Naked Science Forum
General Discussion & Feedback => Just Chat! => Topic started by: Titanscape on 22/02/2006 15:42:54
-
Do you agree more with Martin Luther or the Counsel of Trent?
Titanscape
-
Do we need to make a choice?
From y own perspective, I am neither protestant nor catholic, so neither doctrine is one I would follow.
From the historic perspective, neither would have had any significance without the other.
It is like asking who was right, Jesus, or those who crucified him. If no-one had crucified Jesus, no-one would have heard of him, and he would have died an unknown. The Christian religion needed the crucifiers of Jesus just as much as it needed Jesus.
So too, the protestant branch of Christianity needed the council of Trent just as much as it needed Martin Luther. In fact, one could argue that Martin Luther was merely following in the footsteps of John Wycliffe and John Huss, but neither of them amounted to much because they lacked the council of Trent. Nonetheless, without Wycliffe and Huss there would not have been Luther.
George
-
Actually Huss died because he did not have the tactic of aquiring the support of militarily powerful and protective Nobles. Also Luther had the technology of the printing press and became known without the otherwise needed help of the church. Hard to quieten him.
I do not know if Huss experienced the Vatican first hand, the priests arrogance, the Pope's excesses, naked little boys jumping out of cakes, warfare, huge churches and the futility of the confessional. Then also there was the papaly approved money maker, the purchasing of forgiveness... Johan Tetsel I think said widely "When your coin in the coffer rings, heavenward your soul wings." It was said it could even absolve you of sex with the virgin Mary, were it possible.
You are right, were it not for Luther, the pope would only be a figure head of power now. The Catholics needed him.
But I think if the Catholic church did not do anything about Luther that he'd have done even better. If he had become preacher to the pope, then, just imagine how much the church would be different today.
Of course I think you need to make a choice, I am a christian. But I am just speculating here.
Luther preached salvation by faith and that before good works. The Catholics say yes by faith , but good works must follow or you are not justified.
Titanscape
-
Many years ago, i used to work with an Italian, and his idea was certainly that Catholicism was the easier option. Go to confessions, a few hail Marys, and you can be absolved from your sins; the Protestants had no such get out clause.
quote:
But I think if the Catholic church did not do anything about Luther that he'd have done even better. If he had become preacher to the pope, then, just imagine how much the church would be different today.
It is a difficult question, because there are so many different ways to look at what it means.
One thing that is certain is that if Luther had remained an insider, no matter how reforming an insider within the Church he would have been, he would still have remained but a footnote in the history of the Christian religion. The Church has been full of reformers, including many Popes, and few people remember any of their names unless they are particularly interested in the history of the Church, yet even the average layman knows who Martin Luther was. Ofcourse, fame and actual impact are not necessarily proportionate, and one could still argue that Luther might have had an impact, even if he had no fame from it.
Nonetheless, I don't think that Luther could have ever worked within the Church. He had no power base within the Church which he could use as a springboard, and in any case, if the Papacy was of a mind to make the changes that Luther had desired, they would scarcely have needed Luther to tell them to do it. Furthermore, if Luther had been a reformer within the Catholic church, then in all likelihood any reforms he would have put in place could as easily have been reversed within the next generation; but by stepping outside of the existing established Church, he also set up new institutions that did not include any of the old guard who could have undone his reforms..
quote:
Actually Huss died because he did not have the tactic of aquiring the support of militarily powerful and protective Nobles. Also Luther had the technology of the printing press and became known without the otherwise needed help of the church. Hard to quieten him.
Certainly, the printing press was an important tool, but there were also other important issues besides that of technology, issues of the geopolitics of the day.
As I said, Luther owed much to Wycliffe and Huss. The English, because of their distance from Rome, had always had something of a rebellious streak in them, but would never actually represent a real threat to Rome. Nonetheless, the ideas of Wycliffe were moving south, and they were doing so at the same time as the Germans principalities were themselves becoming more rebellious. The Papacy was becoming more Italian, which the demise of the power of the Holy Roman Empire, and the German Principalities were themselves seeking to erode the power of the Holy Roman Empire; so a maverick monk who denied the authority of Rome arrived on the scene at just the right time for the Princes.
If the Papacy had taken Luther to their heart, the Princes would scarcely had had much use for him, because his importance to them was precisely because he gave legitimacy to their desire rebel against the power of Rome themselves.
George