Posted on 11/05/2018 1:55:29 PM PST by boatbums
Luther Thought Purgatory was an Open Question?
I came across this link posted on the Catholic Answers Forums: The Hope of Eternal Life. The link is ecumenical in nature, an attempt to smooth over the edges between Roman Catholicism and Lutheranism. This is the excerpt that was posted on CAF:
This excerpt is fascinating because it argues Luther believed:
According to this article here is Luther's view of purgatory: "A belief that could be discussed in principle is concretely objectionable because of its associations." In other words, purgatory, for Luther, was an open question. Get rid of the abuses attached to it, and then it could be discussed.
In regard to the Smalcald Articles, LW states, "Under these circumstances the elector of Saxony instructed Luther in a letter of Dec. 11, 1536, to prepare a statement indicating the articles of faith in which concessions might be made for the sake of peace and the articles in which no concessions could be made."
Here are the two statements from the Smalcald Articles alluded to above. Read them for yourself and see if Luther is willing to make a concession on purgatory for the sake of peace:
Luther states in Article 12:
Luther states in Article 13:
The reading given to these statements by The Hope of Eternal Life downplays the first explicit rejection of purgatory, and sees the real Luther in his willingness to discuss what Augustine meant when "purgatorial masses" are abolished. The problem as I see it, is this reading of the Smalcald Articles isolates these statements from Luther's total written corpus, particularly any writings after the Smalcald Articles.
For instance, in his later sermons on Genesis, Luther states something with similar characteristics to the Smalcald articles. Note particularly the reference to Augustine:
Here again Luther explicitly denies purgatory, then mentions the obscurity of Augustine. He then goes on to deny that "four separate classes really exist." In the same volume, Luther refers to "Masses, purgatory, indulgences, and prayers to the dead" as false forms of worship (LW 8:230). Elsewhere in Luther's lectures on Genesis he states,
And here:
Comments from Luther similar to these could be greatly multiplied, which is why some Lutherans see any affirmation that Luther held purgatory was an "open question" as a lie of the Devil.
I’ll pack my gear!!
:)
“The Bible says pray for the dead.”
LOL!
:)
Hey, maybe we can develop a gold mine in Colorado. We could call it the Long Lost Freeper Mine. 😁
LOL
I’ll change my name to Jedediah FReeper.
Sounds more 1800s than my Italian name :)
The topic is what Luther thought about a religious concept, purgatory.
It's very on topic to look at the broader sweep of his religious thought and ask if there were either obvious errors, or incredible insights in his work.
Writing a long treatise on the evil of the Jews is an obvious error, in my opinion.
It's not that Luther was just another theologian, after all. Millions of people have as their denomination "Lutheran".
HiTech's comment that: "Luther carried institutional Catholic prejudices along in his vision of Christianity." also strikes me as a cop out. This was a man whose entire claim to fame is throwing off outmoded Christian beliefs, passed down by the 1200 year old Church of his fathers, and replace them with his own insights, based on hie reading of scripture.
And yet he didn't merely remain mute on the topic of the Jews, he wrote perhaps the most virulently anti-Semetic treatise in the entire canon on Christian apologetics. "To simply dismsiss it as "Oh, that was just Catholic tradition" is having your cake and eating it too.
As for this: Other Christians were to prove better witnesses to Jews.well, I sure hope so! Were there any that were worse anti-Semites than Luther? Because he seemed to set a pretty high bar for anti-Semitism.
Boatbums asked a fair question: "You gonna apply that same logic to Roman Catholicism?".
It's not phrased quite clearly though: here I am objecting to the writings of Luther, a man, and saying that they are so horrible that it' makes it hard for me to accept him as a moral authority in other areas.
I didn't go the next step and condemn the institution of the Lutheran, or Protestant, churches based on this one man, even though that one man is supremely important to their denomination in a way no single Pope is to the Catholics.
I would certainly apply the same logic to any and all Popes who wrote similar garbage anti-Semitic screeds. Which ones did? The link doesn't provide any answers to that. I will stipulate that I assume there are at least several, and possibly many.
Does the entire Catholic Church as an institution deserve to be rejected because of an omnipresent and unremitting levels of anti-Semitism? Possibly. It appears that is the case the book linked tries to make.
The Catholic Church certainly must be condemned for their behavior in the historical periods where they were actively anti-Semitic. And it must also be condemned on those grounds today, if those failures have not been clearly rejected by more recent and current leaders. This goes for the Lutherans, too. Where are they at now?
As HighTech RedNeck says "Other Christians (after Luther) were to prove better witnesses to Jews."
At some point between 1500 and now, then, some groups, possibly including modern Lutherans and modern Catholics have "proven better witnesses to Jews" - by which I assume you mean "stopped being horrible anti-Semitic goblins".
Well, I certainly hope so, and if true that's a very good thing.
But I still would not look up to the people who were actively anti-Semitic as thought leaders in any area of morality.
I can ignore Henry Ford's anti-Semitism. It's obnoxious, but it wasn't fundamental to his mission of building cheap cars.
Sounds more 1800s than my Italian name :)
I will change mine to Jim Bridger Freeper. “Let’s drink to old Jim Bridger, Yes, lift our glasses high. As long as there’s a USA, don’t let his memory die. That he was making history, never once occurred to him, but I doubt if we’d a been here, if it weren’t for men like Jim.” Johnny Horton.
You tell it right! :o)
Here is a link: paragraphs at HTML Schools, in case you don't know.
Luther believed in Purgatory because he was raised in the Roman Catholic religion and he was a doctor of theology. Over time, he discarded many of the false doctrines he had been taught that were invented in Catholicism because he saw that they contradicted God's holy word.
Not a New Testament teaching.
You sure about that?
"Yes, we all know that Martin Luther invented anti-Semitism all by his lonesome and Roman Catholicism was absolutely pure as the driven snow regarding Jewish people, always has been.".
Why bring up Roman Catholics? I didn't.
Luther rejected Catholicism, and is best known for pointing out everything they were wrong about.
How does the claim that "other groups were anti-Semitic before him" alter in any way the base facts about his behavior and beliefs?
Martin Luther invented the reformation (along with a few others, but is usually given the credit for being the prime mover), so he was clearly a gifted and powerful man whose influence continues into the present.
Look at this thread, people are very interested in what Luther thought about purgatory, still, almost 500 years after his death.
So maybe he did invent modern anti-Semitism? Maybe his systemization and closely argued treatises against the Jews were as influential as his arguments against the Catholic Church. Which were, after all, powerful enough to cause it to shatter into many different denominations in Germany and the rest of Europe.
It is also an interesting fact that when he was younger he was philio-Semitic, he came to his virulant jew-hating later, after his schism from the Catholic Church.
What is the classic Papal text that compares with Luther's famous On the Jews and Their Lies of 1543? It's not a short essay, it's 60,000 words.
His arguments were not all metaphysical, one of his last published sermons argued for expelling Jews from all European kingdoms, unless the individual Jews converted to Christianity.
And he had influence with political leaders, and so offered a very concrete program for them.
Luther's influence persisted after his death. John of Brandenburg-Küstrin, Margrave of the New March, repealed the safe conduct of Jews in his territories. Philip of Hesse added restrictions to his Order Concerning the Jews. Luther's followers sacked the synagogue of Berlin in 1572 and in the following year the Jews were driven out of the entire Margravate of Brandenburg.[29] In the 1580s riots led to expulsion of Jews from several German Lutheran states.[9]Which I veiew as a very good thing.Nevertheless, no ruler enacted all of Luther's anti-Jewish recommendations.[30]
In cases you are not familiar with it here are his specific proposals, from the above cited book:
I certainly could never belong to an organization that had this man as a founder and namesake, and I still surprised so many can.What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews":[1]
"First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools … This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians …"
"Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed."
"Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them."
"Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb …"
"Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. For they have no business in the countryside …"
"Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them …"
"Seventh, I recommend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow … But if we are afraid that they might harm us or our wives, children, servants, cattle, etc., … then let us emulate the common sense of other nations such as France, Spain, Bohemia, etc., … then eject them forever from the country …"
Protestantism brought a lot of good to the world, but Luther I find beyond the pale.
I think a lot of the problem was Luther’s hot temper. The anger of man gives a mighty foothold to the devil. Before you know it, if you let ungodly anger have its head, you’ll start looking like your worst opponent (which in Luther’s case wasn’t even the Jews, but the Roman Catholic institution of his time).
Yes, it would be desirable that a radical back-to-the-bible revamp of institutional Christian theology would go all the way... but humans being humans, the steps taken can only be so large at a time. Empirically, most modern Christian Jewish following can trace its Christian part to the more fundamentalist theology of Baptists, not Lutherans or Catholics. Baptists began as a pietistic movement in the Anglican church, which earlier had its own split from the Roman Catholic church in the dark days when institutional church and government were badly intertwined.
It’s not a cop out, it’s a historic fact. A bedrock principle in Christian faith is that a God who does not err works through people who sometimes err very, very badly in order to work an ultimate end of blessing to all who are willing to receive it. That won’t change whether the stewards are venal or conscientious, but the conscientious ones make better witnesses and that is all planned in by the good Lord.
The claim was made out of bias against Protestants by a Catholic as it always is, ergo pointing out that anti-Semitism had been practiced to an odious degree by Rome for over a thousand years at that point is fair game.
Short stories of Purgatory -A remarkable collection of visits from the souls in Purgatory to …"
Non verifiable...nor truthful.
Not any more that the relic of a “vial of Mary’s breast milk.”
Or the house in Italy that was “flown there by angels, from Jerusalem.”
It’s plenty off topic.
The subject was Purgatory.
Luther writing an angry tract when he heard that Jewish converts to Christ were being forced back to Judiasm is not the topic.
What stake do YOU have in this thread in the first place?
Thanks
About as valid as the apparitions you believe and the scapular you wear.
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