Protestantism is founded upon several false principles, such as scripture alone, faith alone, a-historicism, anti-sacramentalism, the false authority of the individual believer and the private interpretation of divine revelation as contained in the scriptural text.
Private interpretation is used to derive Christian doctrines from the text which are thought to have been revealed by God.
Yet private interpretation only ever arrives at a private understanding of the text apart from any other public authority or public tradition.
The principle of private interpretation then implies from the principle, the negation of the universality of truth contained within divine revelation.
The negation of universality of revealed truth infers revealed truth is only ever locally known.
But what is only ever locally known is not ever proven to be true.
For only local knowledge is not in accord with truth whereby truth is one and universal.
For divine revelation is only one and universally applies to all men.
Local knowledge of purportedly revealed truths is then really only purported or claimed truths known with only subjective certitude (opinion of the believer) and not objective certitude (truth taught with divine authority).
But subjective certitude excludes the divine as the author of objective truth.
For subjective certitude is only a judgement made by the believer concerning the truth value of statements made by God in divine revelation.
The believer then thinks a text means some truth, but the believer only arrives at the conclusion through private and therefore subjective means.
Therefore Protestantism's doctrine of private interpretation excludes two essential properties of divine revelation - 1) Revelation is one and universal, and 2) revelation is objective, for God is objective and not subjective.
Because private interpretation implies conclusions that contradict the divine, Protestantism is in principle against the divine.
But what is against the divine are both agnosticism and atheism.
Agnosticism claims that God cannot be known and therefore divine revelation cannot be known.
Agnosticism practically excludes the divine and divine revelation.
For even if God exists, His existence and revelation is always unknown.
And atheism denies the existence of the divine, therefore divine revelation is not possible.
Atheism absolutely excludes the divine and divine revelation.
Protestantism reduces divine revelation from universal objective truth to only a purportedly local, subjective truth.
But purportedly local, subjective truth is only human opinion and not divine.
Therefore Protestantism in practice (when the principle of private interpretation is used), excludes the divine and divine revelation.
Therefore Protestantism in principle leads to atheism.
Discussion - If we briefly examine one doctrine within Protestantism, on say the meaning and practice of baptism, we note there is a wide diversity of understandings within Protestantism. Some say baptism regenerates, others say baptism is only a sign. Some say baptism is applied only once, and others say more than once. Some say baptism saves, and others say it does not save. The multitude of positions taken on the one doctrine of baptism indicates Protestantism is only local and subjective, contrary to the universal and objective nature of divine revelation. Protestantism then in principle leads to an agnostic understanding of revelation, which in turn tends towards atheism. For Protestants must admit that God has granted only the means to obtain certitude of what was revealed via subjective opinion. And such opinion is only human. But human opinion conforms to the agnostic position that says divine revelation cannot be known. For subjective opinion is not objective and therefore not divine.
Furthermore, the agnostic nature of divine revelation of the Protestant position tends towards atheism. For if the objective truth of divine revelation cannot be known, then God has not made a revelation. For divine revelation is in fact objective, but Protestism only ever attains to subjective truth. And if all other religions of the world have the same problem as Protestantism, then God probably does not exist. For all religions are always only ever subjective and never have objective truth. For God is itself objective truth and always acts objectively. Yet Protestantism always acts as though God never existed nor gave a revelation to man. For the divine truth in Protestantism is really only the human opinion of men. Therefore Protestantism always tends towards humanism and atheism, without ever proving atheism to be true. For both Protestantism and atheism are both false.
No comments:
Post a Comment