There is a difference between not agreeing with what a document says, and claiming it is dishonest. I do not think Unam Sanctam, as an example, is dishonest, even though I strongly agree with it. If Cardinal Ratzinger were even momentarily willing to consider CA as a Catholic confession, I would consider your position that it is a “dishonest representation” as not even worth discussing or considering.
Actually, I don’t think you are “all about the facts”. If it were, and you thought Catholic teaching was the fact of the true faith, then that would be the largest percentage of your apologia.
What I find humorous Jon, is that the very people who bear the name of Martin Luther could possibly chide ANYONE for being too ANYTHING. As you know Jon, I am at least 100 times more charitable to my opponents than Luther was to his.
Rather than criticize me personally and constantly why don’t you simply prove me wrong rather than simply stating that I am wrong.
Exactly. But that’s not dishonesty. That’s not being a liar, as you so boldly charged. Melanchthon was the “ELCA” of his time. I don’t think the ELCA is dishonest, just misguided.
Jon, it was an attempt deceive people as to the WHOLE of what Lutherans believed. It would be the same if the CA simply stated that Lutherans believed in the Trinity, and then stated nothing else. That is NOT a complete profession of Lutheran belief and neither was the CA. Are you really going to state that Melanchthon’s statement that they had no dogmas that were different than the Church was NOT dishonest?
BTW, your comment about Melanchthon being the “ECLA” of his time is extremely interesting. First of all, I find it amazing that you would speak of the ECLA as ‘misguided’. By what ‘standard’ of polemical standards am I chided for claiming that the Augsburg Confession was a dishonest representation of Lutheran belief (which the facts support), while you on the other hand feel completely comfortable saying that a whole group of fellow Lutherans are misguided. Of course this is one of the Lutheran groups with which you refuse to commune.
At any rate, what the ECLA proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, it that the Lutheran Confessions cannot insure or even protect doctrinal unity. That is because of the fact of Lutheranism’s built in ‘flaw’ that is so damaging that it cannot fail to result in doctrinal disunion and confusion.
When you realize that the first two Lutherans (Luther and Melanchthon) became extremely divided doctrinally, it becomes obvious that there is something inherent within Luther’s theology that INSURED that there would be doctrinal disagreement. That something was Sola Scriptura, not to mention Luther’s early teaching of Private Interpretation. We should remember that when PM first arrived on the scene in Wittenberg, he was little more than a teenager without a degree in theology. Virtually all of the theology he learned he learned from Luther. I find it ironic that he used HIS Private Interpretation to refute his ‘master’s’ doctrines, so much so that he became the leader of his own mini-sect within Lutheranism overall. Of course he never would have dared this while Luther was still alive.
I do not think Melanchthon believed his presentation at Augsburg was outside the Catholic faith.
That could be true Jon, but again, that is not the point. The fact though is that when Melanchthon said that they did not have any dogmatic disagreements with the Church. THAT WAS A LIE.
The point IS whether the Augsburg Confession was an honest representation of Lutheran belief. It was NOT because it left out all of those things on which they disagreed with Catholics. Melanchthon was simply trying to ‘be positive’ but it was not exactly honest. It was a cowardly attempt to achieve a reunion based on nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
Let me ask you a question Jon. Specifically and exactly Jon, why do you think that the CA did not address the following issues:
“the authority of the Pope, predestination, the priesthood of all believers, indelible sacramental ordination, the number of sacraments, and purgatory, nor of his condemnation of all Masses as public or private”, among others.
The fact is that the Ausgburg Confession is entirely incomplete and as a profession of faith, completely inadequate. If it had actually been adequate, Lutheranism would not have found it necessary to write the various portions of the Forumla of Concord, in which the anti-Catholicism of Lutheranism and insults to the Church came very much more to the surface.
As for our respective intentions Jon, you don’t want people to consider these things and I do. I am not demanding that they agree with me but you don’t want them to be exposed to my arguments and the historical facts that I present. That is pretty telling.
God Bless You Jon, Topper
The question caught my attention. And, I am interested in your (and anyone else’s) answer.
