Hi steido,
Dialogue can’t really continue until Rome makes sense of its definitions. And that can’t likely be done while liberal wings of Lutheranism engage in unorthodox and un-Lutheran practices like female ordination and the like.
My experience over the years is that Lutherans tend to want us Catholics to use their definitions of various terms in dialogue, and in fact, again in my experience, actually demand that their definitions be used. My position is that we Catholics cannot do that without ceding the argument.
Actually, it is Luther who is responsible for our differences in various definitions.
“At the heart of the church doctrine that came out of Luther’s Reformation was the axiom he enunciated in 1517: ‘The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.’ As it stood, the axiom echoed the language of theologians East and West throughout the centuries, none of whom would have questioned it. Yet all the decisive terms in this axiom – such words as ‘church’, ‘gospel’, and ‘grace’ – came to mean something in the sixteenth century that many of these theologians would not quite have been able to recognize or acknowledge. Luther himself admitted as much when, in explaining it, he observed that ‘the gospel of God (as he had learned to understand it) is something that is not very well known to a large part of the church’ and something that he had not learned from the scholastic theologians.” Pelikan, “Reformation of Church and Dogma”, (1300-1700). (Written when Pelikan was still a Lutheran)
(In Luther’s quest for Salvation by Faith Alone) – “One word stuck in his way, the word ‘righteousness’ in Romans 1:17 – ‘For the righteousness (iustitia) of God is revealed from faith to faith, for the just (or righteous) shall live by faith.’ ‘I hated this term ‘the righteousness of God,’ for by the use and custom of all the Doctors, I had been taught to understand ‘righteousness’ philosophically as they say, the formal or else the active righteousness by which God is righteous and punishes the unrighteous.” Marius, pg. 192
In also discussing Luther’s ‘arrival’ at Salvation by Faith Alone, Lutheran Theologian Paul Tillich states:
“It is Luther who derives a new concept of conscience from the experience of justification through faith; neither Paul nor Augustine did so.” Tillich, “The Protestant Era”, pg. 145
“For now, the Leipzig Debate prompted him to redefine his definition of the church more precisely.” (Lutheran Theologian) Markus Wriedt, “The Cambridge Companion to Martin Luther”, pg. 99
So – Luther redefined several critical terms such as ‘church’, ‘conscience’, ‘justification’, ‘grace’, ‘gospel’, and ‘priesthood’ to name just a few, and yet, you claim that ‘dialogue can’t really continue until Rome makes sense of its definitions’. I would suggest that after 1500 years, maybe Christianity had already figured out the correct definition of terms like ‘church’.
I would also suggest that since the Catholic definitions of these various terms are now 2000 years old and the Lutheran definitions are not yet 500, how about if we agree to use the Catholic definitions in interfaith dialogue? That would seem to make sense given that there are roughly 20 times as many Catholics using our terms than there are Lutherans using yours.
If you have a compelling justification for Catholics revising our definitions so that they ‘make sense’, I would like to hear it. Personally, I think that Luther’s redefinition of the various terms was an ‘unintended consequence’, not something that he actually thought out, but was a function of the absolute necessity of ‘protect’ Salvation by Faith Alone and create new defintions which allow SBFA to survive in the face of various theological and Scriptural forces.
God Bless You steido, Topper
You are neither the first Roman Catholic nor the first Lutheran to think so. Many disagree with you, many agree.
I will not respond to your next post if you use it as another opportunity to attack dead men with polemics. Others in this thread are respectful; let’s make like them.