Religious Ideals: Protestant Reformation Vs. Counter-Reformation
Essay Preview: Religious Ideals: Protestant Reformation Vs. Counter-Reformation
Report this essay
The late medieval Catholic Church faced monumental crises during the Avignon papacy, the Great Schism, the Conciliar period, and the Renaissance papacy. The leadership of the pope was called into questions due to inappropriate behaviors such as, corruption and political manipulation. Many laity and intellectual felt a sense of spiritual crisis. As a result, criticism of the church gradually rose. By 16th century, religious movements and protests were spreading throughout Europe. Lutheran, Zwinglian, Calvinist, and Anabaptism were examples of different religious protests against the Catholic Church. All those protests were later known as the Protestant Reformation. In return, the Catholic Church responded with a Counter-Reformation, which led by the Jesuit order and the Council of Trent, to fight Protestant movements and address some internal criticism. These two opposing reformations had distinct interpretation of the Scripture that translated to fundamental difference in doctrine, practice, and ecclesiastical structure of the church. Likewise, there were some minor differences in different Protestant movements.
Firstly, the distinction in Scriptures interpretation manifested into different kind of doctrines, which were highlighted in purgatory, salvation, sacraments and devotion of saints. Adherents of the Catholic Church believed that there existed a doctrine called purgatory, or the process of cleansing the sinful soul to prepare for entry into heaven by buying indulgences granted by the pope. The other side of the spectrum, however, did not share the same wavelength. Protestants generally did not believe in the existence of this temporary punishment after life. Zwinglis “List of errors of the Roman Church”, emphasized this point by stating that there were no teachings of purgatory in the Scripture. According to the Luthers Theses no. 37, “Any true Christians whatsoever, living or dead, participates in the benefit of Christ and the church; and this participation is granted to him by God without letter of indulgence”; in other words, salvation could only be justified by faith. This doctrine of human salvation by faith was also supported by Zwingli, “In the faith rests our salvation, and in unbelief our damnation; for all truth is clear in Christ that human doctrines and decrees do not aid in salvation.” On the contrary, the Catholic Church insisted that salvation could not be achieved only by faith, but it also required work of faith in the form of sacraments (Council of Trent). Both reformations agreed that faith was a mandatory element of salvation, however there was fundamental difference in how salvation was obtained. Catholic insisted that charitable acts and good deeds could help believers to get salvation. In contrast, Protestant argued that salvation did not result from those charitable and good deeds, but salvation was a gift granted by God.
Although sacraments were applied in both reformations, there were several distinctions in carrying out these rituals. Council of Trent emphasized on the Catholic doctrine of seven sacraments: Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation, Penance, Extreme Unction, Order and Matrimony, while Protestants only prioritized two of these, Baptism and Eucharist. One of the Protestant movements, Anabaptism, opposed infant baptism because, as stated in “The Schleitheim Confession of Faith”, baptism could only be given to those who have conscious belief and submission to Christ. On the other hand, babies did not have the ability to do their own confession of faith. Thus, Anabaptism only accepted adult baptism. The disparity in the sacrament of Eucharist, or Holy Communion, lies in the essence of bread and wine. Anabaptism and Zwingli agreed that they were only commemoration of Christs sacrifice, whereas Lutherans and Catholic reformation believed in a theory called transubstantiation, where the substance of bread and wine changes into the substance of Christs body and blood.
Furthermore, the dispute in doctrine could be observed in the devotion to saints. In “Rule no. 6 of Thinking with the Church”, the Jesuit order stated that Christians must pray and pay respects to the saints. Council of Trent further emphasized the importance of devotion to saints by explaining that, ” it is good and useful to invoke them and have recourse to their prayers, aid, (and), help for obtaining benefits from God.” Zwingli countered this statement by explaining that Christians only need God in their lives, no saints or any mediator are needed.
Secondly, the distinct interpretation of Scripture