Criticism of Protestantism covers critiques
and questions raised about Protestantism,
the Christian tradition based on Martin Luther's
Protestant Reformation. While critics praise
Protestantism's Christ-centered and Bible-centered
faith, Protestantism is faced with criticism
mainly from the Catholic Church and some Orthodox
Churches, although Protestant denominations
have also engaged in self-critique and criticized
one another.The Catholic biblical critique
asserts that the Sola scriptura principle
of Lutheran and Reformed Churches is inaccurate
according to the Catholic doctrine.
While Catholic tradition agrees with Protestantism
that faith, not works, is necessary for "initial"
justification, some contemporary Protestant
Scholars such as N.T. Wright affirm that both
faith and works are necessary for justification.
Catholic critics and revisionists also challenge
the historicity of the Great Apostasy, a premise
of the Protestant Reformation.
== Sources of criticism ==
While Catholic leaders have been seeing the
positive side of the founder of Protestantism,
Martin Luther, calling him "thoroughly Christocentric"
and saying that his intention was "to renew
the Church and not to divide it", Catholic
doctrine views Protestantism as "suffering
from defects", not possessing the fullness
of truth and lacking "the fullness of the
means of salvation".Protestants also engage
in self-criticism, a special target of which
is the fragmentation of Protestant denominations.
In addition, due to the fact that Protestantism
is not a monolithic tradition, some Protestant
denominations criticize the beliefs of other
Protestants. For example, the Reformed Churches
criticize the Methodist Churches for the latter
denomination's belief in the doctrine of unlimited
atonement, in a long-term debate between Calvinists
and Arminians.
== Criticism of foundational principles ==
=== Sola scriptura ===
Sola scriptura, one of the Five Principles
shared by Lutheran and Reformed Churches,
originated during the Protestant Reformation,
is a formal principle of many Protestant denominations.
Baptist Churches as well share the Sola scriptura
principle and state that the Bible alone is
the sole source of knowledge, truth and revelation
sent directly from God, the only true Word
of God, sufficient of itself to be the supreme
authority of the Christian faith.In contrast,
the Anglican Communion and the Methodist Church
uphold the doctrine of prima scriptura, which
holds that Sacred tradition, reason and experience
are the sources of Christian doctrine, but
are nonetheless subordinate to the authority
of the Bible as well.According to Benedict
XVI, the Catholic Church holds a very different
view on the Bible and doesn't consider itself
to be a "Religion of the book": "while in
the [Catholic] Church we greatly venerate
the sacred Scriptures, the Christian faith
is not a 'religion of the book': Christianity
is the 'religion of the Word of God'...together
with the Church’s living Tradition, [the
Scripture] constitutes the supreme rule of
faith."
=== 
Justification by faith and grace alone ===
==== Sola fide ====
At "the crux of the disputes" are the doctrine
on justification and Sola fide, two of the
core principles of Protestantism.
The immediate official Catholic response to
the Reformation, the Council of Trent, affirmed
in 1547 the foundational importance of faith
as part of its doctrinal tradition, "we are
therefore considered to be justified by faith,
because faith is the beginning of human salvation,
the foundation, and the root of all Justification...none
of those things which precede justification
--whether faith or works-- merit the grace
itself of justification."Many centuries later,
in 1999 the Pontifical Council for Promoting
Christian Unity and the Lutheran World Federation
have found basic doctrinal agreements in the
Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification,
showing "a common understanding" of the justification:
"By grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving
work and not because of any merit on our part,
we are accepted by God and receive the Holy
Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping
and calling us to good works." The document
states that the Churches now share "a common
understanding of our justification by God's
grace through faith in Christ." To the parties
involved, this essentially resolves the 500-year-old
conflict over the nature of justification
which was at the root of the Protestant Reformation.
The World Methodist Council formally recognized
the Declaration in 2006.Although an important
step forward in the Catholic–Lutheran dialogue,
the Declaration continues to show the unsurpassable
differences of thought that separate the Catholic
Church from the Protestant tradition. Lutherans
uphold Luther's doctrine that "human beings
are incapable of cooperating in their salvation
... God justifies sinners in faith alone (sola
fide)."
According to N. T. Wright, "Paul, in company
with mainstream Second Temple Judaism, affirms
that God’s final judgment will be in accordance
with the entirety of a life led — in accordance,
in other words, with works.” Benedict XVI
in 2006 declared that "it is to God and his
grace alone that we owe what we are as Christians."Methodist
Churches have always emphasized that ordinarily
both faith and good works play a role in salvation;
in particular, the works of piety and the
works of mercy, in Wesleyan-Arminian theology,
are "indispensible for our sanctification".
Methodist Bishop Scott J. Jones in United
Methodist Doctrine says that faith is always
necessary to salvation unconditionally. Good
works are the exterior result of true faith
but are necessary only conditionally, that
is, if there is time and opportunity.
==== Criticism of the Joint Declaration within
the Catholic Church ====
The Vatican's note in response to the Declaration
said that the Protestant formula "at the same
time righteous and sinner", is not acceptable:
"In baptism everything that is really sin
is taken away, and so, in those who are born
anew there is nothing that is hateful to God.
It follows that the concupiscence [disordered
desire] that remains in the baptised is not,
properly speaking, sin."
==== Catholic opinion on the Great Apostasy
====
According to Benedict XVI, the encounter of
Christianity with enlightened Greek culture
and philosophy is not apostasy into Paganism,
but rather a natural development in the history
of the early Church; Ratzinger also states
that the translation of the Old Testament
in Greek and the fact that the New Testament
itself was written in Greek are a direct consequence
of the biblical revelation's reception by
the Hellenistic world.
==== Apostolic succession ====
Some Catholic critics state that Protestant
acceptance of the Great Apostasy implies their
non-acceptance of the apostolic succession
in the Catholic Church and Orthodox Churches.
At the same time, a number of Protestant Churches,
including Lutheran Churches, the Moravian
Church, and the Anglican Communion, affirm
that they ordain their clergy in line with
the apostolic succession; in 1922, the Eastern
Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople
recognised Anglican orders as valid.The Catholic
Church has rejected the validity of Anglican
apostolic succession as well as that of other
Protestant Churches, saying in regard to the
latter that "the proclamation of Sola scriptura
led inevitably to an obscuring of the older
idea of the Church and its priesthood. Thus
through the centuries, the imposition of hands
either by men already ordained or by others
was often in practice abandoned. Where it
did take place, it did not have the same meaning
as in the Church of Tradition."
== Criticism of doctrine and practices ==
=== Eucharist ===
Some Catholic critics say that Protestant
Churches, including the Anglican, Lutheran,
Methodist, and Reformed traditions, each teach
a different form of the doctrine of the real
presence of Christ in the Eucharist, with
Lutherans affirming Christ's presence as a
sacramental union, and Reformed/Presbyterian
Christians affirming a pneumatic presence.
Baptists, Anabaptists, the Plymouth Brethren,
Jehovah's Witnesses, and other Restorationist
Protestant denominations affirm that the Lord's
Supper is a memorial of Jesus' death, and
consider the belief in the real presence of
Christ to be unbiblical or a misinterpretation
of the Scriptures.
=== Confession and other sacraments ===
While some Protestants, such as Lutherans,
have retained the sacrament of confession,
most Protestant denominations do not.
=== Prayers for the dead ===
The Anglican and Methodist traditions along
with Eastern Orthodoxy, affirm the existence
of an intermediate state, Hades, and thus
pray for the dead, as do many Lutheran Churches,
such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America, which "remembers the faithful departed
in the Prayers of the People every Sunday,
including those who have recently died and
those commemorated on the church calendar
of saints".
== Historical and ecclesiological critique
==
Protestant Churches are considered by some
Catholic critics as a negative force which
"protests" and revolts against the Catholic
Church. Catholic theologian Karl Adam wrote:
"The sixteenth century revolt from the Church
led inevitably to the revolt from Christ of
the eighteenth century, and thence to the
revolt from God of the nineteenth. And thus
the modern spirit has been torn loose from
the deepest and strongest supports of its
life, from its foundation in the Absolute,
in the self-existent Being, in the Value of
all values... Instead of the man who is rooted
in the Absolute, hidden in God, strong and
rich, we have the man who rests upon himself,
the autonomous man."In response to Adam's
accusation towards Protestantism, the church
historian and Protestant theologian Wilhelm
Pauck pointed out that "In summing up [...] the
Roman Catholic criticism that the Reformation
and Protestantism resulted from a revolt against
the Church, we conclude that the Roman Catholic
leaders of the sixteenth century are not without
responsibility for the break-up of Christian
unity", therefore the Schism between Protestants
and Catholics was an inevitable consequence
of the Protestant Reformation for which both
sides have to be considered responsible.
== See also ==
Anti-Christian sentiment
Anti-Catholicism
Anti-Eastern Orthodox sentiment
Anti-Mormonism
Anti-Oriental Orthodox sentiment
Anti-Protestantism
Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses
Black Legend
Counter-Reformation
Criticism of the Catholic Church
Catholic Church sexual abuse cases
Catholic Inquisition
Controversies about Opus Dei
European wars of religion
List of people burned as heretics
Pope as the Antichrist
== References ==
