Talk:Five solae

message: Hi Philip, welcome to Wikipedia!  Your idea of listing the five "Solas" in a separate article seems logical, but you might consider consolidating here information from other articles that already list some or all of the Solas - such as Protestantism and Calvinism.  One way to find these references is to go to the two Sola articles (at least, that I'm aware of), Sola fide and Sola scriptura, and use the "What links here" button to see the numerous existing references.  Later, Harris7 17:57, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Consolidating

message: A little history would be helpful here. When was each of these first propounded? When did each first appear in print? Which denominations believe each? When were they first grouped together? Who named them the five "solas"? - Nunh-huh 04:19, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  History 

message: :"Faith yields justification and good works" and is contrasted with the Catholic formula "Faith and good works yield justification."
A very tidy summation, which I think will stand scrutiny.  Mkmcconn (Talk) 14:43, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: well done

message: I would welcome interested editors from the Calvinist, Reformed, and other Protestant traditions to weigh in with their own interpretation of these five solas. The Lutheran position should not be presented as the only POV although I have striven to make statements on the Lutheran position NPOV. We may find that we have more unanimity than we may have thought. It may be helpful for Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox editors to correct any misrepresentation of their doctrine. Classical Thomist Roman Catholic doctrine holds to the sola gratia.--Drboisclair 20:41, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This line "This doctrine asserts divine monergism in salvation: God acts alone to save the sinner. The responsibility for salvation does not rest on the sinner to any degree as in "synergism" or Arminianism ". Strikes me as biased.  Arminians claim the 5 solas.  jbolden1517Talk 03:03, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

text: I have adjusted several paragraphs relating to Catholicism, because they tended to give what some Protestants think Catholicism says, rather than what it actually says. I have added some links to the Catechism on the Vatican website, to show that hopefully I am on the right track.  In particular, I think the section on Baptism and Catholics, though interesting, did not square well with what the Church teaches (though lay Catholics believe all sorts of things, of course, as does anyone.)  The section implied a magic sprinkling view of baptism that is a little outlandish to me.Rick Jelliffe (talk) 07:37, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need for imput from Calvinist and other Protestant traditions 

message: Just a note: the first four mottos are generally stated in the ablative case (hence "fide" rather than "fides") and translated as a prepositional phrase starting with "by" or "through." Thus, "Solus Christus" is usually rendered "Solo Christo."
:This seems to be a ubiquitous assertion. But the ablative, being the case of moving away, would translate to "from" or "out of" but not "by" or "through", which would be the domain of the instrumental case.--108.110.172.234 (talk) 07:45, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no 'instrumental case' in Latin; it's the ablative. The ablative is used for many things, one of which is "Ablative of Instrument". It is indeed descended from the Sanskrit instrumental case, but in Latin it's just the ablative case. Forresthopkinsa (talk) 16:49, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Latin 

message: Would someone mind explaining the Latin grammar behind "Soli Deo gloria"?  I've seen it cast that way a significant majority of the time, but the genitive/(dative/ablative)/(nominative/ablative) construction doesn't make very much sense.
It seems as if one of the following would be more appropriate:
* "Solae Dei gloriae" (dative/genitive/dative: "to only the glory of God")
* "Soli Dei gloriae" (genitive/genitive/dative: "to the glory of only God")
* "Solo Deo gloria" (dative/dative/nominative: "to only God glory", i.e., "to God alone [be the] glory" or "glory [be] to God alone")
Does anyone know
1) which case "Deo" is in (dative or ablative),
2) which case "gloria" is in (nominative or ablative),
and/or
3) what phrasing makes these noun endings make sense?
Thanks!  72.218.206.109 (talk) 16:30, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Soli (DAT) Deo (DAT) gloria (NOM) — ‘glory only to God’.  Apart from gods not existing, it makes perfect sense!  — Chameleon 06:28, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree. As you correctly point out, "soli Deo" is the dative object. Thus, the translation ought to be "to the only God" or "to the sole God". The current translation in the article, using "alone" as a focusing adverb, "Glory to God alone" is not based on the Latin grammar. Whether it is interpreted in that sense is another matter and depends a lot on what "glory" means. The literal translation of the Latin text can only be "Glory to the only God." The phrase "glory to God alone", using "alone" as an adverb, would be "solum Deo gloria." -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:53, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm pretty sure Soli Deo Gloria is meant to mean "glory to God alone", not "glory to the only God" which is a very different meaning. This would fit perfectly with Luther's other solas: "scripture alone", "faith alone", "grace alone" and "Christ alone". Another way of expressing it is "Only to God be the glory" (and "only from scripture", "only by faith", "only by grace" and "only through Christ"). "Glory to the only God" would have been no change for the Reformers - even the Israelites believed that! Perhaps they got the grammar wrong - the important thing is to get the meaning right, not necessarily the most literal translation. HTH. --Bermicourt (talk) 16:24, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grammar re: "Soli Deo gloria"? 

message: The idea of Luther having Three (Faith, Grace, Scripture) instead of Five Solas is a pretty common one. Why is there no mention of this, or pointing it out as a common misconception if it is a misconception (I personally don't know as some sources I see say 3, others 5, I came to this article to find out and there's nothing on this)?Flygongengar (talk) 06:17, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to agree with the above. In fact, the title of this article is really rather misleading. As the article itself admits, the notion of *five* solae is a 20th century one. I doubt any serious scholar of the subject would dispute that only three positions were being made clear in and just after Luther. For example, in Chapter 23, ("Luther: Law and Gospel") of "Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition", Professor Phillip Cary (http://www.thegreatcourses.com/professors/phillip-cary/) mentions only three solae. To satisfy NPOV, the article should really be renamed as Three solae, but, sure, with reference made to the two additional (more recently recognized) principles. That's probably too much to ask for, but at very least this three vs five distinction should be clearer.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.112.147.196 (talk) 20:46, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Luther's Three Solas 

message: (Moving this down from page top, to co-locate it with the formal move-proposal -- next section. Please don't add anything to this section; instead, add to the actual discussion  below.)
I propose this page be renamed (moved) to reflect the fact that it is actually about the original Three reformation solae, with the additional two (plus others) being modern additions. I already attempted the move but it was reverted as being undiscussed. Fair enough; lets discuss.
First I'll note that the reversion has done more than rename. The opening statement now reads: "The Five solae or five solas are a set of principles held by theologians and churchmen[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] to be central to the Protestant Reformation", with the note about the 20th Century augmentation being deleted. Unfortunately that statement is now simply factually incorrect as evidenced by the list of citations that the reverter left in place. I doubt you could find *any* theologian or churchman of any learning who would claim that central to the Protestant Reformation were *five* solae. Whether modern Protestants feel that in fact there are more differences between their modern view and the views of the modern RC church is irrelevant. This article is about the Protestant Reformation concepts.
Overall then, the reason I think the move is merited is that there are essentially two different concepts at play. One is the set of (three) solae that pertain to the Protestant Reformation. The second is additional modern solae (popularly two, but sometimes more) that were added to that list in the 20th century but which few if any Reformation scholars would accept were part of the dynamic of the historical set of events collectively known as the Reformation.
So I think there are two options. One is to have two pages. The first would describe the established historical facts -- i.e. three solae *of the Reformation*. The second would refer to the 20th century augmentation of that list of three -- typically two solae that had nothing to do with Luther, Calvin, or anyone else back then. But I'm pretty sure that two such pages would reasonably lead to calls for a merge. 
So the second option is to have a single page handling both concepts. But it seems to me that for historical accuracy, it should have the three Reformation solae front and center, and the two 20th-Century solae as additional commentary. That in fact is how the page looked even prior to my move and edits. The only problem then was the title -- the article clearly was about the three solae, but was named for five. Hence my move. Thomask0 (talk) 00:39, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it would be better if you followed the procedure at Wikipedia:Requested moves. StAnselm (talk) 00:57, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

text: I'd certainly contest your first "fact": Solus Christus was the "first and chief article of Luther's personal faith". StAnselm (talk) 02:41, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Contrary to Bruner, Luther did not use the phrase "solus Christos" in Smalcald. Bruner is *inferring* that phrase from the series of NT quotes provided by Luther. Now it is certainly arguable -- I'd say probable -- that Luther held to the *belief* denoted by "sola Christos", but there's no evidence that he considered it to be the same kind of theological "tagline" that the three solae were. And consider: if my initial alleged fact -- that at and shortly after the Reformation, there were three not five solae -- is incorrect, then so is much of the scholarly commentary since the reformation. For about 450 of the 500 years since then, the notion has been clearly of three solae. Only in the 20th century did the other two get pinned on. So if I'm wrong, so is the bulk of Christian theologians and churchmen. Are they wrong? Is Engleder wrong in 1916? Was the Lutheran Synod wrong in the 1990s? Is Phillip Carey at Eastern wrong? Remember the argument I'm making. It's not there is no such thing as "Five Solae". Rather it is that we have two concepts to handle -- the Three, and the Five.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thomask0 (talk • contribs) 07:17, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: But the three solae are a 20th-century construct as well... StAnselm (talk) 08:31, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: You may be right about that. Using the (not exactly definitive) Google Ngram I can find no references to either formulation prior to the 1900's. But it still leaves open the question -- how many solae belong on the list a) for the Reformation itself, and b) for moderns. The best answer is likely to come from the relevant scholars, but I doubt many, if any of the people interested in this page qualify. As a second best then, I went into a local used bookstore with a good selection of new and old religion books. I grabbed about ten of the books discussing either the history of Christianity in general, or the Reformation specifically and checked the index for each. The phrase "Five solas" (or "solae") was mentioned in *none*. However, neither was the phrase "Three solas" (or "solae"). Further, and probably most telling, the simple word "sola" appeared in only one of the books (as "sola fide"). And I just checked my copy of McGrath's "Historical Theology" and it has only "sola scriptura" in the index. So neither "Five solas" nor "Three solas" has been making its way into published books. One possible conclusion is that we have here, in Wikipedia's "N Solae", is simply a non-concept. I'm guessing that if you asked a Reformation scholar about how many solae there were, he or she would reply something like "Well usually we speak of three, but it's not that simple." So I propose that a page name change is still required, but not to "Three solae". Rather, the title should simply be "Reformation solae", and we can then let the article itself tell the tale of how what was three became five and could even be seven. Would that work?  Thomask0 (talk) 18:58, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

text: Once again, these is the sort of discussion that would be better within a formal move proposal. StAnselm (talk) 20:53, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: And, once again, the first part of the formal move proposal *is* precisely the Talk-page-based discussion I am trying to encourage here. If no one is willing to discuss here then of course I'll escalate to the next stage. But be clear that this discussion Just Is the first step in the formally described process.Thomask0 (talk) 06:34, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Page Move Proposal -- Pre-formal-move-proposal

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Five solae. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20141029162738/http://www.telc.ca/pdf/ELCIC_anderson.pdf to http://www.telc.ca/pdf/ELCIC_anderson.pdf
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20130531081519/http://logia.org/blogia/?p=464 to http://logia.org/blogia/?p=464
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers. —cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 10:41, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: * In particular, any tag out of date for any reason will be corrected. For instance, a tag that says "unreferenced" on a section now containing references will be downgraded to "refimprove". NOTE: Someone should create a template for grossly unreferenced sections like these, that is stronger than "refimprove", which now covers everything from 1% sourced to 80 or 90% complete. But until such is done, this is as good as we have at our disposal.
* The unbalanced tag was added to a grossly undersourced subsection, because it is a subsection purely from the Lutheran perspective, and so constitutes an overly narrow (and thoroughly WP:VERIFY defiant) bit of un-encyclopedic content.
2601:246:C700:558:E81D:8A3:695D:328F (talk) 21:46, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notes on tags changed and added 

message: The quote “all things necessary for salvation and about faith and life are taught in the Bible with sufficient clarity so that the ordinary believer can find it there and understand it” only has "Reformed Dogmatics , 2:209–10." listed as its source. Does anyone know which specific Reformed Dogmatics the quote is from? (hope this is the correct way to ask this btw, I'm new here)
Ep19291 (talk) 18:17, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Good question. It was added very recently by an anonymous editor. Nothing comes up in searching. StAnselm (talk) 18:47, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Looking for specific source