Richard Muller on ‘What Makes Something Scholastic?’

“… a discourse is ‘scholastic’ only when it follows scholastic method–specifically, only when it concentrates on (1) identifying the order and pattern of argument suitable to technical academic discourse, (2) presenting an issue in the form of a thesis or question, (3) ordering the thesis or question suitably for discussion or debate, often identifying the ‘state of the question,’ (4) noting a series of objections to the assumed correct answer, and then (5) offering a formulation of an answer or an elaboration of the thesis with due respect to all known sources of information and to the rules of rational discourse, followed by a full response to all objections. When that form or its outlines are not observed in a work, that work is not scholastic. By way of example, Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae is certainly a scholastic work–but his commentary on the Gospel of John is not, even though its content stands in strong and clear relation to the content of the Summa. Another example, taken from a place somewhat closer to home: Ursinus’s Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism is, arguably, scholastic. The catechism itself is clearly not–even though the theological content of the catechism closely reflects that of the commentary written on it” (Richard Muller, After Calvin, 26).