"In later scholastic thought, the Thomistic conception of God as Intelligent Being gave way to the conception of God as Will. Man's reach no longer kept him, so to speak, a collaborator with an intelligible God; instead, both Creator and creature were removed from the realm of reason to the realm of faith, a shift which exalted the power of God at the expense of the rational dignity of man. From this cleavage between reason and faith two divergent tendencies developed. One, greatly assisted by the Renaissance revival of ancient skepticism, was anti-Christian rationalism. The other development was the theology of Luther and Calvin, which set a gulf between the absolute and inscrutable sovereignty of God and the depravity of man, who was impotent without the gift, the arbitrary gift, of grace." -- Douglas Bush, Prefaces to Renaissance Literature, page 47
Thomistic - refers to Thomas Aquinas, who is thought by some to be the Church's greatest thinker.
Wesley Quadrilateral - the four parts of what John Wesley's faith is based upon.
- Scripture
- Reason
- Experience
- Tradition