Prolegomena

This chapter charts some of the ways in which the prolegomena have traditionally been drafted and discussed in Reformed theology. First, we will examine the two Reformers who arguably most deeply influenced most of the later trajectories of Reformed theology: Philip Melanchthon and John Calvin. Next, we will turn to the movement of post-Reformation Reformed Orthodoxy, mapping some of its complex and intricate intellectual trajectories. We will then turn to Schleiermacher as the great nineteenth-century Reformed theologian who reinvented the prolegomena after Kant had given short shrift to their classical form. Subsequently, we will show how the tradition of Reformed prolegomena from Calvin to Schleiermacher received a surprising update in philosophical quarters by the end of the twentieth century, in circles of what has come to be called ‘Reformed epistemology’. Finally, in a brief prospect we will suggest some of the tasks and functions which any future (Reformed) prolegomena may fulfil after the demise of classical foundationalism.