Blog claims Pope Benedict says Luther's "faith alone" translation is correct

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breakingchristiannews.com/articles/display_art_pf.html?ID=6341

So after all those nasty things said here about Luther “adding” the word “alone” to his translation, Pope Benedict has now publically stated Luther’s translation was correct.

I can’t tell from the article if he’s quit believing more broadly in salvation by faith and works but then I haven’t seen him excommunicated this week so it must just be the narrow topic of the translation that the Pope disagrees with many here.
 
  1. Someone screwed up on this story, as it hasn’t been on any of the major networks, nor any Catholic sources.
  2. Luther still beleived that God was an ultimate source of evil in the world. (Tatha Wiley’s book on Original Sin)
  3. Luther ate his own pooh.
I don’t think you’re going to see the masses rushing to convert. 🍿
 
Read the original article really carefully and note all the hedges and qualifications. The Pope defined faith in action as love toward God and toward one’s neighbor—in other words, true faith (even “faith alone”) equals “faith and actions.”

He seems also to be reaffirming that Catholics do not believe in salvation by works. Which is true, and nothing new.
 
I didn’t want to widen it to many things the article doesn’t talk about which seems to characterize that entire thread.

The point was the Pope says Luther’s translation using “faith alone” is accurate.

I’m not so naive to believe the Pope is agreeing with Luther on justification or any of those things.

I was just hoping this would lay aside the mischaracterization of Luther’s translation in that area. I realize other mischaracterizations will likelys still abound.
 
Jolly_Joe said:
breakingchristiannews.com/articles/display_art_pf.html?ID=6341

So after all those nasty things said here about Luther “adding” the word “alone” to his translation, Pope Benedict has now publically stated Luther’s translation was correct.
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The Lutheran defense of adding alone was always that it was suitable given the quirks of the German language. Benedict, also German, apparently thinks likewise.

It is nice to see a pope admit the church has been wrong about some things and other groups right about some things. No group knows all that there is to know. You wouldn’t follow a person who claimed that; nor should you, a group.
 
Jolly_Joe said:
breakingchristiannews.com/articles/display_art_pf.html?ID=6341

So after all those nasty things said here about Luther “adding” the word “alone” to his translation, Pope Benedict has now publically stated Luther’s translation was correct.

I can’t tell from the article if he’s quit believing more broadly in salvation by faith and works but then I haven’t seen him excommunicated this week so it must just be the narrow topic of the translation that the Pope disagrees with many here.
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A friend of mine did a little digging into this controversy and sent me the following:

Okay, Randy, I just checked the blog where this originated. The guy is claiming that the audience heard the pope say we are saved by faith alone, sola fide, whatever. However, there is NOTHING like that anywhere in his weekly addresses from the previous three weeks before January 31, 2009, when this blog entry was posted. The blog writer claimed that these headlines appeared in reference to the previous Wednesday’s address, which is found here:

vatican audience

This is the internet equivalent of an urban myth. He read it in a Dutch newspaper and ran with it. Just checking back with what the pope actually said, as posted on the Vatican website, shows no such statement. The pope mentions faith twice in his weekly address, and both times it’s in connection to the Church.

As for this fresh flurry, here’s something:

Luther would have been amazed at the efforts of the Vatican today to put the Bible back into the heart of the Roman Catholic Church. In October, bishops from around the world were called to Rome for a three-week synod to discuss how to promote prayerful reading, understanding and proclamation of God’s Word…

http://www.blevins.nl/aggregator/sources/2

Sound familiar? That’s from a blog from last December 10th, not January 31st. Checking the prior two weekly audiences from Pope Benedict XVI from the 3rd and 10th of December, there is no “faith alone” used in either one. Luther’s name is also absent. Which leads to a puzzling question:

Where did he get this from? I bet if you go to those sites, they go back to this. What he goes back to is anyone’s guess.

And even if it were provably true, it proves nothing insofar as the Church “erring”. A pope’s speech is not guaranteed to be infallible, especially if he’s offering his opinion.
 
It was pretty easy to find actually, simply looking at the titles quickly led to the two audiences addressing justification in November and it seems to me to be the first one.

I’m not sure the interpretation taken by the article of what the Pope said is accurate.

Though I don’t know if the posted text of the Papal audiences is what is actually said or of what is prepared.
 
Randy_Carson said:
A friend of mine did a little digging into this controversy and sent me the following:

Okay, Randy, I just checked the blog where this originated. The guy is claiming that the audience heard the pope say we are saved by faith alone, sola fide, whatever. However, there is NOTHING like that anywhere in his weekly addresses from the previous three weeks before January 31, 2009, when this blog entry was posted. The blog writer claimed that these headlines appeared in reference to the previous Wednesday’s address, which is found here:

vatican audience

This is the internet equivalent of an urban myth. He read it in a Dutch newspaper and ran with it. Just checking back with what the pope actually said, as posted on the Vatican website, shows no such statement. The pope mentions faith twice in his weekly address, and both times it’s in connection to the Church.

As for this fresh flurry, here’s something:

Luther would have been amazed at the efforts of the Vatican today to put the Bible back into the heart of the Roman Catholic Church. In October, bishops from around the world were called to Rome for a three-week synod to discuss how to promote prayerful reading, understanding and proclamation of God’s Word…

http://www.blevins.nl/aggregator/sources/2

Sound familiar? That’s from a blog from last December 10th, not January 31st. Checking the prior two weekly audiences from Pope Benedict XVI from the 3rd and 10th of December, there is no “faith alone” used in either one. Luther’s name is also absent. Which leads to a puzzling question:

Where did he get this from? I bet if you go to those sites, they go back to this. What he goes back to is anyone’s guess.

And even if it were provably true, it proves nothing insofar as the Church “erring”. A pope’s speech is not guaranteed to be infallible, especially if he’s offering his opinion.
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Thank you for the research Randy. This “faith alone” and/or “Luther was right” business sounded a bit fishy to me. I mean Luther was excommunicated, in part, because of that stance.

[engage sarcasm mode]
Hard to believe that such misinformation about the Pope is being spread on the interent? :rolleyes:
[sarcasm mode disengaged]
 
For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love. Faith is looking at Christ, entrusting oneself to Christ, being united to Christ, conformed to Christ, to his life. And the form, the life of Christ, is love; hence to believe is to conform to Christ and to enter into his love. So it is that in the Letter to the Galatians in which he primarily developed his teaching on justification St Paul speaks of faith that works through love (cf. Gal 5: 14).
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vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081119_en.html
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Sounds like sola fide is only true if it does not oppose works. Sounds like everything is still the same as it ever was.

Pax.
 
RedSoxFan said:
  1. Someone screwed up on this story, as it hasn’t been on any of the major networks, nor any Catholic sources.
Click to expand...
It has been, but that was a couple months ago.
And it is because of this, the Bishop of Rome continued, that Luther’s expression “by faith alone” is true “if faith is not opposed to charity, to love. Faith is to look at Christ, to entrust oneself to Christ, to be united to Christ, to be conformed to Christ, to his life. And the form, the life of Christ, is love; hence, to believe is to be conformed to Christ and to enter into his love.”
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“Paul knows,” he added, “that in the double love of God and neighbor the whole law is fulfilled. Thus the whole law is observed in communion with Christ, in faith that creates charity. We are just when we enter into communion with Christ, who is love.”
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zenit.org/article-24309?l=english
 
I knew something was wrong with this story. The teaching of faith alone is one of the reasons I am no longer protestant.

I went over ever word in the scriptures, in every translation I could find and come to realize the belief was very WRONG.

We are told over and over in the scriptures, we must have faith for salvation, BUT faith without works is diffently dead, as if it did not exist at all. The only way anyone could believe in faith alone is to take one or two verses and ignor the rest of the Bible.
 
And,as has been said, Luther added the word ‘alone’ to Scripture.

His response to criticism:
“You tell me what a great fuss the Papists are making because the word ‘alone’ is not in the text of Paul. If your Papist makes such an unnecessary row about the word ‘alone’ say right out to him: ‘Dr Martin Luther will have it so’ and say: ‘Papists and asses are one and the same thing.’ I will have it so, and I order it to be so, and my will is reason enough. I know very well the word ‘alone’ is not in the Latin and Greek text, and it was not necessary for the Papists to teach me that.”
Quoted in John L. Stoddard’s ‘Rebuilding a Lost Faith’. (Rockford, IL:TAN Books, 1990), 137.
 
Jolly_Joe said:
breakingchristiannews.com/articles/display_art_pf.html?ID=6341

So after all those nasty things said here about Luther “adding” the word “alone” to his translation, Pope Benedict has now publically stated Luther’s translation was correct.
Click to expand...
The quote in that article doesn’t even say “faith alone” …I read what the pope was saying (vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081119_en.html) and I see now why the person who published that article left out the part where he did say “faith alone”. he says this:

‘For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love’

This is just a prime example of someone taking something out of context to justify their flawed beliefs. The pope is clearly saying just what the Church teaches (see the Catechism) that we aren’t saved by works alone, we aren’t saved by faith alone, and there is no saving grace without love (charity). Makes sense to me.
 
Benedict108 said:
Sounds like sola fide is only true if it does not oppose works. Sounds like everything is still the same as it ever was.Pax.
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I read the speech in Zenit and he said it as you quoted it. I was quite surprised by what the Pope said and can’t figure out why he said it. “Alone” means alone, with no qualifiers. BXVI said it’s true IF. Well the ‘if’ means it isn’t true and can’t be made to be true by adding an ‘if.’ If this is his idea of ecumenism, he’d do best to leave that to others.
 
Hello, I am not a theologian, or even a Christian, but I am a philologist and professional translator; so I will confine my comments to matters of language.

If we take the German version of the pope’s address as authoritative, it seems that the English translator made a bit of a boo-boo.

Where the English version reads:
if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love
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the German reads:
wenn man nicht den Glauben der Nächstenliebe, der Liebe entgegenstellt.
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It seems the translator here has misunderstood the grammar of the passage, taking the word der as genitive rather than dative. Morphologically, it can be either, but it is impossible to parse the sentence with der construed as genitive.

I would translate this clause along the following lines:
if faith is not opposed to charity, to love.
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Incidentally, Luther’s German is quoted as gerechtfertigt allein durch den Glauben. This could also mean “justified only through faith”, although it should be clear from the context which is intended.

Another point: neither the English nor the German version of the pope’s address says that Luther’s translation is correct as a translation; only that it is “true” (wahr).

Finally, where the English version reads
we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law
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the German word rendered as “apart” is unabhängig, which is more specific, and is probably here (as elsewhere) better translated as “independent(ly)”.

I could go on, but I hope this helps clarify matters.

Here is the URL of the German version: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/b...008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081119_ge.html, and I repeat the URL of the English version for reference: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/b...008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081119_ge.html.
 
Yes, thanks. I think there is an allusion to the issue of translation given the historical context though, but you are right it doesn’t bring it up explicitly.

And your translations make it clear to me the pope is saying that it is true that we are justified by faith alone as long as by that we are not placing faith and love in opposition to one another. There is no mention of works in this specific portion. Love is something in one’s heart just as faith is something in one’s heart. Faith as a relationship with God, includes in its concept, love for G-d.

So I see the pope affirming the typical evangelical Christian understanding of justification without all the theologizing.
 
Two points:
  1. The Pope did not claim Luther’s translation was correct. That is, he did not claim that the English word ‘alone’ could be translated out of Romans 3:28. His point was that the words of Luther’s doctrine could be given a Catholic interpretation.
  2. The doctrine the pope applied to those words is nothing new. The fathers at Trent would have been able to accept what the pope taught without contradicting their condemnation of Luther, though they might have been more wary of quoting a heresiarch to teach Catholic doctrine, as this inevitably leads to confusion.
But I agree, this is an example of people making the pope teach what they want, regardless of what he actually said.
 
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