structural:expansion, structural:scholar_edition
Manner of thinking

Erasmus had a distinctive manner of thinking, a Catholic historian suggests: one that is capacious in its perception, agile in its judgments, and unsettling in its irony with "a deep and abiding commitment to human flourishing". "In all spheres, his outlook was essentially pastoral."

Erasmus has been called a seminal rather than a consistent or systematic thinker, notably averse to over-extending from the specific to the general; who nevertheless should be taken very seriously as a pastoral and rhetorical theologian, with a philological and historical approach—rather than a metaphysical approach—to interpreting Scripture and interested in the literal and tropological senses. French theologian Louis Bouyer commented "Erasmus was to be one of those who can get no edification from exegesis where they suspect some misinterpretation."

A theologian has written of "Erasmus’ preparedness completely to satisfy no-one but himself." He has been called moderate, judicious and constructive even when being critical or when mocking extremes.