lecture 5: faith & reason
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Lecture 5: Faith & Reason. Christian Humanism and the Protestant Reformation. Faith vs Reason. Who is the ultimate religious authority? What is the relationship between religious and secular authority? What is the power of man’s conscience?. What is Religion?. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Lecture 5: Faith & Reason
Christian Humanism and the Protestant Reformation
Faith vs Reason
Who is the ultimate religious authority?
What is the relationship between religious and secular authority?
What is the power of man’s conscience?
Can conceive of religion as a cultural system: Expressed by symbols that evoke powerful emotion Insistence on order of existence and claim to direct
knowledge of truth Community practice and personal faith
Faith – to believe without reason or proof Religious practice and faith are expected to go hand
in hand Sense of transcendence Institutional organization
What is Religion?
The Old Church,A (Very) Brief History
The Old Church = Roman Catholic Church Beginnings:
Split from Judaism Jesus Christ as Son of God The Confession of St. Peter = beginning of papacy
312 – 385 = standardization and institutionalization under Constantine Constantine’s victory attributed to Christian God Council of Nicaea = consubstantiality of Trinity
11th Century East-West Schism and Investiture Controversy
Investiture Controversy (11th Century)
Papal Schism (1378-1414) Avignon Papacy (1309-
1377) Two Popes: French and
Roman
Council of Constance (1414-1417) settles the issue Instituted a council of
Cardinals that governed the pope
Can a council be in charge of God’s vicar on earth?
Temporal Power vs. Spiritual Authority
Sacraments organize the life cycleEmphasis on symbols and ritualsServices in LatinEucharist: cracker and wine ARE the
blood and body of ChristTransubstantiation: Process through
which cracker and wine become the blood and body of Christ
Renaissance Catholic Church
Catholic Church Hierarchy
Priests and Monks
Bishops/Abbots
Archbishop
Cardinals
Pope
Eschatology=branch of theology that considers the future and all future events
Positions past, present, and future within a larger scheme that incorporates the Fall of Man through Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory
Eschatology
1. PracticesChurch excessesOne response =
begging orders
2. GovernmentTemporal vs.
spiritual authority
3. Doctrine
Major Controversies of the Catholic Church
Christian Humanism Renaissance Humanism
Revival of classical learning Educational reform –
emphasis on creating the best human being (virtue and civic engagement)
Christian Humanism Increased faith in the
capability of man + firm belief in Christian God. Ex. Pico’s “Oration”
Utilization of classical learning to enrich biblical understanding
Desiderius Erasmus
“the Prince of the Humanists”
1460s? – born in Holland
1492 – becomes Augustinian monk
1495 – studies at University of Paris
1499 – visits England
1512 – begins work to produce new Greek and Latin versions of the bible
1515 – “The Sileni of Alcibiades”
The Sileni of Alcibiades Plato’s Symposium – the greatest and
highest form of love is not love of the material but of the abstract and ideal
Alcibiades – most handsome man in Greece; in love with Socrates, the ugliest man
Socrates = silenus (a box which is carved with ugly face of Silenus on the outside but holds a beautiful object within) “But if you open up this Silenus, who is
outwardly so ridiculous, you find wihtin somoene who is closer to beign a god than man…” (170)
Lessons of the Silenus Reality vs Appearance (171) Superficial vs Essential (174) Christ as ultimate silenus (171) vs
majority who are Sileni turned inside out (173) “upside-down values” (178) and
instability of language Who constitutes the Church? (179) Material vs Spiritual (185) Secular vs Religious (188)
“How can he lead us towards the kingdom of heaven… when he is entirely preoccupied with the kingdom of this world?” (187-188)
Martin Luther Nov 10, 1483 – born in Holy Roman Empire 1505 – decided to take Augustinian orders 1508 – begins teaching @ Wittenberg 1516 – Tetzel arrives in Germany 1518 – the 95 Theses are circulated 1521 – Luther excommunicated, declared
an outlaw of the Holy Roman Empire 1522 – produces German translation of
Bible using Erasmus’s Latin version 1523 – Luther marries ex-nun Katharina
von Bora 1528 – begins actively organizing the new
church
The 95 Theses Indulgences:
Technically – the full or partial remission of temporal punishment after a sinner has confessed and received absolution
Tetzel - "As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs”
Theses 13, 20-22 = limits of pope’s power Theses 61-66 = Luther’s own ideas of the silenus Theses 82, 86, 90 = papal hypocrisy
Appeal to German Nobility
Reformation of Catholic Church is only possible through secular intervention
3 walls keep church corrupt: 1. spiritual is superior to
secular 2. only church can interpret
scripture 3. only pope can call a
council Purposely referencing walls
of Jericho
Destroying the 3 Walls Wall 1: Spiritual vs Secular
All Christians are equally Christian; all Christians are priests (408)
Necessary balance of power (410) Wall 2: Power of interpretation
No scriptural proof St Peter = power to forgive sin not to decide doctrine Equality of Christians
Wall 3: Power to call councils No scriptural proof Constantine, not a pope, called the most important council Respect for authority cannot lead to destruction (416)
Erasmus vs Luther
Erasmus & Luther: Corruption of religious authority because of overly secular
concerns Erasmus:
Ultimate belief in Church as institution capable of self-reform Primarily values peace and resolution of conflict Insistence on free will the justice of God
Luther: Cynical of man’s ability for self-reform Primarily values adherence and subordination to the divine Insistence on bondage of the will the omnipotence of God
Free Will?Erasmus Luther• Assertions are unhelpful
because they just result in strife• There are some scriptural issues
that are incomprehensible• If we will never understand, then
why fight about it? Just focus on Christian goodness
• Disputing irresolvable issues does more harm than good
• “Who will be able to bring himself to love God with all his heart when He created hell seething with eternal torments in order to punish his own misdeeds in his victims as though he took delight in human torments?” (66:41)
• To be Christian is to make assertions!
• Scripture is not incomprehensible; God’s judgment is. The Spirit inspires understanding. (73: 175)
• We must know the extent of our own power in order to know the extent of God’s power (75: 179)
• If God is immutable, then there must NOT be free will (76: 181)
• Disregarding the questions of free will and God’s foreknowledge is ignoring the questions of salvation (78: 184)
• Answer to E’s final point = exposition on predestination (79-87)
Bondage of the Will Our will is not even free – we can never freely choose to be
perfectly good so as to deserve heaven (79: 187) Only God’s will is free – could freely choose to do evil or
good but because he’s God, he always does good (80: 180) Scripture is revealed to us but NOT God’s will
Scripture makes it clear that God’s will is ultimate but it does not explain the logic of God’s will (81: 191)
As humans, we can therefore never fully understand the ultimate wisdom of God’s will. Ex. Pharaoh (83)
Predestination is better cause on the merit of our own free wills, we would never get to heaven (85: 199)
1. Sola Scriptura—sole authority of Scripture
2. Sola fide—the doctrine of salvation by “faith alone”
3. Priesthood of all believers
4. Reform of practice—more sermon, less ritual
5. Rulers use their powers to promote the true Christian confession (the Reformed or Old Church)
Five Basic Ideas of the Reformation
Counter-Reformation Papal Bull of 1514
Strengthens bishops’ authority Limits unauthorized preaching
Council of Trent (1537-1563) Institutionalizes practices from above Establishes schools for priests
Inquisition First developed against Muslims in 1490s Expulsion of all Jews and Muslims from Spain
Confessionalization: reassertion of commitment to religious principles and doctrines
Criminalization of Protestant dissenters Jesuit missions Crack-down on absentee bishops Reinstitution of vows from abbots to bishops and
bishops to pope
Consequences of Reformation
From unity to multiplicity Alliances based on religion
Spain and Italy England and Germany/Holland
Catholic church revamped itself Nation-state becomes primary form of
community identity Ex: Kingdom of God versus nations of men
Montaigne’s Essays “To the Reader” – p4 “On educating children” – p37-73 “That it is madness to judge” – p74-78 “On the cannibals” – p79-92 “On coaches” – p330-350 “On the lame” – p351-363
For Montaigne, what is the whole purpose of education, and what knowledge is truly worth pursuing? How should we even pursue knowledge?
What knowledge does the new world have to offer the old? And why is it significant?