Protestantism: Critique and Debate Thread

scorpion said:
How do the Orthodox interpret the numerous verses that make reference to God's predestination of the elect? Because you can't just handwave those verses away or give them some transparently inaccurate interpretation. They're very clear in their language and meaning, and the theme is touched upon repeatedly in both the Gospels and the Epistles. Of course we can argue and speculate as to the nature of predestination/determinism vs. free will and how both concepts seem to exist simultaneously in scripture (I believe this is one of the topics that Paul refers to about us seeing through a glass darkly - such things are essentially impossible for us to understand from our human perspective and can only be reconciled in the omniscient mind of God which exists outside of space and time entirely).
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One point I'd like to add to this, which I think tends to get overlooked, is that when Scripture talks about predestination, like in Romans 11, it's not talking about God deciding the fate of the individual, but of collective groups - in this case, that of the nation of Israel. This is an important nuance that completely transforms how we think about this topic.

It might also explain why the debate about the particular concepts surrounding the Calvinistic conception of predestination never arose until the 16th century, in a historically novel time and place of post-Renaissance, early modern Western Europe, with an individualistic orientation that really never existed anywhere before that, and an entirely new way of encountering Scripture, the literate man reading his own printed copy of the Bible by himself in his study and thinking about what he was reading in very individualistic terms. Contrast to the communal, liturgical context in which virtually all people encountered Scripture before that.

With that understanding in mind, a lot of the contentious framing of this subject falls apart.
 
The problems with the "election of the group" but not election of the individual argument are both Scriptural and logical, and in this case, historical as well.

Scripturally, Romans 9 applies election and reprobation to individuals. Jacob I loved, Esau I hated. I hardened Pharoahs heart, etc.

Logically, if every Jew is reprobate, then why are so many Jews saved and believing in the New Testament? Also, the Church is Elect, but not everyone who is in a church is, which underscores the spiritual reality of the invisible Church, who are the Elect. If the Church as a whole is Elect, that may not be true if every individual in it has the capacity to walk themselves out of the Church, thus no one is actually predestined to be saved. It's a pitting of the general against the particular, it's not both-and. It's also a feature of the less personal, less covenantal understanding of God that underscores such a view.

Historically, Augustine affirmed election of individuals just fine, over a thousand years before the Reformation.
 
One of the criticisms of Protestantism is how it allows everyone to be their own popes and decide on doctrines on their own without having to justify it with church teaching. I will grant that because of the way Protestantism is set up and particularly with the non-denominational churches that this tendency is more pronounced then with the Catholic and Orthodox. However, with the way the Western world is now with everyone being encouraged to do their own research and the general distrust of any sort of institutional authority both secular and ecclesiastical (which I will also grant was a result of the Protestant Reformation) this mentality has spread to pretty much everyone in the West and I don't think you can claim that Catholics and Orthodox are spared from this phenomena.

I'm sure we all know plenty of liberal Catholics that without shame go against church teachings on LGBT or other issues that offend the modern secular liberal consensus but this happens from the opposite end as well. I'll present as an example this thread that was claiming Western Europeans are the lost tribes of Israel https://christisking.cc/threads/10-lost-tribes-we-wuz-kangs-bruh.825 One of the biggest proponents of this theory on this forum is a self-identified trad Catholic who is against the modernist innovations in the Catholic church but is introducing a theory that is much more of a theological innovation than say performing Mass in a vernacular language instead of Latin

The other people who were jumping in agreement with this theory were Orthodox members of this forum. Keep in mind pretty much every Orthodox member of this forum is going to be of the more "based" type rather than the ones that mostly only identify as Orthodox because of ethnic/cultural considerations. In other words these are the type of Orthodox who are going to refer to ecumenical councils and church father teachings to justify whatever theological position they are taking. However, in arguing for the "Europeans are the true Israelites" theory they are not citing any sort of Church Fathers but instead is citing St. GroyperMaxxing of Bitchute. They are also using their own Biblical interpretations as supporting arguments for their position which strikes me as very Protestant. I asked the Catholic and Orthodox members in that thread the sort of views the were espousing in the thread haven't been taught by the teachers in their churches and the responses they were giving me seemed to be them telling me they as laypeople somehow managed to stumble on some sort of teaching that their bishops and saints had failed to discover despite the huge theological seismic shift that would take place if they were true. If I wanted to be more cheeky I would suggest that they must view themselves as some sort of red-pilled version of Luther or Calvin trying to red pill Catholic or Orthodox church.
 
Wutang said:
One of the criticisms of Protestantism is how it allows everyone to be their own popes and decide on doctrines on their own without having to justify it with church teaching. I will grant that because of the way Protestantism is set up and particularly with the non-denominational churches that this tendency is more pronounced then with the Catholic and Orthodox. However, with the way the Western world is now with everyone being encouraged to do their own research and the general distrust of any sort of institutional authority both secular and ecclesiastical (which I will also grant was a result of the Protestant Reformation) this mentality has spread to pretty much everyone in the West and I don't think you can claim that Catholics and Orthodox are spared from this phenomena.

I'm sure we all know plenty of liberal Catholics that without shame go against church teachings on LGBT or other issues that offend the modern secular liberal consensus but this happens from the opposite end as well. I'll present as an example this thread that was claiming Western Europeans are the lost tribes of Israel https://christisking.cc/threads/10-lost-tribes-we-wuz-kangs-bruh.825 One of the biggest proponents of this theory on this forum is a self-identified trad Catholic who is against the modernist innovations in the Catholic church but is introducing a theory that is much more of a theological innovation than say performing Mass in a vernacular language instead of Latin

The other people who were jumping in agreement with this theory were Orthodox members of this forum. Keep in mind pretty much every Orthodox member of this forum is going to be of the more "based" type rather than the ones that mostly only identify as Orthodox because of ethnic/cultural considerations. In other words these are the type of Orthodox who are going to refer to ecumenical councils and church father teachings to justify whatever theological position they are taking. However, in arguing for the "Europeans are the true Israelites" theory they are not citing any sort of Church Fathers but instead is citing St. GroyperMaxxing of Bitchute. They are also using their own Biblical interpretations as supporting arguments for their position which strikes me as very Protestant. I asked the Catholic and Orthodox members in that thread the sort of views the were espousing in the thread haven't been taught by the teachers in their churches and the responses they were giving me seemed to be them telling me they as laypeople somehow managed to stumble on some sort of teaching that their bishops and saints had failed to discover despite the huge theological seismic shift that would take place if they were true. If I wanted to be more cheeky I would suggest that they must view themselves as some sort of red-pilled version of Luther or Calvin trying to red pill Catholic or Orthodox church.
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These guys are are a fringe and are rightfully called out by the normal members of Catholicism or Orthodoxy. Music in particular who spends an absurd amount of time online reading and writing lies he is either paid to write, or utterly deceived into writing, does not represent anyone except himself.
 
While I owe my Christianity to Protestantism, my current thoughts have me wondering if Christian Zionism would have ever developed had Protestantism never occurred. Because of the JQ as discussed here and all the adjacent rabbit-holes one can go down concerning the Synagogue of Satan, it seems the troubles that have arisen due to Protestantism were ultimately not worth the benefits (like bringing African slaves over). I sense Protestantism led to superstar preachers which led to the powerful surge of Christian Zionism and eschatology preaching we have now. The only way out is to wait for millions of people to die from old age, but it seems the damage is already done.
 
Wutang said:
One of the criticisms of Protestantism is how it allows everyone to be their own popes and decide on doctrines on their own without having to justify it with church teaching. I will grant that because of the way Protestantism is set up and particularly with the non-denominational churches that this tendency is more pronounced then with the Catholic and Orthodox. However, with the way the Western world is now with everyone being encouraged to do their own research and the general distrust of any sort of institutional authority both secular and ecclesiastical (which I will also grant was a result of the Protestant Reformation) this mentality has spread to pretty much everyone in the West and I don't think you can claim that Catholics and Orthodox are spared from this phenomena.

I'm sure we all know plenty of liberal Catholics that without shame go against church teachings on LGBT or other issues that offend the modern secular liberal consensus but this happens from the opposite end as well. I'll present as an example this thread that was claiming Western Europeans are the lost tribes of Israel https://christisking.cc/threads/10-lost-tribes-we-wuz-kangs-bruh.825 One of the biggest proponents of this theory on this forum is a self-identified trad Catholic who is against the modernist innovations in the Catholic church but is introducing a theory that is much more of a theological innovation than say performing Mass in a vernacular language instead of Latin

The other people who were jumping in agreement with this theory were Orthodox members of this forum. Keep in mind pretty much every Orthodox member of this forum is going to be of the more "based" type rather than the ones that mostly only identify as Orthodox because of ethnic/cultural considerations. In other words these are the type of Orthodox who are going to refer to ecumenical councils and church father teachings to justify whatever theological position they are taking. However, in arguing for the "Europeans are the true Israelites" theory they are not citing any sort of Church Fathers but instead is citing St. GroyperMaxxing of Bitchute. They are also using their own Biblical interpretations as supporting arguments for their position which strikes me as very Protestant. I asked the Catholic and Orthodox members in that thread the sort of views the were espousing in the thread haven't been taught by the teachers in their churches and the responses they were giving me seemed to be them telling me they as laypeople somehow managed to stumble on some sort of teaching that their bishops and saints had failed to discover despite the huge theological seismic shift that would take place if they were true. If I wanted to be more cheeky I would suggest that they must view themselves as some sort of red-pilled version of Luther or Calvin trying to red pill Catholic or Orthodox church.
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God is not dealing with us and the world based on who is the race of the Israelites, the Jews rejected Christ and were cut off from God according to the teachings of the church and also the bible, an example is Romans 11, Gods people is the church which is all nations, whoever gets baptised and receives Christ, this also applies to the jews if they also get baptised then they will become Gods people.
 
thinkreadwritecode said:
While I owe my Christianity to Protestantism, my current thoughts have me wondering if Christian Zionism would have ever developed had Protestantism never occurred. Because of the JQ as discussed here and all the adjacent rabbit-holes one can go down concerning the Synagogue of Satan, it seems the troubles that have arisen due to Protestantism were ultimately not worth the benefits (like bringing African slaves over). I sense Protestantism led to superstar preachers which led to the powerful surge of Christian Zionism and eschatology preaching we have now. The only way out is to wait for millions of people to die from old age, but it seems the damage is already done.
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The early Christians never believed that the jews were the choosen people of God the way modern protestants do and actually regarded them as enemies of Christianity, there were even laws in Christian lands forbidding Jews from holding positions of authority like government or teachers.
 
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