If you are talking about Servetus he would have been burned at the stake by catholic authorities too. I’m not excusing what happened in Geneva but both Calvin and Rome recognized Servetus was a heretic. So it’s not like Rome gets a pass for preferring those they disagreed with crispy.
Then I would say that you don’t understand indulgences. They are not easy to understand and assume several things which I accurately described. There are several streams of doctrine that had to develop before you could have an indulgence. Then again you are hardly the first RC not to understand the idea.
Your accusations are "False"
Great point. That’s why I left Rome and never really entertained Eastern Orthodoxy. With those guys it’s all like “orthodoxy teaches, or Rome teaches”. They usually never talk about Jesus and how He bled and died for my sins. All I have to do is have faith the Christ covered all my sins by His one sacrifice. I don’t need indulgences or extra merit earned by saint so and so. It’s a gift. And thank God it is a gift because I would never be worthy.
Nothing I said was inaccurate, you just don’t know how to express yourself without writing a book about it.
That’s because I sometimes have thoughts that take more than a Twitter response to express. I would hope you would as well. Especially something as important as truth.
As far as human beings go, Calvin and Leo were equivalently terrible people. Leo was selfish, incompetent, and licentious, Calvin was a megalomaniac, cruel, and a hypocrite. He saw himself just like a Pope in Geneva. Anyone who disagreed with him paid for it.
And yes you were inaccurate because you assume the same thing you were trying to prove. Folks here don’t have the same assumptions you do and given your responses you already know this.
Have you ever read Calvin? Because love or hate him he was pastoral first and foremost. That surprised me when I finally read him. What you are reacting to is a charcture of what some say about him. I can understand vitriol regarding Luther as he could be rather ham fisted. But after reading Table Talk you get a whole other side to Luther.
Yes, I’ve read Calvin. Very stoic man but even Calvinists don’t deny that he tortured, killed, and lorded over the people of Geneva like a dictator.
Which brings us back full circle. Why was there even a counci in Nicea to begin with. If the pope had this authority why didn’t he simply declare that Christ was in fact God the second person of the Holy Trinity?
stoic? Really? What did you read from him? The Institutes or his commentaries? What about his sermons? They are available free on the internet.
Look, I realize this isn’t exactly a fair fight as I hold a degree in history. What I am suggesting rather strongly is to read the original sources. Read all of Augustine or my personal hero Athanasius. Then see if what they say lines up with what Rome teaches.
Just because you have the authority to do something doesn’t mean you should do it regardless of the circumstances.
With your knowledge of history you know that the Popes were just bishops of Rome, just as Athanasius was bishop of Alexandria, and while the emperor liked the church or was Christian sympathetic, they could have some political voice to what ever degree the emperor favored them. However it was not until after Pepin the Frankish King gave large land holdings to the bishop of Rome that Popes began to have real authority, because this created papal states. That it was this secular authority that gave rise to papal authoritarianism with in the church.
