Catholic Word of the Day: REFORMATION DOGMA, 01-20-14

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REFORMATION DOGMA

The dogmatic teaching of the original Protestant reformers. They were constrained by the logic of separating from Rome to defend their new doctrinal positions. Thus we find Luther writing numerous treatises on faith, grace, and justification, and John Calvin (1509-64) producing in 1536 his Institutes of the Christian Religion, as the first systematic compendium of Protestant doctrine. "My design in this work," wrote Calvin in the introduction, "has been to prepare and qualify students of theology for the reading of the divine word." The beginnings of the Reformation were thoroughly dogmatic in character. The earliest Reformation dogma was biblical in the direct sense. It did not take philosophy as a basis or ally. Its first business was to know and expound the Bible. It did not claim Aristotle and Plato as friends or forerunners. It used reason, but reason derived only from the Bible and put to a biblical use. Actually there was a philosophy behind this dogmatizing, notably the nominalism of William of Ockham (1280-1349), whom Luther called "my teacher" and rated in learning far above Thomas Aquinas.

Two strains in Ockham, sometimes called "the first Protestant," became imbedded in the Reformation: a distrust of reason in dealing with religion, and a theory of voluntarism which made right and wrong depend on the will of God. The first strain appeared prominently in Lutheran or evangelical thought, with the emphasis on revelation and grace as the exclusive media of religious knowledge and salvation. The second affected Calvinism and postulated, in Calvin's words, that "God chooses some for the hope of life, and condemns others to eternal death . . . . For all men are not created on an equal footing, but for some eternal life is preordained, for others eternal damnation." The divine will, therefore, and not as in Catholic doctrine the divine wisdom, is the ultimate norm of man's existence and destiny.

All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

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Korah	Patron Saint	Tridentine Theology
Chancellor	Wimple	Liturgy of the Word
Emanation	Marcionism	Discalced
Sacrament of Orders	Vestry	Reformation Dogma

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Yes, creeds are dogmatic. While the Mary baloney may be dogmatic to Catholics, it certainly isn't to any other Christian. By Catholic definition, other assemblies of 'believers' could have no 'dogma' since they have no Magisterium or Pope to proclaim it.

Old time (Trent) Catholics said if you weren't Catholic, you weren't Christian, no salvation, which made one wonder why there were the two terms. Not that it matters what the Catholics say today, but we do know if you were a Muslim, you step to the head of the non-Catholic line. Catholics proclaim more dogma than any. The 'bull', no pun intended in this posting is a Catholic claim about the Reformation, a strange place to find an impartial understanding of the Reformation if that is one's intent.

What Luther and Calvin thought and taught is not a dogma of the Catholic Church.

Nor should it have been, they weren't Catholics anymore. Which is why it is amusing to think the truth about reformation teaching would be found in a Catholic publication.

"The second affected Calvinism and postulated, in Calvin's words, that "God chooses some for the hope of life, and condemns others to eternal death . . . . For all men are not created on an equal footing, but for some eternal life is preordained, for others eternal damnation." The divine will, therefore, and not as in Catholic doctrine the divine wisdom, is the ultimate norm of man's existence and destiny."

Evidently RC "doctrine" of "divine wisdom" does not need to recognize the Scriptural basis of the remarks Calvin noted. Ephesians 1, Rom. 9, Acts 13, and dozens of other passages just do not impact the Organization's homemade religion.

They were constrained by the logic of separating from Rome to defend their new doctrinal positions.

Sorry, from the Protestant founders perspective, they were going back to the teachings of the early church fathers. These doctrines were not new at all but what was taught by the early fathers. It is these same fathers, based upon statements that pepper the Catholic dictionary, that Catholics now call "bias", "racist", "sexist", not clear in their thinking, on and on and on. The have abandoned key doctrines such as atonement, justification, etc. Heck, you'll have some Catholics on this site who will argue that Paul was addled in his thinking.

Reformed Protestants are happy to rely upon the wisdom of the early fathers-even if we don't believe their writings raised to the same level as the scriptures. Catholics now believe scripture is just the same as Anselm writings.

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