The Leiden Synopsis Purioris Theologiae (1625) and
Theological Disputation in the Era of Orthodoxy

Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, Chapel
2965 Leonard Street NE, Grand Rapids, MI 49525
March 31-April 1, 2016

Thursday, March 31

6:30pm Plenary 1

• Keith Stanglin, “How Much Purer Is the Synopsis Purioris Theologiae? A Comparison of Leiden Theology before and after Dordt”

Friday, April 1

9:00am Panel 1

• Donald Sinnema, “The First Edition of William Ames’s Medulla (1623) as a Disputation Cycle: A Precursor to the Synopsis”
• Raymond Blacketer, “The Sabbath in the Synopsis”
• Mark Beach, “No Longer Totally Depraved: Free Choice in the Regenerate according to the Synopsis Purioris Theologiae”

10:30 Break

11:00am Plenary 2

• Riemer Faber, “Presiders, Respondents, and the Question of the Authorship of the Disputations”

12:30 Lunch Break

2:00 Panel 2

• Martin Klauber, “Pierre du Moulin: Disputation and Debate over Universal Grace at the Academy of Sedan”
• Michael Lynch, “Antonius Walaeus and De Baptismo: A Case Study in the Reception History of the Leiden Synopsis”
• Todd Rester, “From the Synopsis Purioris to Marckius and De Moor: A Trajectory of Doctrine, Pedagogy, and Institutional Continuity”

3:30 Plenary 3

• Dolf te Velde, “Synopsis Purioris Theologiae: Profile of a Reformed Theology”

About our Speakers:

• Plenary Speakers
  • Dr. Riemer Faber is an associate professor of  Director of the Waterloo Institute for Hellenistic Studies at the University of Waterloo. He is also one of the editors and is the lead translator of the Synopsis Purioris Theologiae  published with Brill.
  • Dr. Keith Stanglin is an associate professor at the Austin Graduate School of Theology and has published extensively on the writings and thought of Jacobus Arminius.
  • Dr. Dolf te Velde is assistant professor of Systematic Theology at Theological University Kampen, an assistant professor of Historical Theology at the Evangelische Theologische Faculteit Leuven, and is also one of the lead editors of the Synopsis Purioris Theologiae published with Brill.
• Panel Speakers
  • Dr. J. Mark Beach is the professor of Ministerial and Doctrinal Studies as well as the Dean of Students at Mid-America Reformed Seminary
  • Dr. Raymond Blacketer is the lead pastor at First Cutlerville CRC
  • Dr. Martin Klauber is a professor of church history at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
  • Mr. Michael Lynch is a doctoral candidate in Historical Theology at Calvin Theological Seminary
  • Mr. Todd Rester is a doctoral candidate in Historical Theology at Calvin Theological Seminary (defending May 2016). He is the lead translator of Petrus van Mastricht’s Theoretico-Practica Theologia for the Dutch Reformed Translation Society. He is also the Director of the Junius Institute
  • Dr. Donald Sinnema is a professor of theology (emeritus) at Trinity Christian College. He is also a general editor, with Christian Moser and Herman J. Selderhuis, Acta et Documenta Synodi Nationalis Dordrechtanae that is being published with Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (vol 1, 2015; eight volumes to follow).

Without any more adieu it is my pleasure to let you know about the colloquium schedule for the remainder of the Spring. The links below are to our presentations that have either already occurred or soon will.

I look forward to seeing you either here in Grand Rapids or online, and thank you for your support,

Todd Rester, Director

Junius Institute Colloquium
Spring 2016 Schedule

When: Friday, February 5, 3:00pm
Presenter: Rhys Bezzant
Topic: The Surprising Mentoring Ministry of Edwards: Learning the Art of Leadership Development
Location: Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, Room 118a

When: Friday, March 11, 3:00pm
Presenter: Jonathon Beeke
Topic: John Calvin on the Twofold Kingdom of Christ
Location: Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, Room 118a

When: Thursday, March 31–Friday, April 1
Presenters: Riemer Faber, Dolf te Velde, Keith Stanglin, Raymond Blacketer, Donald Sinnema, Martin Klauber, Michael Lynch, Todd Rester, Mark Beach
Topic: The Leiden Synopsis Purioris Theologiae (1625) and Theological Disputation in the Era of Orthodoxy (see next post for live streaming links)
Location: Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, Chapel

When: Friday, May 13, 3:00pm
Presenter: Jeff Fisher
Topic: Johannes Oecolampadius and the Christoscopic Reading of Scripture
Location: Kuyper College, West Dining Hall

This Friday at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, Todd Rester will discuss the importance of recovering a body of theological and philosophical terms for the study of intellectual history, theology, and philosophy. We will also introduce the Lexica of Early Modern Philosophy & Theology project, a new tool that is a crowd-sourced project that employs elements of research methodology, historical theology, TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) standards, and Latin paleographical techniques to develop a resource for theologians, philosophers, historians, and graduate students.

Also, if you can’t make it in person to the events but would like to tune in via YouTube, we will stream the events online. You can reach the live stream by the links below:

When: Friday, September 18, 3:30pm
Presenter: Todd M. Rester
Topic: “Reformation of Terms: Mining & Building Lexica of Early Modern Philosophy & Theology”
Location: Room 118a, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary

When: Friday, October 9, 3:30pm
Presenter: Michael Lynch
Topic: “Covenant Theology and Hypothetical Universalism? A Look at John Davenant’s Federal Theology”
Location: Auditorium, Calvin Theological Seminary

When: Friday, November 13, 3:30pm
Panelists: Richard A. Muller
Topic: “Calvinist Thomism Revisited: William Ames (1576–1633) and the Divine Ideas”
Location: Room 118a, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary

When: Friday, December 4, 3:30pm
Presenter: Adriaan Neele
Topic: “Jonathan Edwards and the Definition of Theology: A Parting of Ways in the Reformed Tradition?”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MjZAfvBlWQ
Location: Auditorium, Calvin Theological Seminary

If PRDL had a rallying cry it would be “Free Rare Books!” Now with our fundraising campaign for the Junius Institute integrated into PRDL and the crowd-funding site Razoo, we have a mechanism to “Free the Rare Books!” This 4 minute video clip summarizes where PRDL has been and where we would like to go.

Please consider passing this information on to a friend or colleague who might be interested in the PRDL or has never utilized these resources. It is our user community that not only inspires and encourages us to keep providing innovative tools and resources to study theology, history, and philosophy, but also fuels and supports the mission to broaden access to digital sources to global academic and also church communities.

If you would like your academic institution to partner with the Junius Institute and its projects, please feel free to contact me for more information here.

Isaac Junius, Antapologia (1640)

There is also the reality that there are treasures of early modern theology and philosophy tucked away in smaller institutions and private collections. A digitization initiative can be scaled to other institutions, archives, and private collections as a way to build a consortium of truly invaluable sources. One example that we are proud to present is a piece by Isaac Junius simply entitled the Antapologia, or thoughts on the 16 heads of the Remonstrants. Through the generosity of a private owner, we are able to make it available to you. According to Worldcat this piece is housed primarily in Europe and, as far as we are aware, is unavailable in digital form for free. We encourage you to take a moment and browse our version of it here. And yes you may download it in .pdf form.

At the core of the digitization project is an automated digital photography device developed over the past 24 months by an interdisciplinary team I had the privilege of spearheading (several specialists in engineering design, robotics, automation, and computer programming). In particular this device expedites the digitization of rare books while respecting the fragility of their age in a new and innovative way. You can see some of its initial results here. The presentation format is another testimony to David Sytsma’s programming wizardry and is the Junius Institute’s adaptation of a publicly available book viewer. Together we hope we have created a process and result that meets the needs of teachers, scholars, and students in a relatively cost-effective way.

Unprecedented access to primary sources through print media once changed the face of education and shaped all of society in early modern Europe. Now we live in an age where unprecedented access to primary sources through digital media is changing the face of education and all of society in ways only dreamed of a decade ago. We invite you to consider a few things. We are looking for individual and institutional partners who are interested in advancing initiatives of this nature. You might think that is way beyond your means or your contact list, but in my experience scholars and students are a creative and innovative bunch of people. You can be a part of this initiative in a variety of ways: (1) You can sign-up to receive our updates and e-mails. (2) You could fully or partially sponsor the digitization of a particular rare book. (3) You can be the link to put us in contact with individuals or institutions that have a similar vision and desire to advance scholarship through digital means.

We look forward to providing you updates on initiatives of this sort as well as displaying the results in the days ahead.

Just about five years ago, a group of students at Calvin Theological Seminary, with the encouragement and guidance of Dr. Richard Muller, began to collect and share links to primary sources in theology that were increasingly becoming available in digital formats. The original list was limited to sources available on Google Books, and included 331 titles. After proceeding first to a wiki format and later to what is the Post-Reformation Digital Library today, we’ve added more than 4,500 authors and nearly 64,000 titles from digital collections and libraries the world over. There really is nothing else like PRDL out there for early modern theological and philosophical research, and we’re pleased that it has come so far in so short a time.

I’m reminiscing for a couple of reasons. First, I want to thank you for your encouragement, support, and use of the PRDL throughout these years. The whole point of PRDL from the beginning was to make available our individual findings as students and researchers to a broader audience, particularly those that are not blessed with easy access to sources in other venues. Every time you find and download a PDF you found via PRDL that is useful to you in your study, this founding purpose has been fulfilled.

Second, I wanted to let you know that we are at a critical stage in the development and maturation of PRDL. Earlier this year we founded the Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research at Calvin Theological Seminary to be a formal and permanent home for PRDL as well as other digital research projects. The encouragement from the seminary community has been outstanding, and we’ve been able to develop a variety of projects already this year, including unveiling the Scholastica project, a feature embedded in PRDL that adds a new layer of understanding to the primary sources listed in PRDL.

From the beginning, PRDL and now the Junius Institute have been a labor of love for a group of students, and they will continue to be a passion for us. As many of us have graduated or are graduating, however, the need for financial support to continue focusing on developing digital research tools and methods becomes more significant. For projects like PRDL to be sustainable in the long-term, we need to move toward a model that will fund upkeep, maintenance, development, and improvement.

In the days ahead, we’ll be looking at all of our options for fundraising and development to support the work of the Junius Institute, including PRDL. But as we close out this year, you have a real opportunity to make a difference in the development of digital research on the Reformation era. If you have ever benefited from PRDL or have appreciated the helpfulness of our efforts, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Junius Institute at Calvin Seminary. You can make a donation online at Calvin Seminary via this secure form, or you can send a check.

We know that there are many worthy causes that vie for financial support, particularly at this time of year. And yet this truly is an important moment for PRDL and the Junius Institute. Contributions of any size will help show that our efforts mean something to scholars and researchers all over the world.

Even if you aren’t able to make a financial contribution at this time, please consider sharing some thoughts about how the work of the Junius Institute and PRDL has helped you in your work in the comments section below.

Thank you for your support over these years and your continued use of PRDL.

Todd Rester
Director
Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research

He then went digging through some old emails, and found that the original finding list that would grow to become the PRDL, first in wiki and later in the current PRDL 2.0 format, was circulated in October 2008, just over five years ago. You can read more about the transition and development of PRDL in this piece from the Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology.

David, who directs the PRDL project, writes further, “Looking back through the email thread, it was Jordan who suggested on Nov. 7 that we start a wiki and think about forming a digital research center.” So this day a sort of informal five year anniversary for the beginning of the PRDL and now the Junius Institute!

PRDL now covers over 4,500 authors, with listings of more than 85,000 volumes. Take a look at the original finding list to see where it all began, a short five years ago.

The institute is conceived as a forum to promote research into the Reformation and post-Reformation periods, covering the 16th to the 18th centuries, through the use of digital tools, skills, and resources. The Junius Institute will house the Post-Reformation Digital Library (PRDL), an electronic database covering thousands of authors and primary source documents on the development of theology and philosophy in these centuries. With the click of a few buttons, researchers can now download digital files with source material from hundreds of years ago. Before recent large-scale digitization efforts, like those undertaken by Google and many European libraries, access to these kinds of sources had been difficult, costly, or even impossible. In some cases sources were simply lost or unknown.

The PRDL began as a collaborative project to gather a list of digital sources by doctoral students in historical theology in 2008. “It quickly became apparent that there was a great need for a tool to collect and organize the wide array of digital sources available from digitization projects all over the world,” said Todd M. Rester, director of the Junius Institute. A year later the first version of the PRDL website was launched in partnership with the H. Henry Meeter Center for Calvin Studies at Calvin College and Seminary. After launching an expanded and upgraded website in 2011 the group behind the PRDL began to focus on realizing a stable institutional environment for creating and catalyzing similar projects.

“We are investigating ways of applying what we’ve learned and gathered in the process of producing the PRDL to create different ways of disseminating and displaying research,” said David S. Sytsma, who serves as research curator of the Junius Institute. He emphasized the need to continue to expand and develop tools like the PRDL as well as to seek out new projects, including digitization of sources, pursuing collaborative partnerships with libraries and research centers, implementing crowdsourcing strategies, and using mapping and GPS technologies to illustrate the dynamic networks of communication and exchange in the early modern period.

“The PRDL began as a labor of love by a group of like-minded researchers,” Rester said, “but we soon found that the scale of the project and the possibilities for other tools demanded some significant investment of time and resources.” The Junius Institute provides a framework for keeping a project like the PRDL up-to-date as well as for connecting the seminary community more closely with broader scholarly trends. Richard A. Muller, the P.J. Zondervan professor of historical theology at CTS, explains: “Academic research has been revolutionized by the recent progress of digital tools and methods. We see this in a variety of fields, from science and medicine to art and literature. The Junius Institute and projects like PRDL represent the latest developments in the realms of intellectual history and the theology of the early modern period.”

Muller will serve as a senior fellow of the institute, and has witnessed the maturation of the doctoral program during his tenure at the seminary. Muller helped to establish the seminary’s doctoral program in 1992, and the 2012-2013 academic year marks the program’s 20th anniversary. The Junius Institute is one example of the significant positive impact of the doctoral program for the edification of the church as well as the academic world, Muller said.

Other staff members of the Junius Institute include research fellow Albert J. Gootjes of the Netherlands, a doctoral alumnus in historical theology at Calvin Theological Seminary, as well as associate director Jordan J. Ballor, who holds a doctorate from the University of Zurich in Switzerland and is also currently a doctoral candidate at Calvin Seminary. All of the staff members have direct ties to the seminary as faculty and current or former students.

For more information:

Jordan J. Ballor
Associate Director
Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research of Calvin Theological Seminary
jordan.ballor@juniusinstitute.org

http://www.juniusinstitute.org/
http://www.prdl.org/
http://www.calvinseminary.edu/

About the Junius Institute

The Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research of Calvin Theological Seminary seeks to further the advancement of studies in early modern (ca. 16th to 18th century) theology and interconnected disciplines through the use of digital research tools, skills, and sources; to foster the presentation, preservation, and public use of primary and secondary sources within the public domain; and to encourage via educational and curricular means the study of the documents themselves, their content, as well as the technical skills required to interpret and analyze these materials.

About Calvin Theological Seminary

Founded in 1876, Calvin Theological Seminary is the oldest denominational ministry and the sole theological seminary of the Christian Reformed Church in North America, which is comprised of approximately 250,000 members in over 1,000 congregations across the US and Canada.