Was the Protestant Reformation, in a sense, good?

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Yes, Protestantism did bring a lot of bad. It created multiple heretical theology’s. It divided Christianity into an uncountable number of sects. It started some wars between Catholics and Protestants and even among Protestants themselves due to so much division. But, did it also have some good effects?

Many say the Protestant reformation led to the enlightenment and help people open their minds more to new ideas. Although, this too brought some bad (Atheism, French Revolution, Napoleon) it brought much good with it. America was founded upon enlightenment ideas. These ideas include things such as separation of Church and state, freedom to practice any religion, freedom of speech, etc. In fact, Protestantism itself kind of forced certain country’s before the enlightenment took off to start allowing for religious freedom or at least limited forms of it.

Protestantism also brought attention to many of the abuses within the Church. Abuses such as the selling of Indulgences were finally stopped.

So, was Protestantism in a way kind of good? Does the good out weigh the bad or does the bad out weigh the good? Also, please do not misunderstand. I do not in anyway shape or form want to become Protestant. I love the Catholic faith and hope to practice it until the day I die. I accept all teachings put forward by the Catholic Church and do not see myself rejecting the Church any time soon.
In order to understand history, you have to take yourself out of the time you are living in and step into the world Luther lived in. Transposing 21st century thought and attitudes is not really a good way of understanding the 1500s.
Let’s take a few things into consideration:
  1. By the 1500s Europe had finally overcome the effects of the Black Plague, which took a toll of millions of Europeans. The 1500s were the result of a “baby boom” that brought a new era in Europe after centuries of plague and war. Immigrants were part of that boom. As many of them settled in Europe after these events took place.
  2. This “new generation”, like the Boomers of the 1960s, wanted to throw off many of what they considered to be the “Medieval chains” around them. To overlook the radical “movements” that would transform Europe in the centuries after, is not a clear picture.
    3.These movements eventually led to, not just the Reformation, but the Enlightenment as well, and many strides in science, technology and exploration. The good came with the bad.
If you only see the 1500s through the Reformation only, you are only getting part of the picture. It was much bigger than that.
 
The so-called “Enlightenment” ushered in a new world religion, as recognised by Pope Paul VI in closing the Second Vatican Council: “At the Council” he said, "the religion of God made man” had encountered “the religion of man aspiring to be God.”

“This new ‘world religion’ is in its deepest roots and in many of its practical objectives a Christian heresy.”

“When wrenched from their Christian context and raised to the status of absolutes, the notions to which the children of the Enlightenment give priority, such as liberty and equality, no matter how good in themselves, can receive a quite different significance and even become appallingly destructive….”
[Philip Trower, *The Catholic Church And The Counter-Faith, Family Publications, Oxford, 2006, p 18-21].

From Dr Benjamin Wiker (Ten Books Every Conservative Must Read).
Thomas Hobbes was the first modern thinker to systematically attack the notion that there is any natural moral order. He argued that the words “good” and “evil” are merely descriptions of our own individual likes and dislikes – he was thus the father of modern relativism.

Hobbes felt that the idea of moral truths meant that they would be fought for and so were the cause of all war. In such a relativistic world tyranny he thought that would be required to keep the peace and so is the father of modern absolutism and modern liberalism in politics. As Philip Trower has written: “After Descartes had philosophically shut men up inside their minds, the English philosopher John Locke redecorated the prison’s interior, the Scott David Hume locked the door and the Prussian Immanuel Kant through away the key.” (The Catholic Church And The Counter-Faith, Family Publications, Oxford, 2006, p 73).
tothesource.org/10_6_2010/10_6_2010.htm

Jean-Jacques Rousseau favored a small and manageable state and theorized that the never-ending task of large states would be attempts to implement the “general will” of the populace and prevent factions as much as possible. This has resulted in a strong movement among Western European nations toward the “welfare state.” Even many members of European “conservative” political parties would not favour the abolition of some entitlements that U.S. libertarians would consider socialistic.
 
Maybe they were just abiding to the order from the Council of Trent discussed on the previous pages that was not rescinded. It said everyone needs written permission to own a Bible. I understand from Duane 1966 that this is not practiced in most places, but is still binding for Catholics.
Again, read carefully what was written. People needed written permission to read the bible in the vernacular. They did NOT need permission in writing for a bible in Latin.

If you know anything about pre-Vatican II Latin Rite Catholicism, you probably know that Latin was then, and still is now, the official language of the Church. All Masses were said in Latin. It is **INCONCEIVABLE ** (nod to The Princess Bride) that those seminarians, who had to learn Latin as a pre-requisite to celebrate Mass, would not have access to a Latin bible to study from. And in those seminaries, they for sure prayed the Psalms. So not reading the Old Testament in the seminaries also is INCONCEIVABLE, as another poster alleged.
 
The so-called “Enlightenment” ushered in a new world religion, as recognised by Pope Paul VI in closing the Second Vatican Council: “At the Council” he said, "the religion of God made man” had encountered “the religion of man aspiring to be God.”

“This new ‘world religion’ is in its deepest roots and in many of its practical objectives a Christian heresy.”

“When wrenched from their Christian context and raised to the status of absolutes, the notions to which the children of the Enlightenment give priority, such as liberty and equality, no matter how good in themselves, can receive a quite different significance and even become appallingly destructive….”
[Philip Trower, *The Catholic Church And The Counter-Faith
, Family Publications, Oxford, 2006, p 18-21].

From Dr Benjamin Wiker (Ten Books Every Conservative Must Read).
Thomas Hobbes was the first modern thinker to systematically attack the notion that there is any natural moral order. He argued that the words “good” and “evil” are merely descriptions of our own individual likes and dislikes – he was thus the father of modern relativism.

Hobbes felt that the idea of moral truths meant that they would be fought for and so were the cause of all war. In such a relativistic world tyranny he thought that would be required to keep the peace and so is the father of modern absolutism and modern liberalism in politics. As Philip Trower has written: “After Descartes had philosophically shut men up inside their minds, the English philosopher John Locke redecorated the prison’s interior, the Scott David Hume locked the door and the Prussian Immanuel Kant through away the key.” (The Catholic Church And The Counter-Faith, Family Publications, Oxford, 2006, p 73).
tothesource.org/10_6_2010/10_6_2010.htm

Jean-Jacques Rousseau favored a small and manageable state and theorized that the never-ending task of large states would be attempts to implement the “general will” of the populace and prevent factions as much as possible. This has resulted in a strong movement among Western European nations toward the “welfare state.” Even many members of European “conservative” political parties would not favour the abolition of some entitlements that U.S. libertarians would consider socialistic.

Yes, the Enlightenment gave us Hobbes and Descartes and Locke and Hume and Kant and Rousseau. Wonderful.

And the conservative Western European parties that favour the welfare state are predominantly the Christian Democrats, motivated by Catholic social teaching.
 
I don’t think Catholics can discredit Scriptures role as guiding the Church long before the Canon was established. That is overreacting to the heterodox within SS.
I wasn’t discrediting scripture. I was trying to explain that until canon was chosen and written down into the new testament part of the bible, it was passed down orally, first with the apostles, then with their successors.
 
Hey, I just realized that when they pruned this thread they removed my wonderful snarky comment. :mad: I don’t mind them removing other people’s snarky comments, but they sure did wrong in removing mine. :tsktsk:
 
Hey, I just realized that when they pruned this thread they removed my wonderful snarky comment. :mad: I don’t mind them removing other people’s snarky comments, but they sure did wrong in removing mine. :tsktsk:
I discovered it was locked when I tried to edit a typo, now excised.

So it makes me look less fallible.
 
Again, read carefully what was written. People needed written permission to read the bible in the vernacular. They did NOT need permission in writing for a bible in Latin.

If you know anything about pre-Vatican II Latin Rite Catholicism, you probably know that Latin was then, and still is now, the official language of the Church. All Masses were said in Latin. It is **INCONCEIVABLE ** (nod to The Princess Bride) that those seminarians, who had to learn Latin as a pre-requisite to celebrate Mass, would not have access to a Latin bible to study from. And in those seminaries, they for sure prayed the Psalms. So not reading the Old Testament in the seminaries also is INCONCEIVABLE, as another poster alleged.
These are the kinds of things that take a genuine, non-bias approach to discerning.

It’s easy to look back at pre-Vat2 and see that things needed to be changed. And they were. Probably later than the Church would have liked too. That’s a struggle the Church doesn’t seem to do well with a lot

But the Latin dominant form had its purpose for a long time. Did it get to be stifling after a time? I would think so.

Reform is constant. The Reformation raised very legitimate concerns, regarding both abuses and practices. But obviously the Reformers did not all speak as a unified mind (considering there was as many as 40 splits of communion during Luther’s time alone. So the Church could not comply with them all no matter what. Maybe the only thing they were unified about, was they did not want to give the Bishop of Rome an authoritive judgment (any longer)?

Trent took a long long time. But it dealt with many issues and provided a lot of decisions with a very large council.
 
I wasn’t discrediting scripture. I was trying to explain that until canon was chosen and written down into the new testament part of the bible, it was passed down orally, first with the apostles, then with their successors.
But Scripture WAS relied on before the canon, and the same as it has since. The Reformers rightly looked to Scripture for direction, but wrongly rejected the Bishop of Rome’s role in Church discernment of Scripture.
 
Hey, I just realized that when they pruned this thread they removed my wonderful snarky comment. :mad: I don’t mind them removing other people’s snarky comments, but they sure did wrong in removing mine. :tsktsk:
I’m open to un-deleting a post that might have had a great insightful thought. But snarky is beyond even my control.
😉
 
As Philip Trower points out there is a widely assumed connection between the Enlightenment and its associated atheism and the development of modern science and technology, failing to recognise the reality that it is in the West that science developed due to the reason and faith of the Catholic Church.
 
But Scripture WAS relied on before the canon, and the same as it has since. The Reformers rightly looked to Scripture for direction, but wrongly rejected the Bishop of Rome’s role in Church discernment of Scripture.
They also had tradition, which is rejected by many because it’s “not in the bible” such as how the structure of the mass came about or baptism including children. That’s why I like the didache. It’s like the early church catechism.
 
As Philip Trower points out there is a widely assumed connection between the Enlightenment and its associated atheism and the development of modern science and technology, failing to recognise the reality that it is in the West that science developed due to the reason and faith of the Catholic Church.
It takes an established, wealthy society to support a class of people whose function is to study, to think, and to experiment. That is no doubt why science owes so much to classical pagan Greeks, mediaeval Muslim Arabs and modern Christian Westerners.
 
It takes an established, wealthy society to support a class of people whose function is to study, to think, and to experiment. That is no doubt why science owes so much to classical pagan Greeks, mediaeval Muslim Arabs and modern Christian Westerners.
Could be a touch of the Chinese, also.
 
I was a noodle to overlook the Chinese.
I can’t say I used my noodle in suggesting it. I once, from college to a few years after, had a focus on the history of the development of science, one of the driving forces of the book collection at the time. Piles of that enthusiasm still reside in the storage areas, but it is only the odd generality that I can recall without looking stuff up.
 
Picky Picky #100
science owes so much to classical pagan Greeks, mediaeval Muslim Arabs and modern Christian Westerners.
GKC #103
it is only the odd generality that I can recall without looking stuff up.
The eminent Fr Stanley Jaki stresses that we do not see the flowering of formal and sustained scientific inquiry emerging from the other cultures’ sometimes impressive technology. (Thomas E Woods, How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, 2005, p 77).

“The earlier technical innovations of Greco-Roman times, of Islam, of imperial China, let alone those of pre-historic times, do not constitute science and are better described as lore, skills, wisdom, techniques, crafts, technologies, engineering, learning, or simply knowledge.” (For the Glory of God, Rodney Stark, Princeton University Press, 2003, p 125).
 
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