Protestants: The 1500 yrs

[benedictus2]

I’m not sure what you mean by the first part of the statement - that they embraced it exclusively? Without being sure what you mean my first thought is Augustine, who later in life I believe identified the Rock as Peter’s faith rather than Peter. I’d have to look up the reference to remember how he put it.

It might be worthwhile to start a different thread on the question though, you’d probably get a lot more answers.

Here’s a good link on the controversy. A bit long but in the end it shows that Augustine in no way downplays the primacy of Peter.

cin.org/users/jgallegos/web_aug.htm

And here is a thread relating to this topic
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=40838

 

[benedictus2]

What about God relying on the gospel writers to spread Christianity? Is that equally preposterous? So at the very least it was relying on man’s use of papyrus and ink.

You completely missed ESMDHokie’s point.

God was not relying on the Gospel writers to spread Christianity, God chose the Gospel writers to spread Christianity.

ESMDHokie’ point was that if God was relying on the printing press for the spread of the gospel then what has He been doing the past 1500 years? Sitting and twiddling His thumbs.

The point is prior to the printing press, the Word of God was being proclaimed by the Church.

 

[GKC]

GKC: Sorry I can’t oblige with your request, as you have probably noticed I am not at my scintillating best owing to an accident, that while it isn’t life threatening is incapacitating.
For some days now it (the pain,) has been receding and I am able to sit at my computer desk for no more than Five minutes!

The quote I gave was from the TraditionalCatholic.net .Prayer . It is labelled, or headed
Tridentine Creed and is distributed in the next County to returnees to the Holy Roman Church and those other people who need a reminder of what the Roman Doctrine is!

"I…admit and embrace Apostolical and ecclesiastical traditions …"

"I also admit the Holy Scripture according to that sense which our holy mother the Church hath held… Neither will I ever take and interpret them otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the fathers."

If the False Creed be interpreted as Trent and the Romans apparently intended the arguments put forward to support the Vatican interpretation would never have got to court!

I am sorry to hear of your situation, and hope for a recovery.

Your quotes are from the Trentine Creed; more accurately the Creed of Pope Nicholas IV, derived from his Bulls Injunctum nobis/ November 13, 1564, and In sacrosancta/ December 9, 1564.

The same sentiment is found in Session IV of the Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, “Decree concerning the Edition and Use of the Sacred Books”. The concept is alluded to in the Catechism of Trent, but not definitively articulated.

GKC

 

[GKC]

Brilliant!

Perhaps. But not, as I posted above (#179), accurate.

GKC

 

[GKC]

Another point where you seem to be rather behind with the news.

So what? Does that justify making one’s self the head of the Church?

As for a woman not being a secure heir, Spain managed very well didn’t she?
And if you are not granted one, stamp your foot and start your own church
Henry wanted everything his way. He already sought a papal dispensation to be allowed to marry Catherine and now he wants another to divorce her.

A lack of a male heir was never grounds for annulment.

If that is so, then why did Henry not just insist on a separation of temporal powers. Why insist on being head of the Church as well?

It was Henry’s father. not Henry, who sought the decree of nullity, for reasons of state, primarily to maintain the original aim of the marriage between Arthur and Catherine: an alliance against France. And also Hank Senior wanted to keep the dowry. Henry stated his reluctance to marry Catherine, in the beginning.

The lack of a male heir was not a justification of a decree of nullity; Henry’s causIIa was related to the Leventine Prohibition (though it wasn’t his strongest possible point) But such dynastic circumstances were often the occasion for a decree of nullity. The system was an intertwined one, of politics and theology. And, for a similar reason, Henry could not separate the theological and the temporal powers, though English monarchs had been trying to do just that for over 250 years. That was a struggle of long standing, between the Church, and the Throne, in England. Running back at least to the First Statute of Westminster.

GKC

 

[Bluegoat]

Benedictus2, I really don’t think I can answer your multiple posts. Do you just answer each post without reading on to see how the whole conversation went? It took several days to have this conversation, and you want to go back over each comment and rehash it? Usually it isn’t considered the thing to make 20 posts in a row. It’s too hard to follow and makes it difficult for people to read the thread.

In general, I will point you to the OPs question. The OP was interested in how Protestants understand their history. As usual, the Catholics feel this means they need to attack the information given, and even get bent out of shape with analogies and metyapores used to assist someone to understand a general argument. Some of your posts don’t even seem to have considered the comments they were responding to, so your comments just don’t make any sense.

Since the OP seems to have found the comments helpful, I don’t know that I see a lot of point in continuing here when others are not actually interested in understanding people, but only want to tear things down.

 

[hn160]

In the sense that “reformers” were Catholic before they protested, yes. But once they started their own Church then the Lutheran Church started once they split from the Church. Prior to that there was no such thing as a Lutheran Church.

For one thing, they even claim that the Catholic Church from which the “reformers” came from is an apostate Church so how can one claim lineage back to say AD350 when you disregard the years after that prior to the 1500s.

Exactly. And it was never meant to be in the vocabulary,. Christ never ever intended that.

Well no it doesn’t because prior to the 16th century there was no Lutheran Church. As I explained to Bluegoat, when you say write the history of something, you write from when it started. The Lutheran Church did not start in 33AD.

Then how can one believe in a Church that split from the Church that Christ founded? To believe that one has a right to start a church based on one’s assessment that the Church is somehow no longer valid (despite its Founder’s assurance that no such thing will happen) is to doubt its Founder.

It it to put one’s authority and one’s wisdom over and above God’s.

Let me put it this way, how can you say that your history starts from the time Christ founded His church when you refuse to accept the authority of that same Church?

Martin Luther never want to leave the Catholic Church, the Catholic excommunicated Martin Luther. The Catholic Church put a price on Luther"s head and would have killed him as it did other reformers in the past. Luther was prepared to go to a church council if one was called to discuss his concerns. When the Catholic Church did call Trent, Lutherans were not allowed to attend. Read our Augsburg Confession and Apology of the Augsburg Confession and then tell me where the Lutherans are wrong.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Seamusmohr,

In answer to your question, the titles of the books and your use of ‘Romanist’ told me quite a lot as to your point of view being anti-Catholic … or you are really are just fascinated with anti-Catholic terms and tracts and use them whenever possible.

I gather you are unwilling to simply state the problem you had with Trent. Shame. Why not try again and reduce your issues to writing.

God bless

 

[joemccarron]

I think this has gone somewhat adrift. Quibbling about the primacy of the Pope is really something for Catholics to do with the orthodox or perhaps Anglicans. But the reformation Protestants just basically rejected the entire ancient church and started their own.

Here is an analogy. Lets say I am starting the “reformed Lutheran Church” and claim it is the ”true Lutheran church”. And say I do the following:

1. Claim Melanchthon (or perhaps Luther himself) was the anti-christ
2. The Concordia of 1580 are just a bunch of erroneous books that we can take or leave.
3. I write my own Concordia of 2011
4. I come up with my own sayings like “Love alone”, and “Scripture and the Concordia of 2011 alone.”
5. No longer have church elders or pastors but instead have snake handlers, prophets, tongue speakers and deaconesses.
6. Created my own liturgy. Etc.

Now this may all be well and good I suppose. I suppose I can claim this is not a new church but instead just “the true early Lutheranism”. But really who would I be fooling?

Now is this analogy sound? Each number will correspond to the number above:

1. Luther said the Papacy is the seat of the antichrist. Now Orthodox and Catholics can argue what it means for the Bishop of Rome to have primacy of honor, but they clearly didn’t mean that. Simillarly Lutherans may disagree with what authority Melanchthon or Luther may have had but to call them the anti-christ would likewise be inconsistent with Lutheranism.
2. Luther made his views of papal authority clear, and here is what he said of the other authority in the church i.e., councils and Fathers:

"Enough of that! We would show cause why this undertaking is impossible.

In the first place, it is plain that the councils are not only unequal, but even contradictory, and the same is true of the fathers. If we were to try to harmonize them, there would be greater disagreement and disputing than there now is, and we should never get out of it anymore. For since they are unlike and often contradictory, our first undertaking would be to see how we could cull out the best and let the rest go. Then the trouble would start!

One would say, ‘If we are going to keep them, we must keep all or nothing.’ Another would say, ‘You are culling out what you like, and leaving what you do not like.’ Who will be the umpire?"
3) Well the church reformers didn’t just rely on writings of the first 1500 years of the church did they? If they saw themselves as doing nothing more than staying with the church except giving no authority to the pope then they would not need to write their own summation of faith. After the orthodox and Catholics split neither felt it necessary to have some new writing defining what they would believe. They both just kept doing what they always did. Reformation Protestants however felt the need to write out a new confession of beliefs.
4) Faith alone grace alone and Scripture alone were novelties. I’m not saying we can’t agree on how some of these slogans may be interpreted but they are novelties.
5) And 6) should be pretty obvious.

Just as my “reformed Lutheranism” isn’t really the true Lutheranism as it existed from the 1500s to 2011, reformed Protestantism can’t realistically maintain it is the true Christian Church as it existed for the first 1500 years.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Bluegoat,

I think you have sadly mischaracterized what Benedictus2 has done. As one of the participants in this multiple day I can say that Benedictus2 has hit the nail on the head. It was not a ‘rehash’ but additonal comments that you really should consider and then respond to - as opposed to lashing out. And, really, the quality of those posts brought a lot items into better focus.

Do I detect a ‘begging of the question’ issue fom you… n-a-a-a-a-w … it couldn’t be… could it? You seem to be convinced that the posts were not previously read - and are asking a question in that direction.

Ah, but then you go and generalize Catholics as attacking information. I guess this is becuase your posts have fallen short of just presenting information without the anti-Catholic slant. Not agreeing with you does not mean you were not understood. It simply means that your particular slant on Early Catholic Church history has been proven to be fatally flawed and significantly biased.

Your decision to stay or leave is stricly up to you. But, do not confuse disagreement with lack of understanding. In my opinion, you have been understood - and refuted.

God bless

Benedictus2, I really don’t think I can answer your multiple posts. Do you just answer each post without reading on to see how the whole conversation went? It took several days to have this conversation, and you want to go back over each comment and rehash it? Usually it isn’t considered the thing to make 20 posts in a row. It’s too hard to follow and makes it difficult for people to read the thread.

In general, I will point you to the OPs question. The OP was interested in how Protestants understand their history. As usual, the Catholics feel this means they need to attack the information given, and even get bent out of shape with analogies and metyapores used to assist someone to understand a general argument. Some of your posts don’t even seem to have considered the comments they were responding to, so your comments just don’t make any sense.

Since the OP seems to have found the comments helpful, I don’t know that I see a lot of point in continuing here when others are not actually interested in understanding people, but only want to tear things down.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Joemccarron,

This was a very interesting post - and you presented a configuration I had honestly never thought of before.

God bless

I think this has gone somewhat adrift. Quibbling about the primacy of the Pope is really something for Catholics to do with the orthodox or perhaps Anglicans. But the reformation Protestants just basically rejected the entire ancient church and started their own.

Here is an analogy. Lets say I am starting the “reformed Lutheran Church” and claim it is the ”true Lutheran church”. And say I do the following:

1. Claim Melanchthon (or perhaps Luther himself) was the anti-christ
2. The Concordia of 1580 are just a bunch of erroneous books that we can take or leave.
3. I write my own Concordia of 2011
4. I come up with my own sayings like “Love alone”, and “Scripture and the Concordia of 2011 alone.”
5. No longer have church elders or pastors but instead have snake handlers, prophets, tongue speakers and deaconesses.
6. Created my own liturgy. Etc.

Now this may all be well and good I suppose. I suppose I can claim this is not a new church but instead just “the true early Lutheranism”. But really who would I be fooling?

Now is this analogy sound? Each number will correspond to the number above:

1. Luther said the Papacy is the seat of the antichrist. Now Orthodox and Catholics can argue what it means for the Bishop of Rome to have primacy of honor, but they clearly didn’t mean that. Simillarly Lutherans may disagree with what authority Melanchthon or Luther may have had but to call them the anti-christ would likewise be inconsistent with Lutheranism.
2. Luther made his views of papal authority clear, and here is what he said of the other authority in the church i.e., councils and Fathers:

"Enough of that! We would show cause why this undertaking is impossible.

In the first place, it is plain that the councils are not only unequal, but even contradictory, and the same is true of the fathers. If we were to try to harmonize them, there would be greater disagreement and disputing than there now is, and we should never get out of it anymore. For since they are unlike and often contradictory, our first undertaking would be to see how we could cull out the best and let the rest go. Then the trouble would start!

One would say, ‘If we are going to keep them, we must keep all or nothing.’ Another would say, ‘You are culling out what you like, and leaving what you do not like.’ Who will be the umpire?"
3) Well the church reformers didn’t just rely on writings of the first 1500 years of the church did they? If they saw themselves as doing nothing more than staying with the church except giving no authority to the pope then they would not need to write their own summation of faith. After the orthodox and Catholics split neither felt it necessary to have some new writing defining what they would believe. They both just kept doing what they always did. Reformation Protestants however felt the need to write out a new confession of beliefs.
4) Faith alone grace alone and Scripture alone were novelties. I’m not saying we can’t agree on how some of these slogans may be interpreted but they are novelties.
5) And 6) should be pretty obvious.

Just as my “reformed Lutheranism” isn’t really the true Lutheranism as it existed from the 1500s to 2011, reformed Protestantism can’t realistically maintain it is the true Christian Church as it existed for the first 1500 years.

 

[ESMDHokie77]

It is succinct because it is true. ESMDHokie thinks things through.

Awww! Thank you!

And I agree, nice post joe!

What about God relying on the gospel writers to spread Christianity? Is that equally preposterous? So at the very least it was relying on man’s use of papyrus and ink.

Veritas,
God told his Apostles to make disciples of all nations, (…), teaching them to observe all that He commanded them. Matthew 28:19. God relied on his Apostles to preach the Gospel. Eventually, it became prudent, beneficial, and necessary to write down teachings and even further down the road to compile a list of writings that were true. So in the first instance, it was relying upon the Holy Spirit’s use of men to preach, evangelize, teach, correct, and instruct. Is that equally preposterous?

Peace,
Phil

 

[benedictus2]

Benedictus2, I really don’t think I can answer your multiple posts. Do you just answer each post without reading on to see how the whole conversation went?

I sort of did a little bit of reading forward. However (and I may be wrong in this) I don’t think the points I made with regards your post was already mentioned before.

If they have been then my apologies. If they have not, you are under no obligation to reply. I just wanted to show that there were errors in your line of thinking.

It took several days to have this conversation, and you want to go back over each comment and rehash it?

Not rehashing it, just making a comment on your post which I assume everyone is free to do.

Usually it isn’t considered the thing to make 20 posts in a row.

I post when I find the time, and yesterday was the only decent free time I have had in weeks.

It’s too hard to follow and makes it difficult for people to read the thread.

No it doesn’t. Forum threads are never completely linear.Some people come in late and reply to the OP.

Because I include in quotes the post I reply to then whoever is reading can follow the thought.

In general, I will point you to the OPs question. The OP was interested in how Protestants understand their history. As usual, the Catholics feel this means they need to attack the information given, and even get bent out of shape with analogies and metyapores used to assist someone to understand a general argument. Some of your posts don’t even seem to have considered the comments they were responding to, so your comments just don’t make any sense.

I know the OP. I was in this discussion at the very beginning (around page 5 I think) until my schedule became too hectic.

If the information given is in error then it must be shown to be so, even if it is perceived as an attack on the information given. If you are confident of your position and the validity of your arguments, then there should not be a need to worry.

As for my comments not making sense, that could be due to a bad habit I have of hitting “submit” before I have thoroughly proof read my post and I end up with missed words which can sometimes render my post unintelligible.

However, all my post have considered the comments in great detail that is why I break up each post when I reply and address each point individually. It may be that I may have misunderstood some, but that is not to say that I have not considered the comment. Far from it actually.

Since the OP seems to have found the comments helpful, I don’t know that I see a lot of point in continuing here when others are not actually interested in understanding people, but only want to tear things down.

I don’t post for the OP. I post for the general reader. If I see some misrepresentation due to erroneous thinking, then I try to post what I think will correct the error.

If I am wrong, then someone else will correct me too.

Your posts have quite a few and that is what I addressed.

 

[benedictus2]

It was Henry’s father. not Henry, who sought the decree of nullity, for reasons of state, primarily to maintain the original aim of the marriage between Arthur and Catherine: an alliance against France. And also Hank Senior wanted to keep the dowry. Henry stated his reluctance to marry Catherine, in the beginning.

The lack of a male heir was not a justification of a decree of nullity; Henry’s causIIa was related to the Leventine Prohibition (though it wasn’t his strongest possible point) But such dynastic circumstances were often the occasion for a decree of nullity. The system was an intertwined one, of politics and theology. And, for a similar reason, Henry could not separate the theological and the temporal powers, though English monarchs had been trying to do just that for over 250 years. That was a struggle of long standing, between the Church, and the Throne, in England. Running back at least to the First Statute of Westminster.

GKC

That may all be true but rather beside the point. Political maneuverings aside, and as complicated the machinations of each party involved was, it does not justify starting a church with the king as head.

One cannot say, " I was forced into this corner and so I had no other option but to do this bad thing" and expect that somehow that justifies it.

Yes, the temporal powers exercised by the Pope needed to be curbed but in decreeing himself the head of the church in England, Henry has in fact done the opposite : claiming spiritual powers on top of his temporal ones.

 

[benedictus2]

I think this has gone somewhat adrift. Quibbling about the primacy of the Pope is really something for Catholics to do with the orthodox or perhaps Anglicans. But the reformation Protestants just basically rejected the entire ancient church and started their own.

Here is an analogy. Lets say I am starting the “reformed Lutheran Church” and claim it is the ”true Lutheran church”. And say I do the following:

1. Claim Melanchthon (or perhaps Luther himself) was the anti-christ

2. The Concordia of 1580 are just a bunch of erroneous  books that we can take or leave.

3. I write my own Concordia of 2011
4. I come up with my own sayings like “Love alone”, and “Scripture and the Concordia of 2011 alone.”
5. No longer have church elders or pastors but instead have snake handlers, prophets, tongue speakers and deaconesses.
6. Created my own liturgy. Etc.

Now this may all be well and good I suppose. I suppose I can claim this is not a new church but instead just “the true early Lutheranism”. But really who would I be fooling?

Now is this analogy sound? Each number will correspond to the number above:

1. Luther said the Papacy is the seat of the antichrist.  Now Orthodox and Catholics can argue what it means for the Bishop of Rome to have primacy of honor, but they clearly didn’t mean that.  Simillarly Lutherans may disagree with what authority Melanchthon or Luther may have had but to call them the anti-christ would likewise be inconsistent with Lutheranism.

2. Luther made his views of papal authority clear, and here is what he said of the other authority in the church i.e., councils and Fathers:

"Enough of that! We would show cause why this undertaking is impossible.

In the first place, it is plain that the councils are not only unequal, but even contradictory, and the same is true of the fathers. If we were to try to harmonize them, there would be greater disagreement and disputing than there now is, and we should never get out of it anymore. For since they are unlike and often contradictory, our first undertaking would be to see how we could cull out the best and let the rest go. Then the trouble would start!

One would say, ‘If we are going to keep them, we must keep all or nothing.’ Another would say, ‘You are culling out what you like, and leaving what you do not like.’ Who will be the umpire?"
3) Well the church reformers didn’t just rely on writings of the first 1500 years of the church did they? If they saw themselves as doing nothing more than staying with the church except giving no authority to the pope then they would not need to write their own summation of faith. After the orthodox and Catholics split neither felt it necessary to have some new writing defining what they would believe. They both just kept doing what they always did. Reformation Protestants however felt the need to write out a new confession of beliefs.
4) Faith alone grace alone and Scripture alone were novelties. I’m not saying we can’t agree on how some of these slogans may be interpreted but they are novelties.
5) And 6) should be pretty obvious.

Just as my “reformed Lutheranism” isn’t really the true Lutheranism as it existed from the 1500s to 2011, reformed Protestantism can’t realistically maintain it is the true Christian Church as it existed for the first 1500 years.

Brilliant!

 

[GKC]

That may all be true but rather beside the point. Political maneuverings aside, and as complicated the machinations of each party involved was, it does not justify starting a church with the king as head.

One cannot say, " I was forced into this corner and so I had no other option but to do this bad thing" and expect that somehow that justifies it.

Yes, the temporal powers exercised by the Pope needed to be curbed but in decreeing himself the head of the church in England, Henry has in fact done the opposite : claiming spiritual powers on top of his temporal ones.

It is indeed true; convoluted, complex and political, and true. A situation is which the political aspect played a large part in the Pope’s ruling resulted in a political response from Henry. One that would have eventually come about, in some fashion, had Henry sired a stable of viable male heirs and* la Boleyn* never caught his eye. The struggle between the Throne and Rome, in England, was one that eventually would have resulted in a dramatically different relationship between the two, in some fashion. The trail of Parliamentary acts and royal decrees mark the way.

With the rise of nationalism, the intertwined relationship of Church and State, as it was known pre-Reformation, was on the way out. One approach, but one unique to the English situation, was an officially Erastian Church. Given Henry’s developing philosophy of the Christian Prince, it was one that was bound to appeal to him. Henry did not so much claim spiritual powers as he exercised political powers.In an age when the two were so closely intertwined, it looked like the same thing.

No one is justifying Henry (that fascinating train wreck), any more than I would justify Clement. I’m explaining.

GKC

 

[benedictus2]

Martin Luther never want to leave the Catholic Church, the Catholic excommunicated Martin Luther.

He was ex-communicated because he rebelled. If he had obeyed, he would not have been excommunicated.

This is really what I don’t get. If he said he never wanted to leave the Church then he would not have been excommunicated if in humility he had accepted what the Church had decreed. But no, he was too proud for that.

I have read some of his writings and his arrogance and pride is palpable. Some people downplay that as an expression of frustration but it is much more than that. It was an insistence that his will be done.

The Catholic Church put a price on Luther"s head and would have killed him as it did other reformers in the past.

You mean in the same manner the reformers massacred those who did not toe their line?

Do you not find it hypocritical that after preaching against the ills of the church they themselves were committing those same ills and much more?

Luther was prepared to go to a church council if one was called to discuss his concerns.

But the point is what right did he have to demand this?

When the Catholic Church did call Trent, Lutherans were not allowed to attend. Read our Augsburg Confession and Apology of the Augsburg Confession and then tell me where the Lutherans are wrong.

As I have said before, that Luther pointed out the ills of the Church was good. But, he should have left it at that.

Unfortunately he was a very proud man who wanted things his way. It showed a lack of faith in Christ who promised that He will be with His Church no matter what. If he truly did not want to leave the Church, then that means he believed her to be Christ’s Church. If this is so, then what made him think that he had the right to make demands?

I shudder to think where the Church would be now if she had compromised and acceded to Luther’s theological novums.

Pride always goes before a fall. It was the same with Luther and the reformers.

 

[benedictus2]

It is indeed true; convoluted, complex and political, and true. A situation is which the political aspect played a large part in the Pope’s ruling resulted in a political response from Henry. One that would have eventually come about, in some fashion, had Henry sired a stable of viable male heirs and* la Boleyn* never caught his eye. The struggle between the Throne and Rome, in England, was one that eventually would have resulted in a dramatically different relationship between the two, in some fashion. The trail of Parliamentary acts and royal decrees mark the way.

With the rise of nationalism, the intertwined relationship of Church and State, as it was known pre-Reformation, was on the way out. One approach, but one unique to the English situation, was an officially Erastian Church. Given Henry’s developing philosophy of the Christian Prince, it was one that was bound to appeal to him. Henry did not so much claim spiritual powers as he exercised political powers.In an age when the two were so closely intertwined, it looked like the same thing.

No one is justifying Henry (that fascinating train wreck), any more than I would justify Clement. I’m explaining.

GKC

How is insisting on being the head of the church not claiming spiritual powers?

 

[GKC]

How is insisting on being the head of the church not claiming spiritual powers?

What he assumed was, in practice, the political powers, not the spiritual ones. Henry had few innovations in the theological realm, for the most part what he proclaimed was to be followed hewed closely to the RC origins, i.e., the Six Articles. He had some original thought, as in an insistence on wider availability of vernacular Holy Scripture, but his aim in the Act of Supremacy was to proclaim that whatever the Church in England followed, it would be enforced by the political, Royal arm, and not by any agency outside the realm. If a point of doctrine did catch his eye, as with Scripture, he could enforce it, but as a part of the political role of a Sovereign who was also (by Act of Parliament) the head of the Church in England.

GKC

 

[hn160]

He was ex-communicated because he rebelled. If he had obeyed, he would not have been excommunicated.

This is really what I don’t get. If he said he never wanted to leave the Church then he would not have been excommunicated if in humility he had accepted what the Church had decreed. But no, he was too proud for that.

I have read some of his writings and his arrogance and pride is palpable. Some people downplay that as an expression of frustration but it is much more than that. It was an insistence that his will be done.
You mean in the same manner the reformers massacred those who did not toe their line?

Do you not find it hypocritical that after preaching against the ills of the church they themselves were committing those same ills and much more?

But the point is what right did he have to demand this?

As I have said before, that Luther pointed out the ills of the Church was good. But, he should have left it at that.

Unfortunately he was a very proud man who wanted things his way. It showed a lack of faith in Christ who promised that He will be with His Church no matter what. If he truly did not want to leave the Church, then that means he believed her to be Christ’s Church. If this is so, then what made him think that he had the right to make demands?

I shudder to think where the Church would be now if she had compromised and acceded to Luther’s theological novums.

Pride always goes before a fall. It was the same with Luther and the reformers.

If Luther would have left it go and back down, recanted, said he was wrong, would anything had changed? The church would have gone on selling indulgences, selling bishoprics, having uneducated priests and having corruption.