Hello guys, new guy here.
I was raised Catholic, and only recently started to look into other denominations within christianity.
Until now I believed that reformed christians are also protestants however I recently heard my new neighbours claiming that they are reformed christians, but they are not protestant. So what is the distinction between them? Are they closer to catholicism?
Catholic/Orthodox/Protestant.
Pick one and only one. Your neighbor is simply wrong.
They just want to deny that their theology is less than 500 years old, that's probably it.
Sorry dude, I'm Christian!
prots are catholics in denial, reformed are original christian churches reborn
Protestant is a large umbrella term that technically includes those of Reformed inclination, so I don't know why that person told you that.
As for being closer to Catholicism, absolutely not.
In addition to holding to the five solas of the Reformation (Sola Fide, Sola Scriptura, Sola Gratia, Solus Christus, Soli Deo Gloria), Reformed Christians hold to a particular theology (often called Calvinism) best exemplified in the acronym TULIP.
That is, Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the Saints.
I'll briefly explain each of these doctrines as best I can in the following posts.
He's incorrect, or there was a misunderstanding. 'Reformed' as commonly used is basically a synonym for Calvinist. It's a branch of protestantism.
This is the doctrine that when Adam and Eve sinned, man was so marred by sin that he became spiritually dead and unable of himself to come to God. This is contrary to many Christians, who assert that there is still enough of goodness left in man that he can come to God of his own volition. The Reformed position rather points to various Scriptural passages and notes the deadness of man in sin, his natural inclination to evil, and his inability to repent by himself and come to the Gospel.
Pertinent Passages: Gen 2: 16-17, Gen 6: 5, Gen 8: 21, Ecc 9: 3, Jer 17: 9, Mark 7: 21-23, John 6: 44, John 6: 65, John 8: 44, Rom 3: 9-12, Rom 5: 12, Rom 6: 20, Rom 8: 7-8, 1 Cor 2: 14, Eph 2: 1-3, Col 2: 13, 2 Tim 2: 25-26, Titus 3: 3, 1 John 3: 10, 1 John 5: 19
This is the doctrine that God has chosen certain people for salvation, not because of anything they did to merit it (that is, conditional), but purely out of his sovereign goodness and mercy. He did not base his choice on a foreknowledge of how obedient someone would be, as many people assert.
Pertinent Passages: Deut 10: 14-15, Matt 24: 22-24, Matt 24: 31, John 6: 37-39, John 6: 65, John 17: 9, Rom 8: 28-33, Rom 11: 5, Eph 1: 4-5, Eph 1: 11, 1 Thes 1: 4-5, 1 Thes 5: 9, 2 Thes 2: 13, 1 Pet 1: 1-2, 1 Pet 2: 8-9, Deut 7: 6-8, Rom 9: 11-13, Rom 9: 16, 1 Cor 1: 27-29, 2 Tim 1: 9, Acts 13: 48, Acts 18: 27 ,Eph 1: 12, Eph 2: 10, Phil 1: 29, Phil 2: 12-13, 1 Thes 1: 4-5, 2 Thes 2: 13-14, 2 Pet 1: 5-11, Amos 3: 2, Jer 1: 5, Mat 7: 22-23, 1 Cor 8: 3, 2 Tim 2: 19, 1 Pet 1: 20
This is the doctrine that our Lord Jesus Christ did not die for every single individual man, but rather for those God elected. This means that His sacrifice was totally effective, saving every man and woman who was elected by God the Father to salvation; the elect are not merely from among the Hebrews, however, but this election extends to the Gentiles. This doctrine is contrary to the idea of men that our Lord Jesus Christ died for every single individual man, and has only rendered salvation a possibility instead of a fully accomplished reality. Of all the Reformed doctrines, this is the one that many find most difficult. It should be noted that one may object by saying the Scriptures often say “all” in reference to Christ’s atonement; this is typically not meant as “every single person” but “every type/nation/tongue”.
Pertinent Passages: Rom 5: 8-10, 2 Cor 5: 18-19, Eph 2: 15-16, Col 1: 21-22, Gal 3: 13, Titus 2: 14, Heb 9: 12, Luke 19: 10, 1 tim 1: 15, John 6: 35-40, John 10: 11, John 10: 14-18, John 10: 24-29, Eph 1: 3-4, Eph 1: 7, Eph 1: 13, John 17: 1-11, John 17: 20, John 17: 24-26, Heb 2: 17, Heb 3: 1, Heb 9: 28, Matt 1: 21, Acts 20: 28, Eph 5: 25-27, Rom 8: 32-34, John 15: 13, Matt 20: 28, Matt 26: 28, Rev 5: 9, John 3: 16-17, John 4: 42, 2 Cor 5: 19, 1 John 2: 1-2, 1 John 4: 14, Rom 5: 18, 2 Cor 5: 14-15, 1 Tim 2: 4-6, Heb 2: 9, 2 Pet 3: 9
This is the doctrine that the Holy Spirit regenerates God’s elect from spiritual deadness, providing them a new heart whereby they may freely believe in our Lord Jesus Christ. This is contrary to the idea of man that the Holy Spirit does all He can to regenerate a person, but until they make a conscious effort to believe, they have no life.
Pertinent Passages: John 6: 37, John 6: 44, John 10: 16, Rom 8:28-30, Rom 8: 32, 1 Cor 6: 11, 1 Cor 12: 3, 2 Cor 3: 6, 2 Cor 3: 17-18, Eph 1: 3-4, Eph 1: 7, Eph 1: 13-14, 1 Pet 1: 2, John 1: 12-13, Rom 9: 16, John 3: 3-8, 1 Pet 1: 3, 1 Pet 1: 23, 1 John 5: 4, Titus 3: 5, Deut 30: 6, Ezek 36: 26-27, 2 Cor 5: 17-18, Gal 6: 15, Eph 2: 10, John 5: 21, John 11: 14-15, John 11: 25, John 11: 38-44, Eph 2: 1, Eph 2: 5, Col 2: 13, John 17: 2, 1 Cor 4: 7, Eph 2: 8-9, Acts 5: 31, Acts 11: 18, Acts 13: 48, Acts 16: 14, Acts 18: 27, Eph 2: 8-9, Phil 1: 29, 2 Tim 2: 25-26
This is the doctrine that those elect who are regenerated by the saving grace of God Almighty will persevere in faith to the very end of their life, kept in that same faith by the power of God. This is contrary to the idea that a true Christian can lose his or her salvation, asserted by many. The erroneous idea known as “Easy Believism”, which says that salvation can be secured by a mere profession of faith, regardless of whether it’s kept or not, is also contrary to this doctrine.
Pertinent Passages: John 3: 16, John 3: 36, John 5: 24, John 6: 47, John 6: 51, John 11: 25, 1 John 5: 13, 1 Pet 1: 23, John 6: 35-40, John 10: 27-30, John 17: 11-12, John 17: 15, Rom 8: 29-30, Rom 8: 35-39, 1 Cor 1: 8, Eph 1: 5, Eph 1: 13-14, Eph 4: 30, Phil 1: 6, 1 Pet 1: 3-5, John 14: 21, John 15: 1-11, Eph 2: 10, 1 Peter 5: 10, 2 Peter 1: 10, Phil 2: 12-13, Phil 3: 12-15, 1 John 3: 9, 1 John 5: 18, Heb 5: 11-12, 1 John 2: 19, 1 John 2: 25
Just wrote some stuff on the differences between Catholics and protestants in beliefs regarding 3 of the solas, figured i'll just post em here. There's a catholic bias of course but it shouldn't be too bad.
1: Sola Scriptura
Protestants believe that only the scriptures, as in, the bible alone is authoritatively binding for what Christians should believe. This is in distinction to Catholics, that hold that the bible, the traditions of the church, and decrees from the councils (as in, ex cathedra statements from the Pope) are authoritatively binding. To expand further, Catholics believe all Catholic beliefs that have always been held universally by all Catholics everywhere - as in what is tradition - is infallible, for "the gates of hell shall not prevail", and under their logic for even one doctrine to be in error would mean hell has prevailed. The nature of the differences is obvious, protestants reject Catholicism, and therefor necessarily must reject the idea that God appointed a Pope, so obviously they can't rely on their councils or traditions. In the other case, Catholics who see the Pope as legitimate successors to the office given to saint Peter will have no problem accepting their authority in governing and direct the church, whether they like the current Pope or not.
Personally, I would sum up this as a question of "do you accept the human authority that God appointed to rule the church, or do you not believe that God appointed a man to rule the church, and therefor believe that the catholic church has no authority." It's pretty essential to not believe in the papacy as a protestant, because the pope, and in fact the whole Catholic church has long since declared Protestantism a heresy, which would mean you're heretic pretenders, destined for damnation if you do not recant… if they are right!
2: Grace alone
The biggest difference between protestants and Catholics is found most directly in the solas of grace alone, not the concept of faith alone - yet everyone spends so much time focusing on faith alone, which is confusing. In Protestantism, the concept of grace alone is the idea that you are saved not because you yourself are actually without sin, but because Christ died as the sacrificial scapegoat that pays the price that you deserved to pay. In other words, you are saved because of God's grace, not of anything you did - nothing about you made you earn your salvation to any degree. You're all sinner without any of the debt.
In Catholicism, Grace is absolutely essential for salvation, but it is not by grace alone. It is essential because we're all children of Adam born with original sin - this would damn everyone to hell no matter what they did; in fact it is orthodox belief that even the old testament saints were not able to go to heaven until Christ died (look it up). This is because for Catholics, baptism cleanses you of all your sins, including original sin, as though you were a completely new person or "born again" - this is what Christ's sacrifice did, as in it's not a legal payment to your account while you yourself are left a sinner; you are actually without any sin after baptism, but you can still sin and lose your salvation! You can and do still sin after baptism even though you are cleansed because of what they call 'concupiscence', which is your learned tenancy to sin that was never removed.
But this leads me to the most important point of all; for a catholic to be eligible for heaven, they must actually be without severe sin before they die, as in Catholics do believe it is possible to live without sin or "failure", "crookedness", and "iniquity". So it is by grace we get to heaven, as no one by their own bootstraps can lift themselves out of original sin, because in practice God is the one who must reveal himself to you, and because of many other practically essential graces such as the sacrament of confession (which is method of getting sins removed after baptism, however unlike baptism you do have to pay for these sins by purgation Isaiah 6:6-7), but that doesn't mean sit back and do nothing. we absolutely must work to be holy, without sin before we die, for that after that we cannot do anything to fix our state, and we must pay penance for our crimes and if you're feeling charitable, the crimes of others, be it this world or the next.
On a side note If you do not believe in free will, you'll probably like grace alone, because having a free will is not necessary for grace alone to work - it is a fact of history that Luther himself didn't believe in free will.
3: Faith alone
Faith alone for protestants is often all the beliefs covered by grace alone, just applied to faith. So you aren't saved by giving to charity, being a good person, because of your baptism, no you're saved because of your faith (as in belief of the true faith) and nothing else, as that is how you receive the benefits of Christ's sacrifice that pays for all your sins, not through baptism but through belief (though of course Protestantism is quite varied, some do believe in baptism being essential). And like grace alone above, Catholics deny faith alone as they believe that things like baptism, confession, either earthly or non-earthly penance, and doing God's will (as in not being with severe sin) is very much necessary to be saved, so while obviously you need faith, you need more than faith; you need faith and integrity, which is faith and works.
More or less. Baptists try to pull the same shit. It's just a lame attempt at trying to give their denomination an air of legitimacy it otherwise doesn't have.
If you aren't Catholic you aren't correct.
Oh shit we've got a live one
OP here.
I talked to my neighbour again.
He told me that reformed christians are distinctly not protestant, but I am totally confused now.
I didn't want to offend him so I just backed away from the question entirely.
He's delusional, pay him no mind
He's just mistaken
The very word reformed hearkens to the protestant reformation
He's clearly mistaken.
I fear either he may be ignorant of that history or his pastor may be deliberately leading him this way.
Do you happen to know what particular denomination he professes? I know he's Reformed, but is he Presbyterian? Baptist?
Agreed. I grew up reformed.
There are many denominations which cannot be accurately described by their lineage after liberals got to them but some might have kept the name.
I don't understand the point of Calvinism having five points, when four of those points are just variations of the same point.Calvinism basically boils down to:
1. T for Total Depravity
and
2. U,L,I,P are all just variations of the Calvinist concept of radical predestination: i.e. no free will at all.
In fact, even the first point, due to emphasizing that man is so corrupt, that he cannot come to God of his own free will, is just another variation of the central "no free will" tenet. Why bother having five points at all? To put on airs of having a theology that's deeper than it really is? Calvinism can literally be summed up as one point: "Man has no freewill; God runs everything; the end."
Saying that you're Christian but you aren't Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant is like saying that you're a primate but you aren't a mammal. It's a nonsense statement. Lots of Protestants like to say that they aren't Protestant but they're just flat out wrong. Obviously it isn't something you need to push with your neighbor necessarily but you should know that what he is saying makes no sense whatsoever.
I would imagine that he rejects the label of "Protesting" against the Roman church, as he believes that Rome is inherently corrupt, from the very beginning, rather than being a once-orthodox church that later departed from the True Faith, and thus must be "protested against." The label of "protestant" implies a certain connection to the Roman church that I'm sure many people are eager to reject.
One is more heretical than the other.
I actually saw a pretty good explanation of it the other day. From a catholic view, it looks like the protestant (reformed) theology just sprung up 500 years ago. But look at the name, "reformed". They claim that the catholic church has added a bunch of stuff to the faith, which is against the Bible, and so they go back to the way things were originally. I find myself agreeing with a few of their points, despite being raised catholic. A few verses:
Both point to scripture being sufficient, and how the church should be based on scripture (not exceeding it). Catholics have a few things they do that don't line up with scripture, such as papal infallibility. They claim Matthew 16:18-19 is proof of that doctrine, but nowhere does that section say that (i) Peter is infallible when defining faith or (ii) his successors are also infallible when defining faith. Another verse I've seen used by catholics to explain it is John 21:17 where Jesus tells Peter to feed his sheep, which also fails to state that Peter is infallible when defining faith, or that his successors would also be infallible. Some of the reformed faiths even read the church fathers, and their teachings are pretty much in line with each other to my limited knowledge.
To add to this, the shepherd-sheep relationship in the NT never suggests a single greatest authority figure
from "Pastoral Ministry: The Ministry of a Shepherd" Ch 8
Peter saw his role as an elder/bishop/overseer as equivalent to every other elder
nice trips
… and even nicer laying out of TULIP with scriptural attestation
i was also wondering what denom someone might come from if they claimed to be 'reformed but not protestant', because it would be very difficult to hold to the 5 points and not protest RC dogma, unless they know absolutely nothing of Roman Catholic teaching
No autonomous will. We have a creaturely will, but only God is autonomous.
I'm at a loss as to what denom he might be.
Most, if not all, Reformed Christians realize that they're Protestant, so unless he's part of some non-denomination Reformed church, I can't imagine why he might reject the Protestant label.
Maybe he prefers Evangelical? But then again, that carries a lot of baggage these days.
So……. in other words….. no free will.
lol, calvinism is the original "black pill"
fallacious argument resulting in anti-God theology