True. But the point is in this case, protestants have rejected the Church and and created their own sect with their own knew beliefs, editing the Bible to make their beliefs plausible, and making it up as they go further splintering into new and different beliefs as time passes and now have 30,000 splinter group sects.
This is an outright lie. Protestants didn’t create their own beliefs. Many of them are sola scriptura.
You have a habit of calling people liars as you have done it twice to 2 different posters in this thread alone. But it is you who seems to have the truth confused with fantasy.
Would you have felt better if Nella had simply said: “It isn’t true that Protestants create their own beliefs.”? I think it is less inflamatory language.
I’m sure that Beyrak was not trying to post an outright lie. I also think that it is reasonable for Nella to question the veracity of Beyrak’s statement.
For instance, do Protestants create their beliefs any differently than do Catholics?
This disagreement with others who have interpreted the faith before us is not unique to Protestanism. It is also part of the history of the Catholic church.
For instance, an ecumenical council is held to discuss the nature of God and the Nicene creed is produced. Yet, it isn’t sufficient. Another ecumenical council has to be called because Nicea did not go far enough. There remain unaddressed questions. So we have the Council of Ephesus.
But then the decision actually made by the Council of Ephesus is that Christ did NOT have two natures and the idea that Christ’s humanity was absorbed by his divinity was, even though rejected by Pope Leo I, “official” Catholic teaching for 2 years until the Council of Chalcedon.
Chalcedon then reverses the action taken by the Council of Ephesus and the present view (nearly universally held by all Christians, protestants as well as Catholic and Orthodox) that Christ has two complete natures that are comingled and yet in no way abolished by their union that come together in the one person of Jesus replaces the view declared doctrine at the Council of Ephesus.
Was this the Catholic church rejecting the Catholic church? Was this the Catholic church creating its own beliefs. Was this the Catholic church editing the Bible to make their own beliefs plausible? Was this the Catholic church making it up as they go along and splintering the Church?
Well, one could in fact say “Yes” to all of this.
Yes, the Catholic church at Chalcedon did reject what the Catholic church had done at Ephesus.
Yes, the Catholic church was creating its own beliefs (they were not the beliefs of another religion) that it would teach to its faithful believers.
Yes, the Catholic church was editing by highlighting those verses that supported the view that it found supportive of its position and (as Dioscorus had done to Leo earlier) ignoring other points of view.
Yes, in doing so, the Church was splintered and east and west almost parted company at that point in time.
But, while one
could say “Yes” to all of those things, I don’t choose to.
What I think that Leo I and the Catholic church was doing was being true to scripture. If that meant declaring decisions made in the past to be in error and in need of correction, then that is what it means. I applaude Leo for doing so.
Leo DID NOT
create beliefs. What he did was declare what he saw in scripture. He stood up for scripture even though it was contrary to the declared decision of the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus. He had the guts to not only say that it was wrong, but to label it for what it was – a Robber council.
Now my guess is that there were those who still supported the teachings of Eutyches and the authority of Cyril and Dioscorus. If Theodosius had not died and there had been no opportunity to call the Council of Chalcedon, then Leo might not have had the opportunity to provide the leadership he did. The erroneous views of Eutyches might have become part of the history and the tradition of the Catholic church for many more years than they were. It might have been left to some other Catholic priest a thousand years later to return to scripture and announce his own personal protestation of the interpretations that had become the accepted teachings of the church. Would that not make those who made such protests Protestants?
I don’t think that such protestants as Leo I were rejecting the Church and creating their own beliefs. And I don’t think that later Protestants who protested against the interpreations of the Catholic church in their day were rejecting the Church and creating their own beliefs either. Rather they are finding the convicition regarding their beliefs in scripture, just like Leo I showed us to do way back in 451.
BTW 1500 years of tradition that we Protestants are party to.