy, moral fragmentation, and the exclusion of religious discourse from the public square.