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Attejohannes
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Reconciliation (Confession):
Catholics believe the sacrament of reconciliation flows from the power of “binding and loosing” granted to the Apostles and their ministerial successors, the ordained clergy, as well as Jesus’s instructions that “whose sins you forgive are forgiven them.” In the sacrament the repentant sinner confesses his sins to the priest or bishop, who, as God’s minister, in turn pronounces absolution, which declares that the confessed sins are forgiven by the grace of God through Jesus Christ. In order to be valid, the Church requires that the person confessing be truly repentant, and thus states that while one may deceive the priest or bishop, one cannot deceive God and the sins will be retained if true contrition is lacking. At the conclusion of the rite, the absolved sinner is given some form of penance, generally some prayers to say. These are not “repayment” or “expiation” for the sin properly speaking, but merely intended to help the sinner pray to reflect on their past sins and avoid temptations in the future. Any baptized Christian past the age of reason is eligible to receive the sacrament.
Lutherans recognize the importance of the sacrament of reconciliation but do not count it as a sacrament. Most Lutheran liturgies begin with a general absolution administered to the congregation, though on request most pastors will still hear private confessions. (What follows is my theory, any Lutherans please confirm or correct me!) The reason it is not held to be a proper “sacrament” despite the importance Lutherans attach to it is because Lutherans believe that God has already forgiven any sins, confessed or not, in his Church through his gift of grace. Thus the Lutheran absolution does not actively impart grace like the Catholic one, which actively forgives confessed sins, but rather simply declares the reality of grace that was already imparted. To restate, while Catholic absolution itself removes the burden of sin from a repentant Christian, Lutheran absolution simply reminds the penitent Christian that the burden has already been removed.
Some Lutheran answers:
There was a question of the bread and wine left over after the Communion. The usual practice, at least in Finland, is that the celebrant consumes the remaining consecrated bread and wine. Regarding the presence of Christ in the Eucharist we often compare the mystery with the Incarnation. Christ was truly God and truly Man, and His humanity did not change because of His divinity. Likewise the consecrated elements in the Communion are simultaneously bread and wine and the Body of Christ.
Regarding the sacramental status of Reconciliation, the main reason to omit it from the list was the desire to emphasize the definition of sacraments as “visible signs of invisible grace”, meaning that some concrete material (water at baptism, bread and wine at Communion) should be present. Reconciliation, is considered something like preached God’s word, extremely important. but not a sacrament.
Catholics believe the sacrament of reconciliation flows from the power of “binding and loosing” granted to the Apostles and their ministerial successors, the ordained clergy, as well as Jesus’s instructions that “whose sins you forgive are forgiven them.” In the sacrament the repentant sinner confesses his sins to the priest or bishop, who, as God’s minister, in turn pronounces absolution, which declares that the confessed sins are forgiven by the grace of God through Jesus Christ. In order to be valid, the Church requires that the person confessing be truly repentant, and thus states that while one may deceive the priest or bishop, one cannot deceive God and the sins will be retained if true contrition is lacking. At the conclusion of the rite, the absolved sinner is given some form of penance, generally some prayers to say. These are not “repayment” or “expiation” for the sin properly speaking, but merely intended to help the sinner pray to reflect on their past sins and avoid temptations in the future. Any baptized Christian past the age of reason is eligible to receive the sacrament.
Lutherans recognize the importance of the sacrament of reconciliation but do not count it as a sacrament. Most Lutheran liturgies begin with a general absolution administered to the congregation, though on request most pastors will still hear private confessions. (What follows is my theory, any Lutherans please confirm or correct me!) The reason it is not held to be a proper “sacrament” despite the importance Lutherans attach to it is because Lutherans believe that God has already forgiven any sins, confessed or not, in his Church through his gift of grace. Thus the Lutheran absolution does not actively impart grace like the Catholic one, which actively forgives confessed sins, but rather simply declares the reality of grace that was already imparted. To restate, while Catholic absolution itself removes the burden of sin from a repentant Christian, Lutheran absolution simply reminds the penitent Christian that the burden has already been removed.
Some Lutheran answers:
There was a question of the bread and wine left over after the Communion. The usual practice, at least in Finland, is that the celebrant consumes the remaining consecrated bread and wine. Regarding the presence of Christ in the Eucharist we often compare the mystery with the Incarnation. Christ was truly God and truly Man, and His humanity did not change because of His divinity. Likewise the consecrated elements in the Communion are simultaneously bread and wine and the Body of Christ.
Regarding the sacramental status of Reconciliation, the main reason to omit it from the list was the desire to emphasize the definition of sacraments as “visible signs of invisible grace”, meaning that some concrete material (water at baptism, bread and wine at Communion) should be present. Reconciliation, is considered something like preached God’s word, extremely important. but not a sacrament.
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PatriciusRex
Guest
I tried to bring up some of the relevant points in my last response to you. But additionally, consider the problem that there is no universally agreed upon value for A. In their way, the Real Presence and Other positions are each consistent in their way, and the difference doesn’t arise from the words of the biblical texts, but rather from the analytical framework in which those texts are understood.
Catholics, as well as Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, some Anglicans and some Methodists, accept the testimony of the Early Church Fathers as authoritative in interpreting the relevant Biblical passages and thus “clearly” see explicit reference to the Real Presence in the Eucharist.
However, other varieties of Protestants accept only the unqualified Bible as authoritative. They do not admit as reliable the testimony of extra-biblical sources like the Church Fathers and their concept of the nature and history of the Biblical Canon asserts that only that which is taught in the Bible should be believed and is necessary for salvation. When the witness of the historical church is excluded from Scriptural interpretation, then they see no “clear” endorsement of the Real Presence. Rather, the analytical framework is derived solely from the use of reason by the interpreter, and “This is my Body” and “I am the Bread of Life” are interpreted in similar manner to other phrases such as “You must be born again” or “You are the salt of the earth.” The latter two phrases you and I of course interpret only figuratively because our analytical framework derived from the witness of the historic Church as well as our own reasoning abilities tell us this is manner in which to do so.
If I were to tell you after a hard day at the office, “the stress has been eating at me all day,” your first response would not be to assume that I have been actually gnawed upon by some creature embodying stress. Unless, of course, you knew that “stress creatures” actually existed and did in fact chomp on people from time to time. Then you might be inclined to first assume that I was speaking literally.
So, in short, the “obvious” reading of Biblical texts pertaining to the Eucharist (or anything else that’s disputed between Christians, really) is wholly dependent on what corroborating knowledge each reader is bringing with him.
Whether it is correct or not to exclude the testimony of the historic Church (and even if so, to what extent) is of course at the very root of the division between Catholics and Protestants, and this thread is not the appropriate place for that discussion.
Yet in a supernatural, incomprehensible way. IOW, what we do know that that bread and wine are consecrated. Based on Christ’s words, they are body and blood. I’m uncomfortable with the “simultaneous” language.
Two thoughts on this.
The first is correct from my understanding, the narrow definition of sacrament requires a physical element - water in Baptism, bread and wine in Communion.
The early writings of the Reformers do include Absolution as a sacrament, so the aqcceptance of Absolution as either a sacrament on its own, or an extension of Baptism isn’t a matter of debate for Lutherans.
The above bolded seems a misconception that, somehow, Lutherans are not required to confess, or that confession/Holy Absolution is not a means of grace. It clearly is. I am also not convinced that the bolded properly reflects Lutheran beilief regarding the necessity of repentence, confession, etc. The idea that “sins are already forgiven” without confession/Absolution is, from my understanding of the confessions, a remarkable overstatement.
Jon
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Attejohannes
Guest
Thank you for the answer.
First of all I do not have a theological education, although a keen interest, and therefore take anything I say with a caveat that it comes from a biotechnology professor, not professor of theology.
Yes, Luther had several opinions about including the reconsiliation or confession among sacraments, but finally decided not to include it, mainly I think on the grounds that a clear material element was missing.
The connection of reconciliation to baptism is of course interesting, and I am not quite sure whether either Luther or his Catholic contemporaries knew exactly the historical development of the practice. My understanding (and, please, correct me if I am wrong) is that in the early centuries the confession, which was public, and pennance was once in the lifetime opportunity for those who had committed such severe, public and scandalizing sins that they led to the exclusion from the Church, and this was connected with really hard penancies lasting years. Forgivance of other sins was thought to be obtained by prayer, acts of charity and due reparation if someone else had suffered as the result of the sin. This once in the lifetime opportunity was considered as a kind of second baptism, I believe St. Jerome compared it to a raft to those whose baptismal ship had suffered a shipwreck.
The development of a regular and private confession took hundereds of years, and I think the practice somehow in peoples mind lost the connection to baptism.
The Lutheran view is that reconciliation and repentance are necessary and can take many forms. In case you have sinned against an individual, let us say stolen something or slandered him or her, you ought ot confess (I am not now talking about the “sacramental” onfession) to this person, ask forgivance from God and from this individual, and to the best of your ability to compensate the damage. If this is done, no other form of reconciliation is needed.
In each Lutheran service, whether including a Communion or not, there is a general confession and absolution, and private confession is always possible for those who feel specially troubled with some sin. No practice of penancies is generally applied. It is thought that the consequencies of forgiven sins are up to God to take care. If, for example, you have done serious and irreparable harm, you will forever feel sorrow for what you have done, although the sin has been forgiven. In a sence this inevitable consequence of sin is the penance for any person that truly repents.
Luther’s rejection of specific penancies was based, I think, for his desire to make a claer separation between the forgivance of sins, which is an act of God’s grace, and any idea that this forgivance is earned by doing penance.
Back to the real presence of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine. I agree that the Lutheran view sounds mystical. As a Lutheran, I can only say that the Catholic understanding seems for an outsider just as mystical. My personal opinion is that we anyway have here a mystery that we do not understand and any human attempts to make it intellectually understandable are futile.
First of all I do not have a theological education, although a keen interest, and therefore take anything I say with a caveat that it comes from a biotechnology professor, not professor of theology.
Yes, Luther had several opinions about including the reconsiliation or confession among sacraments, but finally decided not to include it, mainly I think on the grounds that a clear material element was missing.
The connection of reconciliation to baptism is of course interesting, and I am not quite sure whether either Luther or his Catholic contemporaries knew exactly the historical development of the practice. My understanding (and, please, correct me if I am wrong) is that in the early centuries the confession, which was public, and pennance was once in the lifetime opportunity for those who had committed such severe, public and scandalizing sins that they led to the exclusion from the Church, and this was connected with really hard penancies lasting years. Forgivance of other sins was thought to be obtained by prayer, acts of charity and due reparation if someone else had suffered as the result of the sin. This once in the lifetime opportunity was considered as a kind of second baptism, I believe St. Jerome compared it to a raft to those whose baptismal ship had suffered a shipwreck.
The development of a regular and private confession took hundereds of years, and I think the practice somehow in peoples mind lost the connection to baptism.
The Lutheran view is that reconciliation and repentance are necessary and can take many forms. In case you have sinned against an individual, let us say stolen something or slandered him or her, you ought ot confess (I am not now talking about the “sacramental” onfession) to this person, ask forgivance from God and from this individual, and to the best of your ability to compensate the damage. If this is done, no other form of reconciliation is needed.
In each Lutheran service, whether including a Communion or not, there is a general confession and absolution, and private confession is always possible for those who feel specially troubled with some sin. No practice of penancies is generally applied. It is thought that the consequencies of forgiven sins are up to God to take care. If, for example, you have done serious and irreparable harm, you will forever feel sorrow for what you have done, although the sin has been forgiven. In a sence this inevitable consequence of sin is the penance for any person that truly repents.
Luther’s rejection of specific penancies was based, I think, for his desire to make a claer separation between the forgivance of sins, which is an act of God’s grace, and any idea that this forgivance is earned by doing penance.
Back to the real presence of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine. I agree that the Lutheran view sounds mystical. As a Lutheran, I can only say that the Catholic understanding seems for an outsider just as mystical. My personal opinion is that we anyway have here a mystery that we do not understand and any human attempts to make it intellectually understandable are futile.
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Attejohannes
Guest
I just feel that I have to tell a Finnish anecdote, very Lutheran, I would say.
In Northern Finland a man came very nervous to his neighbour, because he had something to confess. “I have stolen timber from your wood”, he said, and continued: “I have asked forgivance from Jesus, but I have to also ask you, and I will compensate the wood”.
“You are forgiven”, answered the neighbour, “and Jesus and I are such kind of men that when we forgive there is no talk about compensation”
In Northern Finland a man came very nervous to his neighbour, because he had something to confess. “I have stolen timber from your wood”, he said, and continued: “I have asked forgivance from Jesus, but I have to also ask you, and I will compensate the wood”.
“You are forgiven”, answered the neighbour, “and Jesus and I are such kind of men that when we forgive there is no talk about compensation”
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Reuben_J
Guest
Sometimes even members of the family may do things differently.
Mary the mother of Jesus, a story was told, would get up in the middle of the night, open the back door and let sinners in, those that Peter refused entry, and much to the puzzlement of Jesus the next day when he saw the uncouth characters in his Father’s house.
The neighbour and Jesus above would probably be more generous than the Father who insisted that he compensated for the sins of the world by none other but the life of his Son.
Certain things need to make good; it is the natural law of things.
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Attejohannes
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Well, regarding the natural law of things, we should be happy that in faith we are dealing with the supernatural.Sometimes even members of the family may do things differently.
Mary the mother of Jesus, a story was told, would get up in the middle of the night, open the back door and let sinners in, those that Peter refused entry, and much to the puzzlement of Jesus the next day when he saw the uncouth characters in his Father’s house.
The neighbour and Jesus above would probably be more generous than the Father who insisted that he compensated for the sins of the world by none other but the life of his Son.
Certain things need to make good; it is the natural law of things.
It is not certainly natural, in the human eyes not even just, that the owner of the wineyard gives the same daily wage for the laborers that have been working only for one hour as to those who have toiled for the whole day. That is not called the natural law of things, that is called grace.
A Finnish old spiritual song says something like that:
“You may have been under chastisment
for tens of years.
You may have shed your tears,
you have honestly repented.
To your astonishment, the thief of the cross is given preference over you”
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Reuben_J
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Attejohannes
Guest
Yes, something like that. We would all be lost, if God required similar type of justice with us as we tend to require in our dealingd with our fellow men.Ok granted.
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Reuben_J
Guest
I find it is interesting about God’s justice and at times it seems he would do it like how we men would too. Jesus told a story of the unforgiving servant who in turn was unwilling to forgive the debt of those who owed him. He was put in jail by the forgiving master until he paid the last penny. Even though God is merciful his justice demands that proper restitution has to be done where in cases applied. But yet it is by his love that we are set free which we can never really pay in full accordingly. We still however have to play our part for that grace to really come into effect. He is not asking an eye for an eye but the principle is nevertheless we can identify with and understand.
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Attejohannes
Guest
Well, I read this parable slightly differently. The unforgiving servant was thrown to jail, not because of he debt (which had been TOTALLY and ONCE and IN ALL forgiven), but because he was unforgiving. The unconditional grace is conditional on our own preparedness to forgive, as indicated in the Lord’s prayer.
As a protestant I do not share this doctrin that we do what we can, and the grace complements where we inevitably fail. And of course this question leads to very deep theological waters, indeed, regarding faith and works. We are exhorted to do works for our salavation, and yet at the same time reminded that in fact it is God, who works in us.
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Reuben_J
Guest
I was merely saying that the master can be very human when he threw the servant in jail for not writing off the debt that people owed him unlike what his master did to him. Sometimes when we do things like giving or some form of free act of charity we kind of expecting that the recipient response in kind. Sometimes that can even be in the form of even simple acknowledgment. In this case the master expect the servant to do he same as what he did to him which the servant did not. As a result he was at the master displeasure, thrown into jail and the cancellation of his debt rescinded until he repaid it to the last penny.
Why would the master do that? I think that was the principle of action and reaction that human can understand and often carry out themselves. Ideally probably the cancellation of the debt should be unconditional and the servant could do as he wish with his own affair. After all the master did not make it conditional when he cancelled the debt. Perhaps what I can learn from the story is about the character of the master and what he did to the servant was his peculiar kind of justice.
Interestingly when we got scot free from our sin, we are expected to do something in kind. The grace was at God’s own pleasure paid for by the life of his son and yet we can only receive it when we believe and go on repenting for our sins. That is why not all can be saved because they are unwilling to do what is required of them.
In the Catholic Sacrament of Penance also known Reconciliation (Confession) penitent needs to ‘compensate’ for the forgiveness they receive for their sins, the story of the unforgiving servant notwithstanding. The ‘compensation’ which is a rather crude word but nevertheless to bring out the point is usually in the form of penance. Not that it is a replacement for the forgiveness but something that the penitent does in recognition of the written off the debt he received from his master.
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Razanir
Guest
Perhaps I should rephrase the question, then. What types of evidence supports the view that it is symbolic? An example for supporting the Real Presence being the crowd’s reaction in John 6 (I think is the passage I’m thinking of). Surely the crowd would not get so worked up over a man telling them to figuratively eat him
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Attejohannes
Guest
In the same context Jesus also called Himself as Bread of Life (John 6, 35,48), and then explains that this Bread of Life is his flesh. We do not interpret this that the substance of Jesus’ body was first turned to bread and then back to flesh.
Regarding the reaction of the followers. Well the kind of rhetoric Jesus used would be very strong, spoken by any person in any occacion. Cannibalism is not stricly politically correct, then or nowadays - even as a metaphor. For a Jewish listener, a reference to drinking blood in general and human blood in particular was specially revolting, remebering the Jewish dietary restrictions. Jesus certainly did not give an easy time for His audience.
We simply do not know, about the mysterious sayings of Jesus (I am the Bread of Life, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, this is my Body…etc) whether and when He spoke figuratively and when He meant quite concretely what He said.
But we know that He commanded the celebration of this Holy Meal until He returns, and that this eating and drinking conveys His presence. I have no problems in accepting the Lutheran view of Christ being really present in bread and wine, and for me the comparison of this to the incarnation is helpful. Just as Jesus simultaneously is both perfect God and perfect Man without His humane form changing, the consecrated bread and wine stay bread and wine but simultaneously are Christ. But I think the main thing here is to obey the command of Christ and spend less time on pondering what we cannot know.
You obviously have your traditional Catholic opinion, and I see no problem in it and I don not even try to persuade you to change it, just consider also how the others try to understand what really cannot be understood. I have explained the Lutheran standpoint, as much as I understand it, but I am ready to admit that Luther, Pope, Calvin, Fathers, you and I are equally ignorant about the nature of the Mystery we actually meet in the Eucharist.
But we have been commanded to celebrate it.
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PatriciusRex
Guest
They interpret it figuratively and read the entire passage with the assumption that he is not speaking literally, with all the conclusions you’d expect from that.
I recall one Protestant commentary that even argued that the Jews’ disbelief in John 6:52 was precisely because they were understanding Jesus’s words in a literal sense, and that their unbelief prevented them from understanding the words is a spiritual sense, which is the general belief among Protestants, who otherwise agree with those Jews in thinking it ridiculous that they would be given the actual flesh and blood of Jesus to feed upon.
Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, etc of course read that and see the dissent and confusion among the Jews as arising because they were interpreting him figuratively and are now being told that Jesus IS truly offering his Flesh and Blood to eat and drink.
But again both these readings are informed by the theological lens through which you’re viewing the text.
In an almost paradoxical manner, Scripture must be interpreted before it can be read. Or else we’d all be like the Ethiopian eunuch who when asked if he understood what he was reading, replied, “How can I, unless someone instructs me?”
Keep in mind though that even this admission emerges from a Catholic mindset (which again I stress is not exclusive to Catholics and is shared by several Protestant groups though with varying degrees) and the version of sola scriptura subscribed to by the Protestants who reject the Real Presence teaches that the explicit words on the page alone are the only source a Christian needs or indeed should be permitted to use to determine doctrine. So “if it’s not explicitly in Scripture, it doesn’t exist.”
Now in practice these Protestants have their own authoritative systematic theology, that to a large degree they allow to inform their readings of contentious Biblical passages as much as Catholics do, but the difference is that while the Catholic is derived from the 2000 years witness of the Church, the Protestant one is (at least originally) extrapolated from the Bible itself with little other corroborating sources.
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Attejohannes
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Well. I repeat that we simply do not know. Even the cleverest Bible scholars just guess or have their favorite opinions based on their peculiar theological standpoints. Particularly according to the Johannine tradition, Jesus often used expressions that are problematic, whether you take them figuratively or literally.
May I ask why does this bother you so much? Does it not suffice that we are commanded to celebate Eucharist until the second coming. If we take our medicines, we do not need to know and even less to understand what are the pharmacological principles that are in the prescription, in order to get cured.
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PatriciusRex
Guest
Well, for my part, I was merely responding to Razanir’s questions and am not “bothered” per se.
But in general, having divergent and mutually exclusive positions on the Eucharist is extremely injurious to the Church visible and invisible. Protestants accuse Catholics of idolatry because we reverence the consecrated elements as the physical presence of our Lord and Savior. Catholics in turn believe Protestants profane and desecrate the same body, and in most cases we deny even that they are able to partake of the sacrament at all in their churches since they lack an ordained clergy in Apostolic Succession as we understand it.
I understand that the ideal of putting aside differences and simply agreeing to disagree can sound attractive, but the fact is these differences exist for a reason. Whenever a schism occurs it is because both parties consider the other to be too far departed from orthodoxy and have entered the realm of a “false gospel” which Paul warns against in Galatians 1:6-9 among other places.
Christianity has always been a religion based around orthodoxy. Some world religions accept a wide range of views as long as practice is uniform and consistent, but Christianity with its looking deep into the soul of man, demands not only right action, but also right belief. This is why heresy is the most pernicious crime in Christian belief, because it perverts that right belief and transforms it from a Gospel that saves into a false Gospel that condemns. And this is why beliefs, whether about the Trinity, the Eucharist, the use of music in the liturgy, or whatever else, can and do become church-dividing issues.
The institutional Church was created in part as a mechanism to prevent these divisions by erecting an earthly authority that could unquestionably define orthodoxy. But the “catholic consensus” of the first undivided centuries did not last, and parallel and opposing authorities were constructed in many parts of the Christian world, and indeed the fracturing process is still underway.
What the hand of God may be in all this splintering I don’t know, but until the Second Coming, I’ll hold to what I am convinced to be the true faith, but I won’t and indeed cannot fault anyone else for doing the same.
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Attejohannes
Guest
Well, my sympathies. And it is natural to long for a certainty. Your solution is to trust a an institution, Church, which you believe to have the gift of infallibility. I, as an outsider, wonder, how much for example in the Catholic development of doctrin is God-inspired, and how much human. The practices that Luther criticized, and which nowadays I think also Catholics agree were scandalous (or am I mistaken?) had the backing of the highest authority of the infallible Church in those days. When an outsider looks the involvement of the Papal seat in political power play, the throne of Peter contested between different aristocratic families, several Popes presiding simultaneously etc. he cannot help wondering, whether this was what Christ intended.
When Luther was charged to defend his critizism on indulgencies, he tried to look what the Popes, councils and Doctors of the Church had said, and found so many contradictions, that he started to look for some single standard that could be applied to distinguish between the truth and error. His solution was to use the Bible. And that, as you certainly know, was the birth of Sola Scriptura principle. Luther did not deny the tradition, but demanded that the traditions had to based on and coform to the Scriptures. Well, that led to further fragemntation of the Protestant denominations, although they in Europe are much more solid and monolithic bodies than in the USA, where apparently a new protestant group pops up each week.
If we think the fourth Century consensus, the defintion of the dogma, according to Vincent of Lerins was “what has always been believed, what everybody has believed and what everywhere has been believed”. If you consider the dogmatic developemnt of the Roman Catholic Church, dogmas like the Immaculate conception, papal Infallibility and Assumtion of the Virgin, clearly do not fulfill those criteria. They were not universally believed in early centruries, witness the stand of Eastern Orthodox churches.
Regarding the validity of sacraments, I leave it to God’s hands. St. Paul exhorted the Christians not to judge the outsiders, not to participate in their errors, but leave the judgement to God. Christ himself rebuked His disciples, when they complained against someone not amongst them that was practicing excorcism in His name.
Finally, we have the criterion that the tree is known for its fruit. Have you never seen a non-Catholic Christian lead devout and holy life or doing charitable deeds out of love of Christ? Living in a 80% Lutheran country I can say to have met Lutheran Christians who might qualify as saints had they lived in Roman Catholic church (except they would consider any idea of their personal sanctity or holiness with abhorrence).
You see that I am quite pessimistic regarding any visible unity of opinions and practices in the Christian world. With uncertainties we have to live, and put our hope to God and His love, trusting on His guidance and His patience with, what I think you Catholics call as “honest errors”.
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PatriciusRex
Guest
I truncated your post for length but your painfully obvious condescension throughout is unprovoked and unwelcome.
Rest assured that I have heard such arguments before, and know that I nonetheless remain unswayed from my belief and conclusions.
If you pay attention, you’ll note that all my posts in this thread have been merely seeking to understand the various positions taken in different corners of the Christian world and never did I assert the wrongness of any one position, nor did I belittle the beliefs of any who posted here. In fact in the final statement of my last post I asserted that I believed as I do because after having examined all the evidence, I believe I must. As Luther himself declared, “mein Gewissen in den Worten Gottes gefangen ist, ich kann und will nichts widerrufen, weil es gefährlich und unmöglich ist, etwas gegen das Gewissen zu tun. Gott helfe mir. Amen.”
Nevertheless I also conceded that if another’s conscience obligated them to another conclusion, I could not fault them, even as I might disagree entirely. So you see my own sentiments were not too far removed from what you concluded yourself regarding “honest errors.”
I shall afford you a charity, and assume that your behavior results from your speaking English as a second language, and that all that has occurred is an unfortunate mutual misunderstanding of intents.
While your declarations on Lutheran theology are most welcome and interesting to compare to those expressed by other Lutheran posters, your persuasive efforts are inconsistent with my stated purpose in beginning this thread as stated in post #1. There are plenty of threads of these forums in which users attempt futilely to “convince” others of their theological error, and it was my expressed desire not to see this become one more. If it was not your intent to take an argumentative approach in your recent posts, then please note that your intent is easily misread given your choices of words.
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