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We just have the patristic tradition -- one that lives still today. You might consider that to be good, you might consider that to be bad, but it is how it is.

See the above as to who we feel left whom.

I suppose the Orthodox would say the Catholics left. Perhaps us Protestants can start saying the Catholics left us. I never thought about it like that.

What I do mean to say, and have said before, is that in general, a traditional Protestant is going to approach the writings of the Reformation fathers with a basic standpoint of trust and belief -- with points of disagreement being expected to be the exception. That same Protestant is going to approach the writings of St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Justin Martyr, St. John Chrysostom, etc... with a general approach of distrust, expecting to find a few usable points and a little ballast, but with the point of view that where these Fathers disagree with Protestant distinctives, the Fathers are wrong, and the reformers are right.

If the Reformers had turned to the writings of the Fathers for the answers to where Rome had gone wrong and to what needed to be changed, there wouldn't have been a Reformation.

Now given that situation what would you do? Would you ignore what is in the scriptures and just go along with the crowd recanting what the Bible states or, would you take your stand with the Bible and face up the Church? This is, after all, what this article is about.

If memory serves me correctly, it was the Church that asked Luther to recant; the Church never questioned whether it was in error.

You are wrong. While Luther was correct to point out abuses, abuses that many OTHER Catholics were already calling for reform of, Luther's teaching of Sola Fide were ALWAYS considered heresy. His rejection of Apostolic Tradition was ALSO considered a rejection of the Church of Christ. This was before 1521...

It was 100 years later that the Church finally admitted that selling indulgences was a bad thing.

That's flat out wrong. Consider looking at the Council of Trent for official teachings on indulgences. Even before the Council, the Popes began to curb abuses of the legitimate practice of indulgences - the giving of alms or fasting or prayers for the sake of remission of temporal punishment for sins ALREADY forgiven.

Regards

If memory serves me correctly, it was the Church that asked Luther to recant; the Church never questioned whether it was in error. It was 100 years later that the Church finally admitted that selling indulgences was a bad thing. Rome was obviously wrong and admitted so by its action. Luther did turn to the writings of the scriptures to prove they were wrong. They just didn’t want to hear it. Now given that situation what would you do? Would you ignore what is in the scriptures and just go along with the crowd recanting what the Bible states or, would you take your stand with the Bible and face up the Church? This is, after all, what this article is about.

I agree, Harley. It wasn't just the indulgences after all, it was other things that evidenced a mindset absolutely incapable of true introspection on the part of those who had the power to bring about the much needed reforms. If memory serves me correctly, a hundred years later, in France, the Church brutally murdered Chevalier de la Barre (they pulled out his tongue for God's sake!), for either refusing to doff his hat to a procession of Capuchin monks or for uttering some blasphemy, depending on your historical source. Then came the Council of Trent, and your point becomes even stronger.

At that time, and as I see it, the Church considered itself the equal of Almighty God, and possibly even His superior (bound by nothing), and not merely the human institution that Christ left behind to propagate the Faith. When Our Lord Jesus left St. Peter the 'keys of the kingdom' he also noted that His Kingdom was not of this world, but that seems to have been lost on so many of the boys in Rome.

That tyranny which the Church was so addicted to left its mark on many of us who were born and reared Catholics between the two great Vatican Councils. My grammar school class of 25 kids yielded so very few practicing Catholics. I could spit nails when I think of how they terrorized us, and made God out to be a ruthless, unapproachable dictator who placed big, black X-marks on your soul when you committed mortal sin. It wasn't just me who looked down my blouse to see if the blackness was showing through, and there was no priest, monsignor or bishop who would have come to your aid, so when they say the Church is where the Bishop is, I can believe it. When it comes right down to it, we loved the Church when we were kids, but the Church didn't have a big enough heart to love us in return.

"Actually, I believe this to be the correct view of things from the other side. To me, if one wished to be faithful to traditions, one would be Orthodox. I simply see a problem with relying upon traditions too much."

Your candor is as refreshing as your perceptions are accurate! :-)

"I suppose the Orthodox would say the Catholics left. Perhaps us Protestants can start saying the Catholics left us. I never thought about it like that."

Well, it works for us, but it really wouldn't work for you. Keep in mind that after the Schism, the Orthodox simply continued believing, worshipping, and practicing the ascetic/spiritual life in exactly the same way that they had always done.

Protestantism was not a matter of a pre-existing tradition that then separated from Catholicism. The way that Protestants were believing and worshipping 100 years after Luther started the ball rolling was very different from the way their Catholic parents and grandparents had believed and worshipped. There was a real break and real innovation -- even if that break and innovation was intended to be grounded in the primitive church of a millenium and a half earlier.

"I can’t quibble over this except to say the same is true for Catholics and Orthodox. There are some things the Fathers states that we all would agree upon. There are other things were we all might have sharp disagreements (I doubt any of us would agree with Augustine that all unbaptized babies automatically go to hell.). I’m sure the Catholic Church had great reasoning based upon the traditions of the fathers to give the Pope the final authority or the ability of the Church to sell indulgences."

There is certainly truth in what you say. But there are substantial differences. As I have pointed out before, Catholic usage of the patristic witnesses is subservient to the Magesterium, and amounts to ballast and proof-texting. Protestant usage of patristic writings seem mainly to me to be in the spirit of "see, Catholics, even these guys you call saints disagree with you on this or that point."

If you tell a Protestant that a particular Father contradicts Protestant teaching, he will say, "so what?" If you tell a Catholic that a particular Father contradicts a Catholic teaching, he will show how you can technically read that Father in a way that supports the Magesterium.

If you tell an Orthodox Christian that a given Father seems to contradict Orthodox teaching, he will likely place that Father in the greater Patristic tradition, and either acknowledge that there is ambiguity in the Patristic tradition or show that this particular Father is out of the consensus Patrum.

"If memory serves me correctly, it was the Church that asked Luther to recant; the Church never questioned whether it was in error. It was 100 years later that the Church finally admitted that selling indulgences was a bad thing. Rome was obviously wrong and admitted so by its action. Luther did turn to the writings of the scriptures to prove they were wrong. They just didn’t want to hear it.
Now given that situation what would you do? Would you ignore what is in the scriptures and just go along with the crowd recanting what the Bible states or, would you take your stand with the Bible and face up the Church? This is, after all, what this article is about."

First of all, as you know, you aren't going to find Orthodox defending medieval Catholicism and its abuses. We see that whole corrupt and confused world as being the logical consequence of being cut off from the rest of the Church.

That said, this line of argumentation is disingenuous in the extreme. If the sale of indulgences were all it was about, the Protestant world of 1700 wouldn't look much different from the Catholic world of 1700 -- since in neither world were indulgences being sold.

Luther seems to have seen a window of opportunity, and taken it. Again, we Orthodox have a particular perspective on this, since we completely agree that the medieval Catholic world had serious, serious problems -- the after-effects of which are still with us today, both in Catholicism and Protestantism.

But Luther, et al, did not use this time as an opportunity to return to the patristic understanding of Scripture and the faith. They rather elevated their personal interpretations above that of *any* era of the Church.

There is no doubt that the Catholic world of Luther's day was not going to accept anything from him but a complete recanting and return to the status quo. He would have been wrong to recant under those circumstances. But this fact does not subtract from the adverse effects of the alternative that Luther, et al, actually offered. A golden opportunity was squandered.