Luther came on the scene during a particularly bad time in the history of the Catholic establishment...
He stood against the obvious excesses of the church in his time. But then he went further...much too far...in redefining biblical truth into more popular sounding beliefs that would render these accessible to the flesh. IOW...he threw out the baby with the bathwater.
It would be like claiming a policeman was corrupt...which he is...but then also throwing out the laws of the land as a result. We need to make a distinction between the law and that which breaks the law.
The Catholic institution was not ALL WRONG as Luther suggested. His ideas became known through mass media. And we have seen the effect of the printing press on propaganda. Take a human idea and mass produce it...and you have the "reformation."
The Catholic establishment didn't really know how to combat this seduction away from the truth...namely because they didn't understand it (the truth) very well (either). They didn't understand the point of Luther's argument. And the same situation persists today. All the arguing is safely outside the truth. It is an argument over which error is more convenient. The Catholics have a better theology...but don't understand why it is better. And the Reformation KNOWS what it believes...but the beliefs themselves are in error.
Luther invented terminology that the catholic church didn't engage in.
Luther made a distinction between what he called the "theology of the cross" (his own views) and the "theology of glory" which he claims the RC church held to.
These were his own terms. And these were used to justify a false argument. Rather than taking on the church with it's own terminology, he just invented his own and sought to pigeonhole 1,500 years of church history into a category of his own making, making these errors.
So he did exactly what he accused the church of doing...making good evil and evil good.
Luther made up a belief system that the flesh can religiously cling to. And since the printing press and Luther's protests people have been redefining truth freely, causing thousands of divisions through human interpretations. And all this following the lead of Luther who opened "Pandoras box," so to speak.
He stood against the obvious excesses of the church in his time. But then he went further...much too far...in redefining biblical truth into more popular sounding beliefs that would render these accessible to the flesh. IOW...he threw out the baby with the bathwater.
It would be like claiming a policeman was corrupt...which he is...but then also throwing out the laws of the land as a result. We need to make a distinction between the law and that which breaks the law.
The Catholic institution was not ALL WRONG as Luther suggested. His ideas became known through mass media. And we have seen the effect of the printing press on propaganda. Take a human idea and mass produce it...and you have the "reformation."
The Catholic establishment didn't really know how to combat this seduction away from the truth...namely because they didn't understand it (the truth) very well (either). They didn't understand the point of Luther's argument. And the same situation persists today. All the arguing is safely outside the truth. It is an argument over which error is more convenient. The Catholics have a better theology...but don't understand why it is better. And the Reformation KNOWS what it believes...but the beliefs themselves are in error.
Luther invented terminology that the catholic church didn't engage in.
Luther made a distinction between what he called the "theology of the cross" (his own views) and the "theology of glory" which he claims the RC church held to.
These were his own terms. And these were used to justify a false argument. Rather than taking on the church with it's own terminology, he just invented his own and sought to pigeonhole 1,500 years of church history into a category of his own making, making these errors.
So he did exactly what he accused the church of doing...making good evil and evil good.
Luther made up a belief system that the flesh can religiously cling to. And since the printing press and Luther's protests people have been redefining truth freely, causing thousands of divisions through human interpretations. And all this following the lead of Luther who opened "Pandoras box," so to speak.