M
Mike_Brick
Guest
Clearly Sola Scriptura was an invention of the early 1500s, and did not exist during Apostolic Times. While I’m not a Lutheran, I do know a little about history, and know before too long, Luther’s successors thought him too Catholic and moved even further away from the Church than he had intended. Don’t you just love a guy that writes the following:
*"Returning to the issue at hand, if your Papist wishes to make a great fuss about the word “alone” (sola), say this to him: “Dr.Martin Luther will have it so and he says that a papist and an *** are the same thing.” Sic volo, sic iubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas. (I will it, I command it; my will is reason enough) For we are not going to become students and followers of the papists. Rather we will become their judge and master. We, too, are going to be proud and brag with these blockheads; and just as St. Paul brags against his madly raving saints, I will brag over these asses of mine!..I will go even further with my bragging: I can exegete the psalms and the prophets, and they cannot. I can translate, and they cannot. I can read Holy Scriptures, and they cannot. I can pray, they cannot. Coming down to their level, I can do their dialectics and philosophy better than all of them put together. Plus I know that not one of them understands Aristotle. If, in fact, any one of them can correctly understand one part or chapter of Aristotle, I will eat my hat! No, I am not overdoing it for I have been educated in and have practiced their science since my childhood. I recognize how broad and deep it is. They, too, know that everything they can do, I can do. Yet they handle me like a stranger in their discipline, these incurable fellows, as if I had just arrived this morning and had never seen or heard what they know and teach. How they do so brilliantly parade around with their science, teaching me what I grew beyond twenty years ago! To all their shouting and screaming I join the harlot in singing: “I have known for seven years that horseshoe nails are iron.”
So this can be the answer to your first question. Please do not give these asses any other answer to their useless braying about that word “sola” than simply “Luther will have it so, and he says that he is a doctor above all the papal doctors.” Let it remain at that. I will, from now on, hold them in contempt, and have already held them in contempt, as long as they are the kind of people that they are - asses, I should say. And there are brazen idiots among them who have never learned their own art of sophistry - like Dr. Schmidt and Snot-Nose, and such like them.
They set themselves against me in this matter, which not only transcends sophistry, but as St. Paul writes, all the wisdom and understanding in the world as well. An *** truly does not have to sing much as he is already known for his ears…
I also know that in Rom. 3, the word “solum” is not present in either Greek or Latin text - the papists did not have to teach me that - it is fact! The letters s-o-l-a are not there."*
(This text was translated for Project Wittenberg by Dr. Gary Mann in 1995 and was placed by him in the public domain. You may freely distribute, copy or print this text, providing the information in this statement remains attached. Please direct any comments or suggestions to: Rev. Robert E. Smith of the Walther Library at Concordia Theological Seminary.)
And for a guy who many of his successors said was too Catholic, read on: "Luther was well known for his hot temper, pride and violent language, rather than for his saintliness and humility. He called the Pope the ‘Antichrist’ and even heaped abuse on fellow-reformers like Zwingli and Bucer who disagreed with him. He encouraged the German Princes to seize church property in return for protection for the Reformation. Along with others, he issued a licence permitting the Landgrave of Hesse to keep 2 wives simultaneously. However worse was to come. His language grew in violence: ‘If we punish thieves with the gallows . . . why do we not still more attack with every kind of weapon . . . these Cardinals, these Popes, and that whole abomination of the Romish Sodom . . . why do we not wash our hands in their blood?’ "
So you are right, I’m not well versed in Luther’s theology, especially his developing the SOLAs, and don’t see the need to be any more so at this point either. I’ll continue to follow Jesus, who came to save, heal, free, and forgive, and who asks us to do so as well.
God Bless
If all else fails, dismiss him for being impolite.
Dear Semper Fi