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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1475 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Catholicism versus Protestantism down the centuries | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Fath writes:
Full circle again. What does it mean to obey the Father? To do what he wants you to do.
Only those who are born again and have the Spirit of the Father can obey the Father. Faith writes:
Do you obey traffic lights? Chances are you do because it's the sensible thing to do, to avoid crashing into other drivers. The fact that it's the law is incidental. You're not actually "obeying the law"; you're obeying common sense.
Do you obey the Father?
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
I just prefer to take a simple, straightforward approach that makes sense instead of trying to shoehorn it into a save-me theology. I think you are making the same mistake that the Dispensationalists make. Namely focusing in on a portion of scripture that you like to the exclusion of everything else Jesus said. Yes it is important to note that faith is not just a state or condition of mind, but to take it that faith has nothing to do with mental state is clearly to do just as much violence to the text. If action and works were enough, then surely a better word than faith could easily be found to say that. Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1475 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
The 'faith versus works' dichotomy is a Protestant fetish. It reflects the issues of the early sixteenth century in which Protestantism was born. I already answered this in Message 75 of the What Is A True Christian thread. It is clearly spelled out in scripture only it didn't become a huge issue until the Reformation when Luther and the other Reformers recognized that the RCC was teaching a salvation based on works that violates the scriptural message. The works doctrine was so ingrained in Luther it took him quite a while to see through it and get free of it personally. It is in Romans that Paul spells out the doctrine of justification by faith, justification being a free gift that cannot be earned:
4:25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. 5:16 And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. 5:18 Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. And the term "propitiation" is also in scripture, showing that Jesus Himself is our propitiation, is the payment of our sins to God in Himself. We can't pay for them, He has paid for them:
Rom 3:25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 1 John 2:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. [All those who believe on Him of course] 1 John 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. AO writes: Sales reps for indulgences described 'grace' as a bank account: a certain number of merits could offset a certain number of demerits. The idea was shocking to many Catholics and the backlash gave us both the Reformation (for those who left the Catholic church) and the Counter-Reformation (for those who stayed in). The two movements had much in common. The indulgence controversy was, historically speaking, a momentary annoyance. That overreach has long since gone away. But the backlash remains with us. Fundies who get worked up about 'faith and works' are one artifact of it. Certainly the idea that one must believe a certain formulaic statement about 'faith and works' (as a requirement for club membership, or else be damned to non-Christian status) is a product of that era's sectarian hostilities. As people polarised, they drew lines in the sand. False history. The Reformation emphasized scriptural doctrine in order to set people free from the false doctrine of the RCC which was not based on scripture. The Counter Reformation may have brought about a few reforms in the RCC but there is no comparison between it and the Reformation otherwise, as the RCC went on to condemn in their Council of Trent the central teachings of the Reformation about justification by faith (and just as a side note the Jesuits set themselves up as instruments of the Counter Reformation to try to destroy the nations based on Protestantism too in the hope of reinstating RCC rule over the world and bringing back the Inquisition. They've pretty much succeeded unfortunately.)
But 'faith versus works' as defined in the Protestant formula did not exist as an issue in early Christianity. When Paul went off in his epistles about faith he set it against 'works of the law.' Protestants like to ignore those last three words but they are important. By this he meant Jewish customs that the Jewish members of his community wanted to see the goyim members follow. The early Christians had lots of problems meshing observant Jews with recently pagan goyim in their community. The issue of indulgences was not even on the horizon. More false history. "Works" simply means righteous deeds of all kinds. Luther wasn't suffering as a monk from his inability to practice the Jewish mitzvot, he was suffering from the awareness that he could never be righteous enough in a general sense to please God, so that if salvation depended on his own righteousness he knew he was doomed. He drove his confessor crazy bringing long lists of his sins to confess in the effort to be cleared of them.
For Martin Luther and John Calvin a millennium-and-a-half later, indulgences were a big issue. Meshing observant Jews with recently pagan Christians in their community was not a problem on their radar screen. Those who put a Protestant interpretation on Paul's writings are engaged in an act of gross anachronism. The "Protestant interpretation" was DERIVED from Paul's writings. They are quite clear. There were all kinds of different problems in the early Church and in different periods of the Church, which brought out different emphases in scripture. The Reformation focused on justification by faith which is clearly presented by Paul. It was also presented by Augustine by the way, one of the early Church fathers. He wasn't always consistent but the doctrine is there and Luther made use of it.
Actually, when you look at what Yeshua says in the Gospels (especially Matthew) and what James says in his letter, you find a sensible relationship of motive to action. They are two sides of one coin. Any good actor or storyteller or psychologist can tell you that action reveals character and motive expresses itself in action. There is no 'versus'. Together the two stand or together the two fall. Yeshua's teachings about 'good deeds' reflect contemporary Jewish teachings about mitzvot. A mitzvah is an act of compassion by which one creates a connection of heaven to earth. This is what the widow at the temple was doing by giving away her last two coins. This is what Yeshua's disciples do when they hug a leper or give a cup of water to those in need. A later rabbi called mitzvot a means of 'blessing the moment'. In blessing those in need, one blesses oneself, and all. None of this invalidates the basic fact that SALVATION is a free gift to us by God's grace alone through faith (also a gift of God) alone in Christ alone. Good deeds are what we are saved FOR, they are not the basis of our salvation. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : correct code Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Archer Opteryx Member (Idle past 3629 days) Posts: 1811 From: East Asia Joined:
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Faith writes: The Reformation emphasized scriptural doctrine in order to set people free from the false doctrine of the RCC which was not based on scripture. Let's fix that:
Accuracy writes: The Reformation emphasized Protestant doctrine in order to set people free from the non-Protestant doctrine of the RCC which was not based on scripture as interpreted by Protestants. There.
Faith writes: the basic fact that SALVATION is a free gift to us by God's grace alone through faith (also a gift of God) alone in Christ alone. Good deeds are what we are saved FOR, they are not the basis of our salvation. 'Free gift', 'grace alone', 'faith alone' are catchphrases of your tribe. They do not appear in the scriptures you claim to revere. You are not discussing history. This is a creed statement.
"Works" simply means righteous deeds of all kinds. No, 'works' means what the writers meant to say. One must respect the text. They said 'works of the law'. The problem facing the writers was how to integrate converts from very different cultures into one community. The issue at hand was whether the Gentile believers should adopt Jewish practices mandated by the Torah. We find frequent mention of circumcision in particular. That's history. You show little interest in Christian history. You spout creed.
Luther wasn't suffering as a monk from his inability to practice the Jewish mitzvot, Exactly. Yeshua, his disciples and the early Christians operated within an ancient and mostly Jewish frame of reference. They weren't trying to solve the guilt issues of a fifteenth-century German monk. You seem to be reasoning that if Luther needs an ancient text to mean something, the text is obligated somehow to mean that. Such an approach is unhistorical and anachronistic by definition.
The "Protestant interpretation" was DERIVED from Paul's writings. And the word Eucharist was derived by early Christians from the Gospels. Shall we judge your tribe's traditions as you have judged others?
the Jesuits set themselves up as instruments of the Counter Reformation to try to destroy the nations based on Protestantism too in the hope of reinstating RCC rule over the world and bringing back the Inquisition. They've pretty much succeeded unfortunately. It will look great in 3D. Antonio Banderas, please, for Saint Ignatius of Loyola. Archer O All species are transitional.
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Archer Opteryx Member (Idle past 3629 days) Posts: 1811 From: East Asia Joined: |
This is a good time to begin examining the ways myth and history differ.
-- Mythical time tends to be circular. The narratives are pattern-based. They show structures like this: A B A' A B C B' A' The first, ABA, is the essential outline of the Golden Age myth. Times were golden, times were dark, times are golden again. The second, ABCBA, is one way that form might be developed. Once could tell a story in which times were golden, golden forces fought dark forces, times were dark, golden forces are fighting dark forces again, times are again golden. Circular structures appeal to our species for a variety of reasons. -- History is linear. It follows time. It is event-based, not pattern-based. It yields structures like this: A B C D E F G H I J K... Notice that, unlike myth, historical narrative is open-ended. There is no assumption of an inevitable return. -- Both forms are simple at bottom, yet the structures are very different. History works like science. One collects facts, plots those facts on a graph (time in this case), and looks for any patterns that emerge. The goal is to understand actual events. Myth works like art. The pattern is already there. To the extent that one takes notice of facts at all, one uses artistic license. One cherry-picks facts that contribute to the desired shape. Anything that skews the shape is left out. The goal is to experience pattern itself. History--fact--shows us that we never put a foot into the same river twice. In myth it happens all the time. Mythical rivers can work this way precisely because they are not factual rivers. They are symbols. Some people, schooled in the myths of their tribe, recite those myths and call it 'history'. But little need exists for such confusion. History and myth are very different in function and form. Great mischief follows when we ask one form of narrative do the work of the other. ___ Edited by Archer Opteryx, : expansion of detail Edited by Archer Opteryx, : typo cleanupArcher O All species are transitional.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1475 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined:
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'Free gift', 'grace alone', 'faith alone' are catchphrases of your tribe. They do not appear in the scriptures you claim to revere. How very odd. I'd just quoted scripture using the term "free gift..."
5:16 And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. 5:18 Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. ...and in context all the scripture I quoted make it very clear that grace alone and faith alone mean without works by which no one can be justified. Again, the only mythmaker here is you. Oh, and "works of the law" in every conceivable context means every kind of righteousness. The Law, after all, includes the Moral Law. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Archer Opteryx Member (Idle past 3629 days) Posts: 1811 From: East Asia Joined: |
Archer writes: 'Free gift', 'grace alone', 'faith alone' are catchphrases of your tribe. They do not appear in the scriptures you claim to revere. Faith writes: How very odd. I'd just quoted scripture using the term "free gift..." If you used that term, you did not quote scripture at all.
The phrase 'free gift' does not appear in the original text. It was inserted by King James's translators. 0 for 3. Faith fails again. And as an aside, Faith: an honest interpreter would have mentioned that detail herself. The insertion is indicated as such in most copies of the KJV, and other English translations in common use lack the phrase. You surely noticed. (ahem) --- Faith's latest failure provides yet another example of the difference between myth and history. In Faith's tribe, the myth is that Protestantism--in some mystical magical fashion--existed 15 centuries before the movement actually began. The tribe's adherents like to think their founders were not making a break but restoring a lost Golden Age. The myth gives the cause more of a glow. It also helps disguise the awkward reality that other traditions are much older. So it is that Faith sees the redundant Protestant catchphrase 'free gift' in her 1611 translation and doesn't ask too many questions about how it got there. The original author of the ancient text didn't say that. But the translators' calendar has a tale to tell. - In 1517 Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to a door in Germany to launch the Reformation. - In 1611 King James's Protestant translators inserted 'free gift' into their rendering of ancient Christian documents. Voil. _____ Edited by Archer Opteryx, : clarity Edited by Archer Opteryx, : clarityArcher O All species are transitional.
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Larni Member Posts: 4000 From: Liverpool Joined: |
History is linear. It follows time. It is event-based, not pattern-based. It yields structures like this: A B C D E F G H I J K... Notice that, unlike myth, the structure is open-ended. There is no assumption of an inevitable return. I find that hard to swallow: did Anakin die for nothing?The above ontological example models the zero premise to BB theory. It does so by applying the relative uniformity assumption that the alleged zero event eventually ontologically progressed from the compressed alleged sub-microscopic chaos to bloom/expand into all of the present observable order, more than it models the Biblical record evidence for the existence of Jehovah, the maximal Biblical god designer. -Attributed to Buzsaw Message 53 The explain to them any scientific investigation that explains the existence of things qualifies as science and as an explanation-Attributed to Dawn Bertot Message 286 Does a query (thats a question Stile) that uses this physical reality, to look for an answer to its existence and properties become theoretical, considering its deductive conclusions are based against objective verifiable realities.-Attributed to Dawn Bertot Message 134
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1475 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
You did not quote scripture at all. The phrase 'free gift' does not appear in the original text. It was inserted by King James's translators. How very very very odd. Here's a list of other Bible translations for Romans 5:16 and seven of them have "free gift." The others all have at least "gift:"
Romans 5:16 And for Romans 5:18 where the KJV did insert the words "free gift" so did three others, because it's obviously correct in context and the other translations convey the same meaning in different words:
Romans 5:18
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Archer Opteryx Member (Idle past 3629 days) Posts: 1811 From: East Asia Joined: |
Irrelevant. The observation stands: the catchphrases you declare indispensable in defining 'true Christianity'--'free gift', 'grace alone', 'faith alone'--are phrases the early Christians easily lived without, if their writings in the canon offer any indication. The pet phrases are just not there.
You now want to retreat to a spot where we debate whether using any of these non-canon catchphrases might still be 'OK'. It's irrelevant to the topic. We are not debating theology. The subject is history. We are discussing what actually happened. What actually happened is that the early Christians didn't talk like you. The record they left does not contain your favourite shibboleths. They were not Protestants. Your verbal formulas are the product of a later age's controversies, hangups, and battles. Archer O All species are transitional.
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Pressie Member Posts: 2103 From: Pretoria, SA Joined: |
Interesting.
From what I can gather you're telling us that those phrases did not occurr in the 'original 'copies, but were added later, for example during and after the reformation? Is my interpretation of what you wrote correct?
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1475 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
The term "free gift" is a direct translation from the Greek in the Concordance for Romans 5:16.
I proved you wrong twice but you just go on pretending it didn't happen. Amazing. Since it's in the Bible Greek the idea that they used different language is ridiculous. If they thought they contributed anything to their salvation rather than trusting completely in God for it, they weren't saved. And as I said, Augustine also made the same point. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
NoNukes writes:
You keep assuming that I talk in absolutes. You assume I mean "nothing" when I don't say "nothing". I have not said that faith has "nothing" to do with mental state. I have said that the mental state of faith has no value.
... to take it that faith has nothing to do with mental state is clearly to do just as much violence to the text. NoNukes writes:
Of course. Other words were used. We have to temper the use of the word "faith" based on what else was said.
If action and works were enough, then surely a better word than faith could easily be found to say that.
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
You keep assuming that I talk in absolutes. You assume I mean "nothing" when I don't say "nothing". I have no idea what you mean by that statement.
I have not said that faith has "nothing" to do with mental state. I have said that the mental state of faith has no value. I understand that. And what you say is not in accordance with Jesus own words. You are doing exactly the same kind of cherry picking that Faith is doing.Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
NoNukes writes:
So you claim. You'll have to be more specific.
And what you say is not in accordance with Jesus own words.
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