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

[rakovsky]

Dear Hedrick:

Actually his primary argument is Scriptural. He refers to the Ascension, where Jesus went to heaven, and Acts 3:21, which says that Jesus will remain in heaven until he comes again.

To say that Calvin's primary argument against Lutherans/Catholics is "scriptural" is incorrect, in that they do not differ on the scripture's own meaning in this case, only the implications to be drawn from that scripture. They both agree with the Ascension, but based on a materialist understanding of nature and Reason, Calvin concludes from the fact that Christ remains in heaven that Christ cannot be on earth at the same time. Of course, that conclusion is not what the verse actually says, only one understands that bilocation is not only conceivable but believed in for centuries and under nature's laws, possible.
Thus, they both agree that Christ remains in heaven, but Lutherans don't agree that he is restricted to it, which the verse doesn't actually say either. To pull out such conclusions from the verse will demand use of Reason against the common Christian beliefs of Calvin's time.

He argues that even Christ’s glorified body is visible, Luke 24:39 and various other accounts of his post-resurrection appearance. While he appeared in a locked room, he always appeared in a tangible form. Calvin believes that the concept of Christ’s body as ubiquitous and invisible is a rejection of the resurrection of his flesh.

This tangibility and absolute, inherent visibility is wayward logic, because according to John 20, Jesus passed through the wall. Was he at that moment while passing through the wall "tangible"? Also, to say that the vanished Christ was "visible" while in fact no human or animal could possibly see Him creates a "legal fiction", for back of a better term.

In fact he's oversimplifying the Lutheran position, but so are you, and in the same way.

The two Lutherans here don't think I am oversimplifying their position.

The most detailed presentation in the Book of Concord agrees that Jesus has a resurrection body, but they maintain that it can be present in more than one way. The way in which it is present in communion is in a spiritual mode. I don't know whether Calvin wasn't aware of that when he wrote the Institutes or whether the Lutheran position was clarified afterwards.But as you know, he argued later that their positions were fairly close to each other.

Luther's Formula and Book of Concord were published in 1577-1580, long after Luther was able to review Calvin's ideas, including Calvinists' claims that their ideas were amenable. In the Concord, Luther wrote:

I reckon them all as belonging together (that is, as Sacramentarians and enthusiasts), for that is what they are who will not believe that the Lord's bread in the Supper is His true, natural body, which the godless or Judas receive orally as well as St. Peter and all the saints. Whoever, I say, will not believe this, will please let me alone and expect no fellowship from me. This is Final.

Calvin did not believe of course that the faithless succeeded in consuming the Lord's body, while Luther said above that he did, as Luther believed that the eaten bread was directly that body.

 

[rakovsky]

Hedrick!

This shouldn't be a shock. The Institutes is not a work of systematic theology, or of philosophy. It is a summary of Calvins view of major Scriptural themes, intended as background for understanding exegesis of individual passages. Any argument that a position in the Institutes comes from rationalism would need very convincing justification.

The Institutes have sometimes been referred to as systematic theology, but I've seen convincing arguments that it's not systematic in the usual sense. Rather, it's exegetical.

I laid this out in Q. 3 B.
http://www.christianforums.com/thre...of-christianity.7929431/page-19#post-69271122

Calvin had a pattern and practice of resorting to measurements of "reasonableness" "foolishness", "absurdity" in order to judge longstanding beliefs, most prominent being the Eucharist bread and relics' miracles, but also "spiritual rock" and, ironically enough considering his conclusions, the heliocentric/geocentric debate.

Further, this was the argument that Luther and his ally Westphal themselves made about Calvin's and Zwingli's position on Christ's body- that it came from using Reason against religious doctrine.

 

[rakovsky]

Mark,

As such, Christ's very body and blood are present, this is why Lutherans do, depending on their traditions, bow or genuflect not only before the consecrated elements, as we do even before our empty altars, as they have been sanctified by their supporting Christ's body and blood. This is also why most Lutheran Churches have sanctuary lamps,

I didn't think about this.

Lutheran sanctuary lamp:

Lutheran Church in Baltimore

Lutheran altar lamp in Minnesota

I think in Lutheran/Catholic/Orthodox mentality there is more a sense of the "holy", the "presence" maybe.
A PCUSA minister who I love explained a long time ago that Orthodox was like the Temple, while PCUSA is more like the synagogue with teaching and education.
Of course, this is too much a simplification, but it has a grain of truth as to the feeling in the soul.
When you have more a sense of "holiness" and its "presence", ideas like Christ-God being in bread or miracles happening or the Turin Shroud being real (I am more skeptical of the shroud now than a believer in it, BTW), are more easily expecting and believable, I think.
When you are in an environment of "school" and classrooms, miracle claims become more "incredible", to use Calvin's words about Lutheran ideas on Jesus' body.

 

[rakovsky]

Very true. Calvin expands on theological themes such as the Decalogue and the Lord's Prayer, etc. using scripture alone. What folks seem to forget is that Calvin referenced tradition as a secondary witness to scripture. He wasn't expounding tradition, which is what rak is doing, Calvin was expounding inscripturated Apostolic teaching.

Hello, JM.

Calvin was teaching what he thought was "inscripturated Apostolic teaching", based on his use of Reason. I expect that you would propose that his exegesis in the case of paedopabtism was not actually "inscripturated Apostolic teaching", but rather his own thoughts and expectations about religion that used Bible verses through the prism of his own reasoning.

IMO Tradition is not infallible, but a crucial witness to scripture and tool to understand it. In practice, Reformed commonly don't treat it openly as a major witness and tool. We don't see them taking up Tradition when they debate issues around Replacement theology (for and against), except more often to trash the Fathers on that topic.

It's rather ironic, considering that nonZionist Reformed in effect teach the same thing as the Fathers on Replacement Theology.

 

[rakovsky]

Likewise, most protestants that teach spiritual presence are receptionists; teaching that one must be "right" in their faith or they will only receive bread and wine. We believe that this is also a wrong teaching. It is Christ's body and blood not because of us, but despite us. Receptionism is a teaching that takes merit away from Christ, and gives it to us; the same way that decision theology does. Sola Deo Gloria.

Mark,
In contrast to receptionism, RCs, Lutherans, and Orthodox agree that we receive Christ's body and blood in the Eucharist whether or not we do so worthily. This is why 1 Cor 11 says:

"Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord."​

If only worthy people right in faith succeeded in eating the body, then under 1 Cor 11 it would hardly make sense how the unworthy would be sinning against said body. This is another proof that the Reformed position is not "scriptural".

In a partial or incidental sense of course it is "Christ's body and blood because of us", because with no people to perform the ritual, the transformation wouldn't happen.

More broadly, Orthodox, Catholics, and Methodists/Arminians do not agree with all the Reformed/Lutheran bases for rejecting decision theology, in that we think that people do have some kind of merit. We don't teach that man is so "totally depraved" that he cannot do good or have free will in their salvation decisions. That is, man and God work together (in synergy) for God's plan of salvation, although of course God plays the predominant role. But if man had zero role and God had the only role (monergism), it would remove man's own role and free choice in his salvation.

Still, I understand how Evangelical "Decision theology" (person has to make a conscious decision in order to be saved) contradicts the Lutheran/Reformed belief in monergism, because decision theology forces a human's own personal decision, independent of God's, to be an absolute requirement for salvation.

 

[rakovsky]

Hedrick,

This is a case where I’m more radical exegetically than religiously. I like the idea of Christ present in communion, and would have no problem with the Lutheran explanation if I thought there was any justification for it.

I expect you would agree that Tradition is "a justification" for the Lutheran/RC/Orthodox teaching, but you just don't find it a strong enough one.

Further, I remember that on the issue of Lutheran omnipresence you said that you normally would not be inclined to say that the post-incarnated Jesus could have His spirit "present" someplace that His body was not. So here again, you and I can think of a common possible justification for the Lutheran view.

However I doubt that the Jesus meant anything beyond a metaphor in the words of institution.

However, "many disciples" who listened to him directly in John 6 did think he meant something literal when it came to talking about eating his body. That Jesus didn't call disciples back and say he wasn't speaking literally is a sign of his real intent here. His goal was to come and save people, not lose them when they in substance agreed with him.

If your criteria for deciding Jesus' intent is based on what you think is realistic, a whole host of questions arises and everything else Jesus said or did must be judged on whether you think the things involved are real. Jesus gave many talks on demons, depicting them as real beings with names like "Legion" and casting them into pigs. So you will have to judge these things too on whether you personally and realistically think "Legion" was a real demon's name.

The alternative would be to accept that in the ancient mindset or in the supernatural, Jesus' ideas might not sound realistic to many critical scholars today.

And I think Paul simply meant that people needed to remember that they were celebrating Christ’s death, not eating a banquet.

Paul makes it sound like they were actually getting real sicknesses from eating unworthily, quite a severe penalty for just getting a symbolic-only ritual (symbolic-only because under Receptionism, nothing miraculous occurred to the unfaithful) confused with a banquet. Remember, this is the same audience that regularly listened to speeches in "unknown tongues". How do sicknesses from eating ritual bread and speaking in tongues hold up to the "realism" standard?

But Jesus did promise to be with his Church, and surely in the commemoration of his death that presence is particularly real. So I do think communion is a means that he gives us to make his presence real. However I don't claim that this is what Calvin meant.

How could what you are saying in this message differ from Calvin's meaning?

 

[rakovsky]

Dear Hedrick,

from my POV, there is too much at stake not to apply a literal reading of Scripture.
That's precisely why I think we need to be careful not to go beyond what is clear. It's too easy to see what we want to see or what 2000 years of tradition biases us to see.

What is clear is that Jesus says that the bread "is" his body, and that you must "eat his body", and that both in John 6 and in the 16th century, Christians who could not handle the direct meaning of these words schismated from the rest of the Christian community. It is interesting and relevant that those who have held to the literal meaning (Lutherans/Catholics/Orthodox) have been far less fractious among themselves than those who have not - "fractious" being the very complaint Paul made in 1 Cor 11.

Further, if it isn't clear to some Reformed whether Jesus meant this literally or "symbolically" about the bread, then those Reformed failed to be careful when they decided to teach as doctrine that the bread itself is only symbolic.

2000 years of tradition going back to Jesus' time is a bias for Orthodox, however it is a normal, healthy, important bias in understanding Christianity (even if potentially fallible), just as many centuries of Muslim traditions are a good "bias" to understand Islam (and to decide whether we like what we find in Islam or not).

 

[rakovsky]

Hello, Fred!

Why would Christ have said, "Do this in remembrance of me"? If there was important doctrine of Christ being physically present to believers in such a ceremony,

Jesus wanted us to eat his body in his remembrance. Likewise, God wanted the Israelites to do certain rituals in the temple, like the Passover festival, in remembrance of past events. This does not contradict God's presence directly in the Temple as the "Shekinah".

Or to give another example, every year you could have a memorial service at a loved one's grave. This also does not deny that the loved one's body is physically present at that service. We have early Christian depictions of Christians having memorial meals in the Christian catecombs where Christians were buried, and of course were physically present. Thus, there is no contradiction but even an allusion and connection between a memorial service and a presence.

You proposed:

If there was important doctrine of Christ being physically present to believers in such a ceremony, there would be more said for it in other passages in the Bible besides that about what was said at the last supper, which was with plenty of symbols.

The problem is first of all, there are signs of it there as the Lutheran/Orthodox/Catholic writers point out.
But secondly, there actually are major cases where important doctrines are not stated so clearly that they are totally unquestionable. A good example of this is belief in Trinitarianism. Ever since the first few centuries there have been Christians who claimed that Trinity is not in the Bible. The Arians were a famous example from the 4th century, Unitarians are a good example from the 18th c., and Jehovah's Witnesses are a good example from today.

Trinitarianism and Jesus being in the Eucharist of course can both be found in the Bible, and the Bible never specifically denies Trinitarianism or the real presence in the bread, yet there are a minority of believers in Jesus who dispute these traditional teachings.

But the remembrance is important, and salvation or spiritual growth or sanctification do not depend on taking such a physical presence of Christ to be in us, believers are all promised that through the Spirit of God, with the relationship, Christ is with us.

According to Calvin himself, sanctification had a major connection to the question of whether a believer's spirit "took on" Jesus' body within himself/herself during the Communion ritual. In this Calvin differed from Zwingli who saw the whole Communion ritual as only a symbol that did not directly involve the believer communing with Jesus' body.

Fred,
I hope you can see the larger problem I am trying to get at in this thread. Namely, if we just automatically assume that strange, "unrealistic" things must be metaphors, do you see how this has led important Protestant scholars to think that Jesus' Resurrection and Ascension are metaphors too, because Resurrection and Ascension sound "unrealistic"?

Do you see how there are some people who think salvation doesn't depend on Christ's physical presence, and that some of these same people think that spiritual growth doesn't even depend on Christ's own physical experiences? That is, if Christ's body has no direct relationship to believers, then they conclude that Christ's body did not have to do anything at all? ie. Jesus didn't have to die and rise, God can just forgive any sins because he can do anything if He wants to? Why does Jesus have to die on planet earth? He could just die on Mars, or even not die at all, if there is no direct relationship between believers' spirits and Jesus' own physical experiences or body.

This helps to explain why John Calvin, Lutherans, and Catholics all agree on believers interacting directly with Jesus' body during the Eucharist ritual.

 

[rakovsky]

DEAR KEPLER!

Alright, so I was tempted over here by someone putting a link to this discussion in the Lutheran forum. Thought I'd throw a couple of spanners into the gears here...

But first, since no one here knows me, here is the position I am coming from:
I am Lutheran (LCMS). I hold the M.A. in Reformation Theology From an LCMS institution, and the Ph.D. in European History from UCLA. In my M.A. coursework, all classes in Reformed Theology and History were taught by Reformed scholars, not by Lutherans, so anything I say about Reformed Theology is from the horse's mouth, so to speak, and not what some Lutheran thinks the Reformed believe.

Thanks for coming here! With your experience and insider studies, it will be exciting if you can answer some questions in the OP!

Also, while this particular reply is to redleghunter specifically, I am chiming in to correct a few misconceptions which I am seeing repeated far and wide.


Calvin may not have approved of his work being coopted by many enlightenment thinkers, but that doesn't change the fact that it happened. Hugo de Groot relied on them heavily. Like it or not, Calvin was indeed a precursor.


Wrong on every count. Calvin was not French, he was Swiss. (OK, yes, technically, he was born French). And not ALL enlightenment philosophers were French. The enlightenment begins (depending on who you speak with) in either the Netherlands (Spinoza) or Germany (Pufendorf). While the French certainly play a significant part, it's arguable whether they play the biggest part. Yes, we call all point to Rousseau, Voltaire, Condorcet and Burlamaqui, but can we say they played a bigger part than Locke, Hume, Berkeley, Hume, Smith & Payne?

You counted Hume twice.
It can be interesting to see what impact Calvinism and Puritanism had on England in light of the later Enlightenment figures that came out of it.
We can see how Calvinism must have had some major impact, as seen for example in the revolution by Cromwell supported by the Roundheads.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Mark,


I didn't think about this.

Lutheran sanctuary lamp:

Lutheran Church in Baltimore

Lutheran altar lamp in Minnesota

I think in Lutheran/Catholic/Orthodox mentality there is more a sense of the "holy", the "presence" maybe.
A PCUSA minister who I love explained a long time ago that Orthodox was like the Temple, while PCUSA is more like the synagogue with teaching and education.
Of course, this is too much a simplification, but it has a grain of truth as to the feeling in the soul.
When you have more a sense of "holiness" and its "presence", ideas like Christ-God being in bread or miracles happening or the Turin Shroud being real (I am more skeptical of the shroud now than a believer in it, BTW), are more easily expecting and believable, I think.
When you are in an environment of "school" and classrooms, miracle claims become more "incredible", to use Calvin's words about Lutheran ideas on Jesus' body.

This is my Lutheran Chruch:

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Mark,
In contrast to receptionism, RCs, Lutherans, and Orthodox agree that we receive Christ's body and blood in the Eucharist whether or not we do so worthily. This is why 1 Cor 11 says:

"Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord."​

If only worthy people right in faith succeeded in eating the body, then under 1 Cor 11 it would hardly make sense how the unworthy would be sinning against said body. This is another proof that the Reformed position is not "scriptural".

In a partial or incidental sense of course it is "Christ's body and blood because of us", because with no people to perform the ritual, the transformation wouldn't happen.

More broadly, Orthodox, Catholics, and Methodists/Arminians do not agree with all the Reformed/Lutheran bases for rejecting decision theology, in that we think that people do have some kind of merit. We don't teach that man is so "totally depraved" that he cannot do good or have free will in their salvation decisions. That is, man and God work together (in synergy) for God's plan of salvation, although of course God plays the predominant role. But if man had zero role and God had the only role (monergism), it would remove man's own role and free choice in his salvation.

Still, I understand how Evangelical "Decision theology" (person has to make a conscious decision in order to be saved) contradicts the Lutheran/Reformed belief in monergism, because decision theology forces a human's own personal decision, independent of God's, to be an absolute requirement for salvation.

You are correct, but I do believe that Monergism is justified (as much as I reject logic) if we can (must as many state) cooperate in our salvation, that means that Christ's all atoning sacrifice was inadequate. Since we know this is not the case, then Monergism it is.

You state also:

In a partial or incidental sense of course it is "Christ's body and blood because of us", because with no people to perform the ritual, the transformation wouldn't happen.
​

While you are not technically wrong in your statement; I believe that your statement does not go far enough. It does not happen because of us but despite us. Further to this, to paraphrase our Confessions 'Word and Sacrament remain efficacious even when administered by evil men'. Not only can we not subvert God's grace, but we can not bring it about. Sola Deo Gloria.

 

[hedrick]

Paul makes it sound like they were actually getting real sicknesses from eating unworthily, quite a severe penalty for just getting a symbolic-only ritual (symbolic-only because under Receptionism, nothing miraculous occurred to the unfaithful) confused with a banquet. Remember, this is the same audience that regularly listened to speeches in "unknown tongues". How do sicknesses from eating ritual bread and speaking in tongues hold up to the "realism" standard?

Paul’s concern in 1 Cor 11 was not whether people recognized Jesus’ body in a metaphysical sense, but over (1) divisions , and (2) people becoming gluttons, treating it as a feast and not a celebration of Christ’s death. Hence not respecting the body, in this passage at least, was not remembering the real purpose of the sacrament. Paul felt that this was an insult to Christ’s death. I think that’s justified no matter one’s theory of presence. I should note, by the way, that refusing to allow other Christians to participate in communion because you differ in your theory of Christ’s presence, seems to be committing exactly the offense that Paul is condemning people for in 1 Cor 11.

However, "many disciples" who listened to him directly in John 6 did think he meant something literal when it came to talking about eating his body. That Jesus didn't call disciples back and say he wasn't speaking literally is a sign of his real intent here. His goal was to come and save people, not lose them when they in substance agreed with him.

There’s no reason to think they understood Jesus as teaching a specific way in which he is present in communion. Most interpreters currently think the difficulty reported in 6:60 is the same as in 6:42: that Jesus came from God (heaven being a common circumlucution for God). The point of the whole section is that Jesus is the bread from heaven, i.e. that he came from God to feed us and bring us eternal life. The problem for the disciples is most likely to be with that whole concept, and not with a specific mode in which he is present in the bread — something that isn’t talked about in the passage.

Ironically, Zwingli considered this passage a clincher against the real presence, because of 6:63. If 60 ff is about the specific way that Christ is present in the bread, that would be about as clear a statement of spiritual presence as you’ll find. But it probably isn’t.

 

[rakovsky]

You are correct, but I do believe that Monergism is justified (as much as I reject logic) if we can (must as many state) cooperate in our salvation, that means that Christ's all atoning sacrifice was inadequate. Since we know this is not the case, then Monergism it is.

You state also:

In a partial or incidental sense of course it is "Christ's body and blood because of us", because with no people to perform the ritual, the transformation wouldn't happen.
​

While you are not technically wrong in your statement; I believe that your statement does not go far enough. It does not happen because of us but despite us. Further to this, to paraphrase our Confessions 'Word and Sacrament remain efficacious even when administered by evil men'. Not only can we not subvert God's grace, but we can not bring it about. Sola Deo Gloria.

Mark,
Lutherans and Orthodox agree that God's saving grace and blessings come from God and not man. And to give these grace and blessings is God's decision through his will, not a decision made by man. Thus Lutherans emphasize this and see this as a core belief, monergism. Sola Gloria.

HOWEVER, notice what I underlined in your quote. Also note that Lutherans and Orthodox reject Calvinist ideas of irresistible grace and once saved always saved. Notice also that Jesus said to God in the garden Not my will but thine. From this, the fifth council, which Lutherans may(?) accept, teaches that Christ had a will distinct as a human and a divine will, ie two kinds of wills in that sense, not two wills in the center of his decision making . Being fully human and fully divine and a member of the human race, Christ played a key role in the act of salvific atonement, he sends his spirit and in the Trinity, would you not agree that Christ bestows saving grace? Thus it is said that Christ's two natures cooperate in the hypostatic union. The Tome from Chalcedon says that the form of Christ as man cooperates with his form as God. Thus there can be seen a cooperation of Christ, a full member of humanity, in the process of atonement and bestowing grace. Further due to free will, man has the choice whether to cooperate in God's saving plan, and whether to accept the blessings of grace and whether to keep that blessing and saved state and act in accordance with it. If man does not act in his life with that grace, then grace could be lost. As St James said, faith without works is dead. Since mans will can, and humanity itself through the God-man Christ does, play a role in deciding whether or not salvation occurs, and working in accordance with grace can be a factor in this, Orthodox openly accept some version of this agreed-on state of affairs, which its emphasizers call synergism.

Whether the sum total of all these facts is called monergism or synergism seems to me a theoretical, abstract question that depends on how terms are used, eg. whether the agreed-on necessary acting in accordance with God's will is considered part of the "salvation process" or not. Since Lutherans and Orthodox both see works as necessary, but not absolutely so with no exceptions, this has long appeared to me to be a difference in emphasizing and defining aspects of the same fundamental beliefs about salvation and communion with God. For Lutherans, the term salvation seems to be God's own act in bestowing grace and forgiveness, while for Orthodox, the terms salvation and being saved is a state of being that results from God's blessing of grace, and in which man acts in agreement with it when he acts. In practice, in both systems if Lutherans and Orthodox have faith and act in obedience, they stay "saved" and in a state of grace.

While those issues are theoretical, the issues we have discussed about Reformed are clearly real in their differing consequences. It's not just a way of defining and looking at the same things when it comes to Jesus being in the Eucharist bread or whether Jesus was specifically following the Israelite in the desert. In the Lutheran and Orthodox school, even unfaithful take in Jesus' body, which is why in the Lutheran view Paul says that those who don't discern the body are guilty of Christs "body and blood". But in what way can a nonbeliever be guilty of Jesus blood if under Reformed teaching the unfaithful never actually interact with said blood? For Reformed, they don't judge the bread itself to be the body, so in the Lutheran/Roman Catholic/Orthodox schools of thought, this unfortunately can be a huge problem in practice, which is why LCMS bans Reformed from communion, according to their tracts.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Mark,
Lutherans and Orthodox agree that God's saving grace and blessings come from God and not man. And to give these grace and blessings is God's decision through his will, not a decision made by man. Thus Lutherans emphasize this and see this as a core belief, monergism. Sola Gloria.

HOWEVER, notice what I underlined in your quote. Also note that Lutherans and Orthodox reject Calvinist ideas of irresistible grace and once saved always saved. Notice also that Jesus said to God in the garden Not my will but thine. From this, the fifth council, which Lutherans may(?) accept, teaches that Christ had a will distinct as a human and a divine will, ie two kinds of wills in that sense, not two wills in the center of his decision making . Being fully human and fully divine and a member of the human race, Christ played a key role in the act of salvific atonement, he sends his spirit and in the Trinity, would you not agree that Christ bestows saving grace? Thus it is said that Christ's two natures cooperate in the hypostatic union. The Tome from Chalcedon says that the form of Christ as man cooperates with his form as God. Thus there can be seen a cooperation of Christ, a full member of humanity, in the process of atonement and bestowing grace. Further due to free will, man has the choice whether to cooperate in God's saving plan, and whether to accept the blessings of grace and whether to keep that blessing and saved state and act in accordance with it. If man does not act in his life with that grace, then grace could be lost. As St James said, faith without works is dead. Since mans will can, and humanity itself through the God-man Christ does, play a role in deciding whether or not salvation occurs, and working in accordance with grace can be a factor in this, Orthodox openly accept some version of this agreed-on state of affairs, which its emphasizers call synergism.

Whether the sum total of all these facts is called monergism or synergism seems to me a theoretical, abstract question that depends on how terms are used, eg. whether the agreed-on necessary acting in accordance with God's will is considered part of the "salvation process" or not. Since Lutherans and Orthodox both see works as necessary, but not absolutely so with no exceptions, this has long appeared to me to be a difference in emphasizing and defining aspects of the same fundamental beliefs about salvation and communion with God. For Lutherans, the term salvation seems to be God's own act in bestowing grace and forgiveness, while for Orthodox, the terms salvation and being saved is a state of being that results from God's blessing of grace, and in which man acts in agreement with it when he acts. In practice, in both systems if Lutherans and Orthodox have faith and act in obedience, they stay "saved" and in a state of grace.

While those issues are theoretical, the issues we have discussed about Reformed are clearly real in their differing consequences. It's not just a way of defining and looking at the same things when it comes to Jesus being in the Eucharist bread or whether Jesus was specifically following the Israelite in the desert. In the Lutheran and Orthodox school, even unfaithful take in Jesus' body, which is why in the Lutheran view Paul says that those who don't discern the body are guilty of Christs "body and blood". But in what way can a nonbeliever be guilty of Jesus blood if under Reformed teaching the unfaithful never actually interact with said blood? For Reformed, they don't judge the bread itself to be the body, so in the Lutheran/Roman Catholic/Orthodox schools of thought, this unfortunately can be a huge problem in practice, which is why LCMS bans Reformed from communion, according to their tracts.

As is often the case when I discuss such things with my Catholic friends; we may just be talking past each other here. Regarding works, they proceed from faith. Faith can not be faith without works; however good works can and do exist without faith (an evil, godless gangster can love and care for his family just as much as a devout Christian can. The devout Christian does so because of the saving grace of God through Christ, the gangster does so despite and in the absence of the saving grace of Christ.

I firmly believe, based on Scripture and catechesis, that this is indeed the case, and this is why I can not reconcile the reformed doctrines of OSAS and decision theology. A Lutheran scholar once suggested that if taken to it's lowest common denominator, that reformed idea of decission theology and the Catholic idea of cooperation with grace are based on the same urge that got man into trouble in the garden in the first place; a desire to have (some) control over our own fate.

 

[rakovsky]

Kepler,

First of all, 'remember' is not in any way undermined by the physical presence. Second, you need to find out what the original meaning of this word is.

Yes. Remembrance in Hebrew means to "make present."
It means to make an ancient action that happened in the past and carrying its power into the present. So the widow of Zarephath worries that Elijah has "recalled" his past sin, so that now in the present she will supernaturally get punished for it.

See: Worship in the Early Church By Ralph P. Martin where he talks about this.
https://books.google.com/books?id=e...emorial OR remembrance "make present"&f=false

What Does The Eucharist Truly Make Present?
In the Eucharist, Jesus has instituted the sacrament in which the very passion, death and resurrection he would undergo would be made present again in our lives in a way that enables us to share in the benefits of the cross. We speak of our dying to sin and rising to new life because we participate in the mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The Church uses the word “re-present” (make present again) to speak of what is happening in the Mass. - See more at: http://www.pacatholic.org/bishops-statements/eucharist/#sthash.2XD3wXnJ.dpuf

Lutheran Theology Study Group makes a good point:

Sometimes it pays to read good FB comments such as those on the "Confessional Lutherans Fellowship" Wall. The sainted Dr Jack Kilcrease has a very helpful insight to share on a FB comment there as follows:

"I was telling my high school students how amusing it is that most Protestants appeal to the words "do this in memory of me" as a way of proving the symbolic nature of the sacrament. In other words, they say "hey look, if it say "in memory of me" then it means that Jesus isn't present. You don't "remember" someone who is right in front of you!" And of course this is all wrong, since in the Bible "to remember" means to make present. When God "remembers" his covenant with Israel or Noah (Gen 9:15) and then springs into action in order to save, it means that his promises are placed before his eyes. The thief who bid Jesus to "remember" him when he came into his kingdom wanted to be present with him in the kingdom of heaven (Luke 23:42). So too "in memory" means that Christ also become present in the elements. They place the promise actualized through his sacrificial and substitutionary death before our eyes and before the eyes of the Father, who grant us the forgiveness of sins based on Christ's salvific mediation and intercessor for us."​

http://lutherantheologystudygroup.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-lords-supper-do-this-in-remembrance.html

When the thief asked Jesus to "remember" him in Jesus' kingdom, it is not just implied to the reader that Jesus will occasionally think back mentally-only to the thief. Thus, Jesus' reply was that the thief will be with Jesus.

As a result, the Eucharist meal, Jesus says, "remembers" him, actually making Jesus present there directly with the apostles, just as the thief remembered by Jesus was directly brought into the kingdom.

 

[MennoSota]

As is often the case when I discuss such things with my Catholic friends; we may just be talking past each other here. Regarding works, they proceed from faith. Faith can not be faith without works; however good works can and do exist without faith (an evil, godless gangster can love and care for his family just as much as a devout Christian can. The devout Christian does so because of the saving grace of God through Christ, the gangster does so despite and in the absence of the saving grace of Christ.

I firmly believe, based on Scripture and catechesis, that this is indeed the case, and this is why I can not reconcile the reformed doctrines of OSAS and decision theology. A Lutheran scholar once suggested that if taken to it's lowest common denominator, that reformed idea of decission theology and the Catholic idea of cooperation with grace are based on the same urge that got man into trouble in the garden in the first place; a desire to have (some) control over our own fate.

You need to differentiate between varying reformed views. Not all reformed believe in free will, choosing God, by men.
However, if God chooses his children, grants faith, sustains faith and continues to sanctify his children, then the impetus for salvation and means of maintaining salvation are all in God's capable hands.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

You need to differentiate between varying reformed views. Not all reformed believe in free will, choosing God, by men.
However, if God chooses his children, grants faith, sustains faith and continues to sanctify his children, then the impetus for salvation and means of maintaining salvation are all in God's capable hands.

Menno, you are correct. Just speaking in generalities does tend to overlook exceptions; some of which can be numerically large.

 

[rakovsky]

The Reformed movement was a major part of the rationalist trends of its time in science, religion and philosophy, it appears to me. It brings to mind Galileo, Copernicus, the Unitarian movement, etc. I am not sure what to call trend though. "The Age of Discovery?"

Putting Copernicus and Galileo in with the Unitarians is well and truly a stretch, to put kindly. To put it unkindly, it's asinine and completely ignorant of the historical settings of the figures. And, while Copernicus did not publish his De Orbium Coelestium until 1543, the ideas in it he had had already circulated prior to 1514, well before the Reformation began.

In 1514 Copernicus' ideas contradicting common Christian beliefs about geocentricism circulate, then in 1530 Luther makes his Augsburg Theses, but already Luther had been discussing the precursors of his Protestantism with Erasmus. 1565, Polish Brethren Unitarians split out from the Calvinist synod in Poland, thus playing a major role in the creation of the modern Unitarian movement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Brethren#1565.2C_Split_with_the_Calvinists). 200 years later William Paley a Calvinist plays a founding role in the Enlightenment.

I see a common development here as a broad social and philosophical trend dissenting against common and institutional Christian beliefs of the era. I understand though that Copernicus was hardly a Unitarian, so I am trying to think of the best way to call the commonality I see.

At least from the Orthodox perspectives in Russia and Greece in these same eras, those were major developments in contrast to more medieval attitudes there in Russia in that same time. Peter the Great made some general Western reforms after they had been made in the west, but the developments were not nearly as strong and primary in their stage, ie they had begun somewhere else earlier.

 

[rakovsky]

Rakovsky,

Three things I have noticed:
1) Your command of European History is rather poor; even basic chronology has completely eluded you.
2) Perhaps your sources are bad? Some of what I've read from you sounds like it came straight out of Will and Ariel Durant's work. If so, throw it all in the trash and start over.

Yes, I was mistaken in thinking at first that Enlightenment Age followed soon after Calvin's. I had not heard of Durant's work. He has a famous series - The Story of Civilization. It has sections like this:

The Summons to Reason: 1558–1649

1. The Tentatives of Reason: 1558–1648
   1. Science in the Age of Galileo: 1558–1648
   2. Philosophy Reborn: 1564–1648
      "Is Christianity dying? ... If this is so, it is the basic event of modern times, for the soul of a civilization is its religion, and it dies with its faith." (p. 613)

This is curious. Do you think that he is a author who tries to support the same kind of thesis that I do? Have you heard of other scholars who answer the thread's question in the affirmative?

Lutheranism and Orthodoxy agree that Tradition is not infallible (except maybe for seven Ecumenical Councils in Orthodoxy). Second, Orthodoxy I expect will agree with Luther's criticism of Calvinism that the latter relied on Reason too much to debunk Lutheran/Orthodox beliefs about Jesus' body. Third, Luther and the Orthodox Lopukhin agree that in 1 Cor 11, Jesus was a "spiritual rock" actually following the Israelites. Fourth, they agree that Jesus' body is not by nature's laws restricted to heaven. Therefore, I find it hard to use the thread's main questions to show that Lutheranism goes in the rationalist direction of Unitarianism, the Jesus Seminar, or some modern "critical scholars" who use modern "scientific" perceptions of reality and reasonableness to "debunk" the resurrection as nonphysical.

3) Perhaps your original thesis would have held up better if you had said that the Reformation came from Renaissance Humanism (which is at least partially true) rather than from the Enlightenment, which is utter bollocks.

I have no problem critiquing the Reformed view of the Lord's Supper, which is both un-biblical and a-historical. But your arguments are undermined when you continue to score own-goals for your opponents.

Kepler

Correct. The Orthodox Jim Nelson makes this critique of Calvinism, noting its origin in Renaissance Humanism:
https://justanotherjim.wordpress.com/2010/12/29/john-calvin-student-radical-and-humanist/

 

[MennoSota]

Yes, I was mistaken in thinking at first that Enlightenment Age followed soon after Calvin's. I had not heard of Durant's work. He has a famous series - The Story of Civilization. It has sections like this:

The Summons to Reason: 1558–1649

1. The Tentatives of Reason: 1558–1648
   1. Science in the Age of Galileo: 1558–1648
   2. Philosophy Reborn: 1564–1648
      "Is Christianity dying? ... If this is so, it is the basic event of modern times, for the soul of a civilization is its religion, and it dies with its faith." (p. 613)

This is curious. Do you think that he is a author who tries to support the same kind of thesis that I do? Have you heard of other scholars who answer the thread's question in the affirmative?

Lutheranism and Orthodoxy agree that Tradition is not infallible (except maybe for seven Ecumenical Councils in Orthodoxy). Second, Orthodoxy I expect will agree with Luther's criticism of Calvinism that the latter relied on Reason too much to debunk Lutheran/Orthodox beliefs about Jesus' body. Third, Luther and the Orthodox Lopukhin agree that in 1 Cor 11, Jesus was a "spiritual rock" actually following the Israelites. Fourth, they agree that Jesus' body is not by nature's laws restricted to heaven. Therefore, I find it hard to use the thread's main questions to show that Lutheranism goes in the rationalist direction of Unitarianism, the Jesus Seminar, or some modern "critical scholars" who use modern "scientific" perceptions of reality and reasonableness to "debunk" the resurrection as nonphysical.


Correct. The Orthodox Jim Nelson makes this critique of Calvinism, noting its origin in Renaissance Humanism:
https://justanotherjim.wordpress.com/2010/12/29/john-calvin-student-radical-and-humanist/

No. The origin is the Apostles and God's word. Calvin simply let the Bible speak for itself rather than filter the Bible through the Roman or Orthodox church traditions as leaders in those churches had unwisely done.