Protestants view the Vatican as never being able to definitively say what will always be the doctrine, because some future Magisterium might decide differently. The Scriptures, from the Protestant perspective, keep saying the same thing century after century. Might be boring, but at least it’s consistent.
AirLiner;4089724:
Don’t accuse us of changing basic dogmas.
Until I find a way to clearly settle what’s dogma and what ain’t, I wouldn’t even bother to try. It would be like trying to argue with my fellow Protestants over whether any “true” Christian ever believed this or that. It’s much too squishy an argument.
I just thought it was funny that Protestants and Catholics equally view each other as unable to make final definitive statements.
I can also assure that doctrines declared infallible by the Pope will never change.
Oh, I know that Catholics believe Catholics know what will always be believed, and I know that Protestants believe that Protestants know what will always be believed. It’s our views of each other I find humorous. I’m married to a Latin Rite Catholic, so I have extra opportunity to view the humor from both sides.
Protestants will never be able to definitively say what will always be the doctrine because some future generation of Protestants may decide differently. A good example of this is birth control. Before 1930 all Protestants Churches had figured out through the use of personal interpretation that birth control was wrong, but afterwards they changed their mind and now through the use of personal interpretation some Protestants figured out that there is actually nothing wrong with using it.
There’s better examples than that, even. Before about 1600 the various movements we lump together as Protestant saw each other as dangerous, nasty, and worthy of death. I must admit of my spiritual ancestors that they got quite a lot of killing each other done, too. It took generations of Scripture study to come to the conclusion that, hey, killing people just because they don’t agree with you is
wrong. Certifiably, backed-up-by-scripture wrong. We may not be the brightest bulbs in the City-On-A-Hill, but we do work our way through things eventually.
I think Protestants will come back on the practice of contraception, although not for the same reasons the Vatican gives. There was a time when many Protestants rejected the use of wedding rings, because it was a Catholic thing and they were trying to rid their churches of Catholic things. Over time those churches realized that it was a pretty silly point of disagreement, but they had to accept wedding rings for their own reasons, not just bring it along as cultural baggage.
Personally, I think the reason that early Protestants killed each other so much was that they didn’t Protest enough. They had taken a chunk of Catholic culture with them when they left, one that had a very high view of spiritual authorities and secular authorities working together to smite the unbeliever. Eventually their descendants got rid of that part of the Catholic culture they dragged along with them. Now some Protestants are thinking that maybe we tossed out just a bit too much of cooperation with the State. There certainly were a lot of abuses before, but getting hammered down by your own government for public celebrations of your religion is a bit much.
I think something similar happened with contraception. Protestants brought it along with them as part of Catholic culture, but never really had to think about it until contraception technology made breakthroughs. Suddenly the whole culture was challenging it and they realized they didn’t have any particular reason of their own to believe contraception was unbiblical. Adaptability to local culture has always been both a strength and weakness of Protestantism. This time it certainly was a weakness. As the consequences have reverberated down through the years, however, a lot of Protestants are taking another look at contraception and asking what Scripture says. Like I say, we’re not the brightest bulbs in the heavenly city, and not the fastest either, but I’m pretty confident my Protestant brothers will come to similar conclusions to my own.
