I picked up Great Voices of the Reformation from the library and was reading Wycliffe’s tract entitled AntiChrist’s Labour to Destroy Holy Writ. I was amused by the opening paragraph:
"As our Lord Jesus Christ ordained by the writing of the four evangelists, to make his gospel surely known, and maintained against heretics, and men out of the faith; so the devil, even Satan, devises by antichrist and his worldly false clerks, to destroy holy writ and Christian men's belief, by four accursed ways or false reasons. 1. The church is of more authority, and more to be believed than any gospel. 2. That Augustine said he would not believe the gospel if the church had not taught him so. 3. That no man alive knows which is the gospel, but by the approving of the church. 4. If men say that they believe this is the gospel of Matthew or John, they ask, Why believest thou that this is the gospel? as though they would say, There is no cause but that the church confirmeth and teacheth it."
I could not find an actual date for this writing, but since Wycliffe died in 1384 we can know it was written before that date. What I found so amusing was that even back in the late 1300s (prior to the Reformation), the same arguments for the authority of the Roman Catholic Church were being used. Coincidently, James posted about the same arguments in Luther’s time (just hours after I read Wycliffe’s tract), so I thought I would add Wycliffe’s response to #2 also:
"…They bear upon Augustine that he saith thus; That he would not believe the gospel unless the church said it. True men being answered thus, suppose that Augustine said this word. But he said to this intent, That unless Christ, head of holy church and saints in heaven, and the apostles of Christ that are holy church, said and approved this gospel, he would not believe thereto. And this understanding is full true, and reasonable, and according to the words of Augustine; but they understand them, that unless the multitude of accursed worldly clerks approve this for the gospel, Augustine would not believe the gospel of Jesus Christ; and since Augustine was, and is, so great a doctor of holy church, no man should believe the gospel, unless the church of these prelates confirm that this is the gospel of Christ; and unless the multitude of antichrist's clerks approve the gospel or truth of holy writ, no man should hold the gospel, or any command of God, or maintain any truth against antichrist, and his worldly prelates. But what heresy might sooner destroy Christian man's belief? and God forbid that Augustine were in perilous heresy, or any Christian man, therefore it is [lies] to slander St. Augustine with this accursed error, to colour their own false understanding and heresy by this holy doctor."
So do no protestants here have any twinge of discomfort that Wycliffe and Luther were totally and completely WRONG about Augustine?
ReplyDeleteAs I quoted in the Luther thread, Augustine said that if the Manichaen's INTERPRETATION of scripture was correct, Augustine would no longer BELIEVE scripture at all. He refused to separate the churches canon from its interpretation.
So the whole reformation was started by a bunch of folks who had no idea what they were talking about. Disagree with Augustine if you will, but don't claim him on your side.
Oh, and do you really want Wycliffe and Luther on your side when they don't know what they're talking about?
"What I found so amusing was that even back in the late 1300s (prior to the Reformation), the same arguments for the authority of the Roman Catholic Church were being used"
ReplyDeleteThat you find this amusing is, well, amusing. Were the arguments for Church Authority different now, it would make no sense. The argument that it is by the Church's authority that we know which gospel is is not scripture is indeed as old as the new testament itself.
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Orthodox,
ReplyDeleteI think you will have to prove that Augustine’s use of the “catholic Church” meant the Roman Catholic authority/magesterium and not the body of believers. I don’t think anyone here would argue that the “body of believers” who make up the true Church are not a witness with some influence/authority.
Now, why you as an EO would want to submit all of these quotes to mean the Roman Catholic authority is a bit puzzling to me.
"I think you will have to prove that Augustine’s use of the “catholic Church” meant the Roman Catholic authority/magesterium and not the body of believers"
ReplyDeleteAugustine’s use of the “catholic Church” meant the Roman Catholic authority/Magesterium Which IS the body of believers -- In his day there were the saints and the "aints"--and the aints were those outside of the Catholic Church. Seriously, try actually reading Augustine himself instead of those who filter him for you.
Try reading these and then come back and tell us that it is we who need to prove Augustine did not specifically refer to the Catholic Church.
Free Choice
(A.D. 395)
Against the Letter of Mani called 'The Foundation'
(A.D. 397)
Confessions
(A.D. 400)
Baptism(
A.D. 400)
Faith and Works(
A.D. 413)
Nature and Grace
A.D. 415)
The Trinity
(A.D. 416)
The Enchiridion of Faith, Hope and Love
A.D. 421)
City of God
(A.D. 426)
Christian Instruction(
A.D. 426)
Retractations
(A.D. 427)
If you actually read these documents rather than citing others' references to quotes that are removed from their context, not one of you would champion Augustine so long as you continue to hold your "Catholic is evil" It is not for others to prove that Augustine did not refer to the Catholic Church when he refereed to "The Catholic Church," but it is up to you to prove that he did not. Yours is the extraordinary claim.
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Then there are these classic quotes cited on the "Catholic Answers" blog.
ReplyDelete"We must hold to the Christian religion and to communication in her Church, which is Catholic and which is called Catholic not only by her own members but even by all her enemies. For when heretics or the adherents of schisms talk about her, not among themselves but with strangers, willy-nilly they call her nothing else but Catholic. For they will not be understood unless they distinguish her by this name which the whole world employs in her regard" (The True Religion 7:12 [A.D. 390]).
"We believe in the holy Church, that is, the Catholic Church; for heretics and schismatics call their own congregations churches. But heretics violate the faith itself by a false opinion about God; schismatics, however, withdraw from fraternal love by hostile separations, although they believe the same things we do. Consequently, neither heretics nor schismatics belong to the Catholic Church; not heretics, because the Church loves God, and not schismatics, because the Church loves neighbor" (Faith and Creed 10:21 [A.D. 393]).
...
""If you should find someone who does not yet believe in the gospel, what would you [Mani] answer him when he says, ‘I do not believe’? Indeed, I would not believe in the gospel myself if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so" (ibid., 5:6).
In the Catholic Church . . . a few spiritual men attain [wisdom] in this life, in such a way that . . . they know it without any doubting, while the rest of the multitude finds [its] greatest safety not in lively understanding but in the simplicity of believing. . . . [T]here are many other things which most properly can keep me in her bosom. The unanimity of peoples and nations keeps me here. Her authority,
inaugurated in miracles, nourished by hope, augmented by love, and confirmed by her age, keeps me here. The succession of priests, from the very see of the apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after his resurrection, gave the charge of feeding his sheep [John 21:15–17], up to the present episcopate, keeps me here. And last, the very name Catholic, which, not without reason, belongs to this Church alone, in the face of so many heretics, so much so that, although all heretics want to be called ‘Catholic,’ when a stranger inquires where the Catholic Church meets, none of the heretics would dare to point out his own basilica or house" (Against the Letter of Mani Called "The Foundation" 4:5 [A.D. 397]).
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You will note that Dr. R. C. Sproul called himself "Augustinian."
ReplyDeleteThis site lists some of Augustine's doctrines as they relate to calvinism.
http://www.willcoxson.net/faith/augprot.htm
Take care when reading Wycliffe not to let his rhetoric take you away to realms you might not wish to go.
ReplyDeleteWycliffe had some notions about the Bible with which the form of apologetics practiced on this blog would almost certainly not be comfortable, including "Platonic" allegorical exegesis and openness to the Medieval notion of a "mystical" meaning of Scripture thta went beyond the "literal." Additionally, according to one significant study of changes in biblical hermeneutics over several centuries (Henning Graf Reventlow, The Authority of the Bible and the Rise of the Modern World) Wycliffe's philosophical hermeneutics may have made him unable to distinguish the actual meaning of the Bible's text from his own mental constructions.
Ironically, this type of hermeneutic plays right into the privatizing-secularizing trends of the Enlightenment by enabling the Bible to be placed in the subjective category of "religion" and subjected to sterile, rationalistic canons of "reason" and "science" which are very detrimental to faith. Wycliffe could not have foreseen this, of course, but we have the benefit of hindsight.
Lastly, Wycliffe was quite simply a social revolutionary, unconcerned with how his radical doctrines would destabilize life in an already terribly destabilized period (the Hundred Years War and the Western Schism were going on at this time). His views on how sin affected authority claims--his notion of the "spiritual church" and the "dominion of grace" were extremely radical and would have, if implemented consistently, resulted in the near total destruction of social order in England. In fact, this theory of Wycliffe's played a significant role in the Council of Constance's decision to execute John Huss, who held tenaciously to Wycliffe's theory at these points.
Bottom line: don't read Wycliffe just to find cool bashings of "Romanism" that you can quote against Catholic apologists. Read him to understand him, and in understanding him, to learn to critically appraise him and his legacy. Wycliffe, the so-called "Morning Star of the Reformation," may not be all our idealistic hagiography has made him out to be.
So I guess the murder of Huss and Wycliffe are completly justified then.
ReplyDeleteMother Church did it to save the social order of England......how lovely.
Jonathan
Obviously I don't believe the ROMAN catholic church is the catholic church. I believe the Orthodox Catholic Church (as it is formally known) is the Catholic church.
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't mean you can reduce Augustine's comments to being the invisible church. How can Augustine look to an invisible church as his guide to interpretation? For all he would know the Manichaens are in the invisible church.
No, Augustine believed in the visible Catholic church. Whether that manifests itself today in the Roman church is an entirely different issue.
jonathan, that's a nice little emotional response, but it has nothing to do with anything that I said. The point involves Wycliffe's scriptural hermeneutics and his theory of lawful authority in the social order. At any rate, since Wycliffe wasn't murdered, but died a natural and peaceful death, your point is 1/2 wrong right from the start.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, since the school of apologetics practiced on this blog is very suspicious of "philosophy" and thinks of itself as adhering to "Scripture alone," you might want to read the Wikipedia article on Wycliffe. Encyclopedias aren't enough, of course, to understand complicated issues. But this one at least might give one pause as to the usefulness of making absolute dichotomies between Scripture and other forms of knowledge--at least, if you want to think highly of Wycliffe. None of the reformers or their precursors were "Bible Only" men in the way that that is usually meant by this school of apologetics. Something to think about before holding pep rallies for them.
ReplyDeleteMy apologies, I always get Wycliffe and Tyndale mixed up.
ReplyDeleteAs far as an emotional response, that's funny coming from you.....
If you didn't want to defend Mother Churches idea of a legal execution you shouldn't have brought up John Huss. Nice try though.
Jonathan
"If you didn't want to defend Mother Churches idea of a legal execution you shouldn't have brought up John Huss. Nice try though"
ReplyDeleteI'm curious. What secular European governments of that era, whether in "catholic" countries or "protestant" countries did hold "heresy" a crime punishable by prison, torture or death? Was Calvin's hanging of revert Catholics any less horrific than Huss' martyrdom? Was Thomas More's death less onerous to God than was Tyndale's?
Didn't Calvin have them burned?
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"Augustine believed in the visible Catholic church. Whether that manifests itself today in the Roman church is an entirely different issue."
ReplyDeleteIndeed. It would be anybody's guess as to whether Augustine would be more drawn to the Roman rite or the Orthodox.
Modern Orthodox teaching, practice and liturgy might be more familiar to a worshiper of Augustine's day; however, if I read his sentiment aright, he might be more inclined to see the Holy See of Peter as a singular line of succession, and therefore acknowledge the western progression in practice, which could place him closer to Rome.
As for Augustine being any sort of "Reformed" Protestant, no way. About all he had going that way doctrinally was his championing the importance of understanding our salvation as the product of our election--but his belief never overrode his submission to the Church.
Whether the claim is made by James Swan or Martin Luther that Augustine did not support the authority of the visible Catholic Church to determine what is and is not Scripture and the Gospel, it is a false one. That we continually see it re-asserted speaks much more about the beliefs of the asserters than the beliefs of Augustine.
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Not sure why I started this under "anonymous," but now I'm not.
ReplyDeleteJonathan, if you will look closely at my original post you'll see that I was only connecting Wycliffe's doctrine of the dominion of grace with Huss for reasons of explaining some of the social consequences of Wycliffe's teaching. I said nothing pro or con about the views of "Mother Church" regarding legal execution.
I don't see what's wrong with injecting some context into a post that was really nothing more than an eye-poking propaganda piece. Wycliffe is interesting for a lot more than his potential uses against the excesses of Catholic convert apologists, but I suppose if someone wants to be content with gross caricatures along the lines of "Foxe's Book of Martyrs," well, that's their business. But that person shouldn't go and later be complaining when some Catholic says "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant."
If the only reason Wycliffe is interesting is because he bears some sort of rudimentary conceptual relationship to certain Reformation doctrines, I submit that Church history is being used for mere propaganda's sake and not really engaged for the fascinating story it is. What's wrong with asking questions about Wycliffe's biblical hermeneutics, especially if Wycliffe is going to be touted as a proto-Protestant sola Scripturist with whom we want to be identified? What's wrong with pointing out the potentially socially devastating consequences of the doctrine that leaders who are in a state of mortal sin do not possess lawful governing authority? What would become of America if we followed this idea? Would you want to live in an anarchistic dystopia so long as "Truth" was being proclaimed from whatever pulpits managed to survive the Revolution? Would Luther have approved of political rebellion based on an essentially Donatistic notion of the invisible Church? If not, how then does Wycliffe relate to the Reformation? If Wycliffe's theory of hermeneutics actually did basically trap him inside his own head, what sorts of results might have occurred downstream, after a few hundred years of secularization and isolation of the Bible from a fully articulated, historically conscious communal-social setting?
I fail to see why these sorts of questions are not fair game, or how asking them is "emotional." When you read a post that lays out several substantive intellectual points and you respond with some charged sentences about awful martyrdoms at the hands of a tyrant (of whom you've evidently got quite a grossly caricatured view), it is quite evident where the emotionalism is. Care to try again?
Btw, jonathan, I don't expect you to answer my questions. I'm just asking them to point out that the contours of the issues are pretty huge. Quote Wycliffe all you want in apologetics contexts--so long as you find out more about Wycliffe than his uses against untrained Catholic lay apologists. Nothing wrong with trying to raise the standard, is there?
ReplyDeleteWycliffe is interesting for a lot more than his potential uses against the excesses of Catholic convert apologists, but I suppose if someone wants to be content with gross caricatures along the lines
ReplyDeleteTim,
You are reading alot more into this post than was ever intended.
The point was really that they same arguments for authority from RCs that we hear today were also being used back in the 1300s. Wycliff's answer back was simply that, Wycliff's answer.
Sometimes quotes are just quotes. You are the one painting this post as a swipe at Roman Catholicism, however that was not the author's intent. If you will note my opening sentence, I picked up a book about the Reformation and happen to find some history (which corresponded to James' Luther quote) that I found interesting.
In other words, you are making a mountain out of a mole hill. If Roman Catholics (which I believe you are not?) would like to enjoy a dialogue it would be helpful if they drop the strong polemics and ad hominems in the combox. There are a few RCs here who don't behave that way, but sadly there are too may that do and I just won't interact with such commenters.
"If Roman Catholics (which I believe you are not?) would like to enjoy a dialogue it would be helpful if they drop the strong polemics and ad hominems in the combox"
ReplyDeleteI've read the comboxes on carries site. That works both ways, of course.
My apologies, Carrie. Although from jonathan's response it seems clear that somewhere, sometime, there's a need to discuss Wycliffe's views on authority relative to other issues.
ReplyDeleteI suppose in one way I was just returning the favor: James Swan came over to my blog to post a qualifier on a post I wrote about Luther and Bernard of Clairvaux, so I've given some qualifiers on a post here about Wycliffe. :)
Odd. what happened to the posts on carries blog where she makes fun of the pope's silly hats and such? Was I thinking about the wrong blog, or did she change blogs or what? If I'm mistaken and it was someone else, I apologize. Otherwise, I/m at least glad she no longer publicly displays what were her obviously ad-hominem posts--though if those were hers, an apology on her part would still be in order.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, I/m at least glad she no longer publicly displays what were her obviously ad-hominem posts--though if those were hers, an apology on her part would still be in order.
ReplyDeleteI believe you are thinking of someone else. I don't recall talking about funny hats.
I suppose in one way I was just returning the favor: James Swan came over to my blog to post a qualifier on a post I wrote about Luther and Bernard of Clairvaux, so I've given some qualifiers on a post here about Wycliffe. :)
ReplyDeleteNot a problem. But don't mistake my level of knowledge and intelligence with that of yours or James. Hence a simple quote from a simple girl.
I actually know very little about Wycliff, so how Protestant or accurate he was in his theology is not something I am trying to promote. But as one of the pre-Reformers who began to look to the Bible for his authority amongst the Catholic world around him, I do find him interesting from a historical viewpoint.
"The point was really that they same arguments for authority from RCs that we hear today were also being used back in the 1300s."
ReplyDeleteCarrie, I still don't get what you think that point demonstrates or what makes it "amusing" to you. Could you please explain?
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"So do no protestants here have any twinge of discomfort that Wycliffe and Luther were totally and completely WRONG about Augustine?"
ReplyDeleteThe Protestant Reformers needed Augustine's false theory of inherited guilt to prop up the unfounded and antiscriptural tradition of infant baptism, so they were forced to pretend he was a good guy. If they had of let go of infant baptism back then, they could have just said "You are throwing Augustine at us? That heretic who invented the false doctrine of babies burning in hell because they weren't baptized? We ought to laugh in your face. in fact we will. HAHAHAH." That would be my response, and a great many people's responses today. But since they planned to continue to perpetrate the belief in inheritance of guilt and the necessity of infant baptism, they couldn't do that.
Josh, what Christian tradition are you in that denies inheritance of guilt AND infant baptism?
ReplyDeleteBTW, Orthodoxy denies inherited guilt but affirms infant baptism, so I don't know that your thesis holds water.
I am a member of the church of Christ. We baptize believers in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, by immersion only, on the confession that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God, and in order to receive the remission of sins.
ReplyDeleteNow, my thesis holds water to pardon the pun, for these reasons:
1. The oft alledged promise in Acts 2:39 that is "for your children" is the very promise of Acts 2:38, that if anyone repents of their sins and is baptized into Jesus Christ for the remission of sins they will receive that very thing along with the gift of the Holy Spirit, and therefore the promise containing within it the very condition of repentance, the promise applies "to your children" the same as it does "to those afar off," namely it applies to them when they are able to repent and thus meet the conditions.
2. Matthew 28 shows that preaching the gospel is always to precede baptism, Mark 16 shows that both preaching and belief precede, Acts 2:38 that repentance precedes, Acts 8:37 that confession must precede, and 1 Peter 3:21 that baptism is an act of the conscience.
3. Hebrews 8 and Jeremiah 31 state that the New Testament is different from the Old in this way particularly, that not one person in the New Covenant will need to be told by another in the Covenant "know the LORD" because all who are in the Covenant will already know the LORD. This is contrasting entrance into the Old Covenant as an uninformed infant with entrance into the New Covenant as a believer.
4. There is no explicit example of infant baptism in the New Testament, and those household which men infer contained infants can proven to not have contained infants since it is said that "Paul preached to all of them" or "they that gladly received the word were baptized" etc. and that even if such phrases were lacking, no doctrine can be established by a dubious inference from Scripture, but only by plain statement or something necessarily implied by the verse, and no such exits here. Besides that such an example could not possibly exist, since it would contradict all the above points which are firmly settled.
Conclusion: Due to these consideration, anyone who truly holds to Sola Scriptura must reject infant baptism. It is therefore apparent that the Reformers never had any intention of truly applying that principle. Luther, after all, in his Larger Catechism says much in his article On Baptism about how that baptism without faith is worthless, but turns right around in the next article, On Infant Baptism, backpeddling and saying that if anyone will use the argument against infant baptism that infants do not have faith then that person is a moron and so forth. He stoops to name calling, because he has abandoned the Scriptures. The Reformers did not apply Sola Scriptura. The church of Christ does apply Sola Scriptura.
"I am a member of the church of Christ. We baptize believers in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, by immersion only, on the confession that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God, and in order to receive the remission of sins."
ReplyDeleteIn fairness to Josh, if we strictly abide by sola scriptura as it seems to be espoused in Reformed circles, the case for baptism as he describes it, though not water-tight (pun intended), it is highly defensible. The doctrine of sola scriptura cleaves a wide gap between what its followers can allow as practical application of the Gospel and what we of Catholic Tradition (whether east or west) know to be the actual application of the fullness of the good news: that Christ saves even those (perhaps especially those) who come to Him as a little child.
I recall listening to a podcast of a popular Reformed call-in program in which a man called in to ask whether his mentally retarded daughter could be baptized. He clearly was hoping for any good reason to bring her into the Body of Christ by virtue of his own faith that Christ would save her despite her inability to comprehend. As you know, this would not be a problem for us.
The highly complex and legalistic restraints imposed by their particular form of sola scriptura turned the conversation into one of the saddest I've ever heard in the guise of Christian ministry, whereby the girl was effectively damned for God's glory, though neither the father nor the host had courage enough to articulate it except by round-about reference.
And they will know we are Christians by our love. Why then should Christ (who we are to imitate) be known by His wrath?
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To e i e: The doctrinal answers to the questions you mention above concerning infants and the mentally handicapped are clear when following pure Sola Scriptura, but extremely complex when following a hybrid of Roman Catholic tradition and Sola Scriptura. The concept of inherited guilt is not found in Scripture, but comes from Manicheanism and was brought in by Augustine. Ezekiel 18:20 says "The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son." And Paul says in Romans 7:9 "Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died." The meaning is clear, that Paul was born spiritually alive, not spiritually dead, and that he died spiritually only after having personally sinned. So also Ezekiel 18 teaches that men are only damned for personal sin, and do not share the guilt of Adam. Thus, according to Sola Scriptura, neither infants nor the mentally handicapped need salvation, since they have not sinned personally and therefore not lost to begin with. But once you confuse Sola Scriptura by adding in the Manichean concept of inherited guilt, then you have a sad and pernicious doctrine on your hands.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I also wanted to mention that I am Josh. (Accidentally changed my name to the name of my blog when I started my blog today.) And that Chrysostom in his homily on John 9 shows that he has never even heard of Augustine's strange Manichean doctrine of inherited guilt, as Chrysostom mentions no such thing but plainly state it is impossible to sin before birth, and references Ezekiel 18 as I do above. Its really too bad that Roman Catholic tradition consistently follows the "fathers" when they are wrong rather than when they are right.
ReplyDelete"Thus, according to Sola Scriptura, neither infants nor the mentally handicapped need salvation, since they have not sinned personally and therefore not lost to begin with."
ReplyDeleteActually, your doctrine is not sola scriptura unless "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," is not in scripture.
Ah the tangle of whose sola scriptura is the correct sola.
Actually your statment is more Catholic than it is Reformed.
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"Actually your statment is more Catholic than it is Reformed."
ReplyDeleteI take that back. I should have said,
Actually your stetement is no more Reformed than it is Catholic. In other words, it is neither. If you want to overthrow the doctrine of Original Sin, you're going to have a huge uphill struggle.
Sorry.
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Thus, according to Sola Scriptura, neither infants nor the mentally handicapped need salvation, since they have not sinned personally and therefore not lost to begin with.
ReplyDeleteI believe you are mistaken. Those who are not lost would not need the intercession of Jesus to get to the Father. The sinless do not need grace.
"Actually your statment is more Catholic than it is Reformed." and "Actually your stetement is no more Reformed than it is Catholic."
ReplyDeleteIt is neither Roman Catholic nor that misnomer called Reformed, but is from Sola Scriptura. Now the Eastern Orthodox do agree that there is no inherited guilt, but why do they agree with those who follow Sola Scriptura on this? Because the philosophy that brought about the doctrine of inherited guilt began in the west. It is a fact that at the same time that Augustine was applying the Manichean philosophy of inherited guilt to Roman Catholicism in the west, Chrysostom (which I mentioned already) was still teaching based on Scripture that Ezekiel 18 shows that no man is damned for what his parents have done in the east. This western philosophy did not corrupt the east. The east stuck with Scripture at least on this point.
"If you want to overthrow the doctrine of Original Sin, you're going to have a huge uphill struggle."
I realize that those who are held in bondage to Manichean philosophy will not come out of it, just as those held by any human philosophy do not come out of it except on their own, and only then after a long and hard struggle. My point is not to convince the Manicheans to leave their philosophy but to show that this philosophy is not held by all, and that there are some who still follow Scripture on this point.
"and that there are some who still follow Scripture on this point"
ReplyDeleteAll have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
ReplyDeleteIf you would read that in context then you would not oppose the truth by setting the Scriptures in contradiction to each other. Begin at verse 10 (or Romans 3) "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: [11] There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. [12] They are all GONE out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one."
Paul clearly doesn't have infants in mind, who are not old enough to have "gone out of the way" but speaks only of those who are old enough to have "gone out of the way." There is not one person on this earth so spiritually blind as to think that this statement is inclusive of infants. Not until they poke their eyes out with manmade philosophy. Not until they are taught by men to pull Scriptures out of context and set them in contradiction to other Scriptures.
"Paul clearly doesn't have infants in mind, who are not old enough to have "gone out of the way" but speaks only of those who are old enough to have "gone out of the way." There is not one person on this earth so spiritually blind as to think that this statement is inclusive of infants. Not until they poke their eyes out with manmade philosophy. Not until they are taught by men to pull Scriptures out of context and set them in contradiction to other Scriptures."
ReplyDeleteIt's good we have you to tell the millions of us who got it wrong exactly what the scriptures really mean, then, isn't it? And to think I thought the Catholics were wrong to say that ignorance can be an excuse. I'll be sure to consult you from now on.
I think that would be wise.
ReplyDeleteEM wrote: "Paul clearly doesn't have infants in mind, who are not old enough to have "gone out of the way""
ReplyDeleteBut David wrote:
Psa 58:3 The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.
-Turretinfan
Turretinfan, please note how Psalm 58:3 is exclusively speaking of the wicked.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest then we must add Job 31:18 "For from my youth he [the fatherless] was brought up with me, as with a father, and I have guided her from my mother's womb;"
Is the Bible teaching that the wicked are born sinning from the womb and the righteous born supporting widows from the womb? Or it this all hyperbole?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBeen working my way throught the archives for the last 3 months and I will now post a response to a comment based in self deception.
ReplyDeleteBe it ever so late...
When the issue of original sin comes up in a dust up about infant baptism... Remember, the wages of sin is death.
Babies die.
(Bible ain't hard)