(urth) Silk for calde blog: Wolfe thesis

[John Watkins]

James,

Your comment is all very well and good for the deuterocanon as far as it
goes, but I think intellectual honesty requires a few additional
acknowledgements.

1)  Most of the early Christians the Protestant Reformation identified
itself with freely quoted from the so-called deuterocanon, implying that
they accepted its veracity.  St. Paul even quotes from Maccabees in Hebrews,
and obviously Jerome acknowledged the deuterocanon as canonical.

2)  The Jewish acceptance or non-acceptance of the contents of the
deuterocanon is a wee bit more complex of a story than you're admitting.
 It's not as though the deuterocanon was intentionally plucked off the
Hebrew scrap heap by the Catholic Church--the majority of it was included in
the Septuagint, which served as the de facto Hebrew canon in the first
century.  The modern Hebrew canon didn't emerge for some time after that,
and arguably the rise of Christianity, which did use the Septuagint,
influenced the Hebrew decision to break away from it.

I agree with your larger point about the Reformation spurring the
Counter-Reformation, and don't really want to attempt to heal any
six-hundred-year-old wounds on this list.  Obviously your observation about
Augustine and his philosophy and theology establishes that there ought to be
enough common ground to have a nice, productive dialogue bringing Catholic,
Orthodox and Protestant views to bear on any given issue without engaging in
insults.


On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 1:13 AM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dan'l,
>
>
>  In the end they chose to believe that God and his
>>> Church were pure and the Pope and his bishops were damned rather than the
>>> other way around.
>>>
>>
>> So there were only two choices? How binaristic.
>>
>
> When you are presented with a choice with existential
>
>  Too, they
>>>> tossed out bits of Scripture that didn't suit them....
>>>>
>>>
>>> I'm curious as to
>>> what those bits were.
>>>
>>
>> [The deuterocanon]
>>
>
> Ah! Well, they didn't "toss" the deuterocanon because there was some
> theology in them they didn't like ("suit them"). They tossed them because
> they considered their origins questionable in the extreme and not included
> in the Hebrew canon.
>
> You're entire denunciation of Luther and the "Deformers" is based on a
> presumption that that "the Church" is synonymous with the the Roman Church
> hierarchy: Therefore, it is *they* (a group that includes the church
> leadership 1500 years later and even at its most corrupted) and not the
> Apostles who wrote the New Testament. And the authority of those apostles
> (you seem to presume) is based on their membership within this group.  But
> one cannot view "them" (that group) as such an eternal entity. Otherwise,
> where was the Church during the *years* when the leadership was deeply
> divided about who was the Pope?
>
> Was it the Roman Church who "wrote" the Bible or the Eastern Orthodox one?
> If it was both, why can't the Lutheran Church make the same claim since they
> branched from the same root? And if the Reformed Church (not to be confused
> with Reformed Catholics) were also that church which wrote the Bible, then
> why can't they reconsider the canon of the Old Testament? After all, we're
> not talking about vital doctrine to either Christians or Jews. The
> harumphing over "tossing out bits of Scripture" seems to have more to do
> annoyance at the Reformer's ephrontery rather than concern that the
> Scripture was actually losing something vital.
>
> Having lived for a time in Rome himself and having seen concupiscence and
> venality as rule among the leadership there, Luther had already dispensed
> with the idea that "the Church" could be closely identified with those men.
>
>
>  Look, Dan'l, the scandal of Indulgences was not just a bad "practice".
>>>
>>
>> That's _exactly_ what it was.
>>
>
> I repeat:
>
>  Luther's point was that it struck to the heart of the doctrine of
>>> Salvation.
>>>
>>
> Either the Pope was (and could be) wrong about the doctrine of Salvation
> and made existential promises (From The Chair) that he certainly could not
> deliver on  -- or he was a pretender: not the *real* head of the "True
> Church" (as my Reformed Catholic friends believe is the case now). Luther
> believed the first when he nailed he theses to the door, and probably
> believed the latter as well by he was debating Transubstantiation with
> Zwingli.
>
>
>  Actually, the concept of papal infallibility didn't even exist at the
>> time.
>> It was not defined until the first Vatican Council in the 1800s.
>>
>
> The concept was not created at the Vatican Council.
>
>
>  I don't, entirely. I believe that the Deformation made the real
>> reform take _longer_, but it would have been a long road in
>> any case.
>>
>
> I'd say they sped it along. I think the RCC made some pretty significant
> and good internal reforms due to Reformation. It was also vital to the RCC
> making accommodations with Rationalism.  The Reformation was largely a
> creature of Rationalism and the printing press. Sola Scriptura would have
> been a meaningless platitude without the ability of the masses to easily
> obtain Bible's in their own tongue. Perhaps the Church leaders recognized
> that, and so kept such a brutal thumb on those who attempted to duplicate
> St. Jerome's great feat.
>
>
>  [Reformed Catholics] are _serious_ heretics. I don't think most modern
>>
>> Protestants are really "heretics"; they live in a new orthodoxy
>> that happens, in my opinion, to be wrong, but are not damned
>> for it.
>>
>
> When most Protestants speak of "orthodox", they are referring to something
> akin to Augustinian theology. Luther, Calvin, and 95% of educated
> Protestants accept Augustine or near-Augustine as the "orthodox" coin of the
> realm. And he's a RC saint. I realize Catholic priests mean something more
> extensive by the term and Eastern Orthodox mean something wholly different.
> But Augustine is a nice broad tent that even has room for Reformed Catholics
> (who in my opinion, are merely doing what you think Luther ought to have
> done).
>
> J.
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