Catholicism versus Protestantism down the centuries

THANK YOU! OF COURSE HE'S NOT. THAT'S THE POINT!

Thank you, that is true. I thought you were saying it was the definition a while back. I must have missed your urging but I'm certainly happy to drop it if possible.

It would be nice if you would consider what I've posted before rushing on with your tu quoque propaganda..I'm not going to be able to deal with this post on this thread the way things are going anway, at least not until later.But your references look really shoddy and your quotes unreliableThe Rwanda genocide was completely engineered by the Catholic priests there, just to say that much, so including the Protestants is some kind of politically correct propaganda. Maybe some fought back perhaps? That would make them guilty of genocide in your book I guess.

Hi Faith,I think at some point the direction I was arguing got reversed for you. I was calling specious the claim that any personal Biblical interpretation is Protestant. If Jar was saying that any beliefs one derives from a personal reading of the Bible are Protestant then that seems, at best, a far outlier of Protestant belief.But this thread isn't about whether Jar is Protestant. If he's wrong about being Protestant, so what. Move on to discussing your topic. Recent messages from Jar and PaulK touched on indulgences, and that seems much more relevant than who's a true Protestant.--Percy

That's a relief! I DID misread you. I still have trouble reading that post but I see at least a couple places where you meant something other than I understood you to mean. Thank you. I couldn't even figure out that's what everybody seemed to be saying so I couldn't answer it. It does seem to be their view, that hidden assumption I suspected had to be there that I couldn't recognize, and it is a strange misunderstanding of Protestant belief but it's a relief to get it recognized finally. I do think that this whole side issue about who is a Protestant isn't as irrelevant as you are saying because it's all about the topic I was trying so hard to keep in focus -- WHAT Protestantism is. I boiled it down to its essentials, referred to sources, repeated it many times so it wouldn't get lost etc etc and it was still hard to keep it in focus. I really did have the idea that surely people here would be up on the history of these things so I wouldn't have to work so hard but I was wrong.Anyway, it would be hard to go on to other issues if that basic definition isn't established. However, maybe it now is to enough of an extent to move on. Not sure this is the time to get to Indulgences or any of the rest of the 95 Theses of Luther. These are issues Luther raised for debate in the hope of raising awareness of the need for reforms within the Roman Church. They remained important in the whole Protestant revolution but not as important as the issues I've tried to keep the focus on here.I posted on the Catholic background to Nazism a ways back, Message 333, Hitler and Catholicism,
EvC Forum: Catholicism versus Protestantism down the centuries
and Tempe 12foot seems to have responded to that post in Message 347, Genocides,
EvC Forum: Catholicism versus Protestantism down the centuries
without acknowledging it or dealing with any of its points, merely trying to prove Protestants are "just as bad."So now there's this long answer to me just hanging there that I would like to deal with eventually. It's going to take me a fair amount of research, although he didn't do anything along those lines in answer to my post.My post dealt with only ONE subject, official Catholic involvement and doctrine in relation to Fascist murder, and I used many quotes from different people to support it, while Tempe's answer deals with a list of different events just thrown at me with a couple of very questionable references in support, that rightly should be taken up one by one.He's given one long paper apparently by a student on Rwanda that looks at a glance pretty confused about who did what but I may try to struggle through it eventually. Then on the Irish potato famine he gives one reference which is clearly from the Catholic point of view (my references were not partisan), and another clearly Catholic propaganda website on "Bad Protestants" and I can't make out if he has any source at all for the stuff about Zwingli.This is BAD debating style but I am nevertheless going to try to address all his points as I'm able, hopefully with much better references than his.SO THERE'S THAT PROJECT. That's on my mind right now, so Indulgences may have to wait. I'll review the thread, though.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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I referred to commentaries in that context to demonstrate that there is a CONSENSUS OF OPINION among Protestants that opposes Jar's very Roman Catholic readings. He's welcome to call himself a Catholic on that basis, he is not welcome to call himself a Protestant when he prefers Catholic readings.

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You didn't show that - and quoting a commentary couldn't show that (especially when it didn't even fully agree with your "consensus"). And I've seen other commentaries that hold to yet ANOTHER view.And if course, in the post that I actually quoted jar's interpretation wasn't even an issue - simply disagreement with the interpretation that you prefer.

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Well, there's a nice little hit-and-run slap.

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At that point I mistakenly assumed that the commentary actually agreed with you...

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No, I suppose people who accept modern "scholarship" wouldn't because you all deny the traditional understanding about the authorship and the dating of the Bible which I accept. Modern biblical "scholarship" is a farce that seems to be accepted just because it's called scholarship although it's nothing but a bunch of subjective vaporings by a bunch of unbelievers who ordain their miserable musings to be scholarship just because they say so.

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You are happy to suggest that others should defer to expert opinion when it suits you - but when the experts disagree with you out comes the hate and the slanders. Hardly Christian behaviour.

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But not the way that seems to be getting misunderstood here, as if this constitutes some kind of authority. Personal interpretations can be WRONG, I would certainly never make this some kind of foundational principle. We are to read the Bible for ourselves to be taught by it, but even having the Holy Spirit we also have to have the common sense to know that we're fallible and need to hear from pastors and teachers on the Bible.

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The person most prone to that misunderstanding seems to be you. The correctness of personal interpretations isn't even the point. THee question is whether people are even allowed to have them and still be considered Protestant. With regard to the particular verses under discussion your answer is NO. My answer is YES, within reason. i cannot see any reason why a Protestant couldn't read Matthew 16:15-20 as meaning that Peter was to be first amongst the Apostles and lead the Church after Jesus left.

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Again I think you have that first "principle" skewed in some way, so the idea of "additional principles" that are "equally foundational" has me quite dubious. The Bible was freed for the use of ordinary Christians and it was a great boon to all of us, but the principle I've been identifying with Protestantism above all is salvation through God's grace alone by our faith alone in Christ's atoning sacrifice alone. JAR RIDICULES THIS. HOW CAN ANYONE CALL HIMSELF A PROTESTANT WHO RIDICULES THIS FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLE?

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Matthew 16:15-20 isn't about that, is it ? And yet you insisted that anyone who did not adhere to the interpretation you preferred could not be a Protestant.Come on, tell me why the perfectly reasonable interpretation that I offer above is incompatible with being a Protestant - especially when it seems to be the most natural reading of the text.

I gave the whole sequence over on the other thread.ABE: I gave it on THIS thread, it turns out, here:
EvC Forum: Catholicism versus Protestantism down the centuriesJar claiming that Luther was wrong to deny that Matthew 16 showed The Roman Church to be the true Church. Luther did deny that, Jar affirmed it. How strange to call a person who prefers the Catholic understanding of what is the true Church a Protestant. There are many ways to show if a person is a Protestant or not, the solas are one, anti-Protestant opinion is of course another. Logic, common sense ought to tell you that much. How very odd of you. I tell you that Protestants don't deny authority but that expert opinion matters, then you make an issue of the fact that Protestant opinion would of course defer to Protestant opinion and object to antiChristian "scholarship" by unbelievers that undermines the Bible which we know to be God's word?Do you spend your life making up strange illogical arguments to try to undermine opinions you don't like or what?Oh and "hate and slanders" because I reject the claims to scholarship of people who abuse sscholarship. Right, of course, get that nasty PC accusation in there. Yeah, I cop to that. I HATE HATE HATE that kind of lying subterfuge, and it's not slander if it's the truth and it is.Edited by Faith, : add link to earlier messageEdited by Faith, : No reason given.

There are plenty of reasons why that isn't a correct interpretation but even if it were that isn't all Jar said. [See Message 319 where I give the whole sequence. EvC Forum: Catholicism versus Protestantism down the centuries]Specifically, as shown at that link, jar said this when I pointed out that Luther denied that the Roman Church was Christian at all: It isn't just the idea that Peter was to lead the Church but the specifically Roman Catholic doctrine that Peter was the first bishop of Rome or Pope and that makes them the true Church -- THAT's what jar affirmed. Against Luther.Sorry, that makes jar a Catholic, not a Protestant.Edited by Faith, : Add linkEdited by Faith, : Add quote from jar from linked message

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Jar claiming that Luther was wrong to deny that Matthew 16 showed The Roman Church to be the true Church. Luther did deny that, Jar affirmed it. How strange to call a person who prefers the Catholic understanding of what is the true Church a Protestant. There are many ways to show if a person is a Protestant or not, the solas are one, anti-Protestant opinion is of course another. Logic, common sense ought to tell you that much.

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That's not what we're arguing about.

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How very odd of you. I tell you that Protestants don't deny authority but that expert opinion matters, then you make an issue of the fact that Protestant opinion would of course defer to Protestant opinion and object to antiChristian "scholarship" by unbelievers that undermines the Bible which we know to be God's word?

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In other words you hate and lie about experts who come to conclusions contrary to your dogma.

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Oh and "hate and slanders" because I reject the claims to scholarship of people who abuse sscholarship. Right, of course, get that nasty PC accusation in there. Yeah, I cop to that. I HATE HATE HATE that kind of lying subterfuge, and it's not slander if it's the truth and it is.

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Of course it ISN'T true.

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There are plenty of reasons why that isn't a correct interpretation but even if it were that isn't all Jar said.

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I bet you can't come up with even one good, solid reason. And I'm not arguing about what jar said elsewhere, I'm arguing with your assertion that Protestants MUST interpret that passage the way you like.Want to actually deal with my point?

I did NOT say it has to be interpreted in one particular way, I said it isn't a Protestant interpretation if it is used to do what jar did with it, cause it to support the claims of Rome.Some interpret the rock to refer to Christ Himself, some to Peter's testimony and some do interpret it as referring to Peter but even when they do they don't suggest he had any kind of preeminence among the apostles in the characteristic he demonstrated by that testimony. He was first in some ways but not ABOVE the others in any ways.Here's one commentary, JF&B for Mat 16:18 at BLB, that makes this point, showing that all the apostles received the same commissioning from Jesus even if Peter was the first to make the testimony:

But what about Gods grace? You seem to think that God insists that we work hard enough to impress Him. Although I will admit that I don't actually know WHAT God thinks! Wouldn't it be great though if God loved us so much that we could be failures and still live under His roof?

I'm tired of how you keep shifting the argument. I don't know what YOU are arguing about but I've given my reasons quite consistently all along here. Sometimes the solas are the subject, sometimes it's the simple fact that jar agrees with a Catholic interpretaton of scripture.I do hate the "experts" who lie about the supernatural basis of the Bible, I do indeed. They are the liars. The Bible is the supernatural word of God and they are unable to recognize that fact, being unbelievers, and too many Christians have bought into their lousy excuse for scholarship.I'm tired of this discussion, I'm tired of your nasty endlessly accusatory attitude and I hope I can call this post the end of it.

He does, Phat, that's why He sent His Son to DIE FOR US total failures. All you have to do is believe that and look to Him trustingly. He died to save you. You do have to know who He is, though, He is Father, He is not "She." You MUST stop thinking jar knows anything, he's a wolf in sheep's clothing. Find a good church, a good pastor. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.