Looking Back at what the Reformation has Done

[clem456]

Originally Posted by clem456 View Post
Part of the Christian call is to live in this simplicity and not dance around in ever more complex circles.

OK. Whoever has the shortest catechism, or doctrines of faith, or creed, or “confessions” wins.:newidea:

Right, sure, that follows directly from what I said.

Throwing out the absurd conclusion to avoid good faith addressing of the issue.
:sad_yes:

 

[benhur]

Right, sure, that follows directly from what I said.

Throwing out the absurd conclusion to avoid good faith addressing of the issue.
:sad_yes:

Come on Clem, sense of humor ? (rare for me.)

For me, it hits your good point of simplicity squarely.

Going from the Apostles Creed to all the canons of say, Trent Council , to me, is a bit more than " just seems to be convoluted" as you state.

I understand some things are necessarily convoluted.

I unauthoritatively say we have made more than a few things unnecessarily convoluted.

I did not think my proposition of “simplest wins” to be “absurd” but astutely in good faith to your posting.

 

[jmcrae]

Come on Clem, sense of humor ? (rare for me.)

For me, it hits your good point of simplicity squarely.

Going from the Apostles Creed to all the canons of say, Trent Council , to me, is a bit more than " just seems to be convoluted" as you state.

I understand some things are necessarily convoluted.

I unauthoritatively say we have made more than a few things unnecessarily convoluted.

I did not think my proposition of “simplest wins” to be “absurd” but astutely in good faith to your posting.

“Simple” doesn’t mean “easy.” Atoms are simple, but it takes two or three doctoral degrees before a person can begin to understand them.

 

[sennincatholic]

I would add that I think Luther was dealing with issues that, if he were around today would have been helped by medication and interaction with a mental health professional.

:sad_yes:

 

[Isaiah45_9]

I would add that I think Luther was dealing with issues that, if he were around today would have been helped by medication and interaction with a mental health professional.

I don’t know. I think the theses would have gone viral on the innernets

 

[Contarini]

Jon, this is the kind of thing that I find questionable.

You seem (again) to want Catholics to take their ‘fair share’ of the blame for the doctrinal division that we now suffer. As you know, the Church has made an official statement to that end. Has Lutheranism?

This isn’t the first time you have brought up Eck either, in this case stating that he, among others, “would have clearly taken a different approach if he had known the path they were on”. Poor Eck has not fared all that well in Protestant accounts of the times:

“Eck…was perhaps the most feared disputant of the German academic world. **Protestant historians have repaid Eck for the relentlessness with which he pursued Luther and his followers **by four centuries of abuse.” ****Robert Herndon Fife, “The Revolt of Martin Luther”, 1957, page 331

Of course this was written almost 60 years ago, so the ‘four centuries’ comment needs to be updated.

You must have a reason for singling Eck out. What is it, specifically and exactly that you think that Eck “clearly” could or should have done differently? If there is nothing specific that you can point to, then you probably should not have brought up his name. If there is something specific then we can discuss that specific thing.

I’ve read Eck’s Enchiridion. It helps me understand why the Protestants were so successful. He tries, for instance, to defend the practice of “annates” based on the tithes that the Levites paid to the priests in the OT. I don’t know what these “four centuries of abuse” would be, since I haven’t read anything too terrible about Eck by a Protestant historian. Certainly nothing like the way Catholics until recently wrote about Luther, or the way Protestants wrote about the Church as an institution and about Popes and clergy and religious as representatives of the institution. But really the remark is irrelevant–Reformation scholarship until the 20th century, and to a great extent until after WWII, was captive to confessional polemic.

I don’t think Eck was some kind of moral monster, but he seems to me to have been a man of the establishment–very intelligent but highly conventional, and more obviously committed to the Church as an institution than to the grace of God in Christ.

But your insinuation that Jon was attacking Eck is pretty silly, since he equated him to Luther. His point is that everyone is flawed and redeemed.

Edwin

 

[Topper17]

Hi Randy,

But Jon, that’s why WE’RE here…to defend the Catholic Church from such attempts and, in so doing, to provide reasonable evidence to one and all that the Catholic Church is all that it claims to be.

So, keep those softballs coming!

Agreed. This is after all an Apologetics Forum, in fact a Catholic Apologetics Forum. Defending the Church is why this forum was developed. If the history of the early Reformation points to the credibility of one side or the other, then it is perfectly logical that it be posted.

God Bless You Randy, Topper

 

[Topper17]

Hi Mary,

Thanks for your response.

Topper:

Did you ever believe you’d be so popular as a subject, and now of course not YOU but your posting style/lack of charity/ wrong motives etc just to hide behind forum rules of the “topic not each other?”

Bizarre at best.

Oh well that’s the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.

I know, its kind of a ‘Through the Looking Glass’ kind of experience. It does though remind me of the way that Luther treated his opponents, and it is also evidence of how much people do not want to see these things posted.

God Bless You Mary, Topper

 

[benhur]

I don’t know. I think the theses would have gone viral on the innernets

i get that one:whackadoo:

 

[Topper17]

He may strangely be doing the Lord’s work (see post above), but not sure if his reward will be woesome.

Now we’re talking about “his” reward? Do you mean you are now concerned about Topper’s “reward” or salvation in some sense? Whoa. I don’t claim to be God

Astonishing don’t you think Mary?

God Bless You, Topper

 

[Topper17]

Hi Denise,

By stating that you do not spend your entire time here exposing the flaws of sinners in the Catholic Church, you seem to be speaking about sinners in general. But since this thread is about the Reformation, it would seem appropriate to talk about the person who was largely responsible for it.

Precisely. It would seem that this thread is an appropriate place to discuss Martin Luther, his teachings, and the impact of those teachings on Western Christendom. After all, the opening post makes it very clear that the subject of the thread is, in fact, Luther.

If Luther could have foreseen clearly what has happened to western Christianity over the past 500 years, would Luther have said and done the things that history records of him?

If you had been Luther, would you have followed the same course he took?

Why or why not?

God Bless You Denise, Topper

 

[onenow1]

Well of course for a Catholic it is more than an assumption, he did open door to error. The question was did Luther say that about himself, withstanding his lament over peasant rebellion.

I doubt it very much; he probably would have retracted his position if he gave it any real thought.

God Bless

 

[Topper17]

Hi Spina,

Thanks for your response.

Hi Topper: I have to agree with you Luther was told but he refused to listen. With Luther it was my way or the highway nothing less.

I think Richard Marius put it best, in this describing Luther’s relationship to secular authority, but it just as well could be applied to religious authority:

**“……Luther was the obedient servant as long as obedience coincided with his devotion to what he considered the will of God.” **Marius, pg. 330.

Who was to decide what the will of God actually was? Luther of course. Marius continues relating to Luther’s attitude towards the very first ‘Protestant opponents’ he faced, the Zwickau Prophets, who had set up camp in Wittenberg while Luther was in hiding at the Wartburg:

“He professed no doubts as to what that will might be. Satan had entered the fold at Wittenberg; Luther felt compelled to drive the evil one away.” Ibid, pg. 330

In reestablishing his authority in Wittenberg in defiance of the Prophets, Luther preached seven sermons:

“In his seventh sermon **Luther told his flock that they now had the gospel ‘clear and bright’ but they were not demonstrating love for each other. ** If they did not learn to love, God would ‘send a plague on you, for he will not have his word preached and revealed in vain, and he will not permit anyone to scorn or contemn his Word’. What would this ‘plague’ be? His language is vague enough to allow the interpretation that would become standard in mainline Protestantism, that the judgments of God are seen as miraculous only by the real Christians, while to others they appear as part of the endless shifting of the historical process.” Ibid, pg. 333

Here, even this early in his Reforming ‘career’, we see Luther alluding to himself as speaking for God, and that if people were not going to listen to him, and believe his teachings, God would send a plague.

Now THAT’s what you call Real Biblical Authority!

He also of course would question (or more) your everlasting Salvation if you disagreed with him or opposed him.

God Bless You Spina, Topper

 

[benhur]

I doubt it very much; he probably would have retracted his position if he gave it any real thought.

God Bless

Maybe, except that he was forced to to possibly pay a high price for his position, only deepening any convictions. If something doesn’t cost you anything, how valuable is it ?

 

[benhur]

Astonishing don’t you think Mary?

God Bless You, Topper

What, that you may strangely be doing the Lord’s work, or that our works carry rewards ? (apart from salvation)

 

[MaryT777]

What, that you may strangely be doing the Lord’s work, or that our works carry rewards ? (apart from salvation)

What? What does this have to do with the Reformation and Luther?

“You” meaning Topper?

Topper is not the topic today. Alliteration.

Might be a good post for a faith/works thread where “dem dere Catliks” are accused of trying to work our way to heaven…that seems not to be the subject of this particular thread.

Mary.

:yawn:

 

[TertiumQuid]

Then again, James, my qualities on this forum are the same - personal, fallible, anonymous, with no credentials. I think that applies to most of us here.

Yes, but my point is, one typically does not read anything here that says, “This is what the Pope (or a Pope) has said about Luther…” Sure it may happen from time to time, but rarely. I think that those who post against Luther here are a bit out of step with the ecumenism since Vatican 2, and most certainly out of step with current Catholic scholarship.

Topper stated:

“There are TONS of people here who are coming to CA to investigate whether the Truth is to be found in the Catholic Church. Granted, all the ‘old hands’ here know SOME of the negative things about Luther, but for every one of them, there are dozens who know virtually nothing. They are invisible because they never post anything. They just read along. And if all they ever read here on CA is the ‘version’ of Luther presented here by Protestants, they are going to STILL be unaware of Luther’s less than publicized weird teachings and unholy actions.”

I’ve been at this topic a long time. Catholic opinions about Luther and the Reformation on discussion boards like this are all over the spectrum, but there is a strong tendency for those opinions to veer towards the negative assessment of old Catholic scholarship that attacked Luther the person (Grisar, Denifle, O’Hare, etc.) at the expense of more recent assessments (Lortz, Wicks, Tavard, etc.).

John Paul II treated Luther far differently than Topper, as did (or does) Pope Benedict XVI.

I’d be quite interested in the title and author.

Gregory Sobolewski: Martin Luther, Roman Catholic Prophet. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2001. 187 pp. Paper, ISBN 0-87462-649-8.

see a review, here. It appears to me that the author is Catholic.

 

[JonNC]

=TertiumQuid;12741789]Yes, but my point is, one typically does not read anything here that says, “This is what the Pope (or a Pope) has said about Luther…” Sure it may happen from time to time, but rarely. I think that those who post against Luther here are a bit out of step with the ecumenism since Vatican 2, and most certainly out of step with current Catholic scholarship.

I’ve been at this topic a long time. Catholic opinions about Luther and the Reformation on discussion boards like this are all over the spectrum, but there is a strong tendency for those opinions to veer towards the negative assessment of old Catholic scholarship that attacked Luther the person (Grisar, Denifle, O’Hare, etc.) at the expense of more recent assessments (Lortz, Wicks, Tavard, etc.).

John Paul II treated Luther far differently than Topper, as did (or does) Pope Benedict XVI.

Yes, I have mentioned this myself in a few posts. I mentioned Michael Scanlon OSA:

Luther was a religious genius and deserving of consideration as a doctor of the Church universal. He accurately theologized the cardinal point of the Christian vision of human existence in its relationship to God at a time when the Catholic hierarchy, caught in the whirlpool of the Renaissance and the real politik of emerging nation states, could not hear him.

www1.villanova.edu/villanova/mission/campusministry/spirituality/resources/spirituality/augustinians/famous/luther.html

That’s not a Lutheran saying he deserves consideration as a doctor of the Church Universal.

Gregory Sobolewski: Martin Luther, Roman Catholic Prophet. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2001. 187 pp. Paper, ISBN 0-87462-649-8.

see a review, here. It appears to me that the author is Catholic.

Yes. I came across this recently, and plan to get it.

One thing is clear; Lutherans and Catholics are slowly coming to a different view of Luther. Catholics are reevaluating him in a far more positive light, and Lutheran scholars are certainly not reluctant to criticize him when necessary. In both instances, this is a good thing.

Jon

 

[Stilldreamn]

I don’t know. I think the theses would have gone viral on the innernets

But whose side would “anonymous” have been on?

 

[onenow1]

Maybe, except that he was forced to to possibly pay a high price for his position, only deepening any convictions.? If something doesn’t cost you anything, how valuable is it ?

He should have listened to Saint Paul’s advice.

“Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all say the same thing; and that there be no dissensions among you, but that you be perfectly united in one mind and in one judgment.”
1Corinthians 1:10

God Bless