The key to showing the error of Protestantism

[inocente]

See also Pope Benedict’s General Audience from 11/19/2008.

“For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love.” - w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081119.html

Thanks for posting that. Benedict speaks of the fear in Paul’s time of Israel’s identity being subsumed by Hellenic culture; and the Pharisees erecting a wall of legalism as a defense. A wall Paul sees as no longer necessary in the presence of Christ: “it is Christ who unites us with and in the one God; it is Christ who guarantees our true identity within the diversity of cultures. The wall is no longer necessary; our common identity within the diversity of cultures is Christ, and it is he who makes us just. Being just simply means being with Christ and in Christ. And this suffices. Further observances are no longer necessary. For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love.”

Presumably Benedict saw the obvious parallel with those who want to build walls today, and was intent on knocking them down.

 

[Peter_J]

Open for anyone.

What “changes” did Luther make to the Bible that aren’t part of the natural process of translation and that the Catholic Church in his day would disagree with?

I’m afraid that wasn’t covered in any of my Sunday school classes.

 

[steido01]

I’m afraid that wasn’t covered in any of my Sunday school classes.

And it usually won’t be. Sadly, however, both sides often find it worthwhile to regurgitate tired polemics to their impressionable children. And so we see it manifest in Internet forums. I try to follow Pope Benedict’s example (though I often fail) in that respect and seek commonality in Christ.

 

[Duane1966]

When Rome excommunicated him, they also excommunicated their authority over him

Nothing is further from the truth. If I were excommunicated, Rome would still have authority over me, whether I acknowledge it, or not.

 

[PRmerger]

Nothing is further from the truth. If I were excommunicated, Rome would still have authority over me, whether I acknowledge it, or not.

Yep.

As a parallel: even if Muslims are outside of the Body of Christ, Christ still has authority over them.

 

[epostle]

 

[Porknpie]

. For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love."

Presumably Benedict saw the obvious parallel with those who want to build walls today, and was intent on knocking them down.

As scripture states: Abraham’s faith was made complete by works (faith working in charity, love).

A faith devoid of works, charity, love, is incomplete. And an incomplete faith can not save.

14 What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? No.

 

[inocente]

As scripture states: Abraham’s faith was made complete by works (faith working in charity, love).

A faith devoid of works, charity, love, is incomplete. And an incomplete faith can not save.

14 What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? No.

It was Pope Benedict who said ‘For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true’, and he explained why in the linked article.

 

[AmbroseSJ]

It was Pope Benedict who said ‘For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true’, and he explained why in the linked article.

And as you previously noted it says: “For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love.”

A VERY Important qualifier made by Pope Benedict. Therefore works are STILL necessary, for without them, there is NO love, and Faith is empty, a clanging cymbal.

Pope Benedict says: “Further observances are no longer necessary.”

Observance of THE LAW is what is being referred to, NOT works. Just as St. Paul himself stressed often.

 

[inocente]

And as you previously noted it says: “For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love.”

A VERY Important qualifier made by Pope Benedict. Therefore works are STILL necessary, for without them, there is NO love, and Faith is empty, a clanging cymbal.

Pope Benedict says: “Further observances are no longer necessary.”

Observance of THE LAW is what is being referred to, NOT works. Just as St. Paul himself stressed often.

And he managed to SAY it without shouting.

 

[Porknpie]

It was Pope Benedict who said ‘For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true’, and he explained why in the linked article.

Yes, I believe the Pope is being consistent with the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification.

As well as the Catechism.

 

[JonNC]

Originally Posted by** inocente **
It was Pope Benedict who said ‘For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true’, and he explained why in the linked article.

And as you previously noted it says: “For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love.”

A VERY Important qualifier made by Pope Benedict. Therefore works are STILL necessary, for without them, there is NO love, and Faith is empty, a clanging cymbal.

Pope Benedict says: “Further observances are no longer necessary.”

Observance of THE LAW is what is being referred to, NOT works. Just as St. Paul himself stressed often.

I believe Pope Benedict may have had in mind Luther’s commentary on Galatians 5:6 when he made that comment:

** Faith must of course be sincere. It must be a faith that performs good works through love. If faith lacks love it is not true faith. Thus the Apostle bars the way of hypocrites to the kingdom of Christ on all sides. He declares on the one hand, “In Christ Jesus circumcision availeth nothing,” i.e., works avail nothing, but faith alone, and that without any merit whatever, avails before God. On the other hand, the Apostle declares that without fruits faith serves no purpose. To think, “If faith justifies without works, let us work nothing,” is to despise the grace of God. Idle faith is not justifying faith. In this terse manner Paul presents the whole life of a Christian. Inwardly it consists in faith towards God, outwardly in love towards our fellow-men. **

You see, I think Pope Benedict knows all along that the proper understanding of sola fide is what Luther says here. Pope Benedict seems to be addressing this sharp reminder to non-Catholics, lest we forget and fall into cheap grace.

Jon

 

[JonNC]

So you are saying that the efforts of Pope Damasus to convene Carthage, and the efforts of Augustine and the bishops who met with him debated and discussed, and settled on a canon later submitted to the pope for sending to the other churches…was a complete waste of time and effort since what they did at Carthage could be in error and was not an ecumenical council…

Actually, not at all. In fact I give thanks to God for it. In many respects, Carthage, Hippo, and Rome set in place a significant parameter for what the universal Church today draws from. To be sure, there are some who think there are more, and some who think there are less, but Carthage and these others are incredibly important.

But your question, again, reveals a misunderstanding of what I’m saying in response to this thread.

1. That Luther had every Catholic liberty to state his opinion regarding the canon, and that some Catholics like to set up a double standard, implying that what was okay for people such as Cajetan was not okay for Luther.
2. That Luther’s opinion of the DC’s as not being at the level of the rest f the canon was not a convenient exclusion based his personal doctrinal beliefs. He states his views in his prefaces to these books. No one seems to be able to show the doctrines in Judith that he objects to, or in Wisdom, or in Sirach, or in 1 Macc, etc. And the reason is that doctrine is not the reason he doesn’t see these books as on the level with the rest of scripture.

As I’ve said, there is enough for Catholics to argue against Luther based on what he actually said without making things up, or accusing him of motives for which no evidence is presented.

Jon

 

[PRmerger]

Actually, not at all. In fact I give thanks to God for it. In many respects, Carthage, Hippo, and Rome set in place a significant parameter for what the universal Church today draws from. To be sure, there are some who think there are more, and some who think there are less, but Carthage and these others are incredibly important.

But your question, again, reveals a misunderstanding of what I’m saying in response to this thread.

1. That Luther had every Catholic liberty to state his opinion regarding the canon,

No.

Just like you would not accept the opinions of your pastor deciding that the Epistles of St. Paul are not theopneustos, so, to, should we not accept the opinions of Luther on the canon.

NB: we are not talking about “liberty” in the sense of free will. For, of course, I have the liberty to cheat on my spouse…but that’s not something that should be embraced and endorsed.

 

[AmbroseSJ]

1) That Luther had every Catholic liberty to state his opinion regarding the canon, and that some Catholics like to set up a double standard, implying that what was okay for people such as Cajetan was not okay for Luther.

I think you are drawing a false comparison. Although Cajetan may have been centuries ahead of his time in Biblical scholarship, he never questioned the canon. In fact he was one of the chief opponents of Luther and the Reformation. He was loyal to the Pope, and all that the Church teaches. That alone makes the comparison false.

 

[JonNC]

No.

Just like you would not accept the opinions of your pastor deciding that the Epistles of St. Paul are not theopneustos, so, to, should we not accept the opinions of Luther on the canon.

NB: we are not talking about “liberty” in the sense of free will. For, of course, I have the liberty to cheat on my spouse…but that’s not something that should be embraced and endorsed.

Where did I say you have to accept his opinion? I said you have to argue against, disagree with his actual opinions, not some polemic someone makes up about him.

To the liberty of Catholics to question the canon to adultery is disingenuous, and far below my experience with you, PR. Unless you are willing to apply that to Jerome, Erasmus, Cajetan and countless others. Do you think these guys had to go to confession for their views?

 

[PRmerger]

Where did I say you have to accept his opinion? I said you have to argue against, disagree with his actual opinions, not some polemic someone makes up about him.

He had no right to do what he did.

No more than your current pastor does today.

In fact, everything that Luther did (which got him in trouble), you would object to if your pastor did.

To the liberty of Catholics to question the canon to adultery is disingenuous, and far below my experience with you, PR.

It’s quite apropos, Jon. It speaks to whether we’re talking about “liberty” in the context of free will.

Unless you are willing to apply that to Jerome, Erasmus, Cajetan and countless others. Do you think these guys had to go to confession for their views?

Perhaps you can offer some quotes as to what you’re referencing with Jerome, Erasmus and Cajetan?

 

[JonNC]

I think you are drawing a false comparison. Although Cajetan may have been centuries ahead of his time in Biblical scholarship, he never questioned the canon. In fact he was one of the chief opponents of Luther and the Reformation. He was loyal to the Pope, and all that the Church teaches. That alone makes the comparison false.

Yes, he was loyal to the pope, was a chief opponent of Luther, and had a very similar view of the canon.

Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament. For the rest (that is, Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees) are counted by St Jerome out of the canonical books, and are placed amongst the Apocrypha, along with Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, as is plain from the Prologus Galeatus. Nor be thou disturbed, like a raw scholar, if thou shouldest find anywhere, either in the sacred councils or the sacred doctors, these books reckoned as canonical. For the words as well of councils as of doctors are to be reduced to the correction of Jerome. Now, according to his judgment, in the epistle to the bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, these books (and any other like books in the canon of the Bible) are not canonical, that is, not in the nature of a rule for confirming matters of faith. Yet, they may be called canonical, that is, in the nature of a rule for the edification of the faithful, as being received and authorised in the canon of the Bible for that purpose. By the help of this distinction thou mayest see thy way clearly through that which Augustine says, and what is written in the provincial council of Carthage.”

Jon

 

[AmbroseSJ]

Yes, he was loyal to the pope, was a chief opponent of Luther, and had a very similar view of the canon.

Jon

That quote is not to your purpose. Not to mention, it has no citation and is taken out of context.

Be that as it may, you have failed to show any comparison between Luther moving canonical books of the Bible into the “Apocrypha” (IOW, not inspired God Breathed Scripture,) and what Cajetan says, which is no more than what Bible Scholars today have been saying, both in Catholic and Protestant bibles. But no one today is moving books OUT of the canon and INTO the Apocrypha. And even in the past, Luther is the sole example of such presumption.

It is well known that St. Jerome did doubt the canonicity of some of those books of the Bible, but entirely deferred to Catholic teaching when Carthage and the Pope ratified their canonicity. Something Luther defiantly refused to do after 1000 years of Church reception.

 

[PRmerger]

But no one today is moving books OUT of the canon and INTO the Apocrypha. And even in the past, Luther is the sole example of such presumption.

He was a priest. Not even a bishop, anointed as a successor of the Apostles.

I wish to iterate, again, that what Luther did to the Catholic Church is what every orthodox Lutheran today would condemn, were it done to their own ecclesial communion.

It is well known that St. Jerome did doubt the canonicity of some of those books of the Bible, but entirely deferred to Catholic teaching when Carthage and the Pope ratified their canonicity. Something Luther defiantly refused to do after 1000 years of Church reception.

And that is precisely the key.