"First, Can you believe there are Protestants who are non-fundamentalists and yet they believe in the inerrancy of the Bible? I can tell you there are plenty of this kind of Christians around. Do you know them?"
Of course I can. As I have said, there are numerous types of Christians in this world. Everybody could call themselves Christians because they could interpret the Bible by themselves. I would not be surprised to see 100 types of Christians who hold different beliefs and yet still call themselves "Christians" or "Protestants". Christianity is an anarchy, and the Christians are such a mess. They are in need of an authority to interpret the Bible correctly, accurately, rationally, historically and scientifically. Most of the churches nowadays do not have the authority to interpret the Bible. I do not know why Luther and other reformers had the authority to do the interpretation and could be 100% accurate. Luther actually took several books out of the Bible. I do not think Luther or other reformers had the right to select books or scriptures. The Bible, in nowhere, says that someone called "Luther" or "Calvin" or whoever could interpret the Bible 1500 years after Jesus' Resurrection.
And these are the most common responses I have received from the Protestants:
1. "We believe Luther/Calvin/Zwingli because we think Luther's/Calvin's/Zwingli's interpretation is the most accurate one."
My response to that: why do you think you have the authority/knowledge/ability to determine which one is the most accurate interpretation? Where, in the Bible, does it tell you that? (Since you like to use the Bible, I would suggest you to check your Bible first.) You determine things based on your limited knowledge.
2. "We are inspired by the Holy Spirit and it makes us recognize Luther's interpretation."
My response to that: how do you know you are inspired by the Holy Spirit? Everybody who holds different beliefs says they are "inspired". Calvinists say they are inspired. Lutherans also say they are inspired. I guess the Holy Spirit is just too bored so that it goes around tapping people's heads to inspire. Don't tell me that you "feel" it. You determine things by your emotion and intuition which are two of the most unreliable things in the world.
3. "We cannot know completely about God. Luther is correct although we do not have direct evidence. We just cannot know completely about God... We just need to believe."
My response to that: shut the hell up and stop using the Bible to knock yourself retarded.
You can see from their answers and responses that they just interpret or choose the interpreter as they wish. Using their limited knowledge or even worse, their emotion and intuition, they claim different beliefs that are irrational and unchristian. And these beliefs are breaking religious unity in the world.
And now please allow me to tell you an interesting story. Two kids were talking to each other. And suddenly the younger kid started cursing to the older one and saying things that were insulting to him. That older kid was so nice to him that he asked him to recant his insulting words, but the younger one refused. Then the older kid broke his relationship with the younger one, and the younger one was upset, crying, "he kicked my ass."
The younger kid's name was Luther and the older one was the Catholic Church. Luther declared things that would undermine the Church's authority. His five solas denied the role of the Church. Do you think the Church was able to just say, "No problem, Mr. Luther. We still recognize you." Luther was undermining the Church's authority and role in Christianity. There was no way that the Church could accept Luther who intentionally tried to break way from the Church.
I have to admit that Luther was a savant who knew about Christianity. As Luther would admit himself, he was not perfect and could not be 100% correct. Human history is made of processes and developments. The interpretation of the Bible and Christianity need to be fixed, amended and developed. The Protestants refused any developments but hold Luther's or other reformers' interpretation as inevitable truths. Again, from nowhere can I see that they had the authority to select books or interpret books.
There were problems within the Church at that time, but why did those reformers create new churches? The reformers published teachings that opposed the Church's authority at that time and caused the Church to kick them out. If there are problems in this country, would you suggest to get rid of the government and turn this country into an anarchy in which there are no ruling authorities, no laws, and no orders. The country and the people would be a mess. People would start to fight for their own benefits. Same thing happened during the Protestant Reformation. I'm glad that my friend mentioned that the Catholics and Protestants fought together in some wars. Just like the Thirty Years' War, Catholic France was an ally of the Protestants. Religion, at that period, was used as an excuse or reason to wage wars. Let's imagine there were no Protestants - the countries could not use religion as an excuse to fight and the Catholic Church had the authority of power to control to situation, therefore delaying and even preventing the wars from happening. Unfortunately, the Protestants broke religious unity and gave those countries an excuse to fight. And religion has great power which could cause people to slaughter each other because they have different beliefs. As Jesus said, "I bring sword to this world." People, who held different beliefs and fought in those religious wars, thought they were fighting for their own gods and salvation, in which they would devote and dedicate more than usual. From the discussions I had with those Protestants, I could see how passionate they were when they were defending their beliefs. Religious disputes could break and worsen the relationships between family members, countries and friends. If this kind of passion is devoted into wars, the destruction is unimaginable and unpredictable. Using religion, the potentates could give their soldiers more devotion and passion, and thus they would fight more bloodily and forget their conscience - because they were fighting for God.
Religious unity is indeed needed since the so-called Christians are spinning around and teaching different things that are unchristian. The Protestants who have no authority keep interpreting the Bible as they wish without any sort of verification. Some worse Protestants even say they interpret the Bible by their feelings. These various Protestantisms have given Christianity the label of irrationality. And I suggest people who are interested in religion:
- stay away from the Protestant churches who have no authority to teach;
- stay away from the fundamentalists. They are the worst of the worst;
- stay away from the churches who believe in the 6-day creation and do not recognize evolution;
- use your rationality.
America is a great country in which everybody could have freedom of everything, but, in a way, the freedom of religions is being extremely augmented to the extent that those insane churches could spread things that are unscientific and cause harm to our society. The only way to stop them is the educate ourselves and use rationality.
I am not sure you have understood my points. Instead, I see that you are dogmatically imposing a rationalistic grid to understand Protestantism (probably b/c of the Catholic influence around you) and, therefore, not fair in representing what the Reformers in the 16th century have truly said. You treat them as individualists like today's Christians. However, this indicates that you have not really read their works. You also have not dealt with my previous factual arguments concerning Luther and Calvin, etc. You insist that Luther and Calvin have broken away from the Church and that they have opposed her authority. However, you have not dealt with how they have viewed the Church (What is your definition of "church" when you said that? The Roman Catholic Church? The invisible Church of the Elect? The Church before the Great Schism in 1054? The Eastern Church?) nor have you understood their attitudes towards the work of the Church Fathers in those 1,500 years before them.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I am not sure those three common responses you have received represent the best responses from people who are trained in the discipline of historical theology.
In fact, as I think you are an atheist, what makes you think that your interpretation of the Reformers and the Protestants is fair?
It is fair to say that you are in a religion of rationality and progress. I wonder if you have read how the post-structuralists criticized the philosophy of the modernists and the positivists.
I would suggest that if you want real serious discussion, you should join the BBWarfield Yahoo Group. You will find some real Reformed theologians there to interact with. A lot of your critiques are a bit outdated. And if you want to truly learn from the best among the Protestants, instead of listening to the Catholics, you should study theology from www.monergism.com, etc.
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