How the Reformation Trained Us to be Sceptics
Catholics and Protestants taught their people to doubt the other side. It was all too easy to conclude that all religions were equally true or equally false.
A lecture by Alec Ryrie, Gresham Professor of Divinity 1 November 2018
www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-an...
The Protestant Reformation confronted Europeans with a clamour of religious alternatives. Catholics and Protestants taught their people to doubt the other side's religion (while still believing their own) and taught them to be incredulous while maintaining that faith is a virtue.
This lecture will trace how, as Europe's religious landscape fractured, some people fell between the cracks. In long religious wars of attrition, it was all too easy to conclude that all religions were equally true, or equally false.
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This guy is a first-rate lecturer. I love how artfully he uses metaphor and simile.
Excellent thought-provoking. This is coming from a man who loves the gospel but has been unafraid to think and weigh. I am of the third persuasion - Christian.
A wonderful and enjoyable lecture.
Fascinating lecture. And what a great head of hair.
I love how provocative this lecture is.
Weird, I thought this got posted a couple weeks ago already.
Differing religious dogmas cannot all be correct. They can all be wrong.
As can atheism.
@@brendanbutler1238 But atheism is not a value system like religion. It is merely an observation on what is likely to be true.
I can only conclude that Prof Ryrie avoids quoting Luther, Calvin or other mainstream reformers because their writings do not support his thesis. The central argument about the mass was not about its credibility but about the unscriptural re-sacrificing of the Lord Jesus Christ by purely human priests.
The Mass isn’t a re-sacrifice
@@carsonianthegreat4672 I'm not sure what J Hume believes personally, but this isn't a bad representation of the Reformers' objections to the mass. The speaker in the video is not wrong though, if he is talking about people's religious attitudes and not a denomination's "official" position. In practice Reform Christians/Anglicans *did* mock transubstantiation as ridiculous and superstitious (I don't know about Lutherans since they are big believers in Real Presence), but that *wasn't* the Protestant theologians' officially stated objection to it; rather it was the notion that Christ was resacrificed in it (and that therefore you could at least in theory pay priests to say masses on behalf of people to "give them more grace"). Protestantism is all about a "direct connection between you and God"; justification based on "faith alone", so naturally the idea that you could say a mass on behalf of someone, especially one of the dead, is going to be an affront to them. No sacrifice, no ability to say a mass on behalf of someone, and therefore no ability to benefit monetarily from it; you have to be there recieving communion to benefit spiritually. The political and theological root of the reformation really was this: an objection to the idea that anyone but Christ could give you grace "by proxy" (a belief the Catholic Church asbolutely took advantage of). It explains the Protestant objections to purgatory, prayers to the saints, and adoration of the sacrament.
To medieval people reason meant intuition. Well then it's not reason, is it? calling a puddle an ocean does not mean you need a compass to cross it.
Disassembling the apparent connection of "all things" is to look for Reasons why those things are the Logical self-defining elements of Principle, in a Rigourous Observation of Why and How the Operating Function controls these apparent Laws of all inclusive Mind-body behaviours in the distributed generalization of Regulation that Exists. By Observation, the operational elements of Mind are in an apparent focus, to locus of regular behaviours Communicate by AM-FM Quantum Fields Modulation Mechanism of QM-Time, and not in an independent mechanism from the Primary Connection. It's a matter of degree in pulses of potential possibilities +/-, cause-effect, of Infinite-eternal life. Nomenclatures and Beliefs of Faith etc that develope in-dependent views of connection are logically fallacious abstraction. It's necessary to look at the glass and through it, (and see Reflection-resonance in the "Looking Glass"), everything is connected in Principle. Exemplify The Principle.
This guy is hilarious. "Catholics and Protestants taught their people to doubt the other side" Just a shame that they never doubted the entire concept of a deity in the first place. If "doubt" is taken seriousely, the fact that no deity ever has any demonstrable correlation with reality, is not something to brush under the carpet.
I find his view on what Catholic think incorrect. If you accept the Magisterium on reason then the mysteries may be difficult but not superstitious. If not being superstitious is number one then dont hold anything as true and you can't be wrong. Given the material view of the sciences for example human rights would seem like superstition. Not all of it he has a good lecture. But perhaps he is talking more how these arguments appeared to them not now that we have digested things. With Foxe he says it sounds gross birth sounds gross to many. So gross would not be an argument that followes through.