I previously wrote:
“Look at the Augsburg Confession, the Roman Confutation that gave Rome’s answer to it (what a pitiful answer!), and the Apology (Defense) of the Augsburg that demolished the Confutation.”
mas cerveza por favor responded:
“I have not read those documents yet. If the Catholic answers were weak as you say, have any stronger arguments been made subsequent to that exchange? If so, should not the strong arguments receive greater attention than the weaker ones?”
Really! Then it is long past time you read them. They are the first successful critique (i.e. in that the author and supporters survived the papal “answer”) of medieval Roman doctrine (which simply intended to return the Catholic Church to the teaching of the first centuries, or to put it in the language of recent posts on this thread, the pre-7th century A.D. church). They remain definitive. However, they have been expanded upon due to Roman, shall we say, shucking and jiving, much the same way as the Apostles Creed remains definitive, but has been expanded upon (definitively!) by the Nicene Creed due to the shucking and jiving of heretical teachers within the visible church, and then again by the Athanasian Creed. If you want to go deeper, the Lutherans also answered Trent in detail: “Examination of the Canons and Degrees of the Council of Trent,” Martin Chemnitz. It is available in English translation, four volumes, Concordia Publishing House, or in the original Latin, usually referred to as simply the “Examen.” Each canon, each decree is examined and critiqued in the light of both the Holy Scriptures and the church fathers.
mcpf also wrote:
“Did Martin Luther retain his opinions?”
He affirmed his doctrinal statements to his death. And was asked such by his colleagues on his death bed, to which question he answered in the affirmative. The Lutheran Confessions, i.e. the Book of Concord, refer to the doctrinal and polemical works of Luther that are affirmed by all true Lutherans to this day. By true Lutherans I do not mean, for example, the ELCA. They are apostate, and have been for quite awhile ... which fact always puzzled me when the Roman pope treated them seriously several times in the fairly recent past. What a joke to give the time of day to apostates.
mcpf also wrote:
“Do Protestants retain those opinions now?”
Protestant is a Roman term, a pejorative actually. It was used by Roman clerics in the same spirit as “tea-bagger” is used today by those who sneer at the “tea party” phenomenon of the last year or so. Today it has become merely a term of institutionalized snobbery.
I cannot answer for those who are not Lutheran. They must answer for themselves, even as each must answer for him/herself on judgment day.
Let me clarify what I mean by saying of the term “Protestant”:
“Today it has become merely a term of institutionalized snobbery.”
The snobbery remains that of Roman Catholics who knowingly use this term, which has become so institutionalized and convenient that many on both sides don’t really recognize it for what it is.