Shocking things everyone should know about Luther

[bobregan]

That is the Catholic position on the matter. As a Lutheran I , and virtually all other Lutherans, respectfully disagree. Well, there are some who are probably not so respectful in their disagreement.

Regrettably, you can find Lutherans who hold a variety of strange beliefs. Of course, that can be said about almost Christians. A few miles from where I live there is a Catholic church that ascribes to the sedevacantist position. Does that mean that all Catholics are sedevacantist?

Hence the beauty of the Magisterium and Hierarchy of the Catholic Church. That Catholic Church you described is an issue for their bishop to address.

 

[kalt]

Good point.

I worry that this thread is to try to make Catholism look innocent and superior to everyone else.

Sadly the men running His Church have never been perfect and far from it.

No one has claimed that Catholics are perfect.

The point of the thread from the beginning is that Luther was merely a man and had no authority to make the changes he did.

This is in comparison to the founder of the Catholic Church, Christ.

We are comparing the 2 founders, Christ and Luther.

Several popes were terrible. No one is denying that. But they didn’t change doctrine. In fact, the church teaches that doctrine can’t be changed.

Luther’s particular sins (prejudice, arrogance, hatred) are irrelevant. The point is that he was merely a man. It’s clear that he was mentally ill. That should be a red flag to anyone following his teachings today.

 

[kalt]

Is it such a huge problem that other denoms. have beliefs that differ from yours? There is much that is far removed from Catholicism but yet very Biblical.

Can you name a belief you hold that is far removed from Catholicism and defend it using the Bible?

 

[kalt]

That is the Catholic position on the matter. As a Lutheran I , and virtually all other Lutherans, respectfully disagree. Well, there are some who are probably not so respectful in their disagreement.

Regrettably, you can find Lutherans who hold a variety of strange beliefs. Of course, that can be said about almost Christians. A few miles from where I live there is a Catholic church that ascribes to the sedevacantist position. Does that mean that all Catholics are sedevacantist?

The sedevacantists don’t know what they’re talking about. They deny the teaching authority of the Church. They can’t make sense of that, because they know that the Church does have teaching authority, so they say that the Popes aren’t real popes.

However, if they believe God’s promise to his church, they know that validly elected popes cannot teach error.

They’re mixed up people who apparently want to claim a special place among God’s flock (all people).

IMO, it’s about their wanting assurances that they are doing to right thing, belonging to the CC. If the CC is the only way anyone can ever go to Heaven, well then, dang, I must have it right.

They have no faith in God and his promise to his church. They are a fearful lot, imo. They want assurances for the same reason OSAS people want assurances - fear and lack of faith and trust in God. If they could let go and trust God, they wouldn’t have to create these convoluted explanations to justify their thinking–explanations, that when you pull them apart, reveal their weakness, though they may appear simple and appealing on the surface.

Do lutherans believe that their bishops are ordained in apostolic succession? If they do, do they know which former Catholic bishop ordained the clergy of the early Lutheran church?

 

[ICA04]

Can you name a belief you hold that is far removed from Catholicism and defend it using the Bible?

I am the way the truth and the life and nobody goes on to the Father except through me. Contrast that with what the CCC has to say about Mary being co-redemptrix with Christ.

 

[bobregan]

Bob there is a difference beween spirit and symbol. Jesus was speaking spiritually. “My words are spirit”
All of John 6 Jesus was speaking spiritually. At te Last Supper Jesus again was speaking spiritually. Why would e say the bread is His body and at te same time His body was sitting(more correctly reclinning) right there

Words have meanings.

Amen, His words are spirit, and must be understood through spiritual eyes (FAITH), not carnal ones

In Genesis, when God commanded, “Let there be Light.” what happened? There was light. Why? Because He’s God, and that was His will. He didn’t need to explain it. He didn’t say “Let there be symbolic light” or “Let there be the real prescence of light in a spiritual way light.” He said “Let there be light.” And there was. He’s God and these four simple words are all He needed.

You’re at the Last Supper. Jesus walks in the room. You immediately detect a seriousness about Him, a somberness. you don’t know this, but He knows that in a couple of hours He will be dragged away, tortured and killed. He realizes that everything He says tonight will need to be perfectly clear. Imagine if it was you, knowing soon you would die. Wouldn’t everything you did and said in that last few hours be of great importance? Picture yourself sitting 3 feet away from Him at the table. He picks up a piece of bread, moves closer to you, and looks you square in the eyes right down to your heart and says"THIS…IS…MY…BODY!". He says what he means, and means what He says, clearly. He is God, our Lord and Saviour. He has willed it. He wants you to absorb clearly what He is saying, no distortions. He doesn’t have time to mince words, or water down what He is saying. Are you going to argue with Him at that point? Are you going to say 'Well, Jesus, obviously what you’re really trying to say is that you’ll come to us spiritually in the Eucharist, right?" four words are all He needed to effect His will: “THIS IS MY BODY.” He is God.

No where in the Gospel accounts of the Last Supper does He speak symbolically, or that He wants you to find Him spiritually in a piece of bread. The bread and wine becomes His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity because He is God and He can do that, He can do anything! We are mortal, finite beings trying to understand something that is immortal and infinite. Berengarius of Tours in the 11th century was determine to figure out the theology of the eucharist by only using his human reasoning. But finally realized the futility of it and that he could not use mortal, corrupt, finite reasoning to try and fully figure out something that was infinitely beyong human reasoning. Only through faith, can this be understood. “My words are spirit…”

 

[CHESTERTONRULES]

I am the way the truth and the life and nobody goes on to the Father except through me. Contrast that with what the CCC has to say about Mary being co-redemptrix with Christ.

You obviously don’t know what this means.

Catholics believe that the way to heaven is through Christ alone.

 

[orange_man]

If the word “spirit” in john 6 means “symbolic”, then show me somewhere else in the Bible that the word “spirit” meand “symbolic”. There is no where that it means “symbolic.”

what a straw man??? No one said (as far as I can tell) that Spirit means symbolic? Is there anyone on this board who actually knows anything about theology? Are there forums on this board where protestants can participate where there’s people who are serious about theology (and not just ya-hoo novice Catholics out to take swings at people who disagree with them)?

 

[bobregan]

what a straw man??? No one said (as far as I can tell) that Spirit means symbolic? Is there anyone on this board who actually knows anything about theology? Are there forums on this board where protestants can participate where there’s people who are serious about theology (and not just ya-hoo novice Catholics out to take swings at people who disagree with them)?

Nice…

And you told me that the Protestant Reformers got their authority to start churches directly from God. Did God phone them or send them an email giving them the authority?

Sounds “yahoo-ish” to me.

 

[redrosetea]

Scott Hahn is an idiot. He stank as a Presbyterian anyway … you guys can keep him

I’m sure he did…I doubt that he would ever be involved in parades that result in the fire bombing of homes and the murder of children…it takes a certain mindset to do that

 

[bobregan]

what a straw man??? No one said (as far as I can tell) that Spirit means symbolic? Is there anyone on this board who actually knows anything about theology? Are there forums on this board where protestants can participate where there’s people who are serious about theology (and not just ya-hoo novice Catholics out to take swings at people who disagree with them)?

“serious about theology”??

You refuse to hear of any Christian teaching (as you said “Catholic propaganda”) before 1512.

I’d love to bring in the theology of Augustine, Aquainas, Polycarp, Basil the Great, Clement, The desert Fathers, Jerome, John of Damascus, John Climactus, Cyprian, ,Ambrose of Milan, Irenaeus, John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa, Origen and on and on.

But they we’re all before 1500 AD and the Protestant Reformation, and you want no part of the first 1500 years of Christianity. They are (as you said) “internal” to the Catholic Church, and would dismiss them as “idiots.”

 

[Contarini]

“Real Presence (in some form)” opens it up to being defined in 30,000 different ways.

Not quite.

There are a lot of shades of opinion in the Reformed tradition, but they can be basically reduced to two positions (“Zwinglian” and “Calvinist”) which blur into each other at times.
I find the fuzziness of the Reformed position disturbing (from my perspective the “Calvinist” position is barely acceptable, if a bit minimal, while the Zwinglian view is clearly unorthodox). But orangeman (like a lot of conservative Presbyterians these days) seems to come down pretty clearly on the side of the “Calvinist” position.

Edwin

 

[bobregan]

Not quite.

There are a lot of shades of opinion in the Reformed tradition, but they can be basically reduced to two positions (“Zwinglian” and “Calvinist”) which blur into each other at times.
I find the fuzziness of the Reformed position disturbing (from my perspective the “Calvinist” position is barely acceptable, if a bit minimal, while the Zwinglian view is clearly unorthodox). But orangeman (like a lot of conservative Presbyterians these days) seems to come down pretty clearly on the side of the “Calvinist” position.

Edwin

If I’m correct, Edwin, did Calvin’s position come third (historically) , or after Luther’s and Zwingli’s? Calvin’s position is somewhat in the middle of the other two (not symbolic, but not “Real Prescence” as of Luther or Catholic)? Question…was Calvin (possibly, and my thinking might be wrong) trying to bring order or unity between the two other Protestant Reformers opposing views?

 

[Contarini]

If I’m correct, Edwin, did Calvin’s position come third (historically) , or after Luther’s and Zwingli’s? Calvin’s position is somewhat in the middle of the other two (not symbolic, but not “Real Prescence” as of Luther or Catholic)? Question…was Calvin (possibly, and my thinking might be wrong) trying to bring order or unity between the two other Protestant Reformers opposing views?

Yes, basically. Calvin’s position was a lot like that of Martin Bucer (I avoided addressing the question of Bucer’s influence on Calvin in my dissertation on Bucer, and that has become a habit, but there clearly was some kind of influence going on). Bucer was a friend of Zwingli who became convinced after the Marburg Colloquy in 1529 that Luther and the “Zwinglians” did not differ on essentials (I should note that some people treat Bucer’s position quite cynically as an essentially political compromise; I do not take this view). Bucer developed a doctrine that the glorified Body and Blood of Christ were truly received in the Eucharist by faith, and he signed an agreement with the Lutherans in 1536 which agreed that Christ is truly present and received in the Eucharist. Calvin was initially quite critical of Bucer’s willingness to compromise with the Lutherans, but his own Eucharistic theology basically follows Bucer’s approach. (Other Reformed theologians, such as Peter Martyr Vermigli, also sought a middle ground, and on the Lutheran side Philip Melanchthon spiritualized the Lutheran position to some extent.) Calvin, however, wound up signing an agreement with the “Zwinglians” of Zurich, not with the Lutherans (although Zwingli’s successor Henry Bullinger had moved toward Calvin’s position and away from Zwingli’s more strictly symbolic view), and the “confessionalization” of Lutheranism led to the followers of Melanchthon being denounced as “crypto-Calvinists.” So in the end a broad Reformed consensus emerged with room for a range of opinions on the Eucharist (stopping short of anything that would speak of a localized, bodily presence in the elements themselves), opposed to the Lutheran insistence on a bodily presence and a literal interpretation of the Word’s of Institution. But for a while there it looked as if Bucer and Vermigli and Calvin and Melanchthon might forge a common Protestant Eucharistic theology.

Edwin

 

[ICA04]

You obviously don’t know what this means.

Catholics believe that the way to heaven is through Christ alone.

No they don’t. I was Catholic for most of my life. Mary is a redeemer with Christ in Catholic theology period. Mary is put there in lay language even by upper hierarchy of the RCC. Read your Catechism because YOU obviously don’t know your own faith.

 

[bobregan]

Not quite.

There are a lot of shades of opinion in the Reformed tradition, but they can be basically reduced to two positions (“Zwinglian” and “Calvinist”) which blur into each other at times.
I find the fuzziness of the Reformed position disturbing (from my perspective the “Calvinist” position is barely acceptable, if a bit minimal, while the Zwinglian view is clearly unorthodox). But orangeman (like a lot of conservative Presbyterians these days) seems to come down pretty clearly on the side of the “Calvinist” position.

Edwin

I see also Edwin that you attend a Methodist Church. John Wesley had some wonderful thoughts on the use of birth control saying, (If I remeber correctly) that it is an “abomination” that “destroys the souls of those that use it.”

Some of his and his brother Charles beliefs can be considered close to being very “Catholic.” I believe when they came to the United States and were preaching in the Protestant South some accused them of being Jesuits under cover! Interesting.

 

[bobregan]

Yes, basically. Calvin’s position was a lot like that of Martin Bucer (I avoided addressing the question of Bucer’s influence on Calvin in my dissertation on Bucer, and that has become a habit, but there clearly was some kind of influence going on). Bucer was a friend of Zwingli who became convinced after the Marburg Colloquy in 1529 that Luther and the “Zwinglians” did not differ on essentials (I should note that some people treat Bucer’s position quite cynically as an essentially political compromise; I do not take this view). Bucer developed a doctrine that the glorified Body and Blood of Christ were truly received in the Eucharist by faith, and he signed an agreement with the Lutherans in 1536 which agreed that Christ is truly present and received in the Eucharist. Calvin was initially quite critical of Bucer’s willingness to compromise with the Lutherans, but his own Eucharistic theology basically follows Bucer’s approach. (Other Reformed theologians, such as Peter Martyr Vermigli, also sought a middle ground, and on the Lutheran side Philip Melanchthon spiritualized the Lutheran position to some extent.) Calvin, however, wound up signing an agreement with the “Zwinglians” of Zurich, not with the Lutherans (although Zwingli’s successor Henry Bullinger had moved toward Calvin’s position and away from Zwingli’s more strictly symbolic view), and the “confessionalization” of Lutheranism led to the followers of Melanchthon being denounced as “crypto-Calvinists.” So in the end a broad Reformed consensus emerged with room for a range of opinions on the Eucharist (stopping short of anything that would speak of a localized, bodily presence in the elements themselves), opposed to the Lutheran insistence on a bodily presence and a literal interpretation of the Word’s of Institution. But for a while there it looked as if Bucer and Vermigli and Calvin and Melanchthon might forge a common Protestant Eucharistic theology.

Edwin

Thanks.

 

[Contarini]

I see also Edwin that you attend a Methodist Church. John Wesley had some wonderful thoughts on the use of birth control saying, (If I remeber correctly) that it is an “abomination” that “destroys the souls of those that use it.”

I’m not familiar with this, but it doesn’t surprise me. As Catholics are fond of pointing out, the “Catholic” position on birth control was the common position until the 20th century, with the Anglicans (the Christian body to which I officially belong, though as you note I attend churches of both traditions) leading the way in abandoning this stance.

Edwin

 

[CHESTERTONRULES]

No they don’t. I was Catholic for most of my life. Mary is a redeemer with Christ in Catholic theology period. Mary is put there in lay language even by upper hierarchy of the RCC. Read your Catechism because YOU obviously don’t know your own faith.

I’ll be glad to end your ignorance.

1953 The moral law finds its fullness and its unity in Christ. Jesus Christ is in person the way of perfection. He is the end of the law, for** only he **teaches and bestows the justice of God: "For Christ is the end of the law, that every one who has faith may be justified."4

970 "Mary’s function as mother of men in no way obscures or diminishes this unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows its power. But the Blessed Virgin’s salutary influence on men . . . flows forth from the superabundance of the merits of Christ, rests on his mediation, depends entirely on it, and draws all its power from it."513 "No creature could ever be counted along with the Incarnate Word and Redeemer; but just as the priesthood of Christ is shared in various ways both by his ministers and the faithful, and as the one goodness of God is radiated in different ways among his creatures, so also the unique mediation of the Redeemer does not exclude but rather gives rise to a manifold cooperation which is but a sharing in this one source."514

 

[kalt]

No they don’t. I was Catholic for most of my life. Mary is a redeemer with Christ in Catholic theology period. Mary is put there in lay language even by upper hierarchy of the RCC. Read your Catechism because YOU obviously don’t know your own faith.

And this is more proof that people reject Catholicism because they don’t know what it is, not because they do.