Philosophical Underpinnings

  • Thread starter Thread starter FightingFat
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
F

FightingFat

Guest
I saw this on another non-Catholic board and thought we’d get some great answers here-

I don’t have the philosophical training for this, and I’ve only heard it from the Catholic side. I’m wondering how Protestants respond to the following statements, and how the Catholics on this Board respond to their response. I am probably garbling everything, for which I apologize. I have never heard a Protestant discuss Aquinas or any of the following.
  1. Late scholastic nominalism was the prevalent philosophy both Luther and Calvin were schooled in rather than a fuller understanding of Aquinas’s work.
  2. Had Luther been exposed to a better understanding of Aquinas, he would not have tried to solve theological problems within the context of a reduced theological basis that scholastic nominalism offered. His problems concerning personal guilt and scrupulosity would have been resolved within a Catholic framework, which was there but unavailable due to the scholastic nominalist framework he was taught.
  3. Calvin also attempted to solve theological problems within that context. As a result, sacraments lost their reality and became symbolic instead. No longer was the Mass the Real Presence, but it became symbolicl baptism no longer effectively washed away sins, but it became symbolic, and so forth.
  4. As a result of this philosophical degradation, man became hopelessly separate from God, who dwelt “above” the line of rationality, which could only be penetrated by divine action. As a result, only God could tell someone if they were saved and what books of the Bible are true. The “real” cannot be contacted save by God’s direct action. Thus Sola Scriptura came about as a loss of man’s hope in his ability to know things.
    God became, in Calvin, the Obscure Divine Will, stripped of personality and essentially unknown. Calvinists argue that man has no free will, so man has been lessened. He can no longer cooperate with God, so God has to do everything.
  5. To sum it up, Protestantism is a philosophical degradation of Catholicism.
 
Looks to me like that irresponsible fool FenceSitter has been at it again. Thanks for the support.
 
rr1213 said:
Man, you lost me…
Click to expand...
He who sat on a fence took a new name after the Hackattack. On other forums he has kept the name as sort of a nom de guerre.

There is only one person I know well enough to call an irresponsible fool.

'k?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top