Author Archives: Jordan Ballor

Jordan Ballor

About Jordan Ballor

Jordan Ballor (Dr. theol., University of Zurich; Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is associate director of the Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research of Calvin Theological Seminary. He also serves as senior research fellow and director of publishing at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion & Liberty.

Accessing digital sources

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We recently received a query about accessing digital sources internationally. Here’s a bit of my response that may be of more general interest:

First, membership in professional societies can provide some access to digital sources. For example, the AAR provides access to journals via JSTOR. For a limited time AAR membership also allows access to Bloomsbury/T&T Clark volumes. Membership in the Renaissance Society of America allows access to EEBO. Obviously the Post-Reformation Digital Library was conceived in part to address the need for digital access to primary source material. Many of these societies have reduced rates for student membership.

Second, you can register for limited access to some databases for free. For example, registering with JSTOR allows a certain number of free downloads and access to some content across the site. Similar programs are likely to be found with other databases and aggregators.

Replicating (and reconsidering) Aquinas

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Benozzo Gozzoli 004aThere remains lots to catch up on related to work of Junius Institute members, but a few recent items related to Thomas Aquinas are worthy of particular note:

1) JI research curator David Sytsma has an article in Reformation & Renaissance Review, “Vermigli Replicating Aquinas: An Overlooked Continuity in the Doctrine of Predestination.” From the abstract: “Vermigli not only drew upon Aquinas’s doctrine in general, as he does elsewhere, but reproduced the details of Aquinas’s article in the Summa on whether foreknowledge of merits is the cause of predestination.”

2) JI senior fellow Richard A. Muller has a three-part review essay of a recent study of Aquinas at Reformation21 (part 1, part 2, part 3). A comprehensive version will be forthcoming in Calvin Theological Journal.

3) The edited volume Aquinas among the Protestants, edited by Manfred Svensson and David VanDrunen is out, and includes contributions from me, “Deformation and Reformation: Thomas Aquinas and the Rise of Protestant Scholasticism,” as well as David Sytsma, “Thomas Aquinas and Reformed Biblical Interpretation: The Contribution of William Whitaker.”

CFP: Sources in Early Modern Economics, Ethics, and Law (Second Series)

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OEJ logoAndrew M. McGinnis, a JI research fellow, serves as a general editor for the Sources in Early Modern Economics, Ethics, and Law (Second Series), the successor to a series I worked on. He has issued a call for proposals, and more information is available here.

The first volume of the second series, On the Law of Nature: A Demonstrative Method, is by Niels Hemmingsen and is due out later this month. E. J. Hutchinson of Hillsdale College is the translator and editor, and wrote an introduction with fellow Hillsdale professor Korey D. Maas.

Update: Todd M. Rester

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rester_t_editedThe Junius Institute director Todd M. Rester has joined a research project based at the Queen’s University Belfast as a postdoctoral research fellow. The project, “War and the Supernatural in Early Modern Europe,” is a wide-ranging endeavor focused on “re-examining the relationship between faith and force in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.”

Dr. Rester is exploring “the nature of religious war among the Franciscans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as it was often expressed within the broader structure of a Just War theory as developed from the patristic and medieval teachings.” His responsibilities include translation as well as research directed toward the production of a monograph.

Also worth noting is the imminent release of the firstfruits of an extensive translation project that Dr. Rester has been involved in, the publication of an English-language edition of Petrus van Mastricht’s Theoretico-practica theologia (1698). The first volume, Theoretical and Practical Theology Volume 1: Intellectual Prerequisites, is slated for release soon.

Catching up

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Opuscula Selecta hasn’t seen an update in awhile, but that doesn’t mean that the Junius Institute staff haven’t been hard at work. In fact, a great deal has happened over the last year that has kept us involved in projects and publications in Europe, Asia, and America. In the coming days I’ll be posting some regular updates about what staff members have been up to, highlighting especially their Reformation-related projects. So stay tuned!

Meanwhile, the Post-Reformation Digital Library continues to expand, now covering over 5,700 authors.