What if the Protestant reformation never happened?

[New Legacy]

lol Been to OBOB lately?

Yeah - it is nice to be around people that believe the same thing.

Disagreement occurs on issues of how to implement and live that belief. Much better than the protestant sections where everyone has their own cafeteria faith.

 

[New Legacy]

Then the Scientific Revolution and democracy as we know it wouldn't have happened.

You do know that science comes from the Catholic Church?

Democracy was not a protestant invention. And it does not really exist in a pure form, that would be a disaster.

 

[New Legacy]

Which is something Christianity did until the western church decided it was the church to the exclusion of anyone who did not submit to Rome. During the Pax Romana Christianity flourished, once Rome was installed as the religion of the Roman Empire it simply excluded all other Christian groups. Got to give them some credit though, it lasted a thousand years.

There were no other Christian groups unless you count Gnostics.

What you are saying comes from a nonsense that no historian would acknowledge called Landmarkism. The idea that 'true Christians' were persecuted from 33-325 and then one day the vast majority of them decided to combine their religion with the one group that they hated. Thus protestants were not new or a spin off of Catholicism, they were always around. This idea was created 150 years ago by baptists.

Absolutely no historian or theologian would agree with this.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Well, the Eastern church was under the thumb of the eastern emperor a lot more than the western part. The emperor had a lot more control over the naming of bishops/patriarchs, and he also managed to get his way in many of their later councils/synods. Also, the Greek speaking east was much more prone to theological/philosophical exploration, and they produced quite a few of the doctrinal conflicts that required further definition of the faith, particularly in Christology. The Latin speaking west generally had a more practical bent, and would have been content with the Nicene creed, or even previous creeds that were less narrow. At least that is what I have gathered from my Church History class thus far. The texts for the class are The Story of Christianity: Volumes I and II, by Justo L Gonzalez. I recommend them highly, they are a good introductory source that provides a solid overview of Church history.



The primacy of the Bishop of Rome in the west was something that developed over time due to tradition and circumstance. From very early times, the Bishop of Rome was recognized as an authority of the highest rank, along with the Bishops of Antioch, Byzantium (later Constantinople), Alexandria, and perhaps a few others. All of these were large, influential cities that could claim (rightly or not) Apostolic origin. Over time, the primacy of Peter amongst the Apostles gave rise to an increasing respect for the Bishop of Rome. Another factor was the power vacuum left in the west when the capital of the empire was moved east to Constantinople. Over time, the empire's deteriorating organization and power in the west left the church, whose leaders were often highly regarded by the people, to take an ever increasing role in government. Since Rome was the capitol city of the western empire, this might have also played a role in the increasing authority of the Bishops of Rome. The Bishops of Rome began taking a more authoritarian stance as the final word on orthodoxy largely due, among other reasons, to it being the largest major western city in the empire, and the ever increasing doctrinal controversies springing up in the east, and also as a counterbalance to the authority of the eastern emperor who had too much authority (in many people's eyes) over the church in the east.

That's the way I understand it so far... hope it helped.

Great post. And I second your recommendation of Gonzales (and raise you his three volume History of Christian Thought).

 

[tadoflamb]

What would society be like today?

We'd have better art.

 

[New Legacy]

Ugh. This thread is depressing. It's such an interesting question and so quickly became Catholics screaming "better!" and Protestants screaming "worse!"

That was the purpose of the topic. And yet, you seemed to go ahead and do exactly what you were against.

I agree at the very least with those that say something had to happen in the sixteenth century. Considering that Luther and Zwingli began their reformations in Saxony and Zurich at about the same time completely independent of each other, you'd either have to assume a conspiracy from some future Catholic fundamentalist going back in time and murdering all the early reformers (which would be a fun novel), or only be able to take out one of the reformations, not all of them.

Dissent had occurred a few centuries earlier. Protestantism caught on because they found a way to appeal to rulers, instead of just the peasants.

In any case, the reformers of the Catholic Church- Erasmus, More, Staupitz, Cajetan, Contarini, Pole, etc.- would probably have had more influence and been less marginalized as crypto-Protestants. On the other hand, the Protestant crisis had at least one very positive effect upon the Catholic Church: it pushed the Renaissance-era papacy to stop behaving like petty Italian princes (there was a string of about a half dozen absolutely terrible popes in the half century before the Reformation) and start behaving like Christian prelates. Would that have happened where it not for a pesky monk in Wittenberg, a loud nobleman in Zurich, and a turncoat king in England? I don't see that happening, no. So in at least one sense, the Catholic Church would be mired in corruption for longer, because the Counter-Reformation did accomplish some good and important things within the papal body.

The Catholic Church has a history of reformers and I find it offensive you would call them crypto-protestants, because they loved the Church and wanted to improve her, rather than ditching her and creating their own groups.

The Scientific Revolution would probably also have proceeded apace and perhaps quicker, since the Roman Inquisition may not have been set up and may not have prosecuted Galileo.

This is completely untrue. Galileo is praised by atheists to denounce religion as against science, thus stupid and ignorant. Galileo is one example on one very particular issue of science because it seemingly contradicted scripture. This was not an issue among other sciences which the Church promoted and supported. Thus, the only thing protestantism would have furthered is heliocentrism, but I believe they would have considered that heretical at the time too.

One area, however, in which things could have been far worse is in the long term settlement of North America and the development of early modern political thought. Without the independence of the United Kingdom from papal censure, England (like France) would have been severely stunted in its pursuit of North American colonies. The Treaty of Tordesillas would have remained in force. Moreover, without the Reformed wing of the Protestants, Puritan political theory would have never undermined absolute monarchy as it did. No English Civil War, no beheading of Charles I, no John Locke. No Mayflower Compact. No English Bill of Rights. No American Declaration of Independence and Constitution and Bill of Rights.

This is profoundly wrong. One- Mexico is part of North America. France had colonies all over North America which they lost to the British. The British had colonies within a small area of what is now the American east coast, which they prevent Spanish and French from colonizing.

Britain had a tiny amount of land in comparison:

Note it does not show all of North America and other parts of the area (Caribbean).
The British held just a tiny part before taking the rest of it.

I also do think the natives would disagree with you. The French were far more peaceful with natives and the Spanish colonized and intermarried. The British wiped out natives, pushing them further and further into the interior. None of them were benign, but the natives would have been better off without the British genocide.

Well, maybe. But I don't know why I should bother if this is going to be an exercise in ecclesiastical flag waving rather than an interesting discussion on alternate history. Sorry, Catholics, I just hold you all to a higher standard.

Catholics didn't start this thread. I wish you had held yourself to a higher standard and decided not to do exactly what you condemned and then tried to push off on Catholics like we started it.

 

[New Legacy]

yeah, but we also say that Protestant "churches" are not churches in the proper sense of the word

are you SURE you want to use the Catholic Church as a source?

anyways, Anglicans see themselves as part of an ancient religion, and not something that was made up 500 years ago

Which is silly because their theology and 'church' did not exist until 500 years ago.

What is sad is that they like to reference Celtic Catholicism as their origin. This is offensive in two ways:
1) Celtics were not Anglican, for which their group is named. The Anglicans invaded and pushed the celtics west.
2) Celtics were incredibly monastic, having no parishes. Anglicanism began with a closing and theft of monasteries.

 

[New Legacy]

Yes it was an abuse and there were many abuses by the Catholic Church then. The Catholic Church needed to reformed. It refused to reformed on their own. The reformation made it reform (to a point lol).

The Catholic Church is in a constant state of reform. What is sad is when people decide not to help, but to rip up the Body of Christ.

 

[abacabb3]

It depends the point of divergence and the degree of reform. Let's say Luther was killed in 1513, and someone like Calvin became a notable Bishop? Italy was the richest part of Europe during the renaissance, but their economy went downhill as France, Spain, Portugal, the Dutch and Britain created new mercantile markets with their colonies.

So, the Pope might have become less political by default and with the existence of the printing press, maybe we would have had a much more diverse Catholicism. But, there would be no merger between East and West. Further, the claims of Papal Infallibility would probably not occur, or if they did (because there was some historical basis) it might have created a future reformation perhaps in the 18th or 19th centuries.

 

[Erose]

It depends the point of divergence and the degree of reform. Let's say Luther was killed in 1513, and someone like Calvin became a notable Bishop? Italy was the richest part of Europe during the renaissance, but their economy went downhill as France, Spain, Portugal, the Dutch and Britain created new mercantile markets with their colonies.

So, the Pope might have become less political by default and with the existence of the printing press, maybe we would have had a much more diverse Catholicism. But, there would be no merger between East and West. Further, the claims of Papal Infallibility would probably not occur, or if they did (because there was some historical basis) it might have created a future reformation perhaps in the 18th or 19th centuries.

The doctrine of papal infallibility already existed well before the Protestant revolt. It was only defined as dogma at Vatican I well after the Protestant revolt. In other words the Protestant revolt had no bearing whatsoever on the dogma of papal infallibility.

 

[New Legacy]

It depends the point of divergence and the degree of reform. Let's say Luther was killed in 1513, and someone like Calvin became a notable Bishop? Italy was the richest part of Europe during the renaissance, but their economy went downhill as France, Spain, Portugal, the Dutch and Britain created new mercantile markets with their colonies.

So, the Pope might have become less political by default and with the existence of the printing press, maybe we would have had a much more diverse Catholicism. But, there would be no merger between East and West. Further, the claims of Papal Infallibility would probably not occur, or if they did (because there was some historical basis) it might have created a future reformation perhaps in the 18th or 19th centuries.

Papal infallibility always existed.
For some reason protestants think declaring something is making up something new. It must be from what is always believed. There is no new revelation.

 

[Standing Up]

Papal infallibility always existed.For some reason protestants think declaring something is making up something new. It must be from what is always believed. There is no new revelation.

True enough. It is clearly in operation from 155ad onward. The real question is whether it is apostolic? No.

 

[Rhamiel]

It depends the point of divergence and the degree of reform. Let's say Luther was killed in 1513, and someone like Calvin became a notable Bishop? Italy was the richest part of Europe during the renaissance, but their economy went downhill as France, Spain, Portugal, the Dutch and Britain created new mercantile markets with their colonies.

So, the Pope might have become less political by default and with the existence of the printing press, maybe we would have had a much more diverse Catholicism. But, there would be no merger between East and West. Further, the claims of Papal Infallibility would probably not occur, or if they did (because there was some historical basis) it might have created a future reformation perhaps in the 18th or 19th centuries.

those are some VERY interesting ideas
I do agree that if the Protestant Reformation never happened, there would be a lot more of a diverse Catholic Church

but who can tell?

Papal Infallibility might have never been made a dogma

it is hard to tell

this is all speculation, the Reformation effected every bit of European history for the last 500 years

 

[New Legacy]

True enough. It is clearly in operation from 155ad onward. The real question is whether it is apostolic? No.

And your basis for that is, what?

 

[hagios24]

So, how do Engineers and Medical Practitioners go about their business and furthering science in an environment dominated by stringent do or die inquisitorial laws? How do Inquisition Monarchs, Royalty and Nobility go about getting Medicine, food, land and wealth in an era that is highly transparent? You do one thing wrong and you are executed or thrown in prison. Simple you go hoard resources during famine or plagues when the economy is too stressed to pay attention. This is what the Bishops did during the black plague, and tried to pin it on the Jews, whom they executed for abusing their born secondary citizen rights.

In my research i tried to get a copy of the golden bull that documents this atrocity against them with little avail. There are dozens of these documents but their language is archaic. I was able to find partial translations. It was illegal for a Jew to work in Holland. This obviously was a reputation of relentless persecution that they took because of the prophecies in the Bible and people can be extremely unforgiving. Logically speaking not every unconverted Jew would want Him dead. And lastly Jesus and Paul did command to not persecute the Jew, to see people as people not color, gender or nationality.

The Black plague acted as a smokescreen to hoard resources needed for social reform. You can't just create the reformation out of thin air.

The founding of New Foundland is an incredible example to us folks of the last ages of how the system works. Use disease siphilis hepatitas to kill off massive amounts of unimmune natives, divide and concur tactics pay and pit the natives against each other blame it on the innocent steal their land, make the pilgrims look like criminals, turn the collonies against each other, blame everything that happened on the founding fathers, send the dutch spanish french english and germans in and quickly collonise land then disappear and pretend like nothing happened or pretend to be constitutional. Ride America into the dirt by posing as saviours after selling everything out to foreign companies force everyone to focus on cultural liberties while taking away all normal liberties. Create a rediculous global society that pays off debt by buying more debt, and illegalise anything that is not pro nazi collectivism.

The french revolution ironically happened at a time that america needed a work force. So everyone flocked to America to go make money and escape the inquisition which ended in the nineteenth century by the way, to run away from the aristocracy. Everyone went to America with the French Roman idea of liberty which is awesome, but the state needed precious metals and non metals to advance medicine and engineering for infrastructure economy and security textiles and agriculture.

Europe was too closed minded. They used to execute herbalists and call them witches. The naturopaths cured more than the vitalists. The Pope at the time had siphilis for whatever reason. A vitalist managed to treat him with mercury. Mercury killed washington though is highly toxic and if it don't cure you it will kill ya. The vitalists were discredited though, but because they cured the popes siphilis the pope had herbalism outlawed, even though herbalism had a reputation of curing way more people. The monarchs didn't like this sort of attitude towards medicine though. They needed change they needed cures. This I believe was the main driving force behind the revolution.

The Natives were very savvy with their remedies and homeopathy sky rocketted in America. Nothing wrong with md medicine by the way. The royals understood that homeopathic and natural medicine was complementar y and rightly so.

Europe needed America to experiment with new forms of Population Management Sciences and Social Engineering.

My understanding is that the inquisition was forced to the middle east for closed mindedness. America was a success. Project complete. Catholicism needed to be phased out and replaced and sufficated by a form of humanism that allowed for the atheistic and socialist lifestyle.

The reformation was definitely a counter movement against the mother church but it benefitted her because the west adopted a similar form of state to her, and to date has many political interests with her. Rome has never been a flag it has always been an empire. Also it benefits Rome to be so close to Israel because that is where all the prophecy is set to go down. It wouldn't make sense for HQ to be at the polar end of the map. Plus the inquisition is running flush with the dragon and the bear to protect her unless rome the dragon and bear turn on each other.

 

[Erose]

True enough. It is clearly in operation from 155ad onward. The real question is whether it is apostolic? No.

The book of Acts has a very wonderful example of Papal Infallibility in action.

 

[Erose]

And your basis for that is, what?

False history.

 

[Erose]

those are some VERY interesting ideas
I do agree that if the Protestant Reformation never happened, there would be a lot more of a diverse Catholic Church

but who can tell?

Papal Infallibility might have never been made a dogma

it is hard to tell

this is all speculation, the Reformation effected every bit of European history for the last 500 years

The papal infallibility would most probably have been defined at Vatican I anyway. Remember that defining the doctrine was not due to the heresy of Protestantism, but rather it was the Gallicanism heresy that forced the definition at Vatican I.

 

[Standing Up]

The book of Acts has a very wonderful example of Papal Infallibility in action.

Okay, but then there's a sordid history thereafter (Anicetus, Victor, Stephen, Honorus, Zephryus -sic-, etc)

 

[Standing Up]

And your basis for that is, what?

Basis for papacy always existing? Its obvious from history. Remember I'm agreeing with you. As to papal infallibility, that too is a claim, unfortunately that does not exist in history.