Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Degree

Master of Arts

Program

Theology

Supervisor

Dr. Gary Badcock

Abstract

This thesis compares the theology of the Lord's Supper in the Reformed theologians John Owen (1616-1683) and John Calvin (1509-1564), and addresses the differences discerned between the two. The argument is that the Federal theology which undergirded Owen's theology led him to develop a problematic theology. Owen's theology of the Lord's Supper focuses attention on the atonement and on covenant obligations, whereas John Calvin, who was not encumbered by the assumptions of Federal theology, draws attention instead in his theology of the Lord's Supper to the believer's union with Christ, and to its soteriological implications. The thesis concludes that those elements of the Reformed tradition which have followed the innovations of the seventeenth century would do well to rediscover the sacramental theology of the "father" of Reformed theology, John Calvin.

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