Does relativism come from Protestantism?

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Black_Jaque said:
It seems like conservative Protestants and Catholics are united against the common enemy of relativism. But I’ve been noticing tiny threads of relativism wove in the Protestant theology and I am beginning to wonder if Protestantism isn’t the soil in which the seed of relativism sprouted.
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It’s an interesting theory. One can see the progression. However in *Dancing Alone: The Quest for Orthodox Faith in the Age of False Religion *by Frank Schaeffer it is suggested that going back even further, one can see Protestantism itself arise from the humanism that Catholics championed in the Renaissance
 
ALLFORHIM said:
I believe it is Satan that is the cause of this. He is the ruler of the earth right now.

Just my opinion of course.
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Here’s the rub, though.

For example, one church (maybe more) believe that the kingdom is at hand as proclaimed by Jesus, that satan is actually being held in check, that satan’s influence will grow, but the Church, no matter how persecuted, will not submit to him. God’s hand is at work in this world and satan is not the ruler.

Are both of our beliefs justified? Is the example above on equal footing with yours?
 
ALLFORHIM said:
I believe it is Satan that is the cause of this. He is the ruler of the earth right now.
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I’m not sure this is Biblical 🙂 - not since the Resurrection 😃 : “the prince of this world is cast out…” (John 12)​

He is going to do whatever it takes to steer more people away from Jesus as he can.😦
Just my opinion of course.
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I think someone better define relativism and subjectivism. If we’re talking about the impetus in the classical sense, then Steadfast is right; William of Ockham is to blame (and was on the scene before the Reformation).

Thomism = via antiqua
Relativism/“Ockhamism” - via moderna

If I remember my church history and philosophy correctly, William got censured by the Church in the 14th century. Before the Reformation.

Try again.

O+
 
O.S.Luke said:
I think someone better define relativism and subjectivism. If we’re talking about the impetus in the classical sense, then Steadfast is right; William of Ockham is to blame (and was on the scene before the Reformation).

Thomism = via antiqua
Relativism/“Ockhamism” - via moderna

If I remember my church history and philosophy correctly, William got censured by the Church in the 14th century. Before the Reformation.

Try again.

O+
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I believe that the reason was his political and ecclesiological views (and activities) and not his more speculative teaching.

Edwin
 
Um, so doesn’t relativism exist on the idyllic plane transcendent of any particular origin among humans? You know, since there’s no such thing as relative truth.
 
O.S.Luke said:
I think someone better define relativism and subjectivism. If we’re talking about the impetus in the classical sense, then Steadfast is right; William of Ockham is to blame (and was on the scene before the Reformation).

Thomism = via antiqua
Relativism/“Ockhamism” - via moderna

If I remember my church history and philosophy correctly, William got censured by the Church in the 14th century. Before the Reformation.

Try again.

O+
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Sky,

Yes, one can find relativism and secularism in many places. Pilate’s question “What is truth?” is one example out of countless examples. It really has nothing to do with modern vs. antique. However, Luther by making political power the determinative factor in religious matters set forth an organized relativist manifesto. He may not have realized what he was doing. Luther was no great theologian, but that is what he did and he ought to be given credit for it.

CDL
 
GregoryPalamas said:
Sky,

Yes, one can find relativism and secularism in many places. Pilate’s question “What is truth?” is one example out of countless examples. It really has nothing to do with modern vs. antique. However, Luther by making political power the determinative factor in religious matters set forth an organized relativist manifesto. He may not have realized what he was doing. Luther was no great theologian, but that is what he did and he ought to be given credit for it.

CDL
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But Greg, if all you’re talking about is political “relativism”, by which you seem to mean a sort of erastianism, you’d have to show how this is intrinsic to Protestantism.

As I recall “Gallicanism”, Febronianism and the investiture controversy were problems for the church along identical lines and these arose in a uniformly Catholic context.
 
OK. Relativism as defined for this thread is: the belief that the truthfulness of a tenet is dependent on the believer.

If perhaps my first example of the Lutheran teachings on the Eucharist is a lousy one, I noticed very little criticism of my second example.
 
Or: Protestants believe that all the other Christian denominations are fine. So long as Christ is God and Savior that’s all that matters. All the other “little” stuff just depends on how you think or feel. Sounds like relativism to me.
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How is this any different than what our church does when it permits believers to either “strict creationism” or “theistic evolution” or any of the countless other things we have the freedom to disagree about?

And to be fair to our Protestant brothers and sisters, in most cases the list of minimum requirements is a bit more extensive than “Christ is God and Savior that’s all that matters”.

I find it odd that Catholics will laud C. S. Lewis, himself a Protestant for books like “Mere Christianity” when such a book is nothing if not an inquiry into what constitutes the bare minimum of Christian belief.
 
Black_Jaque said:
OK. Relativism as defined for this thread is: the belief that the truthfulness of a tenet is dependent on the believer.
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I have never met a Protestant who believes this nor have I heard of a Protestant Church which teaches it and none of the Reformers did either.
 
“Essentials” come from Protestantism, and they cant even provide a list of them.
They all agree on them though.
 
rr1213 said:
That’s not a list.
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No. Its not a list. Steadfast told me to list the deposit of faith. As if that means it ought to be listable like the so-called protestant “essentials” which take up all of half a sheet of paper and dont really exist anyway?
 
Well then, the “essentials” are those things held in common by all Christians.

Your contention is that since they can’t recount these “essentials” they probably don’t exist.

The same could be suggested of the Deposit of Faith by a Protestant.
 
Steadfast said:
Well then, the “essentials” are those things held in common by all Christians.

Your contention is that since **they can’t recount **these “essentials” they probably don’t exist.

The same could be suggested of the Deposit of Faith by a Protestant.
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Not at all. I am saying they cant even agree on what those so-called essentials are amoung each other and put them on paper.
 
Hellisreal said:
Not at all. I am saying they cant even agree on what those so-called essentials are amoung each other and put them on paper.
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And we can’t agree on what exactly constitutes the Deposit of faith.
 
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