Augustine Quotation Stolen from Pr. Weedon's Blog

"But as I do not wish my reader to be bound down to me, so I do not wish my critic to be bound to himself. Let not the pious reader love me more than the catholic faith. Let not the critic love himself more than the catholic truth. I say to the pious reader, do not be willing to accept my writings as canonical Scriptures. But when you have discovered in the Scriptures what you did not previously believe, believe it unhesitatingly. While in my writings, unless you have understood certainly what you did not before hold as certain, be unwilling to hold it fast. I say to the critic, do not be wiling to amen my writings by your own opinion or argument, but [amend them] from the divine text or by unanswerable reason. If you apprehend anything of truth in them, its being there does not make it mine, but by understanding and loving it, let it be both yours and mine. But if you detect any falsehood, though it had once been mine in that I was guilty of error, now by avoiding it let it be neither yours nor mine." -St. Augustine "De Trinitate" 3.1

Read it for yourself, here

How The Roman Church Masters the Scriptures

As a previous commenter jcrng (I think I know who this is, my old Deli co-worker) made the point, any Catholic (*read Roman Catholic) would agree that Scripture is inspired and authoritative in and of itself without the Church's approval.

Here's how that breaks down in practice if not in theory.

Let's look at St. Paul's famous exposition of the struggle of the Christian life in Romans 7:20 "Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me."

How should this be interpretted?

Well in Tradition, both St. Jerome (letter 2) and St. Augustine (Nature and Grace) agree in many places that the will of the baptized Christian is not free to do good. It is free to sin or not to sin, but any good work is directly attributable to the Holy Spirit. This is because, as any plain reading of the text will tell you, St. Paul says: "sin ... dwells within me". Not concupiscence or the opportunity to sin (as the Scholastics will say), but sin. Aquinas argues in III. Q. 75, A. 2, that to use a proper noun is to signify it substantially (this is how he 'proves' transubstantiation). If this interpretive principle is applied to Rom. 7:20, this means that (Original) Sin, formally and substantially, dwells in the baptized Christian.

Simple enough, this interpretation, popular enough before Trent, suddenly leads Martin Luther et al, to say that the Christian is simul iust et peccator / at the same time righteous and a sinner.

This utterly undermines the entire system of Purgatory, Indulgences, etc., and St. Peter's still has to be built. Enter the 22 Spanish and Portugeuse bishops who somehow equal an ecumenical/universl Church council, and the Roman Church declares in Trent that: even though the apostle saith sin, the Church has never understood it to be sin proper, but concupiscence (material original sin/opportunity to sin).

...

So you have Scripture and Tradition in unity on the matter, and the Magisterium saying "wrong".

How is this justified.

First of all, the interpretation of the Bible is made impossible. The Church denies (in a logically circle argument referencing St. Peter's epistle) that Scripture is clear for the laity to understand. Likewise tradition (which had always been public tradition, ie. knowable and written down) suddenly becomes secret unwritten tradition passed on esoterically through the Church. In the end, the only person who can infallibly judge the matter is the Pope.

So Scripture (and less importantly Tradition) are both declared to be fundamentally incomprehensible, and only knowable through the Pope.

This means in practice that it is not the text or Scripture, or the proclaimed message it records, which holds the Truth, but the Papacy. God's revelation is thus only understandable by a secret (gnostic?) special revelation made clear by the Magisterium (presumably Magisterial pronouncements are clear and comprehensible?).

In the end this amounts to saying de facto, that Scripture is not inspired. It also amounts to saying that Tradition is not a valid way of interpretting Scripture either, because this can be confusing, and not all the sources are public or written down, some are secret - knowable and interpretable only by the Pope. In the end, this amounts to something like the inspiration of the Papacy, rather than the inspiration of Scripture, or even a reliance on Scripture interpretted by Tradition.

Psalms 124-139 (lines that stood out)

"Our help is in the name of the Lord,
who made heaven and earth." - Psalm 124:8

"Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion,
which cannot be moved, but abides for ever." - Psalm 125:1

"May those who sow in tears
reap with shouts of joy." - Psalm 126:5

"Unless the Lord builds the house,
those who build it labour in vain." - Psalm 127:1

"Happy is everyone who fears the Lord,
who walks in his ways." - Psalm 128:1

"The Lord is righteous... ‘The blessing of the Lord be upon you!
We bless you in the name of the Lord!’" - Psalm 129:4, 8

"Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord...If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you" - Psalm 130: 1,3-4

"I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother" - Psalm 131:2

"Let your priests be clothed with righteousness...The Lord swore to David a sure oath
from which he will not turn back...the Lord has chosen Zion;
he has desired it for his habitation:
‘This is my resting-place for ever;
here I will reside, for I have desired it.
I will abundantly bless its provisions;
I will satisfy its poor with bread.
Its priests I will clothe with salvation,
and its faithful will shout for joy... " - Psalm 132: various



"How very good and pleasant it is
when kindred live together in unity!
It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down upon the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down over the collar of his robes.
It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion.
For there the Lord ordained his blessing,
life for evermore." - Psalm 133 (I love the way it pictures oil running down the beard, I think of God's grace and blessings just overflowing from his ministry)

"May the Lord, maker of heaven and earth,
bless you from Zion." - Psalm 134:3

"Your name, O Lord, endures for ever,
your renown, O Lord, throughout all ages.
For the Lord will vindicate his people,
and have compassion on his servants." - Psalm 135:13-14

"It is he who remembered us in our low estate,
for his steadfast love endures for ever" - Psalm 136:23

"Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy." - Psalm 137:6

"I bow down towards your holy temple
and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness;
for you have exalted your name and your word
above everything...The Lord will fulfil his purpose for me" - Psalm 138:2,8

"even the darkness is not dark to you" - Psalm 139:12

Sacred Scripture, and I

"If it is true that the Scripture is so easy to understand, what is the use of so many commentaries made by your ministers, what is the object of so many harmonies, what is the good of so many schools of Theology ? here is need of no more, say you, than the doctrine of the pure word of God in the Church. But where is this word of God? In the Scripture? And Scripture-is it some secret thing ? No-you say not to the faithful. Why, then, these interpreters and these preachers? If you are faithful, you will understand the Scriptures as well as they do; send them off to unbelievers, and simply keep some deacons to give you the morsel of bread and pour out the wine of your supper. If you can feed yourselves in the field of the Scripture, what do you want , with pastors? Some young innocent, some mere child who is able to read, will do just as well. But whence comes this continual and irreconcilable discord which there is among you, brethren in Luther, over these words, This is my body" - St. Francis de Sales "The Catholic Controversy" Chapter X

I have to agree with St. Francis, even as someone who has done a year of biblical studies and read through the whole bible, and studied theology, I cannot boast to understand it on my own. I can come up with something that might sound like a valid interpretation, and indeed for myself this is enough. But teaching others the scriptures is really difficult. I get some very complex questions when I do bible study.

What I find as I wrestle with the Scriptures now, is that God is not calling me to Protestantism or Catholicism, he is calling me to holiness. That is the only true call I hear from Our Lord, the call to conversion, but also of the sufficiency of Christ. It is a paradox, and I can't quite grasp it perfectly, though I know of 3 or 4 schools of thought that would give me interpretations, none of them is exact.

I am thoroughly enjoying Acts, and I love the Pauline epistles, but what does "Righteousness of God" mean? what does even "Justification/logozomai" mean? These - at least to an only partially learned Christian - are extra biblical debates that require Tradition and Authority. Sorry if that is an unsatisfactory view, or if I just repeated what I've already said, but those are my thoughts on Sacred Scripture.

It is the Revelation of God, and in it God calls me to follow Christ, but in many areas, it is a mystery, and only through Tradition and Authorities is it understandable to me.

Scripture & Prayer

I'm pretty strange by modern standards. You can usually spot me as the guy who is overdressed, and in classes as the guy who can't shut up and just keep Religion out of the classroom. that's me. A Christian counselor told me that if was truly myself, I would be lonely forever because I don't "fit" in the world. That's cool, I'm not a big fan of the world myself, and I'm old enough to handle it (most days). So what do I do to keep all of this at bay? Two things mainly:

Read Scripture:
If there is one thing I proudly maintain from my Anabaptist upbringing it's the importance of the Word. When things are bad, usually if I can force myself to just pick up the bible and start reading, I will end up not putting it down for a couple chapters or sometimes a whole book (not the big ones). I will find passages that I repeat to myself over and over and mention in conversation whenever possible. The passage I've (re)found today is 1 Corinthians 8:3 "anyone who loves God is known by him".

Prayer:
The one good thing about constantly being unable to face life is that you pray alot more. It's not even a question of if, it's only when. I know that I couldn't get through the week without God, so eventually after my sin and waywardness I come pounding on his door again, the annoying Canadian panhandler back again to pull an Oliver Twist and ask for more grace. The Rosary has also been very helpful, and while I hated it at first... and subsequently at times have lapsed into hatred for it, lately I've been really enjoying it. It's also helped me to realize that God is no more bored by using the same perpetual petitions of prayers like the Our Father, because being of infinite knowledge the difference between these and our own made up prayers there can be little difference in quality. Plus he wrote the Our Father, so I'm sure it's better than anything I could think of, it is the Lord's Prayer after all.

Scott Hahn, 'Fleshing Out' the Holy Spirit

Scott Hahn has written a great piece on the connections between the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Virgin Mary. I didn't read all of it but it really helped me to understand the maternal aspects of the Spirit - though obviously the Holy Spirit is not feminine as Hahn makes clear, but in the same way that God the Father is not male, we can use analogies to understand God.

Anyway he writes about how the Spirit conceived in Mary brought forth the birth of Christ and how the Spirit's work in baptism gives birth to Christians etc. He quotes N.T. Wright which will only confirm the widespread allegations that Wright is a secret Jesuit (though I think the man is very anti-Catholic)

Anyway, here is the book:

http://www.salvationhistory.com/documents/scripture/First_Comes_Love_appendix.pdf

Westminster Confession (Attempt Two) - Chapter One

*Note if you want to avoid the same sort of generic neo-Catholic criticism of Westminster which will be included here, and just see what I liked, just skip to the bottom to read the stuff under the heading "What I Enjoyed"*

I attempted to get through the Westminster Confession of Faith, long ago, but gave up after I completely disagreed with the first chapter, I'm going to try again and to get through it. I'm doing this for 3 reasons:

1. To understand the traditional Reformed doctrines
2. To possibly find some articles we are unified on (Roman Catholics and Reformed Protestants)
3. To get all the Reformed people who read my blog to leave comments and give them some (false?) hope that I might eventually depart from my apostate Romanism.

here we go:

Chapter 1: a strange place to start

Articles I-III.

so it starts a bit with Natural Theology but declares that all Natural Theology can do is convict of sin and not save. It then says that God wished to declare his will unto the Church and that eventually he decided "to commit the same (his will) wholly unto writing". They use a strange prooftext from proverbs for this, and lump it together with protecting the Church from Satan, and thus get to use all the Matthew 4 Jesus against Satan "it is written" dialogues.

Articles II and III list the canonical books as inspired and the deuterocanonical books as uninspired, but list it arbitrarily and with no reason at all. The problem is, that every sola scriptura prooftext keeps point to the Old Testament, and if we were biblical literalists I suppose we would have to only have the Old Testament and not the new one. But even the Saduccees show that the 'amount' of inspiration is never agreed upon in Judaism, and thus they only believed the Law and denied the resurrection of the body which only appeared in later Old Testament Scripture.

I suppose if a Jew read Westminster he'd be equally confused that a Presbyterian was using it for proof, when the verses they cited showed that God had fully revealed his Word in the Law, and in the prophets.

But the Canon issue is the prize-winning horse of Roman Catholicism, whereas it is the bleeding sore of Protestantism.

Articles IV-V:

Articles IV and V say that it is to be believed because it is the Word of God and not based on human authority. But what would they base this on other than the "feeling" of divine inspiration while reading it. But again who feels inspired when reading Chronicles, surely Tobit is more inspiring. And what about other 'holy books' like the Qu'ran and the book of Mormon, many feel they are inspired as well. At the end of the day we're all left sitting with different books and no agreement. I guess God's "immutable will" as Westminster constantly repeats, didn't think of that. It also calls the feeling of the Holy Spirit infallible proof, but this doesn't account for the diverse claims of disagreeing Christians and non-Christians (Mormons, etc) who believe that the Spirit is testifying to them, and who seem to lead regenerate lives.

Articles VI-VII

Article VI says that nothing can be added to scripture by the traditions of men, etc. But what about Calvinism ? or Covenant Systematic Theology? or Infant Baptism based on Covenant Theology and Church Tradition? So the prooftexts are the usual suspects (2 Tim 3:15-16) which again supports a view of the sufficiency of the Old Testament (the New Testament wasn't even all written at the time, so it would be "adding" to the canon to include the later epistles of John, 2 Peter, Hebrews, and Revelation) and Gal 1:8-9 which is a much better prooftext, and then 2 Thes 2:2, the problem being that in the same chapter St. Paul says "stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter." (2 Thes 2:15) so it completely repudiates their ban on traditions of men.

Finally in Article VII we see a beam of light. "All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all" very true the Ethiopian eunuch even though he had Isaiah, couldn't understand it without Philip. Then is says: "yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are... clearly propounded". If they mean here what I think they do, then this is a problem. If they're speaking of salvation by faith alone as being obvious to anyone, I would say this is a problem from Church history as they should have looked around them to see that there were Anglicans, Presbyterians, Anabaptists, and Quakers all reading the bible and disagreeing. The 3 "different" views of salvation could be summed up as Calvinism, Arminianism (sometimes Pelagianism in the Anglican Church), and Universalism. All with their own proof-texts. But yes, I will give it to them, all agreed on salvation by faith alone, and even Catholicism eventually 'realized' that it was in the deposit of faith as well lol (see Joint Declaration on Justification) so that at the end of the day we all agreed that initial justification was based on faith alone and God's reckoning it as righteousness. But of course, the Catholics and Arminians believed it could be lost, and the Calvinists and Universalists/Quakers disagreed. And the Calvinists thought that the faith meritted Christ's imputed righteousness which was actually what made the person righteous, whereas the Catholics and Arminians believed it was the faith itself which was seen as righteousness.

All this again to say, it doesn't seem clear at all how salvation specifically is obtained, but we all agree it has something to do with God and faith and Jesus. I personally think they should've started with Election/Predestination and argued fom Augustine and scripture, but that's just me.

Articles VIII-X

Describing the fact that the scriptures are written in Greek and Hebrew (they forgot to list Aramaic but whatever), they say that all people "have right unto...the Scriptures, and are commanded, in the fear of God, to read and search them, therefore they are to be translated in to the vulgar language of every nation unto which they come". This is a valid point of Westminster. ...Except the Douay-Rhiems was started by Roman Catholics before the King James... so this really isn't a victory for Protestantism, except that they used better sources than us / anything but the Vulgate.

Article IX compounds the problem of perspicuity by saying that scripture interprets scripture, for if we can't understand one, how to we know with certainty we can interpret another?

On Article X it repeats this idea that the Holy Spirit teaches men through scripture. And remember only through Canonical scripture. But again, no mention of how the New Testament was arrived at.

The Work of the Spirit

If God had meant to actually preserve his perfect will in the books listed as scripture in the WCF, what would he have to have done?

2 events would have been key.

The first would've been the Holy Spirit's inspiration of the Old Testament Canon decided in the Council of Jamnia (A.D. 90) which was held by Jews after Pentecost and which condemned the Christian gospels. So we would have to believe that God partially infallibly inspired a non-Christian council to set up his Old Testament Canon.

Second, we'd have to believe that the Christian New Testament Canon was established by the Holy Spirit in St. Athanasius' festal letter (A.D. 367) which lists the New Testament Canon but gets the Old Testament canon "wrong" (according to WCF) by not including Esther and by including an apocryphal book.

So those would have to be the 2 definative moments of history where God revealed his will to the Church, both being partially wrong, and one being in an anti-Christian body. It could have happened, who am I to judge the providence of God?, but it just seems a bit unreasonable and inefficient.

What I Enjoyed

The English Protestants have something in their blood I think, it's this boldness and certainty, the reliance on God alone that stirs my soul. It's bible-centred and I think this emphasis of the Westminster Divines if not completely absent from the Roman Church, was at least dormant. The Church from Trent to Vatican II seemed to be centred on Medieval Scholasticism as if the Thomistic tradition was apostolic tradition. The birth of resourcement theology (emphasis on scripture and the fathers) and the changes, and changes of emphasis of Vatican II (vernacular liturgy, scripture reading added to confession - though they don't actually do this one) were in the same Protestant spirit I see. But as soon as a Catholic writes the words "Vatican II" and "spirit" the Traditionalist Catholic trolls come out, and the Traditional Protestants start screaming about Trent this and Trent that, violently holding onto the dogma that the Roman Church can never remove this and so they will never have to try to reunite the Church.

oh boy. In the end, I guess while I stil have a very Roman Catholic framework and while I listed all those issues, I still like the WCF and it reminds me of how Chesterton says Protestantism is like Patriotism, it just sweeps you up into these partisan emotions that are kind of fun, because you feel like the elect, and you feel like everyone else is a bug that must be squashed. This is sounding really mean, I really didn't start this to offend Reformed Christians, it just seems to happen alot, I'll try and do better next time.

Word and Sacrament Scripture and Patristics of the Day

"About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, ‘Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.’ The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ They answered, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’ They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God." Acts 16

I was always taught this passage as a quintessential message of salvation and I still always like to read "believe on" or "believeth on" rather than "believe in" because as one fundamentalist Baptist pastor explained to me, to believe in is to refer to yourself and your heart, to believe ON is to believe on what Jesus has already done on the cross. But as a Catholic I also like to see that St. Paul also had the sacramental side as well.

St. Augustine, On Baptism, Book 5 Chapter 28 (39): "Wherefore, if those appear to men to be baptized in Catholic unity who renounce the world in words only and not in deeds, how do they belong to the mystery of this ark in whom there is not the answer of a good conscience? Or how are they saved by water, who, making a bad use of holy baptism, though they seem to be within, yet persevere to the end of their days in a wicked and abandoned course of life? Or how can they fail to be saved by water, of whom Cyprian himself records that they were in time past simply admitted to the Church with the baptism which they had received in heresy? For the same unity of the ark saved them, in which no one has been saved except by water. For Cyprian himself says, "The Lord is able of His mercy to grant pardon, and not to sever from the gifts of His Church those who, being in all simplicity admitted to the Church, have fallen asleep within her pale." If not by water, how in the ark? If not in the ark, how in the Church? But if in the Church, certainly in the ark; and if in the ark, certainly by water. It is therefore possible that some who have been baptized without may be considered, through the foreknowledge of God, to have been really baptized within, because within the water begins to be profitable to them unto salvation; nor can they be said to have been otherwise saved in the ark except by water. And again, some who seemed to have been baptized within may be considered, through the same foreknowledge of God, more truly to have been baptized without, since, by making a bad use of baptism, they die by water, which then happened to no one who was not outside the ark. Certainly it is clear that, when we speak of within and without in relation to the Church, it is the position of the heart that we must consider, not that of the body, since all who are within in heart are saved in the unity of the ark through the same water, through which all who are in heart without, whether they are also in body without or not, die as enemies of unity. As therefore it was not another but the same water that saved those who were placed within the ark, and destroyed those who were left without the ark, so it is not by different baptisms, but by the same, that good Catholics are saved, and bad Catholics or heretics perish."

I just highlighted the interesting word that Thomists/Augustinians, and Calvinists alike despise "foreknowledge" and also that in the end St. Augustine says baptism saves but ultimately what makes the baptized saved or unsaved is the position of the heart.

Once again, may our hearts be better than our heads.

Who Obscured Scripture - Luther or the Medieval Church

Much like the assumption of Catholics that Protestants will scream when doused with Holy Water, there is another myth coming from the other side. I would argue that this myth has so pervaded Protestantism that their historians have spread it even unto the academic world. Today I encountered it.

It is the great Protestant myth that the Catholic Church is somehow 'scared' of the Bible. It is a natural assumption of most people, that the Protestant Reformation saved the bible from the ashes. This is a lie. Over 100 editions of the Bible were produced by the Catholic Church in the 50 years preceding the Reformation in the vernacular languages (spoken or common languages) of the people. Martin Luther produced one, which the Church forbid -as it did with Wycliffe's because it was an improper translation, Luther added 'alone' to Eph 2:8-9, and other such disfigurements of the word of God as preserved by the Catholic and Orthodox Church.

People complain about the 'Vulgate' - the Latin Bible being used, and that it's purpose was to 'hide' the bible from commoners in a foreign language. The name Vulgate is interesting because it comes from the same english root as Vulgar - meaning in the common speech of the people.

Here is an amazing article showing that this Protestant Myth is just that - a myth - and not a fun myth like Lord of the Rings, or a true myth like Gen 1-3, but a fake bad myth.

here it is: (thank you Lord for Dave Armstrong)
"because of the human tendency to dichotomize differing viewpoints and to create "good guys" and "bad guys" in the most sweeping terms, it becomes almost "psychologically necessary" to come up with a villan, historically-speaking. If Protestants are for the Bible, then (in this mindset) someone has to be the "bad guy" and against the Bible. Therefore, in a movie of this sort, which deals with the myth and folklore of Protestant origins, the Catholic Church "must" be the "bad guy" and enemy of the Holy Scriptures (otherwise, much of the Protestant self-understanding and historical importance and rationale for the very movement itself is greatly hindered). Alongside this is the commonly-held Protestant caricature of claiming that the Catholic Church "feared" the Bible, and how it would expose the falsity of Catholic beliefs, which is why she allegedly forbade it to the common people, in the common tongue, and discouraged its study.

The only problem with such embellishment of one's own epic and noble tale of origins is that it can't hold a candle to the true history concerning the Catholic high reverence for Scripture. It is a simple, indisputable historical fact that the Catholic Church was the guardian, translator and preserver of the Bible for the nearly 1500 years between the time of Jesus Christ and Martin Luther. Anyone at all familiar with the Middle Ages knows about learned monks copying the Scriptures laboriously by hand.

Had the Catholic Church hated or feared the Bible as is so often absurdly claimed, it was an easy matter during this period to destroy all copies. Nor were the masses ignorant of the Bible in the Middle Ages before the Protestants came into the picture. If anything, Bible literacy in the fifty years before Luther's revolt (1467-1517) among lay non-scholars was arguably greater than in our own time.

Before the modern printing press was invented in the mid-15th century, Bibles were chained at libraries not in order to "keep them from the people," as the stereotype goes, but rather, to protect them from thieves, so the common people could have more access to them, as books were very expensive. This practice persisted long after 1517 in Protestant countries such as England, since older books would have continued to be very valuable. Every Protestant (even the most anti-Catholic sort) ought to be profoundly thankful to the Catholic Church, without which they would not possess their Bible.

Nor is it at all true that the Catholic Church was opposed to the printing and distribution of Bible translations in vernacular languages (it did oppose some Protestant translations which it felt were inaccurate). For instance (utterly contrary to the myths in this regard which are pathetically promulgated by the movie Luther), between 1466 and the onset of Protestantism in 1517 at least sixteen editions of the Bible appeared in German, with the full approval of the Catholic Church:

High German:
Strasburg: 1466, 1470, 1485
Basel, Switzerland: 1474
Augsburg: 1473 (2), 1477 (2), 1480, 1487, 1490, 1507 [also in 1518]
Nuremburg: 1483

Low German:
Cologne: 1480 (2)
Lubeck: 1494
Halberstadt: [1522]
Delf: [before 1522]
(From Johannes Janssen, History of the German People From the Close of the Middle Ages, 16 vols., translated by A.M. Christie, St. Louis: B. Herder, 1910 [orig. 1891], vol. 1, 56-57, vol. 14, 388)" - Dave Armstrong in a Response to the movie "Luther" http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2004/05/catholic-response-to-movie-luther-2003.html

Ugh...God help me. (Catholic v. Protestant)... again

Ecclesiology:
"But since it would take too long to set out here the successions of all the churches, we shall turn to that great, ancient and universally known church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles Peter and Paul, and we shall show that the tradition it has received of the apostles and the faith that it preaches to men has come down to our time through the regular succession of its bishops; and thus we shall confute all those who, in whatever way, whether by self-complacency, vainglory, blindness or error, enter into unauthorized assemblies. For it is with this Roman church, by reason of its more powerful pre-eminence that every other church, that is to say all the faithful everywhere, ought to agree, inasmuch as in this church the apostolic tradition has been preserved continuously by those who come from everywhere." St. Irenaeus ("Against All Heresies," c. 180 A.D.)

"there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, ‘I belong to Paul’, or ‘I belong to Apollos’, or ‘I belong to Cephas (Peter)’, or ‘I belong to Christ.’ Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?" - St. Paul (1 Corinthians 1:10-13, c.60 AD)

Justification:
"If any one saith, that men are justified, either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ, or by the sole remission of sins... let him be anathema" - (Catholic Council of Trent c. 1550 AD)

"it is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, ‘he sat down at the right hand of God’, and since then has been waiting ‘until his enemies would be made a footstool for his feet.’ For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified." - St. Paul? Barnabas? Priscilla? (Hebrews 10:10-14 (c. 95 AD)

I have spent all of my spare time and energy in this Catholic-Protestant debate, I've lost sleep and friends and a possible future career. I am so tired. This is just a sample of what I deal with. I've discovered something strange. No matter how hard I try to read Church History, it is overwhelmingly 'Catholic', it supports the papacy and the historic episcopate (bishops), etc. BUT, No matter how hard I try to read Catholicism into the Scriptures, I find they are overwhelmingly Lutheran/Protestant.

So I'm left with this horrific situation, either turn my back on all of Church History and Sacred Tradition, including those which chose the canon of scripture, OR, to turn my back on the Sacred Word of God, eternal immutable, inspired and authoritative. The problem is that both groups claim they can read both scripture and tradition with a clear conscience, well I can't. I can't read the Council of Nicea and not be Catholic, and I can't read Romans and not be Protestant.

The other problem is that both Tradition and Scripture hold Anathemas for those who reject them. Both claiming to be from God. So St. Paul writes in Galatians 1:8 that if anyone believes a different gospel than the one he taught, they are damned, and St. Irenaeus writes if anyone divides the church or is out of communion with Rome, they are anathema.

Now Protestants say obviously the church screwed up and was led into heresy, and Catholics say obviously my interpretation of scripture is wrong. I've tried so hard to read the New Testament as a Catholic, but short of removing Romans, Galatians, Corinthians and Hebrews, I could not do it. Luther - no matter how late he came in church history - I believe was correct in his interpretation of imputed righteousness and sola fide. Catholics will laugh and say 'so the gospel itself, the central message of the church was unknown to it for nearly 16 centuries?!', whilst Protestants must embarrassingly say 'yes'. Catholics must embarrassingly say that even though the scriptures clearly show this, they are wrong and that really Scripture is only a part of Tradition and can't be used against it.

And so my soul is looking like Ireland as it always is.

It is also two different conceptions of God. In Lutheranism/Anglicanism God has peace with humanity, his wrath has been satisfied, he loves everyone, and if they merely believe, they will be saved and immediately after death be in the presence of God. In Catholicism God is like 'Two-Face' in Batman, if you commit a mortal sin the gun is to your head, but if you go through the proper cleansing ritual, then suddenly he loves you again. And even if you do everything right your whole life, you still get burned (purgatory). In Luther salvation is the gift of God, in Trent it is the temporary chance of God.

Yesterday I watched Rob Bell's "The Gods Aren't Angry", and it was really good. But it was the epitome of Luther, he argues well that if this idea -of God only loving us because we offer him something - is true, then there's no more point to Christianity than Judaism or Paganism for that matter, just another group of humans, trying to appease the angry gods. So does God love me? or does he burn with righteous anger towards me because I am a heretic who actively divides his bride the church, with mortal sins on my soul which will earn me eternal damnation?....ugh, I'm so tired of this.

Westminster Confession of Faith: Scripture

To me, the easiest thing in the world to be, would be a Calvinist. You get to call yourself one of the elect - which is a cool title - you get certainty about your salvation, you get answers to every question you could imagine. I've always said that the two best theological systems which answer everything coherently for the most part are 1) Calvinism, and 2) Catholicism. Now I'm an Anglican/Orthodox Wesleyan today at least, so why wouldn't I just pick one of these great systems? I decided to read the Westminster Confession today, to remind me of all the reasons I can't be a Presbyterian and I read all of the first part about scripture. Here is a link to it:http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/ (I've seen Jared rip the Council of Trent to peices, so I don't feel as bad taking one of his favourites and pointing out my opinion on it's shortcomings)

It starts off proclaiming that God is revealed in Nature/Natural Theology, but that so His will might be known he revealed himself in Scripture. As well the Apocrypha is NOT to be declared inspired Scripture. The 'true' OT canon contains only 39 books.

Problems with this:

1. Jesus never left a command for people to write scripture
2. Jews couldn't agree on a canon for the Old Testament. Till 90CE council of Jamnia, after the Christian church was already established.
3. Scripture has no canon list within itself
4. St. Paul and the others constantly quote the Septuagint - the Greek Old Testament which contains the Apocrypha.
5. Jesus is actually God's revelation and His Word.


"We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture." WCF V (prooftext used-1 Timothy 3:15)

The problem is, the early church DIDN'T have a bible, outside the Septuagint, which was the Old Testament, which contained the apocrypha, and possibly they had some Pauline literature. And that prooftext/footnote says the CHURCH is the pillar of truth, not scripture.

"The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly" WCF IX

Hmmm. So which scripture do we pick if something is unclear. For example, in Corinthians it talks about baptism for the dead... which scripture do we go to for that? In 1 John 5 it talks about a "Mortal Sin" which leads to death. But what scripture can we use to interpret that?

In closing the Westminster confession says of Scripture, that it is "The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined" -WCF X

That is the pipe dream that all of Protestantism rests on. The idea that somehow scripture actually speaks... it's a text, and it has to be read, it has to be translated, and it has to be interpretted. The Calvinists seemed to have arbitrarily picked up the bible, removed the apocrypha, and said that it is in short the Christian Qu'ran. If this were so, all matters of faith would be easy. Almost as easy as having a Pope who is essentially God on Earth and can infallibly define any article of the faith, and bind and loose anything on earth and in heaven. I wonder if he 'defined' God as nonexistant, then he could make everything end. But as the Catholics say, he will get hit by lightning before that happens... a very realistic scenario... but enough of all this childishness.

In short, I would love to be a Catholic or a Calvinist, but there are many questions of the faith which cannot be simply answered, they are a mystery, as only the Orthodox realize.

False Dichotemies?

I've been accused by Catholics of setting up false dichotemies. It is a claim leveled at all Protestant Christians as well, when they say Tradition and Scripture contradict one another. Now I can understand the Catholics' anger when some say this, because 99.9% of Protestants have never read a single church council. Indeed I was a baptist for 18 years and never heard of the Apostles' Creed. I didn't even know what a creed was.

I also admit that in light of everyone I know being angry at me for trying to become Catholic, I AM looking for an easy out, and thus sometimes when I read the church fathers I read quotes anachronistically and making them sound like Luther etc. HOWEVER, there is in my opinion many True Dichotemies that can't just be dismissed. I think that Traditions DO contradict Scripture and thus hold more of an Anglo-Orthodox perspective.

Here is a simple example. "a bishop must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate....not quarrelsome, and not a lover of money." - 1 Timothy 3:2-3. In Roman Catholicism the Tradition (church discipline technically) is "a bishop cannot be the husband of one wife" and I need only guide you to "The Borgia Popes" for a great example of a 1 for 1 contradiction of everything St. Paul writes here about a Bishop. So to say that clerical celibacy and scripture are but horse and rider, is idiotic.

There are other dichotemies as well, and entire Catholic books written in defense of such contradictions and near-contradictions, so to say outright that it is idiotic and maniacal Protestants inventing these dichotemies, it is not. It is history itself.

Also remember the words of Our Lord Jesus, who I guess was just being an irksome protestant as well, when he said: "in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" - Mark 7:7 KJV. Now this is clearly to the pharisees regarding the law, HOWEVER, it does show that there are traditions that religious leaders have which contradict God's law. (And I can debate all day on Matthew 16).

Now, there are some traditions which I believe to be valid of course. For example, the Perpetual Virginity of Mary. It's an old tradition, you find it in Origen's commentary on Matthew, Ignatius of Antioch, Jerome, Athanasius, Ambrose, and others. Guess who else believed in her perpetual virginity? John Calvin, Martin Luther, Zwingli, and John Wesley. This idea that Mark Driscoll talks about where she could never have been a virgin all her life, is based more on modern conceptions of sex, than Holy Tradition. So yes, I believe it is a true historical tradition of the Church that is a part of the deposit of faith. However there are dichotemies I believe, and the Eastern and Western split of 1054 shows that people long before protestants knew that there were contradictions.

Hence why I say:
Scripture, Tradition, Logic.

Eastern Orthodoxy

Eastern Orthdoxy seems like the near perfect version of Christianity. I think they have an amazing balance of Tradition and Scripture. Scripture is still allowed to critique traditions and it is held in high esteem (even if the communion as a whole can't agree on the canon of it).

I love the fact that they allow for mystery, and that they seem so ancient in how they do things. At the Catholic Church I occassionally attend they use modern Christian music. But I remember listening in History class to the Liturgy of St. Anthony, and the beauty of the churches. I love the Icons which constantly remind me of the Great Cloud of Witnesses. I think if I ever went into one of those churches it would feel like that line in the Apostles' Creed "The communion of the saints", the one covenent body on Earth and in Heaven. It's a great image.

As well the Filioque issue to me is in favor of the East Orthodox (for those unfamiliar with it, the Orthodox belive the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, whereas the Catholics add, or the Orthodox remove - depending on your position of course - the Filioque, which is latin for 'and the Son', thus Catholics believe the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.) In my reading of scripture I believe it is the Father. (but of course, I haven't read intensively on it).

I think their position on Tradition is what I like the most. The fact that they ordain married priests, and that they seem to have an amazing reverence for God. I also really like a few of their saints. I enjoy the Eastern Mysticism, and frequently pray the Jesus prayer (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner) as they do, and find it beneficial.

Of course the closest Orthodox church is a 45-50 minute drive away, and I hear they're even less welcoming than the Catholics (which would mean probably not letting me in the door). And the Church is split up into about 19 churches all claiming episcopal authority over the same diocese, and they are ridiculously nationalistic (quite like Catholics as well except substitute Irish and Italian, for Greek and Russian).

I remember my grandmother telling me a story about how in the Ukraine in my great grandmother's time, the Mennonites and the Ukranian Orthodox used to come after church and bake together and that's how alot of Mennonite recipes came to be. I like that kind of ecumenism. Two totally different theological viewpoints, both heretics in the eyes of each other's dogma, but they can come together as one body on the Sabbath and bake. We need more ecumenical baking, and I wish there was an Orthodox church in town...