"Tradition is the living faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living." - Jaroslav Pelikan

Friday, November 20, 2009

Interesting Quotes from Catholics


More quotes from Latin writers that might lead me to think that Roman Catholicism is a recent invention:


"[Universal] bishop is “a word of proud address that I have forbidden….None of my predecessors ever wished to use this profane word [‘universal’]….But I say it confidently, because whoever calls himself ‘universal bishop’ or wishes to be so called, is in his self-exaltation Antichrist’s precursor, for in his swaggering he sets himself before the rest.”

-Pope Gregory the Great

HT: Riddleblog

"Sacred doctrine makes use of these authorities [philosophers and human arguments] as extrinsic and probable arguments; but properly uses the authority of the canonical Scripture as an incontrovertible proof, and the authority of the doctors of the Church [the theologians] as one that may be properly used, yet merely as probable. For our faith rests upon the revelation made to the apostles and prophets, who wrote the canonical books, and not on any revelations (if there were any) made to other doctors."

-Thomas Aquinas. Summa (1. Q1. 8)


Silly me thinks that Gregory wasn't for Papal Supremecy, merely Papal Primacy and that Thomas Aquinas has a doctrine approaching Sola Scriptura. Of course that can't be right because those are Orthodox and Protestant doctrines that have no basis in history whatsoever ;)

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Interesting Quote

Dear Sir-

The wishes expressed, in your last favor, that I may continue in life and health until I become a Calvinist, at least in his exclamation of `mon Dieu! jusque à quand'! would make me immortal. I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Dæmonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did. The being described in his 5 points is not the God whom you and I acknowledge and adore, the Creator and benevolent governor of the world; but a dæmon of malignant spirit. It would be more pardonable to believe in no god at all, than to blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin.

- Thomas Jefferson responding to John Adams' appeal to become a Calvinist.

HT: Riddleblog

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Hymn: It is Finished


Jonathan Evans was a Congregational minister who penned this hymn, variously called "It is Finished" for its contemplation of those words and "Hark! the voice of love and mercy" for the first line:

Hark! the voice of love and mercy
by Jonathan Evans


Hark, the voice of love and mercy,
Sounds aloud from Calvary!
See, it rends the rocks asunder,
Shakes the earth and veils the sky!
“It is finished, It is finished,”
Hear the dying Savior cry.

“It is finished,” O what pleasure,
Do these charming words afford.
Heavenly blessings, without measure,
Flow to us from Christ the Lord.
“It is finished, it is finished,”
Saints the dying words record.

Finished all the types and shadows,
Of the ceremonial law;
Finished all that God had promised;
Death and hell no more shall awe.
“It is finished, it is finished,”
Saints from hence your comfort draw.

Tune your harps anew, ye seraphs;
Join to sing the pleasing theme;
Saints on earth and all in heaven,
Join to praise Immanuel’s name.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Glory to the bleeding lamb!

Monday, November 16, 2009

Credo-baptists in Reformation


Interesting discussion on Reformed Forum with a Reformed Baptist Pastor about Credo-Baptists during the Reformation and the differences that arose between Anabaptists, Particular Baptists, and General Baptists. Interesting to get a handle on their different approaches to the state and baptism:

http://reformedforum.org/ctc96/

Friday, November 13, 2009

Herbert: Prayer

Prayer (I)
by George Herbert from "The Church"



PRAYER the Church's banquet, Angels' age,
____God's breath in man returning to his birth,
____The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth ;
Engine against th’ Almighty, sinner's tower,
____Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
____The six days world-transposing in an hour,
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear ;
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
____Exalted Manna, gladness of the best,
____Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,
The milky way, the bird of Paradise,
____Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul's blood,
____The land of spices, something understood.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Is Peter Kreeft a Catholic heretic?


An interesting passage from "The God Who Loves You" by Peter Kreeft.

[From the Chapter: The Twelve Most Profound Ideas I Have Ever Had]:

"7. The gift of God's love is ours for the taking.

I am a Roman Catholic. But the most liberating idea I have ever heard I first learned from Martin Luther. Pope John Paul II told the German Lutheran bishops that Luther was profoundly right about this idea. He said that Catholic teaching affirms it just as strongly and that there was no contradiction between Protestant and Catholic theology on this terribly important point, which was the central issue of the Protestant Reformation. I speak, of course, about "justification by faith" and its consequence, which Luther called "Christian Liberty" or "the liberty of a Christian" in his little gem of an essay by that name...

The point is amazingly simple, which is why so many of us just don't get it. Heaven is free because love is free. It is ours for the taking. The taking is faith. "If you believe, you will be saved." It is really that simple. If I offer you a gift, you have it if and only if you have faith to take it.

The primacy of faith does not discount or denigrate works but liberates them. Our good works can bow also be free - free from the worry and slavery and performance anxiety of having to buy Heaven with them. Our good works can now flow from genuine love of neighbor, not fear of Hell. nobody wants to be loved merely as a mean to build up the lover's merit pile. That attempt is ridiculous logically as well as psychologically. How much does Heaven cost? A thousand good works? Would 999 no do then? The very question shows its own absurdity. That absurdity comes from forgetting that God is love."

-Peter Kreeft. The God Who Loves You. pg 23-24.


Thoughts? I think he is wrong about the Protestant and Catholic agreement (or else someone owes Ridley, Latimer, De Bres, Cranmer, etc. a big apology for that whole burning at the stake thing). But if he really believes it, that prompts 3 possibilities: 1) Kreeft was being clever and vague - not use of "alone," even though he cites Luther. 2) Kreeft didn't understand what he was saying and has moved past it (thus his popularity among Catholics today) 3) Kreeft is an uncalled out heretic (Romanly speaking):

Monday, November 09, 2009

Guess the Heretic!


Some Protestants and Catholics misrepresent the doctrine of justification by faith as some entirely novel invention of Martin Luther. This is said by Roman Catholics to imply that no one before him had ever had the audacity or pure evil intentions to declare such a thing. And it is said by some non-Catholics to dismiss the church pre-1500 as irrelevant and to dismiss the idea of tradition having any proper role in aiding exegesis. But what if part of your exegesis of Scripture had to answer this question: "Has anyone before 1800, or 1500, ever interpreted this passage this way? If not, what do you have access to that they don't that would inform such a difference in interpretation?" Certainly, the doctrine of justification by faith in Luther and Calvin is more developed, but it is not novel:


"All effort of human argument must be postponed where faith alone is sufficient...the righteousness of faith, by which we are justified [consists in] that we believe in him whom we do not see, and that, being cleansed by faith, we shall eventually see him in whom we now believe." -Julian of Toledo, Bishop of Toledo (circa 7th Cent)

"[Justification is] thou art not only righteous, but art called 'righteous' a righteousness that justifies...The righteousness of God consists in his not sinning, but the righteousness of man consists in his being forgiven by God." -Bernard of Clairvaux, Catholic mystic (circa 14th Cent)

"God who does make the unclean clean and who by taking away sins does justify the sinner without works." -Ildefonsus of Toledo, Bishop of Toledo (circa 7th Cent)

"The beginning of human salvation comes from faith...which when it is in Christ, is justification to the believer." -Hincmar of Reims, Bishop of Reims (circa 9th Cent)

"We, too, being called by His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness, or works which we have wrought in holiness of heart; but by that faith through which, from the beginning, Almighty God has justified all men; to Whom be glory for ever and ever, Amen" -Clement of Rome, presbyter/bishop? of Rome (circa 1st Cent)

"A man is justified by faith. The works of the law can make no contribution to this. Where there is no faith which might justify the believer, even if there are work of the law these are not based on hte foundation of faith. Even if they are good in themselves they cannot justify the one who does them, because faith is lacking, and faith is the mark of those who are justified by God." -Origen, early church theologian (circa 3rd Cent)

"No one has been so foolish as to say that merits are the cause of the divine act by which God predestines...There would indeed be injustice if the effects of predestination were rendered as a debt which is due, and not given by grace." -Thomas Aquinas, Latin Theologian (circa 13th Century) *

"We believe that man is justified by faith, not by works...we understand the correlative of faith, namely the righteousness of Christ, which faith, performing the function of a hand, grasps and applies to us salvation." -Patriarch of Constantinople Cyril Lucaris, Greek Orthodox's highest bishop (circa 17th Cent.)

"no one, [Paul] saith, is justified by works, in order that the grace and loving-kindness of God may be shown. He did not reject us as having works, but as abandoned of works He hath saved us by grace; so that no man henceforth may have whereof to boast...the whole work is accomplished not of works but by faith." -John Chysostom, Greek preacher (circa 4th Cent)


*[Update: I do realize Thomas has an Augustinian idea of justification as "making righteous" but included him because the statement by itself without the identifier would be most often identified as sounding Lutheran/Reformed rather than Thomistic. Hence the title "Guess the heretic." This is only meant to show the seeds, not the full fruit of justification. The same premises that lead Thomas to his doctrine of presdestination lead Luther to his doctrine of justification. I mean no more.]