If We Protestants Truly Hated Catholics...

[BreadOfLife]

You refer to early Luther (1522, his 95 thesis was only in 1517), not later and more mature Luther, and thus you are not honest with historical accuracy, and there's even his own testimony on how he through study and prayer reconciled James and Paul, taking back up his own professors/doctor's cap, which he offered to anyone who could reconcile the two (he did so himself).

"... Luther’s great biographer Roland Bainton pointed out, “Once Luther remarked that he would give his doctor’s beret to anyone who could reconcile James and Paul. Yet he did not venture to reject James from the canon of Scripture, and on occasion earned his own beret by effecting reconciliation. ‘Faith,’ he wrote, ‘is a living, restless thing. It cannot be inoperative. We are not saved by works; but if there be no works, there must be something amiss with faith’ ” [Here I Stand, page 331]. ..." - https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet...--A-Life-Of-Martin-Luther#page/n327/mode/1up/

Luther reject Revelation? He wrote a whole tract on the Whore of Babylon! Go back and read Luther's Table Talk and other more mature works. He accepted all the books, and all the books are in Luther's German Bible.

You speak half-truths and hide what doesn't work for you. I despise that kind of thing, which makes the religion you profess that much more detestable in my sight, from when I first left it.

And that's the whole problem, isn't it??
That's when you KNOW you have a false teacher - when his doctrines change with the wind.

Luther went on to write the following lament about what he started . . .

"There are almost as many sects and beliefs as there are heads; this one will not admit baptism; that one rejects the Sacrament of the altar; another places another world between the present one and the day of judgment; some teach that Jesus Christ is not God. There is not an individual, however clownish he may be, who does not claim to be inspired by the Holy Ghost, and who does not put forth as prophecies his ravings and dreams." - Martin Luther, Christians at Antwerp, 1525

Sewing the seeds of discord and division only produces MORE discord and division . . .

 

[GodsGrace]

And that's the whole problem, isn't it??
that's when you KNOW you have a false teacher - when his doctrines change with the win.

Luther went on to write the following lament about what he started . . .

"There are almost as many sects and beliefs as there are heads; this one will not admit baptism; that one rejects the Sacrament of the altar; another places another world between the present one and the day of judgment; some teach that Jesus Christ is not God. There is not an individual, however clownish he may be, who does not claim to be inspired by the Holy Ghost, and who does not put forth as prophecies his ravings and dreams." - Martin Luther, Christians at Antwerp, 1525

Sewing the seeds of discord and division only produces MORE discord and division . . .

Augustine.
Ditto.
I bring it up only because I disagree with him and he made some nice problems for Christianity which we're dealing with these days.
Anyway, I don't care to derail.
Early Augustine
Mid Augustine
Late Augustine
which one to believe??

 

[BreadOfLife]

I have already seen your list, and know it ain't so.

Go ahead. Give me your 10 best. Then we'll see how real your list is. Go on. I'm waiting.

I've already given several - but I'll give you just TWO. They keep you busy . . .

Eph. 6:13-17 - The whole discussion of armor, helmet, breastplate, sword, shield follows Wis. 5:17-20 - almost verbatim.

Heb 11:35 - Paul teaches about the martyrdom of the mother and her sons described in 2 Macc. 7:1-42.

 

[BreadOfLife]

Augustine.
Ditto.
I bring it up only because I disagree with him and he made some nice problems for Christianity which we're dealing with these days.
Anyway, I don't care to derail.
Early Augustine
Mid Augustine
Late Augustine
which one to believe??

Precisely - but Augustine wasn't infallible. He didn't start his own sect based on HIS ravings like Luther.

He eventually came to see the wisdom of Church teaching and expounded on it instead of rejecting it as Luther did in favor of his own invented doctrines.

 

[GodsGrace]

Precisely - but Augustine wasn't infallible. He didn't start his own sect based on HIS ravings like Luther.

He eventually came to see the wisdom of Church teaching and expounded on it instead of rejecting it as Luther did in favor of his own invented doctrines.

OK. But he DID change some teachings...
Original sin being one of them. It didn't exist before him.
And predestination...let's not even go there.

 

[BreadOfLife]

OK. But he DID change some teachings...
Original sin being one of them. It didn't exist before him.
And predestination...let's not even go there.

First of all - Augustine's writings about predestination that Calvinists cling to were his early writings, which he later repudiated.
He later agreed with the Catholic position that God DOES predestine some - for good. BUT, none for evil or damnation as Calvin falsely taught.

Finally - Augustine didn't "Change" the teaching on Original Sin. He clarified it for many but he didn't change it. He didn't have the Authority to do that.

 

[GodsGrace]

First of all - Augustine's writings about predestination that Calvinists cling to were his early writings, which he later repudiated.
He later agreed with the Catholic position that God DOES predestine some - for good. BUT, none for evil or damnation as Calvin falsely taught.

Finally - Augustine didn't "Change" the teaching on Original Sin. He clarified it for many but he didn't change it. He didn't have the Authority to do that.

What do you mean that God predestines some for good?
I do know about double predestination.

 

[BreadOfLife]

What do you mean that God predestines some for good?
I do know about double predestination.

To do His will.
This can probably be said of Moses, David, Isaiah, Elijah, et al.

 

[TheHolyBookEnds]

And that's the whole problem, isn't it??
That's when you KNOW you have a false teacher - when his doctrines change with the wind....

Yeah, children are all false teachers by the same logic ...

You do realize that change of doctrine abound in catholicism? even at the papal level?

 

[TheHolyBookEnds]

And that's the whole problem, isn't it??
That's when you KNOW you have a false teacher - when his doctrines change with the wind.

Luther went on to write the following lament about what he started . . .

"There are almost as many sects and beliefs as there are heads; this one will not admit baptism; that one rejects the Sacrament of the altar; another places another world between the present one and the day of judgment; some teach that Jesus Christ is not God. There is not an individual, however clownish he may be, who does not claim to be inspired by the Holy Ghost, and who does not put forth as prophecies his ravings and dreams." - Martin Luther, Christians at Antwerp, 1525

Sewing the seeds of discord and division only produces MORE discord and division . . .

You took the quote out of context. It refers to the 'spiritualizing'' fanatics, who basically cast aside the word of God and went by what they felt the 'spirit' leading them to do. If you would read the History of the Reformation by D'Aubigne (as I have), you might learn yourself sumthin'.

You can read (I think you can read?) details here- http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2007/07/luther-there-are-almost-as-many-sects.html

 

[BreadOfLife]

Yeah, children are all false teachers by the same logic ...You do realize that change of doctrine abound in catholicism? even at the papal level?

PROVE it.

 

[BreadOfLife]

You took the quote out of context. It refers to the 'spiritualizing'' fanatics, who basically cast aside the word of God and went by what they felt the 'spirit' leading them to do. If you would read the History of the Reformation by D'Aubigne (as I have), you might learn yourself sumthin'.

You can read (I think you can read?) details here- http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2007/07/luther-there-are-almost-as-many-sects.html

It's NOT out of contest - it is just as real today as it was then.

Look around you. This is precisely why there are literally tens of thousands of disjointed and perpetually-splintering Protestant sects ALL teaching different doctrines based on the fact that their leaders were "guided" by the Holy Spirit.

God is NOT the Author of confusion . . .

 

[epostle1]

You took the quote out of context. It refers to the 'spiritualizing'' fanatics, who basically cast aside the word of God and went by what they felt the 'spirit' leading them to do. If you would read the History of the Reformation by D'Aubigne (as I have), you might learn yourself sumthin'.

You can read (I think you can read?) details here- http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2007/07/luther-there-are-almost-as-many-sects.html

Radical Protestants have this delusion that the historic Church departed from the reformers ideals. It was the other way around. The historic Church has never separated from any one.

Interpreting the Reformation is complicated business. But like many complicated things, it can be simplified sufficiently well that even non-experts can get the gist of it.

Here's what seems a fairly accurate but simplified summary of the issue: The break between Catholics and Protestants was either a tragic necessity or it was tragic because unnecessary.

Many Protestants see the Catholic/Protestant split as a tragic necessity, although the staunchly anti-Catholic kind of Protestant often sees nothing tragic about it. Or if he does, the tragedy is that there ever was such a thing as the Roman Catholic Church that the Reformers had to separate from. His motto is "Come out from among them" and five centuries of Christian disunity has done nothing to cool his anti-Roman fervor.

Yet for most Protestants, even for most conservative Protestants, this is not so. They believe God "raised up" Luther and the other Reformers to restore the Gospel in its purity. They regret that this required a break with Roman Catholics (hence the tragedy) but fidelity to Christ, on their view, demanded it (hence the necessity).

Catholics agree with their more agreeable Protestant brethren that the sixteenth century division among Christians was tragic. But most Catholics who think about it also see it as unnecessary. At least unnecessary in the sense that what Catholics might regard as genuine issues raised by the Reformers could, on the Catholic view, have been addressed without the tragedy of dividing Christendom.

Yet we can go further than decrying the Reformation as unnecessary. In his ground-breaking work, The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, Louis Bouyer argued that the Catholic Church herself is necessary for the full flowering of the Reformation principles. In other words, you need Catholicism to make Protestantism work for Protestantism's principles fully to develop. Thus, the Reformation was not only unnecessary; it was impossible. What the Reformers sought, argues Bouyer, could not be achieved without the Catholic Church...
...One thing should be said up-front: although a convert from French Protestantism, Bouyer is no anti-Protestant polemicist. His Spirit and Forms of Protestantism was written a half-century ago, a decade before Vatican II's decree on ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio, yet it avoids the bitter anti-Protestantism that sometimes afflicted pre-conciliar Catholic works on Protestantism. That's one reason the book remains useful, even after decades of post-conciliar ecumenism. READ MORE HERE

​

 

[epostle1]

Yeah, children are all false teachers by the same logic ...
You do realize that change of doctrine abound in catholicism? even at the papal level?

The only way a doctrine can change is to change the meaning of "doctrine". They flow from revealed truth and can never change because the Church doesn't have the authority to change them.. Development is not change.

By development of doctrine, we mean that some divinely revealed truth has become more deeply understood and more clearly perceived than it had been before. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, whom Christ promised to send to teach us, the Church comes to see more deeply what she had always believed, and the resulting insights find expression in devotion of the faithful that may have been quite uncommon in the Church's previous history. The whole spectrum of Christology and Mariology has witnessed such dogmatic progress.

...doctrine clearly develops within Scripture (“progressive revelation”). Examples: doctrines of the afterlife, the Trinity, the Messiah (eventually revealed as God the Son), the Holy Spirit (Divine Person in the New Testament), the equality of Jews and Gentiles, bodily resurrection, sacrifice of lambs evolving into the sacrifice of Christ, etc. Not a single doctrine emerges in the Bible complete with no further need of development.

In general, whenever Scripture refers to the increasing knowledge and maturity of Christians and the Church, an idea very similar to doctrinal development is present. Holy Scripture, then, is in no way hostile to development. It is only Protestant presuppositions – not always so “biblical” – which preclude development for fear of “excess.”

The Canon of Scripture itself is an example of developing doctrine.

The Church is called the “Body” of Christ often (e.g., Eph. 1:22-3), and is compared to a seed which grows into a tree (Mt. 13:31-2). Seeds and bodies grow and expand.

Doctrines agreed upon by all develop, too. The Divinity or Godhood of Christ was only finalized in 325, and the full doctrine of the Trinity in 381.The dogma of the Two Natures of Christ (God and Man) was proclaimed in 451. These decisions of General Councils of the Church were in response to challenging heresies. Why should Protestants accept these authoritative verdicts, but reject similar proclamations on the papacy???
READ MORE HERE

 

[Willie T]

I do hope everyone knows that the word "doctrine" means nothing more than simply "teaching", regardless of whether or not that teaching is correct or incorrect. It has nothing, at all, to do with such teaching claiming to be God's truth. And that goes for ANY denomination, Catholic or Protestant.

 

[epostle1]

OK. But he DID change some teachings...
Original sin being one of them. It didn't exist before him.
And predestination...let's not even go there.

The doctrine of Original Sin is based primarily on
Romans 5.
Protestants falsely argue that Purgatory is a later corruption, but it was present early on and merely developed. Original Sin, however, was equally if not more so, subject to development. One cannot have it both ways. If Purgatory is unacceptable on grounds of its having undergone development, then Original Sin must be rejected with it. Contrariwise, if Original Sin is accepted notwithstanding its own development, then so must Purgatory be accepted. READ MORE HERE

Predestination: yes, let's go there anyway...

Eph. 1:5 – Paul teaches that God “predestined” us in love to be His sons through Jesus Christ. “Predestination” means that God knows what we will do before we do it (it does not mean that God determines what we do; otherwise, we would have no freewill). Predestination is taken from the Greek word “prooridzo” which means to know or declare in advance by God’s foreknowledge. See, for example, 1 Peter 1:2 where Peter writes about the “elect according to the foreknowledge of God.” The terms “predestination” and “the elect” always refer to God’s knowledge (not human knowledge) because God is outside of time (and humans cannot predict the future).

There are two types of “predestination,” to grace and to glory. In this verse, Paul is teaching about predestination to grace, which means becoming a Christian.

1 Pet. 1:1-2 – Paul teaches about being destined by God for obedience to Christ. This is another example of predestination to grace. But there is also predestination to glory.

Rom. 8:29-30 – Paul also writes that we are predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. Now Paul is writing about predestination to glory, which means not only becoming a faithful Christian during our lives, but persevering to the end by conforming our will to Christ’s will.

1 Cor. 15:49 – Paul writes that we are conformed in His image at the resurrection, when we shall bear the image of the man of heaven. These are the people who were predestined to glory.

Rev. 3:5 – Jesus warns that He can blot out the names that are in the book of life. This refers to those currently, not ultimately, justified (those who are predestined to grace, but not to glory).

Eph. 1:5; 1 Peter 1:2; Rom. 8:29-30; 1 Cor. 15:49 – therefore, predestination is either to grace (which we could lose) or to glory (which we cannot lose). As alluded to above, some non-Catholics confuse the definition of “predestination” (which means God knows what we will do before we do it) and “predetermination” (the erroneous belief that God determines what we will do). But God does not author evil. We choose evil by our own freewill.

Ezek. 18:23-24, 32 – God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Our death is our freewill, failing to respond to His grace. God does not predetermine certain people to hell. God also does not predetermine certain “elect” people to heaven. We all, as God’s children, have been given the grace we need to be saved, but we can decide to reject God’s grace.

​

 

[epostle1]

I do hope everyone knows that the word "doctrine" means nothing more than simply "teaching", regardless of whether or not that teaching is correct or incorrect. It has nothing, at all, to do with such teaching claiming to be God's truth. And that goes for ANY denomination, Catholic or Protestant.

Like I said in post #1014, "doctrine" has different meanings for different people. Without a mutual understanding of the meaning of the word, discussion about "doctrine" goes nowhere.
"...Dogma.
Dogmas, therefore, are those doctrines solemnly proposed by the Church as formally revealed in Scripture or Tradition..."
Doctrines that are definitively proposed are no less certain, even though they are not proposed as formally revealed by God. ..."

"Jesus Christ is God" is a doctrine, and it is also a dogmatic statement. It may seem like a simplistic statement, but it's truth was challenged by heretics, which is why councils were convened, which is why the doctrine/dogma of the Trinity needed clarification (which is accepted today by all) to rule out false teachings. Councils are modeled after the infallible Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15. They are not board meetings.

EWTN.com - Doctrine, Dogma, Infallible Statement

 

[TheHolyBookEnds]

PROVE it.

GOOGLE it. I am sure you are able to do this. I can think of several just off the top of my head. But that you do not have to take my word for it, go looking. Several ex-catholics here, can probably think of a few on their own.

 

[TheHolyBookEnds]

Radical Protestants have this delusion that the historic Church departed from the reformers ideals. It was the other way around. The historic Church has never separated from any one....

Rabid catholics have this delusion that the historic true church was the 'roman' faith when it grew into the church/state power, and that the 'reformers' were somehow separted from truth, but in reality the 'reformers' were going back to the true faith as existed before the 'roman' faith, such as in the vaudois, and those persecuted into the wilderness, who still held to the bible. It was the 'roman' faith that separated itself from truth (and one can even as the eastern 'orthodoxy', how they feel about it, also in 1054), read - The Two Republics - The two republics;

The true church, never separated from anyone, but as we see, there was a Jezebel amidst the true, teaching people to sacrifice to idols:

Rev 2:19 I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first.
Rev 2:20 Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.
Rev 2:21 And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.
Rev 2:22 Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.
Rev 2:23 And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.

 

[BreadOfLife]

GOOGLE it. I am sure you are able to do this. I can think of several just off the top of my head. But that you do not have to take my word for it, go looking. Several ex-catholics here, can probably think of a few on their own.

Uhhh, no - YOU prove it.
YOU'RE the one who made this idiotic charge so the onus is on YOU to prove it.

If you can't - then simply admit that you stuck your foot in your mouth so we can move on.
Until you can do that, however - I am going to hold you to this . . .