Martin Luther and Rome

yhwhismysalvation said:

Thanks. I appreciate the offer and might just take you up on it. Before I made the decision to convert to Catholicism I was banned at CA as well. I don't have the temperament or the talent for rhetoric and apologetics. To be honest with you I've had enough of the toxic B.S. and no longer want any part of it. Time for some peace and quite.

Take care,

Ed

Click to expand...

You are in the wrong place for peace and quiet for sure. But welcome to the fray dear brother, and welcome home to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church! I too am a convert, except it was about 25 years ago.

yhwhismysalvation said:

"I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

The Jews living during the time that Jesus walked the earth understood exactly what Jesus was talking about. It had everything to with Divinely appointed human Authority.

Click to expand...

Maybe not exactly, or they all would have converted. Keep it real.

Also almost no one here "knows exactly" that at Ceasarea, there was a cave literally called "the gates of hell", and how that makes equating it with meaning "error" is utterly facile.

Rick Otto said:

Maybe not exactly, or they all would have converted. Keep it real.

Also almost no one here "knows exactly" that at Ceasarea, there was a cave literally called "the gates of hell", and how that makes equating it with meaning "error" is utterly facile.

Click to expand...

I find this anecdote to be as convincing as the "Eye of the Needle" it's eisegesis to try and avoid the implications of undesirable texts, how can a cave "prevail" against the Church?

Erose said:

You are in the wrong place for peace and quiet for sure. But welcome to the fray dear brother, and welcome home to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church! I too am a convert, except it was about 25 years ago.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I am so glad to finally be home (kicking and screaming all the way I might add .) I'll leave the rhetoric and apologetics to my Catholic mentors such as yourself. I'll keep quite for the most part, listen and learn.

Ed

Setyoufree said:

Yes, but using the Bible as its own interpreter...not tradition as does the RCC.

Click to expand...

So you admit here that you engage in no interpretation. Does your method permit you to arrive at the correct interpretation every single time?

Rick Otto said:

Maybe not exactly, or they all would have converted. Keep it real.

Also almost no one here "knows exactly" that at Ceasarea, there was a cave literally called "the gates of hell", and how that makes equating it with meaning "error" is utterly facile.

Click to expand...

I don't really have anything to say in response. I spent about two years researching all of this and know what conclusions I have come to. I will only say to do your own research. I can't do that for you. If you have already done this and have chosen to believe what you believe then I totally respect that.

Ed

Setyoufree said:

Okay, then you are placing your trust...your faith in men, not God. That's not a good place to go....

Click to expand...

That is a bit misleading and I am sure you aware of this. I don't believe your understanding of Catholicism is that deficient. You mislead deliberately?

Ed

Setyoufree said:

Read my inserts above.

The disciples were to spread the gospel, not house themselves in a lavish, costly chapels such as the Sistine Chapel.

Click to expand...

I could be wrong but it appears that the Catholic Church has done an outstanding job of spreading the Gospel for two thousand years. Do you ever read history by the way?

Ed

This is one of many things that amazes me about modern Protestants. The classic Protestants of the Reformation era didn't believe that the Bible was clear in the sense that any individual with a modicum of training could pick it up and craft a systematic theology from it after a single, or even five or ten readings.

What they meant when they said that the Bible was clear was that there was only one sense of Scripture- the plain sense- and that that conformed to the author's meaning and not later spiritual meanings imported into the text through the mystic and personal inspiration of later saints. The latter were fine for edification and illustration, but they have no binding force. Only the intention of the author, as intended for his own audience, is binding. That can appear in many literary genres, so it is not the same as the literal meaning, but it is always singular.

And how did this emerge? Not only through the magisterium of the church, but through the emerging scholarly consensus of Renaissance humanism. The second major recovery of Scripture in the western church- the first being the original trove of documents coming in from Moorish Spain and the 1204 Venetian sack of Constantinople that together spurred the development of high scholasticism, especially Thomism- had brought about a series of revolutions in the understanding of Scripture and the history of Christianity, including the work of Lorenzo Valla, Pico della Mirandola, Cardinal Ximenes de Cisneros, Jacques Lefevre d'Estaples, and ultimately Erasmus. It seemed very clear to the Reformers- all of whom were steeped in the thoroughly Catholic tradition of the New Learning- that the emergent scholarly consensus was that there was a vast gulf between current church dogma and practice and the thought-world of the first Christians.

Whether they were right is a question for another day. But what it must insist upon is that where medieval and early modern Catholicism insisted upon the magisterial interpretation of scripture, and modern Protestants insist upon the private interpretation of Scripture, historic Lutherans- Lutheran, Calvinist, and Anglican- insist upon the public interpretation of Scripture. Scripture is to be interpreted within the wider community of scholars and pastors, in constant dialogue through careful analysis of the texts.

And of course, it needs to be noted that not only do mainline Protestants- Anglicans, Lutherans, Calvinists, and Methodists- continue to do exactly this (more on the liberal mainline side than the conservative confessional side, admittedly), but Catholics are now very much involved in this process as well. Although the definition of doctrine remains a function of church councils and papal pronouncements, the process leading up to those pronouncements are very much part of the public life of scholarship in dialogue with Protestant peers in the university setting.

So neither magisterial interpretation or private interpretation, as far as I'm concerned. Both can be informed by the scholarly, consensus-driven interpretation open to public examination, but magisterial interpretation, though beneficial in its orderliness, remains arbitrary in the sense that it does open itself to examination in light of new discoveries, whereas private interpretation, however open to new insights, is a dangerous force for personal confusion and ecclesiastical chaos.

staff edit

Click to expand...

Rome's theological explanation of how the preaching of the gospel operates vis-a-vis the reception of the hearer and the subsequent relationship between works and faith in the life of the believer is wrong.

But that doesn't mean that in the straightforward preaching of the gospel that people aren't saved- and en masse at that- as a result. The good news that Jesus Christ was died to save us from our sins and has been raised for our justification is powerful wherever it is proclaimed, and if you've never gotten that much in a Catholic Church then you haven't been listening.

Setyoufree said:

How so?

Click to expand...

Setyoufree said:

Okay, then you are placing your trust...your faith in men, not God. That's not a good place to go....

Click to expand...

Unless I am misunderstanding you it should be obvious. I realize you are not Catholic and don't agree with the teachings of the Catholic Church but I don't think you actually believe this about Catholics.

Ed

Shiny Gospel Shoes said:

You do realize the hidden definition right? "Reason" as given by Rome, is thus given, "...and he can do these things, because his [the Pope's] will stands for reason."

"The adjacent gloss in column 217 for "veri Dei vicem" in Decretal. [Greg. IX.] de Transl. [lib. i. tit. 7.] c. 3. 'Quanto', adds the following regarding the scope of the Pope's authority as God's true vice governor:"

"quia in his, quae vult, ei est pro ratione voluntas
(Instit. de jure natu. § sed quod principi. Haec quippe.) " - Dominum Deum Nostrum Papam - Our Lord God the Pope - DOCUMENTED.

Thus to knowingly cross the Pope's "will" ["which stands for reason"] is sin, even "mortal" [according to their def.] at that.

Click to expand...

For the truth about the anti-Catholic charge of “Lord God the Pope” check out the link below.....

The truth about the anti-Catholic charge of “Lord God the Pope” | Beati mundo corde

Ed

Setyoufree said:

The Bible writers were fallible men, guided by the Spirit of God, to present to us the things of God. Hence the Bible is the infallible word of God.

Click to expand...

You have not answered my questions. What happens when you interpret the Bible? Is your interpretation of the infallible text also infallible?