Was the reformation bound to happen ?

[rinnie]

Luther was driven out of the Roman Catholic Church because of his stand as stated in the 95 Theses.

I see nothing that conflicts with the Bible in the document.

How about his Baptismal Regeneration!

 

[KathleenGee]

Luther’s 45 point thesis was basically condemned, but no particular point singled out.

Many of the populace of Germany with Luther were leaving the Catholic Church. Luther did indeed reject the succession of apostolic teaching, which is incorrect, and his own opposition to indulgences was not right because he was ignoring their purpose–the remission of sin and greater conversion and sanctification in God…not paying one’s way into heaven…that is judging by exterior…and if you asked any Catholic in those days, to see if they believed they could pay their way into heaven through indulgences, they would deny it.

Catholics look to Scripture from the context of its whole, not bits, phrases, passages…it is the history of a faith of peoples…so you have to also look at events, dates, and surrounding circumstances.

If reformation had been addressed to the papacy itself, if anything, the effects of the Reformation – the dismantling of Christianity through personal Biblical interpretation that St. Peter warned us about, would not have happened.

There were also miscommunications and missives in those days as well.

When I look at all the different cultures and local church traditions within Catholicism, all the more it is necessary that we have intact the Rock of Peter…the sign of unity and communion. I think it is very common for non-catholics to see the papacy as a semi-god, rather than as the great sign of unity.

The more one studies our liturgy and practices, one will see just how much Catholicism is based on the Word of God…but it is the Word Made Flesh. And Scripture is most clear that Christ believes Himself to be the Bread from Heaven, His context regarding the Eucharist provided in John before the Last Supper where He then expounds, This is my Body, This is my Blood’…

To simply say, Jesus saves, but not live a life of self-denial and interior recollection of Christ ever before us…is too simple and easy for me. We must do our part to enter the kingdom…which is the Pearl of Great Price…

 

[guanophore]

Why wasn’t Luther killed then ? Why or who spared him

Luther was protected by the German nobility, who wanted to support his defiance against Rome. Too much of German assets found their way to Rome, and the nobility, as well as the peasants, wanted them to stay local.

On the way home from the Diet, he was kidnapped by a supporters soldiers, who hid him in a castle, and did not tell the duke? where he was, so that he would not be held responsible for harboring him.

Basically, there was more local support to defend him than there were assasins to find him.

 

[Mark_David]

Luther was driven out of the Roman Catholic Church because of his stand as stated in the 95 Theses.

I see nothing that conflicts with the Bible in the document.

That’s the thing, though: Christ’s Church is the authoritative interpreter of Scripture; not you, or me, or Martin Luther. Christ made sure this was the case when He made St. Peter the first Pope - so that we would know the Truth from the heresies. God doesn’t want us to be confused about Scripture. Luther was excommunicated for good reason.

 

[Stepson]

Luther was protected by the German nobility, who wanted to support his defiance against Rome. Too much of German assets found their way to Rome, and the nobility, as well as the peasants, wanted them to stay local.

On the way home from the Diet, he was kidnapped by a supporters soldiers, who hid him in a castle, and did not tell the duke? where he was, so that he would not be held responsible for harboring him.

Basically, there was more local support to defend him than there were assasins to find him.

Why do you think that Charles the V ordered his troops not to disturb Luther’s remains when they entered the town a year after his death? I thought it was a common practice to burn a heretic’s remains?

 

[guanophore]

Guanophore, psychological analyses of Luther to attempt to prove him wrong do not impress me. It is about principle–you can try to explain his motivations all you want, but it ultimately comes down to whether he was justified. I think he was. You never will. We will never agree.

JonNC is right, though, the reformation is not over until unity is restored.

That is ok, since I have no desire to impress you.

I am trying to show the factors that prevented his attempts at “reformation” being successful.

Yes, there are principles involved, but just like the East /West Schism, it really had much more to do with personalities,and human arrogance than principles.

Whether he was justified doing what? You see, no amount of injustice can excuse bad behavior. His writings against the Jews and to the German nobles about the peasants are appalling. These documents, and their outcomes, demonstrate that the anger of a man does not serve the righteousness of God.

If we are, as Jon points out, to bring this Reformation to completion (restore unity) then we have to be willing to separate the principles from the persons. Leo, according to the testimony of history, was created a cardinal at the age of 13! and it had nothing do to with precocious childhood holiness, either. He was a Medici, and later, when he was pope, sold offices in the Church along the same lines as he entered his. The German bishop paid a very high price for his office, which is why the sale of the indulgences was encouraged. If Leo had been more interested in shepherding the flock than in collecting and producing art, the Reformation may have been avoided. Who knows?

Luther’s anger, Tetzel’s avarice, Leo’s sense of himself as a patron of the arts and some sort of all powerful secular ruler, all these factors contributed to the fracturing of the Body.

 

[Nicea325]

Just wondering if Luther hadn’t presented his thesis that day, and kicked off the reformation, was the reformation bound to happen anyway?

Yes it was bound to happen due to corruption by some within the church. However,many associate reform with failure within the walls of Catholicism. Not necessarily. Reform is also used as a method of improvement.

 

[1voice]

Luther’s anger, Tetzel’s avarice, Leo’s sense of himself as a patron of the arts and some sort of all powerful secular ruler, all these factors contributed to the fracturing of the Body.

It fascinates me how it is the cookie cutter pattern to minimize the blatant evil that was, and is, overlooked in favor of demonizing the messenger.

I detect no anger in this statement of Martin Luther’s as quoted by Elvisman above

“I never approved of a schism, nor will I approve of it for all eternity. . . . That the Roman Church is more honored by God than all others is not to be doubted. St, Peter and St. Paul, forty-six Popes, some hundreds of thousands of martyrs, have laid down their lives in its communion, having overcome Hell and the world; so that the eyes of God rest on the Roman church with special favor. Though nowadays everything is in a wretched state, it is no ground for separating from the Church. On the contrary, the worse things are going, the more should we hold close to her, for it is not by separating from the Church that we can make her better. We must not separate from God on account of any work of the devil, nor cease to have fellowship with the children of God who are still abiding in the pale of Rome on account of the multitude of the ungodly. There is no sin, no amount of evil, which should be permitted to dissolve the bond of charity or break the bond of unity of the body. For love can do all things, and nothing is difficult to those who are united.”

As for Leo’s blatant fleecing of the flock and his laughing and attempt at ignoring Luther when he was first informed of Luther’s concerns … that is a matter of record.

 

[JonNC]

That is ok, since I have no desire to impress you.

I am trying to show the factors that prevented his attempts at “reformation” being successful.

Yes, there are principles involved, but just like the East /West Schism, it really had much more to do with personalities,and human arrogance than principles.

Whether he was justified doing what? You see, no amount of injustice can excuse bad behavior. His writings against the Jews and to the German nobles about the peasants are appalling. These documents, and their outcomes, demonstrate that the anger of a man does not serve the righteousness of God.

**If we are, as Jon points out, to bring this Reformation to completion (restore unity) then we have to be willing to separate the principles from the persons. ** Leo, according to the testimony of history, was created a cardinal at the age of 13! and it had nothing do to with precocious childhood holiness, either. He was a Medici, and later, when he was pope, sold offices in the Church along the same lines as he entered his. The German bishop paid a very high price for his office, which is why the sale of the indulgences was encouraged. If Leo had been more interested in shepherding the flock than in collecting and producing art, the Reformation may have been avoided. Who knows?

Luther’s anger, Tetzel’s avarice, Leo’s sense of himself as a patron of the arts and some sort of all powerful secular ruler, all these factors contributed to the fracturing of the Body.

Thanks, guano. This is why sometimes a thread like this is so frustrating, because it fails to uncouple the what we believe, what we share, what we must overcome, from the characters that set this course in motion. That’s not to say that we overlook them. We sould consider them in the light of their era. There is no excuse for Luther’s anti-Judaism, or Eck’s, but neither is it a reason to snipe at each other, as we all reject their attitudes.

Whether or not the Reformation was bound to happen is, frankly, irrelevent. Relevent is what we do about it now?

Jon

 

[guanophore]

The exposition of the quote does not imply disagreement.

No one was suggesting that it did. The exposition is critical, though, to give the right understanding. Many evangelicals today have strayed even further than Luther’s “faith alone” to arrive that all their works are “filthy rags” - even the ones produced in them by God.

 

[guanophore]

Luther was driven out of the Roman Catholic Church because of his stand as stated in the 95 Theses.

I see nothing that conflicts with the Bible in the document.

Luther separated himself from the Apostolic faith, by embracing the contents of his theses.

There are many accurate statements in them, and not all of them rose to the level of excommunicating himself.

But your evaluation of them is precisely part of the problem. When you say “I see nothing that conflicts with the Bible”, what you are really saying is that, in your perception, they do not. When others with different perceptions read them, they see it differently.

This notion of Sola Scriptura was the biggest source of the problem. With it, Luther denied that God kept his promises to lead the Church into “all Truth”.

 

[josephback]

Just wondering if Luther hadn’t presented his thesis that day, and kicked off the reformation, was the reformation bound to happen anyway?

I read somewhere that he didn’t nail anything to the Church door, but actually mailed them around to friends.

The Protestant REVOLUTION (can we please use historically correct terminology?) was probably gonna happen anyway, but here’s the real question. If Luther and his followers had failed to get state support for their ideas, would it have ended differently than past heresies? Could they have survived or gained such a large following the way they did?These are the questions we need to answer.

 

[josephback]

Why do you think that Charles the V ordered his troops not to disturb Luther’s remains when they entered the town a year after his death? I thought it was a common practice to burn a heretic’s remains?

To keep the peace. Luther had a lot of popular support, and you shouldn’t go looking for fights

 

[elvisman]

I wish I could argue this. But it kind of goes back to the Bill Cosby analogy of two identical steak dinners. One served on fine china the other on a trash can lid. Which one would you want. Not to say that if Luther did handle himself differently things would not have turned out the same but a least we could not have found fault here.
What do you think Luther wanted to happen (at first) when he nailed the theses to the door? I have read where Historians think Luther was trying to spark some type of a debate amongst the theologian students. I tend to think there is merit here because Historians agree that it was a standard practice for the students to post a question or a position on the door in order to discuss something. Also Luther wrote the 95 Theses in Latin. Your below quote affirms this theory. Finally, towards the end of Luther’s life, Luther said that if he had known what a fire a single piece of paper would of started, he would have been more careful with some of the points. So in my opinion, Luther was not doing an about face when he wrote the bottom quote, he was simply affirming his actions which were reform and not fragmentation. I know when you read this, you are going to start foaming at the mouth and steam is going to come from your ears. But if this helps, I love ya man!

**Why would you say that? I never get angry on this board because I don’t personally know any of you. I simply state my case as a parrot of the Church. If you want to have charitable dialoge - painting me as an insanely out-of-control monster is not the way to do it.

That being said, I would say that it doesn’t matter why Luther nailed his theses to the door. His attitude and purpose apparently changed drastically in the years that followed. As I showed you, his words to Leo X were very favorable about the Church just a year after. 10 years later, however, in his Open Letter on Translating, he became so much more arrogant and prideful, you would have thought he was 2 different people:

“If I, Dr. Luther, had thought that all the Papists together were capable of translating even one passage of Scripture correctly and well, I would have gathered up enough humility to ask for their aid and assistance in translating the New Testament into German.”

---

“If your Papist wishes to make a great fuss about the word “alone” (sola), say this to him: ‘Dr. Martin Luther will have it so and he says that a papist and an *** are the same thing’.”

---

“Please do not give these asses any other answer to their useless braying about that word “sola” than simply ‘Luther will have it so, and he says that he is a doctor above all the papal doctors’."

---

“I know quite well how much skill, hard work, understanding and intelligence is needed for a good translation. They know it less than even the miller’s donkey for they have never tried it."

---

"I will go even further with my bragging: I can exegete the psalms and the prophets, and they cannot. I can translate, and they cannot. I can read Holy Scriptures, and they cannot. I can pray, and they cannot. Coming down to their level, I can do their dialectics and philosophy better than all of them put together. Plus I know that not one of them understands Aristotle. If, in fact, any one of them can correctly understand one part or chapter of Aristotle, I will eat my hat!"

---

These are the words of an extremely arrogant and spiritually prideful man in dire need of Christian humility for which there is simply no defense . . .

 

[guanophore]

It fascinates me how it is the cookie cutter pattern to minimize the blatant evil that was, and is, overlooked in favor of demonizing the messenger.

That is just it, though, 1voice. The Church of Christ, and the Truth of Christ, is immutable and holy. The only evil comes from the Evil One, and the messengers that have been pulled into his plan to destroy those who follow the Son of the Woman clothed with the sun.

The Church is a divine institution. It is only the fallible human part of her that gives the devil a foothold for blatant evil.

I detect no anger in this statement of Martin Luther’s as quoted by Elvisman above

No, but like anyone with a severe mood disorder, his expressions varied depending upon his mood. When you read some of his other quotes, you look back and wonder how he could have written this one!

As for Leo’s blatant fleecing of the flock and his laughing and attempt at ignoring Luther when he was first informed of Luther’s concerns … that is a matter of record.

Martin Luther Quotes: On the Pope: “The pope employs most wicked tricks….Next to Satan there is no greater rascal than the pope. He has plotted evil things against me, but he’ll be the last….He is a Florentine bastard.” –Ta b l e Talk, between January 8 and March 23, 1532, No. 1359, P. 143.

“When I die I want to be a ghost and pester the bishops, priests, and godless monks so that they have more trouble with a dead Luther than they could have had before with a thousand living ones.” – Table Talk, between April 7 and May 1, 1532, No. 1442, p. 151.

“My epitaph shall remain true: ‘While alive I was your plague, when dead I’ll be your death, O pope.’” – Table Talk, February 1557, No. 3543A, P. 227. [Editors note # 99: Luther mentioned this epitaph several times. For example, cf. Luther’s Works, vol. 34, p. 49.]

“[Luther] raised himself up and after making the sign of the cross with his hand, he said
to us who were standing around him, ‘The Lord fill you with his benediction and with
hatred of the pope!’” Table Talk, February, 1537, No. 3543A, p. 228.

“Yes, we afterward established in our decretals that only the pope should convoke
councils and name the participants.” But dear one, is this true? Who commanded you to
establish this? “Silence, you heretic! What comes out of our mouth must be kept!” I hear
it—which mouth do you mean? The one from which the farts come? (You can keep that
yourself!) Or the one into which the good Corsican wine flows? (Let a clog **** into
that!) “Oh, you abominable Luther, should you talk to the pope like this?” Shame on you
too, you blasphemous, desperate rogues and crude asses—and should you talk to an
emperor and empire like this? Yes, should you malign and desecrate four such high
councils with the four greatest Christian emperors, just for the sake of your farts and
decretals? Why do you let yourselves imagine that you are better than crass, crude,
ignorant asses and fools, who neither know nor wish to know what councils, bishops,
churches, emperors—indeed, what God and his word—are? You are a crude ***, you ***-
pope, and an *** you will remain!” – Against the Roman Papacy, an Institution of the
Devil.1545.

etc, etc.

My point was, that the fault he was finding might have been better addressed if he had not fallen into such base rhetoric.

 

[Stepson]

**Why would you say that? I *never ***get angry on this board because I don’t personally know any of you. I simply state my case as a parrot of the Church. If you want to have charitable dialoge - painting me as an insanely out-of-control monster is not the way to do it.

That being said, I would say that it doesn’t matter why Luther nailed his theses to the door. His attitude and purpose apparently changed drastically in the years that followed. As I showed you, his words to Leo X were very favorable about the Church just a year after. 10 years later, however, in his Open Letter on Translating, he became so much more arrogant and prideful, you would have thought he was 2 different people:

“If I, Dr. Luther, had thought that all the Papists together were capable of translating even one passage of Scripture correctly and well, I would have gathered up enough humility to ask for their aid and assistance in translating the New Testament into German.”

---

“If your Papist wishes to make a great fuss about the word “alone” (sola), say this to him: ‘Dr. Martin Luther will have it so and he says that a papist and an *** are the same thing’.”

---

“Please do not give these asses any other answer to their useless braying about that word “sola” than simply ‘Luther will have it so, and he says that he is a doctor above all the papal doctors’."

---

“I know quite well how much skill, hard work, understanding and intelligence is needed for a good translation. They know it less than even the miller’s donkey for they have never tried it."

---

"I will go even further with my bragging: I can exegete the psalms and the prophets, and they cannot. I can translate, and they cannot. I can read Holy Scriptures, and they cannot. I can pray, and they cannot. Coming down to their level, I can do their dialectics and philosophy better than all of them put together. Plus I know that not one of them understands Aristotle. If, in fact, any one of them can correctly understand one part or chapter of Aristotle, I will eat my hat!"

---

These are the words of an extremely arrogant and spiritually prideful man in dire need of Christian humility for which there is simply no defense . . .

I was just trying to lighting it up. No offense was meant at all. Sorry. Problem with electronic writing is without voice inflection are body gestures, half of the communication is missing.
Luther did have a bit of hubris no doubt. I’m interested in your opinion as to what you think Luther’s first intentions were when he nailed the theses to the door. When you wrote he did an about face, that seems to imply he was doing something and then changed. What was he first doing in which he did an about face in your opinion?

 

[guanophore]

I read somewhere that he didn’t nail anything to the Church door, but actually mailed them around to friends.

The Protestant REVOLUTION (can we please use historically correct terminology?) was probably gonna happen anyway, but here’s the real question. If Luther and his followers had failed to get state support for their ideas, would it have ended differently than past heresies? Could they have survived or gained such a large following the way they did?These are the questions we need to answer.

Actually, I don’t think we need to answer them. I think Jon is right. Whatever the causal factors, or the miscreants involved, we need to now reconcile, and unify.

But, for the record, I think that the intrusion of Rome into secular politics had come to an end, regardless of any theological debates. The fact that Bishops and Popes hid behind a cloak they tried to call “Church” was failing. They were there with no clothes! The invention of the printing press stripped them.

 

[elvisman]

I was just trying to lighting it up. No offense was meant at all. Sorry. Problem with electronic writing is without voice inflection are body gestures, half of the communication is missing.
Luther did have a bit of hubris no doubt. I’m interested in your opinion as to what you think Luther’s first intentions were when he nailed the theses to the door. When you wrote he did an about face, that seems to imply he was doing something and then changed. What was he first doing in which he did an about face in you opinion?

First of all - I accept your apology and I will try not to be so defensive myself.

**As for your question, I believe that his original intention may well have been to address some very real abuses going on within the Church. I don’t fault Luther with pointing these out. **What I have a problem with is that he chose to take the low road instead of the high one that Athanasius took. Luther’s own words and personal arrogance destroy any credibility he may have initially had.

 

[guanophore]

I know when you read this, you are going to start foaming at the mouth and steam is going to come from your ears. But if this helps, I love ya man!

Elvisman has that effect on readers, because of his bold and colorful fonts, and his penchant for the term “wrong!”.

We have been unable to pursuade him to change it.

 

[prochrist1]

Forget about Luther, the reformation and the protestants and look at the status of some of the so-called Catholics. On one side we have self-professed ultra-orthodox catholics that deny the validity of the latest popes, and on the other side we have self-professed true-catholics that believe that there are really some validly ordained female priests in the Catholic Church.

This is what I see too, Catholics in the same way like Protestants are divided on alot of fronts one claiming to know more than the other groups, it all gets so confusing

would it be fair to say that the Coptic Orthodox Church in Alexandria to be the oldest form of Christianity ?