Elements of
Church Reform; Luther, Zwingli and Calvin
Painting
of Martin Luther by Lucas Cranach the Elder
John
Wycliff, The Lollards, John Huss and the Hussites were advocates of
reform before the reformation. Huss was burned at the stake. Luther,
Zwingli and Calvin were 16th
century reformers seeking a pious renormalization of Christian Church
for to the Bible and away from worldly, Biblically extraneous
accretions to church practice.
Each
of the reformers had more than his share of worldly dangers and
troubles from establishment defenders of the concentrated social and
political power and privilege of the Roman Church as from political
loyalists and affiliates.
Each
reformer had friendships and fellow Christian collaborators working
in the field of the Lord. Luther had his theologian friend
Melanchthon, Zwingli had Bucer for moral support and Calvin had Beza
as successor to his evangelical work in Geneva among others. Each of
these men also took wives who were invaluable help mates through
their challenges from authority. That was quite a change from the
sometimes nominal celibacy of the sacerdotal priesthood of the Roman
Catholic Church of the era.
Bringing
the Bible into the church and reading it in the vernacular was quite
a change from the liturgy of the Latin mass performed with much
ceremony and with people accepting communion on their knees.
Popularizing Christian church worship drew myriad to the reformed
services. One would wish that today the church would recover the
simple faith of the reformers and further modernize the priesthood of
believers such that just three ranks of beginner, intermediate and
elder Christians exist with sharing of service roles in appropriate
structures and tithing conformed to the Biblical level of 1% (10% of
harvest every third year with the 10% divided in to three parts with
a third of that going to non-working priests).
Calvin
mentioned in his answer to Bishop Sadolet that Bernard had “thundered
against Eugenius and all the bishops of his own age” citing even
earlier need to reform the episcopal estate and papacy. It is
interesting to consider how after nearly 500 years the ideas of
Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and the Roman Catholic Church have shaped
Christian ideas about the salvation, faith, the Eucharist and
sacraments. Protestant reformers of the visible Christian church made
their reformed ideas at great personal cost and the thirty years war
of liberation from Romanism and its subject princes tore the European
peasantry. The American revolutionaries were of the reformed
school-George Washington if Catholic couldn't have revolted from his
Prince, although Britain had reduced Romanism already since Henry
VIII. Values developed by Martin Luther in the 16th century
reformation stimulated political and ecclesiastical changes
immediately. As the United States fails to maintain a strong
Protestant religious ethic it commensurately develops globalism,
concentration of wealth through networking and a variety of forms of
ad hoc imperialism with the collateral degradation of nationalism and
democracy. Protest against inhuman forces of impersonal hierarchical
power in church and state are basic to the revolutionary esprit. In
direct relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ mankind finds freedom.
Approximately
half of the German princes took up the independence from Roman
Catholicism movement right from the start. The first democracy in
Europe-the Dutch democracy led by the Dewitt brothers in the 16th
century. Severing ties from the Holy Roman Empire at Vienna was
essential and just a first step in the rise of the age of democracy.
All
was not perfect in the Lutheran style reformation though. Martin
Luther was quite conservative and retained some Roman Catholic
liturgical forms although abolishing the exclusive priestly caste.
When the hierarchy of corrupt Bishops and priests was overthrown
Luther advocated and received support for Erastian transition; the
German princes themselves became the religious leaders appointing
bishops for themselves. Frederick the Elector did follow Luther's
instructions for making visitations to German districts to correct
the corruptions made during the ineffective prior regime. The people
were ready to receive the word of God in a more egalitarian way and
German book publishing of the Bible skyrocketed from fewer than 100
books annually in the entire country to thousands and thousands of
vernacular editions of the Bible.
Mobs
actually burned two of the first catholic priests of Prussia that
converted to the reformed relationship to God that Luther set out.
Anabaptists were persecuted by new Protestants to for abolishing
infant baptism. Questions and controversy about infant baptism, and
of how much water needed to be used in any baptism were taken so
seriously that many were put to death. That seems remarkable today,
so I will toss in my own ideas on the topic of do infants have
original sin and does baptism do them any good since they have no
ability to intentionally accept the Lord as their personal savior
through faith.
It
was pointed out that John the Baptist has awareness of God in the
womb, even so John was born with original sin. I believe that
original sin predominantly refers to the mortal context of being
subject to entropy as a biological being. Hence every human has
original sin. The entropy condition was a reduction from the perfect
environment of Eden and imposed to correct the errors of will of Adam
and Eve.
Infants
have yet to develop consciousness sufficiently to choose willfully to
do evil. They may all have a naturally sort of trust or faith as they
are dependent on and reacting to others. Baptizing them may
acknowledge that trust socially and can do no harm. Since parents are
generally regarded as lawfully accountable for their charges again
baptism can do no harm and may confer an element of grace upon the
infant. If the infant grows to develop faith as an adult then they
may become born in the Spirit as saved souls. Jesus Christ is not
bound to the legalisms of liturgical methods or theological positions
such as humans entertain. Human beings need firewalls in the visible
church to defend against interpretive error and union within the
invisible church of Jesus Christ.
I
tend to believe in the Lutheran concept of salvation through faith
yet also have the Calvinist concepts that election and predeterminism
by God are correct. I also would think that the Eucharist is not a
transubstantiation of the bread and wine into human blood or body,
but rather something more like a commemoration and recognition of the
fundamental elements of mass and energy as God's.
The
Eucharist would be an acknowledgment of the sovereignty of God in
everything, analogous to an assertion of political sovereignty. It's
a metaphysical statement on the ultimate building blocks of
cosmology.
Visible
church outlets in the consumer era may be compared to franchise
cheeseburger stores on Main Street. It may be true that McDonald's
was the first vast franchise empire yet they do not have an exclusive
formula to the true cheeseburger. Even the faithful may wander into
Burger King or Wendy's now and then. Also, there are home
cheeseburger outlets relating directly to the true Platonic Universal
form of cheeseburger. Particular cheeseburgers are examples of forms
of the Universal. Partaking in then cheeseburger acknowledges the
organic Earthly origin as grain from the Earth in the Eucharist. The
wine is the organic grapes of the Earth. The Lord took the body of
the Earth-the organic bread, and human beings broke it on the cross
spilling his blood. Yet the salvation of the Lord given to mankind of
faith transcends the world and its consumable produce.
I
would guess that the idea of relationship surpassing form is the
fundamental reformist paradigm in the gestalt of the church with the
Lord. Liturgical forms and concepts about sacraments are a continuum
of respect between Creator and created. That relationship continues
to be significant even as salvation through faith rather than works
or sacraments administered by a sacerdotal set-aside priestly caste
has risen to the positive better expression modality for Christians.
Considering
the transitions of human history from the end of the Roman Empire
through the dark ages to the Protestant Reformation and beyond the
inquisition to the current era where there is an enveloping global
faithless drift toward sci-tech paradigms without moral concerns or
deep contemplation of the Bible it is useful to review select
concepts of the Bible and reformation.
The
priesthood of believers is a correct form rather than a partitioned
dichotomy of priests and laity mirroring that of traditional
aristocracy-subjects paradigms. Developing an active priesthood of
believers church structure with just three ranks of beginner,
intermediate and elder will be a challenge and a renewal of
reformation. In the world today the political drift is toward ad hoc
neo-imperialism of class of wealth through global networks.
Martin
Luther, Zwingli and Calvin were three important reformers of the
Christian Church. Luther of a German Catholic monastic background who
took a Masters and Doctorate in Theology came to represent opposition
to the sale of indulgences and other practices that were not found in
scripture and that seemed onerous and even conflicting with sound
theology. If purgatory existed then it would appear to nullify
Christ's atoning sacrifice, conditionally. The Roman Catholic mass
seemed to present the same problem of perennially resacrificing the
Lord, if I understand that problem correctly.
Luther
became a professor at Frederick the Elector's new University at
Wittenburg and it is there that Luther's theology instructions shone
as a better way of reforming the recalcitrant Papal establishment.
Posting his 95 theses against indulgences prevalently on a church
door in Wittenburg the difficult process of protesting against Church
corruption was a stimulus for the rise of a protestant and reformed
church.
Considering
the role of the Christian Church in bringing civilization to the
pagan tribes of Western Europe over the course of several hundred
years it is not surprising that the Church gained influence among the
princely leaders of the various nations. Churchmen were also the
transnationals of the era after the fall of Rome to the Goths with an
army of priests. Corruption in human social organizations including
the church was of course the rule rather than the exception.
With
the Muslim forces of the Abbassid Caliphate attacking Spain, Sicily
and Byzantium the church had a role that naturally developed as the
faith of the invaded resisting the theocratic war machine of
Mohammedan votaries. With a millennium of defense military operations
against the Muslim forces European nations increased their military
skill. When the Byzantine Empire decreased in power due to the
attacks by Muslims and Huns the church at Rome naturally increased in
power and influence.
Of
course sacerdotal corruptions with concubinage and the huge problem
of Papal sales of indulgences-papers-granting forgiveness of
sins-that brought gold to the Vatican from all over Europe grew as
uncorrected problems of the Roman Church leadership. Because some
Popes asserted unlimited power over all church and state affairs a
reformation was sought by the laity. Martin Luther in Germany and
Zwingli in Switzerland led a rectification of the Christian Church to
return to Bible basics that the word of God is primary and that there
is an egalitarian priesthood of believers. That reformation accepted
by many princes and governments became so controversial that wars
eventually developed between the forces of the Imperial Emperor
Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire and reform minded German princes.
In Switzerland Roman Catholic forces fought against Protestant
districts. Prussians declared ecclesiastical independence and the
numbers of churches not subject to Roman Papal increased. In some
ways the Orthodox Church of Russia was a spectator although Field
Marshall Suvorov later chased Napoleon around Europe.
Public
disputations and debates were a common way that political powers in
Germany and Switzerland might here both sides of theological issues
between protestant and Romanish movements in the day. Luther and
Zwingli each participated in such events. With the close relation
between church and state in the 18th
century princes and magistracies were able to order what
form-reformed or Papish, the local churches must take. When the
episcopate of bishops under the Pope was found in Protestant Germany
to be inaccurate in doctrine by select princes the princes themselves
replaced their roles and Luther was directed to write a list of
reforms for delegated of a prince to take on visitations that they
might bring the freed from post-Catholic licentiousness in the
absence of authority back to the fold of Biblical truth. Protestant
reforms in Germany and Switzerland developed new preachers and
theologians often with converted Roman Catholic priests to a better
priesthood of believers format. Unfortunately, even the electronic
technologically enabling modern era has failed to upgrade to a
post-set aside hierarchical ministry organization.
Schaff
Page 15 Volume 7
“The
spirit and aim of evangelical Protestantism is best expressed by Paul
in his anti- Judaistic Epistle to the Galatians: "For freedom
did Christ set us free; stand fast, therefore, and be not entangled
again in a yoke of bondage." Christian freedom is so inestimable
a blessing that no amount of abuse can justify a relapse into a state
of spiritual despotism and slavery. But only those who have enjoyed
it, can properly appreciate it.
The
Reformation was at first a purely religious movement, and furnishes a
striking illustration of the all-pervading power of religion in
history. It started from the question: What must a man do to be
saved? How shall a sinner be justified before God, and attain peace
of his troubled
conscience?
The Reformers were supremely concerned for the salvation of the soul,
for the glory of Christ and the triumph of his gospel. They thought
much more
of
the future world than of the present, and made all political,
national, and literary interests subordinate and subservient to
religion.”
Schaff
Vol 7 page 23,
Ҥ 8. The Priesthood of the Laity.
“The
social or ecclesiastical principle of Protestantism is the general
priesthood of believers, in distinction from the special priesthood
which stands mediating between Christ and the laity.
The
Roman church is an exclusive hierarchy, and assigns to the laity the
position of passive obedience. The bishops are the teaching and
ruling church; they alone constitute a council or synod, and have the
exclusive power of legislation and administration. Laymen have no
voice in spiritual matters, they can not even read the Bible without
the permission of the priest, who holds the keys of heaven and hell.
In
the New Testament every believer is called a saint, a priest, and a
king. "All
Christians,"
says Luther, "are truly of the spiritual estate, and there is no
difference among
them,
save of office alone. As St. Paul says, we are all one body, though
each member does
its
own work, to serve the others. This is because we have one baptism,
alike; one gospel,
one
faith, and are all Christians for baptism, gospel and faith, these
alone make spiritual
and
Christian people." And again: "It is faith that makes men
priests, faith that unites them
to
Christ, and gives them the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, whereby
they become filled with
all
holy grace and heavenly power. The inward anointing—this oil,
better than any that ever
came
from the horn of bishop or pope—gives them not the name only, but
the nature, the purity, the power of priests; and this anointing have
all they received who are believers in Christ."
This
principle, consistently carried out, raises the laity to active
co-operation in the government and administration of the church; it
gives them a voice and vote in the election of the pastor; it makes
every member of the congregation useful, according to his peculiar
gift, for the general good. This principle is the source of religious
and civil liberty which flourishes most in Protestant countries.
Religious liberty is the mother of civil liberty. The universal
priesthood of Christians leads legitimately to the universal kingship
of free, self-governing citizens, whether under a monarchy or under a
republic.”
Quantification
as a Characteristic of Human Social Structures
The
age of quantification could be regarded as coincident with the
Anthropocene era-that of human caused mass extinction of species, yet
also with the evolution of the age of reason morphing into the age of
fracture and economic existentialism. Human beings with education
have a marked tendency toward quantifying things formerly as
individual and unique occurrences. Assuredly the ability to discern
redness in particulars such as roses and automobiles generates the
ability to extract the quality of redness for-itself and understand
that any sort of object may be painted with it-even a town. The
quantification of red in a nation, in the morning or evening sky, in
the sea or in blood spilled upon wet sod of the Earth are no more
than single instances of quantification. The human characteristic of
quantification itself might be quantified in quantification studies.
Science
means knowledge and quantification of existing things or object
quantities measured entails quantification in a pure form. Abstract
quantification of terms can be found in mathematics, logic and
physics as well as in the liberal arts. For some the art of reason is
a practice of rationalism. Rationalism itself though may be
two-dimensional in a three-dimensional world at times forsaking
intuition and faith for a finite means of adjudicating quantities. If
Noah had no faith he might not have built an Ark, if Einstein did not
trust his genius he might not have unified space-time conceptually
speaking. Some scientists could not have faith that a 10-dimensional
multi-verse might exist and would trust in relativistically shrank
measuring yardsticks that the warped Universe is flat.
Faith
is an essential requirement for belief in God. God that is not an
ossified artifact or stone practico-inert sculpture is pure spirit
transcending space-time and any given Universe in any possible
multi-verse of n-dimensional attributes existing with physical
components. Physical components are inevitably in thermodynamic
motion flowing like a waterfall from a singularity or membrane
through a marvelous and possibly mysterious network of causality.
Causality and an entangled energy steady-state Universe with flowing
space-time may be a concatenation of local and non-local fields with
broken symmetries and isolated particle-waves. That steady-state of
mass-energy Universe wearing down its order with quantum structures
comparable to standing waves, eddies and currents of fields, branes
and quarks to return to a field of more basic unification and order
might be thought of as a multi-dimensional yo-yo flung out from a
condition of perfect order at singularity that will return after a
marvelous performance to The One. Human beings themselves existing in
the field nexus quantify whatever they can in order to have greater
understanding.
Martin
Luther was credited by some as the forefather of modern rationalism
for opposing the mysterium of the Catholic Church with its exclusive
priesthood and exclusive control of the Bible the laity were
forbidden to own or read in their own non-Latin language. Historians
have pointed out though that Luther was a man of faith who would 'ten
times have rejected reason in preference for faith'. Luther believed
in the word of God expressed in the gospel message, and in the Lord
Jesus Christ above the Bible. Rationalism in Germany was a stage in
the progress of human society, yet rationalism with faith may become
without reason as history experienced in the rise and execution of
Nazi Germany and the bureaucrat banality of Heinrich Himmler.
Rationality
without faith is like a computer operating system that it
totalitarian in its quantifications. Moral judgments are basically
meaningless to rational operating systems, the only ethical questions
are those of hierarchialization and execution priorities. Faith
though is something like a recognition of several operating systems
as possible existing, even booted simultaneously onto a single
computer with partitions to separate them and prevent conflicts of
interest. The computer owner of faith knows that the uncertainty and
implicit possibilities of the hardware allow many configurations-some
good, some bad and some outright ugly, yet evolutionary possibilities
that the computer designer allowed in the software. For a reasoning
man or woman of faith universes and multi-verses are comparable to
operating systems of physics with various configurations and
protocols that are possibilities the designer permits. God is the
omniscient designer.
In
an age where some regard ideology as dead, quantification proceeds in
high-speed Wall Street dark pool quantitative trading. Global
businesses quantify and value anything, buying, selling and trading
quantities. Ideology itself was a kind of reformation era political
product of quantification as well as qualitative judgments about
church, state, behavior of the priesthood, values of the Bible
actual, theoretical and applied. The television series Cosmos
noted the qualitative trashing of a few scientists by select members
of the Catholic hierarchy-a periodically divided and even corrupt
proprietary distracted clergy incidentally. One that vied for
political control with kingdoms and was intolerant of political
rivals and even scientists disloyal to the absolute power of the
presiding Pope of the day. Scientists sometimes fail to note that the
Catholic Church produced most of the early scientists such as
Copernicus, Newton and Mendel, that the Medici sponsored science and
engineering research, or that Protestant reformers and others were
slaughter by the tens and hundreds of thousands by the conservative
catholic Church and that the loss of very few scientists was
quantitatively very small. On the other hand, science invented most
of the weapons of mass destruction existing today while faith
produced very few.
Philosophers
such as Sartre expressing an epistomologically singular
perspective-even within a major work of dialectical analysis of the
social order such as his tome 'The Critique of Dialectical Reason'
and theologians like Paul Tillich with an objective analysis of
social collectives within an ontology with explicit empirical
ideology may use a universal nominalism or contingent universalism
alternatively for quantification and the paradigm of structural
quantitative analysis remains intact.
Quantifying
historical matters accurately is quite a bit more challenging than
quantifying mass. Accuracy in history requires reading and
understanding a vast amount of material in no particular order. To
become too specialized means to become biased toward a particular
point of view. Scientific quantification alternatively is simple and
objectively verifiable, yet pure rationalism without faith tends to
lack reason and moral judgment. It is as if a portion of the mind
that is spirit is cut out and a degree of objectivity through faith
omitted. Reason requires a metaphorical dash of quantum uncertainty
as a component of thought that is reflective and contemplative.
Inductive reasoning is as necessary as inductive reasoning in order
for rationality to serve reason. Quantification of ideology,
politics, economics and environments are intrinsic elements for to
projects for building and shaping social development toward an
optimal direction rather than dystopia.
The Ukraine,
Crimea and Religious Tolerance; Erastian and Atheist Issues
Separating
church from state control is one of a few perennial challenges for
mankind. Religious intolerance historically is a function of the will
to power and a matter of factual control of political power through
the intolerance of political opposition. That is the principal that
makes democracy impossible for Muslim countries wherein the religious
authority is regarded as universal. Sharia law is in effect catholic.
That institutional method is ancient and found in the mud of
Mesopotamia.
Urth
had its gods enacting as oligarchs atop ziggurats the archetype
activities of life. Rulers were gods embodied as man down through the
ages as Pharaoh and Caesar. Christianity overthrew that premise with
Christ. Jesus was a servant rather than a ruler of humanity.
Constantine
the Roman Emperor, born in England of a British woman named Helena
saw a sign from God and was moved to convert to Christianity. He
founded the Eastern Roman Empire capitol at Byzantium and developed
the role of Emperor as head of the Christian Church although that
role was vague enough at first. There was after all a Pope at Rome
and differences between more Orthodox and Catholic sects as well as
four other traditional patriarchates with equal claim for spiritual
prominence besides that of Rome.
Charles,
Charlemagne and the Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire for a time
could also claim to be first as political rulers of the Christian
Church with the power to appoint Bishops and other church leaders.
The problems of the Roman Papacy in its relation politically to kings
of the various nations often was one of papal claims to rule
politically as well as spiritually with kings disputing that right.
The issue was often one of who had a right to rule the unified church
and state. Those practical power issues tended to eclipse the
democratic rights of the laity or common folk. The political rights
of the common people tended to develop meaningfully along with the
emancipation of Christian fellowship from oppressive state and
ecclesiastical authority, and the process evolved over hundreds of
years.
During
the Protestant reformation the reformers such as Martin Luther,
Zwingli, Hus and Calvin took umbrage to not only corrupt clerical
practices and wrong doctrine, they found a fundamental priesthood of
believers approach to a direct relationship with Christ better and
more true than a hierarchical trickle down of doctrine from a
priesthood to a laity. There were numerous unintended consequences of
the reformation though.
With
the reformation Kings such as Henry the Eight broke off from Rome and
the Roman pope and became their own pope leading their own church.
Like Caesar as a god to be worshiped the nationalist popes leading
their own churches became pseudo gods issuing ecclesiastical rules by
decree. Decretals of the British female pope Queen Elizabeth set the
rules for mandatory church attendance and forms of worship
permissible in her realm. The protestant reformation became a more
complex breakup of political and ecclesiastical empires into new
local and regional ones. The continuing reform is to liberate the
Christian Church and individual spiritual freedom from bondage to
state authority.
Europe
was best by aristocratic usurpation of Christian authority in Sweden
as well as England and Russia. Spiritual liberation from Erastian
criteria could also bring development antipathetic libertines without
belief in anything besides cultural hedonism. Such godless behavior
in society resulting in elastic rationalism brought the anti-Christs
Stalin and Hitler to power with Stalin declaring churches 'not
working anymore' as the religion of state atheism was compelled on
the populace. Effectively worship of Uncle
Joe became
requisite for survival.
The
state church of the tsars was the Orthodox sect of the Universal
Christian Church. In the Ukraine the inter-tidal areas of political
and sectarian conflict as well as the troubles of racism, culturalism
and practical issues of food growing lands and security from invasion
made for continuing contention for control. The Ukraine had
Catholicism from Polish landlords, Orthodox from Russian and a
synthetic Uniate Church comprised of both. Because of the association
of religion under state authority, religious strife was implicit as
it was for Cromwell, Milton and anti-Papist reactionaries, regicides
of Charles the First and St. Bartholomew's Day massacres in Ireland
and France unto the British-Irish troubles of the 20th
century.
Conservative
forces have tended to support the human characteristic of depleting
and degrading the resources of foes; religious or political, and
liberal forces have sought relief from such oppression. Of course
there is a cyclical element to that. Christianity of the Lord is
liberal yet with perennial moral values. Even so Conservative
Christians defending doctrines and Church power and murdered hundreds
of thousands of Christians much less godless atheist heretics.
Protestants decried the faults of Catholicism yet even Protestant
reformers supported the execution of fellow reformers with different
doctrines. Human original sin corrupts all social establishments
while the spirit of the Lord perpetually frees saved individuals from
that bondage. One hopes that the Ukraine receives a new fellowship in
the Spirit of the Lord.
It
is difficult to imagine President Vladimir Putin as the Russian Pope
leading the Orthodox Church as it is impossible to imagine President
Barrack Obama as Pope of American Christians. Americans have a
difficult time understanding European history or the practical
political course of the historical political and ecclesiastical
evolution of the worldly establishments. American neon-elites of the
Eastern establishments have developed a convenient godless scientific
elitism without comprehension of historical and cultural
circumstance. Declaring themselves as infallible as any Pope ever has
their authority runs toward spreading a gospel of godless rationalism
that Frederick Nietzsche would have been comfortable with. They fail
to understand the error of Stalinism and fail to appreciate the role
of original sin in perpetually re-establish itself through state and
operative corporate censorship, repression of free speech and
opposition to political dissent.
The
will to totalize political power and negate democratic individual is
an implicit characteristic of concentrated wealth and/or power. In
the Ukraine the west as sought to exert its will to power so far as
possible. Because of the contemporary criterion of atheist influence
and evolution of reprobate and depraved social behavior it is
unlikely that the Obama administration will be able to perceive then
opportunity to work with President Putin to advance the cause of the
separation of Church and state in Russian and the Ukraine.
The
2012 Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney declared Russia as
America's number one existential foe. That's not too surprising since
President Putin had banned Mormonism from Russia. Each leader sought
to interfere in religious affairs; Romney as a Mormon priest
effectively anathematized Russia while President Putin as the
Eminence Gris Pope of Russia failed to see the value of establishing
an extra-terrestrial religion that worshiped an oligarchy in the
Kolob Star System in Russia. President Putin could renounce Russian
Federation State control of religion and declare Universal tolerance
for spiritual values throughout all of its lands including anything
it receives from a remorseful land-grabbing west in the Ukraine that
could potentially decide to share.
The Reforms
of Luther et al /Jesus Christ the Only Legitimate Human Birth
Contemplating
the failure of American public education to provide the alternative
of private school vouchers I stumbled across a deeper insight into
the origin of mankind. Adam and Eve of course perpetrated the
original sin having intercourse without being actually married and in
so doing producing bastards named Cain and Abel who married the local
girls of Y'Earth. Thus humanity was established by bastards creating
the bastard line mankind. Mankind needs the intervention of Jesus
Christ to be renormalized unto God-and that cost the Lord His mortal
life. Jesus Christ was the sole man born of woman who wasn't a
bastard since his Father is God.
Schoolchildren
today primed by the devil in public schools are mass produced with
the mark of the beast about them. That view is perhaps not so rare in
people as they age and note the pervasive trend of humanity toward
works of evil if not folly. Perhaps it's folly for repeating the same
works in line with Solomon's observation that there is nothing new
under the sun. Politically speaking humanity seem to be naturally
bent toward imperialism as rulers forced to share power in oligarchy
reluctantly or be hierarchically placed followers working for the
corporate-government evil empire of choice.
Yet
Pope Francis recently said that man and woman are the divine form for
marriage. So I guess he is right more or less. God created man and
woman in a relationship that is a natural marriage with Eve as close
to Adam as a rib during their life together. Humanity can bastardize
any institution though so even marriage is endangered by the brave
new world.
Martin
Luther said (quote from Schaff History
of the Christian Church Vol. 7)
that “matrimony
(is)
a gift of God, wedlock the sweetest, chastest life, above all
celibacy, or else a veritable hell.”
He had it right. Yet I think the devil attacks virtually anything
that works, and prefers conflict and conquest in human affairs to
innovation of better, newer paths.
Well
to not leave this post on that note in this poetry month I will quote
Schaff about Luther again from Volume 7 of Schaff's history,
“He
played the lute, sang melodiously, and composed tunes to his hymns,
especially the immortal, Ein feste Burg," which gives classic
expression to his heroic faith in God and the triumph of the gospel.
He never lost his love for Virgil and Cicero, which he acquired as a
student at Erfurt. He was fond of legends, fables, and proverbs. He
would have delighted in the stories of old "Mother Goose,"
and in Grimm’s "Hausmährchen."
He
translated some of Esop’s Fables, and wrote a preface to an edition
which was published after his death. He enjoyed the beauties of
nature, loved trees and flowers, was fond of gardening, watched with
wonder the household of the bees, listened with delight to the
singing birds, renewed his youth with the return of spring, and
adored everywhere the wisdom and goodness of nature’s God.
Looking
at a rose, he said, "Could a man make a single rose, we should
give him an empire; but these beautiful gifts of God come freely to
us, and we think nothing of them. We admire what is worthless, if it
be only rare. The most precious of things is nothing if it be
common." "The smallest flowers show God’s wisdom and
might. Painters cannot rival their color, nor perfumers their
sweetness; green and yellow, crimson, blue, and purple, all growing
out of the earth. And yet we trample on lilies as if we were so many
cows."
He
delighted in a refreshing rain. "God rains," he said, "many
hundred thousand guilders, wheat, rye, barley, oats, wine, cabbage,
grass, milk." Talking of children, he said, "They speak and
act from the heart. They believe in God without disputing, and in
another life beyond the present. They have small intellect, but they
have faith, and are wiser than old fools like us. Abraham must have
had a hard time when he was told to kill Isaac. No doubt he kept it
from Sarah. If God had given me such all order, I should have
disputed the point with Him. But God has given his only begotten Son
unto death for us."
John
Calvin and Predestination; a Modern Consideration
John
Calvin rightly developed the idea of predestination of the elect on a
scriptural foundation. What would be the modern rational paradigm for
predeterminism or selective predestination one might wonder.
The theoria of
predeterminism seems to be an implicit element of the Biblical
paradigm describing human existence. Philosophers and theologians
have considered the issue for some time. As in many philosophical
questions there may be multifarious paradigms for its interpretation
not only in the description or definition of the question itself but
in the answers as well. As in mathematics there may be many ways to
reach an answering sum.
Predeterminism and
the associated question of predestination may be considered within
and without a hypothetical Universe standing in relation to God and
one without as the case may be. The question may also be considered
as meaningful for just one particular Universe or two with many
potentially existing Universes and additionally some of those
Universes may be predestined and others not so. There are several
more criteria for formulating the question of predeterminism with
some description of the range of predeterminism being applied to all
or part of a Universe and to some elements of time of a Universe and
not to other times contingent of course upon several elements such as
what the nature of time actually is.
It may be stipulated
by some that at least something must be non-predetermined in order
for everything else to be predetermined. God probably wouldn’t
predetermined Himself if he chose to do so. So at least God is free
even if every possible Universe that may exist is predetermined to
exist. In the modern context perhaps since John Calvin the theologian
and reformer of Swiss Christianity investigated question of
predestination the issue of predestination has taken a simultaneous
transcending metaphysic of election operating through the mechanical
Universe in which causality exists.
Following Newtonian
mechanics and the development of ideas about causality that kicked
around previously at least since Aristotle ideas about physical
predeterminism have investigated natural mechanical relations of
substances and the evolutions they take through a linear arrow of
time. It is useful to stress here that the transcending question of
elective predestination is a concern of pre-Universal determination
before the creation or proximal evolution of the mechanics of the
Universe in a Newtonian and Einsteinian-inflationary expanding
Universe were to occur.
Since the
development of quantum mechanics in the early part of the 20th
century and the development of better cosmological concepts through
observation and scientific analysis it has become possible to find
better than simple Newtonian paradigmata for the simultaneous
existence of predeterminism and uncertain with the mechanical
Universe. With the further development of quantum cosmology and
better theories of particle physics it has become practical to
consider the solid state Universe of apparent materialism within a
meta-context of energy as quantum entanglements through statistical
probabilities in a Higgs field the measurement of which regarding
particular observable particles reaching the steady state phase is
inherently imprecise or uncertain. In some views the meta-Universe is
a monistic and deterministic field. In other views the elements are
themselves uncertain. Philosophically speaking uncertainty may be the
intervals amidst being. Nothingness is not certain-being probably is.
If quantum
uncertainty and energy field protocols in various phases regarded as
existing in space-time by composite-entangled constructed observers
seems simultaneously malleable to change yet over-all determined to
flow along thermodynamic lines even if that phenomenon is local and
temporal-a segment of a line within an infinite number of dimensional
lines comprising anything, that seems reasonable enough if the
Universe is generated initially by the Lord whom foreknows the
contingent Universe.
A Passage from Calvin's-"On the Necessity of
Reforming the Church”
Calvin's
Idea of the Holy Catholic Church
February,
1544 cited in Schaff's History of the Christian Church Vol. 8
"The
last and principal charge which they bring against us is, that we
have made a schism in the Church. And here they fiercely maintain
against us, that for no reason is it lawful to break the unity of the
Church. How far they do us injustice the books of our authors bear
witness. Now, however, let them take this brief reply—that we
neither dissent from the Church, nor are aliens from her communion.
But, as by this specious name of Church, they are wont to cast dust
in the eyes even of persons otherwise pious and right-hearted, I
beseech your Imperial Majesty, and you, Most Illustrious Princes,
first, to divest yourselves of all prejudice, that you may give an
impartial ear to our defence; secondly, not to be instantly terrified
on hearing the name of Church, but to remember that the Prophets and
Apostles had, with the pretended Church of their days, a contest
similar to that which you see us have in the present day with the
Roman pontiff and his whole
train.
When they, by the command of God, inveighed freely against idolatry,
superstition, and the profanation of the temple, and its sacred
rites, against the carelessness and lethargy of priests,—and
against the general avarice, cruelty, and licentiousness, they were
constantly met with the objection which our opponents have ever in
their mouths—that by dissenting from the common opinion, they
violated the unity of the Church. The ordinary government of the
Church was then vested in the priests. They had not presumptuously
arrogated it to themselves, but God had conferred it upon them by his
law. It would occupy too much time to point out all the instances.
Let us, therefore, be contented with a single instance, in the case
of Jeremiah.
"He
had to do with the whole college of priests, and the arms with which
they attacked him were these: ’Come, and let us devise devices
against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor
counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet’ (Jer. 18:18).
They had among them a high priest, to reject whose judgment was a
capital crime, and they had the whole order to which God himself had
committed the government of the Jewish Church concurring with them.
If the unity of the Church is violated by him, who, instructed solely
by Divine truth, opposes himself to ordinary authority, the Prophet
must be a schismatic; because, not at all deterred by such menaces
from warring with the impiety of the priests, he steadily persevered.
"That
the eternal truth of God preached by the Prophets and Apostles, is on
our side, we are prepared to show, and it is indeed easy for any man
to perceive. But all that is done is to assail us with this
battering-ram, ’Nothing can excuse withdrawal from the Church.’
We deny out and out that we do so. With what, then, do they urge us?
With nothing more than this, that to them belongs the ordinary
government of the Church. But how much better right had the enemies
of Jeremiah to use this argument? To them, at all events, there still
remained a legal priesthood, instituted by God; so that their
vocation was unquestionable.
Those
who in the present day have the name of prelates, cannot prove their
vocation by any laws, human or divine. Be it, however, that in this
respect both are on a footing, still, unless they previously convict
the holy Prophet of schism, they will prove nothing against us by
that specious title of Church.
"I
have thus mentioned one Prophet as an example. But all the others
declare that they had the same battle to fight—wicked priests
endeavoring to overwhelm them by a perversion of this term Church.
And how did the Apostles act? Was it not necessary for them, in
professing themselves the servants of Christ, to declare war upon the
synagogue ? And yet the office and dignity of the priesthood were not
then lost. But it will be said that, though the Prophets and Apostles
dissented from wicked priests in doctrine, they still cultivated
communion with them in sacrifices and prayers. I admit they did,
provided they were not forced into idolatry. But which of the
Prophets do we read of as having ever sacrificed in Bethel? Which of
the faithful, do we suppose, communicated in impure sacrifices, when
the temple was polluted by Antiochus, and profane rites were
introduced into it?
"On
the whole, we conclude that the servants of God never felt themselves
obstructed by this empty title of Church, when it was put forward to
support the reign of impiety. It is not enough, therefore, simply to
throw out the name of Church, but judgment must be used to ascertain
which is the true Church, and what is the nature of its unity. And
the thing necessary to be attended to, first of all, is, to beware of
separating the Church from Christ, its Head. When I say Christ, I
include the doctrine of his gospel which he sealed with his blood.
Our adversaries, therefore, if they would persuade us that they are
the true Church must, first of all, show that the true doctrine of
God is among them; and this is the meaning of what we often repeat,
viz. that the uniform characteristics of a well-ordered Church are
the preaching of sound doctrine, and the pure administration of the
Sacraments.
For,
since Paul declares (Eph. 2:20) that the Church is ’built upon the
foundation of the Apostles and Prophets,’ it necessarily follows
that any church not resting on this foundation must immediately fall.
"I
come now to our opponents. "They, no doubt, boast in lofty terms
that Christ is on their side. As soon as they exhibit him in their
word we will believe it, but not sooner. They, in the same way,
insist on the term Church. But where, we ask, is that doctrine which
Paul declares to be the only foundation of the Church? Doubtless,
your Imperial Majesty now sees that there is a vast difference
between assailing us with the reality and assailing us only with the
name of Church. We are as ready to confess as they are that those who
abandon the Church, the common mother of the faithful, the ’pillar
and ground of the truth,’ revolt from Christ also; but we mean a
Church which, from incorruptible seed, begets children for
immortality, and, when begotten, nourishes them with spiritual food
(that seed and food being the Word of God), and which, by its
ministry, preserves entire the truth which God deposited in its
bosom. This mark is in no degree doubtful, in no degree fallacious,
and it is the mark which God himself impressed upon his Church, that
she might be discerned thereby. Do we seem unjust in demanding to see
this mark? Wherever it exists not, no face of a Church is seen. If
the name, merely, is put forward, we have only to quote the
well-known passage of Jeremiah, ’Trust ye not in lying words,
saying, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of
the Lord, are these’ (Jer. 7:4). Is this house, which is called by
my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?’ (Jer. 7:11).
"In
like manner, the unity of the Church, such as Paul describes it, we
protest we hold sacred, and we denounce anathema against all who in
any way violate it. The principle from which Paul derives unity is,
that there is ’one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father
of all,’ who hath called us into one hope (Eph.4:4–6). Therefore,
we are one body and one spirit, as is here enjoined, if we adhere to
God only, i.e. be bound to each other by the tie of faith. We ought,
moreover, to remember what is said in another passage, ’that faith
cometh by the word of God.’ Let it, therefore, be a fixed point,
that a holy unity exists amongst us, when, consenting in pure
doctrine, we are united in Christ alone. And, indeed, if concurrence
in any kind of doctrine were sufficient, in what possible way could
the Church of God be distinguished from the impious factions of the
wicked?
Wherefore,
the Apostle shortly after adds, that the ministry was instituted ’for
the edifying of the body of Christ: till we all come in the unity of
the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God: that we be no more
children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of
doctrine, but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all
things, who is the Head, even Christ’ (Eph. 4:12–15). Could he
more plainly comprise the whole unity of the Church in a holy
agreement in
true
doctrine, than when he calls us back to Christ and to faith, which is
included in the knowledge of him, and to obedience to the truth? Nor
is any lengthened demonstration of this needed by those who believe
the Church to be that sheepfold of which Christ alone is the
Shepherd, and where his voice only is heard, and distinguished from
the voice of strangers. And this is confirmed by Paul, when he prays
for the Romans, ’The God of patience and consolation grant you to
be of the same mind one with another, according to Christ Jesus;
that, ye may with one accord and one mouth glorify God, even the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Rom. 15:5, 6).
"Let
our opponents, then, in the first instance, draw near to Christ, and
then let them convict us of schism, in daring to dissent from them in
doctrine. But, since I have made it plain that Christ is banished
from their society, and the doctrine of his gospel exterminated,
their charge against us simply amounts to this, that we adhere to
Christ in preference to them. For what man, pray, will believe that
those who refuse to be led away from Christ and his truth, in order
to deliver themselves into the power of men, are thereby schismatics,
and deserters from the communion of the Church?
"I
certainly admit that respect is to be shown to priests, and that
there is great danger in despising ordinary authority. If, then, they
were to say, that we are not at our own hand to resist ordinary
authority, we should have no difficulty in subscribing to the
sentiment. For we are not so rude as not to see what confusion must
arise when the authority of rulers is not respected. Let pastors,
then, have their due honor—an honor, however, not derogatory in any
degree to the supreme authority of Christ, to whom it behooves them
and every man to be subject. For God declares, by Malachi, that the
government of the Israelitish Church was committed to the priests,
under the condition that they should faithfully fulfil the covenant
made with them, viz. that ’their lips should keep knowledge,’ and
expound
the
law to the people (Mal. 2:7). When the priests altogether failed in
this condition, he declares, that, by their perfidy, the covenant was
abrogated and made null.
Pastors
are mistaken if they imagine that they are invested with the
government of the Church on any other terms than that of being
ministers and witnesses of the truth of God. As long, therefore, as,
in opposition to the law and to the nature of their office, they
eagerly wage war with the truth of God, let them not arrogate to
themselves a power which God never bestowed, either formerly on
priests, or now on bishops, on any other terms than those which have
been mentioned."
-end
quote of Calvin
