Then look to the confessions - and in the confessions, prayers for the dead are permitted.
“permitted”???
What difference does it make if they are conscious or not. Prayers for the dead are directed to the Triune God.
Directed to God doesn’t equate with efficacious for the not-conscious.
You have yet to provide a source for your speculation.
I don’t have my copy of Michuta’s
Why Catholic Bibles are Bigger with me, but I believe he covers this. No, Luther doesn’t come out and admit it directly, but in a debate with Eck (the Leipzig debate) he admits that this is why.
Oh, I found something on the net. From
The Bible Canon and the Christian Doctrine, page 353:
In his debates with Johann Maier of Eck at Leipzig in June and July of 1519, Martin Luther had backed himself into a difficult corner. His colleague at Wittenberg Andreas Bodenstein of Karlstadt had argued against Eck in 1518 that the text of the Bible was to be preferred above the authority of the church.5 A year later Luther continued this position in his debates at Leipzig.6 It was while debating the doctrine of purgatory that Luther was hoisted on his own petard. Eck confronted Luther with the text of II Maccabees 12:46, “Therefore he made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin.” This text was the scriptural basis upon which the Roman church had largely based its doctrine of purgatory. Luther could neither avoid the reading nor deny that the church had accepted this book. **Thus pressed, Luther launched into an argument of desperation. He denied the right of the church to decide matters of canonicity; canonicity, he argued, is determined only by the internal worth of a book.**7 Moreover, while Luther recognized that the church used this and other books not included in the Jewish canon of scriptures, he argued that Jerome had denied canonical status to these books. Jerome held that only the books of the Jewish canon are canonical and so now did Luther.While recognizing the validity of Eck’s argument that Augustine and the tradition of the churchaccepted these books, Luther chose Jerome’s position that the Jewish canon was the canon of Jesus and the apostles. Previously Luther had used and cited the books of the wider Christian usage, but the position he argued against Eck became hardened so that, following Jerome’s example8 of segregating these books from the Old Testament in his Old Testament lists,9 Luther placed these books in a separate section following the Old Testament in his German translation of the Bible.10 He titled them “Apocrypha: these are not held to be equal to the sacred scriptures and yet are useful and good for reading.”
Source, please. I’ve heard the “had to be convinced by others” comment often, but have yet to see a source.
It’s a common fascile argument that, if one hasn’t seen a direct quote stating something flatly, that such a belief doesn’t exist.
Really, though, an extensive reading of debates and other opinions on both sides can only cause one to reach this conclusion.
For example, Dr. Luther said:
Many sweat to reconcile St. Paul and St. James, as does Melanchthon in his Apology, but in vain. “faith justifies” and “faith does not justify” contradict each other flatly. If any one can harmonize them I will give him my doctor’s hood and let him call me a fool.
So, let me see if I understand. It is your claim that Luther “removed” Juidith, Tobit, Sirach. Wisdom, etc. because he didn’t like something in 2 Macc? Source, please.
Unless you’re trying to use the fascile argument again, ONE source can be seen in the quote from the debate with Eck above.
Because that was what was germain to the discussion. I know he didn’t like James’ driving of the law. Luther was Gospel driven. The fact is he still preached from James his entire life. His main complaint is the fact that the CC, in his view, focused on James at the expense of Paul.
“St. James is really an epistle of straw compared to them for it has nothing of the nature of the Gospel about it . . . [It is] not the writing of any apostle.”
If you read the preface, it is his belief that St. James did not actually write the epistle, and he gives reasons for that belief.
Yes. And this is what is known as circular reasoning.
James’ theology was not correct, therefore the epistle was not Apostolic, and therefore it can’t be used as a source of doctrine.
Perhaps true, but at least he referenced sources.
I know, but perhaps you will offer some in the future.
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