(urth) Silk for calde blog: Wolfe thesis

[James Wynn]

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.