I am distinguishing between God requiring evil in order to fulfill His plan as He wants it, and God requiring evil because He is lacking of something. I think the latter was being asserted as a Reformed belief and so I objected to it.
That is why the elimination of the Magisterium from interpretation is so wrong. Calvin interpreted one way, Luther another, Mary Baker Eddy yet another and so on. All of them different and all of them to one extent or another, wrong.
The ultimate test is always scripture of course. If teachings are not consistent with scripture, as so many from the Magisterium are not, then we can know they are wrong. Calvin and Luther were obviously very close in the great majority of their interpretations. They had in common a desire to follow the scriptures, so they were led in the same direction.
***I am distinguishing between God requiring evil in order to fulfill His plan as He wants it, and God requiring evil because He is lacking of something. I think the latter was being asserted as a Reformed belief and so I objected to it.***
I don’t think that either of us considered God to be lacking of anything. We simply state that the Reformed God requires evil and that is what we reject. God using evil is not Christian.
***The ultimate test is always scripture of course. If teachings are not consistent with scripture, as so many from the Magisterium are not, then we can know they are wrong.***
Concentrating on certain verses and ignoring others always leads to differing theologies.
As well, different people with different mindsets can look at the same verse and come up with different interpretations.
***Calvin and Luther were obviously very close in the great majority of their interpretations. They had in common a desire to follow the scriptures, so they were led in the same direction.***
Calvin and Luther developed incompatible theologies from each other. Not the same direction at all.