Is Western Liberal Democracy inherently anti-Christ or Satanic?

[Helmut-WK]

Democracy sounds great, but it can be dangerous without any checks and balances.

Without check and balance, it is no democracy. Even dictators like Hitler or Putin used elements that look democratic at first glance - elections, referendums, huge demonstration marchs …

 

[Simon_Templar]

Background to my upcoming opinions.

I was raised non-denominational Protestant, and was in that tradition until I was in my 30's. We were patriotic evangelicals who believed that The United States was specially founded by God's will to be a beacon, a "city set on a hill" of Christian society to the world. The Founding Fathers were something akin to our version of the saints. (I exaggerate a bit for effect, but not too far off).

In my 30's circumstances lead me to a rediscovery of the historic Christian faith, and the history of the Church and early Christianity, that I literally didn't even know existed. That lead me on a journey of studying both Christian history (as in the historical doctrines and practices) and also studying the history of Western Civilization in general, particularly the development of the western intellectual tradition.

Eventually I became Catholic, and I also discovered that my previous view of history was considerably off-base.

The reason for this is that most history that has been taught in schools for the last 150 years was built upon the histories originally written during the "Age of Enlightenment". The histories born in that era have several key features. They are moderately biased against Christianity in general, and are heavily biased against Catholicism, and extremely heavily biased against the Medieval period of history. Interestingly they tend to have a moderately pro-Islam bias.

Some of this has begun to be corrected by some historians within the last few decades, and the exposure of the bias involved in Medieval history in particular has become more common.



The first big principle that I discovered is that there is a basic continuity between Ancient and Medieval thought and worldview. This continuity was destroyed by the ideas that would produce the Modern world. (modern here is used in the historic sense, thus meaning beginning around 1600 AD)

The Enlightenment thinkers held the view that the ancient classical period was an age of intellect and wisdom, which then was destroyed by superstitious Christianity (particularly Catholic Christianity) and collapsed into the "dark ages". They believed the "renaissance" marked a rebirth of the old classical brilliance, which in turn produced the Enlightenment (their own era). This is why they called the time between Ancient classical culture and the Enlightenment the "middle ages" or the "dark ages".

In reality, however, the intellectual life of Europe in the Medieval period (500 AD to 1400 AD for my purposes) was much more connected to the Ancient past, than anything in the modern era.

Modern thought was a massive departure from ancient thought in almost every way. Modern philosophy rejects almost everything from ancient classical philosophy etc.

So why do I bring this up?
Well, not to anger my Protestant brothers, but, one of the things I began to realize as I studied was that the Protestant Reformation was not at all what I had been taught it was.

Most Protestants are taught (if they are taught anything about the Reformation) that the Reformation was caused because guys like Martin Luther and John Calvin went back to the Bible and realized how much unbiblical stuff the Catholics had added. This is not the case at all.

The reality was that the changes that were happening in the intellectual life of Europe produced a massive break with the past and people began to think and to see the world totally differently. That included how they saw the Bible and Christianity.

Prior to the Reformation there was a philosophical/theological movement in the Catholic Universities of Europe called the "Via Moderna" the "Modern Way" which was opposed by the "Via Antiqua" or "Ancient Way". The Via Moderna began in the 1400's AD and it was in turn based off of philosophical / theological ideas that became popular at the end of the 1300's, Nominalism, Voluntarism, Caesero-papism, and Duplex-Veritas.

If anyone is interested I can talk more about those things, or you can feel free to look them up for yourself.

In any case, it was those shifts in philosophy and theology that would eventually produce the Reformation.

What this means, is that Protestantism is, at its core, a Modernist reinterpretation of Christianity. This is why a Protestant and say an Eastern Orthodox, or a Coptic Orthodox, or a Catholic, or even sometimes a Lutheran or an Anglican, can look at the same Bible and come to totally different understandings of it. They are looking at it from a completely different frame of reference, and seeing it through an entirely different worldview.

This is also true politically as well. The idea of the modern Republic, or "western Liberal Democracy" is a direct child of the Modernity.
In fact, the very concept of "The State" as an abstract entity or "the Government" with a capital G as an abstract entity that represent the abstract "people" did not exist before the Modern era. That idea, known as the "Nation State" is generally held by historians to have begun with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.

Before this point there was no concept that an abstract "nation" like Germany, made up of all German speaking people, ought to have it's own political entity "the German State". Prior to that point it was much more organic, and basically all social relationships were based off of familial relationships and covenant relationships.

The Enlightenment was named virtually the opposite of what it actually was. Virtually everything coming out of the Enlightenment was either overtly bad, or it was poisoned by bad philosophy such that it could not last.

Another of the major lessons I have learned is that Modern thought and philosophy leads inevitably to where we are today. We didn't get here just because somethings went wrong, the seeds of our destruction were sown hundreds of years ago. It is simply that Christendom took this long to fully destroy.

One of the major effects of modernist politics, then advanced by the Enlightenment was that it created the age of revolution. Prior to the modern era, revolutions were exceedingly rare in history.

From 1776 through to the 20th century revolutions become very common. In fact, virtually all of current day politics are essentially definable as the moderate revolutionaries (the conservatives) fighting against the radical revolutionaries (the leftists). In this formulation the "conservatives" of today are essentially what's left of the "classical liberals" back in the 18th to 19th centuries. Essentially all post WW1 politics are revolutionary politics.

I don't want to continue rambling too much, so I'll end this part with a book recommendation "Ideas Have Consequences" by Richard Weaver.

Then I'll add this note. There are a few basic principles that we desperately need to recover if we want to have good societies.
#1 - Solidarity and Subsidiarity
Solidarity means we are all in this together and we can't have a healthy society based on individualistic isolation. The core unit of society, as designed by God is not the individual, it is the family. We are relational beings by nature and no society built on breaking relational bonds and obligations or disregarding them can ever flourish, or help its people to flourish.

Subsidiarity means that all social relationships and all government should be handled at the lowest level possible. In other words, the Federal Government does not do what the State is capable of doing. The State does not do what the County is able to do. The County does not do what the town is capable of doing, the town does not do what the family is capable of doing. Authority and ownership must be kept as close to the people as possible. Excessive centralization of power always has noxious, poisonous results in the long run.

#2 - Giving people representation in government, and the ability to choose, particularly their magistrates is good. It does not, however, prevent overreach. One of the biggest misconceptions Americans have been taught is that voting is what keeps our rights in place, and protects us from government overreach. Voting is FAR less important than how much direct control the government has over your life. A person ruled by a hereditary King, is much more free, if that King can't control their daily life, than they are if they are ruled by a President whom they elect, who can control their daily life. Control and the lack thereof is much more important than representation.

#3 - In order to be healthy and to foster human flourishing and society MUST have a unifying principle that holds it together. Nations down through history have relied on things like patriotism, national identity, shared cultural values, etc. Ultimately, as Christians, we know and history tends to confirm that the best unifying principle is the Christian religion. All the other things mentioned above are good, but they are not the highest good and when you make them the highest good, they cause problems.

This does not mean that you cannot have freedom of religion. I would argue that Christian theology demands freedom of religion. It does, however, mean that a nation that fosters religious pluralism is sewing the seeds of its own destruction. We don't need to legislate Christianity, but the society should encourage it. We don't need to force or to punish those who aren't Christians, but we should not deliberately remove Christianity from the society, and we should support Christianity as a public good.

#4 - No society can survive without strong tradition. One of the fatal flaws of the Enlightenment was the worship of Reason. I am a big fan of reason, but there are two key things that have to be remembered. Reason is not the highest good, and whenever you make something into the highest good that ought not be, it destroys itself and probably you in the process. Second, the simple fact of human nature is that the majority of people will never live solely by reason. This isn't a negative commentary, it is the reality that most human beings are not called to be intellectuals. I believe everyone ought to pursue knowledge as their vocation allows, and everyone ought to pursue wisdom in the context of their vocation, but the fact is that Enlightenment ideal of living completely by reason is unreasonable and simply not possible given human nature.

The reality is that the vast majority of people depend upon tradition, that is the received wisdom and knowledge of their ancestors, to understand the world and to live. We ought to have intellectuals who's job it is to preserve, tend, and grow that deposit, and to prune it when necessary. Just like we need farmers and engineers etc.

Further, no law or document, not even a Constitution, can survive and remain in force once the people have stopped believing in it. The only reason a Constitution matters, is because its ideas have been enshrined in the people's mind as tradition. Without that, the document will not last. No law can last unless it is in the people's hearts and minds as tradition.

 

[Helmut-WK]

Background to my upcoming opinions.

Interesting.

We were patriotic evangelicals who believed that The United States was specially founded by God's will to be a beacon, a "city set on a hill" of Christian society to the world.

Being non-US evangelical, such sort of thinking always disturbs me - how can one claim to be evangelical and at the same time have an almost idolatrous relation to the nation one lives in?

The Founding Fathers were something akin to our version of the saints.

In Germany, it was Luther.

The reason for this is that most history that has been taught in schools for the last 150 years was built upon the histories originally written during the "Age of Enlightenment". The histories born in that era have several key features. They are moderately biased against Christianity in general, and are heavily biased against Catholicism, and extremely heavily biased against the Medieval period of history. Interestingly they tend to have a moderately pro-Islam bias.

There is truth in it, but your view now is biased somewhat pro-catholic.

The first big principle that I discovered is that there is a basic continuity between Ancient and Medieval thought and worldview. This continuity was destroyed by the ideas that would produce the Modern world. (modern here is used in the historic sense, thus meaning beginning around 1600 AD)

There has been a cultural break-down in late antiquity, related to the so-called migration period. Much knowledge was lost. In the medieval times, the old philosophers and other writers were known to Europe were largely through Latin translations from Arabic.

After the capture of Byzantium, Greek Manuscripts came to Italy, so the Greek writers could now be read in (and translated from) the original version. And there were more authors, which had been not known to the West. This produced a cultural revolution (the so-called renaissance), and it was this era when the notion of »dark ages« was built by the the humanists. This was after 1453, so more than a century earlier than you said.

They believed the "renaissance" marked a rebirth of the old classical brilliance,

This was taken over from the »renaissance«. The thinkers of the renaissance were proud to use the very language of Cicero, Plato and other ancient authors, and despised the Latin which has been developed in the Middle ages. In the long run, this attitude made Latin a dead language …

Most Protestants are taught (if they are taught anything about the Reformation) that the Reformation was caused because guys like Martin Luther and John Calvin went back to the Bible and realized how much unbiblical stuff the Catholics had added. This is not the case at all.

Here you become one-sided.

The reality was that the changes that were happening in the intellectual life of Europe produced a massive break with the past and people began to think and to see the world totally differently. That included how they saw the Bible and Christianity.

Prior to the Reformation there was a philosophical/theological movement in the Catholic Universities of Europe called the "Via Moderna" the "Modern Way" which was opposed by the "Via Antiqua" or "Ancient Way". The Via Moderna began in the 1400's AD and it was in turn based off of philosophical / theological ideas that became popular at the end of the 1300's, Nominalism, Voluntarism, Caesero-papism, and Duplex-Veritas.

In 1518, an anonymous person sent Luther a copy of a (Latin) work from Jan Hus, in a reaction to a remark of Luther who said Hus was a heretic (he was told so in his studies). Luther read and discovered that much of what he said had been said before by Hus, and that this guy was not a heretic against the Christian faith, but rather defended it against the then corruption of the church.

Hus was a student of John Wycliffe (1328-84), so the notion of a corrupt church with false doctrines was much earlier than the Reformation, even earlier than the renaissance or the via moderna. Up to a point, the reformation was a sort of protest against such modern views (this is especially true of Wycliffe).

In any case, it was those shifts in philosophy and theology that would eventually produce the Reformation.

I showed that this notion is wrong, in the best case partially true.

This is also true politically as well. The idea of the modern Republic, or "western Liberal Democracy" is a direct child of the Modernity.
In fact, the very concept of "The State" as an abstract entity or "the Government" with a capital G as an abstract entity that represent the abstract "people" did not exist before the Modern era. That idea, known as the "Nation State" is generally held by historians to have begun with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.

No.

The treaty of Westphalia had the notion of sovereign rulers within the so called Holy Roman Empire (later known as German Reich). A German nation state was no concept in this treaty, nor any other nation State.

The concept of a nation state emerged in France, the first step was in the so-called hundred-years war, which resulted in a victory of France over England, and a strong king of France. The full emergence of nation state came with the French revolution, the nationalism was used first by the Jacobin radicals, then by Napoleon, and this produced a nationalistic reaction in Germany and other countries.

Much of the emotions created in religious wars (especially between protestants and Catholics) was transformed into nationalism, you can see this link up to now, e.g. in Northern Ireland, or former Yugoslavia.

The Enlightenment was named virtually the opposite of what it actually was. Virtually everything coming out of the Enlightenment was either overtly bad, or it was poisoned by bad philosophy such that it could not last.

You forget the superstition that was largely overcome by the enlightenment. As anything, enlightenment had good and bad aspects. You flung from seeing only the good ones to seeing only the bad ones.

One of the major effects of modernist politics, then advanced by the Enlightenment was that it created the age of revolution. Prior to the modern era, revolutions were exceedingly rare in history.

You underestimate the number of revolutions in pre-modern times. There are revolution that are not well-known - it was a revolution that opened the way to Babylon for Cyrus, another revolution in Egypt opened the way into Africa for the Arabs, and yet another revolution in 750 AD turned the so-called »early Islam« into Islam as we know it. Just some haphazard examples. And there are certainly revolutions we (and all historians) have heard nothing about. We know more about modern times than about pre-modern times, for obvious reasons.

Revolutions occur ẃhen the government is weak. The strength of a government is power to control (police etc.), power to satisfy the needs of the people (famines are notorious causes for revolts), and legitimation from an accepted world view. When there is no common world-view, revolutions get more frequent. It is no coincident that the big peasant's revolts in England 1381 and Germany 1525 came after the preaching of Protestantism in these countries: The ruler's claim to be Godly appointed was shaken.

We have more revolutions since about 1520, or 1789, or about 1880, enlightenment plays only a role in the second »wave«.

Essentially all post WW1 politics are revolutionary politics.

I always think it is an error to call a movement or state revolutionary when the last revolution linked to it is more than a generation ago.

Then I'll add this note. There are a few basic principles that we desperately need to recover if we want to have good societies.

OK …

#1 - Solidarity and Subsidiarity

Agreed.

#2 - Giving people representation in government, and the ability to choose, particularly their magistrates is good. It does not, however, prevent overreach. One of the biggest misconceptions Americans have been taught is that voting is what keeps our rights in place, and protects us from government overreach. Voting is FAR less important than how much direct control the government has over your life.

Wrong alternative. The far most important factor is a system of divided power (or »check and balance« in US terminology). The oldest concept of that was the division between King, Parliament, and independent Judges …

Any good government can turn bad if there is no control.

#3 - In order to be healthy and to foster human flourishing and society MUST have a unifying principle that holds it together.

In other words, a common ideology.

Ultimately, as Christians, we know and history tends to confirm that the best unifying principle is the Christian religion. All the other things mentioned above are good, but they are not the highest good and when you make them the highest good, they cause problems.

We have no promise that everyone will become a Christian, and history shows that countries that tried to install Christianity as a state religion produced bad Christians, or even baptized non-Christians that only had the names of being Christian.

I would argue that Christian theology demands freedom of religion.

I'm glad that you don't reject this Baptist idea (it was condemned by the Popes until mid-20th-century!). According to what you wrote above, you should oppose to religious freedom (fully practiced first in Rhode Island colony, made an amendment because of baptist and Quaker activists).

We don't need to force or to punish those who aren't Christians, but we should not deliberately remove Christianity from the society, and we should support Christianity as a public good.

The problem is: Where is the limit, when does support turn into coercion?

#4 - No society can survive without strong tradition.

Agreed. I could add more comments to that, but this would make things too complicated. …

Further, no law or document, not even a Constitution, can survive and remain in force once the people have stopped believing in it. The only reason a Constitution matters, is because its ideas have been enshrined in the people's mind as tradition. Without that, the document will not last. No law can last unless it is in the people's hearts and minds as tradition.

A lesson we Germans learned in 1933. But I fear our younger generation has forgotten it …

EDIT: Mended some typos

 

[Simon_Templar]

There is truth in it, but your view now is biased somewhat pro-catholic.

I'm sure I am. One of the basic realities of human nature is that it is impossible to escape bias. The closest we can come is to be aware of our biases and to try to remind ourselves of them.

The most biased people in the world, are those who think they are not biased.
This has actually become my biggest pet peeve when talking to many Protestants. The extremely common attitude that they just take their view of scripture as simply what scripture means. There is no question of bias or interpretation. They are just right and everything they believe comes right from the Bible.

There has been a cultural break-down in late antiquity, related to the so-called migration period. Much knowledge was lost. In the medieval times, the old philosophers and other writers were known to Europe were largely through Latin translations from Arabic.

After the capture of Byzantium, Greek Manuscripts came to Italy, so the Greek writers could now be read in (and translated from) the original version. And there were more authors, which had been not known to the West. This produced a cultural revolution (the so-called renaissance), and it was this era when the notion of »dark ages« was built by the the humanists. This was after 1453, so more than a century earlier than you said.

The break down of late antiquity was real, caused by plague, endemic war, leading to mass migration and resulting collapse of Roman administrative and economic infrastructure. However the change in philosophy and worldview was nothing remotely like the change that happens going from Medieval to Modern.

It is true that many of the sources of classical knowledge were lost, particularly Aristotle, but not all. The Medieval mind was still extremely heavily based on the surviving Platonic documents, even though some of these were only fragments that were preserved in commentary from other authors etc.

If you want a good overview of this, I would recommend C.S. Lewis' book The Discarded Image. It is based off of the lectures that he gave to his Medieval Literature students preparing them to read medieval literature by giving them a crash course in Medieval thought, cosmology, and worldview.

I don't mean to say that the Medievals were exactly like the Ancients. There obviously was development and change. The Medieval Mind was not exactly the same as the Ancient Mind, but there was a basic continuity of thought and belief. They had the same fundamental beliefs about the world and the nature of reality, and those formed the basis of everything else.

The Aristotelian works were rediscovered in the 13th century through contact with the Islamic world, particularly Averroes in Spain. This produced an immediate reaction in the Scholastic community (the Christian universities of Europe). This reaction included not only those who wanted to redefine Christianity based on Aristotle, but also a strain of Islamic influence that creeps in as well.

Thomas Aquinas basically refuted those scholars who were too heavily influenced by Averroes and he reconciled Aristotle and Plato with Christian doctrine, producing what is, to this day, viewed by many as almost definitive Catholic thought. this isn't quite right because Catholic thought is much broader and multifaceted, but absolutely Thomas was and is a central figure in Catholic thought.

The destruction of medieval thought began within a generation of Thomas Aquinas' death. By the mid to late 1300's William of Ockham, Marsilius of Padua, and their fellows introduced the ideas that would pave the way of Modernism, and destroy medieval and ancient thought.

One of the changes that usually goes unnoticed in this process was the change in how language was taught at the universities. Prior to this time Metaphysics had been the dominant branch of philosophy and language was taught based on metaphysical thought. The idea being that words are properly related to things, that words are almost incarnational. The thing is present in the word. This relates to Platonic/Aristotelian/Thomistic concepts of how the Forms are present in the intellect etc.

Around this time, Logic began to supplant Metaphysics as the dominant or foundational discipline in philosophy, especially at Oxford. This began to change how language was taught. Instead of thinking that words are directly tied to things, words began to be viewed as essentially logical tokens which were either validly used or invalidly used.

This, together with Nominalism, which lead to words being viewed as only labels that are applied to things only by human convention degraded our whole concept of language and though mostly overlooked, was absolutely foundational to the change of thought that happened.

The influence of Islam also showed up in the rise of Voluntarism. Basically resulting in the view that God's sovereignty means that his decisions, including what is good and what is evil, are totally arbitrary, simply resulting from whatever God happened to choose.

William of Ockham, for instance taught that God could have made murder good, and could have made martyrdom sinful. He could have made us hate a virtue instead of love, and could have ordered us to hate him. This idea, in particular radically changed views on how salvation worked.

It would probably not be correct to say that most of these ideas had never existed before, but they had never been the mainstream before for certain. They radically changed how the world was viewed. Keep in mind that this was in the 1300's Before the Renaissance really got rolling and certainly before the switchover to modernity. But they laid the foundation. They essentially destroyed what went before.

For example, Luther considered himself to be a devoted student of William of Ockham and even referred to Ockham as his master.

Nominalism and Voluntarism alone were earth-shattering. But you also have the origin of the modern conflict between science and religion. Both William and Marsilius promoted the idea of duplex veritas "two truths". They argued that there could be religious truths of faith, which contradicted the truths of natural philosophy known by reason and observation, and that both could be believed simultaneously.

This was the beginning which would eventually lead to the secularist dismissal of the supernatural as "superstition".

The renaissance was a further nail in the coffin, because of its obsession with elegance and style over substance. As you mention the scholars of the renaissance, fell in love with the Latin style of Cicero and the other classical era writers. They loved the poetics, etc. Nothing wrong with that of course, but it lead them to mock and dismiss the intellectual work of the medieval scholars simply because the Latin was clunky and inelegant. In education they tended to replace philosophy with poetics and the like.

By the time you get to the 1500's you have large movements going on in the Universities of Europe that don't resemble orthodox Catholicism at all.

For example, most people don't realize that the doctrine of salvation that Luther reacted against, wasn't even what the Church taught. It was a new idea, born out of Voluntarism and the Via Moderna, which was being taught in the universities, and had particular control over the university where Luther was educated.

This view taught that it was impossible for man to bride the gap between God and man due to sin. So, because God could arbitrarily do whatever he wanted, they taught that God had put in place an economy of salvation that required man to "do his best" and then God would make up the difference, because man could never do enough.

This places all the emphasis on Man's action. It also puts you in an impossible quandary because any person really ever say "I did my best". Could you have prayed 1 minute more? Could you have given one more penny to charity? and so on. This is why Luther struggled so badly with scrupulosity and feared so much for his salvation.

His eventual break with this doctrine produced an overreaction that caused a break with the Church. Luther also, following his master Ockham also rejected Aristotle and Plato, which put him at odds with a variety of things, most importantly the Eucharist.

there would never have been a Luther, without Nominalism, Voluntarism, Duplex Veritas, Caesero-Papism, etc. These had nothing to do with the Bible, except in the sense that they influence how you understand it.

Here you become one-sided.

I would admit that I overstated the case deliberately for effect. I grew up Protestant, and my subsequent study showed me that I was basically lied to. Not literally, in that the people who taught me didn't realize that what they were teaching was unntrue. However, it is accurate to say that he Protestant version of these events is heavily augmented by myth. The way protestants tell it is not accurate.

In reality both sides were arguing from scripture. The point I am attempting to get across, admittedly using some exaggeration is that the common notion that the Protestants just returned to the Bible and the Catholic teachings were all just accretions that ignored and contradicted the Bible is false.

There were, of course, legitimate complaints against the Church at the time. Even the Catholics of the time admitted this.

One of the things that ultimately was most influential in my returning to the Catholic Church was that I saw how much sense Catholic Teaching made biblically. It fit so much better with and made so much more sense of the Bible. One of the reason I had begun to look towards leaving my church tradition that I grew up in was because I began to run into questions about things that I was reading in the bible that no one could answer and that just made no sense in the context of our doctrines. I began to see things that our doctrines just dismissed and ignored, that Catholic teaching made sense of.

As a result I am passionate about the fact that Catholic teaching IS biblical and is biblically accurate. Thus it has become a pet peeve that I constantly get the attitude from Protestants that Catholicism is just unbiblical and Catholics don't believe the bible and don't know the bible and if they did they'd just become Protestant.

I do tend to hold a similar view myself, originally stated by John Newman "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant". It is one thing to know historical facts and timelines. It is another to begin to put yourself into the thought and mind of historical cultures and try to see the world through their eyes. I am convinced that Protestantism can only exist because of our modern, and now post-modern worldview.

In 1518, an anonymous person sent Luther a copy of a (Latin) work from Jan Hus, in a reaction to a remark of Luther who said Hus was a heretic (he was told so in his studies). Luther read and discovered that much of what he said had been said before by Hus, and that this guy was not a heretic against the Christian faith, but rather defended it against the then corruption of the church.

Hus was a student of John Wycliffe (1328-84), so the notion of a corrupt church with false doctrines was much earlier than the Reformation, even earlier than the renaissance or the via moderna. Up to a point, the reformation was a sort of protest against such modern views (this is especially true of Wycliffe).

This is beside the point of the political conversation here, but one of the problems with Protestantism is that it makes ever person their own Pope. Catholics have one Pope. Protestants have a hundred million. My point being, why is Wycliffe or Hus right about what the Bible says? When I was a Protestant I literally spent years arguing with other Protestants and all of us were convinced that we had the correct understanding of scripture?

I have a high view of reason, but your own reason is not sufficient to understand scripture. Perhaps ironically the Bible itself showed me this. If you go through and look in the New Testament at all the cases where it says that OT prophecies were fulfilled and how they were fulfilled, I am 100% convinced that no human intellect would EVER have come up with those interpretations or properly understood those scriptures.

I was also raised Charismatic, so of course we believed that the Holy Spirit would give us understanding, and speak to us individually, etc. The problem there was that in my own church, which was tiny, we routinely had people conflicting, claiming that the Holy Spirit had told them completely opposite things... so who is the Spirit speaking to? any of them?

The Biblical answer to this conundrum is that the Church is imbued with authority to interpret, to teach, and to judge in such matters and the Holy Spirit leads the Church.

Regarding this history you point out and its bearing on my previous argument. I'm sure the Reformers were influenced by Hus and Wycliffe. But using Luther as an example... did he read Hus's letter before, or after he was taught at university? Was that letter formative on his entire worldview for years? or did it come after his worldview had already been formed?

I would submit that it is just as possible that he only agreed with Hus, because he had already had the foundation laid in his worldview.
But this, ultimately is exactly what I'm getting at. Protestants like to think that the Reformers were just drawing from forerunners like Wycliffe and Hus. In reality the ideas of William of Ockham and Marsilius of Padua had greater influence and more far reaching effects.

This is they mythology of the Reformation.

Of course, it is foolish to think that anything in history has one and only one cause. People and ideas are complex, there almost always many factors involved.

I showed that this notion is wrong, in the best case partially true.

I think I just showed that this notion is more true than you previously admitted.

CONTINIUED in another post, because I got too long winded...

 

[Simon_Templar]

The treaty of Westphalia had the notion of sovereign rulers within the so called Holy Roman Empire (later known as German Reich). A German nation state was no concept in this treaty, nor any other nation State.

The concept of a nation state emerged in France, the first step was in the so-called hundred-years war, which resulted in a victory of France over England, and a strong king of France. The full emergence of nation state came with the French revolution, the nationalism was used first by the Jacobin radicals, then by Napoleon, and this produced a nationalistic reaction in Germany and other countries.

Much of the emotions created in religious wars (especially between protestants and Catholics) was transformed into nationalism, you can see this link up to now, e.g. in Northern Ireland, or former Yugoslavia.

I didn't say that the Peace of Westphalia created Germany. Or at least I didn't intend to, what I meant was that the Peace of Westphalia was the first document that enshrined State sovereignty over it's land and it's people. This basically created the modern concept of "the State" and the states were linked to national identity because it created the idea that "the State" was the protector of people based on nationality.

I don't disagree with the notion that nationalism began to rise at this time as a sentiment. I don't think that contradicts what I said previously. At least not as I understood my own statement.

I would certainly agree that France and England both were the first unified Nation States, but I don't think that this limits the concept of the Nation state to them.

An example of the difference involved in thought on this can be seen in the titles of the French Kings. Prior to the French Revolution the title was "King of France", because Kingship was understood to be tied to the land. The King was the ruler of that land. After the Revolution when the Monarchy is restored the title "King of France" was replaced with "King of the French". The concept of the King as the Sovereign over the land was changed to the King as the acclaimed ruler of the people (ie the nation).

This marks a key transition that was going on, and I would say was probably only finished at that point, it certainly didn't begin there. The transition was from the idea of an organic relationship between people and land. The people were linked to the land where they lived. This was their "country". This defined their identity. The ruler was nominally the owner of the land, and he/she had direct ties to the people through the land. They had mutual duties and obligations to each other. The "rights and privileges" of each were based on ancestral practice. I have a right to this land because my ancestors lived here for generations. I have a right to gather resources from that forest because my ancestors have always gathered resources from that forest.

With the French Revolution it is a transition to abstract ideas rather than organic relationships. The Nation supplants The Country. My rights and privileges are no longer established by long tradition and ancestral practice, in other words, defined by my family. My rights become individual and abstract they are now "the rights of man". Instead of being concrete, they are determined by legal documents and as such can be changed by legal documents etc.

Most people today would undoubtedly think the later is much superior, and the former archaic and undesirable. I don't think either one is perfect, nothing involving humans ever is. However, I think that there is much that was lost when the old way was replaced and that the new way actually does much less for people than they think it does.

One of the ironies of Nationalism is that today Conservatives are mostly Nationalist and view Nationalism as good etc. In the heyday of Nationalism in the 19th century, nationalism had a great deal of crossover with socialism, and was a radical revolutionary ideology that was frequently at odds with Conservative Christian culture.

This is an example of how what was liberal and progressive in the past, becomes adopted by conservatives today. Thus conservatism of tomorrow will not resemble conservatism of today, it will be more like the liberalism of today.

You forget the superstition that was largely overcome by the enlightenment. As anything, enlightenment had good and bad aspects. You flung from seeing only the good ones to seeing only the bad ones.

Again, I don't doubt that you are correct. I am, perhaps, too used to the need to speak polemically to get anyone's attention. Reality is always nuanced and people almost always present it in an overly simplistic manner, because most people don't have the patience for nuance. They are conditioned to want simple messages that produce strong feeling.

However, I do believe and am trying to make the point that while the Enlightenment has been viewed even by Conservative Christians as almost like a Golden Era that produced our democracy and our society, it was in many was disasterous and it produced a society that had the seeds of its own destruction already sown in it.

It was better than today, certainly, in the same way that a cancerous tumor is better at it's beginning when it is small, than when it is full-grown.

But of course, science is a great example here. Science has done many great things for us. It would be foolish to say that science should simply be done away with. But scientism has also done massive harm to our culture and our society.

You underestimate the number of revolutions in pre-modern times. There are revolution that are not well-known - it was a revolution that opened the way to Babylon for Cyrus, another revolution in Egypt opened the way into Africa for the Arabs, and yet another revolution in 750 AD turned the so-called »early Islam« into Islam as we know it. Just some haphazard examples. And there are certainly revolutions we (and all historians) have heard nothing about. We know more about modern times than about pre-modern times, for obvious reasons.

This may be true. I may be incorrect.

I would offer this caveat though. I am tending to think of revolution in the sense where a people rise up and over throw their rulers in order to form a new social regime.

I would generally not consider this to be the same thing as a civil war between rival claimants to the throne, nor would I consider it to be the same thing as a conquered people trying to restore their country etc.

For example, the Roman revolution where the Roman King was overthrown and the Roman Republic was created, I would consider to be a revolution in the sense that I am thinking of.

I would not consider the Civil wars of Rome between Sulla and the Grachii or between Antony and Octavian, to be revolutions in the sense that I am thinking of.

I always think it is an error to call a movement or state revolutionary when the last revolution linked to it is more than a generation ago.

What I meant by this was more to try and bring about a realization of how the political landscape has changed in the last 200 years.
Obviously there were lots of changed before that as well.

But if we go back to the American Revolution and the French Revolution we basically have three main ideologies in western politics. We can call them Right, Center, and Left.

Back then the Right were varying degrees of Monarchist. The wanted to maintain the traditional culture and society, though many maybe even supported reforms and limitations on monarchy etc.

The Center were revolutionaries who wanted to abolish monarchy and establish republics, OR some of them may have been satisfied with establishing a Republic with a very limited monarch as head of state and a government largely separate from the Monarch (basically what England is today). These people wanted extensive reforms to change the old social order, but they were leery about going too far, and were willing to compromise.

The Left were radical revolutionaries who wanted to wipe away the old social order completely and create something new from the ground up.


The old Right, progressively lost more and more and essentially died out almost complete after WW1, although it is experiencing something of a small revival currently.

The Center back then, is what would become the Right wing today.

The Left back then would become the Center/Liberals today

And a new Left would emerge following the advent of Karl Marx.

The point I am getting at with all this is the understanding of how our world has shifted, and how few people really understand how or why it did.

The landscape modern Christianity and modern politics are linked hand in hand, and as the cracks in the foundations of both begin to show, people need to understand how and why we got to where we are.

It is precisely this situation that produced the brutal conflicts following WW1 and leading up to WW2. The collapse of old Christian culture left a vacuum that was filled by the insanity of the Left, and to counter act that, people went to the insanity of the modern right (Fascism and extreme nationalism etc).

People think our political climate is normal because they haven't known anything else. In reality we are living in a bubble that is abnormal by historical standards.

Wrong alternative. The far most important factor is a system of divided power (or »check and balance« in US terminology). The oldest concept of that was the division between King, Parliament, and independent Judges …

Control is still the question. Divided power is just one option to try and limit control. The United States is an example of the fact that divided power doesn't work long term, because it doesn't prevent the centralization of control as it was supposed to.

The government of the US today has far more power and control over its citizens than King George had over his when the US revolted.

Any good government can turn bad if there is no control.

Yes, and ultimately every government will turn bad given human nature. Ultimately what the determining factor is the character of the people. Any system can work in the short term. The question is, which ones provide the best means of preserving the character of the people. The measure of a good society is ultimately human flourishing. This doesn't just include wealth and prosperity, but character, and civilization. This is also what determines if a society will stand or fall.

In other words, a common ideology.

Generally yes, but an ideology like western classical liberalism is basically self-defeating because it has no means or mechanism of preserving itself from attack. It will always fall apart.

You can say "anything will always fall apart" an that is true to a degree... but Christendom, for example, lasted for what 1500 years? Rome lasted for more (if you count Byzantium). Western liberalism has destroyed itself in 200.

I grant that I am to a certain degree switching categories, but ultimately I'm not talking about individual governments per say, but rather cultures or civilizations. Maybe societies would be a better word?
We have no promise that everyone will become a Christian, and history shows that countries that tried to install Christianity as a state religion produced bad Christians, or even baptized non-Christians that only had the names of being Christian.

I'm glad that you don't reject this Baptist idea (it was condemned by the Popes until mid-20th-century!). According to what you wrote above, you should oppose to religious freedom (fully practiced first in Rhode Island colony, made an amendment because of baptist and Quaker activists).

As you have pointed out, though I generally disdain modernism, and I fundamentally disagree with its philosophy and worldview, not everything that has come out of modernism is bad.

One thing I think moderns don't understand about the middle ages is that it was the unity of religion and the Church that made medieval society possible. In the best part of the middle ages, they were very fragmented in local culture, language, legal codes, political power, and the like. Yet their broader culture held together and could produce a world that in some way surpasses anything modernity has done. This was only possible because the Church was the unified backing of the whole culture.

I think you can make the case that almost everything that has happened in Europe since has been the result of trying to replace that foundation of religious unity with a foundation of political and legal unity.

Freedom is ultimately necessary because the two great and central virtues of Christianity are Truth and Love. Neither of them can be achieved without freedom. Neither can be compelled. You can't compel someone to believe the Truth, even if you can compel them to confess it outwardly. Neither can you compel someone to love. Both can only be freely chosen.

However, this does not mean that there should be no limits. This is probably the single biggest reason why western liberal democracy is failing and was doomed from the start. This is undoubtedly one of the greatest gateways to hell in history. The idea that any idea must be tolerated.

One of the things I don't think most people realize about the "Woke Left" of today is that they have started to adopt ideas and attitudes that actually mirror some of those from the old culture of Europe.

For example, "Cancel Culture". Cancel culture is an old idea whereby people were shunned from polite society for bad behavior. The difference is that today it is politically determined by a group of essentially "party members" where as in the past it was an organic determination of the culture based on the culture's moral values.

Another is the notion that speech can constitute violence. Leftists use this today to shut down opposing speakers, and justify their own use of violence against those they oppose.

However, there is also the truth that speaking lies that deceive people into believing false doctrines and lead them astray from God, IS doing more real and more dangerous harm to them than if you took out a knife and stabbed them.

The problem is: Where is the limit, when does support turn into coercion?

Yes, that is always the problem. That is a problem with almost everything. Lines and limits must be drawn but where?

From the Catholic point of view on this, previous Catholic views on this topic were not always morally wrong. Sometimes they were only prudentially wrong.

For example, there is nothing morally wrong with forbidding the faithful from reading harmful books. But we know now that it is unwise, both because it doesn't work and also because it often backfires.
Forbidding it isn't wrong, but simply teaching people and answering the errors involved is better and more effective.

Likewise, in scripture God makes a variety of religious observances mandatory under law, so that can't be morally wrong to do. However, it isn't prudent in our circumstances.

I would draw the line of coercion based on things like this.
If a person is punished for engaging in the worship and observances of their religion, by placing negative consequences on them, that is coercive. Negative consequences could be anything from denying public services, or extra taxation, or fines to jail, or violence.
If a person is punished for NOT engaging in Christian observances and worship, that is also coercive.

However, I don't think that having prayer in schools is coercive. I don't think that having religious symbols and elements publicly present is coercive.

Using religious language or prayers at public events or in political venues, I don't think is coercive.

 

[Helmut-WK]

I'm sure I am. One of the basic realities of human nature is that it is impossible to escape bias. The closest we can come is to be aware of our biases and to try to remind ourselves of them.

The most biased people in the world, are those who think they are not biased.

Good to hear, I'm with you in that point.

It is true that many of the sources of classical knowledge were lost, particularly Aristotle, but not all. … The Aristotelian works were rediscovered in the 13th century through contact with the Islamic world, particularly Averroes in Spain.

I was about to criticize the first sentence, until I read the second sentence above.

The destruction of medieval thought began within a generation of Thomas Aquinas' death. By the mid to late 1300's William of Ockham, Marsilius of Padua, and their fellows introduced the ideas that would pave the way of Modernism, and destroy medieval and ancient thought.

I notice that the origin of Reformation was earlier, during the life-time of Thomas Aquinas. You cannot just explain Reformation just by modern ideas!

William of Ockham, for instance taught that God could have made murder good, and could have made martyrdom sinful. He could have made us hate a virtue instead of love, and could have ordered us to hate him. This idea, in particular radically changed views on how salvation worked.
…
For example, Luther considered himself to be a devoted student of William of Ockham and even referred to Ockham as his master.

I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that Luther did not follow Ockham in everything, especially not in the point you mentioned.

This was the beginning which would eventually lead to the secularist dismissal of the supernatural as "superstition".

In case you misunderstood me: I don't think every supernatural is just superstition. But if you look into the centuries before the enlightenment, you will find real superstition. Partly stemming from folks beleif (with pagan origin?), but also witch hunting (fueled by the malleus maleficiorum), which was rather common in regions with a weak government (e.g. many small sovereign territories in Germany). Though there were protestant and catholic authors who wrote against that, it stopped with enlightenment.

By the time you get to the 1500's you have large movements going on in the Universities of Europe that don't resemble orthodox Catholicism at all.

Orthodox Catholicism is the Catholicism as defined in Rome. This changes sometimes, due to Popes, Councils, or other thinkers that influence the decisions there.

It is true that Luther's way of thinking was also influenced by his Augustinian mentor and confessor, it was no new doctrine. But it was rejected by the then Pope …

And I think it is a myth that salvation doctrine was in the center of difference. Central was the question who has ultimate authority: Scripture or Pope and Councils.

This view taught that it was impossible for man to bride the gap between God and man due to sin.

This sentence is part of protestant doctrine. It is impossible for man, therefore God bridged the gap through Jesus.

there would never have been a Luther, without Nominalism, Voluntarism, Duplex Veritas, Caesero-Papism, etc. These had nothing to do with the Bible, except in the sense that they influence how you understand it.

If things went different, the history would be different.

The Church was always in danger to be corrupted. There have been attempts to mend it in the medieval times, a famous one i the movemtent of Francis of Assisi. It was incorporated into the church, and after his dearth transformed so that all biblical impulses there became unimportant. A similar movement, the Waldensians, was expelled and persecuted (it went protestant in the 16th century).

And there were the proto-protestants: Wiclyffe and Hus. The final break between Luther and the Roman Church came with the apprehension that a biblical scholar (Hus) has been burned as heretics at the stakes.

If there were no Luther, there would have another one protesting against a church that had become a harlot of politics. It that one failed, there woulsd be another one - there would have been some sort of reformation sooner or later.

In reality both sides were arguing from scripture.

The exegetic priciple of Luther was: Explain Scripture by Scripture. This differed from explaining Scripture by Plato, or Aristotle, or papal encyclica. Though oned can discuss the detaislk of Luther's theology, this difference is the true core of what you have been taught.

One of the things that ultimately was most influential in my returning to the Catholic Church was that I saw how much sense Catholic Teaching made biblically. It fit so much better with and made so much more sense of the Bible. One of the reason I had begun to look towards leaving my church tradition that I grew up in was because I began to run into questions about things that I was reading in the bible that no one could answer and that just made no sense in the context of our doctrines. I began to see things that our doctrines just dismissed and ignored, that Catholic teaching made sense of.

Which points are this?

And what about the Church the Roman Church split off in 1054, the Orthodox Church? If I would think like you, I would rather return to the mother Church, not the later off-spring.

I have a high view of reason, but your own reason is not sufficient to understand scripture.

Agreed. We need the Spirit.

I was also raised Charismatic, so of course we believed that the Holy Spirit would give us understanding, and speak to us individually, etc. The problem there was that in my own church, which was tiny, we routinely had people conflicting, claiming that the Holy Spirit had told them completely opposite things... so who is the Spirit speaking to?

There is too much individualism on those charismatics.

The Biblical answer to this conundrum is that the Church is imbued with authority to interpret, to teach, and to judge in such matters and the Holy Spirit leads the Church.

But don't forget how the church the Bible speaks about looked like:

1.Co 14:26 What then shall we say, brothers and sisters? When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up.​

So anyone can stand up and contribute to the service, even women can »prophesy«, i.e. tell the church about God's will for them.

This is the church the Bible calls the foundation of truth. Not youŕ church.

Admittedly, this is not the church of Luther, nor of traditional evangelicals, nor of charismatics. I tend to think that, if we were more consequent in following Christ, there would be more persecution, and less struggle and discussion between believers.

I would submit that it is just as possible that he only agreed with Hus, because he had already had the foundation laid in his worldview.
But this, ultimately is exactly what I'm getting at. Protestants like to think that the Reformers were just drawing from forerunners like Wycliffe and Hus. In reality the ideas of William of Ockham and Marsilius of Padua had greater influence and more far reaching effects.

It was not only Luther who was influenced by these ideas, the other side was influenced, too.

In the long run the catholic church has taken much out of the hands of protestants: The Jesuits copied the education program in which the children were taught christian doctrine, by now the RCC has accepted that laymen can read the Bible (prohibited in many countries lest reading the Bible would nourish »heresy«), and even the notion of religious freedom was accepted.

Without Protestantism, the RCC would be different, maybe more like the churches in Eastern Europe.

Reformation was not that bad as you paint it.

CONTINIUED in another post, because I got too long winded...

I will read that later. You write too much, I need a pause.

 

[Dale]

I didn't say that the Peace of Westphalia created Germany. Or at least I didn't intend to, what I meant was that the Peace of Westphalia was the first document that enshrined State sovereignty over it's land and it's people. This basically created the modern concept of "the State" and the states were linked to national identity because it created the idea that "the State" was the protector of people based on nationality.

I don't disagree with the notion that nationalism began to rise at this time as a sentiment. I don't think that contradicts what I said previously. At least not as I understood my own statement.

I would certainly agree that France and England both were the first unified Nation States, but I don't think that this limits the concept of the Nation state to them.

An example of the difference involved in thought on this can be seen in the titles of the French Kings. Prior to the French Revolution the title was "King of France", because Kingship was understood to be tied to the land. The King was the ruler of that land. After the Revolution when the Monarchy is restored the title "King of France" was replaced with "King of the French". The concept of the King as the Sovereign over the land was changed to the King as the acclaimed ruler of the people (ie the nation).

This marks a key transition that was going on, and I would say was probably only finished at that point, it certainly didn't begin there. The transition was from the idea of an organic relationship between people and land. The people were linked to the land where they lived. This was their "country". This defined their identity. The ruler was nominally the owner of the land, and he/she had direct ties to the people through the land. They had mutual duties and obligations to each other. The "rights and privileges" of each were based on ancestral practice. I have a right to this land because my ancestors lived here for generations. I have a right to gather resources from that forest because my ancestors have always gathered resources from that forest.

With the French Revolution it is a transition to abstract ideas rather than organic relationships. The Nation supplants The Country. My rights and privileges are no longer established by long tradition and ancestral practice, in other words, defined by my family. My rights become individual and abstract they are now "the rights of man". Instead of being concrete, they are determined by legal documents and as such can be changed by legal documents etc.

Most people today would undoubtedly think the later is much superior, and the former archaic and undesirable. I don't think either one is perfect, nothing involving humans ever is. However, I think that there is much that was lost when the old way was replaced and that the new way actually does much less for people than they think it does.

One of the ironies of Nationalism is that today Conservatives are mostly Nationalist and view Nationalism as good etc. In the heyday of Nationalism in the 19th century, nationalism had a great deal of crossover with socialism, and was a radical revolutionary ideology that was frequently at odds with Conservative Christian culture.

This is an example of how what was liberal and progressive in the past, becomes adopted by conservatives today. Thus conservatism of tomorrow will not resemble conservatism of today, it will be more like the liberalism of today.






Again, I don't doubt that you are correct. I am, perhaps, too used to the need to speak polemically to get anyone's attention. Reality is always nuanced and people almost always present it in an overly simplistic manner, because most people don't have the patience for nuance. They are conditioned to want simple messages that produce strong feeling.

However, I do believe and am trying to make the point that while the Enlightenment has been viewed even by Conservative Christians as almost like a Golden Era that produced our democracy and our society, it was in many was disasterous and it produced a society that had the seeds of its own destruction already sown in it.

It was better than today, certainly, in the same way that a cancerous tumor is better at it's beginning when it is small, than when it is full-grown.

But of course, science is a great example here. Science has done many great things for us. It would be foolish to say that science should simply be done away with. But scientism has also done massive harm to our culture and our society.





This may be true. I may be incorrect.

I would offer this caveat though. I am tending to think of revolution in the sense where a people rise up and over throw their rulers in order to form a new social regime.

I would generally not consider this to be the same thing as a civil war between rival claimants to the throne, nor would I consider it to be the same thing as a conquered people trying to restore their country etc.

For example, the Roman revolution where the Roman King was overthrown and the Roman Republic was created, I would consider to be a revolution in the sense that I am thinking of.

I would not consider the Civil wars of Rome between Sulla and the Grachii or between Antony and Octavian, to be revolutions in the sense that I am thinking of.




What I meant by this was more to try and bring about a realization of how the political landscape has changed in the last 200 years.
Obviously there were lots of changed before that as well.

But if we go back to the American Revolution and the French Revolution we basically have three main ideologies in western politics. We can call them Right, Center, and Left.

Back then the Right were varying degrees of Monarchist. The wanted to maintain the traditional culture and society, though many maybe even supported reforms and limitations on monarchy etc.

The Center were revolutionaries who wanted to abolish monarchy and establish republics, OR some of them may have been satisfied with establishing a Republic with a very limited monarch as head of state and a government largely separate from the Monarch (basically what England is today). These people wanted extensive reforms to change the old social order, but they were leery about going too far, and were willing to compromise.

The Left were radical revolutionaries who wanted to wipe away the old social order completely and create something new from the ground up.


The old Right, progressively lost more and more and essentially died out almost complete after WW1, although it is experiencing something of a small revival currently.

The Center back then, is what would become the Right wing today.

The Left back then would become the Center/Liberals today

And a new Left would emerge following the advent of Karl Marx.

The point I am getting at with all this is the understanding of how our world has shifted, and how few people really understand how or why it did.

The landscape modern Christianity and modern politics are linked hand in hand, and as the cracks in the foundations of both begin to show, people need to understand how and why we got to where we are.

It is precisely this situation that produced the brutal conflicts following WW1 and leading up to WW2. The collapse of old Christian culture left a vacuum that was filled by the insanity of the Left, and to counter act that, people went to the insanity of the modern right (Fascism and extreme nationalism etc).

People think our political climate is normal because they haven't known anything else. In reality we are living in a bubble that is abnormal by historical standards.



Control is still the question. Divided power is just one option to try and limit control. The United States is an example of the fact that divided power doesn't work long term, because it doesn't prevent the centralization of control as it was supposed to.

The government of the US today has far more power and control over its citizens than King George had over his when the US revolted.




Yes, and ultimately every government will turn bad given human nature. Ultimately what the determining factor is the character of the people. Any system can work in the short term. The question is, which ones provide the best means of preserving the character of the people. The measure of a good society is ultimately human flourishing. This doesn't just include wealth and prosperity, but character, and civilization. This is also what determines if a society will stand or fall.




Generally yes, but an ideology like western classical liberalism is basically self-defeating because it has no means or mechanism of preserving itself from attack. It will always fall apart.

You can say "anything will always fall apart" an that is true to a degree... but Christendom, for example, lasted for what 1500 years? Rome lasted for more (if you count Byzantium). Western liberalism has destroyed itself in 200.

I grant that I am to a certain degree switching categories, but ultimately I'm not talking about individual governments per say, but rather cultures or civilizations. Maybe societies would be a better word?
We have no promise that everyone will become a Christian, and history shows that countries that tried to install Christianity as a state religion produced bad Christians, or even baptized non-Christians that only had the names of being Christian.



As you have pointed out, though I generally disdain modernism, and I fundamentally disagree with its philosophy and worldview, not everything that has come out of modernism is bad.

One thing I think moderns don't understand about the middle ages is that it was the unity of religion and the Church that made medieval society possible. In the best part of the middle ages, they were very fragmented in local culture, language, legal codes, political power, and the like. Yet their broader culture held together and could produce a world that in some way surpasses anything modernity has done. This was only possible because the Church was the unified backing of the whole culture.

I think you can make the case that almost everything that has happened in Europe since has been the result of trying to replace that foundation of religious unity with a foundation of political and legal unity.

Freedom is ultimately necessary because the two great and central virtues of Christianity are Truth and Love. Neither of them can be achieved without freedom. Neither can be compelled. You can't compel someone to believe the Truth, even if you can compel them to confess it outwardly. Neither can you compel someone to love. Both can only be freely chosen.

However, this does not mean that there should be no limits. This is probably the single biggest reason why western liberal democracy is failing and was doomed from the start. This is undoubtedly one of the greatest gateways to hell in history. The idea that any idea must be tolerated.

One of the things I don't think most people realize about the "Woke Left" of today is that they have started to adopt ideas and attitudes that actually mirror some of those from the old culture of Europe.

For example, "Cancel Culture". Cancel culture is an old idea whereby people were shunned from polite society for bad behavior. The difference is that today it is politically determined by a group of essentially "party members" where as in the past it was an organic determination of the culture based on the culture's moral values.

Another is the notion that speech can constitute violence. Leftists use this today to shut down opposing speakers, and justify their own use of violence against those they oppose.

However, there is also the truth that speaking lies that deceive people into believing false doctrines and lead them astray from God, IS doing more real and more dangerous harm to them than if you took out a knife and stabbed them.




Yes, that is always the problem. That is a problem with almost everything. Lines and limits must be drawn but where?

From the Catholic point of view on this, previous Catholic views on this topic were not always morally wrong. Sometimes they were only prudentially wrong.

For example, there is nothing morally wrong with forbidding the faithful from reading harmful books. But we know now that it is unwise, both because it doesn't work and also because it often backfires.
Forbidding it isn't wrong, but simply teaching people and answering the errors involved is better and more effective.

Likewise, in scripture God makes a variety of religious observances mandatory under law, so that can't be morally wrong to do. However, it isn't prudent in our circumstances.

I would draw the line of coercion based on things like this.
If a person is punished for engaging in the worship and observances of their religion, by placing negative consequences on them, that is coercive. Negative consequences could be anything from denying public services, or extra taxation, or fines to jail, or violence.
If a person is punished for NOT engaging in Christian observances and worship, that is also coercive.

However, I don't think that having prayer in schools is coercive. I don't think that having religious symbols and elements publicly present is coercive.

Using religious language or prayers at public events or in political venues, I don't think is coercive.

Simon_Templar:
“However, I don't think that having prayer in schools is coercive. I don't think that having religious symbols and elements publicly present is coercive.”

When you are compelled to participate in a set prayer, that is coercive. When you are ordered to recite a prayer, that is coercive. I am old enough to remember prayer in the early grades. We recited a brief prayer in unison in the lunchroom, saying grace, before eating. We also recited the Lord’s Prayer in class.

I have a dim memory of seeing TV news when I was a child. At that time some Catholics objected to school prayer. Perhaps they objected to praying with Protestants. I can’t fit this together with anything I’ve heard about school prayer since then. Catholic Bishops support school prayer, from what I have heard.

 

[Simon_Templar]

Simon_Templar:
“However, I don't think that having prayer in schools is coercive. I don't think that having religious symbols and elements publicly present is coercive.”

When you are compelled to participate in a set prayer, that is coercive. When you are ordered to recite a prayer, that is coercive. I am old enough to remember prayer in the early grades. We recited a brief prayer in unison in the lunchroom, saying grace, before eating. We also recited the Lord’s Prayer in class.

I have a dim memory of seeing TV news when I was a child. At that time some Catholics objected to school prayer. Perhaps they objected to praying with Protestants. I can’t fit this together with anything I’ve heard about school prayer since then. Catholic Bishops support school prayer, from what I have heard.

If there is punishment for not participating then yes, I would agree it is coercive. There doesn't have to be though.

Catholics don't have an objection to praying with Protestants. Where Catholics would object is if the prayer was worded in such a way that it could be deemed to be praying to some other god. Or if the group in question is praying to another god Catholics would object to taking part in the prayer.

For example, if Jehovah's witness or Mormons were praying, Catholics probably should not join in the prayer, because their theology is different enough that they may not be praying to the same God that we believe in.

This would not preclude Catholics from being present during the prayer and being respectful to them while they pray, but generally Catholics should probably not join in the prayer itself.

For most Protestants, Catholics would have no problem praying together.

 

[Helmut-WK]

I didn't say that the Peace of Westphalia created Germany.

You said it created the »idea, known as the "Nation State"«. That is not sovereignty.

Or at least I didn't intend to, what I meant was that the Peace of Westphalia was the first document that enshrined State sovereignty over it's land and it's people.

Sovereignty is the right to pass own laws. In theory, this is the contrary to rule of law (the ruler is not allowed to pass a law, he has to keep the law). Sovereignty first came as absolute rule of the sovereign king/prince. In practice, modern democracies have a compromise: There is a constitution that cannot be changes easily, but ordinary law can be passed by the legislature (parliament).

I'm no expert, but AFAIK the treaty of Westphalia only stated that the territories directly under the Holy Roman Emperor („reichsunmittelbar”) were sovereign. That is, they were rather independent from the Emperor, though there was a sort of constitution of the Holy Empire.

This basically created the modern concept of "the State" and the states were linked to national identity because it created the idea that "the State" was the protector of people based on nationality.

That does not give a true description of Germany in the 18th century. The states in Germany were Austria (including Hungary, which was outside of the Reich!), Prussia, Bavary, Saxony etc., prince bishoprics etc. down to independent cities (Reichsstädte), which all had sovereignty. No-one considered them to be »nations«.

An example of the difference involved in thought on this can be seen in the titles of the French Kings. Prior to the French Revolution the title was "King of France", because Kingship was understood to be tied to the land. The King was the ruler of that land. After the Revolution when the Monarchy is restored the title "King of France" was replaced with "King of the French". The concept of the King as the Sovereign over the land was changed to the King as the acclaimed ruler of the people (ie the nation).

Now you say yourself that it was in the french revolution when the modern »nation state« notion emerged. The notion of a nation usually emerged when a people found himself oppressed - so the differences within the people were played down, the differences to other peoples (especially those to the enemy) were highlighted. Maybe the English-Scottish relations can tell something about that, I suppose you know more about that than I do.

There is also the case that a nation forms out of a group if different peoples that identify themselves as one people. The different Germanic tribes in Germany forming the German people. Or the other way round: The west-Bulgarians identifying themselves no longer as Bulgarians, but as »Macedonians«, so a new nation appears in the Balkans.

The transition was from the idea of an organic relationship between people and land. The people were linked to the land where they lived. This was their "country". This defined their identity. The ruler was nominally the owner of the land, and he/she had direct ties to the people through the land. They had mutual duties and obligations to each other. The "rights and privileges" of each were based on ancestral practice. I have a right to this land because my ancestors lived here for generations. I have a right to gather resources from that forest because my ancestors have always gathered resources from that forest.

All this can be linked to the notion that it would be tyranny to make any real new law: laws should state was is right, and could only be new in the sense that the description what was right was more refined.

With the French Revolution it is a transition to abstract ideas rather than organic relationships.

It was rather the transition to the idea that laws, which are so different in different countries, are man-made and therefore can be changed by man. This was first practiced in absolutism («The State, I am it«, Louis XIV. of France). The revolution changed the subject who can make new laws from the king to the people.

It were the kings that destroyed the »organic« relationship, this provoked a revolution in which the radicals (Cromwell in England, Jacobites in France) came into power.

My rights become individual and abstract they are now "the rights of man".

The "the rights of man" are the secular counterpart to the »Christian duty« as seen in the former centuries. The duty not to harm other people becomes the right not to be harmed. Which, BTW, dropped the duties of man toward nature (to be kind to animals, Prov 12:10).

And »Christian duty« was as »abstract« as human right!

Instead of being concrete, they are determined by legal documents and as such can be changed by legal documents etc.

I can't follow you. The hereditary right were also in written documents, from ancient Roman law to agreements written down at the coronation of a new king (who has to sign the same rights as his predecessor). There was some oral tradition, especially in the earlier times, when many persons could neither read nor write, but that there were written documents was not a crucial differences.

One of the ironies of Nationalism is that today Conservatives are mostly Nationalist and view Nationalism as good etc. In the heyday of Nationalism in the 19th century, nationalism had a great deal of crossover with socialism, and was a radical revolutionary ideology that was frequently at odds with Conservative Christian culture.

The nature of nationalism varies from nation to nation. In Belgium, when the country almost split in the confrontation between Flemish and Walloon people, the Walloon nationalism was rather leftist, the Flemish nationalism rather rightist - at least I heard so. I better know the case of Germany, where the nationalism soon got anti-Semitic, antisemitism, anti-French nationalism and the fight for a constitution (anti-absolutism) went hand-in-hand, until Bismarck, when the »liberals« split into nationalists that supported the founding of the new Reich and more democratic liberals.. Right or left?

However, I do believe and am trying to make the point that while the Enlightenment has been viewed even by Conservative Christians as almost like a Golden Era that produced our democracy and our society, it was in many was disasterous and it produced a society that had the seeds of its own destruction already sown in it.

I think the things are too complicated to say them in a few words. Not everything you link to enlightenment really stems from it.

It was better than today, certainly, in the same way that a cancerous tumor is better at it's beginning when it is small, than when it is full-grown.

That's too negative.

But of course, science is a great example here. Science has done many great things for us. It would be foolish to say that science should simply be done away with. But scientism has also done massive harm to our culture and our society.

I suppose I can agree to that (there is a caveat because the words can be interpreted in different ways).

I would not consider the Civil wars of Rome between Sulla and the Grachii or between Antony and Octavian, to be revolutions in the sense that I am thinking of.

Sulla and ´the Gracchii was a war about social reforms, a sort of »class conflict«.

Antony and Octavian were both from the same political party, so this is an example of what you do not want to call a revolution.

But it is difficult to draw a clear line? What if the war is about which religion is the correct state religion? What when there are mixed motives?

But if we go back to the American Revolution and the French Revolution we basically have three main ideologies in western politics. We can call them Right, Center, and Left.

In your description is an anachronism. The fight between monarchist (the right), liberal democrats (the left) and constitutionalists (the mid) was later replaced with the appearance of a more radical left. When Communists appeared, only a small minority fought for absolute monarchism.

The landscape changed several times.

And a new Left would emerge following the advent of Karl Marx.

Your description of the old left fitted Marx, and even if we count some predecessors, there was no such radical left during the French Revolution.

The point I am getting at with all this is the understanding of how our world has shifted, and how few people really understand how or why it did.

I doubt that you understand it. The freedom which was won in the French revolution (in the long run, I mean things that got it into the Code Napoléon) entailed economic freedom. It fueled industrialization, but such freedom produced poverty in the cities, the »social question« of the 19th century. Marxism and the like was a reaction to that …

It is precisely this situation that produced the brutal conflicts following WW1 and leading up to WW2. The collapse of old Christian culture left a vacuum that was filled by the insanity of the Left, and to counter act that, people went to the insanity of the modern right (Fascism and extreme nationalism etc).

If I compare this to the brutality of the Roman Church, and the protestant reaction, which sometimes were no better, which culminated in the 30-years-war: You should be more humble in judging that.

People think our political climate is normal because they haven't known anything else. In reality we are living in a bubble that is abnormal by historical standards.

Control is still the question. Divided power is just one option to try and limit control. The United States is an example of the fact that divided power doesn't work long term, because it doesn't prevent the centralization of control as it was supposed to.

A democracy can only exist with democrats. And there are shortcominmg in the US system. The majority principle (the winner takes it all), which tends to moreconfrontation (there is no chance for a 20%-party to win 20% seats), allows manipulation (gerrymandering), a transparency which allows everyone to see what a senator does (this is used by those who have themoney to pay for detailed information and analysis, so the laws tend to support the rich ones, since the sunshine-laws in the 1970s), a judical system with lay juries, producing a rather large amount of judicial errors (and this combined with death penalty!) … and with the internet, there are actors (like Putin) that fuel desinformation, hate speech and so on.

The government of the US today has far more power and control over its citizens than King George had over his when the US revolted.

King Gearg already was restrained by a parliament. The American revolution was not freedom vs. tyranny, it was between selfish colonists and a government that demanded they should give a fair share to what the state needed. Sending American delegates as MPs in London could habe eased the conflict, but given the difficulties in communication between continents, I am not sure whether this could be a good solution …

The power of the goverment is stronger due to technical progress. But if you want to know what a non-democratic government will do with such power, look to China.

You can say "anything will always fall apart" an that is true to a degree... but Christendom, for example, lasted for what 1500 years?

I can't agree. I doubt St. Peter would call the Syrian, Greek, or Latin Church in, say, AD 1200 a chuch of Jesus Christ. Intertwined with the state (well, the Syrian Church was not), persuting heretics, bishops that thought themselves as rulers (contrary to 1.Pt 5:3), especially those who demanded that a true local church should keeep communion with them (cf. Acts 20:30) …

Maybe he called this »Christendom« - the word christian is alway a word used by outise (non-beleivers) in the NT.

It is like saying that England now lasts since 1066, ignoring all the changes in society since then.

I grant that I am to a certain degree switching categories, but ultimately I'm not talking about individual governments per say, but rather cultures or civilizations. Maybe societies would be a better word?

The rapid technical progress made much change. I think this also has to do with Mk 13:20, the changes will even accelarte in the future …

One thing I think moderns don't understand about the middle ages is that it was the unity of religion and the Church that made medieval society possible. In the best part of the middle ages, they were very fragmented in local culture, language, legal codes, political power, and the like. Yet their broader culture held together and could produce a world that in some way surpasses anything modernity has done. This was only possible because the Church was the unified backing of the whole culture.

You over-estimate the role of the Church in that matter. in the best times, Europe had contacts with China, due to the pax Tatarica when the Mogul Empire stopped expanding, so there was cultural contact from North Africa to Korea. When this broke down, the Europeans looked for other ways to trade with the woirld, e.g. the route rauf´d of Africa to India …

The difference in »local culture, language, legal codes, political power, and the like«, and I can add: differences in religion, where no obstacle to a globalkised culture, which included Europe.

I think you can make the case that almost everything that has happened in Europe since has been the result of trying to replace that foundation of religious unity with a foundation of political and legal unity.

Perhaps you should read How couild we then live? from Frances Schaeffer. It shows there are much more factors, especially in the development of phiölosophical thinking.

For example, "Cancel Culture". Cancel culture is an old idea whereby people were shunned from polite society for bad behavior. The difference is that today it is politically determined by a group of essentially "party members" where as in the past it was an organic determination of the culture based on the culture's moral values.

You compare current practice with the theory. If you look at the practice, the difference is smaller.

However, there is also the truth that speaking lies that deceive people into believing false doctrines and lead them astray from God, IS doing more real and more dangerous harm to them than if you took out a knife and stabbed them.

But the Gospel warns us that we shouild not stab deceivers, for God wants not deatrh, but repention of sinners.

For example, there is nothing morally wrong with forbidding the faithful from reading harmful books. But we know now that it is unwise, both because it doesn't work and also because it often backfires.
Forbidding it isn't wrong, but simply teaching people and answering the errors involved is better and more effective.

The NT teaches there should be teaching, not that there should be censorship.

I would draw the line of coercion based on things like this.
If a person is punished for engaging in the worship and observances of their religion, by placing negative consequences on them, that is coercive. Negative consequences could be anything from denying public services, or extra taxation, or fines to jail, or violence.
If a person is punished for NOT engaging in Christian observances and worship, that is also coercive.

However, I don't think that having prayer in schools is coercive. I don't think that having religious symbols and elements publicly present is coercive.

Using religious language or prayers at public events or in political venues, I don't think is coercive.

OK. The themes in Europes are somewhat different than in the US, by and large I am with you.

 

[Simon_Templar]

I notice that the origin of Reformation was earlier, during the life-time of Thomas Aquinas. You cannot just explain Reformation just by modern ideas!

I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that Luther did not follow Ockham in everything, especially not in the point you mentioned.

Sure, as you point out St. Augustine was also very influential on many of the Reformers. My point is not that nothing pre-modern is involved. What I am trying to get across is that Protestants have the attitude "my view of scripture is correct, and we disagree because you simply don't follow scripture." I think this attitude is not historically correct. Protestants don't realize that the reason WHY their view of scripture is so different from the Catholic view is because of the changes in thought and worldview that took place at the end of the middle ages that produced the modern world.

The Protestant understanding of scripture is not just self-evidently true. It is the result of a whole frame work of ideas.

In case you misunderstood me: I don't think every supernatural is just superstition. But if you look into the centuries before the enlightenment, you will find real superstition. Partly stemming from folks beleif (with pagan origin?), but also witch hunting (fueled by the malleus maleficiorum), which was rather common in regions with a weak government (e.g. many small sovereign territories in Germany). Though there were protestant and catholic authors who wrote against that, it stopped with enlightenment.

Obviously there are things that really are superstitious, including that there are Catholic superstitions. However, clarity is needed to be sure what we are talking about.

The Enlightenment did end some superstitions because it placed a high emphasis on reason. It also eventually has lead to the destruction of reason because it placed TOO high of an emphasis on reason. Whenever you elevate anything to the level of God, that thing will destroy itself. We have the post-modern rejection of reason today, precisely because of the over-emphasis on reason from the enlightenment.

Also, another pet peeve of mine is that things which are not Medieval are frequently used to attack the middle ages (I'm not saying you are doing this. It's more a generalized irritation.) For example witch hunts and the use of torture are often used to condemn the barbarity of the Middle Ages. In reality those things are not Medieval phenomenon. They were never wide spread during the middle ages. They mostly began either during the Renaissance or during the early Modern period.

Orthodox Catholicism is the Catholicism as defined in Rome. This changes sometimes, due to Popes, Councils, or other thinkers that influence the decisions there.

It depends on what you mean by "changes". Doctrine develops over time as our understanding matures. Truth doesn't change in the sense of contradicting a former position.

The Church also recognizes different levels of teaching. There is Dogma, Doctrine, and Discipline, for example. Dogma is declared and doesn't change. Doctrine is authoritative, but it can develop and it there are debates about what it means and how it is applied etc. Disciplines are generally not moral principles, and can change simply whenever the Church decides it is no longer needed or something else would be more useful.

It is true that Luther's way of thinking was also influenced by his Augustinian mentor and confessor, it was no new doctrine. But it was rejected by the then Pope …

And I think it is a myth that salvation doctrine was in the center of difference. Central was the question who has ultimate authority: Scripture or Pope and Councils.

There were, at that time, two distinct Augustinian schools of thought. There were Augustinians who were part of the Via Moderna, and Augustinians who were defending the Via Antiqua.

Luther was initially taught and influenced by the Augustinians who were in the Via Moderna, but then he eventually rejected their view on salvation.

This sentence is part of protestant doctrine. It is impossible for man, therefore God bridged the gap through Jesus.

Catholic teaching agrees with that and has always agreed with that. The primary difference between Catholic and Protestant on this view is whether Grace is both imputed and imbued, or only imputed, and whether justification is only forensic, or whether it is both forensic and objectively real.

The Lutheran view on these question is complicated because the current day Lutheran confessional view owes as much to Melancthon as it does to Luther, and Melancthon brought the understanding on this topic back towards the Catholic view at least to some degree.

The Protestant view held by Calvinists, for example, holds that grace is ONLY imputed and does not work a real objective change in the person. Thus they remain objectively unrighteous. Thus their justification is forensic only. In the court of God's justice they are declared righteous, even though they are objectively unrighteous.

The Catholic view is, and always has been, that we start with imputed righteousness and forensic justification, receiving grace as a free gift, not of works. However, grace is also imbued, or put into us, and if we cooperate with us it will change us so that we become objectively righteous and the forensic declaration of our righteousness becomes objectively true, not just a legal fiction in which God is effectively lying about us.

Man, apart from the Grace that was merited for us by Christ, can do nothing.

The Church was always in danger to be corrupted. There have been attempts to mend it in the medieval times, a famous one i the movemtent of Francis of Assisi. It was incorporated into the church, and after his dearth transformed so that all biblical impulses there became unimportant. A similar movement, the Waldensians, was expelled and persecuted (it went protestant in the 16th century).

Yes, the Church is always suffering corruption and always in need of reform. You can't reform something by leaving it. That's not reforming, its abandoning.

Further, just as the Church is always in need of reforming, the Church is also always suffering heretical splinters. Every heretic thinks that their view is correct and before modernism began to reject scripture, every heretic thought their view was scriptural.

Just as I have pro-Catholic bias, you have anti-Catholic bias in your view of history. That is precisely what I'm talking about.

And there were the proto-protestants: Wiclyffe and Hus. The final break between Luther and the Roman Church came with the apprehension that a biblical scholar (Hus) has been burned as heretics at the stakes.

Even here, this ignores the fact that both Wycliffe and Huss were after the time when the change over in thought began to happen. They were both educated in universities where the ideas of Nominalism, Voluntarism and all the rest were already being discussed. Wycliffe rejected the nominalism of Ockham, but he also didn't simply hold to the older views. It is simply not accurate historically to say "they just got their views from rediscovering the Bible."

To be fair, I should also point out that in many cases, the people like Wycliffe and Huss, and even the Reformers like Luther and Calvin simply didn't know what the early Christians taught or believed because the documents were not known.

Calvin, for example, claimed that he agreed with everything the Church taught up to around 700 AD or so. He said this because he thought (as did Luther and the others) that doctrines like Transubstantiation were late inventions. He thought that, in turn, because they simply didn't have access to or know about many of the writings of the Early Church Fathers. In reality virtually all of the doctrines they rejected has very early attestation and in the case of the Eucharist were universally accepted right from the beginning.

This is one of the reasons why guys like Luther disputed the authority of councils and popes. Because they didn't realize that many of the things they were objecting to were universal beliefs of the Church that went all the way back to the Early Church.

The exegetic priciple of Luther was: Explain Scripture by Scripture. This differed from explaining Scripture by Plato, or Aristotle, or papal encyclica. Though oned can discuss the detaislk of Luther's theology, this difference is the true core of what you have been taught.

There are two big problems with this.
#1 the exegetic principle of "explain scripture by scripture" is not in scripture. As such it cannot be argued to be authoritative or anything other than a human principle.

#2 this principle, in practice always and inevitably comes to mean, "explain scripture by my understanding of scripture" It makes you the final arbiter of what scripture means and turns your interpretation into circular reasoning. "Verse A means this because it agrees with my understanding of Verse B" Yes, your understanding is always going to agree with your understanding.

But don't forget how the church the Bible speaks about looked like:

1.Co 14:26 What then shall we say, brothers and sisters? When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up.​

So anyone can stand up and contribute to the service, even women can »prophesy«, i.e. tell the church about God's will for them.

This is the church the Bible calls the foundation of truth. Not youŕ church.

The irony is that this is exactly the verse that my Charismatic family would use to justify all of their charismatic practices (which I'm guessing are different than yours).

Here is what you are missing...
1st Corinthians was written by Paul to the Corinthian Church in answer to questions that they sent to him. There are several points in the book where Paul is responding to things they said in their letters, but people commonly miss this and just assume that Paul is saying those things.

As a result, many Charismatics in particular use Corinthians to justify the very abuses that the Corinthian Church was writing to Paul to comment on.

For example, Paul's whole point in 1st Corinthians chapter 14 is that speaking in tongues is basically useless in Church worship and should be restricted. Yet every Charismatic I knew used that chapter to justify that speaking in tongues was necessary and should be done in Church, virtually the opposite of what Paul was actually saying.

The specific verse you cite is also an example of this... he is saying "when you guys come together, every one wants to contribute and say something and sing something and it gets to be chaotic, but that is not of God. Therefore limit all that stuff and have an orderly service, because that is in accord with the Holy Spirit.

Based on my understanding of that passage, the kind of church you seem to be recommending is literally almost the opposite of what that scripture is saying.

 

[Niels]

Western Liberal Democracy is flawed, but it's arguably less flawed than the alternatives. We are free to attempt to solve its problems. We have a chance, however big or small, to steer the ship. To correct its course through a system of votes, checks, and balances. To follow our own consciences rather than yield to the whims of an autocrat.

I don't consider it to be anti-Christian, but I don't think it's inherently pro-Christian either. It seems to me that the Church isn't intended to be a political entity, in much the same way that Jesus didn't live as a worldly king. The kingdom of God is influential as Christ is influential. Not in the same worldly and ephemeral way that a nation state wields power.

 

[Grafted In]

It's the world. Nuff said

 

[Simon_Templar]

You said it created the »idea, known as the "Nation State"«. That is not sovereignty.


Sovereignty is the right to pass own laws. In theory, this is the contrary to rule of law (the ruler is not allowed to pass a law, he has to keep the law). Sovereignty first came as absolute rule of the sovereign king/prince. In practice, modern democracies have a compromise: There is a constitution that cannot be changes easily, but ordinary law can be passed by the legislature (parliament).

I'm no expert, but AFAIK the treaty of Westphalia only stated that the territories directly under the Holy Roman Emperor („reichsunmittelbar”) were sovereign. That is, they were rather independent from the Emperor, though there was a sort of constitution of the Holy Empire.

That does not give a true description of Germany in the 18th century. The states in Germany were Austria (including Hungary, which was outside of the Reich!), Prussia, Bavary, Saxony etc., prince bishoprics etc. down to independent cities (Reichsstädte), which all had sovereignty. No-one considered them to be »nations«.

Now you say yourself that it was in the french revolution when the modern »nation state« notion emerged. The notion of a nation usually emerged when a people found himself oppressed - so the differences within the people were played down, the differences to other peoples (especially those to the enemy) were highlighted. Maybe the English-Scottish relations can tell something about that, I suppose you know more about that than I do.

The notion of sovereignty and the modern state are closely aligned though. In the ancient and medieval mind, Sovereignty is a divinely bestowed authority that rests with a King. The Sovereign further is linked directly to the land. Not the ethnicity. The link of the Sovereign to the People is through the land, because both belong to the land. The idea that sovereignty is vested in an abstract state, is new.

When I was in university, the standard academic line among historians (at least in the US) for the beginning of the "Modern era" was the Peace of Westphalia, because it was the first time that what would become the modern notion of the State, and sovereignty being linked specifically to ethnic identity was enshrined in law.

I didn't mean to say, by that, that Germany was the first unified Nation State, or that all the concepts of the modern Nation State were fully developed at Westphalia, or that it just sprang full grown into existence at that moment.

I was just using that to mark out the historical eras. It is, of course, true in history that there are seldom if ever single moments in time where everything just suddenly changes. This is why it is notoriously difficult to draw boundaries of historical eras. Yet the line has to be drawn somewhere in order to discuss different eras etc.

As we have been talking about, the ideas that give birth to modernism go back all the way to the late 13th century. At that point the transformation was already beginning. Personally I would say that Europe is no longer "Medieval" by 1500 at the latest, even the 1400's don't really fit together with the rest of the Medieval period.

Personally, I would follow CS Lewis's view that the Renaissance was really not what it is portrayed as in history. But, I would have to admit that the period of 1400 to 1600 does seem to be a period of transformation where the culture stopped being Medieval and began to be Modern.

It was rather the transition to the idea that laws, which are so different in different countries, are man-made and therefore can be changed by man. This was first practiced in absolutism («The State, I am it«, Louis XIV. of France). The revolution changed the subject who can make new laws from the king to the people.

It were the kings that destroyed the »organic« relationship, this provoked a revolution in which the radicals (Cromwell in England, Jacobites in France) came into power.

Absolutism was also not really a medieval idea. It was something that happened within conservative circles in response to the growth of modern ideas.

In Medieval culture there was no state for a king to even be able to say "I am the State".

Absolutism was the response of conservatives to the ideas that would eventually produce Republicanism and Liberal Democracy.

This is one of the problems for people of my sympathies. I think there was a lot of good about the culture of the Middle Ages, and a lot of bad about modern concepts like the state. However, how do we adapt those old ideas to the new reality?

I would agree that the modern era Absolute monarchs helped to destroy the institutions of the past, and they worsened the situation and did provoke rebellions and revolutions with their excesses and such.

The "the rights of man" are the secular counterpart to the »Christian duty« as seen in the former centuries. The duty not to harm other people becomes the right not to be harmed. Which, BTW, dropped the duties of man toward nature (to be kind to animals, Prov 12:10).

And »Christian duty« was as »abstract« as human right!

I can't follow you. The hereditary right were also in written documents, from ancient Roman law to agreements written down at the coronation of a new king (who has to sign the same rights as his predecessor). There was some oral tradition, especially in the earlier times, when many persons could neither read nor write, but that there were written documents was not a crucial differences.

Maybe if I put it this way. The foundation of enlightenment thought on these matters was the concept of the State of Nature and the resulting theory of individual rights.

In this view, there is a hypothetical "state of nature" in which man exists as an individual with absolute freedom and no restrictions or obligations. In this view man is not naturally a political or social creature. He is fundamentally individual.

The common view was that individual men gave up the freedom and independence of this state of nature because there is also no protection and thus the state of nature is chaotic and dangerous.

Society and Government are viewed as negative and even corrupting (the noble savage view) but necessary. In other words, man gives up his freedom for security. We take on obligations of society and the yoke of laws, in order to save us from the chaotic and violent state of nature.

As such all of man's rights are individual rights. Some of those rights we give up to live in society, by tacitly agreeing to the "social contract".

Against this view there is the older, classical view.
In the classical view, man is by his very nature a social / political creature. The whole idea of the individual state of nature described above not only doesn't exist, never has and never will, it is simply a false account of human nature.

In this view, man's nature is not to be an individual, but to be in social relationships complete with all the obligations those entail. In the previous view society and government are viewed as negatives which even corrupt man's individual nature, but in this view, society is required for human flourishing. As with anything good, it can go bad, but man cannot be fully human without society, and therefore government is also natural and necessary to the flourishing of man according to his nature.

In the classic Christian view, the family, not the individual is the basic unity of society and society should primarily be oriented to the protection and flourishing of the family, not the individual. Interestingly one of the reasons for this is because the individual cannot flourish without the family. In other words, if you aim at the individual, you lose both the family and the individual. If you aim at the family, you get both.

In the Enlightenment view, human rights and freedoms are generally defined in negative terms. Meaning, freedom is primarily thought of as freedom FROM things. Freedom from government interference, freedom from persecutions etc etc. This is, of course, not universally true. Much of classical society still survived at least in education and sentiment, even if the philosophy had mostly been lost by this point. Thus the idea of duty to family could cover much and the idea of rights stemming from duties still existed, and so on. But these would die out relatively quickly because their foundation had been destroyed already. Like a plant without a root, they just took a little while longer to die.

In the Classical view, rights were defined mostly in positive terms. In other words, freedom is primarily defined by what it is for, not what it is from. So we are free to do what God has commanded us to do. We are free to become what God has destined us to be. This necessitates some negative freedom as well. In order to be free for a destiny, you have to be free from things that would hinder you. But the emphasis and the purpose is different.

For example, Thomas Jefferson wrote in the US Declaration of Independence that Man's inalienable rights included "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" This was a change from what John Locke wrote which was "Live, Liberty, and Property".

If Jefferson's statement is properly understood, it can be right. If you define happiness as attaining the identity which God created for us and becoming who he intended us to be, then it is correct.

If, however, you understand happiness to mean self-actualization, self-determination, personal autonomy, etc, then it is not only incorrect, it is essentially the opposite of true and is a devilish lie. In this case there is no defined goal or purpose, and it becomes only freedom from all obligation and restraint. Which is one of the major reasons that western liberal democracy has totally failed and has produced a hellish society.


Allow me to say, regardless of any disagreement, I have enjoyed the conversation and found it profitable.

 

[Simon_Templar]

Western Liberal Democracy is flawed, but it's arguably less flawed than the alternatives. We are free to attempt to solve its problems. We have a chance, however big or small, to steer the ship. To correct its course through a system of votes, checks, and balances. To follow our own consciences rather than yield to the whims of an autocrat.

I don't consider it to be anti-Christian, but I don't think it's inherently pro-Christian either. It seems to me that the Church isn't intended to be a political entity, in much the same way that Jesus didn't live as a worldly king. The kingdom of God is influential as Christ is influential. Not in the same worldly and ephemeral way that a nation state wields power.

To me you have to distinguish between the technical forms of government, such as representative democracy, separation of powers, bicameral structure, and the philosophical principles that undergird specifically western liberal democracy, as opposed to any other kind of democracy we can imagine.

The structures themselves are not perfect, but no structure is and no structure is going to survive human nature. The structure is also not particularly anti-Christian. Though, I do think that Christians need to be careful of working democracy too much into their mindset because in reality the whole universe is a Monarchy. Democracy, as such, is contrary to God's nature and while it may be ok for a human system, it is not how reality fundamentally works.

More problematic are the fact that the people who created western liberal democracy were essentially idolaters who, in some cases, literally worshiped reason and liberty as gods. Things like equality were made virtues beyond where they should be valued and placed. As a result we have inherited ideas from them that are fatally flawed, and have wrecked our society.

 

[Niels]

To me you have to distinguish between the technical forms of government, such as representative democracy, separation of powers, bicameral structure, and the philosophical principles that undergird specifically western liberal democracy, as opposed to any other kind of democracy we can imagine.

The structures themselves are not perfect, but no structure is and no structure is going to survive human nature. The structure is also not particularly anti-Christian. Though, I do think that Christians need to be careful of working democracy too much into their mindset because in reality the whole universe is a Monarchy. Democracy, as such, is contrary to God's nature and while it may be ok for a human system, it is not how reality fundamentally works.

More problematic are the fact that the people who created western liberal democracy were essentially idolaters who, in some cases, literally worshiped reason and liberty as gods. Things like equality were made virtues beyond where they should be valued and placed. As a result we have inherited ideas from them that are fatally flawed, and have wrecked our society.

I agree that "western liberal democracy" isn't very specific. It's also worth noting that the people who created it had a wide variety of beliefs. Some were worldly and others were godly. Regardless, it should be distinguished from God's kingdom, which can be described as a monarchy unlike any other. Rather, western liberal democracy is a pragmatic solution that allows us greater latitude to follow our faith than less neutral worldly systems that actively oppose it.

We need to be careful is to not deify worldliness. An extreme example is the view that an earthly ruler is God. This view of monarchy has historical precedent, yet it contradicts the Christian view of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit is the true God. There have been many earthly kings, but only one King of Kings. When earthly leaders behave as if they are gods, or believe themselves to be God, civilizations fall.

The way I see it, neither western liberal democracy nor monarchy should become our idols. Treating either as such exacerbates the problems that wreck society. There should be room for spiritual authority while also rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's.

 

[Dale]

You said it created the »idea, known as the "Nation State"«. That is not sovereignty.


Sovereignty is the right to pass own laws. In theory, this is the contrary to rule of law (the ruler is not allowed to pass a law, he has to keep the law). Sovereignty first came as absolute rule of the sovereign king/prince. In practice, modern democracies have a compromise: There is a constitution that cannot be changes easily, but ordinary law can be passed by the legislature (parliament).

I'm no expert, but AFAIK the treaty of Westphalia only stated that the territories directly under the Holy Roman Emperor („reichsunmittelbar”) were sovereign. That is, they were rather independent from the Emperor, though there was a sort of constitution of the Holy Empire.

That does not give a true description of Germany in the 18th century. The states in Germany were Austria (including Hungary, which was outside of the Reich!), Prussia, Bavary, Saxony etc., prince bishoprics etc. down to independent cities (Reichsstädte), which all had sovereignty. No-one considered them to be »nations«.

Now you say yourself that it was in the french revolution when the modern »nation state« notion emerged. The notion of a nation usually emerged when a people found himself oppressed - so the differences within the people were played down, the differences to other peoples (especially those to the enemy) were highlighted. Maybe the English-Scottish relations can tell something about that, I suppose you know more about that than I do.

There is also the case that a nation forms out of a group if different peoples that identify themselves as one people. The different Germanic tribes in Germany forming the German people. Or the other way round: The west-Bulgarians identifying themselves no longer as Bulgarians, but as »Macedonians«, so a new nation appears in the Balkans.

All this can be linked to the notion that it would be tyranny to make any real new law: laws should state was is right, and could only be new in the sense that the description what was right was more refined.

It was rather the transition to the idea that laws, which are so different in different countries, are man-made and therefore can be changed by man. This was first practiced in absolutism («The State, I am it«, Louis XIV. of France). The revolution changed the subject who can make new laws from the king to the people.

It were the kings that destroyed the »organic« relationship, this provoked a revolution in which the radicals (Cromwell in England, Jacobites in France) came into power.

The "the rights of man" are the secular counterpart to the »Christian duty« as seen in the former centuries. The duty not to harm other people becomes the right not to be harmed. Which, BTW, dropped the duties of man toward nature (to be kind to animals, Prov 12:10).

And »Christian duty« was as »abstract« as human right!

I can't follow you. The hereditary right were also in written documents, from ancient Roman law to agreements written down at the coronation of a new king (who has to sign the same rights as his predecessor). There was some oral tradition, especially in the earlier times, when many persons could neither read nor write, but that there were written documents was not a crucial differences.

The nature of nationalism varies from nation to nation. In Belgium, when the country almost split in the confrontation between Flemish and Walloon people, the Walloon nationalism was rather leftist, the Flemish nationalism rather rightist - at least I heard so. I better know the case of Germany, where the nationalism soon got anti-Semitic, antisemitism, anti-French nationalism and the fight for a constitution (anti-absolutism) went hand-in-hand, until Bismarck, when the »liberals« split into nationalists that supported the founding of the new Reich and more democratic liberals.. Right or left?

I think the things are too complicated to say them in a few words. Not everything you link to enlightenment really stems from it.

That's too negative.

I suppose I can agree to that (there is a caveat because the words can be interpreted in different ways).

Sulla and ´the Gracchii was a war about social reforms, a sort of »class conflict«.

Antony and Octavian were both from the same political party, so this is an example of what you do not want to call a revolution.

But it is difficult to draw a clear line? What if the war is about which religion is the correct state religion? What when there are mixed motives?

In your description is an anachronism. The fight between monarchist (the right), liberal democrats (the left) and constitutionalists (the mid) was later replaced with the appearance of a more radical left. When Communists appeared, only a small minority fought for absolute monarchism.

The landscape changed several times.

Your description of the old left fitted Marx, and even if we count some predecessors, there was no such radical left during the French Revolution.

I doubt that you understand it. The freedom which was won in the French revolution (in the long run, I mean things that got it into the Code Napoléon) entailed economic freedom. It fueled industrialization, but such freedom produced poverty in the cities, the »social question« of the 19th century. Marxism and the like was a reaction to that …

If I compare this to the brutality of the Roman Church, and the protestant reaction, which sometimes were no better, which culminated in the 30-years-war: You should be more humble in judging that.



A democracy can only exist with democrats. And there are shortcominmg in the US system. The majority principle (the winner takes it all), which tends to moreconfrontation (there is no chance for a 20%-party to win 20% seats), allows manipulation (gerrymandering), a transparency which allows everyone to see what a senator does (this is used by those who have themoney to pay for detailed information and analysis, so the laws tend to support the rich ones, since the sunshine-laws in the 1970s), a judical system with lay juries, producing a rather large amount of judicial errors (and this combined with death penalty!) … and with the internet, there are actors (like Putin) that fuel desinformation, hate speech and so on.

King Gearg already was restrained by a parliament. The American revolution was not freedom vs. tyranny, it was between selfish colonists and a government that demanded they should give a fair share to what the state needed. Sending American delegates as MPs in London could habe eased the conflict, but given the difficulties in communication between continents, I am not sure whether this could be a good solution …

The power of the goverment is stronger due to technical progress. But if you want to know what a non-democratic government will do with such power, look to China.

I can't agree. I doubt St. Peter would call the Syrian, Greek, or Latin Church in, say, AD 1200 a chuch of Jesus Christ. Intertwined with the state (well, the Syrian Church was not), persuting heretics, bishops that thought themselves as rulers (contrary to 1.Pt 5:3), especially those who demanded that a true local church should keeep communion with them (cf. Acts 20:30) …

Maybe he called this »Christendom« - the word christian is alway a word used by outise (non-beleivers) in the NT.

It is like saying that England now lasts since 1066, ignoring all the changes in society since then.

The rapid technical progress made much change. I think this also has to do with Mk 13:20, the changes will even accelarte in the future …

You over-estimate the role of the Church in that matter. in the best times, Europe had contacts with China, due to the pax Tatarica when the Mogul Empire stopped expanding, so there was cultural contact from North Africa to Korea. When this broke down, the Europeans looked for other ways to trade with the woirld, e.g. the route rauf´d of Africa to India …

The difference in »local culture, language, legal codes, political power, and the like«, and I can add: differences in religion, where no obstacle to a globalkised culture, which included Europe.

Perhaps you should read How couild we then live? from Frances Schaeffer. It shows there are much more factors, especially in the development of phiölosophical thinking.

You compare current practice with the theory. If you look at the practice, the difference is smaller.

But the Gospel warns us that we shouild not stab deceivers, for God wants not deatrh, but repention of sinners.

The NT teaches there should be teaching, not that there should be censorship.

OK. The themes in Europes are somewhat different than in the US, by and large I am with you.

Maybe you have absorbed the British viewpoint here. The American colonies were not well governed under the British.

One reason is that the British did not have enough currency in circulation for the economy to function. The colonists tried to make up for this in at least three different ways. First, they used a clumsy mixture of Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and French coins, in addition to British coins. That is how the American currency came to be named after the Spanish dollar coin, instead of the US adopting an American Pound. The Spanish dollar was more familiar than the British pound. Second, they used bonds issued by colonial and local governments, spending them as we would spend paper money. Third, they used commodities as currency, including wampum (Indian beads), bear skins, musket balls, and jars of molasses. In various parts of the Colonies, at least thirty different commodities were used in place of currency. Using jars of molasses as a substitute for money wasn’t convenient, and colonists did not do it because they got a kick out of it. They did it because there wasn’t enough currency in circulation. When George Washington became President, the country adopted the dollar as American currency.

There are other reasons why the American colonies were not well governed. Here are a couple of excerpts from the Declaration of Independence.

D of I quote

He [King George] has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

End quote


D of I quote

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

End quote


Don’t believe everything the British say about the American Revolution, or War of Independence.

 

[Dale]

If there is punishment for not participating then yes, I would agree it is coercive. There doesn't have to be though.

Catholics don't have an objection to praying with Protestants. Where Catholics would object is if the prayer was worded in such a way that it could be deemed to be praying to some other god. Or if the group in question is praying to another god Catholics would object to taking part in the prayer.

For example, if Jehovah's witness or Mormons were praying, Catholics probably should not join in the prayer, because their theology is different enough that they may not be praying to the same God that we believe in.

This would not preclude Catholics from being present during the prayer and being respectful to them while they pray, but generally Catholics should probably not join in the prayer itself.

For most Protestants, Catholics would have no problem praying together.

When I was in the second or third grade, if a student refused to recite the grace prayer at lunch or to recite the Lord's Prayer in class, a teacher would probably have taken this as willful refusal to cooperate.

In the fourth grade, we did have students volunteering to read something from the Bible for Bible reading. I'm sure if there was student-led prayer, they wouldn't know to avoid offending those who go to different churches. Baptists, for instance, would pray to Christ, while a Jehovah's Witness would object to that.

The whole subject is stickier than you realize.

 

[Simon_Templar]

When I was in the second or third grade, if a student refused to recite the grace prayer at lunch or to recite the Lord's Prayer in class, a teacher would probably have taken this as willful refusal to cooperate.

In the fourth grade, we did have students volunteering to read something from the Bible for Bible reading. I'm sure if there was student-led prayer, they wouldn't know to avoid offending those who go to different churches. Baptists, for instance, would pray to Christ, while a Jehovah's Witness would object to that.

The whole subject is stickier than you realize.

I'm looking at those types of Questions not in terms of how they were done in the past, but in terms of how they could be done in ways that I would find acceptable and worthwhile.

Of course, it must always be acknowledge that human nature always makes anything sticky. This is one of the reasons that Utopian ideas never work and usually end up in complete and utter disaster. The most foundational necessities for any philosophy or worldview in order to have any kind of success are, correct answers to the questions "who is man?" and "who is God?"

I don't personally believe in the separation of Church and State, in the way that it has been practiced. I don't object to there being an "established" religion. I do think that religious freedom is good and necessary, but I also think that religious freedom does not preclude there being an officially established religion, so long as others are not forbidden, and participation is not coerced.

 

[Helmut-WK]

Protestants don't realize that the reason WHY their view of scripture is so different from the Catholic view is because of the changes in thought and worldview that took place at the end of the middle ages that produced the modern world.

It would be good of you can illustrate this with an example. Luther, in the disputation with Eck, cited old decision (e.g. against semipelagianism) for his case, I can't see that his thinking was that new.

The Enlightenment did end some superstitions because it placed a high emphasis on reason. It also eventually has lead to the destruction of reason because it placed TOO high of an emphasis on reason.

I know, I mentioned a book by Francis Schaeffer which told it to me.

For example witch hunts and the use of torture are often used to condemn the barbarity of the Middle Ages.

Witch hunt started in the Middle Ages, was fueled by the Malleus Maleficiorum, but the peak was in the 16th and 17th century.

As to torture, can you give evidence for your claim it was not »wide spread« in the Middle Ages?

It depends on what you mean by "changes". Doctrine develops over time as our understanding matures. Truth doesn't change in the sense of contradicting a former position.

This is the theory.

In practice, there have been changes. There were times when lay-men were not allowed to read the Bible, in the 19th century the Pope deplored the existence of Bible Societies, in the early 20th century catholic government were admonished not to give any freedom to he Protestant heretics …

The way the RCC handles changes reminds me of the USSR. In the late 80's (Gorbachev era), I often read the German edition of the Moscow News, it was a real interesting paper with »inside« information about a very interesting country in that period. In one edition, the readers were told that it would be a wrong notion to think Gorbachev has dropped the Brezhnev doctrine, for there never has been such a doctrine! Well, there had been statements by Brezhnev that were considered a fundamental doctrine by him and his administration - only a new interpretation of that let to the notion that there never was such a doctrine …

The Church also recognizes different levels of teaching. There is Dogma, Doctrine, and Discipline, for example. Dogma is declared and doesn't change.

This is the reason why there is still transubstantiation. A doctrine formulated in Aristotelian terms of form and substance: The form of bread and wine is kept, only the substance changes. That made sense, but modern science tell us bread and flesh (or wine and blood) have the same substance (quarks and leptons), the difference is only »form«. The doctrine thus is nonsense - but exegesis makes efforts to explain that away …

In practice, there has been change, and contradiction.

Catholic teaching agrees with that and has always agreed with that. The primary difference between Catholic and Protestant on this view is whether Grace is both imputed and imbued, or only imputed, and whether justification is only forensic, or whether it is both forensic and objectively real.

I have difficulties to understand the matter of »imbued, or only imputed«.

As to »only forensic, or whether it is both forensic and objectively real«, my evangelical education say the latter alternative - but I suppose this is different from Luther …

The Lutheran view on these question is complicated because the current day Lutheran confessional view owes as much to Melancthon as it does to Luther, and Melancthon brought the understanding on this topic back towards the Catholic view at least to some degree.

Melanchthon was a co-worker, not just a helper of Luther. So there was nothing of »bringing back«, but somewhat different viewpoints within reformation.

I'm no Lutheran: raised by rather Lutheran Pietistic parents, the local church has a rather reformed pastor, for some time i was influenced by Darbists, and in the end got Baptist.

Yes, the Church is always suffering corruption and always in need of reform. You can't reform something by leaving it.

Luther did not leave the Church, he was excommunicated. In his view, the Pope had excommunicated himself because of his heresies. It took over a century until protestants ceased to claim they were the true catholic Church, even now you may hear a Lutheran saying that he is catholic (in the original sense of this word).

Even here, this ignores the fact that both Wycliffe and Huss were after the time when the change over in thought began to happen.

According to you, the change began in the time when Wycliffe died … late 14th century!

To be fair, I should also point out that in many cases, the people like Wycliffe and Huss, and even the Reformers like Luther and Calvin simply didn't know what the early Christians taught or believed because the documents were not known.

Which documents?

Calvin, for example, claimed that he agreed with everything the Church taught up to around 700 AD or so. He said this because …

… he relied on documents like those from the synod of Arausia.

he thought (as did Luther and the others) that doctrines like Transubstantiation were late inventions. He thought that, in turn, because they simply didn't have access to or know about many of the writings of the Early Church Fathers.

Show me a quote where I can find transubstantiation in an early document.

There are two big problems with this.
#1 the exegetic principle of "explain scripture by scripture" is not in scripture. As such it cannot be argued to be authoritative or anything other than a human principle.

Not? I find it in Hebrews.

#2 this principle, in practice always and inevitably comes to mean, "explain scripture by my understanding of scripture" It makes you the final arbiter of what scripture means and turns your interpretation into circular reasoning. "Verse A means this because it agrees with my understanding of Verse B" Yes, your understanding is always going to agree with your understanding.

Therefore, you always need discussion with those who see points different. So you can see their way of understanding, and compare. If two devote Christians cannot come to agreement by discussion all relevant passages, the point in question probably is not crucial for salvation.

The irony is that this is exactly the verse that my Charismatic family would use to justify all of their charismatic practices (which I'm guessing are different than yours).

Bingo. But …

For example, Paul's whole point in 1st Corinthians chapter 14 is that speaking in tongues is basically useless in Church worship and should be restricted. Yet every Charismatic I knew used that chapter to justify that speaking in tongues was necessary and should be done in Church, virtually the opposite of what Paul was actually saying.

This is because they emphasize only what fits them. Every »pro-tongue« statement has a »but« following it …

The specific verse you cite is also an example of this... he is saying "when you guys come together, every one wants to contribute and say something and sing something and it gets to be chaotic, but that is not of God. Therefore limit all that stuff and have an orderly service, because that is in accord with the Holy Spirit.

You can paraphrase this in that way, no question. But this does not mean the contribution to the service should be restricted as the RCC has it!

Before reformation, the congregation even did not sing songs, it only listened to the choir.

Based on my understanding of that passage, the kind of church you seem to be recommending is literally almost the opposite of what that scripture is saying.

May be what you think I am recommending is the opposite, but in another was the RCC church service is definitely the opposite. Just think about 1.Co 14:29 - the congregation has to control whether a prophecy is really from God.

Or take another point: Local churches usually did not have one head, but a leading board. Parallel to Hellenistic societies, the members were called episkopoi, or parallel to synagogues, they were called prebyteroi. There was no hierarchy between »priests« and »bishops« … and only one head of the church: Jesus.

The only church with only one head was in Jerusalem, with James, the successor of Peter, as head over the mother of all churches.

 

[Helmut-WK]

The notion of sovereignty and the modern state are closely aligned though. In the ancient and medieval mind, Sovereignty is a divinely bestowed authority that rests with a King. The Sovereign further is linked directly to the land.

It was more complicated. There was an hierarchy, the Emperor, then Kings, then dukes, and so on.

This stems from the concept of imperium in the Roman empire: An imperium was a mandate to a certain person. It was often linked to land, but not based on land. For example, the imperium over the province Syria was the role to defend the eastern border. When Quirenius in the war against the Homanades commanded the largest army in the Empire, Luke took him as governor of Syria (he had imperium over another province, probably Galatia).

The hereditary divine right of kings was a (Germanic) pagan idea, the Roman way of thinking was different.

The idea that sovereignty is vested in an abstract state, is new.

You use the wrong word. Sovereignty means the authority to make laws, instead of formulating old laws new.

When I was in university, the standard academic line among historians (at least in the US) for the beginning of the "Modern era" was the Peace of Westphalia, because it was the first time that what would become the modern notion of the State, and sovereignty being linked specifically to ethnic identity was enshrined in law.

In Germany, the line was drawn around 1500, with Renaissance, discovery of new continents, Reformation. At least this I was told in school. In more recent discussions, some said the middle ages lasted until the start of enlightenment …

As we have been talking about, the ideas that give birth to modernism go back all the way to the late 13th century. At that point the transformation was already beginning. Personally I would say that Europe is no longer "Medieval" by 1500 at the latest, even the 1400's don't really fit together with the rest of the Medieval period.

There has been a partially cultural break-down in the big pest.

Absolutism was also not really a medieval idea.

I did not say so.

This is one of the problems for people of my sympathies. I think there was a lot of good about the culture of the Middle Ages, and a lot of bad about modern concepts like the state. However, how do we adapt those old ideas to the new reality?

Any adaptation would also include changes …

Against this view there is the older, classical view.
In the classical view, man is by his very nature a social / political creature. The whole idea of the individual state of nature described above not only doesn't exist, never has and never will, it is simply a false account of human nature.

This sounds rather modern, 20tjh-century psychology or the like …

In the previous view society and government are viewed as negatives which even corrupt man's individual nature

Sounds like Rousseau.

but in this view, society is required for human flourishing. As with anything good, it can go bad, but man cannot be fully human without society, and therefore government is also natural and necessary to the flourishing of man according to his nature.

Where is the difference to the current view?

In the classic Christian view, the family, not the individual is the basic unity of society and society should primarily be oriented to the protection and flourishing of the family, not the individual. Interestingly one of the reasons for this is because the individual cannot flourish without the family. In other words, if you aim at the individual, you lose both the family and the individual. If you aim at the family, you get both.

This is a point where (traditional) protestants will agree.

But family can be toxic, there were women in the middle ages that became nuns in order to escape forced marriage.

The family was taken as ultimate good in the Victorian era, this started with the French revolution ant its emphasis on virtue (in contrast to the moral decay in the Rococco era). So much anti-family thinking can be seen as an reaction to that »idolatry of family«.

Allow me to say, regardless of any disagreement, I have enjoyed the conversation and found it profitable.

I found it challenging, but also enjoyed it.