Tag: Church

The body makes is possible for the soul to be saved through the sacraments of the Church

And since the soul is, in consequence of its salvation, chosen to the service of God, it is the flesh which actually renders it capable of such service. The flesh, indeed, is washed, in order that the soul may be cleansed; the flesh is anointed, that the soul may be consecrated; the flesh is signed (with the cross), that the soul too may be fortified; the flesh is shadowed with the imposition of hands, that the soul also maybe illuminated by the Spirit; the flesh feeds on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul likewise may fatten on its God. They cannot then be separated in their recompense, when they are united in their service. Those sacrifices, moreover, which are acceptable to God—I mean conflicts of the soul, fastings, and abstinences, and the humiliations which are annexed to such duty—it is the flesh which performs again and again to its own especial suffering.  Virginity, likewise, and widowhood, and the modest restraint in secret on the marriage-bed, and the one only adoption of it, are fragrant offerings to God paid out of the good services of the flesh.

Tertullian 
On the Resurrection of the Flesh
Chapter VIII

The 2nd century Church prayed toward the east and worshipped on Sunday

Others, with greater regard to good manners, it must be confessed, suppose that the sun is the god of the Christians, because it is a well-known fact that we pray towards the east, or because we make Sunday a day of festivity.

Tertullian
Ad Nationes, Book I
Chapter XIII

The Lutherans saw their movement as not having introduced any innovations but only correcting abuses

Inasmuch, then, as our churches dissent in no article of the faith from the Church Catholic, but only omit some abuses which are new, and which have been erroneously accepted by the corruption of the times, contrary to the intent of the Canons, we pray that Your Imperial Majesty would graciously hear both what has been changed, and what were the reasons why the people were not compelled to observe those abuses against their conscience.

Augsburg Confession
Article XXI.X

Luther appeals to the long held Catholic tradition of the sacraments as an interpretive guide to the real presence

a. Moreover, this article is no doctrine or fixture (auff satz) dreamt up by men apart from Scripture, but is clearly established and founded in the Gospel through luminous, pure, undoubted words of Christ, and has been unanimously believed and held in all the world from the outset of the Christian church to this hour, as is proved by the books and writings of the dear Fathers of both Greek and Latin language and also by daily custom and the work of experience to this hour. This testimony of the entire holy Christian church (assuming we had no more than it) should alone suffice to attach us to this article and to move us neither to hear nor to tolerate any factious spirit on this matter. For it is a perilous and dreadful thing to hear or believe anything against the unanimous testimony, belief, and doctrine of the entire holy Christian church.

b. It would be a very dangerous to conclude that for so many hundreds of years the Church across all of Christendom did not have the right understanding of the sacrament.

Martin Luther
a. Letter to Duke Albrecht of Prussia, 1532
b. Opinion of 17 December 1534

The irony of pitting the Bible against the Church

Another aspect of the divine irony that we have seen repeatedly in the history of the use of the Bible within both Judaism and Christianity is that the Bible being used as a weapon against church and tradition had itself come from the arsenal of the church and had been preserved and protected by the tradition.

Jaroslav Pelikan
Whose Bible Is It?
The Bible Only

Progress is gradual and always builds off of a foundation

The dichotomy between tradition and insight breaks down under the weight of history itself. A “leap of progress” is not a standing broad jump, which begins at the line of where we are now; it is a running broad jump through where we have been to where we go next.

…The growth of insight — in science, in the arts, in philosophy, in theology— has not come through progressively sloughing off more and more of tradition, as though insight would be purest and deepest when it has finally freed itself of the dead past. It simply has not worked that way in the history of tradition and it does not work that way now.

Jaroslav Pelikan
The Vindication of Tradition

The nature of the Christian to the Church is that of a child to a parent

We do well to recognize as infantile an attitude toward our parents that regards them as all wise or all powerful and that is blind to their human foibles. But we must recognize no less that it is adolescent, once we have discovered those foibles, to deny our parents the respect and reverence that is their due for having been, under God, the means through which has come the only life we have.

Jaroslav Pelikan
The Vindication of Tradition

Luther viewed himself as not bound by any form of Church authority

“I answer”, replied Luther, “that God once spoke through the mouth of an ass. I will tell you what I think. I am a Christian theologian and I am bound not only to assert but to defend the truth with my blood and death. I want to believe freely and to be a slave to no one, whether a council, university, or pope. I will confidently confess what appears to me to be true, whether it has been asserted by a Catholic or a heretic, whether it has been approved or reproved by counsel.”

Martin Luther
The Leipzig Debate, 1519

Luther did not want to bring schism on the Church

I do not like and I never shall like a schism. Since on their own authority the Bohemians have separated from our unity, they have done wrong, even if the Divine right had pronounced in favor of their doctrines; for the supreme Divine right is charity and oneness of mind.

…I repulse the charge of Bohemianism. I have never approved of their schism. Even though they had divine right on their side, they ought nor to have withdrawn from the Church, because the highest divine right is unity and charity.”

Martin Luther
Debate in Leipzig between Luther and Eck
July 4th, 1519