Luther began his skid into heresy when he went on a pilgrimage to Rome.
Respect for the authority of the Scriptures is very evident in the Fathers. Of course, Luther was cherry picking, as these affirmations for the value of scripture never discounted the authority of the church founded by Christ.
If this is your answer, and to an extent I agree with you, this should speak volumes about what Luther saw in Rome in 1511. However, his real “skid into heresy” was when he as a doctor of divinity at Wittenburg he began teaching the Bible directly from the text between 1514 and sometime before 1519, going through Psalms, Romans, and Galatians. This should also speak volumes about the doctrine and practice at the time.
Nor did the Lutheran faith. I will point you to the Augsburg Confession, which you won’t read.
If you use the link I put in there, you can see a summary.
Doctrine does not change. It is the same as it was when it was deposited by the Apostles, once for all to the Church. But yes, I think it does say volumes about the practices.
This seems a bit pessimistic. I have studied the Confessions at length, as well as a number of other writings of Luther. Lutherans believe they are a valid continuation of the Church founded by Christ.
I agree, the corpus of doctrine we received doesn’t change. That was precisely his point.
Two misconceptions. The Mass is used in a couple different ways in the Lutheran Confessions, so you will need to clarify. However, I am going to assume that you mean that Communion is a propitiatory sacrifice. First, the Bible never describes Communion as making atonement. What it does is declare the death of Christ (1 Corinthians 11), and states that Christ died once for all (Hebrews 10). Unless you can find an apostolic quote otherwise, then your case is pretty thin to say that the Lutheran teaching about the Mass is at odds with the teaching of the apostles. Essentially, you are attempting to make a positive argument from silence. Now, if you can point to something substantial in the scriptures I would be glad to evaluate it in context so that we can see if your exegetical explanation is coherent.
If this were Luther’s point, he would not have changed so many doctrines. He coined the Solas, which are not part of the Apostolic faith, and rejected many “essentials” that were handed down to us from the Apostles. I think this is why the Catholic Church looks so different to the Children of the Reformation. So much has been stripped away, that they perceive as “added” that it is unrecognizeable.
Clarify that Luther rejected the Sacrifice of the Mass, or what exactly it was he rejected?
Luther wrote on this topic and the Augsburg Confession addresses it in article 9.
Unlikely. Not sure how you are using the language, but I think not.
No, and Catholics don’t believe this either. This is a strawman.
Are you under some misapprehension that Catholics believe otherwise?
I can understand why it seems that way to you. Anyone separated from Sacred Tradition, and left only with the part of Divine Revelation found in the Scriptures would have difficulty.
Your lack of ability to hear what the Fathers have said is not equivalent to silence. It just means you are in silence because you have plugged up your ears!
This has been done by better men than I! Besides it seems far afield from this thread. It begins with being embedded in the Passover, which required the actual death of an actual lamb that was slain and consumed by those present. Not a symbolic lamb.
I don’t think so. Since Catholics don’t consider communion a sacrifice in itself, it would be pointless to refute such an idea. Catholics can have communion without the celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass.
Yes, a point which Catholics agree. But we do not consider celebration of the sacraments human works. They are ergos hagios. And Luther did believe that human beings should bear fruit that befits repentance (engage in ergos hagios).
Again you are making erroneous assumptions about my reading of Lutheran works. I have not misunderstood anything he wrote, nor have I misunderstood anything in the Book of Concord.
At the time that Luther was addressing it, it wasn’t. If Catholic doctrine was reformed on this point in the Counter-Reformation, it was in reaction to Luther. You’re welcome.
I don’t regard as Sacred that which departs from scripture, so this amorphous category that cannot be pinned down because Catholic apologists just shift its meaning every time you pin them down on a scriptural issue. It has no meaning to me. I believe in tradition so long as it accords with scripture. That is the rule and norm for what constitutes “Sacred Tradition.”
Exactly, and Christ was that lamb, that was sacrificed for all time, once for all. And I believe in the real presence of Christ by the way, again, Luther didn’t change that as you keep trying to imply.
Here is where you conflate two things. We also believe that the sacrament of communion is God’s work. And we believe in repentance, and that our faith should influence our actions. However, we do not believe that the outward act brings forgiveness, rather it is the promise of God received in faith the brings forgiveness. That was the distinction constantly made throughout the confessions.
I am very interested to see any evidence that anyone who claimed to be Catholic was claiming that Communion was a propitiatory sacrifice at the time of Luther.
I would also like to see any evidence that any change was made during the Counter Reformation.
I will be welcome when I see your sources.
Of course not! What kind of Sola Scripturist would you be otherwise? In fact it is an illogical position, since it is not a doctrine that appears in Scripture. On the contrary, Scripture continuously instructs the faithful to defer to the authority appointed by Christ.
There is nothing amorphous about Sacred Tradition. Those who still have it followed the Apostolic command to preserve it, and the Holy Spirit has protected it within the Church.
It probably has more meaning than you realize. For example, we are approaching Christmas, a Christian Holiday when we celebrate the birth of Jesus. This “departs from Scripture” as it is not found there. Another example is worship on Sundays, which also cannot be found in the Bible.
And what is the origin of this “rule and norm”?
Yay! Another point of agreement! Always great to find those.
Just as there was only one Exodus from Egypt. Yet God commanded the Israelites to observe the Passover every year, as anamnesis. This is the context in which we receive the Eucharist. It is the anamnesis - a ritualized enactment that brings us present to the crucifxion, as the Passover brought the Jews present to the Exodus.
He changed transubstantiation to consubstantiation, but I think the rejection of the sacrifice of the Mass is more divisive. In fact I hope there will be more unity built around the shared understanding of the Real Presence. Luther was appalled when Zwingli and Calvin rejected the RP. He did not realize how quickly and completely his new doctrine of Sola Scriptura would fracture the Church. That was not his intention.
We just don’t separate the two. IT is not a matter of them being “conflated”, it is that we received this from the Apostles in a unified form, and therefore, we are not permitted to separate them. Luther did not feel that this applied to him, and he felt justified in redefining man things that were handed down. Now days, Catholics get accused of “conflating”, when it was actually the reformers who “separated”.
No my friend. Celebrating Christmas is a tradition that is in accord with scripture (unless you are challenging the birth of our Lord). The Trinity is fully supported by Scripture (unless you are arguing that scripture doesn’t testify to the fact that there is one God, that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God). The doctrine of Mary as Theotakos is equally scriptural. The hypostatic union is equally supported by scripture (unless you believe that Hebrews isn’t scriptural). The issue is that you think these are Sacred Tradition on their own merit. No, they are Sacred Tradition because they were revealed in the coming of Christ, and as such were recorded in the Scriptures to bear witness about him.
Here is the big assumption you are making, everything the Catholic Church has accorded as Sacred Tradition is Sacred Tradition. This is not the case.
Luther disagreed with the Medieval teaching that the mass was a sacrifice for the benefit of meriting the forgiveness of sins. This is what Luther rejected. If through the Counter Reformation your understanding of the mass was returned to its proper understanding, then You’re Welcome.
The doctrine of transubstantiation was a medieval invention derived from Aristotelian philosophy rather than Scripture. Luther rejected it because it was an innovation that goes beyond what is provided in Scripture to explain the mystery of the Sacrament. Luther acknowledged that we receive the bread and the wine and the body and the blood without trying to explain how it happens. His point is that we accept the Promise of Christ.
No my friend, this was the result of departure from Sola Scriptura. Luther would argue that we take the scripture at face value with regard to Jesus words of institution. Calvin and Zwingli did not agree because it was illogical. Hence the norm of their faith in regard to the Sacrament of the Altar was not derived from Scripture, but human logic.
I did not claim it is not in accord with Scripture. I am saying it is part of Sacred Tradition. All of Sacred Tradition is in accord with Scripture. The liturgical calendar is another example - not contained in Scripture, but practiced by the Church.
It is fully supported from the perspective that we have, since we receive the concept of the Trinity through Sacred Tradition, but there are some who do not “see” it (like Oneness Pentacostals). My point is that the word Trinity is part of the Sacred Tradition.
Yes, but the term Theotokos is part of Sacred Tradition. And the reason it needed to be coined was because not everyone does see what you and I see in Scripture. It is a matter of perspective. The Arians and Gnostics do not “see” this. When we look at Scripture through the lens of Sacred Tradition, we perceive it differently. Just as when we look at through lenses created at the Reformation (like Sola Scriptura) we see it differently.
I am not sure what you mean by this. Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture are two strands of the one Divine Deposit of Faith. Their author is the Holy Spirit, and that is why they compliment one another, never contradict. I am pointing out that you accept things that are part of Sacred Tradition, such as the table of contents in the Bible, that are not part of Scripture.
Not all these things are so explicit in Scripture. If they were, we would not have certain factions that do not “see” what we see. We would not have had to combat heresies like dyothelitism.
Sounds like great grist for a new thread!
And you find this teaching where?