Mark,
Thanks for your post. I think your concern about ecumenism is right on target. We should not allow our appreciation of what certain Roman Catholic writers have written to soften our opposition to the Roman Catholic Church as an apostate church. We believe that Rome, as an institution, definitively lost the gospel when it pronounced anathema on salvation by grace alone through faith alone (at the Council of Trent). Prior to that time many individual Catholic theologians had already lost the gospel by teaching that the righteousness that justifies is the righteousness of infused habitus rather than the righteousness of Christ imputed (see Luther’s opposition to late-medieval nominalism). In short, your concern that we maintain a clear opposition to the Roman Catholic Church is well-taken and one with which I completely agree.
The difficulty, I suppose, is in knowing how we might go about appreciating modern Roman Catholic scholarship (if at all). One thing that makes this particularly difficult is that Rome has not always been an apostate church and much of its dogma passed over unmodified into the Protestant and Reformed tradition. Thus, when modern Roman Catholics, like Stein and Doolan (though I’m not certain if Doolan is a Roman Catholic) offer expositions of medieval Catholic dogma they are really expositing the commitments of orthodox Christianity. In times past the Reformed tradition has made extensive use of Roman Catholic scholarship. Calvin cites certain popes quite favorably and without offering any ecclesiastical qualification. John Owen occasionally appeals to Cardinal Cajetan (Luther’s great nemesis) and to Francisco Suarez in his arguments against the Socinians. Like Calvin, he does so with no qualification regarding their churchmanship. In other words, there is a long Reformed practice of making positive use of Roman Catholic theologians, even those like Cajetan (of all people!), without necessarily qualifying that use with statements about Rome’s apostate condition. Of course, no one would doubt the anti-Romanism of Calvin or Owen.
One other point that I should make with respect to the Reformed appreciation of Thomas Aquinas is that Aquinas belonged to the Roman Catholic Church in its pre-apostate days. To read him, or expositions of his thought, as though they are necessarily plagued by the Tridentine heresy is to assume too much (though I am not suggesting, Mark, that you have read Thomas this way). Also, to appreciate Thomas’s teaching on the doctrine of God should not imply that we countenance the whole of his theology. Reformed Christians have many serious and systemic disagreements with Thomas. In particular, we reject his nature/grace dualism and certain features of his method of natural theology and its denial of the implanted knowledge of God. Whether Thomas was a true believer in the gospel of grace alone by faith alone is difficult to say. Certainly we cannot saddle him with the heretical teachings of later Roman Catholics any more than we can charge those Tridentine errors against Augustine, Boethius, Peter Lombard, Henry of Ghent, John Duns Scotus, Bernard of Clairvaux, or a host of other medieval Catholics.
On your question about tradition, I only intended to contrast the Calvinist tradition with the Thomist tradition. Since the Thomist tradition predates the apostasy of the Roman Church I do not take it to be necessarily an apostate tradition (though many modern Thomists do hold to Rome’s false doctrine of salvation and are members of that apostate church). In truth, much that we find in the Calvinist tradition is modified Thomism (especially in matters dealing with the doctrine of God). My only point was to say that just as earlier Reformed theologians (especially the Reformed scholastics) made much fruitful use of Thomistic writers, we can still do the same today (bearing in mind that many of these modern Thomists are not believers in the true gospel). But our appreciation should signal no more of an openness to ecumenical relations with Rome for us now than it did for our Reformed forefathers. Anyhow, I hope this clarifies a few of the questions you raised.
Kind regards,
James

May I seek clarification of the use of the word tradition? One of the presenters (in the context of discussing books by Catholic philosophers on the doctrine of God) referred to the usefulness of examining insights contained in “other traditions of thought”. Does this imply that the “reformed tradition” is just another tradition?

Reformed tradition in as far as it is valid must be true to the Scriptures. Catholic tradition arises from a church that has anathematized the gospel (Trent) and thus teaches a false gospel. Thus the Catholic Church is under the anathema of God (Gal 1:8).

The program did contain certain caveats concerning the books by the two Catholic philosophers; but, there was no clear recognition of the apostate nature of the Catholic Church. Paul the Apostle in dealing with certain Greek philosophers (belonging to religions ignorant of the gospel), in using a phrase by a Greek poet (Acts 17:28), did not stop there, but informed the assembled philosophers of God’s command to them to repent of their sins (including idolatry: Acts 17-29-30) and proceeded to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to them (Acts 17:31). It would have been helpful for this program to have contained a warning to the listeners that these Catholic philosophers belong to a Church that is ignorant of the true gospel of Jesus Christ (not neglecting Catholic idolatry). Since false ecumenicalism is so pervasive now, I don’t think it can be assumed that all of your listeners will be sufficiently aware of the apostate nature of Catholicism.

I look forward to your response so can understand your thoughts on this matter.

Mark