John Henry Newman, "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant"?

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Is the above statement true??? Why or why not???

Thanks and God Bless.
 
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slinky1882:
Is the above statement true??? Why or why not???

Thanks and God Bless.
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I took the “Newman challenge” and Newman won!
 
The more of Christian history I read the more Catholic it is and the more I’m convinced that the new winds of doctrine began to blow in 1517. I don’t care how messed up the church was at that time, it doesn’t justify the rebellion against those appointed by God to be in authority over you or (even more important!) negate the real NT truths that are Catholicism.
Pax vobiscum,
 
For me it was “To go deep into history is to cease being atheist,” so I’d say this is a true statement 😃
 
The more writings of the Church Fathers that I read, the more I come to see that all the things Fundlementalists attach us on are not “Medieval Inventions.”
 
"To be deep into history is to cease to be Protesant"Newman saw in the heresies of the early centuries, in particular the Arian heresy a mirror image of what had happened since the Reformation. 400 sees fell into Arianism and the Church was defended by great men like St Athanasius. He wrote it all up in his book The Arians of the Fourth Century. The Revolt against authority Newman saw was nothing new and history was only repeating itself.

Peace.
 
Church Militant:
The more of Christian history I read the more Catholic it is and the more I’m convinced that the new winds of doctrine began to blow in 1517. I don’t care how messed up the church was at that time, it doesn’t justify the rebellion against those appointed by God to be in authority over you or (even more important!) negate the real NT truths that are Catholicism.
Pax vobiscum,
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Recently, on another thread, someone quoted Martin Luther saying something like “yes the church has problems now, but there is never any justification to depart from it”…I think he used the word schism.

Anybody have that quote?? :confused:
 
“To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant”

Is that true?

It obviously is!
 
To be “deep” in history means you accept slavery, women not voting, and woman as property.
So, obviously history is over rated. 😃
 
I agree that to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.

The two simplest reasons I see are these.
  • There is some evidence for ordained authority in the Bible, but the earliest of ECF spoke of clearly of ordained authority. They were quite clear that Christians should follow their bishops. They also explained that bishops would have successors. In my opinion to be Protestant is to believe that Clement and Ignatius (and I think Polycarp but I don’t remember as well) took what they learned “at the feet of the apostles” and perverted it immediately.
  • The first four councils and first 400+ years of the church see much doctrinal development. The Catholic Church explains that the ordained authority was able to develop truths from the Bible and the traditions left by the apostles. In my opinion, to be Protestant is to be unable to explain how the church developed PERFECTLY for four councils and then went astray. (Also to be EO, I think is to be unable to explain how the church developed perfectly for 7 councils, went astray, and now no development occurs).
Some of the responses to these involve, “the priesthood of all believers” which is a Catholic belief too. Or they involve the Biblical-ness of the first four councils. But this causes problems with who compiled the Bible AND that the Bible is understood so different by so many people even with respect to those things determined in the first four councils.

When I read Newman, I think he made an excellent case for, “to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.”

I disagree with an above poster when he says, “to be deep in history is to cease to be an atheist.” While I see truth in that statement, it is not near so clear in my mind as is history’s impact on the tenants of the reformation. To cease to be an atheist requires faith. To cease to be a Protestant requires that you see and weigh history in a way similar to Newman, me, or many other folks.

As a disclaimer that will either add or subtract from my above thoughts, I am a LDS.

Charity, TOm
 
Church Militant:
… began to blow in 1517…
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Tsk, tsk, tsk…How rude a statement. :tsktsk: Maybe you could have used “began to suck wind” instead. :rolleyes:

Subrosa
 
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Lilyofthevalley:
To be “deep” in history means you accept slavery, women not voting, and woman as property.
So, obviously history is over rated. 😃
Click to expand...
I disagree.

To be trapped in history, perhaps means these things. But to be shallow or ignorant of history may in fact be more conducive to these things than to be deep in history.

You may be implying that Newman saw truth in Catholicism because it had ancient roots. I believe his argument was actually that truths from history point away from the truth claims of Protestantism.

Or perhaps your concerns are elsewhere.

In Catholic theology some things are in fact be irreformable (in my opinion), but this has nothing to do with slavery or woman as property.

Charity, TOm
 
I am currently reading the book “Four Witnesses–The Early Church in Her Own Words,” by Rod Bennett. It concerns mainly the writings of Clement of Rome (the 4th pope), Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus of Lyons.

In reading through these ancient writings, it becomes clear–even though so far the author has not pushed this viewpoint–that the early Church was quite clearly Catholic in its beliefs and practices. It was careful to maintain the lists of succession for the bishops and popes, and it made agreement with the bishop’s teaching–handed down from the Apostles–as the criterion for correct doctrine.

And that’s only early history. The Church started out Catholic, and has remained Catholic for 2000 years.
 
None of the religions established by Luther and later reformers can trace their authority back to Christ. They can argue they revived Christ’s teachings, but then they have to say these teachings were buried for over a thousand years before they were “rediscovered.” This is inconsistent with Christ’s teaching that the Church would be built upon a rock (Peter, Petros, Petrified) and that the gates of hell would never prevail against it. According to reformers from Luther on, the gates of hell did prevail against it by burying the truth for a thousand years.
 
originally posted by **Lilyofthevalley **
To be “deep” in history means you accept slavery, women not voting, and woman as property.
So, obviously history is over rated. 😃
Click to expand...
Though I’m sure you meant that observation as “tongue in cheek”, rest assured that Newman meant the history of The Church.
 
I disagree as I know a few catholics who read themselves out of the church and to Protestanism. But more significantly, I know half a dozen catholics who have recently read themselves in Eastern Orthodoxy - former orthodox Catholics leaving the Church for Orthodoxy.
 
I think it’s false taken simply as it stands. There are plenty of Protestants who are learned in church history. However, I think it is impossible to think of history in a certain theological way and still be Protestant, and that is perhaps what Newman meant. Or at least, to have the deep desire to claim the entire Church’s history as one’s own leads to a certain tension with Protestantism, because however much one emphasizes the pre-Reformation roots of Protestantism there remains some kind of break with the past inherent in being Protestant.

This, of course, does not automatically mean that one becomes Catholic. There’s always Orthodoxy. And living in tension is part of the reality of this life. So I think Newman’s statement was false but contained some truth.

Edwin
 
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TOmNossor:
I disagree.

To be trapped in history, perhaps means these things. But to be shallow or ignorant of history may in fact be more conducive to these things than to be deep in history.

You may be implying that Newman saw truth in Catholicism because it had ancient roots. I believe his argument was actually that truths from history point away from the truth claims of Protestantism.

Or perhaps your concerns are elsewhere.

In Catholic theology some things are in fact be irreformable (in my opinion), but this has nothing to do with slavery or woman as property.

Charity, TOm
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Well said, TOm.
 
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