Luther and Erasmus: The Controversy Concerning the Bondage of the Will

[On the KJV:] I certainly would not, as an Orthodox Christian, agree with everything that Waite writes on this topic, but there is one point on which he is absolutely, 100% right, and that is the superiority of the Greek NT text underlying the KJV when compared to the Greek text that is used to underlie all other translations of the Scripture except for those that derive from the KJV.

... The second point on which the KJV is far superior to most modern translations is that it uses a principle of exact translation as much as possible, rather than the principle of so-called "dynamic equivalence."

Thank you for the info. I suppose if I was honest, I would have to say that my main issue with the KJV is the Oh-so-unoriginal readability issue. It's not that I don't think I CAN understand it. I mean, I read Matthew Henry in his original words, so I figure if I can handle that, I can handle the KJV. :)

BUT, it is a lot more work. :) I think I have a stumbling block because even when I do the mental translation into today's English, I'm still not sure how to take some words or concepts. I don't know what the colloquialisms, etc. of the old times were, so I worry about missing something, not SOLEY due to my laziness :) for not researching, but that I could very easily miss something without even realizing it. I suppose that fear helped me to pick a version like the NIV, which hopefully, was designed to take care of issues like that.

One thing I have no grasp of at all is to what degree the KJV really is different. On this thread, people from all three sides have posted quotes from the KJV, and though I know I didn't notice every case, I can only think of one instance where the KJV was significantly different from what I would have expected. I think it was from the OT, and I can't remember the cite, but it was the "God creates/causes evil" verse. :) That one really struck me as being different.

But other than that, I know I've read dozens of quoted passages posted in the KJV, especially from Dr. E., and I've never really noticed anything I didn't expect. Of course I haven't compared them all line for line with my version, but I have on some, especially those of opponents :), and I can't really see any pattern of significant difference. Perhaps there is one I'm just not seeing. That is something that would really interest me, knowing what the important differences are. If anyone already knows of such a website, I would very much like to see it.

In any event, by no means have I ever thought the KJV was an inferior translation or anything. And, I am grateful to learn that it is, in fact, a Superior translation. That part I didn't know. :)

It is too bad that, as Waite says, a major driving force in new translations and revisions is, quite simply, money. The KJV is in the public domain, and thus, no-one can make much money from publishing it.

Now that's an aspect I hadn't thought of. Given my training, shame on me! :)

It is my understanding that Limbo was never the teaching of the Latin Church, but that the faithful could beleive it if they chose to. I also remember something about pe John Paul II bringing the topic of Limbo for a discussion.

When I was a kid, the nuns taught it, but it wasn't official dogma like the Trinity. Of course, as a kid, I didn't know the distinction between a theological opinion and a dogmatic declaration! No, I don't think it was ever an "official" teaching, although men such as St. Aquinas taught it in all but name by saying that such unbaptized children, who had no personal sin couldn't suffer the punishment of hell, but neither would they see the Beatific Vision.

Regards

If you want to see what a church believes, watch what they do.

Exactly. And Latins are concerned about such matters as infant baptism, so there is some underlying uncertainty and the desire not to keep the little children from the Lord. But that attitude is going away, as the Church has been recently (post-Vatican 2) teaching that we don't know what happens to infants who are unbaptized, but we place them in the hands of the Lord who is Merciful. So perhaps we will take on a more Eastern Orthodox attitude in this matter.

Regards

I AM a Baptist, so there is no way I am against Baptism, I am very much in favor of it. :) However, it is not at all crystal clear that this verse requires Baptism for salvation. Here is what Ryrie says about it

Interesting, but wrong. Baptism doesn't contradict Eph 2:8-9 at all. Baptism is not a "work", since it is God's Spirit that is performing the "action", based on the promise that God made to His Church. When the Church fulfills the command of Christ, He has promised to work through the sacrament, whether it is the Eucharist, Baptism, Holy Orders, or Confession. This is a sacrament, a visible sign of God's invisible graces. Thus, Baptism is the fulfillment of God's promise to give new birth to the baptized.

And thinking that the "water" is the amniotic fluid? Does Ryrie even bother to read where Christ refutes Nichodemus idea of a natural birth? You can't read just one verse without reading the verses before and after it! He is correct in the end - the new birth is from God through the Spirit. But to say that baptism is not a normative requirement is to contradict OTHER Scriptures which talk about Baptism FOR THE REMISSION OF SINS! How exactly does one become saved without the remission of sins?

I don't believe that faith by proxy is scriptural

Ever read the Old Testament?

Under faith by proxy, justification can be achieved by who you know, not what you believe. That concerns me.

So what you are saying is that you are only saved when you have "x" amount of faith - as determined by the individual? Is faith a gift? Why now does it depend on you to be saved?

Regards

Full Court, whenever I read statements from Alex like this, which is very often recently, I always tell myself the same thing: "This is the witness of Catholicism." That really helps me put everything into perspective. :)

Well, you would be amazed to see how many "saved" Protestants tell me I am going to hell, am an idiot, don't know what I am talking about, preach a false Gospel, call my Church all kinds of names... The same "saved" ones whom Christ commanded to "...love others as I have loved you..."

Does that mean ALL Protestants are that way? No, I have been fortunate enough to find some very good Christians who happen to be Protestant. I can understand after long conversations, people get frustrated with the other's apparent obstinancy. It probably works in both directions. But because one vents his frustration doesn't "witness to Catholicism". It witnesses to one person's failing - and we ALL FAIL.

So before you get on your self-righteous soap box about the "witness of Catholicism" and condemn one billion people, perhaps you should realize that we ALL have room to grow - and our source of grace is the same. Otherwise, keep your condescending comments private, please.

Regards

When we say we must become righteous, you (Protestants) automatically assume that we mean ALONE! This is absolutely not the case!

Well, not this Protestant, I hope you know by now! :) My disagreement is the idea that man gets any of the credit or any of the glory for what is really God's doing. I know you do not think you are doing anything that is truthfully good, absent God.

What can we give to God that we have not already been given?

Bad free will choices. You see, I do believe in free will, as Harley discussed earlier. :)

Where Protestantism fails here is to claim that this regeneration, this "being born from above" is merely a status. As if God cannot CHANGE or TRANSFORM us!

That's not what we believe. God certainly can and does change and transform us. We just believe it happens a little differently and at different times than you do. BTW, why is it that when Catholics have the status of actually being righteous, that it is not a "status", but when Protestants have the status of being declared righteous, it is a "status"?

FK: "I honestly do not know if there is any difference between extrinsic justification and imputed righteousness."

The difference is manifold. Extrinsic justification means we are only given a new status - there is NO change within our being. We are like a puppet through which God acts upon, while we doing nothing of value. Intrinsic justification means we are indeed raised up to a new level, a supernatural level. ...

Well, that doesn't exactly help me, unless you are saying that imputed righteousness and intrinsic justification are the same thing. :) I'm not the guy who brought up any of this extrinsic/intrinsic stuff! :) I do believe there is a real change in us at the point of regeneration (belief).

FK: "As far as I know, man's cooperation has nothing to do with imputed righteousness."

Sure it does. We are empowered by God's graces to repent, to have faith, hope and love. We are given the ability to love even our enemies. WE! Not God disguised as me. I can love! Scriptures throughout tell of MAN doing "x". That is how Scriptures speak ...

Well, we must have different ideas about what imputed righteousness is. My idea is that the "imputed" part means it has nothing to do with man, or his actions, or his cooperation. It is a covering, and it is a status in a legal sense. We are "declared" righteous by the righteousness of Christ. All of this is made even better later.

Christ came to heal us and to give life to the fullest, even in this life. Not just a bus ticket to be redeemed 50 years from now! We share in the divine nature even today - but fully after our death.

You share in the divine nature? I don't know what that means. I'm also not sure of what the bus ticket analogy is supposed to mean. We believe that God wants us to have full lives. This is what sanctification brings us. What instead do you think we believe?

The major differences in text occur in the Gospels, although there are some significant differences in the epistles as well.

The two most easily notable differences between the Byzantine text/Textus Receptus are the lengthy passage about the woman caught in adultery and the final pericope of the Gospel of St. Mark. To the NIV editors' credit, they did not omit them entirely, as do many modern translations, nor do they stick the text into a footnote. But the editors do mark them off and say that "the oldest and most reliable manuscripts do not contain this passage" -- or something like that. Oldest, yes. Most reliable? A *very* debatable matter of opinion.

Keep in mind that the consensus opinion amongst modern textual scholars is that St. Mark's Gospel is the olest Gospel. So go look at that passage at the end of St. Mark, and see what is missing from "the oldest Gospel."

I've got to run, but just Google "KJV only" and you will find quite a few websites that detail the textual differences between the critical Greek text and the KJV. I was completely unaware that this movement existed in the fundamentalist world. I thought that only traditional Anglicans and Orthodox even cared about the KJV anymore.

Needless to say, I do not care for the shrill tone of many of these websites, nor do I agree with much of the theology, etc... But if you just want to have lists of the differences in texts, you'll find them very easily on these sites. The KJV only people also believe that the Hebrew texts used in the KJV are superior, but I haven't studied that issue at all, since we are LXX people. The Catholics might care, since I suspect that the Hebrew texts that St. Jerome used may be more like the KJV texts than are those used today -- but given the strict uniformity of the Masoretic tradition, I can't imagine that there would be many differences in any event.

On readability, you are right that there are archaisms. You might enjoy the "Third Millenium Bible," which has removed true archaisms (i.e. if words have actually changed in meaning -- like "conversation" and "prevent"), changed some awkward sentence constructions, etc... There are also recently available epistle and Gospel books put out in the Orthodox world which supposedly do the same thing, but I haven't perused them enough to recommend them withh confidence.

But I will say this also. KJV English is actually more understandable on the whole (especially for the non-highly educated) than is NIV English. Testing has placed KJV English at about the 5th grade level. The NIV tests out at about 8th grade (I learned this from a KJV only site, but I do believe it to be true, based on my intimate familiarity with both translations -- I used the NIV exclusively for many years as a Protestant.)

So dive in and use the KJV -- read it aloud, get a glossary of archaisms from a KJV only site (some other gems I have found on those sites for which I am grateful.) The water is fine, better than you would think when you just dip your toe in!

Maybe I've just been around softies all these years

Maybe. Perhaps the priest would conduct the service and leave out some litanies and hymns that would not be appropriate, those specifically applicable to Orthodox Christians.

As you know, the Orthodox Church can and does pray for all, and not just for Orthodox Christians, and this goes for the dead as well, whether they are baptized or not.

But that is not the same as the funeral for the Orthodox Christians, which is intended only for those who have been baptized Orthodox.

As for the late baptism, that is the parents' decision and I don't believe the Church teaches that one should not baptize them as early as possible. I specifically recall bishop Eusebius (yes, the Church historian) answering questions regarding this in relation to the 8th day, as in Judaism, and his reply that it should be done as soon as possible.

...."and the desire not to keep the little children from the Lord..."

So when are you doing to stop denying the saving Body and Blood of Christ to your infant and small children? :-)

It will indeed be intresting to see if now Catholics will be in less of a hurry to get their children baptized, now that Limbo has been relegated to the dustbin along with St. George, St. Christopher, St. Nicholas, and receiving communion from the hand of a priest.

I doubt practices will change much, since the practice of churching the mother and child on the 40th day died out long ago (yet another Orthodox remnant of Hebrew practices.) This, I am convinced, is a practical reason why we routinely baptize later.

Our theology just tells us not to worry about a later baptism of an infant, so there was nothing to stop the development of the practical "solution" of combining churching with baptism (similar to the practical "solutions" of combining betrothal and marriage ceremonies, and of combining in the Orthodox Church of some of the prayers at the making of catechumens with the baptism/chrismation service.)

If one looks at the fact that we, in the Orthodox Church still have a service for the naming of the child on the 8th day, it would seem that probably Orthodoxy used to baptize then.

The Catholic Church has not completely and officially moved to the patristic position with regards to the Limbo.

CCC #1261 states:

As regards children who have died without baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God, who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus' tenderness toward children, which caused him to say, 'Let the children come to me, do not hinder them' [Mark 10:14, cf. 1 Tim. 2:4], allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without baptism. All the more urgent is the Church's call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy baptism.

I would like to say that some Orthodox were influenced by the Latin side in the 18th and 19th centuries, and by many American Eastern Catholics who converted to Orthodoxy later on at the end of the 19th century.

The hypothesis of Limbo is based on an attempt to synthesize, as much as possible within human concept of justice, God's mercy with the lack of grace of the unbaptized infants. Thus is concludes that God would not condemn but at the same time the lack of grace would also prevent the infants from enjoying the full bliss. It actually makes sense but then God's thoughts and not ours, and His ways are not ours and are not subject to our logic.

Unless the Church can find some Evidence of it in the Tradition and Scripture, it must resign itself to the view that was by the Orthodox side all along -- which is that we simply do not know and that God did not find it necessary to reveal.

I would also like to add that all funeral services in the Orthodox Church represent an expression of gratitude to the merciful Lord for having saved the departed, thereby expressing our unwavering belief that God's mercy triumphs over judgment and that God saves in His unlimited mercy except those who reject Him.

My disagreement is the idea that man gets any of the credit or any of the glory for what is really God's doing. I know you do not think you are doing anything that is truthfully good, absent God.

"For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed [the righteousness] of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." Mat 5:20

"...[YOU] work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of [his] good pleasure. Phil 2:12-13

Jesus never mentions that His righteousness covers our own evil nature. He EXPECTS US to obey the commandments, under the power of the Holy Spirit. It is YOU that will be judged, FK, not Jesus Christ and His inability to "cover" you. Paul is clear that WE are expected to respond to the gifts that Christ gives us, especially in His abiding presence through the sacraments.

God certainly can and does change and transform us

That's not what you preach. You type that but don't mean it, because you are clear that man gets NO credit and does NOTHING. What exactly is the point of man being transformed if he doesn't nor can do nothing of merit?

why is it that when Catholics have the status of actually being righteous, that it is not a "status", but when Protestants have the status of being declared righteous, it is a "status"?

We believe it is MORE than JUST a status. It is a reality that is declared because it IS so. Thus, we ARE righteous. Not just legally.

Well, we must have different ideas about what imputed righteousness is. My idea is that the "imputed" part means it has nothing to do with man, or his actions, or his cooperation. It is a covering, and it is a status in a legal sense. We are "declared" righteous by the righteousness of Christ. All of this is made even better later.

No, that about is what imputed righteous is. Something not part of us, just a legal status. A pile of manure covered with snow to trick God... Yes, we have a new status, but God doesn't MERELY CALL us righteous. He makes us so! Thus, the term "theosis" or "divinization" you here us Catholics and Orthodox talk about... We are being given a share in the divine nature, which means WE can LOVE! WE can LOVE even our enemies! This is something no human person without Christ can do.

You share in the divine nature? I don't know what that means. I'm also not sure of what the bus ticket analogy is supposed to mean. We believe that God wants us to have full lives. This is what sanctification brings us. What instead do you think we believe?

See above on divine nature sharing. I think we agree on sanctification. But we believe it is something that is part of salvation, not something apart from it. A person who does not take an active role in sanctification eventually falls away from faith. And it is by faith working in love that we are saved. No faith, no eternal salvation...

Regards

"You share in the divine nature? I don't know what that means."

Of course you do. You've now read enough Orthodox theology to know precisely what Jo means. :)

So when are you doing to stop denying the saving Body and Blood of Christ to your infant and small children? :-)

That's a good point. You have a knack for doing that! However, Paul says we are to discern the Body of the Lord in the Eucharist. Infants can't do that. I suppose either argument is valid. It becomes more a "tradition", not an official dogmatic teaching.

It will indeed be intresting to see if now Catholics will be in less of a hurry to get their children baptized, now that Limbo has been relegated to the dustbin along with St. George, St. Christopher, St. Nicholas, and receiving communion from the hand of a priest.

I agree that the "extraordinary" minister has become "ordinary"... It is a difficult thing, because on the one hand, it is good for people to participate in the Sacred Liturgy, but it can be bad, as it dilutes what is REALLY happening - heaven coming down to earth...

Regards

The Catholic Church has not completely and officially moved to the patristic position with regards to the Limbo.

I think your post of CCC #1261 says "we don't know, we trust in God to do what is righteous". What is the patristic teaching on unbaptized infants? I know St. Augustine stirred up a hornet's nest and his "mass damnatia" was not accepted by the Church, so there IS a sense of the faithful that proclaims that unbaptized infants will at least not be in hell.

Anyway, it is better to just say "we don't know" then to speculate based on opinions. I think the reason why the Church presents a teaching on the issue is to protect the necessity of Baptism.

Regards

"It probably works in both directions. But because one vents his frustration doesn't "witness to Catholicism". It witnesses to one person's failing - and we ALL FAIL. "
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Nice to see you trying to pull out that plank.

Nice to see you trying to pull out that plank.

Oh, yea, I got one in my eye! I hope you can help me in the future if I lose my cool here.

Regards

Testing has placed KJV English at about the 5th grade level. The NIV tests out at about 8th grade

LOLOL. In what parochial school was that test conducted?

I used the NIV exclusively for many years as a Protestant.

I'm not surprised.

"Oh, yea, I got one in my eye! I hope you can help me in the future if I lose my cool here."
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No problem, please do the same.

Now if I could only get you to understand how wrong you are about justification!