This article offers some statistics from Heinrich Bullinger’s The Decades with a brief analysis as evidence that Bullinger must be understood as the forerunner, not the father, of federal theology, due to his discussion of the covenant doctrine is limited, inconsistent, exploratory, and slightly integrated with the rest of his theological thought.
Having tested Baker and McCoy’s thesis that Bullinger’s doctrine of the covenant is an organizing and central principle in most of his published works (especially in The Decades), one arrives at the conclusion that their thesis is not totally accurate. One might observe that Bullinger cannot be considered a federal or covenant theologian in the narrow sense of the term. Although Baker and McCoy locate Bullinger as first in the line of covenantal theology, it is indeed too early. Bullinger is clearly an innovative theologian by developing Zwingli’s notion of the covenant and paying attention to the doctrine itself in a very singular sense. However, his development of the covenant motif is rather exploratory, in some places even inconsistent. Without resting on his merits as a Reformed theologian, Bullinger’s approach to the covenant required more development and integration to this theological thought. Therefore, the quest of the true father of federal theology must be located much later during this period. It seems that Bullinger, rather than the father of covenant theology, is perhaps the forerunner of federal theology.
*This is a summary of the paper published as “Regarding the Centrality of the Covenant Motif in Heinrich Bullinger’s Theological Thought,” Fides Reformata 29, no.2 (2024): 95-111. If you’d like to read this paper in full, please click here. All rights reserved by the publisher. Used by permission.