Friday, August 24, 2018

The Problem of the Incredulity of Protestant Beliefs founded upon the Reformation Movement.

Protestantism is an incredulous belief system that has the following insuperable problems -

1) The Reformation has no mandate or authority from God to teach the novel doctrines found in the Reformation. The reformation is then not from God, but of only a human origin and is therefore not salvific.

2) The Reformers disagreed with each other on many points of faith and practice, thereby inferring the movement was merely another human attempt to promote human novelties. Such a movement containing a multitude of contradictions in faith and practice is not for God and therefore not binding on any believer.

3) The Reformation assumes the corruption of the Roman Catholic church and the re-establishment of the gospel once proclaimed in the early church but then thought to have been lost. The assumptions that underpin the reformation are both false. For the Roman Catholic church is the church of history is the church of the bible with the accompanying properties of indefectibility and infallibility. Therefore the early church was the same Roman Catholic church of the Reformation age, which cannot become corrupt and cannot be reformed through novel doctrines. The assumed corruption of the faith is impossible, for the corruption is against the nature of the church. Also, the assumed regaining of the gospel is also false, as the gospel cannot be lost from an indefectible church.

4) The Reformation assumes the binding nature of private interpretation of divine revelation as found only in the scriptures. Both the doctrines of private interpretation of divine revelation and the doctrine of sola scriptora are false.

5) The Reformation has no public miracles it can refer to as divine signs of the authenticity of the movement. A religion from God is a religion from a God of infinite power who has and does act within history to validate genuine movements from God. The distinct lack of public miracles associated with the reformers is a strong indication that the Reformation was not from God.

6) The Reformers frequently changed their minds on matters of faith and morals and generations of Protestants subsequent to the Reformers did not continue to hold to everything the Reformers held as being from God through Christ. The lack of consistency of belief with the reformers and their subsequent followers is a strong indication the Reformation is only another human movement which is inherently unstable.

7) The Reformation doctrines, such as the double imputation theory reduce the biblical God down to a nominalist brute who acts to cause the Son of God to suffer for the sake of God the Father imputing sin and righteousness. Such imputation by the Father is very similar to the nominalist world of Occham, whereby even God can only legally name things, rather than act to restore the very nature of righteousness in a manner consistent with the righteousness of God. The nominalist god of the Reformers is only a god of the nominalist human mind that cannot act within nature to restore nature, for God can only nominate, rather than know all things and act with power within all things.

8) The Reformation causes denominationalism which is unbiblical, godless and inhuman. For denominationalism is from error, and error is not from God. Denominationalism is from error, as from men, which is then godless. And finally, denominationalism is inhuman for the system causes men to fall into sins of despair and indifferentism, or irrational fundamentalism concerning matters of the most importance - salvation.

9) The Reformation causes endless debates over matters of faith, whilst such matters of faith were settled long ago at church councils. The indifference of the Reformation to the authority of church councils logically leads to reducing the meaning of divine revelation down to who can best debate the meaning of divine revelation so as to win the debate. Such a position is incredulous.

10) The Reformation causes a false understanding of the sacraments as ordinances or only signs that do not act to cause grace. Such a false understanding of the sacraments causes many to be indifferent to sacramental theology and thereby forego the benefit of graces caused by the real sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church.

11) The Reformation causes a detachment of the believer to the teaching authority of the church. The detachment causes many believers to either overestimate their ability to have the truths contained within the deposit of faith, or underestimate their ability to know virtually anything of divine truth. The detachment caused by the Reformation is an outcome that makes the movement incredulous.

12) The Reformation promotes the notion that those without authority can usurp those who have legitimate authority whilst teaching the new Protestant faith provides a guarantee of salvation. Such a convoluted series of events and false guarantee of salvation makes the Reformation incredulous.

13) The Reformation repudiated many truths of faith that have a strong witness in church history whilst promoting several contradictory systems of belief. The two acts of ignoring prior universally held beliefs whilst promoting several competing Protestant belief systems is doubly incredulous.

14) The Reformation caused many denominations to form and then die off. The formation and later death of so many denominations show the Reformation causes division and the death of belief. Such actions infer the Reformation is incredulous.

15) The Reformation includes several diverse worship services invented by the reformers contrary to the well documented and well accepted Eucharistic liturgy that prior to the Reformation was taught to have been from God through the Christ event. The new and novel Protestant worship services not found in history prior to the Reformation infer the Protestant form of worship is of human origin. Such a problem means the Reformation is incredulous.

No comments:

Post a Comment