C
Contarini
Guest
It’s not beyond criticism on incidental points. But it cannot be rejected on essential points without invalidating Christianity altogether.
I beg to differ in the strongest possible terms. Christ promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church, and I do not believe that this promise is compatible with the possibility you describe. Problematic in spots–sure. Corrupt and rotten all through–no way. If that were true, I would find Christianity completely unbelievable.
Besides, I can’t for the life of me see a reasonable case for the Reformers as restorers of the Gospel. I’m not talking about their personal flaws, I’m talking about the nature of their doctrine. At their best, they obscured as much of the Gospel as they revealed. Their fear of obscuring God’s glory and their belief that God could only be glorified by depreciating humanity led them to downplay the effects of the Incarnation or even (in the case of the Reformed) partially deny it. For five hundred years Protestants (or at least large numbers of Protestants) have lived in the shadow of a version of the Gospel that was almost all Cross and very little Incarnation. We are tasting the bitter fruits of that partial Gospel in a myriad ways today.
I would tend to agree with Louis Bouyer–overly facile as the dictum may be–that Protestantism is true in what it affirms but not in what it denies. Insofar as Protestantism was a renewal of the evangelical impulse inherent in orthodox Christianity, it was and is a wonderful thing. But what most people mean by “Protestantism” is a series of denials. Insofar as “sola fide” denotes a positive doctrine of saving faith as a unified gift of God bringing with it love and good works, I stand by it and believe that it can be reconciled with the pre-Reformation heritage (whether it can be reconciled with the Council of Trent is more dubious, which is one of the reasons I’m not a Catholic). Insofar as it denotes the denial of synergy between the redeemed will and God’s grace, it is false to Scripture and obscures rather than revealing the Gospel.
I would put it exactly the other way round. If the Church is only an earthly kingdom, then obviously rebellion against her may be required (indeed, I’d say that insofar as the Church is an earthly kingdom, such rebellion may be necessary–if I lived in the 13th century and were told that I had to denounce my Albigensian or Waldensian neighbors to the Inquisition, for instance, I’d certainly rebel against such a command). But insofar as the Church–the visible Church–is our mother and our teacher (as Calvin and John XXIII taught), we owe her all reverence and obedience. The rebellion I had in mind consists of making up our own version of Christianity. And that is rebellion against Christ.
But that’s not what the Reformation was about on more than a superficial level, and I’m sure you know this. Luther said over and over that he was not primarily attacking moral abuses–in fact he said at one point that it was God’s providence that monasticism had become corrupt, because if monks had remained pure and holy the error of monasticism would not have been detected. He was attacking principles, not just abuses.
Edwin
