Re: The Essential Distinctions between the Papacy and Protestantism
There are HUGE differences. Catholicism declared the beliefs of Protestantism to be "accursed," that's what all those anathemas are about, and the Reformers, along with many others who form a long list I linked somewhere in this thread a while back, recognized the papacy as so far from Christian it is the Antichrist as defined by the Bible.
From an outsider's perspective, that's not so much a difference as a similarity.
Uh huh, clever and cute and all that, but the point was, of course, to disagree with those who are trying to reduce the Protestant Reformation to an insignificant little spat with Rome that we should all just get over, forgive and forget and all that. Neither side at the time considered it so insignificant and the terms they used against the other demonstrate that point. The distinctions have been getting eroded and corrupted but there are still those who hold to the original doctrines who recognize that the chasm is in fact unbridgeable.
He who surrenders the first page of his Bible surrenders all. --John William Burgon, Inspiration and Interpretation, Sermon II.
Re: The Essential Distinctions between the Papacy and Protestantism
Yeah, we know what you are trying to assert, it just doesn't carry much worth or relevance.
Gosh that is SUCH a cogent argument there, just chock full of EVIDENCE and careful thoughtful reasoning about the arguments I've been presenting.
Yes, we know that your beliefs differ from mine and I have no problem allowing you your beliefs even though at times they scare the shit out of me and seem a far greater threat to the US and civilization than any Muslim terrorist simply because they are totally unrelated to reality.
Funny that Western Civilization was built by people who believe as I do if it's so out of touch with reality, and historians generally agree that civilization took a big step forward with the Protestant Reformation.
I'm familiar with David A Plaisted but honestly to talk about a scholarly article from him is about as silly as thinking he is a historian or scientist. He is not someone who should be taken seriously in either area although he is worth a small chuckle or three.
The article demonstrates genuine scholarly work, but I understand that ad hominem is a more effective way to dispense with an opponent than trying to deal with what he actually wrote and the evidence he mustered.
Your right he never produces ANY real numbers and just more unsupported supposition.
Gee and here I thought it was just an honest assessment of the evidence he was considering -- which he very THOROUGHLY considered -- that the higher numbers have a lot of solid support but that no particular number could be calculated in the end.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
He who surrenders the first page of his Bible surrenders all. --John William Burgon, Inspiration and Interpretation, Sermon II.
every one of the seven types of Political Institutions enforces it authority with punishment.
Yes, but to different degrees. In America, you are arrested for attempting to overthrow the Constitution by force, not for criticizing it or for trying to amend it through a lawful process. You are arrested for shooting or conspiring to shoot the President, but not for saying that he's a bad man. You are even free to go around saying: "Democracy sucks, I wish we had a dictatorship", so long as you don't try to create one by force.
Now if the Papacy had confined itself to arresting people who assassinated the Pope, or fighting defensively against those who started a holy war in order to institute something other than Catholicism, then you'd have a point. But what the Papacy did was institute thought crimes.
There is a difference between "enforcing authority with punishment" by on the one hand punishing people who perpetrate actual bloodshed, assassination, terrorism, and revolution, and on the other hand by punishing people whose worst crime is thinking that not everything you do is above criticism.
You are bias bcause you think a Papal theocracy is less worthy of ruling than a government which allows people to vote for two choices in candidates ...
How is that bias rather than an exercise of judgement? "You're just biased because a medieval Pope would have burned you alive for your opinions and President Obama wouldn't." Well, is that not a subject on which we're entitled to an opinion? And for an opinion to count as biased, does it not have to be slightly more arbitrary than that? It might even be argued that my preference for not being burned alive is a rational preference.
Re: The Essential Distinctions between the Papacy and Protestantism
Western Civilization was built by people that believe as you do and also by those Roman Catholics, but fortunately we have also learned much over the last couple hundred years. In fact it was the Age of Enlightenment that created the real push forward and moved Western Civilization beyond the barbarian stage.
It is simply a fallacy to claim that Western Civilization was built by people who believe as you do.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
Western Civilization was built by people that believe as you do and also by those Roman Catholics, but fortunately we have also learned much over the last couple hundred years. In fact it was the Age of Enlightenment that created the real push forward and moved Western Civilization beyond the barbarian stage.
It is simply a fallacy to claim that Western Civilization was built by people who believe as you do.
According to YOU it's a fallacy, and who are you to make that determination? According to others it's a fact:
What began as a debate over fundraising quickly turned to a more fundamental and serious issue: How is salvation obtained? Luther’s answer--that men are saved by the righteousness of Christ alone ascribed to them through faith in Christ alone--shattered the entire medieval structure of ecclesiastical and political authority. Luther’s appeal was to Scripture and clear reason, not to the statements of church councils, nor to the decrees of popes, nor to the hierarchy of the church. Unless an idea or a practice is taught by Scripture, Luther argued, it has no authority and is Antichristian.
The old world, the medieval world, was a world controlled by an alliance between an all-powerful monarchical church and the state. It was a thoroughly corrupt system, rotten from the head down. In 1510 Luther had traveled to the center of the old world, the city of Rome, where he witnessed the moral squalor and material opulence of the papacy. Despite the decadence of the church, Luther’s central concern was neither materialism nor immorality, but the teaching of the church on salvation. It was that teaching that was not only filling the papal treasury, but was sending souls to Hell. The central human question is: How can sinful men stand before a holy God and live? That question had become a consuming personal issue for Luther: How can I, Martin Luther, a sinful and miserable man, stand before God and live?
...Religious Subjectivism and Stagnation
For a thousand years, because of the church’s doctrine of justification as an internal grace rather than the legal declaration of a sinner’s innocence by God, men had looked inside themselves for the grace that merited salvation. The more devout retreated to monasteries and convents to find their salvation in their interior lives. Some sat on poles, some beat their bodies bloody, and some made pilgrimages to holy places. The church had lost the message of the Gospel, that men are saved by a righteousness wholly outside of themselves--the righteousness of Christ. By his perfect life, innocent and substitutionary death, and bodily resurrection, Christ had fulfilled the demands of God’s law on behalf of all who believed in him. It is to Christ that one must look for salvation, said Luther, not inside oneself. Once the religious subjectivism of the medieval church was eliminated in Protestant countries, the energy consumed by desperately seeking and earning salvation was turned outward, and a thousand years of intellectual, political, social, economic, and religious stagnation ended.
The Priesthood of All Believers and Democracy
Luther also realized that the sacramental system of the church--by which the church claimed to save some people and to damn others--is contrary to Scripture: Each believer is a priest, and he needs no other man than Jesus Christ to stand between himself and God. The pope, the bishops, and the priests, rather than leading souls to Heaven, blocked their way.
The death and resurrection of Christ had guaranteed free access of all believers to God. Justification came only through belief, not through baptism, nor through the mass, nor any other sacrament, and certainly not through good works. Luther articulated the idea of the priesthood of all believers, and it became the foundation for modern political democracy--the equality of all men before God and the law. Ecclesiastical monarchy and aristocracy were destroyed by the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, and with them went the theological underpinnings for civil monarchy and aristocracy.
The Bible Alone and Constitutionalism
Luther’s love for truth drove him on. The pope had erred in his teaching about indulgences, and therefore the pope was not infallible. In fact, the pope and church councils had made many errors over the centuries; they were not to be trusted, especially with something so important as the salvation of one’s soul. Luther wrote: I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves. The only thing trustworthy was the Word of God itself, the Bible.
The medieval structure of ecclesiastical authority could not withstand the Protestant idea of sola Scriptura--the Bible alone. One Christian man with a Bible was superior to any pope or council or tradition without it. Luther translated the Bible from Greek and Hebrew into German so the people could have it in their own language and not be subject to an ecclesiastical ruling class. By translating the Bible into the common language, Luther freed the German people from ecclesiastical totalitarianism: The Bible was the written constitution of the church, which the people could now read for themselves. His second major contribution to Western political thought was the idea of a written constitution--the Bible--limiting the power and authority of church (and later political) leaders. There is a direct connection between the Reformation cry of sola Scriptura and the American idea of the Constitution--not any man or body of men--as the supreme law of the land.
Yes, it's a Protestant website. Deal with the argument please, not the source, which is generally considered to be proper debating form anyway, though not by some here.
The Enlightenment preserved a great deal of the Protestant Reformation but by abandoning the Biblical essentials of the Reformation it also led to the degeneration of which the current political and cultural state of western nations is evidence. The main American Founders were not Christian (nor Deist since they believed in Providence, prayer and Christian morality) but they did promote Christian morality as foundational to the prosperity of the nation, and since we've lost that, through the ABANDONMENT of Christianity, the civilization of the west is degenerating and will soon implode.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
He who surrenders the first page of his Bible surrenders all. --John William Burgon, Inspiration and Interpretation, Sermon II.
This cut and paste is nothing but assertion after assertion.
His second major contribution to Western political thought was the idea of a written constitution--the Bible--limiting the power and authority of church (and later political) leaders.
That line is absolutely freaking hilarious. First of all there is no single book The Bible. Different faiths have different collections they call the bible. There are also innumerable translation and interpretations of the bible.
A constitution is the outline of a governmental system. It is organized in such a way to explain the governmental system being adopted. No bible does this. Luther did not propose the bible as a Constitution.
There is a direct connection between the Reformation cry of sola Scriptura and the American idea of the Constitution--not any man or body of men--as the supreme law of the land.
More rightwing fundie attempts at revisionism. Absolutely none of the founders stated this.
The founders did acknowledge that the Constitution had its roots in British common law, the political system of the United Provinces and writings of a number of figures, primarily Polybius, Locke and Montesquieu.
As for British common law, Jefferson made it very clear that it was not based on Christianity.
Again, all you have there is unsupported assertions from a biased source. In that newspeak that is modern Biblical Christianity it is Testimony.
Western Civilization was developed by Greeks worshiping the Olympians, by Romans worshiping the Pantheon, by Roman Catholics and Protestants and Muslims and Jews, by atheists and agnostics and deists and pantheists and Wiccans and Druids.
I am an honest onlooker and that is why I can make such a claim. To claim otherwise is at best, to lie to oneself as well as others.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
That's Protestant doctrine, not Roman doctrine, which historically has required works, that is, personal righteousness, as necessary for salvation, and not just faith in Christ.
Can you quote the dogma that leads you to believe this?
That is, JUSTIFICATION in the sight of God, according to Catholicism, is accomplished by faith in Christ plus your own personal righteousness, but according to Protestantism it is accomplished by faith in the sacrifice of Christ ALONE.
But you've already admitted that you gotta have the works in order to show your faith. You can't just have faith. Too, faith alone goes directly against what the Bible quotes Jesus as teaching us.
You guys worship the book more than you listen to Jesus. You're more Biblicans than Christians.
The doctrine that faith PRODUCES works is very different from faith-plus-works.
quote:The Council of Trent describes the process of salvation from sin in the case of an adult with great minuteness (Sess. VI, v-vi).
It begins with the grace of God which touches a sinner's heart, and calls him to repentance. This grace cannot be merited; it proceeds solely from the love and mercy of God. Man may receive or reject this inspiration of God, he may turn to God or remain in sin. Grace does not constrain man's free will.
Thus assisted the sinner is disposed for salvation from sin; he believes in the revelation and promises of God, he fears God's justice, hopes in his mercy, trusts that God will be merciful to him for Christ's sake, begins to love God as the source of all justice, hates and detests his sins.
This disposition is followed by justification itself, which consists not in the mere remission of sins, but in the sanctification and renewal of the inner man by the voluntary reception of God's grace and gifts, whence a man becomes just instead of unjust, a friend instead of a foe and so an heir according to hope of eternal life. This change happens either by reason of a perfect act of charity elicited by a well disposed sinner or by virtue of the Sacrament either of Baptism or of Penance according to the condition of the respective subject laden with sin. The Council further indicates the causes of this change. By the merit of the Most Holy Passion through the Holy Spirit, the charity of God is shed abroad in the hearts of those who are justified.
Emphasis added
The works come "by the voluntary reception of God's grace and gifts".
But since you have now joined us Protestants in declaring that works are the product of faith and not cause for our justification before God, WELCOME, and you have now also brought yourself under the anathemas of the Council of Trent,
wow, how desperate are you? Have you no shame?
which clearly demonstrate that they reject Justification by faith alone, of which I quote only three here:
I reject it too, but then, I'm going by what Jesus said in the Bible.
I believe it was talking about the IDEA of a Constitution, and the American founders weren't mentioned. And yes it was a page of assertions in a certain sense but reasoned assertions at some length, not just assertions of the personal opinionated sort jar posts which nobody challenges.
But this is a side issue anyway. I still claim that jar's notion that Protestantism reflects unreality is historically obtuse because whether anybody here wants to acknowledge it or not the Reformation always was understood to have contributed to enormous improvements in all the areas on that list of "assertions" I provided.
Now back to the topic if it's possible
He who surrenders the first page of his Bible surrenders all. --John William Burgon, Inspiration and Interpretation, Sermon II.
Well it was a joke since I knew you didn't intend to sound so Protestant but whatever.
I find your Encyclopedia definition to be just about impossible to make any sense of, kind of sounds like a lot of work just the way it's written. But perhaps the main problem is that it completely leaves out the reason for salvation in Christ's death in our place. It includes a vague statement about God being merciful "for Christ's sake" without any idea why He'd be merciful on Christ's account.
In any case I think it demonstrates well enough that Protestantism is something else entirely:
Christ died in our place for our sins, and that's the ONLY source of our salvation, and all we have to do is believe it and receive it. The whole thing is a gift of God. Yes we do have to repent of our sins but that too is a gift, and even your Encylopedia acknowledges that much. Since the whole thing is all about sin as the cause of death and punishment and that's what we need to be saved from, there isn't going to be salvation unless somehow our propensity to sin is dealt with. It's all done through the cross of Christ.
Catholicism still keeps Christ hanging on the cross, Protestantism has an empty cross because He triumphed over death and is now at the right hand of the Father as our intercessor. As He said from the cross, "It is finished," it's all done. He died for our sins so now by looking to Him we can receive eternal life. It's all wrapped up in that one event, whatever changes go on in us come through that event.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
He who surrenders the first page of his Bible surrenders all. --John William Burgon, Inspiration and Interpretation, Sermon II.
jar does not assert that Protestantism reflects unreality, rather that some of the Chapters of Club Protestant Christianity are totally divorced from reality.
However, that might also be said about some Chapters of Club Roman Catholic Christianity as well.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
I was responding to what you said back in Message 182:
Yes, we know that your beliefs differ from mine and I have no problem allowing you your beliefs even though at times they scare the shit out of me and seem a far greater threat to the US and civilization than any Muslim terrorist simply because they are totally unrelated to reality.
The only beliefs in question on this thread are those that came out of the Protestant Reformation which I own as mine too, so you appear to be saying here that those beliegfs are totally unrelated to reality, to which I replied that that's very odd since great improvements in civilization have been attributed to them. That's how we got off on this rabbit trail.
He who surrenders the first page of his Bible surrenders all. --John William Burgon, Inspiration and Interpretation, Sermon II.
jar does not assert that Protestantism reflects unreality, rather that some of the Chapters of Club Protestant Christianity are totally divorced from reality.
However, that might also be said about some Chapters of Club Roman Catholic Christianity as well.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
I find your Encyclopedia definition to be just about impossible to make any sense of
That didn't stop you from paraphrasing it earlier...
Christ died in our place for our sins, and that's the ONLY source of our salvation, and all we have to do is believe it and receive it.
Can you support that with scripture?
And Jesus taught us differently than that.
Yes we do have to repent of our sins...
So is it faith alone or not?
Since the whole thing is all about sin as the cause of death and punishment and that's what we need to be saved from, there isn't going to be salvation unless somehow our propensity to sin is dealt with. It's all done through the cross of Christ.
Where is the scripture support for this? And what do you mean "dealt with". Christians still have the propensity to sin.
He died for our sins so now by looking to Him we can receive eternal life. It's all wrapped up in that one event,
Where is the scripture support for this?
You seem to be adding a whole lot to the Bible for being "scripture only".
wow, how desperate are you? Have you no shame?
™ Version 4.2
(1)