Posted on 07/14/2017 10:07:29 AM PDT by ebb tide
So, I took some heat from my previous article on the ReformationThe Bible, the Reformation, and G.K. Chestertonbecause I implied that the Reformation was started by Protestants. Apparently I did not spend enough time attacking the Catholic Church, which, as everyone knows, was responsible for the creation of Martin Luther and company.
But since we are still in the midst of our year long observance of Luthers Halloween treat at the door of the Wittenburg Cathedral and all that followed, we can certainly afford to draw out this discussion a bit longer.
So lets make it clear. There was plenty of corruption in the Catholic Church five hundred years ago. Bishops and Abbots openly kept money and mistresses and used their ecclesiastical privilege to gain political power. The sales of indulgences were going unchecked and did untold damage not only to true piety but to the correct understanding of Purgatory and prayers for the dead. It was a far-reaching scandal throughout Christendom.
But it was not just Martin Luther who spoke out against it. St. Catherine of Siena and St. Bridget of Sweden and others fearlessly and sometimes very effectively confronted the hierarchy. And it wasnt as if this had not happened before. Three and half centuries earlier a little friar named Francis of Assisi turned a worldly Church around simply by choosing to live out his own life according to what Jesus preached in the Gospels. The result? Genuine Reform.
Martin Luther had the opportunity to become one of the greatest saints in the history of the Church. But he did not believe he was reforming a Church simply because it needed some house cleaning. He said explicitly that one should not condemn a doctrine on the basis that the man who holds it lives a sinful life. On the contrary, The Holy Spirit is patient with the weak in faith, as is taught in Romans 14:15 I would have very little against the Papists if they taught true doctrine. Their evil life would do no great harm.
There you have it from the Reformers mouth. He did not part ways with the Catholic Church because of neer-do-well priests and bishops. He thought and taught that Catholic doctrine was false. He rejected the Magisterium, the teaching authority of the Church.
If the bishops had rent their robes and donned sackcloth and ashes, it might have done great good for the Church and the world, but there is no evidence it would have changed Luthers mind, because what was in his mind was a new theology.
Hypocrites who have turned away potential followers of Christ throughout the history of the Church. Still happens. But that argument only goes so far. If the unbeliever wants to blame corrupt bishops for his own doubts about the truth of the Catholic faith, why is he not drawn back to the Church by the witness of the saints? Why isnt St. Francis of Assisi or St. Catherine of Siena, or more recently, St. Teresa of Calcutta, enough to make him overcome his misgivings about the Church? Saints inspire holiness because they are holy. Rebels inspire rebellion. Even against themselves. Sainthood is always a better option than breaking away from the Church founded by Jesus Christ and set into motion by his chosen Apostles. It was that Church that built Christendom.
But as one observer has pointed out, what Martin Luthers rebellion was not against a corrupt Pope, it was against a quiet Dominican friar who had been dead for over 200 years. St. Thomas Aquinas.
G.K. Chesterton says, It was the very life of the Thomist teaching that Reason can be trusted: it was the very life of Lutheran teaching that Reason is utterly untrustworthy.
St. Augustine, a true saint and a giant among converts, was limited in one respect. The only philosophy he knew was that of Plato. St. Thomas Aquinas introduced Aristotle into Christian philosophy, and the Augustinian Platonists never really accepted it. They had a different approach to objective reality. One of those Augustinians was a monk named Martin Luther. Chesterton argues that the Reformation was really the revenge of the Platonists. You could say it started with a difference in emphasis, you could say it started as a quarrel among monks, but Luthers emphasis on emotion rather than reason, on subjective truth rather than objective truth, and most unfortunately, on Determinism rather than Free Will, opened the door for an attack not just on Scholasticism but on all philosophy.
Lutheranism, says Chesterton, had one theory that was the destruction of all theories; in fact it had its own theology which was itself the death of theology. Man could say nothing to God, nothing from God, nothing about God, except an almost inarticulate cry for mercy and for the supernatural help of
Christ, in a world where all natural things were useless. Reason was useless. Will was useless. Man could not move himself an inch any more than a stone. Man could not trust what was in his head any more than a turnip. Nothing remained in earth or heaven, but the name of Christ lifted in that lonely imprecation; awful as the cry of a beast in pain.
St. Thomas and Luther are the hinges of history, and Luther managed to loom large enough to block out the huge figure of Aquinas. Luther did begin the modern mood of depending on things not merely intellectual. He was a forceful personality. He was a bully. He claimed Scripture as his authority and then altered Scripture itself, adding a word here and there in his own translation to accommodate his own theology. When confronted with the act,he was content to shout back at all hecklers: Tell them that Dr. Martin Luther will have it so! That is what we now call Personality He destroyed Reason; and substituted Suggestion.
Luther and every other Reformer cannot blame the Church for the consequences of their own actions. It is typical to talk about the corruption of certain bishops in Germany, but no one seems to want to discuss the actual heresy of Martin Luther and all that happened in its wake, from the splintering of Christianity into thousands of different denominations to the disintegration of philosophy into one detached and narrow and bizarre speculation after another because we lost the plain common sense, the reason and reality that was once so clearly articulated by St. Thomas Aquinas.�
Defending the Catholic church must create an interesting Twister board.
The Catholic Church has been around a lot longer than your Twister board.
Chesterton is very much worth a read. Indeed, everything he wrote is worth reading. The Father Brown detective stories are a good place to start, if one doesn’t know him, but so are all the other fictions and religious studies. Chesterton was the perfect antidote to modernism and so-called rationalism.
I think the reformation was started by the invention of the printing press. And I think the same thing the printing press did to Catholicism the internet is now doing to Christianity in general.
i.e. the free exchange of information and ideas is purifying it.
It gives us tidbits like this: http://Jewishnotgreek.com
Good luck getting more than a few people to grasp that before the internet.
Old theology, in fact, dating from folks like Chrysostom and Augustine. What the Catholics later embraced was only one view of many as held by the Church fathers. The Catholics could never side with the doctrines of grace as announced by Augustine because to do so would remove the importance of the magisterium. You do not need a Pope if God actively converts, renews the inner man, and leads them to a life of righteousness, all by the power of unmerited grace and justifying faith. If salvation is in the hands of the helpless believer, well, then, you can insert Priests, Bishops and Popes and keep them roped in, because a helpless person knows the way to heaven is extraordinarily difficult if God is not absoutely behind it, so a Pope is needed to shepard, and the Pope needs your cash.
He wrote one of my favorite poems:
The Donkey
BY G. K. CHESTERTON
When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.
With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devils walking parody
On all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.
Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.
That's a new term I had never heard of before. Who started the new theology? Luther?
The new theology quote is from the article.
Thank God for Luther and the Reformers.
CORRUPTION IN THE CHURCH STILL EXISTS AND ALWAYS WILL UNTIL CHRIST SETS UP HIS KINGDOM AS THE HEAD. THE CHURCH IS UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF GOD...NOT UNDER A PARTICULAR DENOMINATION.......ROME HAS NO AUTHORITY OVER ANYONE, UNLESS ONE CHOOSES TO FOLLOW THAT PARTICULAR DOGMA. GOD GAVE MAN A FREE WILL TO BELIEVE AND ITS AT MANS PERIL IF HE DECIDES NOT TO.
Bingo! And it was in reference to Luther's "new theology".
Thanks for answering my question.
Only you understood it! I didn't call Luther's theology "new" in my reply. I called it "old."
Old theology, in fact, dating from folks like Chrysostom and Augustine.
Make up you mind. What's new and what's old?
The Catholics could never side with the doctrines of grace as announced by Augustine because to do so would remove the importance of the magisterium. You do not need a Pope if God actively converts, renews the inner man, and leads them to a life of righteousness, all by the power of unmerited grace and justifying faith.
Haha Ebb tide. This will be a fun thread. Gauntlet?
There are gay orgies among the Roman Catholic leadership, but our attention is constantly drawn back to Luther.
Look! A Squirrel!
Luther Living in Your Head Rent-Free! Ping List!
.............
If anyone wants to be added to the Luther Living in Your ahead Rent-Free Ping List, pm me.
We are experiencing high volumes of obsessive, deranged posting currently, so be patient for comfirmation of your request.
[sound of Luther clinking beer mugs and laughing]
bump for later
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