Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T07:35:43.889Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Reason, Revelation, and Cartesianism: Louis Tronchin and Enlightened Orthodoxy in Late Seventeenth-Century Geneva

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Martin I. Klauber
Affiliation:
Lecturer of history in Trinity College, Deerfield, Illinois.

Extract

Michael Heyd's description of the period between the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries as one of transition between orthodoxy and enlightenment has particular application to the theological climate of Geneva, the birthplace of Reformed theology. François LaPlanche refers to this era in Geneva as one of “enlightened or liberal orthodoxy.” He defines such enlightened orthodoxy as a return to the biblical text unencumbered by the controversial language of Reformed scholasticism, with the primary goal of creating a practical form of theology that the average parishioner could understand. One of the most representative theologians of this period and one who was to a great extent responsible for educating an entire generation of “enlightened orthodox” theologians was Louis Tronchin (1629–1705).

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. See Heyd, Michael, Between Orthodoxy and the Enlightenment: Jean-Robert Chouet and the introduction of Cartesian Science in the Academy of Geneva (The Hague, 1982).Google Scholar

2. LaPlanche, François, “La Bible chez les réformés,” in Le Siècle des Iumières et la Bible, ed. Belval, Yvon and Bourel, Dominique (Paris, 1986), p. 459.Google Scholar

3. For a definition of the term “Protestant scholasticism,” see Muller, Richard A., Post- Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 1, Prolegomena to Theology (Grand Rapids, 1987), p. 18.Google Scholar

4. On the Saumur Academy, see Bourchenin, Pierre D., Etude sur les acadèmies protestantes en France aux XVIe et XVIIe siécles (Paris, 1882);Google ScholarMerzeau, E., L'Académie protestante de Saumur (1604–1685) (Alençon, 1908);Google ScholarProst, Joseph, La philosophie à l'Académie protestante de Saumur (1606–1685) (Paris, 1907);Google ScholarMétayer, L. J., L'Académie protestante de Saumur (Paris, 1933);Google ScholarArmstrong, Brian, Calvinism and the Amyraut Heresy: Protestant Scholasticism and Humanism in Seventeenth-Century France (Madison, Wis., 1970);Google ScholarLaPlanche, François, L'Ecriture, le sacré et l'histoire: érudits et politiques protestants devant Ia Bible en France au X Vile siécle (Amsterdam, 1986).Google Scholar

5. On the introduction of the Helvetic Formula Consensus into Geneva, see Grohman, Donald G., “The Genevan Reaction to the Saumur Doctrine of Hypothetical Universalism: 1635–1685” (Ph.D. diss., Knox College, Toronto, 1971), p. 232.Google Scholar On Francois Turrettini, see de Budé, Eugene, Vie de François Turrettini, théologien genévois (1623–1787) (Lausanne, 1871),Google Scholar and Gerrit, Keizer, François Turrettini: sa vie et ses oeuvres et le consensus (Kampen, 1900).Google Scholar

6. Grohman, , “Genevan Reaction,” pp. 258333.Google Scholar

7. Solé, Jacques, “Rationalisme chrétien et foi réformée á Genéve autour de 1700; les derniers sermons de Louis Tronchin,” Bulletin de la Société d'histoire du protestantism français 128 (1982); 33.Google Scholar

8. On Jean-Alphonse Turrettini, see Heyd, Michael, “Un Role nouveau pour la science; Jean-Alphonse Turrettini et les débuts de la théologie naturelle á Genéve,” Revue de thélogie et philosophie 112 (1982); 2542;Google ScholarBeardslee, John W., “Theological Developments at Geneva under Francis and Jean-Alphonse Turretin (1648–1737)” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1956);Google ScholarKlauber, Martin I., “The Context and Development of the Views of Jean Alphonse Turrettini (1671–1737) on Religious Authority” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin—Madison, 1987).Google Scholar

9. Heyd, Michael, “Cartesianism, Secularization and Academic Reform: Jean-Robert Chouet and the Academy of Geneva, 1669–1704” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1974), pp. 306312.Google Scholar

10. Cellerier, J. E., L'Académie de Genéve: Eqnisse d'une histoire abregée de L'Académie fondée par Calvin en 1559 (Genève, 1872), p. 41.Google Scholar

11. Pierre Bayle called Tronchin “the most penetrating and the most judicious theologian of all of Europe” in a letter to his brother written in Geneva while Bayle was studying under Tronchin in 1671. Pitassi, Maria C., Entre croire et savoir: le problÉme de la méthode critique chez Jean LeClerc (Leiden, 1987), p. 103.Google Scholar On the relationship between Bayle and Tronchin, see Rex, Walter, Essays on Pierre Bayle and Religious Controversy (The Hague, 1965),CrossRefGoogle Scholar and idem, “Pierre Bayle, Louis Tronchin et la querelle des donatistes: Etude d'un document inédit du XVIIe siècle,” Bulletin de la Sociéthé d'histoire du protestantisme français 105 (1959): 97121.Google Scholar Maria C. Pitassi cites a letter from LeClerc to Tronchin dated 2 January 1681 in which LeClerc acknowledged his intellectual and religious debts to Tronchin; see Pitassi, , Jean LeClerc, p. 2.Google Scholar

12. On the use of reason in seventeenth-century Reformed scholasticism, see Muller, , Post- Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, p. 93.Google Scholar

13. Rex, , Pierre Bayle, p. 131.Google Scholar

14. Tronchin, Louis, Notae in libros duos Theologiae sacrae Wendelini exceptae in praelectionibus Domini Tronchini theologiae in Genevensi Academia professoris celeberrimi, quae habuit inter p(ri)uatos p(ar)ietes, annis 1671, 1672, Archives Tronchin, vol. 84, fols. 44–44vGoogle Scholar. The Archives Tronchin are located in the Bibliothèque publique et universitaire at the University of Geneva.

15. Pitassi, , Jean LeClerc, p. 2.Google Scholar

16. Solé, , “Louis Tronchin,” p. 34.Google Scholar

17. Ibid., p. 35.

18. Tronchin, Arichives, vol. 57, fols. 45r-45v, 6 01 1677.Google Scholar

19. Ibid., fols. 45v-46r.

20. Robinson, John R., “The Doctrine of Holy Scripture in Seventeenth-Century Reformed Theology” (Ph.D. diss., Université de Strasbourg, 1971), p. 51.Google Scholar

21. Ibid., p. 72.

22. Forstman, H. Jackson, Word arid Spirit: Calvin's Doctrine of Biblical Authority(Stanford, 1962) pp. 16, 66, 7175, 125.Google Scholar

23. Tronchin, Archives, vol. 57, fol. 111r, minutes of seven letters written to Mme de Ia Fredoniérre between 1686 and 1687.Google Scholar

24. Ibid., fol. 94r, 15 June 1686.

25. See, among others, Stromberg, Roland N., Religious Liberalism in Eighteenth-Century England (Oxford, 1954).Google Scholar

26. Tronchin, Archives, vol. 86, np., 23 12 1666.Google Scholar

27. Tronchin, Archives, vol. 57, fol. 120r, 06 1686.Google Scholar

30. Stauffenegger, Roger, Eglise et sociÉté: Genève au XVIle sièc1e (Genève, 1983), pp. 414415.Google Scholar

31. Archives Tronchin, vol. 57, fols. 97v, 221r; vol. 86, Sermon on 2 Cor. 6:17; Fatio, Olivier, “L'Eglise de Genève fâce à l'offensive Catholique: 1680–1684” in Genève au temps de la révocation de l'édit de Nantes, ed. Reverdan, Olivier et al. (Genève, 1985), pp. 182185Google Scholar n. 198.

32. Ibid.

33. Tronchin, Archives, vol. 57, fol. 95v, 15 06 1686.Google Scholar

34. Ibid., fol. 96r.

35. Ibid.

36. Ibid., fol. 97r.

37. Ibid., fol. 108r, 1686–1687.

38. Ibid., fol. 110r.

39. Ibid., fol. 122v, June 1686; fol. 221v, n.d.; Fatio, , “L'Eglise,” p. 183.Google Scholar

40. Ibid.

41. Tronchin, Archives, fol. 96v., 15 06 1686.Google Scholar

42. Ibid., fol. 122v, June 1686.

43. Heyd, , Between Orthodoxy and the Enlightenment, pp. 7374.Google Scholar

44. Rex, , Pierre Bayle, p. 131.Google Scholar

45. Archives Tronchin, fol. 211v, n.d.

46. Ibid., fol. 211r.

47. Jean-Alphonse Turrettini, “Oratio secunda inauguralis de theologo veritatis et pacis studioso. Dicta est Kalend. Decembr. An. MDCCV. Quo die auctor, in locum yin venerandi, Ludovici Tronchini in Domino pie defuncti, subrogatus, publicam S. Theologiae professionem adiret,” in Turrettini, Jean-Alphonse, Dilucidatiories philosophico-theologicodogmatico-morales, quibus praecipua capita tam theologiae naturalis, quam revelate demonstrantur et ad praxin christianam commendantur accedunt, I. Orationes panegyricae et varii argumenti item henoticae de pace ecclestae II. Commercium epistolicum inter regum borussiae Frideric I. et Pastores Genevenses de syncretismo protestantium, vol. 3 (Basel, 1748), pp. 175180.Google Scholar