Hi Jon,
Thanks for your response.
Not an insistence, just a suggestion.
I think you are right. At some point there will need to be a thread addressing Luther’s “authority”, meaning whether the authority he claimed was really legitimate. This would have to delve into all aspects of his teaching, character, education, temperament, etc. It would require determining whether his teachings were really in line with Scripture, or at least in line with what modern day Christians, including Lutherans, believe Scripture teaches.
People have the freewill to believe what they choose, agree with whomever they choose, and reject whomever they please. This, again, leads us back to the original thought: if someone practices their faith in a given communion, and that communion is then placed under an umbrella label with communions with which they do not share certain beliefs, they may be inclined to either reject that umbrella label, or at least try to clarify their difference.
But Jon, this ignores the responsibility that Christian leaders have to teach correctly. It also ignores the fact that a lot of people are simply going to believe what they are told, by their leaders. It also ignores the fact that in Luther’s time only a single digit percentage of the people knew how to read.
People who present themselves as Christian leaders have a responsibility to insure that they are teaching the Gospel correctly. When somebody goes off into uncharted theological territory as Luther did, they are responsible for what they teach.
I would tend to agree with your comment about free will for only one limited segment of the population. The educated Theologians with Doctorates in Theology (like Carlstadt) who followed Luther doctrinally – THEY were responsible for what they believed and had the background to make the choice (and should have known better). On the other hand, the vast majority of people that followed Luther’s beliefs did not have the background, intellect or education to know better one way of the other. The fact that Luther gradually worked to outlaw beliefs outside his own makes him all the more responsible for the beliefs that others held in following him.
To a limited degree, Luther still bears the responsibility for the beliefs of Protestantism. After all, it was he who (re)introduced both Sola Scriptura and also Private Interpretation, which especially together are responsible for the massive doctrinal dissention within Protestantism.
I do not agree with your attempt find Luther completely innocent of responsibility for Protestant doctrinal disagreement and confusion.
I think you know what I meant, that being that your posts often contain quotes for the people such as Jaroslav Pelikan when they seem to support your viewpoint.
I take issue with the word ‘seem’, because it ‘seems’ to infer that I have misused quotes from people like Pelikan. In fact, I post various Protestant (including Lutheran) Scholars for several reasons.
- Being Protestant, they cannot be completely dismissed as some Protestants do when claiming that Catholic Scholars are ‘biased’.
- Protestants Scholars often point out facts about various issues which are not well known, meaning that they are not part of the standard “Legend” of Luther.
- Protestant Scholars often express opinions about Luther and about the Reformation which are seemingly relatively unbiased.
So, in reality, the reason that I quote Protestant scholars is because they help reinforce the points I am making. As you might have noticed, I am not much impressed with posts that state opinions as facts and reinforce those opinions with nothing more than other personal opinions. Unfortunately, we see a lot of that here.
As an example of ‘using’ a quote; if I were to make the point that Luther was not very well educated as a Catholic Theologian, AND how much Luther is responsible for Lutheran Confessions, AND I wanted to use Pelikan, the Lutheran Scholar you just mentioned, I would post the following:
“It had not been his (Luther’s) ‘will or intention’ to elevate his own private theological concerns to the status of doctrinal issues affecting the entire church, and he long professed that what he had ‘discovered’ must have been known all along. The eventual realization that such was not the case precipitated his theology into the public forum of the Church, both through the condemnations of his teachings and through the incorporation of those teachings into official confessional statements during and after his own lifetime.” Pelikan, “Reformation of Church and Dogma, (1300-1700)”, pg. 127
As a Catholic theologian with a Doctorate in Theology, one should be able to expect Luther to have known Catholic teaching correctly. But he didn’t. From the time of the 95 Theses until the Leipzig Debate and after, almost two years, (better) Theologians had been telling Luther that his beliefs were not what the Church taught. Amazingly he claimed that they were ALL wrong and that he was correctly representing what the Church had always taught. The point here is that Luther had a very poor understanding of what the Church taught and as a result, was rebelling against something that he didn’t understand well at all.
The other point that Pelikan makes is that Luther’s beliefs were ‘incorporated’ into the Lutheran Confessional statements. So, you can claim that you don’t follow Luther if you want, but you certainly do follow the Confessional statements which are derived from his beliefs.
Jon, I would suggest that it more than SEEMS that Pelikan supports my position. If you would like to suggest that Pelikan held some different view than what he actually wrote here, then it would ‘seem’ to fall on you to produce a ‘competing quote’.
God Bless You Jon, Topper
but assuming that I get what you’re talking about then I believe that your comparison (or part of it anyhow) is a little off since you Lutherans have never claimed that Luther was infallible.
