You wrote:
“SO anyways, as close as his views remained to the Catholic Church, you can sense his views pointed to a trend among Christians to bring the centrality of the faith back to Christ and away from the Maryolatry that dominated the Middle Ages.”
That’s a lot of wishful thinking on your part and it isn’t backed up by the evidence in the least. 1) His views varied wildly. In some (such as on the Trinity) he remained close to the orthodox Catholic teaching. On salvation he invented a novel doctrine never before expressed in the history of Christianity. 2) Christianity was always focused on Christ including in the Middle Ages. 3) If you’re going to make erroneous statement about what “Mariolatry” is, I suggest you learn to spell it correctly. At least that way someone might think you actually know what you’re talking about.
“It wouldn’t be until much later that Reformers such as Calvin would take their challenges against Roman dogma further through deeper expositions of Scripture from their original texts and languages.”
And yet you have failed to show that Calvin believed what you have claimed. Why is that?
“Also, Luther was not revolutionary because of his views for or against the Catholic version of Mary. Luther was revolutionary for re-establishing the central doctrine of Biblical Christianity: the doctrine of justification by faith alone.”
Which is not supported by the Bible in any way and is even denied by it in James 2. Luther knew this and contemplated destroying the book to hide his shame. And that’s your inventor of Sola scriptura? A man who would burn Biblical books to cover up his own unbiblical views? Lovely.
“He derided the papacy referring to the pope as the Antichrist,”
Yes, he did. And now his followers admit he was wrong.
“he held to the supreme authority of Scripture,”
Only his view of it. And he cut books from the Bible that diagreed with him. So much for supreme authority.
“and he diminished the myth of Purgatory—which was the cornerstone on which the Catholic system functioned.”
What? Cornerstone? You seem to know even less about the Catholic faith than you do about the Reformers.
1) You were wrong about what the Reformers believed on Mary’s sinlessness.
2) You admitted you know little about one of the most influential of the early Reformers.
3)You posted four quotes - none of which actually say or show what you claimed they showed.
4) You incorrectly characterize beliefs of Christians in the Middle Ages.
5) You can’t even spell Mariolatry but seem to assume it existed.
6) You talk about Purgatory in such a way as to make it impossible for anyone to take you seriously regarding to its standing in the Catholic faith.
In this debate, your worst enemy is your apparent lack of knowledge about the issues you are discussing.
Vladimir, I think it’s great and vital that everyone, like you, digs as deeply as possible into the history of Christendom—but I hope people do so with as healthy a skepticism and with as little bias as possible. Even I, as an ex-Catholic, will admit that the Reformation had flaws and that some of my own favorite theologians were not without error or mistakes in judgment particularly with regard to some of the physical, vengeful actions taken against Catholics. By the same token, I will give Catholics credit where it’s due in terms of the contributions some of its members have made to important developments in theological thought—St. Augustine for example , who was among Calvin’s greatest influences, or THomas Aquinas’ Just War Theory.
* As for the Catholic system being based on purgatory: Yes. It was. You are denying plain history to say otherwise. I went to Catholic school my whole life and even as a committed Opus Dei, traditionalist Catholic, I had to admit that the period of papal indulgence scandals—which involved forcing even the poorest of people to pay money to the Church in exchange for a false remission of sins or less time in Purgatory—when in fact the money was paying for corrupt popes’ own luxurious lifestyles and massive buildling projects—was one of the most shameful dents in Roman Church Abuse History.
That being said, Purgatory is not a myth simply because of how its been used by Rome to take advantage of people. It’s a myth because it is blatantly unBiblical and completely contradicts Christ’s most basic and clearest teachings on eternal judgment as laid out in the Gospels. It is arguably the most dangerous doctrine Rome teaches and is a worse deviation from the Word than any teaching it may have on Mary.
The desperate efforts I observed Catholics (some who are notable Ex-Protestants) making to defend Purgatory on Biblical grounds was the last straw before my permanent departure from Rome. As basic and elementary as this sounds, my thought was simple: “Jesus wanted to save souls. Jesus talked about hell more than anyone in the Bible. He always talked about two paths. Two roads. Two ways. To destinations. In matters of eternal judgment, Jesus would not dare leave anything vague. He would have mentioned Purgatory plain and clear, considering the weight of the matter with regard to the state of our souls and our eternal destination.”
* John Calvin did establish very clearly that he thought the idea of Mary being a perpetual virgin was unfounded. He merely challenged the idea that she had as many children as some had overestimated, not that she did not have other children at all:
^ Calvin. “Commentary on Luke 1:34”. Harmony of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. 1. “The conjecture which some have drawn from these words [’How shall this be, since I know not a man?’], that she had formed a vow of perpetual virginity, is unfounded and altogether absurd. She would, in that case, have committed treachery by allowing herself to be united to a husband, and would have poured contempt on the holy covenant of marriage; which could not have been done without mockery of God. Although the Papists have exercised barbarous tyranny on this subject, yet they have never proceeded so far as to allow the wife to form a vow of continence at her own pleasure. Besides, it is an idle and unfounded supposition that a monastic life existed among the Jews.”