God is Not the Author of Protestantism

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In a powerful and compelling article entitled, “Sola Scriptura and Private Judgment”, author James Akin makes the following statement concerning his own conversion:“I thus was forced to conclude that the principle of private judgment–an inherent and indispensable part of Protestantism–led inescapably to the formation of multiple competing Magisteriums, which defeat the purpose of having a Magisterium in the first place. Since “God is not a God of confusion, but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33), he cannot be the author of the doctrinal chaos in the Protestant world, and since this chaos is rooted in the very essence of Protestantism itself, due to the principle of private judgment, God cannot be the author of Protestantism.”

cin.org/users/james/files/private.htm
 
How right you are Randy. Now the question is how do you get that point across to the “big box” non-denoms that are sprouting up all over the place?
 
Randy_Carson said:
In a powerful and compelling article entitled, “Sola Scriptura and Private Judgment”, author James Akin makes the following statement concerning his own conversion:“I thus was forced to conclude that the principle of private judgment–an inherent and indispensable part of Protestantism–led inescapably to the formation of multiple competing Magisteriums, which defeat the purpose of having a Magisterium in the first place. Since “God is not a God of confusion, but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33), he cannot be the author of the doctrinal chaos in the Protestant world, and since this chaos is rooted in the very essence of Protestantism itself, due to the principle of private judgment, God cannot be the author of Protestantism.”

cin.org/users/james/files/private.htm
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I guess God was the God of confusion during the OT times?
 
Randy_Carson said:
In a powerful and compelling article entitled, “Sola Scriptura and Private Judgment”, author James Akin makes the following statement concerning his own conversion:“I thus was forced to conclude that the principle of private judgment–an inherent and indispensable part of Protestantism–led inescapably to the formation of multiple competing Magisteriums, which defeat the purpose of having a Magisterium in the first place. Since “God is not a God of confusion, but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33), he cannot be the author of the doctrinal chaos in the Protestant world, and since this chaos is rooted in the very essence of Protestantism itself, due to the principle of private judgment, God cannot be the author of Protestantism.”

cin.org/users/james/files/private.htm
Click to expand...
Maybe and maybe not. God also was not the author of the Fall, yet He worked with the mess that sinful men gave to him. God is able–and more importantly, willing–to make good come out of bad situations created by our sin. Romans 8:28–And we know that in ***all ***things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (NIV) (Emphasis added).
 
Fredricks said:
So Satan is the author of everyone who is not Catholic?
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No, Satan is not the author of everyone who is not Catholic!’’

At the very center of the universe , all the perfections of created being meet in the “microcosm,” “the little universe,” man himself, in whom a body, immeasurably superior in beauty and proportions to that of the other animals, is animated by a principle whose essence and activity are unbounded by the limits of matter; man is endowed with a spiritual soul. In this noble being the perfections of the spiritual and of the material spheres, of the visible and of the invisible worlds , are wonderfully combined
 
Reformed1 said:
I guess God was the God of confusion during the OT times?
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If the limitations of the creature could set no bounds to the generosity of God, neither could the malice of the sinner balk the designs of his mercy. Man had sinned, he had stripped himself of the precious garment of gracewith which the loving hand of God had clothed him; he was an outcast on the face of the earth, shut out from the intimacy to which God had willed to admit him, the enemy of God who had loaded him with benefits. The glory of God’s love has appeared in his lavish gifts; we have seen his wisdom and his power in the works of his hands. Surely the moment had come in which he would manifest the perfection of his justice by casting man out forever from his sight?

His justice, indeed, will appear, but infinite mercy will attend it. The condemnation of man is accompanied by the promise of salvation; the sentence of death is mitigated with the promise of life. As the man and the woman stood trembling before God’s offended majesty, they heard that there would come another man and another woman who should undo the work of the triumphant demon; a woman and her seed should crush the serpent’s head. Sin, far from thwarting God’s beneficent design, will be the occasion of a still greater manifestation of his goodness. Out of the darkness of sin shines forth the bright figure of the Redeemer.
 
Randy_Carson said:
In a powerful and compelling article entitled, “Sola Scriptura and Private Judgment”, author James Akin makes the following statement concerning his own conversion:
Click to expand...
“I thus was forced to conclude that the principle of private judgment–an inherent and indispensable part of Protestantism–led inescapably to the formation of multiple competing Magisteriums, which defeat the purpose of having a Magisterium in the first place. Since “God is not a God of confusion, but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33), he cannot be the author of the doctrinal chaos in the Protestant world, and since this chaos is rooted in the very essence of Protestantism itself, due to the principle of private judgment, God cannot be the author of Protestantism.”

cin.org/users/james/files/private.htm

Hey… I think the confusion is the key concept there Randy.

I know what Jimmy means and it’s a troubling point.
 
rr1213 said:
Maybe and maybe not. God also was not the author of the Fall, yet He worked with the mess that sinful men gave to him. God is able–and more importantly, willing–to make good come out of bad situations created by our sin. Romans 8:28–And we know that in ***all ***things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (NIV) (Emphasis added).
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My purpose, here, is to emphasize the truth that when we profess our belief in the Holy Catholic Church we make an act of faith in a great mystery of the Christian Revelation.

The Church is more than a society whose purpose is the worship of God, more than a society different from all others because it was founded by God, more than a depository of grace and revealed truth. The Church herself is supernatural in her nature and essence, since she is the Body of Christ, living with the life of Christ himself, with a supernatural life. From the “fullness of Christ” (Collosians 2:9 ff) all his members are filled, so that the Church herself is “the fullness of him who is wholly fullfilled in all.” (Ephesians 1:23). Hence the mystery of the Church is the very mystery of Christ himself.

Our act of faith in the great mystery of Christ’s Church means far more than belief in a wonderful world-wide organization of millions of men and women, united as no other group of men and women has ever been in belief, in practice, and in central government; it means that there circulates throughout the Church the life of grace which Christ came to bring into the world, linking together the members of the Church under Christ their Head with such a closeness of union that Head and members form a unique reality: the Mystical Body of Christ. Our act of faith in the Church is an act of faith in Christ ever active in our midst, ever speaking, ever teaching, ever guiding, ever sanctifying those who are one with him, through the organism he has willed should exist in the world.
 
Fredricks said:
So Satan is the author of everyone who is not Catholic?
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I think what you are missing here is that we (all christians) are the body of Christ, but as with any family unit (as all God’s covenants were based on) there will always be those who are, through the grace of God, more fully united than others. Catholics believe that all Christians are a part of the Catholic faith, yet not fully united to them. Part of this could be because of man’s pride and unwillingness to submit to authority or maybe some just don’t understand the completeness of the faith. Remember, it was others who broke away from the original teachings of the Church and not the Church that cast them aside.
 
Jim Akin based that argument upon simple reason.

Reason teaches:
A=B
B=C
Therefore, A=C

Scripture teaches:
Christ=Truth
Christ=The Church (they are one)
Therefore, The Church=Truth.

The Church is the Pillar and Foundation of Truth, not the Bible.

The question then becomes, which of the 30,000 Christian denominations is the True Church? Since there is only One God, there can be only One Truth. Christ and His Chuch are One, so there can only be one True Church.

I wonder when Protestants will realize that the true fruit of the Protestant Reformation was not really reformation, but chaos! If Christians understood the history of the Catholic Church and how far back Catholicism goes historically, and also the history of Protestantism and Martin Luther, then just maybe we’d have a lot of sheep returning to the fold.

For instance, Protestantism is, partially, founded upon an error in logic. Protestants say the Bible is Infallible. But 99 percent of Protestant don’t know is that the Catholic Church canonized the Bible. There were a LOT of Christian books floating around in the Early Church. In 400 AD at the Council of Nicea, the Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, chose which books belonged in the Bible. They picked the Old Testament books that were used during the days of Christ. (Some books were later pulled from the OT by the Jewish priests in objection to Christianity). They picked the New Testament books that could be traced back to an Apostle, and, books that adhered with Oral Tradition.

The Bible does not declare itself infallible.

So why do Protestants say the Bible is infallible, yet, at the same time, they condemn the Catholic Church? This is an error in logic! They bite the very hand that feeds them!

The Bible is infallible because an authoritative source, The Catholic Church, declared it so!

Many problems could be solved with a simple probing into the early Church history.

Here’s a good site to peruse:
Scripture Catholic Here, you can find out what the Early Church Fathers taught.

We can only hope that one day this chaos will be realized and remedied. The ideal is one flock under one Shepherd.

God Bless!
 
Sola Scriptura is nothing more than Moral Relativism clothed with the pages of the Protestant Bible.

Relativism can be clothed under a veil of piety, in the same way that the “forbidden fruit” was clothed under a veil of being “pleasing to behold.”

The biggest problem facing the 21st Century Church is Moral Relativism. This particular error is sometimes very, very difficult to recognize.

Relativism is when each individual person becomes the author of Truth. Truth becomes centered around each individual. Truth becomes relative to each individual. In a Relativistic world, there is no Absolute Truth.

Sola Scriptura is when each individual person becomes the interpreter of the Truth. Protestants claim that the Holy Spirit is supposed to be the guide of this interpretation. I fail to see how the Holy Spirit has guided the splitting of Christianity into 30,000+ denominations. Something is wrong, here.

Sola Scriptura is a form of Relativism. I think this is the basic root of the whole problem.

Hope this helps give food for thought or reflection.

God Bless!
 
GoldenArrow said:
I wonder when Protestants will realize that the true fruit of the Protestant Reformation was not really reformation, but chaos! If Christians understood the history of the Catholic Church and how far back Catholicism goes historically, and also the history of Protestantism and Martin Luther, then just maybe we’d have a lot of sheep returning to the fold.

Many problems could be solved with a simple probing into the early Church history.
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This reminds me of a conversation I had with a Protestant friend. She said, “Our minister is teaching us the history of Christianity. We started with Martin Luther.”

Started with Martin Luther? They skipped three-fourths of Christian history? Isn’t that like saying, “We’re going to study American history. We’ll start with World War II.”?
 
Kay_Cee said:
This reminds me of a conversation I had with a Protestant friend. She said, “Our minister is teaching us the history of Christianity. We started with Martin Luther.”

Started with Martin Luther? They skipped three-fourths of Christian history? Isn’t that like saying, “We’re going to study American history. We’ll start with World War II.”?
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Or an even better analogy might be starting with the Civil War, considering the differences in culture and government before and after. We were one type of country going into the war (in numerous different ways, not just the obvious ones) and a different country after the war.
 
GoldenArrow said:
Jim Akin based that argument upon simple reason.

Reason teaches:
A=B
B=C
Therefore, A=C

Scripture teaches:
Christ=Truth
Christ=The Church (they are one)
Therefore, The Church=Truth.
Click to expand...
Hang on, a second.

Christ = God
Church = Christ
Therefore, The Church = God.

Even I’m a little squeamish at that.
 
rr1213 said:
Or an even better analogy might be starting with the Civil War, considering the differences in culture and government before and after. We were one type of country going into the war (in numerous different ways, not just the obvious ones) and a different country after the war.
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No, my point was about time.

I did the math, and if I did it correctly, skipping three-fourths of American history would land us in 1949. So, actually, I should have said it was like starting a study of American history with the Cold War.

But if you’re going to study any history, don’t you need to begin at the beginning and go through it chronologically after that? Why would anybody skip all that history? One thousand five hundred years is a lot to skip. That’s skipping one and a half millenia of Christian history! Why would anybody do that?
 
rr1213 said:
The Church is the bride of Christ, not Christ.
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That is one truth. The following is also true:


  1. *]Ephesians 5:23
    For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.
    *]Ephesians 5:29
    After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—
    *]Colossians 1:18
    And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.
    *]Colossians 1:24
    Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.
    The Church is the Body of Christ and He is the head. You were baptized (hopefully) into Christ, that is into His Body, the Church.
 
Kay_Cee said:
No, my point was about time.

I did the math, and if I did it correctly, skipping three-fourths of American history would land us in 1949. So, actually, I should have said it was like starting a study of American history with the Cold War.

But if you’re going to study any history, don’t you need to begin at the beginning and go through it chronologically after that? Why would anybody skip all that history? One thousand five hundred years is a lot to skip. That’s skipping one and a half millenia of Christian history! Why would anybody do that?
Click to expand...
Ok, you were looking at it from a chronological comparison to US history. I was looking at it from the standpoint of what was the greater break in the nature of the entity considered (church/nation) and in that case the differences in political system after the Civil War is greater than the differences after WW II. Still, either comparison is valid.

And, you’re right, if you are studying the history of the Church you would not and should not start with Luther. Perhaps if you were studying the history of the Reformation or of Protestantism you would start with Luther, but even there you could not gain a true understanding of either without studying and understanding the Church as it existed prior to Luther.
 
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