{625} spiritual child of
Occam, and the ancestor of Kant. His individualism stood half-way
between the former's nominalism and the latter's transcendentalism and
subjectivism. But the Reformers were far less interested in purely
metaphysical than they were in dogmatic questions. The main use they
made of their philosophy was to bring in a more individual and less
mechanical scheme of salvation. Their great change in point of view
from Catholicism was the rejection of the sacramental, hierarchical
system in favor of justification by faith. This was, in truth, a
stupendous change, putting the responsibility for salvation directly on
God, and dispensing with the mediation of priest and rite.

[Sidenote: Attitude towards reason]

But it was the only important change, of a speculative nature, made by
the Reformers. The violent polemics of that and later times have
concealed the fact that in most of his ideas the Protestant is but a
variety of the Catholic. Both religions accepted as axiomatic the
existence of a personal, ethical God, the immortality of the soul,
future rewards and punishments, the mystery of the Trinity, the
revelation, incarnation and miracles of Christ, the authority of the
Bible and the real presence in the sacrament. Both equally detested
reason.

He who is gifted with the heavenly knowledge of faith
[says the Catechism of the Council of Trent] is free from
an inquisitive curiosity; for when God commands us to
believe, he does not propose to have us search into his
divine judgments, nor to inquire their reasons and causes,
but demands an immutable faith. . . . Faith, therefore,
excludes not only all doubt, but even the desire of
subjecting its truth to demonstration.

We know that reason is the devil's harlot [says
Luther] and can do nothing but slander and harm all that
God says and does. [And again] If, outside of Christ,
you wish by your own thoughts to know your relation to
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God, you will break your neck. Thunder strikes him
who examines. It is Satan's wisdom to tell what God
is, and by doing so he will draw you into the abyss.
Therefore keep to revelation and don't try to understand.

There are many mysteries in the Bible, Luther acknowledged, that seem
absurd to reason, but it is our duty to swallow them whole. Calvin
abhorred the free spirit of the humanists as the supreme heresy of free
thought. He said that philosophy was only the s