I grew up in a small town with a Methodist Chruch, Presbyterian, 3 non-denomationals and 13 different Lutheran churches. They all disagreed about everything except one. They hated Catholics. Polish and Catholic was especially egregious. You may want to consider, however, that either or arguments fail at the Truth as often as not. Look at the areas both may be correct and where both may be wrong. You'll find a certain myth or superstition is in play. The big one is authority. There isn't one. The concept of authority fails every time at Matthew 7:21
But there is more to this than @arcadiangossip appears to discern. The end of this part of the writing as summary points being analogous to a series of talking points the clearest sign of this deeper and most likely subconscious indication of that undiscerned context.
I refuse to believe that this analogy is the work of deep AI. It is the work of creativity which comes from the heart of God. Perhaps the correlation can become distinct to the author?
As a staunch Protestant, I can agree with a lot of this. There are certain points where you point to contradictions that then you show aren’t actually contradictions. It would be interesting to deal with those.
Thanks for reading and offering a thoughtful comment. Whats an example of a apparent contradiction that i showed to be false? A main objective of this piece is to highlight the most sslient contradictions in language most protestants wouldnt object to.
No problem. I'm not sure I communicated well, however. I was on my phone :)
An example of what I am talking about would be the issue of Mary. You contrast 'honour' and 'worship'. But is not true that no true protestant would object to Mary being honoured... and all true Catholics would be opposed to her being worshiped?
So the actual question is, "Is the way that protestants treat Mary a failure to give her her proper honour" vs "Is the way that Catholics treat Mary a form of worship?"
If a protestant has a problem with the way Scripture treats Mary... that is against his religion. He should approve of it. Conversely if a Catholic walks around talking of Mary as if she was another God, and one that he likes better than that Christ fellow or that God the Father with a beard who is always smiting"... that goes against Catholic doctrine, eh?
In this text i am setting the stage by trying to use the accusations or language of each side. Cant tell you how many times ive been accused of worshipping mary.
Yes. But my point is that you consider it an 'accusation'. If you found a Catholic that DID worship Mary, you would correct them. Just as if I found a member of my church that thought that Mary shouldn't be honoured.
IE We disagree how Mary should be treated, but our contradiction should not be stated as 'they worship Mary and we don't' or 'They don't think Mary should be honoured."
Does that make sense? That seemed to happen several times.
You can write your own book. I am going by what is typical. What you describe is so atypical it beggars belief. Basically no prots honor mary. Scripture gives her the title blessed, its never given to her.
I'm afraid that I miscommunicated. What I was trying to say is that official Catholic doctrine (as I understand it) is that Mary should be honoured, but not worshiped.
Official protestant doctrine is... that Mary should be honoured, but not worshiped.
It is the way that those doctrines are drilled down on and practiced that is different. John Gill, for example, was comfortable saying Mary was the 'Mother of God'. I would not use that phrase.
its great that you are trying to follow Jesus Christ and were given graces of conversion.
This sort of biblicalism is not biblical. St Paul himself says that 2 thess 2:15 oral and written tradition must be upheld. so the bible alone stuff is not biblical. St paul also says in 1 tim 3:15 that the church, not the bible, is the "ground and pillar of the truth." Again this conforms with the catholic teaching, and the historical reality that the church compliled, canonized, and interprets the bible. if you are a protestant the reformers removed books from the canon so that is also a problem. the bible doesnt tell us which books belong in the bible, the church tells us this.
“But this being said, a question to start with is: why is it offensive to Protestants, who presumably want to get to the truth of the matter about who Jesus is and how he redeems souls, when they hear this opinion expressed?”
This is too simplistic. Plenty of Protestants today have the same view with respect to Catholics: that they lack saving faith, don’t have “a personal relationship with Jesus”, believe in salvation by works, etc.
It seems that the relevant contrast is between liberals and conservatives, not Protestants and Catholics. Fundamentalist Protestants would agree with most of what you say, simply reversing the labels of true and false.
Also, as you must know, there is a long tradition of Christian universalism. It’s not clear why the more tribal, exclusive, heretic-burning side of the tradition should be considered the more genuine. That’s an interpretive judgment, and it’s hard to see how what you’ve written here supports it.
i dont see this tradition of universalism in the roman catholic faith. there is in protestantism I realize and people like DBH try to play this up with their reading of some eastern saints, but its really absent from our tradition as I understand it. what´s the tradition`? where do i find it in Tradition, i.e. Magesterium?
my argument was there are diametric differences on essential matters between C and P.
differences on essential matters suggests a good and evil spirit is at play.
if an evil spirit is at play and causing disagreement about essential matters, people who follow the evil spirit will not be saved.
also its implausible Jesus Christ is indifferent to such enormous differences.
“my argument was there are diametric differences on essential matters between C and P.”
I guess my point is that the characterization of these differences as “essential matters” is question-begging. Which things to count as essential is part of what divides different streams of Christian tradition.
And from a more ecumenical perspective, it might be the sectarian division over what you call “essential matters” that is the “evil at play.”
It’s true that much of the explicit universalism (aside from some later mystics) seems to come from the eastern saints. But most of these writings predate the Great Schism, as far as I am aware.
in the topics i picked out I tried to give a little to both sides but i think the issues listed at the end are the essentials according to both catholic theology, I am a catholic, and protestant theology, I was a protestant. If you disagree, tell me where i am wrong, do the work, i can point to the very texts of the reformers, and will do so in subsequent posts to show the conflict is real and not apparent. but the writings of saints is not sacred tradition in the proper sense of the term in the western tradition. tradition is magesterium. universalism is not apart of the western tradition.
Isn’t that just begging the question? Privileging the magisterium is only valid if we already believe that the magisterium authoritatively represents “the tradition”. To do that is just to define “the tradition” in such a way that alternative viewpoints (such as those of universalists) are excluded on principle.
of course it is but its not clear if you have problems with my text as I was trying to deal with each on their own terms or in thier own language, or simply wanting to argue with me. but you somehow asking me to point to a tradition that I don´t myself believe in is equally question begging. i don´t accept any tradition outside of sacred tradition, you thinking this is unfair or disingenuous is only to say youre a prot. orthodox dont believe in your sense of tradition either. you shall know trees by their fruits, thats the reason to accept my tradition. its proved itself true in the lives of the saints. protestant ad hoc tradition doesnt produce sanctity. where are your protestant wonder-working saints?
Wow. Serious miscommunication here. We were discussing, I thought, whether your arguments would be persuasive to those who don’t already share your prior commitments. How you’ve construed questions about the general validity of your argumentative claims as attacks against your personal religious convictions is beyond me. “Question-begging” applies to the validity of arguments, not the veracity of beliefs.
In any case, it’s clear from your response that further discussion would not be useful.
i think you are right the people most offended are captured by a liberal or indifferentist spirit. the reason i find protestants are more upset by exclusive claims is twofole (1) protestantism itself originiates from this spirit. (2) protestantism cannot make exclusive claims as a catholic can without appearing utterly rediculous. there has never been any unanimity amongst the protestant sects on matters of doctrine, nor the ability to even meet to decide doctrine. thus any claim to exclusivity for a calvinist for example leads to him excluding the better part of the reformation and reformers as being saved. for catholics in contrast, the extensive nature of what is to be believed and the harmony amongst all the saints regarding these matters, makes the claims of exclusivity more feasible. of course it is going to be too simple as there are so many protestant sects and also flavors of catholicism right now. I am trying to speak broad strokes thanks for letting me know you thought I am getting this wrong. I appreciate the feedback.
in many senses, again, occult origins, historical revisionism, etc. but maybe look at my text on the religion of antichrist and I explain it a little more. but protestantism, like liberalism, significantly reduces what could be normative in the christian life in the name of christian freedom. this is the fundamental move of liberalism and it started at the liberal school of theology in tübingen at which martin lulther studied. this faculty was "liberal" in the exact sense I describe here on the issue of usury. bossuets book on the reformation proves that indifferentism had to be part and parcel of the reformation as they couldnt agree on much of anything.
“For the vast majority of human history, a man indifferent to the flag of his country was not considered a patriot at all.” When do you think national flags became common???
thanks for the correction. i think you are right what I said here was overstated. i do think flags predate the nation state, we see them in medieval art and depictions of battles and in the symbolic representation of cities and kingdoms. the crusaders fought under a sign, islam as well. constantine fought under a sign. so i dont think the general anthropolical claim is so off. devotion to a place or community is often mediated by devotoin to a sign. ive never really delved into the anthropological evidence as to how this has expressed itself in varios primitive cultures but it´d be a very interesting project I imagine. so are you just nit picking or do you think I am way off in thinking this is a general feature of human nature and culture what can be a source of strength or patirotism to individuals and communities.
I grew up in a small town with a Methodist Chruch, Presbyterian, 3 non-denomationals and 13 different Lutheran churches. They all disagreed about everything except one. They hated Catholics. Polish and Catholic was especially egregious. You may want to consider, however, that either or arguments fail at the Truth as often as not. Look at the areas both may be correct and where both may be wrong. You'll find a certain myth or superstition is in play. The big one is authority. There isn't one. The concept of authority fails every time at Matthew 7:21
I love the medical analogy.
But there is more to this than @arcadiangossip appears to discern. The end of this part of the writing as summary points being analogous to a series of talking points the clearest sign of this deeper and most likely subconscious indication of that undiscerned context.
I refuse to believe that this analogy is the work of deep AI. It is the work of creativity which comes from the heart of God. Perhaps the correlation can become distinct to the author?
Time will tell.
Ich schätze Ihre Argumentation im Stil von Thomas von Aquin und Ihren Verweis auf die Heilige Schrift. Das ist ein gut gemachter Aufsatz.
WOW! I love your thought process and the way you express it in word written!
As a staunch Protestant, I can agree with a lot of this. There are certain points where you point to contradictions that then you show aren’t actually contradictions. It would be interesting to deal with those.
Thanks for reading and offering a thoughtful comment. Whats an example of a apparent contradiction that i showed to be false? A main objective of this piece is to highlight the most sslient contradictions in language most protestants wouldnt object to.
BTW, I'm always up for discussion. Just let me know. Maybe we can do an exchange.
No problem. I'm not sure I communicated well, however. I was on my phone :)
An example of what I am talking about would be the issue of Mary. You contrast 'honour' and 'worship'. But is not true that no true protestant would object to Mary being honoured... and all true Catholics would be opposed to her being worshiped?
So the actual question is, "Is the way that protestants treat Mary a failure to give her her proper honour" vs "Is the way that Catholics treat Mary a form of worship?"
If a protestant has a problem with the way Scripture treats Mary... that is against his religion. He should approve of it. Conversely if a Catholic walks around talking of Mary as if she was another God, and one that he likes better than that Christ fellow or that God the Father with a beard who is always smiting"... that goes against Catholic doctrine, eh?
In this text i am setting the stage by trying to use the accusations or language of each side. Cant tell you how many times ive been accused of worshipping mary.
Yes. But my point is that you consider it an 'accusation'. If you found a Catholic that DID worship Mary, you would correct them. Just as if I found a member of my church that thought that Mary shouldn't be honoured.
IE We disagree how Mary should be treated, but our contradiction should not be stated as 'they worship Mary and we don't' or 'They don't think Mary should be honoured."
Does that make sense? That seemed to happen several times.
You can write your own book. I am going by what is typical. What you describe is so atypical it beggars belief. Basically no prots honor mary. Scripture gives her the title blessed, its never given to her.
I'm afraid that I miscommunicated. What I was trying to say is that official Catholic doctrine (as I understand it) is that Mary should be honoured, but not worshiped.
Official protestant doctrine is... that Mary should be honoured, but not worshiped.
It is the way that those doctrines are drilled down on and practiced that is different. John Gill, for example, was comfortable saying Mary was the 'Mother of God'. I would not use that phrase.
When I became a christian I knew I wanted to be a bible believing Christian. Not catholic, not protestant, not Mormon, not methodist or Anglican.
Only bible believing Christian.
its great that you are trying to follow Jesus Christ and were given graces of conversion.
This sort of biblicalism is not biblical. St Paul himself says that 2 thess 2:15 oral and written tradition must be upheld. so the bible alone stuff is not biblical. St paul also says in 1 tim 3:15 that the church, not the bible, is the "ground and pillar of the truth." Again this conforms with the catholic teaching, and the historical reality that the church compliled, canonized, and interprets the bible. if you are a protestant the reformers removed books from the canon so that is also a problem. the bible doesnt tell us which books belong in the bible, the church tells us this.
Good luck with your understanding.
“But this being said, a question to start with is: why is it offensive to Protestants, who presumably want to get to the truth of the matter about who Jesus is and how he redeems souls, when they hear this opinion expressed?”
This is too simplistic. Plenty of Protestants today have the same view with respect to Catholics: that they lack saving faith, don’t have “a personal relationship with Jesus”, believe in salvation by works, etc.
It seems that the relevant contrast is between liberals and conservatives, not Protestants and Catholics. Fundamentalist Protestants would agree with most of what you say, simply reversing the labels of true and false.
Also, as you must know, there is a long tradition of Christian universalism. It’s not clear why the more tribal, exclusive, heretic-burning side of the tradition should be considered the more genuine. That’s an interpretive judgment, and it’s hard to see how what you’ve written here supports it.
i dont see this tradition of universalism in the roman catholic faith. there is in protestantism I realize and people like DBH try to play this up with their reading of some eastern saints, but its really absent from our tradition as I understand it. what´s the tradition`? where do i find it in Tradition, i.e. Magesterium?
my argument was there are diametric differences on essential matters between C and P.
differences on essential matters suggests a good and evil spirit is at play.
if an evil spirit is at play and causing disagreement about essential matters, people who follow the evil spirit will not be saved.
also its implausible Jesus Christ is indifferent to such enormous differences.
“my argument was there are diametric differences on essential matters between C and P.”
I guess my point is that the characterization of these differences as “essential matters” is question-begging. Which things to count as essential is part of what divides different streams of Christian tradition.
And from a more ecumenical perspective, it might be the sectarian division over what you call “essential matters” that is the “evil at play.”
It’s true that much of the explicit universalism (aside from some later mystics) seems to come from the eastern saints. But most of these writings predate the Great Schism, as far as I am aware.
in the topics i picked out I tried to give a little to both sides but i think the issues listed at the end are the essentials according to both catholic theology, I am a catholic, and protestant theology, I was a protestant. If you disagree, tell me where i am wrong, do the work, i can point to the very texts of the reformers, and will do so in subsequent posts to show the conflict is real and not apparent. but the writings of saints is not sacred tradition in the proper sense of the term in the western tradition. tradition is magesterium. universalism is not apart of the western tradition.
“tradition is magesterium”.
Isn’t that just begging the question? Privileging the magisterium is only valid if we already believe that the magisterium authoritatively represents “the tradition”. To do that is just to define “the tradition” in such a way that alternative viewpoints (such as those of universalists) are excluded on principle.
of course it is but its not clear if you have problems with my text as I was trying to deal with each on their own terms or in thier own language, or simply wanting to argue with me. but you somehow asking me to point to a tradition that I don´t myself believe in is equally question begging. i don´t accept any tradition outside of sacred tradition, you thinking this is unfair or disingenuous is only to say youre a prot. orthodox dont believe in your sense of tradition either. you shall know trees by their fruits, thats the reason to accept my tradition. its proved itself true in the lives of the saints. protestant ad hoc tradition doesnt produce sanctity. where are your protestant wonder-working saints?
Wow. Serious miscommunication here. We were discussing, I thought, whether your arguments would be persuasive to those who don’t already share your prior commitments. How you’ve construed questions about the general validity of your argumentative claims as attacks against your personal religious convictions is beyond me. “Question-begging” applies to the validity of arguments, not the veracity of beliefs.
In any case, it’s clear from your response that further discussion would not be useful.
i think you are right the people most offended are captured by a liberal or indifferentist spirit. the reason i find protestants are more upset by exclusive claims is twofole (1) protestantism itself originiates from this spirit. (2) protestantism cannot make exclusive claims as a catholic can without appearing utterly rediculous. there has never been any unanimity amongst the protestant sects on matters of doctrine, nor the ability to even meet to decide doctrine. thus any claim to exclusivity for a calvinist for example leads to him excluding the better part of the reformation and reformers as being saved. for catholics in contrast, the extensive nature of what is to be believed and the harmony amongst all the saints regarding these matters, makes the claims of exclusivity more feasible. of course it is going to be too simple as there are so many protestant sects and also flavors of catholicism right now. I am trying to speak broad strokes thanks for letting me know you thought I am getting this wrong. I appreciate the feedback.
“protestantism itself originates from this spirit“
In what sense? Were the early reformers liberal and/or indifferent?
in many senses, again, occult origins, historical revisionism, etc. but maybe look at my text on the religion of antichrist and I explain it a little more. but protestantism, like liberalism, significantly reduces what could be normative in the christian life in the name of christian freedom. this is the fundamental move of liberalism and it started at the liberal school of theology in tübingen at which martin lulther studied. this faculty was "liberal" in the exact sense I describe here on the issue of usury. bossuets book on the reformation proves that indifferentism had to be part and parcel of the reformation as they couldnt agree on much of anything.
“For the vast majority of human history, a man indifferent to the flag of his country was not considered a patriot at all.” When do you think national flags became common???
thanks for the correction. i think you are right what I said here was overstated. i do think flags predate the nation state, we see them in medieval art and depictions of battles and in the symbolic representation of cities and kingdoms. the crusaders fought under a sign, islam as well. constantine fought under a sign. so i dont think the general anthropolical claim is so off. devotion to a place or community is often mediated by devotoin to a sign. ive never really delved into the anthropological evidence as to how this has expressed itself in varios primitive cultures but it´d be a very interesting project I imagine. so are you just nit picking or do you think I am way off in thinking this is a general feature of human nature and culture what can be a source of strength or patirotism to individuals and communities.