(moved) Can the Philosophical Approach of "Reformed" Protestantism lead out of Christianity?

[rakovsky]

This passage is tied to communion closely enough that it colors both Calvin’s and Luther’s exegesis. Luther produces a fine exegesis, but then goes on to a discussion about “is” that I think is dubious. I also have the feeling that he may have something more literal in mind when he speaks of “spiritual rock” than Paul did, but that’s hard to be sure of. In particular, I think the Lopukhin quote changes the understanding from one of Jewish typological symbolism to metaphysical speculation. But Lopukhin isn’t Luther, and it’s unclear (at least to me) how close to Lopukhin Luther’s understanding actually is.

Yes, this reflects their understandings of the Eucharist too. With his naturalist view, Calvin says rocks don't follow people and he says something nonsensical (rock = water) and in practice concludes that Christ was not actually there in the desert. Likewise, he concludes that Christ cannot be in the Eucharist bread, based on his naturalism.

In Luther's and Lopukhin's view, God is called a spiritual "rock" many times, and there is no problem in thinking that the supernatural, pre-incarnate Christ (Logos) could actually be there in the desert with His people, invisibly following them. Lopukhin and Luther both say that Christ was not the "material rock" that Moses hit with a stick. Christ was the spiritual rock that they didn't see. So Christ was both there and invisible, in a way like Christ was invisible before the apostles after the Resurrection or can be present and invisible in the bread. This is also why I find Orthodox and Lutheran theology to be more deep and mystical than Calvinist theology, which has a harder, more scientific, naturalistic mentality, which Nelson proposed was reflected in Calvin's rigid attitudes about predestination vs. free will.

For Orthodox/Lutheran/Catholic views, Christ can be present directly even when he is not seen and when natural laws would say otherwise. So this view puts more trust in the Supernatural, while Calvin's outlook derides such thinking as "foolishness".

It is relevant that the appearance of "foolishness" to wise men is actually a quality that Paul uses to describe Christianity in 1 Cor 1. When the "great scholar" Calvin judges traditions based on the foolishness standard, he is acting like the "wise men" of the 1st century who expressed their disdain of Christian ideas based on the same standards.

 

[FredVB]

The Bible certainly uses metaphors, as Christ did, and it is profitable to see this where it occurs, though some are disliking doing this. Christ said all those "I am"s with saying indeed he was the vine, he was the door, he was the light of the world, he was the bread from heaven. The terms are metaphors, certainly, though showing a reality of who and what Christ is, spiritually, just as you wouldn't think of him as a physical lamb, but in the sacrifice with atonement for us, Christ was spiritually this, for us. And when Christ followed the people of Israel in the wilderness, he was there with them, but not physically. Apart from the incarnation, though, he is omnipresent.

 

[rakovsky]

The Bible certainly uses metaphors, as Christ did, and it is profitable to see this where it occurs, though some are disliking doing this. Christ said all those "I am"s with saying indeed he was the vine, he was the door, he was the light of the world, he was the bread from heaven. The terms are metaphors, certainly, though showing a reality of who and what Christ is, spiritually, just as you wouldn't think of him as a physical lamb, but in the sacrifice with atonement for us, Christ was spiritually this, for us.

Hello, FredVB.
In traditional Christianity, the term "lamb" can be a metaphor, but Christ literally underwent an atonement for humanity. He did not just metaphorically undergo atonement. To use the metaphor of a lamb, you must read Christ where it says lamb.

Further, unlike when he said "he was the vine, he was the door, he was the light of the world, he was the bread from heaven", Jesus directly gave them an actual piece of bread and said This is my body. So as in the case of discerning Christ when the Bible says lamb, you must discern "Christ" when He says "this is" and He gives bread.

And then Paul openly instructed to "discern" that the ritual bread was the communion of Christ's body, and said that nonbelievers suffered because they failed to discern it. Yet in fact even nonbelievers could discern the ritual bread was a symbol, if that was all the bread was.

The problem when you use modern understandings of nature to automatically read everything as metaphor in disregard of both the plain meaning and the Christian traditions for the last 1950 years is that you end up where some modern "critical scholars" do, concluding that the gospels are a metaphor and a "true" story, but the "absurd"/"foolish" things like Resurrection/Ascension didn't literally happen either.

 

[PeaceByJesus]

Sorry for not seeing your reply, yet i though i was a tome writer!

PeaceByJesus!
Of course, each writer or prophet in the Bible meant something when he wrote a passage. So in theory, I think each Protestant could read the Bible on his/her own and get the true meaning 100%.
But in real life, the opposite often happens where groups of people (including Reformed) read the Bible in sincerity and are convinced that it means opposite things.

But which not warrant rejecting SS, as meaning Scripture alone is the wholly inspired of God standard, and sufficient in its formal and material aspects, as you have affirmed it enables one to 100% understand it (which a common historical evangelical contention for basic Truths attests to), while also allowing for disagreements.

For which Scripture provides the magisterial office, which no less than the Westminster Confession affirms: "It belongeth to synods and councils, ministerially, to determine controversies of faith," (Westminster, XXXI)

For we see this in Scripture, (Dt. 17:8-13) and which certainly had authority, if not being infallible, but that is not enough for Rome, as she presumes that her magisterial office possesses perpetual ensured infallibility, and that even when not speaking accordingly then she will not err salvifically in her official (which class is subject to RC debate) teaching.

But which ensured infallibility is a novel and unScriptural premise, being unseen and unnecessary in Scripture. And in fact, God not only provided and preserved Truth and faith without a infallible magisterium, but in so doing He sometimes raised up men from without the magisterium to provide and preserve faith, and reprove thoswe who sat in leadership.

And thus the church began and has been preserved as the body of Christ, with the imperfect Reformation being part of that.

Since their views are mutually exclusive, it means that on their own they weren't able to discern the "real" meaning.

No, not actually, as it need only mean that only one is correct.

A good example is the debate over whether to baptize infants.

And since they are innocent and morally incognizant, they need not and cannot willful the stated requirements for baptism, that of repentant wholehearted faith. (Acts 2:38; 8:36,37) And the Holy Spirit conspicuously and uncharacteristically never mentions infants being baptized (leaving paedobaptist to extrapolate it out of bare mentions of whole household baptisms) yet requiring repentant wholehearted faith for it. Nor does the very limited correspondence to circumcision (for just males) warrant it either.

There are many less noticed debates though, like what Zechariah means by the "mourning of Hadadrimmon", where commentators give opposite views.

Which, and multitude more examples, your magisterium is not going to "infallibly" explain, and in fact one a few texts of Scripture have been. Thus this is not a valid objection even if your mag. possesses ensured conditional infallibility.

Moreover, you cannot claim that even the NT church realized comprehensive doctrinal unity, much less Rome in which variant interpretations can lawfully about, and do, even as to what requires assent. And thus by your reasoning your alternative means of determination of Truth and unity is also invalidated.

No, Scriptural substantiation can be allowed. The fact that there are such sharp divisions though shows that just by itself scripture is often not enough to show people what the right meaning is.

No, once again that is faulty reasoning, as simply because there are conflicting judgments does not invalidate the source from providing Truth in a way that souls find unity, which is also a reality.

And in if you demand comprehensive doctrinal unity then the closest thing to that will be found in a cults, which effectively operate under the unScriptural RC model, in which the leadership claims unique ensured veracity based on their teaching.

So people should consider what Christians who lived in 35-200 AD thought about what those verses mean. After all, that was the community that produced these works.

WRONG. Those who lived in 35-200 AD did NOT produce the NT, any more than the Scribes and Pharisees produced OT writings, though both had enough sense to substantially acknowledge what was of God.

But it is the transcendent, substantive wholly inspired of God writings that are the standard for what Truth is, not the post apostolic judgments of uninspired men who increasingly adopted or relied on traditions of men.

I understand your argument that this is a late development. But that does not show it is not the main Church (Christian community) even if it has some secondary wrong ideas but accepts the basics.

Certainly along with the progressive accretion of traditions of men the 2nd-3rd century church retained enough Truth whereby souls could be saved and morality upheld, but that did not make it the community that produced the Bible.

But more importantly, in the Bible we do have cases of believers addressing beings in heaven besides just God himself. John does this in Revelation. (Rev 22:8-9, 19:10)

No, you have ZERO cases of believers on earth seeking beings in heaven to intercede for them. Any two-way communication btwn created beings required both to somehow be in the same realm, and i have yet to see any case in which the the created being was asked to intercede for them before God.

In the Transfiguration, the apostles meet the OT righteous Moses and Elijah.

Which again does not translate into praying to those in Heaven to interceded for them, as they were both in one place, and no intercession before God was sought.

You need to show created beings being addressed by those on earth, and being asked to interceded for them.

God does not forbid us to address His holy angels, in fact two of the Psalms which He Himself inspired contain invocations of angels:
"Bless the LORD, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.
Bless ye the LORD, all ye his hosts; ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure." (Ps 103:20-21)
"Praise ye the LORD. Praise ye the LORD from the heavens: praise him in the heights.
Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts." (Psalm 148:1-2)
If God wants us to pray these Psalms, then He has no problem with us addressing the angels. (SOURCE: http://home.earthlink.net/~mysticalrose/col218.html)

This is not asking angels to intercede for them, or actually addressing them, for employing such poetic language we can also justify praying to the sun and moon and other material objects. For as Ps. 148 goes on to say in proceeding verses after your cut off,

Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light. Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord: for he commanded, and they were created. (Psalms 148:3-5)
Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps: Fire, and hail; snow, and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word: Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars: (Psalms 148:7-9)

Thus these are forms of worship addressed to God, extolling His worthiness of universal worship by all creation.

PeaceByJesus, my goal in this thread is not actually to prove that Tradition is perfect or infallible,

Then you are left with fallible, uninspired traditions being made equal with thewholly inspired word of God!

as I said. Rather, it seems to me that if we put Tradition in the trashcan and forget about it totally, then whether we are Roman Catholic or not (I'm not), we can go way off course on some issues.

Rather, we are not referring to such things as historical writings being a help, or traditions like wedding ceremonies being used, but making into binding doctrine that which is not in Scripture, and even contrary to it, but with the veracity of which being based on the tradition of an infallible church.

A church which can decree something over 1700 years after it allegedly occurred to be binding Truth, despite such critical lack of evidence for it from tradition that the very scholars of the church opposed it.

And I think that when we add in a modern, "scientific" mindset, we can better understand how some modern groups coming out of the Reformed movement think that the Bible miracles are all just so called "true" "allegories" that didn't "literally" happen.

Which means they departed from the faith, and your argument is less valid than arguing that your church is wrong because Catholic scholars, with the sanction of the American body of bishops, have taught such for decades in the RC Bibles!

It's only natural that in the early church the presbyters who were responsible for managing their churches would also normally play a leading role in different rituals like the Eucharist.

What kind of response is that to "We can also look in vain to even one instance of a NT presbuteros being titled "priest" and having a unique sacerdotal function." The Holy Spirit is not simply scribbling a few notes but provides extensive description an doctrine on the church and contrasts with the Jewish and other faiths. And in so doing speaks of priests/high priests about 300 times, always using hiereus/archiereus, and not once giving that title to NT presbyters, except as part of the general priesthood of all believers, and nowhere ascribes to NT presbyters any unique sacerdotal function. But Caths insist on ignoring the manifest distinction, and imposing a unique sacerdotal function on prelates.

The NT wasn't a complete ritual instruction booklet, or else the Reformed wouldn't be divided over infant baptism either.

It provides what is needed and its silence can be as weighty as its statements, and does not teach infant baptism, but which is held due to tradition by more Catholic Prot churches.

If there are many more writings though then it gets easier to get a better picture, I think you will agree: The Jehovah's Witnesses claim that The Bible doesn't teach Trinity and Reformed get in big arguments with them.

And the so-called Jehovah's Witnesses effectively operate more according to the RC model of authority and unity, with leadership presuming assured veracity and requiring implicit assent.

But if we care about Church Fathers, then we remember that they had the Council of Nicea, and Reformed, Orthodox, and other mainstream Christians could openly agree on this as a solid, common, clear basis to solve the confusion of JWs.

But which is a poor foundation, for as JWs argue, such also held false doctrine, and the increasing reliance upon tradition, "we always believed this" (even if the NT did not) may have been seen as an easier recourse, but it also fostered the perpetuation of traditions of men that came along with Biblical Truth.

In contrast, it is evangelical Bible believing Christians that JWs want to avoid (they must have our house marked, but we have gone after them to reprove when seen), as they are defeated by recourse to Scripture, not tradition with its admixture of truth and traditions of men.

This of course is a massive exaggeration if we are going to talk about the Reformed approach. Just look at Calvin's long writing on Infant Baptism:
http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/calvin-baptism.html
He only mentions St. Augustine one time.
The Church Fathers are not a central focus of their approach to teaching doctrines when the Reformed disagree with each other.

For as with me, the recourse to ECFs is in dealing with Caths, in condescension to them, not because they are determinitive of Truth.

Cardinal Manning takes a very "powerful" view. I think you could use appeal to antiquity or the Bible to show that Church teachings were wrong.

Good to see that you agree.

However, Cardinal Manning is not all wrong either. If the Christian community (Church) has arrived at a belief across the board (like in Trinity), then that should be a major consideration too. It doesn't mean that it's infallible, but it should count for a lot.

Such affirmation can be of weight if those who provide attestation have Biblical credentials, with the veracity of their claims being based on the weight of Scriptural substantiation. Which i think Nicea much did.

But the RC argument is not simply that an authoritative magisterium is needed, to which we concur, but that an infallible one is, which premise of ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility is novel, unseen and unnecessary in Scripture.

I understand the appeal, as thus there can be no valid dissent, but the church began in dissent from those who sat in the authentic authoritative historical magisterial seat. (Mt. 23:2; Mk. 11:27-33)

Scripture can be a supreme written authority. But that doesn't mean that what some people are convinced the Scripture says is Supreme either. JWs are convinced that Scripture doesn't teach Trinity. But we don't submit the teachings on Trinity to the "authority" of what the JWs believe Scripture says. We need to evaluate the meanings with the major help of what Christians have been thinking about this for the last 1900 years.

No, as that relies on the same presumption of the Jews, that the historical church, via its magisterium, is correct or most trustworthy in any conflict. Thus faced with one that reproved them by Scripture, they rejected him and his followers. (Mk. 7:2-16)

Yes, I am not teaching "absence of errors". I am saying that if surviving persecution is one of the main proofs of Christianity, and as you are saying these 1st-3rd century Christians are pious of great faith, then don't you agree that their explanations should be a key resource for deciding what the books of the Bible from their own era that they chose mean?

That is not a problem, as far as historical research goes, but the RC argument is that what these selectively say, as in what Rome chooses from them and interprets them as saying or supporting, are the determinitive basis for doctrine, though in the case of the Assumption, that is quite the stretch.

Of course, Rome interprets them as supporting her premise of ensured magisterial infallibility, under which her interpretation of them can be said to be infallible.

This is a touching personal story. I am glad that you found some happiness.

For me, things went in a different direction - I grew up Reformed and went to an Evangelical school. They occasionally dropped negative commentary about Catholic people, like blaming Catholic people for not listening to Evangelical sermons in a train station. I told my relatives about these stories, and they said: "Maybe the Catholics had some place to go to."

No, as even as a newly born again yet Catholic who was trying to share the exciting things i was finding then i found little interest. So i went to RC charismatic Bible study, led by a lay RC women who was somewhat discipled by evangelicals, and to a charismatic meetings, which i found some life in. But the hierarchy made them join with a social gospel nun's group (to legitimize the former), and instesd of going forward they went backwards. They could sense it, and even thought that maybe it was bcz the lights were too bright. God will work where He can, but souls must keep pace with the light they are getting if they will go forward.

And after that, having lived in a predominately RC area for over 60 years, and witnessed, or attempted to, to thousands of RCs with the basic non-denominational gospel, i can attest that they are about the most ambivalent or antagonistic group (Jews, God love them, take first place in the latter aspect, followed by some Muslims). Which is due to a dead gospel and dead souls, and faith in their merit and that of a church.

Which is in stark contrast to when i have met so many born again evangelical types from different countries church, in which their a spontaneous kinship, based on a common transformative conversion and profound life changing relationship with Christ. Not that all are like that, or that i have always kept pace with the light i have, or do not need to regularly repent of something in heart or in deed, omission of commission. Thank God for the sinless shed blood of Jesus.

Even though I generally agreed with Reformed beliefs and not Catholic beliefs, the negativity I felt there toward Catholics pushed me away. I went to Catholic school and felt like I was in a less judgmental environment and was happier about that.

Sure, just a little while ago were debating a RC here that thought Abraham and David were myths. I asked why he was a RC and he said that his beliefs were not considered radical in Catholicism. And they hardly are.

America is a mainly Protestant country (or else doesn't care about religion), and Reformed are a HUGE part of the Protestants. I think that in practice someone usually risks more ostracization from society if they are Catholic than if they don't care about religion or are Reformed. At least, this is my experience.

Hardly, at least if Reformed are conservative evangelicals, which counted as the greatest threat by liberals, Muslims and many RCs.

Offhand I am not sure which Catholic martyrs you mean.

Joan of Arc, Savonarola, even if not orthodox RCs.

Anyway, one of Luther's 95 Theses said that it was wrong to kill heretics. That's a wonderful teaching by Luther, right?

So you disagree that it is it wrong to kill heretics (because of that), though i actually think you meant to charge Luther with supporting such, which is another of your historical errors. For where you see this in the 95 theses know not, but likely you are referring to Exsurge Domine condemning errors of Luther, which you mistake as Luther supporting killing heretics, but one of which the pope condemns is "That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit."

And Emperor Charles V permitted anyone to kill Luther without legal consequence. For the Canons of the Ecumenical Fourth Lateran Council (canon 3), 1215, decreed of RC rulers:

Secular authorities, whatever office they may hold, shall be admonished and induced and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical censure, that as they wish to be esteemed and numbered among the faithful, so for the defense of the faith they ought publicly to take an oath that they will strive in good faith and to the best of their ability to exterminate in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics pointed out by the Church ; so that whenever anyone shall have assumed authority, whether spiritual or temporal, let him be bound to confirm this decree by oath.

Pope Pius IX also condemned the proposition that "Every man is free to embrace and to profess that religion which, led by the light of reason, he shall consider to true," (Pope Pius IX, “Syllabus of Modern Errors,”December 8, 1864; http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius09)

Calvin agreed. But then in 1553 Calvin announced that as religious doctrine heretics should get killed, like in the Old Testament. That same year Calvin was the main religious leader in Geneva and promoted killing Michael Servetus for heresy. Then other people got killed or severely punished for heresy in Calvin's Geneva. Considering Calvin's main importance in Calvinism, and considering that after 1553 Protestants began a long trend of killing heretics, Calvin is somewhat responsible indirectly for any killing of heretics by Protestants ever since, because he changed the teaching on that topic.

No, Calvin disagreed with not killing heretics but followed Rome in using the state to do so, as she changed the NT teaching on this issue, and again you are making historical errors. See here for Roman Catholic use of the sword of men.

Reformed in practice don't care about them a ton, do they?

Actually, aside from most all of all the writings of the Church Fathers on the internet being from a late 19th century work (Oxford/Edinburgh "Ante-Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers") of Anglican (if not reformed) prelates, and Salem Communications (Protestant) providing writings of these, Reformed sources often provide and invoke such as historical testimony to truth or error, but we should not "care about them a ton" such as Caths do as their works are vastly inferior to Scripture, nor always consistent with it or uniform with each other. RCs and EO even disagree on what they support.

And as Rome herself judges them more than they judge her, and for a faithful RC history is what Rome says it means, then it is her authority that is the issue, which we will judge in the light of the most authoritative source, the wholly inspired written word of God.

Jerome and Augustine, among others and other things, held perverse views regarding marital relations, with Jerome even abusing Scripture to support his erroneous conclusion.

Offhand I don't know what you are talking about, but by default I am OK with disagreeing with them on whatever it is.

Then you agree with us that we can as well, but our basis is what Scripture manifestly teaches. Which certainly was not the RC distinctives as these.

I have a pretty hard time agreeing with the bold, considering how many Catholic and EO commentaries and writings there are about the Bible. I think if they didn't care about figuring out the Bible's real meaning they wouldn't talk about it so much.

That is no argument against Catholics caring more about their church and its accretion of traditions of men over what Scripture actually teaches, as surveys show that Caths come in almost last in personal Bible reading, and evangelical commentaries have been far more popular, while the devil himself is quite interested in what the Bible says, and the notes the sanctioned Catholic NAB Bible and its helps section for the study version are quite liberal, though sometimes refreshing correct, both of which have a relative-few conservative RCs upset.

The NAB you cited complained that "Then there are ultra-liberal scholars who qualify the whole Bible as another book of fairly tales."

Yes, as even the devil knows not to go too extreme - at first, but relegating such things as the Flood, Jonah and the fish, Balaam and the donkey, the tower of Babel to being fables, and Joshua's conquests (which are treated as literal historical accounts in the NT) and other demonic revisionism is what is included under being led into all Truth via what Rome provides.

That type of things, plus treating such men as Teddy Kennedy as members in life and in death, and besides even the doctrinal errors, requires us to seperate from her or similar liberal Prot denoms.
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14)

Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. (2 Corinthians 6:17-18)

So the Catholic Church, whatever its faults, is still Christian, because it still accepts the basics of Jesus being God and the Messiah and the other many things in the Nicene Creed (See CF Forums rules for what counts as Christian).

But when you relegate stories such as Jonah and the fish to being a folk tale, which the Lord invoked as analogous to His death and resurrection, then it is a slippery slope leading to a speculative view of the latter.

Moreover, the CF Forums statement (which allows for rejecting baptism as a regenerating ordinance) for what counts as Christian (yet the rules say we cannot even imply someone is not!) does not include the very thing that makes one a Christian, that of coming to God as a damned and destitute sinner but with hearfelt repentance and faith in the risen Lord Jesus to save one on His account, not our merits or that of the church.

I, along with multitude other damned souls, professed such a creed, but never really repented and received the Lord Jesus to save me until i was really convicted by God of my lost condition, and heading for judgment. And even then i put it off. Thanks be to God for His long-suffering and mercy and grace in Christ!

However, when you get each sect not caring about Tradition and just going by the Bible as each sect imagines that it means and not caring about whether they break up into groups or not, it is only natural that you get groups that the NAB is complaining about who just see the whole Bible as "stories", or you get groups like the JWs.

Yet is was against such liberal revisionism that the modern evangelical movement basically arose, as Scripture does not change, while the NAB scholar's alternative is liberal revision light. And which examples the problem with looking to men as supreme, to simply "follow the pastors," as Pius X enjoined, as when they go South, so does their followers. Now you have Francis writing an encyclical treating Climate Change as a dire threat, leading some RCs to reject it as not requiring any assent.

If someone imagines the Catholic Church going outside of Tradition and start debunking basic Christianity, then it will mean that the RCC is starting to follow the modern "Reformed" approach that does not treat Tradition as a key way to decide what Christianity means, and instead just decides what the Bible "really" means by itself.

Non-sense, as such Bible believing Prots rejected tradition as the standard since it is inferior to Scripture, and oppose traditions as binding doctrine what are not taught in Scripture, but owe their veracity to Rome's decree, and instead they looked to unchanging Scripture as the standard, with its self-evident literal understanding on historical accounts, etc.

In contrast, just as Catholics looked to men who deviated from Scripture in the past, so they easily can follow modern traditions of men which militate against Scripture.

Also, you will have to admit that revisionism is common among even conservative Reformed, when they debate over Christian Zionism, Replacement Theology, Dispensationalism, End Times chronologies and propositions, Infant Baptism, etc. etc.

That is not revisionism at all, but differences in interpretation, much of which sees debate among RCs as well, whose interpretation as to treatment of Jews and their homeland can hardly been consistent and pure, while leaving room for debate in eschatology, and RCs also have a great deal of liberty to interpret Scripture to support Rome as they interpret her.

They did a far better job keeping their Churches together though than breaking up into dozens or hundreds of totally independent groups with their own very different teachings, even though the Bible says not to do that as we have been discussing. (eg. 1 Cor 10-11)

Unity in error and having churches together does not translate into Biblical unity, and what real unity they have is very limited, while apart from pseudoProts, if evangelicals were not so unified despite differences then they would not be seen as the most distinctive religious threat by liberals and many Caths alike. Yet all major religious groups are in declension. As prophesied. (2Ths. 2:1-4)
The limited unity of the NT was under powerfully manifest men of God, with strong Scriptural substantiation in word and in power, and lacking that today is our fault, and thus the lack of unity is a judgment against the church of God. But Rome is the most manifest example of the deformation of the NT church.

 

[hedrick]

The fact that Jesus died doesn’t make him literally a lamb. It makes him literally a sacrificial victim, for which lamb is a metaphor. If you want to call him a “spiritual lamb,” that’s fine with me, as long as that phrase isn’t meant in a literal way.

The isn’t anything about against the supernatural. This is about how literature works.

 

[rakovsky]

The fact that Jesus died doesn’t make him literally a lamb. It makes him literally a sacrificial victim, for which lamb is a metaphor. If you want to call him a “spiritual lamb,” that’s fine with me, as long as that phrase isn’t meant in a literal way.

The isn’t anything about against the supernatural. This is about how literature works.

If one says Jesus is a "spiritual" lamb who undergoes sacrifice, as opposed to a physical lamb, it does not mean Jesus has all the connotations of a regular lamb, like hooves. It does mean that he undergoes sacrifice though. Did Jesus just metaphorically take away guilt, or did he actually take away guilt? Naturally the latter.

If Paul says Christ/God is a Spiritual rock following the Israelites, it does mean that Jesus is following the Israelites. Was God just metaphorically present following the Israelites or was he actually present following them? In Exodus we read how God was in the pillar of fire or cloud with the Israelites. Naturally then it can be said that Jesus was actually there as an unseen "spiritual rock".

Calvinism however sees this as just a metaphorical presence in the desert, with "rock" meaning "stream of water" and there only being an "outward sign" of Christ in the desert, as opposed to him actually being there.

Am I explaining the difference well enough?

 

[hedrick]

Your explanation is clear but nonsensical. The fact that Christ was a sacrifice for sin doesn't mean he has to be a lamb.

Calvin believed Christ was actually with Israel. He just didn't believe that this required him to be a rock. Rock was, however, given the 1st Cent Jewish context, a reasonable metaphor for his role.

 

[rakovsky]

Your explanation is clear but nonsensical. The fact that Christ was a sacrifice for sin doesn't mean he has to be a lamb.

When we say that Christ is a vine, lamb, or bread, there is a sense in which that statement must be true in the eyes of the author. It does not mean that Christ means the zoological scientific classification for a lamb.

Do you understand that when Lutherans and Orthodox say that Christ underwent atonement as a "spiritual lamb" and followed Israelites as a "spiritual rock" (1 Cor 10) that we mean that Christ actually atoned for people's guilt and actually followed Israelites?

Secondly, when you take spiritual rock to be metaphor, then in what way is Christ a rock? Does it not mean that Christ is a reliable foundation for believers' souls? The believers make up the church. Do you agree with Calvin then in denying that this term "spiritual rock" is a metaphor for the Church's foundation?

 

[hedrick]

When we say that Christ is a vine, lamb, or bread, there is a sense in which that statement must be true in the eyes of the author. It does not mean that Christ means the zoological scientific classification for a lamb.

Do you understand that when Lutherans and Orthodox say that Christ underwent atonement as a "spiritual lamb" and followed Israelites as a "spiritual rock" (1 Cor 10) that we mean that Christ actually atoned for people's guilt and actually followed Israelites?

Of course he did. That only requires that those terms be metaphorical.

Secondly, when you take spiritual rock to be metaphor, then in what way is Christ a rock? Does it not mean that Christ is a reliable foundation for believers' souls? The believers make up the church. Do you agree with Calvin then in denying that this term "spiritual rock" is a metaphor for the Church's foundation?

Christ is certainly all of those things, and rock would be a reasonable metaphor in other contexts. However I agree with Calvin that in this particular passage, Paul isn’t thinking of Christ as the foundation of the Church, since he’s speaking of Christ role with ancient Israel.

 

[rakovsky]

Christ is certainly all of those things, and rock would be a reasonable metaphor in other contexts. However I agree with Calvin that in this particular passage, Paul isn’t thinking of Christ as the foundation of the Church, since he’s speaking of Christ role with ancient Israel.

Do you understand that in traditional "Reformed" thinking, Israel is the Church and vice verse? That is, the post-Pentecost Christian Church is a continuation of ancient Israel, such that what was said of the ancient ekklesia applied to the Church ("The Ekklesia") as it existed in that era?

When Calvin concludes that "spiritual rock" means "stream of water", by extension he also rules out that "spiritual rock" was in this passage meant as a foundation for Israel's spirits, that is, Christ's role as a spiritual foundation for ancient Israel.

 

[rakovsky]

When we say that Christ is a vine, lamb, or bread, there is a sense in which that statement must be true in the eyes of the author. It does not mean that Christ means the zoological scientific classification for a lamb.

Do you understand that when Lutherans and Orthodox say that Christ underwent atonement as a "spiritual lamb" and followed Israelites as a "spiritual rock" (1 Cor 10) that we mean that Christ actually atoned for people's guilt and actually followed Israelites?

Of course he did. That only requires that those terms be metaphorical.

I am not sure how to explain this more clearly then, Hedrick.

Zwingli would say both that Christ's body is "heavenly bread" and is consumed but that these are only true in a metaphorical sense.
Calvin would say that Christ's body is "heavenly bread" in a metaphorical sense and is partaken of, but that the partaking is not JUST a metaphor, there is a real partaking. In Calvin's concept, the believer's spirit actually interacts with Christ's body, even though their two bodies are not directly together.

My point is that it is not enough to just say that "Christ is bread, a lamb, and a vine" and that these are "metaphors" and "symbols", therefore not more, and leave it at that (as Zwingli's and Fred's approach would seem to do), even if you accept the Calvinist system.

The best way I can think of is that there is not just a metaphorical aspect, but a directly true aspect to these mystical statements about Christ-God. As "spiritual rock", he was not a "rock" in the "material" sense (as it doesn't say "material rock"), but was a foundation and basis for the Israelites' spirits (ie foundation for the ekklesia), he was directly, actually present, and he directly, actually followed them like God was actually there accompanying them, according to Exodus.

It's like when the Bible says Jesus was the "Son of God" repeatedly. Is that just a metaphor in the same way that other believers are children of God? No, since we are talking about Christ, it has a direct meaning. I don't know how to explain it better.

Frankly, Hedrick, this problem of metaphorization by the broader, modern group of people who don't put major value on traditional Christian interpretations is one of the reasons I started this thread. I find it hard to prove clearly and independently to some modern "skeptics"/"spiritualists", without resort to widespread Christian views (Tradition), that the gospels mean that Jesus actually rose, that He actually, directly was the Son of God because they just read all these major doctrines as just metaphors/"spirit tools" like Calvin did with the bread and "spiritual rock".

 

[hedrick]

Calvin would say that Christ's body is "heavenly bread" in a metaphorical sense and is partaken of, but that the partaking is not JUST a metaphor, there is a real partaking. In Calvin's concept, the believer's spirit actually interacts with Christ's body, even though their two bodies are not directly together.

Partaking of Christ could be described as a metaphor if you think that “partake” means eat. After all, we don’t literally eat Christ. Partaking of Christ would then be a metaphorical way to refer to the real spiritual interaction that you refer to.

The problem is that the meaning of partake isn’t limited to eating. According to dictionary.com, it is derived from a Latin wording meaning “participate,” and the English still has some of that sense. So if you understand partake to mean participate in, then I think it applies directly. The Greek word translated partake in 1 Cor 10:14ff has this meaning as well. It’s not just “eat” but participate in.

Indeed 1 Cor 10:14 ff speaks of communion as participation. However that still leaves open the question of what “participation” means, and the relationship between partaking of bread and partaking of Christ’s body. I don’t think one can be sure that Paul means anything beyond that in eating and drinking, we participate in Christ’s death (understanding the body and blood as ways to refer to his death). But this could be because the eating and drinking reminds us of his death, and that in going through that experience with him in remembrance, we die and rise with him spiritually, and identify ourselves with him and his mission. In a literal sense this is something that happens in our minds and our spirits. After all, the words of institution tell us to do this in remembrance.

I'm not sure whether to call this understanding of participation literal or metaphorical, but I think the literal meaning of participation can include this kind of spiritual participation. In which case partaking of Christ need not be seen as a metaphor. But if you understand partake as eat, then I think eating Christ is a metaphor for spiritual participation in him.

 

[hedrick]

You’re absolutely right that there is a “broader, modern group of people who don't put major value on traditional Christian interpretations.” I’m one of them. I think the reason for this is a belief that in moving from Palestine to the wider Greco-Roman culture the Church made significant reinterpretations of Jesus. While this reinterpretation may have been fine for people living in the Greco-Roman culture, we don’t feel any requirement to accept those reinterpretations.

I don’t think Calvin had that attitude. I don’t believe there was a good enough understanding in the 16th Cent just how much changed between the NT and early Christianity. But he did start down the path of critical scholarship that led to that.

You’re quite right that being critical about tradition results in many conclusions that are untraditional. It’s obvious that this would be the case. You’re welcome to your view that it’s a bad thing. I disagree.

There is, of course, a lot of value in traditional Christianity. I would certainly not want to lose that. But that doesn’t mean that I’m forced to accept interpretations of the NT that I believe are contrary to the intent of the authors.

 

[rakovsky]

Partaking of Christ could be described as a metaphor if you think that “partake” means eat. After all, we don’t literally eat Christ. Partaking of Christ would then be a metaphorical way to refer to the real spiritual interaction that you refer to.

The problem is that the meaning of partake isn’t limited to eating. According to dictionary.com, it is derived from a Latin wording meaning “participate,” and the English still has some of that sense. So if you understand partake to mean participate in, then I think it applies directly. The Greek word translated partake in 1 Cor 10:14ff has this meaning as well. It’s not just “eat” but participate in.

Indeed 1 Cor 10:14 ff speaks of communion as participation. However that still leaves open the question of what “participation” means, and the relationship between partaking of bread and partaking of Christ’s body. I don’t think one can be sure that Paul means anything beyond that in eating and drinking, we participate in Christ’s death (understanding the body and blood as ways to refer to his death). But this could be because the eating and drinking reminds us of his death, and that in going through that experience with him in remembrance, we die and rise with him spiritually, and identify ourselves with him and his mission. In a literal sense this is something that happens in our minds and our spirits. After all, the words of institution tell us to do this in remembrance.

I'm not sure whether to call this understanding of participation literal or metaphorical, but I think the literal meaning of participation can include this kind of spiritual participation. In which case partaking of Christ need not be seen as a metaphor. But if you understand partake as eat, then I think eating Christ is a metaphor for spiritual participation in him.

Thanks for thinking about this, Hedrick.
I liked it how earlier you had said that calling something a symbol did not exclude the possibility that it could be literally true as well. It was interesting. Eusebius seemed to talk about this in portraying the Eucharist.

One of the main problems I am trying to address is the growing mentality that hears things like "Jesus is: the vine, the lamb, the Son of God, the Anointed/"Messiah", who: feeds the branches, who atones for mankind, who came to save us, who resurrected", and then says that these are all metaphors and not directly true, because Jesus wasn't a physical vine, didn't get ritually "anointed", dead people don't resurrect and ascend, etc.

It seems to me rather that if we say "Jesus is a lamb who takes away the sins of the world and a spiritual rock who followed Israelites", then we don't mean Jesus classifies zoologically as a lamb or looked like a rock (Lopukhin says he was "unseen"), but we still say that he takes away sins and was with His people, the Israelites.
I wish I could express this better so that it was easier to understand how this is not a simple metaphor.

Likewise, if Jesus says that He is a temple that gets rebuilt in three days or bread that comes from heaven, we might not normally imagine that he must in real life look like a pack of bricks. But if he points to himself and says "Destroy this temple (indicating his body) and I will rebuild it", or "This (indicating what he had in his hands) is my body", then it's a different story. He is not just talking about pie in the sky abstractions anymore but in real life pointing to something specific and real, even if he used a metaphorical noun to label it (eg. "temple"). His body (called temple) would get actually get restored(called "rebuilt"), the bread (in his hands) actually was His body.

 

[rakovsky]

You’re absolutely right that there is a “broader, modern group of people who don't put major value on traditional Christian interpretations.” I’m one of them. I think the reason for this is a belief that in moving from Palestine to the wider Greco-Roman culture the Church made significant reinterpretations of Jesus. While this reinterpretation may have been fine for people living in the Greco-Roman culture, we don’t feel any requirement to accept those reinterpretations.

A problem with not giving the traditional interpretations major authority and considering them to have switched to Greco-Roman mentality, is that this is the same criticism that Ehrman and others give to the NT itself. They say that ideas of God incarnating, of multiple divine beings making up "God", ideas of human sacrifice meal (metaphorical or not), etc. are ideas created by Greco-Roman culture. In their view, the NT itself is a Greco-Roman spin on "hagiography" and that Jesus didn't have any of these ideas.

Personally, I disagree. All kinds of strange ideas can be found in the Old Testament or among Jews of the era. Even John the Baptist's apparently "once-for-all" baptism was not really following the normal rules about repeated washings.

In truth, the substance of the early Christian writings has a lot more to do with beliefs in the Bible itself (listed above), written by Jewish Christians, than things that the Church fathers imagined later on.

Things that might sound strange to us today weren't strange back then. How about casting out demons or healing the sick or as you called it "relic mania"? These beliefs are part of the Biblical Jews' own mentality.

In Josephus we read about how one Jewish healer made a special potion and used a ring to cast out dozens of demons from Vespasian's troops. Nowadays Westerners would normally be skeptical about that, but often not in those times among ancient Jews.

It's also incorrect to create some kind of iron wall between Jewish and gentile Christians' beliefs. Paul himself was Jewish. The Didache was Jewish. The apostles, Jesus' relatives, and specifically Jewish Christians were running the Church in Jerusalem until 135 AD or so. You have Hegesippus, the Jewish Christian and Epiphanius. Jerome's work was made directly in Palestine where he learned Hebrew and translated the Masoretic with the help of Jewish Christians.

To say that the early Christian writings were Greco-Roman and therefore we don't consider early writings a major authority to understand the main text from Christianity essentially neuters yourself as an educated person trying to understand the text. You basically make the text read whatever you alone imagine it to read and cut your anchor, sailing off into the modern world of scholarship that says that Isaiah 53 isn't about the Messiah, that Jesus didn't think he was God, etc.

I don’t think Calvin had that attitude. I don’t believe there was a good enough understanding in the 16th Cent just how much changed between the NT and early Christianity. But he did start down the path of critical scholarship that led to that.

You’re quite right that being critical about tradition results in many conclusions that are untraditional. It’s obvious that this would be the case. You’re welcome to your view that it’s a bad thing. I disagree.

My complaint about this is not that estimations of reality can differ drastically from what the Bible or tradition say. It's really that whether religion is right or wrong, this method that disregards the other writings from the period and reinterprets the main writing as an "infallible" book and then reinterprets it based on his/her own conceptions of reality does a major disservice to people's minds. Religion and its main text doesn't always actually say whatever the believer is convinced reality is. Just because Calvin doesn't believe that rocks follow people doesn't mean that rocks means water because water can follow people.

Normally when we read a text, like the Quran, a major way to understand it is to look at commentaries from the period, like the Hadiths. It doesn't mean that we treat the Hadiths as infallible, but they should still be a crucial authority to understand what they say.
Go and read the story of the splitting of the moon, Hedrick. it's kind of neat. See if you can understand what it is talking about. Without the Hadiths and medieval Muslim commentaries, it's pretty confusing.
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/53/index.htm

And let's not imagine that the Quran is a mess but the Bible give an easy, pristine understanding to everyone. If that were so, we wouldn't have arguments over Isaiah 53's original meaning.

There is, of course, a lot of value in traditional Christianity. I would certainly not want to lose that. But that doesn’t mean that I’m forced to accept interpretations of the NT that I believe are contrary to the intent of the authors.

The problem here is how we go about figuring out original intent. Christian Zionists would say the same thing that they won't accept other beliefs because other beliefs are contrary to intent. But in reality we need to respect the authority of the Tradition from the early Christian period to understand what that intent was. Many people don't want to hear that and want the Bible to say what they like and not care much about what the Christian community taught in that era.

This is why people commonly end up thinking things about intent quite different from what the intent was on many issues ranging from Dispensationalism to whether Elisha's bones revived someone or not.

 

[hedrick]

The claim that the Gospels are a Greco-Roman take on a simple Jewish life goes against all the historical Jesus work of the last century or so. That work has placed Jesus and his portrayal in the Gospels quite firmly in a Jewish background. The NT does show some Greco-Roman background. As you say, Paul operated within that world. Even Jesus did, to a limited extent. But later Christian writers operated within a rather different worldview than the NT writers. It’s true that there isn’t an absolute line between NT and post-NT writings, but the speed with which the reinterpretations took place is pretty impressive. You can see the beginnings within the NT itself.

Of course some of this is due to later selection. There’s some reason to think that there were Christians who resisted these developments. Their documents are not preserved.

Ehrman’s idea of Jesus seems to me to be based on views that are no longer common in historical Jesus work, though I’m not sure he quite thinks what you said. He thinks Jesus was a failed apocalyptic prophet. That’s a Jewish model, just the wrong one.

I would refer to the Hadith to understand how Islam reads the Quran. That’s generally the issue for non-Muslims. “Historical Mohammed” work isn’t as common among Muslims as historical Jesus work among Christians. However it would use the Hadiths carefully, understanding that they are not necessarily an accurate reflection of his intent. I don’t know enough about Islam that I’d want to go further discussing it, but I don’t think there’s a perfect correspondence between the NT and the Quran.

In fact I do look at the Christian community’s understanding of the Bible. I agree that understanding the authors' intent often requires work, and that commentaries are important. However there are multiple Christian communities. I belong to an ecumenical community that accepts recent historical Jesus and Paul work.

Scholarship is not a bunch of individuals in isolation. Scholars work as a community, and although not all are active Christians, they do work within the broader Christian community. However this community doesn’t include people who view tradition as largely or completely infallible. The boundaries are a bit flexible, though, since Catholics are to a reasonable extent part of it.

 

[hedrick]

I may have made a mistake in implying that the only thing going on in the early Church was a shift to a Greco-Roman context. The Church had to come up with ways to organize leadership and liturgy, for example. The experience of persecution, and an admiration for those who persevered had a serious influence. Christian spiritual experience began to build up. So did “popular piety.”

Many of those things are just fine. But they’re also not immune from reconsideration. We might well consider different forms of leadership appropriate, and different liturgies. We might well not want to continue the types of popular piety that grew up in the early Church.

 

[FredVB]

The Bible certainly uses metaphors, as Christ did, and it is profitable to see this where it occurs, though some are disliking doing this. Christ said all those "I am"s with saying indeed he was the vine, he was the door, he was the light of the world, he was the bread from heaven. The terms are metaphors, certainly, though showing a reality of who and what Christ is, spiritually, just as you wouldn't think of him as a physical lamb, but in the sacrifice with atonement for us, Christ was spiritually this, for us. And when Christ followed the people of Israel in the wilderness, he was there with them, but not physically. Apart from the incarnation, though, he is omnipresent.

In traditional Christianity, the term "lamb" can be a metaphor, but Christ literally underwent an atonement for humanity. He did not just metaphorically undergo atonement. To use the metaphor of a lamb, you must read Christ where it says lamb.

Further, unlike when he said "he was the vine, he was the door, he was the light of the world, he was the bread from heaven", Jesus directly gave them an actual piece of bread and said This is my body. So as in the case of discerning Christ when the Bible says lamb, you must discern "Christ" when He says "this is" and He gives bread.

And then Paul openly instructed to "discern" that the ritual bread was the communion of Christ's body, and said that nonbelievers suffered because they failed to discern it. Yet in fact even nonbelievers could discern the ritual bread was a symbol, if that was all the bread was.

The problem when you use modern understandings of nature to automatically read everything as metaphor in disregard of both the plain meaning and the Christian traditions for the last 1950 years is that you end up where some modern "critical scholars" do, concluding that the gospels are a metaphor and a "true" story, but the "absurd"/"foolish" things like Resurrection/Ascension didn't literally happen either.

My point is that it is not enough to just say that "Christ is bread, a lamb, and a vine" and that these are "metaphors" and "symbols", therefore not more, and leave it at that (as Zwingli's and Fred's approach would seem to do), even if you accept the Calvinist system.

It seems with this there is no acknowledgement of metaphors in the Bible, even with so much of that shown. Is this true? As with Christ saying among those "I am"s that he is the vine, the door, the light of the world, the bread from heaven, he is using terms that are metaphors for the truth of what he spiritually is for us, no one here is saying that because he is metaphorically a lamb that the atonement, for which the lamb is a metaphor, is itself a metaphor. We understand the reality, so we can use the metaphorical language that shows what is necessary and how animals needing to die for people was just used for the symbolism of the reality, for enabling their necessary faith. Hopefully how a metaphor is used can be better understood. It doesn't require other terms to be metaphors as well.

Just as he could say "I am" and use a metaphorical term for the truth that he is spiritually for us, he could say of the bread he broke, "this is my body" and with that bread being a metaphor. There isn't reason to dismiss that as what could have been meant, and it was an apt metaphor of how he was to suffer, given for them and all believers. That he said do this in remembrance of me shows that doing this is the important thing to be continued, to remember with the constant act with this, not the need to believe it is actually his body, which isn't being said as a necessary belief we need anywhere in the Bible.

 

[rakovsky]

DEAR HEDRICK,

On rationalism, I don't think Calvin was placing reason over religion.

The religious beliefs of his time said that Christ was directly, specifically in the ritual food.
Calvin generally relied on Reason to judge that the common religious interpretation was incorrect.

Likewise, religion of his time commonly thought relics were part of miracleworkiing, but he used Reason to call it "foolish".

I think he was using it to help understand what Scripture means. I believe that the way people decide what is metaphor and what is literal is based on reason. For example, when Jesus says he is the door for the sheep, we know that this is a metaphor because the literal reading makes no sense, but the metaphorical understanding does.

I understand. And find it hard to clearly prove when there is metaphor and when not.
Some people read about all kinds of things that they find "absurd", like Noah's flood, a voice speaking in a burning bush, the sun standing still in Joshua's day (and other expressions of geocentricism) God appearing on the Mount to Moses, the resurrection of Jesus, etc. and then they conclude that these things were metaphors and allegories.

So it can be tough to see where the metaphors end and real facts begin.

It's true that Jesus is not a "door" with all the normal connotations with material hinges etc. But it's also true that the believers (sheep) "enter" heaven through Jesus in some real sense.

It might be strange to think that Jesus was a spiritual rock i that connotes a scientifically classifiable petrolith, but there is no mental problem for the ancient Pauline mind in conceiving that the preincarnate Logos was following the Israelites.

This is essentially a rational process, though we do it so automatically that we often don't think of it that way. I don't think you can make that kind of decision without being rational.

This is a very different kind of thing than saying "Jesus can't have been raised, because we know that dead people don't rise." That's rejecting a plain reading of Scripture, whereas what Calvin is doing is accepting a plain reading,

In both cases the literal meaning is rejected in favor of a metaphorical reading on the basis of Reason - bodies can't resurrect or be in two places at once (bilocation).

Doesn't the plain meaning meas the literal meaning:

Plain Sense (or literal) Interpretation Versus the Allegorical (or symbolic) Interpretation of the Bible

http://www.lastchanceministries.com/interpretation.htm

but using reason to help understand what that plain reading is. Mainline and liberal theology actually do both. There are times when I will say that something that Scripture clearly says happened probably didn't. But that's not what is going on in deciding that "this is my body" should not be taken literally.

Yes, it is the same kind of basis for determination. In both cases Reason is a judge for whether something is just a "story" or really happened.
i admit a difference:
With Eucharist, you say it's impossible, so it must be intended as a metaphor.
With relic miracles in the Bible, you say it practically doesn't happen, so it didn't happen and was just an intended, but mistaken belief. But still your conclusion in practical consequence is the same: In effect both times your conclusion is that the thing didn't literally happen.

So in both cases, "Reason" is being used to judge whether something that the Bible narrates and Tradition teaches literally happened, or if it is just an allegory/metaphor that didn't "actually" happen, like Jesus "actually" being in the bread or relics actually being involved in healing people.

My own challenges about religion, Hedrick, are not so much understanding the religion's basics on its own terms. I don't have a problem thinking that in the supernatural or in the first century mindset Christ-God can cross through closed doors, be in bread, or use relics to heal. It's rather when I try to apply Reason to religion itself, that things become challenging to decide whether they actually happened.

 

[rakovsky]

Dear Hedrick,
You wrote:

Calvin was not the major leader at that time. He was actually on the outs with Geneva leadership. They asked for him as an expert witness, but he didn’t make the decision. He did support it, though, and wrote a book afterwards justifying it.

OK.

The best history of the time I know says that this was the only execution for heresy.

It sounds like blasphemy played a role in Gruet being killed.

"And are not these blasphemies in your papers worse than all the poisons in the world?[Calvin asked.] Here Gruet was dazed and agreed again." The Open Court, Vol. 10.
https://books.google.com/books?id=gq7QAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA5069&dq=gruet+executed+heresy+calvin&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj49YvZy4fLAhUMaz4KHZJTB-kQ6AEIKDAC#v=onepage&q=gruet executed heresy calvin&f=false​

There were, however, a number of executions for witchcraft.

Calvin certainly supported it. So did the Catholic authorities and the leaders of other Protestant towns in Switzerland.

OK.

I don’t think you can blame Calvin for what was a universal practice at the time.

Lutherans hadn't accepted it before then, although post facto they supported Calvin. So I blame Calvin among others.

In my opinion, from having read a fair about the context, at that point there was not a clear separation between the Church, the State, and the community as a whole. Christianity was seen as one key thing that unified the community.

ok.

For that reason, attacks on Christianity were attacks on the community itself, and effectively treason.

Blasphemy was a separate charge or crime than treason.

This idea of Christianity as the unifying force for the community goes back to Constantine. It’s only fairly recently that we’ve adopted other approaches. Everyone agreed that there could be no compulsion in religion. But they also believed that attacking Christianity was attacking the community.

OK.

I think the way these two views were reconciled is that no one was prosecuted for what they thought (at least not in Geneva). Prosecutions were for public attacks on Christianity or advocacy of positions that were seen as attacks on Christianity.

Part of the evidence against both Gruet and Servetus was private religious writings.

Feel free to answer me in this thread:

Why did Michael Servetus go to Geneva where he got burned by Calvin's Reformed community?
http://www.christianforums.com/thre...burned-by-calvins-reformed-community.7932159/