The result of these struggles at the end of the 16th century, was the Formula of Concord, in which many of the territorial churches found an interpretation of which they believed it is the pure interpretation of the Confession of Augsburg, in its basic form.
All this has one implication, namely that the doctrinal element becomes much more important than it was in the Reformation period itself, where the Spiritual element was much more decisive than the fixed doctrines. Luther didn’t fix doctrines, although he himself could be very tenacious. He had to stick to something which according to his own principles had to be condemned by him, but from some mystical theological reasons he stuck to it.
Then we must deal a little with the principles of Orthodox thinking One of the first was the relationship to philosophy. This is not a new invention of Union Theological Seminary since the year 1950, but it is very old and is old in Protestantism. Luther seems to be very much disinclined to accept anything from reason; in reality, this is not true. This is true in many of his angry statements against the philo6ophers – by whom he usually meant the Scholastics and their teachers, Aristotle, etc, But Luther himself, in his famous words at the Diet of Worms, said: “If he is not recanted either by Holy Scripture or by reason, then he will not recant.” There he adds reasoning to Holy Scripture; he was not an irrationalist, But what he fought against was that these categories transform the substance of the faith. Reason is not able to save, but must itself be saved, Now this was the point of view in Luther’s fight. But immediately it became clear – and Luther accepted it and gave Melanchthon this task – that you cannot teach theologically without philosophy, and that you cannot teach anything whatsoever without using, consciously or unconsciously, philosophical categories. Therefore, he did not forbid that Melanchthon again introduce Aristotle, and with Aristotle many humanistic elements.
