Solas of the Protestant Reformation

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Prodigal_Son1 said:
Two posts and you refuse to address the assertion you made that Peter’s authority was limited. Not only refused to address that assertion, you bring up other issues, on both posts, to further avoid sticking to a subject. This just shows if one of your “winning” points were refuted, we’d just be moved to another issue.

Argue with yourself, I’m not interested in your “debate” tactics.

God Bless,
Prodigal Son1
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I responded to this point at post #85 (here)

Essentially you’re asking me to prove a negative, which of course is impossible. On this rock I build my church, and what you bind and loose is not support for the proposition of a Papacy or Roman supremacy over the worldwide Christian church.

However, you now ask me to find a passage that disproves your erroneous interpretation of other passages?

It’s like if there were a book that stated birds fly, and a bird worshiping religion formed that claimed the words birds can fly support the proposition that birds therefore rule the sky.

Opponents of this religion say, hey wait a minute there’s no where in that book that say birds rule the sky, it just says birds fly. But then the fervent supporters of the bird religion say we demand you provide us with proof that the book states birds do not rule the sky. The opponents say hold on that doesn’t make any sense, you have to prove that it says birds rule the sky, we can’t prove a negative — that’s ridiculous.

Now, don’t fly up in arms, I am not insulting Catholicism or comparing her to a bird religion. I am merely showing you the impossibility of proving a negative by analogy.
 
PerryJ said:
I agree with your point and that is the whole argument. I do not believe the Pope or anyone else can interpret scripture on their own. Without the Grace of God interceding to protect his teachings we are lost. I could perhaps believe in the teachings of Luther if he was righteous like John the Baptist. John the Baptist was a righteous man that fought the good fight and was martyred for his convictions. Peter again martyred for his convictions. Luther and Calvin were not martyred in fact they both killed people to protect their territory just as many Popes have done.
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When did Luther kill anyone? Moreover, Calvin did not kill Servitus (which is a very common charge against Calvin). The inquisition sentenced Servitus to death in absentia. The man was a heretic to both Protestants and Catholics alike. When he appeared in Geneva Calvin had him arrested on sight.

Calvin actually asked for a less harsh execution but the city counsel of Geneva went against Calvin and burned Servitus at the stake. This is exactly what happened.

The contention that neither Popes nor Luther or Calvin were sinless will get no argument from me. However, the idea that individuals cannot interpret scripture is refuted by scripture itself i.e. the priesthood of all believers (see 1 Peter 2:9, Rev. 5:10, and several other passages). Indeed we not only can but we have a duty to understand the word. Only those who understand will endure and be saved (see Parable of the Sower at Matt. 13).
 
I don’t think anyone, regardless of faith/communion/denomination, can interpret Scripture on their own. They can only do so thru the power of the Holy Spirit.
 
Reformed said:
Soli Deo gloria (“glory to God alone”)

Soli Deo gloria is the teaching that all glory is to be due to God alone, since salvation is accomplished solely through his will and action — not only the gift of the all-sufficient atonement of Jesus on the cross but also the gift of faith in that atonement, created in the heart of the believer by the Holy Spirit. The reformers believed that human beings—even saints canonized by the Roman Catholic Church, the popes, and the ecclesiastical hierarchy—are not worthy of the glory that was accorded them. That is that one should not exalt such humans for their good works, but rather praise and give glory to God who is the author and perfecter of these people and their good works.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_solas#Soli_Deo_gloria_.28.22glory_to_God_alone.22.29

Let’s try to discuss the solas in reverse order. So why do you agree or disgree with this particular sola? Glory to God alone should be something that all Christians should united over, correct? 👍
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How about a discussion and debate on the thread topic? How about my post above that I made today?
 
sola_scriptura said:
Really, boy do you really want to open this flood gate? Shall I go through the Popes and list their sins? The bishops the clergy, etc.

I actually think compared to men like Pope Leo X Luther was a saint. I’ll gladly compare his piety against these men any day.

It’s great that you think it begins with the man himslef – of course you only apply this standard to Protestants and not the RCC; because if you do think that proper succession from the teachings of Jesus rely on personal character – then hey I’m all for it. Let’s engage in this rather silly competition of whose church founders were more sinful? I’m confident I’ll win …

Golly, where to start is my only challenge?

I assure you this will be a sad road for you to travel down. You might get away with such a statement against one who has no grounding in history, but I’m not that guy … so if you would like, bring it on.
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Hello Sola. I am wondering whether you are comparing apples and oranges. I don’t think there is anyone on CAF who does not agree that there were some bad popes. However, none of those popes ever altered the Church’s teachings on faith or morals. They could not have done so because the Church has been protected by the Holy Spirit for 2,000 years. Had any errant teachings on faith and morals been made, it would have meant that Christ was wrong when he promised us that the fires of hell would not prevail against his Church. I am sure that everyone agrees that Christ could not have been wrong.
While bad popes never affected the faith or morals of the Church, Luther, on the other hand, changed more (for Protestants) than any Pope ever had (with the exception of Peter).
Since Luther was the first Protestant leader, perhaps you should be comparing him to the first Catholic Pope - St. Peter. That would be comparing apples to apples. I don’t think that Luther stands up in the comparison.
I am no expert on Luther, but I believe that he incited the massacre of Catholic peasants. If I am incorrect on this point, please let me know.
 
sola_scriptura said:
When did Luther kill anyone?
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This follows my last post. I believe that I read some negative material about Luther on CAF. I just did a search for the post. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to put the post in a quoted box if I’m not responding to it, but a link to the thread is as follows:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=3815229&highlight=luther+slaughter+peasants#post3815229

The information concerning Luther (quoting the poster) is as follows:
Most of the other Reformers. Luther, Knox, Zwingli, also burnt, hung, drowned or otherwise executed their opponents.
One would expect leaders of a new movement “reforming” the Church and supposedly correcting the “errors” of the historic Church to be beyond reproach in their behaviour and Christian lives. But what do we see? The opposite.
Luther was well known for his hot temper, pride and violent language, rather than for his saintliness and humility. He 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.
PEASANTS REVOLT
Inspired by the writings of Luther and others, which declared the Freedom of the Christian Man, and led by Thomas Muntzer, an ex-pupil of Luther’s, German peasants demanded to be freed from Serfdom, joining in the Great Peasants Revolt. They hoped for Luther’s support. But Luther owed his protection and high position to the German aristocrats. So instead, in a pamphlet entitled Against the Murderous Peasants, Luther told the princes and the nobility that it was right and lawful to slay at the first opportunity a rebellious person, "just as one must slay a mad dog."Let all who are able, cut them down, slaughter and stab them, openly or in secret, and remember that there is nothing more poisonous, noxious and utterly devilish than a rebel… For we are come upon such strange times that a prince may more easily win heaven by the shedding of blood than others by prayers.
Urged on by their spiritual leader, the nobles and their armies suppressed the revolts with great savagery. In all more than 100,000 peasants were slain.
 
O.S.Luke said:
I don’t think anyone, regardless of faith/communion/denomination, can interpret Scripture on their own. They can only do so thru the power of the Holy Spirit.
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Hello Pastor. In your line of work, I suspect that you run into people who believe that are interpreting scripture (or acting in general) through the power of the Holy Spirit. There are some people on the Internet that believe the Holy Spirit is spurring them on with their neo-Nazi beliefs.
How would do you counsel people who think they are acting through the power of the Holy Spirit but might not be correct?
 
MagicKirk said:
This follows my last post. I believe that I read some negative material about Luther on CAF. I just did a search for the post. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to put the post in a quoted box if I’m not responding to it, but a link to the thread is as follows:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=3815229&highlight=luther+slaughter+peasants#post3815229

The information concerning Luther (quoting the poster) is as follows:
Most of the other Reformers. Luther, Knox, Zwingli, also burnt, hung, drowned or otherwise executed their opponents.
One would expect leaders of a new movement “reforming” the Church and supposedly correcting the “errors” of the historic Church to be beyond reproach in their behaviour and Christian lives. But what do we see? The opposite.
Luther was well known for his hot temper, pride and violent language, rather than for his saintliness and humility. He 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.
PEASANTS REVOLT
Inspired by the writings of Luther and others, which declared the Freedom of the Christian Man, and led by Thomas Muntzer, an ex-pupil of Luther’s, German peasants demanded to be freed from Serfdom, joining in the Great Peasants Revolt. They hoped for Luther’s support. But Luther owed his protection and high position to the German aristocrats. So instead, in a pamphlet entitled Against the Murderous Peasants, Luther told the princes and the nobility that it was right and lawful to slay at the first opportunity a rebellious person, "just as one must slay a mad dog."Let all who are able, cut them down, slaughter and stab them, openly or in secret, and remember that there is nothing more poisonous, noxious and utterly devilish than a rebel… For we are come upon such strange times that a prince may more easily win heaven by the shedding of blood than others by prayers.
Urged on by their spiritual leader, the nobles and their armies suppressed the revolts with great savagery. In all more than 100,000 peasants were slain.
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Luther never killed anyone – but yes when free of the Roman church there was a short revolt were many were killed (which Luther was himself sickened by). May I ask, how many were killed in the Inquisition?

Do you think revolution is ever an easy or painless endeavor? Essentially your argument is the pinnacle of straw man arguments. I fail to see the relevance of any of this.

Frankly I like to see when someone who disagrees with my view resorts to dragging the straw men out of closet 😃
 
MagicKirk said:
Hello Sola. I am wondering whether you are comparing apples and oranges. I don’t think there is anyone on CAF who does not agree that there were some bad popes. However, none of those popes ever altered the Church’s teachings on faith or morals. They could not have done so because the Church has been protected by the Holy Spirit for 2,000 years. Had any errant teachings on faith and morals been made, it would have meant that Christ was wrong when he promised us that the fires of hell would not prevail against his Church. I am sure that everyone agrees that Christ could not have been wrong.
While bad popes never affected the faith or morals of the Church, Luther, on the other hand, changed more (for Protestants) than any Pope ever had (with the exception of Peter).
Since Luther was the first Protestant leader, perhaps you should be comparing him to the first Catholic Pope - St. Peter. That would be comparing apples to apples. I don’t think that Luther stands up in the comparison.
I am no expert on Luther, but I believe that he incited the massacre of Catholic peasants. If I am incorrect on this point, please let me know.
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There’s no evidence that Peter was ever even a bishop at Rome let alone it’s Pope. If you would like to try & prove it to me … I’m all ears?
 
sola_scriptura said:
Luther never killed anyone – but yes when free of the Roman church there was a short revolt were many were killed (which Luther was himself sickened by). May I ask, how many were killed in the Inquisition?

Do you think revolution is ever an easy or painless endeavor? Essentially your argument is the pinnacle of straw man arguments. I fail to see the relevance of any of this.
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Hello again Sola. In answer to the question YOU are asking here, Wikipedia states that the toll of heresy cases tried by the Spanish Inquisition between 1540 and 1700 at 44,647. As I’m sure you know, the deaths were due to the Spanish monarchy and not the Catholic church. That is half of the number of peasants killed in the revolt that you mentioned.

In regard to the “relevance to any of this,” I will drop it since it is off topic. Please note, however, that I was only trying to answer the question you had posed in your previous thread. Perhaps it was only a rhetorical question.
 
Reformed said:
The Mormon Churches uses that same exact terminology of “fullness of the gospel, the fullnes of Christ’s teaching”. The Mormon Church makes very similar claims as Roman Catholicism. Check it out:

mormon.org/mormonorg/eng/basic-beliefs/the-restoration-of-truth/the-great-apostasy
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Wow, you are ridiculous. Anyone with a brain knows that the the so-called “Book of Mormon” was created in the 1800s. The Catholic Church was started by Christ when he told Peter that he was the “Rock” on which he founded it.

newadvent.org/cathen/03744a.htm
 
Reformed said:
The Mormon Churches uses that same exact terminology of “fullness of the gospel, the fullnes of Christ’s teaching”. The Mormon Church makes very similar claims as Roman Catholicism.
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Hello Reformed. I am not sure what point that you are making with this (also I thought that you wanted to stay on topic… but this does seem to require a response).

The Mormon church uses the exact terminology because it is very compelling. They took that terminology from the Catholic church. Protestant churches use terminology such as the Trinity. They took that (non-scriptural - so, perhaps I am on topic) from the Catholic church. I certainly don’t equate mainstream Protestantism with Mormonism, but your point almost seems to make such a suggestion.😉
 
sola_scriptura said:
Luther never killed anyone – but yes when free of the Roman church there was a short revolt were many were killed (which Luther was himself sickened by). May I ask, how many were killed in the Inquisition?

Do you think revolution is ever an easy or painless endeavor? Essentially your argument is the pinnacle of straw man arguments. I fail to see the relevance of any of this.

Frankly I like to see when someone who disagrees with my view resorts to dragging the straw men out of closet 😃
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Luther and antisemitism
He advocated setting synagogues on fire, destroying Jewish prayerbooks, forbidding rabbis from preaching, seizing Jews’ property and money, smashing up their homes, and ensuring that these “poisonous envenomed worms” be forced into labor or expelled “for all time.”[86] He also seemed to sanction their murder,[87] writing "We are at fault in not slaying them.
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Radicals and Peasants
At first Luther was noncommittal; he recognized that many of the peasants’ grievances were genuine, but as the peasants indulged in indiscriminate pillaging he realized tue danger to his own cause and turned against them with extraordinary venom. Prices, he urged, could better merit heaven by smiting, slaying and stabbing rebellious subjects than by prayer. It was said that over 100,000 peasants were killed in battle or executed afterward, and crippling fines were laid upon those who escaped with their lives. From this time the peasantry ceased to count in German politics; princes and magnates had vindicated their power once and for all. Where the revolt had been most vigorous, in Bohemia and Austria, the savage reprisals alienated the peasantry from Luther and the decline of Lutheranism in southern Germany dates from the crushing defeat of the Revolt rather than from the Counter-Reformation.
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Martin Luther caused the deaths of many…

May the peace of the Lord be with you,
Prodigal Son1
 
Reformed said:
I think you need to consider John chapter 3 and 1 Cor chapter 2. Please read those two chapters and see if we agree on these essential biblical truths in relation to your post. Remember, I am a Calvinist and believe all mankind is born into this world spirituality dead, and unable to receive spiritual truths in the flesh.
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Thank you reformed. I think we can only agree in part. The condition of man in relation to the revelation of Christ in our culture is not like the people that surrounded the Christ event. Consider this passage that very much supports your view
Luke 7-29

29 And all the people hearing, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with John’s baptism. 30 But the Pharisees and the lawyers despised the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized by him.

Now Baptism isn’t given that kind of credit in our culture because our culture is indoctrinated in the kind of concepts that required a special likeness in disposition to John back then.

The rebirth in the Holy Spirit as well as the reception of spiritual truth are thought of as the ability of the intellect to apprehend spiritual realities by many folks. Not sure if that’s the case with you. I don’t doubt you distinguish understanding a spiritual reality from believing it and believing it from living them in faith.

For me what is being taught in it’s deepest sense is being able to ‘know’ God in the way Jesus meant when He taught that knowing God is the source of human fulfillment.

Knowledge in it’s deepest revealed sense. Knowledge as a Union of likeness. This is the boundary that man can’t in of himself cross today. Otherwise in a culture dechristianized as ours is, the concepts can be understood without God’s direct action. In fact the truth’s that Christ brought us are being possessed by anti-christians and being claimed as natural to man.
 
sola_scriptura said:
Not more than the RCC (ever hear the word Inquisition or Crusades)?

No where near the number of the RCC. Again, the straw men are pouring out of the closet.
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I’ll be the first to admit that there were “men” who sinned, does that mean we throw the baby out with the bathwater? If that were so, Jesus picked Judas, or how about all those that abandoned the Lord and walked with him no more in John chapter 6? Do we abandon Christ for the sins of men? Certainly not.

You’re the one posting, Luther didn’t kill anyone, which is incorrect.

When Martin Luther schismed under the defense of sola scriptura, almost immediately his followers broke away and started their own Churches of course under the defense of sola scriptura. Martin Luther threatened death to try and stop those schisms. Irony, huh?

I just wanted to provide you another perspective you evidently haven’t heard about Luther.

May the peace of the Lord be with you,
Prodigal Son1
 
sola_scriptura said:
Frankly I like to see when someone who disagrees with my view resorts to dragging the straw men out of closet 😃
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Hello again Sola. When you suggested that I had established a straw man argument I let it go. However, I just saw that you suggested another person did the same.

I just wanted to make sure that you know what a straw man argument is. A straw man argument is side-stepping an answer by distorting the other person’s position.

In this case you stated: Luther never never killed anyone.

There are others on the forum that are much more knowledgeable about Luther than I am, but I did attempt to address your argument directly.

…so I guess that I’m not sure why that bothers you.
 
Actually it is Reformed who should be saying that I made a straw man argument (which I did - but I inserted a 😉 after it)
 
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