True Christianity is Growing but Rome is Sinking

This is my somewhat long response to an Orthodox commenter named "John" below:

If there's any group whose future looks endangered, I would say it would have to be traditional Protestantism.

I'll grant you that the mainline denominations have shot themselves in the foot by having latched on to some of the liberal theologies that are out there. That having been said, one can still see true and good growth in Christ throughout the Protestant world.

The thing that gives me the greatest hope is, in general, the advancement in Biblical scholarship. I've been trying to look at that sort of thing, to the best of my ability, and it really does seem to me that the old liberal theologies are passing away, and that seminaries from WSC to Dallas to Covenant to Southern Baptist to RTS are really emphasizing both original languages and hermeneutics that work to combine the best of Systematic Theology, Biblical Theology, and Literary theory, along with a healthy respect for the (small-t) tradition of the church. These efforts are going to bear wonderful fruit. This is not to mention what I've seen coming out of Aberdeen.

If you have the time, take a listen, for example, to Richard Pratt's "Introduction to Pastoral Theology" messages at iTunes.rts.edu. These talk about this confluence in the best possible light. Consider that this information is not only available at Seminaries, but is available now to folks like you and me.

We understand the Scriptures far better today than we ever have -- this includes the ANE background to the OT, and how it relates, all the way through to the New Testament and early church times (the process of collecting the writings and forming a canon. For example, several writers have studied the collection of Paul's letters, and there is good evidence to suggest that this process began during Paul's lifetime.

And further, we're learning more and more about the history of the early church. There are more sources of the writings of the fathers, and more people are studying them.

Yes sure, there is a lot of growth in various parts of the world in what one might call basic Christianity, characterised by very little dogma. Christ died for our sins is about the deepest thing one might hear on a typical Sunday. Not that my aim is to denigrate these groups, but how is that a win for "Protestantism"? Its a win for minimalist Christianity, if that's what you want to promote, but Protestantism? How so?

You have cited the tremendous growth in Christianity -- it is growing tremendously fast in the southern hemisphere. I can't speak to the content of that growth. You called it "Minimalist," in that "the deepest thing one might hear is that Christ died for our sins."

Consider what Paul said to the Corinthians: "And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God."

You have to consider that this is a sufficient message. This growth is not going to get ahead of God's word. Pratt, whom I mentioned above (a professor at a mainline PCA seminary) also is part of a growing effort to use the Internet to spread good theology throughout the world. Take a look at this:

http://thirdmill.org/

I think this is a tremendous effort, and we'll only see more of this sort of thing in the coming years.

Who has got any figures saying that traditional Presbyterians, Anglicans or Lutherans are picking up big numbers? Or is the message ABC christianity? (Anything But Catholicism) is good?

WSC is trying to foster a movement to "Recover the Reformed Confessions." Have you read any of Scott Clark's work, for example?

http://heidelblog.wordpress.com/

I believe this is a tremendously helpful effort -- the idea is to bring to mind the development of the theologies following the Reformation. Keep in mind that it was one thing to understand the need to break from Rome (especially after Rome ossified its opposition to the Gospel at Trent); it was another to form a positive statement of what Biblical Christianity should be.

Ideas have consequences, and these are good and right ideas. But they're not just fermenting around in seminaries. There is a hunger for Christ in the world. God's hand is shaping these theologies and movements, and I believe that the use of the Internet will foster the spread of these good theologies and movements far faster than the printing press was able to influence the Reformation.

You should not look backward, at the "traditional" denominations, except as they're giving form to the movements that I've described above. I'm sure we will see the influence of this sort of thing in the not-too-distant future.

As for "anything but Catholicism," I'd nuance that to say "anything but Roman Catholicism" I do believe there are things we can learn from studying the Greek fathers, but as Robert Reymond has said:

Rome’s exegesis of Matthew 16 and its historically developed claim to authoritative primacy in the Christian world simply cannot be demonstrated and sustained from Scripture itself. This claim is surely one of the great hoaxes foisted upon professing Christendom, upon which false base rests the whole papal sacerdotal system.

"Robert Reymond, “A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith,” pg 818.

It does seem to me though, that with recent historical studies of the early papacy, that that institution won't stand in its present form. Because of this research, it seems as if Pope Ratzinger has already started to give away the store, and I'm not the only one to have noticed this:

http://willingcatholicmartyr.blogspot.com/2010/04/ratzinger-denies-big-dogma.html

Certainly, no one who claims allegiance to Catholic theology can simply declare the doctrine of primacy null and void, especially not if he seeks to understand the objections and evaluates with an open mind the relative weight of what can be determined historically. Nor is it possible, on the other hand, for him to regard as the only possible form and, consequently, as binding on all Christians the form this primacy has taken in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The symbolic gestures of Pope Paul VI and, in particular, his kneeling before the representative of the Ecumenical Patriarch [the schismatic Patriarch Athenagoras] were an attempt to express precisely this and, by such signs, to point the way out of the historical impasse.

[Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1987), p. 198]

News From Rome

Looking After a Eucharistic Miracle: Franciscan Recounts His Special Mission in Siena

Here's one I didn't know- If a consecrated host deteriorates, the real presence of Christ disappears. How was this determined? Drop me a comment, and save me some time-

Recap:
Aug. 14, 1730: Eve of the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. That day in all the churches of Siena the priests consecrated additional hosts for those who might wish to receive the Body of Christ the following day. 351 Consecrated hosts stolen during the night.

Aug. 14, 1730: The hosts were returned, unharmed.

The hosts were full of dust and cobwebs. The priests cleaned them with great care. Then there was a day of adoration and reparation. Thousands of faithful arrived in the basilica in thanksgiving for the finding of the hosts. They were not distributed, it seems, because the Franciscans wanted the pilgrims to adore them until the moment they deteriorated (because on being deteriorated, the real presence of Christ would disappear).

But the hosts remained intact. The people began to consider them miraculous and increasingly pilgrims went to pray before them. A few were distributed on special occasions.

Today: 223 hosts remain, in the same state they were in the day they were consecrated.

Interpretation of the priest in charge of "looking after" this miracle:

The Eucharistic miracle of Siena "represents a proof of the love of God for us and the presence to sustain us against doubts, difficulties -- the miracle with which God the Father is helping the Church not to be afraid, to live the presence of her founder sent by the Father to do his will."

"Here two miraculous things happen," explained Father Spring pointing to the hosts consecrated almost three centuries ago. "Time does not exist, it has stopped"; and "composite bodies and organic substances are subject to withering. For these hosts, neither fungus nor elements that break them down subsist. It is a living, continuous miracle. We do not know until when the Lord will permit it."

Roman Catholic Scholar Says: Erasmus Did Not Defeat Luther in their Free Will Debate

Desiderius Erasmus’s Diatribe de libero arbitrio (1524) against Martin Luther was well received. The Pope, Emperor, and Henry VIII all approved of the work. That's not hard to imagine when the leading scholar of the day sides against the enemy of the Roman Church! Whatever this great scholar put forth would've been seen as a helpful hand.

Contrarily, some later Roman Catholic scholars have a negative perspective on the abilities of Erasmus as a defender of Roman Catholicism. For instance, Franz Xaver Kiefl evaluated the debate between Luther and Erasmus and found that Luther understood Christianity on a much deeper level than did Erasmus. He notes Erasmus was a man of Renaissance learning. Kiefl notes the negative impact of the Renaissance on Christianity and contrarily sees Luther’s positive impact of being God’s “powerful instrument of Providence” in the work of Church “purification.” Harry J. McSorley, C.S.P. wrote an entire book demonstrating Erasmus. While Father McSorley doesn't agree with all of Luther's argumentation in the Bondage of the Will, he does stand with Luther in condemning the position argued by Erasmus. 

Similarly, Roman Catholic scholar Joseph Lortz was troubled by the work of Erasmus. Lortz saw Erasmus as the threat to the Church, not Luther. Lortz explains that the threat was not new: during the sixteenth century the papal nuncio Aleander recognized it also:

There was only one man on the Catholic side who in some measure recognized in time the danger embodied by Erasmus. This was the papal nuncio, Aleander, himself a humanist of some standing... [he said] ‘God forbid that we see fresh papal briefs to Erasmus couched in the same tone as that printed at the beginning of his New Testament and containing an approving explanation by the pope of a work in which he expresses views on confession, indulgences, divorce, papal authority, etc., which Luther has simply to take over. But the poison of Erasmus works even more dangerously…

Erasmus at length came into contact with Luther. But Catholics did not see the true Erasmus even in this controversy. They applauded his book on free will, because it contradicted Luther; but they failed to see that the primary aim of the book was to propose an optimistic morality that left little room for grace, sin and redemption [Joseph Lortz, The Reformation in Germany, p.p. 155-156].

In his book The Reformation: A Problem for Today (Maryland: The Newman Press, 1964), Lortz goes into greater detail. Lortz outlines the deficiency of humanism as an interpretive framework by which to do theology. Recall, Erasmus was a leading humanist scholar. Lortz notes,

Through its contact with antiquity, humanism emphasized the natural powers of man, particularly the power of his will... this new approach was incapable of grasping the real nature of salvation, and the function of grace in the process of salvation was neglected. Both points of view showed dangerous tendencies to interpret Christianity in a moralistic sense, so that humanism became a force that tended to destroy Christianity (Lortz, The Reformation: A Problem for Today, p.p. 64-65).

Lortz though clarifies this in regard to Erasmus:

Furthermore, Erasmus tended to take a dangerously over-spiritualized view of the Church. Though he did not deny the reality of grace and talked of the insufficiency of man despite his free will in a most orthodox manner, he did preach Christianity primarily as morality. In the practical order he so emphasized man's own powers of intellect and will that he came dangerously close to moralism.

-snip-

This point is worthy of emphasis: In his disputation on freedom of will, any number of times we are told in the most orthodox fashion, at times quite emphatically, that all of man's powers and gifts come from God, that man must beware of pride and self-sufficiency, that everything a man can do with his intellect and will belongs to God (Diatribe,75). But for one thing, this Diatribe was written by Erasmus as a proof of his orthodoxy, and secondly, the picture of man which Erasmus gives us in his pedagogical and moral tracts, in his letters and by his example, is more to the point. The answer is not too encouraging. At the very least we are forced to assert that he did not draw the practical consequences from his statements that attribute everything to God and His Grace (Lortz, The Reformation: A Problem for Today, p.p.72-73).

Luther pounced on this. Luther saw the inconsistency in the argumentation of Erasmus. Lortz views this inconsistency of Erasmus's position by explaining that he had an underlying skepticism towards dogma. Lortz states,

[Erasmus] has no more concept of dogma as an exact statement of Chrisitan teaching than did the men of the Enlightenment or modern liberal Protestants. No one recognized this fact more clearly and made more of it than Luther in the First Preface to his work Vom geknechteten Willen" ((Lortz, The Reformation: A Problem for Today, pp. 71-72).

-snip-

We must say something more on the adogmatism mentioned before. If, as Erasmus thought, dogma is something superfluous; if, as he thought, the doctrine of Christianity could and should be restricted to a few general points, Erasmus was quite near the erroneous interpretation which would equate Christianity with monotheism. When this is done, Christianity becomes indistinguishable from the other higher religions and thus, relativism is just around the corner.

If all this is true, then we have to agree that Erasmus constituted a grave threat to the Church—not because of the frequently frivolous and mocking criticism he directed at it, but because of his adogmatism, moralism, and relativism.

The pope at the time was the humanist Leo X who had a great regard for Erasmus and was quite unaware of the threat which the latter constituted for the Church. Thus we find the papal delegate Alexander writing from the Diet of Worms in 1521: "For heaven's sake, don't send us any more privileges for Erasmus. The man is doing far more harm than Luther ever can." Luther was precisely the one who recognized and rejected the danger from the quarter of the humanists. With all the violence of his characteristically one-sided approach, Luther turned from the cultural morality he found in the humanists to the religion of faith as he found it in St. Paul (Lortz, The Reformation: A Problem for Today, pp. 73-74).

From time to time, I come across Roman Catholic laymen attempting to argue that Erasmus eventually beat Luther in their written debate, or that "Luther met his match." Based on the comments of Joseph Lortz, I simply don't see how a Roman Catholic would ever want to assert that. And to invoke the authority game: a Roman Catholic historian usually trumps online layman apologists, especially a Roman Catholic historian with the Imprimi potest, Nihil Obstat, and Imptimarur.

Revised February 2026.

Incarnation, Atonement, and Trinity

Phil Keaggy: The Maker of the Universe (Words by F. W. Pitt)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27GUZsrhxJ8&feature=related

“The Maker of the universe,
As Man for man was made a curse.
The claims of Law which He had made,
Unto the uttermost He paid.
His holy fingers made the bough,
Which grew the thorns that crowned His brow.
The nails that pierced His hands were mined
In secret places He designed.
He made the forest whence there sprung
The tree on which His body hung.
He died upon a cross of wood,
Yet made the hill on which it stood.
The sky that darkened o’er His head,
By Him above the earth was spread.
The sun that hid from Him it’s face
By His decree was poised in space.
The spear which spilled His precious blood
Was tempered in the fires of God.
The grave in which His form was laid
Was hewn in rocks His hands had made.
The throne on which He now appears
Was His from everlasting years.
But a new glory crowns His brow
And every knee to Him shall bow.
The Maker of the Universe”
____________________
I love this song! I love the doctrine and affections and emotion of this song! As Jonathan Edwards would say, "I love the sound doctrine that produces right affections and emotions." It captures the truths of the incarnation, the Deity of Christ, His humility and love and willingness to suffer for us. The incarnation and suffering of the eternal Son of God points to the Trinity, “trinitas in unitas”, “three in one”, as Tertullian wrote. In Against Praxeas, chapter 3.

James White has written, “I love the Trinity! . . . upon reflection, we discover that the Trinity is the highest revelation God has made of Himself to His people. It is the capstone, the summit, the brightest star in the firmament of divine truths. . . God revealed this truth about Himself most clearly, and most irrefutably, in the incarnation itself, when Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, took on human flesh and walked among us.” (The Forgotten Trinity, pp. 13-14)

I agree; I love the song, because I love the Trinity, and I love the incarnation and atonement, and how these truths point us to the God of the Bible, that Christians know; the only God. These truths are beautiful because Truth is beautiful. God is beautiful because He is true. I love God because He first loved me! ( I John 4:10; 19)

God Himself is beautiful because of the perfection of His character and attributes and nature; and the David spoke of "mediating on and beholding the beauty of the Lord" (Psalm 27:4). The Trinity is beautiful because it proclaims that God is one and shows God as loving relationship from all eternity; uncreated, eternal, Sovereign.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1)

“For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form,” (Colossians 2:9)

“. . . Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. “For although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped.” (Philippians 2:5-8)

“God, . . .
in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
. . .
And when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says,
“AND LET ALL THE ANGELS OF GOD WORSHIP HIM.”
. . .
But of the Son He says,
“YOUR THRONE, O GOD, IS FOREVER AND EVER,
AND THE RIGHTEOUS SCEPTER IS THE SCEPTER OF HIS KINGDOM.”
(Hebrews 1:1- 3, 6, 8.)

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. ( John 1:1-5)

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the one and only Son, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)

In dealing with evangelism with Muslims, one must be prepared in the deep truths of the doctrines of the Deity of Christ, the incarnation, and the Trinity.

Some good books on the Trinity:
1. James White. The Forgotten Trinity. Bethany House Publishers, 1998.

2. Robert Bowman. Why You Should Believe in the Trinity: An Answer to Jehovah’s Witnesses. Baker Books, 1989.

3. Timothy George. Is the Father of Jesus the God of Muhammad? Zondervan, 2002. (While I disagree with Timothy George’s recent ecumenism with Roman Catholicism, this book is very good for the theological issues in dealing with Islam.)

4. John Piper. “Contending for Christ Contra Mundum: Exile and Incarnation in the Life of Athanasius”, in Contending For Our All. Crossway Books, 2006. Piper’s chapter on Athanasius speaks to sound doctrine, church history, apologetics, contextualization, hermeneutics, and he addresses the emerging church issue. Highly recommended.

The "Trinitas -Unitas God", “three in One” God is the Sovereign Creator God who is and was relationship from all eternity past. Amazing! Awesome!

The Trinity answers the issue of longing for that connection of relationship with the living God; He is relationship; love from all eternity; Lover, Beloved, and Love in relationship; Father, Son, and Spirit.

The Trinity and incarnation also enters us into answering the issue of suffering and why God has ordained that suffering and evil happen.

Dorothy Sayers, the Anglican writer, wrote an interesting piece, seeking to answer the issue of why God allowed evil to come into the world. Reformed theology speaks of “God ordaining all things” – and when it comes to evil entering the world, we understand “ordaining” as “deciding that it would happen” (Acts 2:22-23; 4:27-28; Ephesians 1:11; Romans 9:22-23, Isaiah 45:7; Amos 3:6; Lam. 3:37-38; Genesis 50:20; Romans 8:28-29) while at the same time not being the one who does the evil. (I John 1:5; Hab. 1:13; Isaiah 6; Titus 1:2) As John Piper has written, "God is not a sinner." While some of Sayer’s statement is not theologically precise, and some is not the best wording; I still think it captures a good apologetic truth for the skeptic and a strength for a young believer growing in theology:

“For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is – limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death – He had the honesty and the courage to take His own medicine. Whatever game He is playing with His creation, He has kept His own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself. He has Himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation and defeat, despair and death. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worth while.” (Dorothy Sayers, Creed or Chaos? New York: Harcourt, Brace and Col, 149, p. 4; cited in Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Answers to Tough Questions. Here’s Life Publishers, 1980, p. 153-154.

My Iranian friend Kamyar, who was my second Farsi teacher in 1994, said this to me:

“The two most amazing things about Christianity are:
1. That God, who we were taught in Islam, was far off and aloof, became a man like us, clothed Himself in flesh.”
and
2. That there is a way to be saved from sin and know it and have assurance of it.
“دو چیز خیلی عالی است در مسیحیت
1. که خدا، که ما در اسلام تعلیم یافتیم که خیلی دور از ما می ماند، انسان شد مثل ما شد، و خود را جسم پوشید،
و 2. که یک راهی را وجود دارد برای نجات از گناه و می توانیم آن راه را بدانیم، و اطمینان داشته باشیم
.

A prayer to our Blessed Mother, from us, poor children of Rome

We on the Beggars All team have recently been having some second thoughts about the content we produce, especially given a few posts that have come before along these lines (link 1) (link 2). With that in mind, we got together to adapt the following prayer to reflect our newfound discoveries, that distinctive Roman dogma actually are found in the Holy Scripture:

Preserve me, O God, Mary, and ye saints, for I take refuge in you. I said to Blessed Virgin, “You are my mediator and rescue; I have no good besides you.”

As for the saints who are in the earth and those who have passed on to the heavens (to the latter of whom I speak daily), They are the majestic ones in whom is all my delight.

The joys of those who have bartered for another object of piety will be multiplied; I shall indeed pour out their drink offerings of Messiah's blood, Surely will I take their names upon my lips.

The Blessed Mother is the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You support my lot.

The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me.

I will bless my Blessed Mother and the saints who have counseled me; Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night.

I have set my Mother continually before me; Because she is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will dwell securely.

For she will not abandon my soul to Sheol, only to Purgatory (for what are mere billions of years in comparison to eternity?); Nor will she allow her Holy Son to undergo decay.

You will make known to me the path of life; In your presence is fullness of joy; In your right hand there are pleasures forever.

(Hat tip:  Psalm 16)

The great flux away from Rome toward Protestantism

In the comments of the William Whitaker thread, just below here, Truth Unites… and Divides, asked:

Q: What's the highest ranking RC clergy in history (and in recent times, say the last 100 years) to ever convert to Protestantism? Has an RC bishop ever done so?

I don't know the answer to that specific question. I also know that James Swan, our esteemed host, is not a fan of conversion stories (his theory is, "if you want to tell a story, tell Christ's story.") We know, too, that throughout the history of the papacy, very many popes were so very foul that it would have been a travesty to have suggested that they were in any way Christian.

But as for which way the tide is going today, a former Catholic-turned-Presbyterian named Dudley Davis posted this account a while back at PuritanBoard:

There is in truth a great flux away from the Roman catholic church to Protestantism in the United states. 30 million people now in the US define themselves as ex roman catholics; half are unafililiated with no church and 15 million like me are now Protestants. The following are the current statistics from the pew Forum on Religion in The United States...

Catholicism has suffered the greatest net loss in the process of religious change. Many people who leave the Catholic Church do so for religious reasons; two-thirds of former Catholics who have become unaffiliated say they left the Catholic faith because they stopped believing in its teachings, as do half of former Catholics who are now Protestant. Fewer than three-in-ten former Catholics, however, say the clergy sexual abuse scandal factored into their decision to leave Catholicism.

One-in-ten American adults is a former Catholic. Former Catholics are about evenly divided between those who have become unaffiliated and those who have become Protestant,… The reasons for leaving Catholicism given by former Catholics who have converted to evangelical Protestantism differ in some important ways from those offered by former Catholics who have joined mainline Protestant churches. Most former Catholics who are now evangelical Protestants, for example, say they left Catholicism in part because they stopped believing in Catholic teachings (62%) and specifically because they were unhappy with Catholic teachings about the Bible (55%). …

However the same survey also shows that a majority of those raised protestant are still Protestant. Eight-in-ten adults who were raised Protestant are still Protestant, and about two-thirds of this group (or 52% of all those raised Protestant) are still members of the same family of denominations (e.g. Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, etc.) in which they were raised. The other third (28% of all those raised Protestant) are now members of a new family of Protestant denominations. However, one-fifth of those raised Protestant have left Protestantism altogether; most of them are now unaffiliated (13%), with smaller numbers having become Catholic (3%) or members of other faiths (4%)….

The numbers of Protestants having become Catholic is only (3%).

Original source

Whitaker's Disputations on Holy Scripture: An Introduction

William Whitaker (1547-1595) was an Oxford-trained theologian of significant influence and prestige.¹ One of his most important treatises was Disputations on Holy Scripture (hereafter Disputations), a work that set out to explain and defend the principle of Sola Scriptura over and against the arguments of Rome's foremost apologists. Whitaker's Disputations served not only to influence the formulation of the Westminster Confession of Faith, but continues, due in part to the unchanging nature of the debate, to be an important text in the modern controversies between Catholics and Protestants. This series will outline some of the major arguments Whitaker tackled in Disputations, with particular attention paid to those relevant to the present day.

The excellent reputation of Whitaker as a debater and the quality of his Disputations is difficult to deny. Disputations has been "shown by Dr. Wayne Spear to be an important source for the theology of the [Westminster Confession of Faith], particularly the chapter on Holy Scripture."² Furthermore, even Whitaker's theological enemies considered him to be a formidable, even respectable opponent (emphasis and repetition of "I have" in original):

[Whitaker's books] gained for him in his life-time a high character, not only with friends, but with enemies also. 'I have,' says the writer of his life, in Lupton's Protestant Divines, 'I have heard it confessed of English Papists themselves, which have been in Italy with [Cardinal and apologist] Bellarmine himself, that he procured the true portraiture and effigies of this Whitaker to be brought to him, which he kept in his study. For he privately admired this man for his singular learning and ingenuity; and being asked of some of his friends, Jesuits, why he would have the picture of that heretic in his presence? he would answer, Quod quamvis haereticus erat et adversarius, erat tamen doctus adversarius: that, 'although he was a heretic, and his adversary, yet he was a learned adversary'³

This "singular learning and ingenuity" shines forth throughout the text. Whitaker has incisive analytical skills; his application of razor-sharp logic is demonstrated both in his ability to properly represent his opponents' arguments and in his ability to refute them. He also employs sound reasoning in selecting the strongest forms of his opponents' arguments to refute, having no interest in refuting weak versions and claiming an empty rhetorical victory.

Perhaps the most remarkable features of Disputations is its timelessness. A brief scan of Rowland Ward's summary⁴ of the various arguments in Disputations shows its relevance to modern disputes with Roman Catholic apologists:

a. whether or not we should believe the Scripture is canonical solely because of the authority of the church rather than the internal testimony of the Spirit

b. there are obscure places in Scripture, but Scripture is sufficiently clear on the main matters related to salvation, whereas Rome wants to exaggerate the obscurities of the Scriptures so as to keep them from the common people

c. Rome claims interpretation of Scripture is the privilege of the church and that the true interpretation agrees with "the fathers"; we say that an external persuasion arises from Scripture itself but that full assurance comes through the Holy Spirit as the supreme interpreter. The means to be used: Prayer, knowledge of the original texts, nature of the language being expounded, context, comparing the obscure with the plainer passages, comparison with other passages, the analogy of faith, reference to the more skilled

d. whether the books of the OT and NT are a complete and perfect rule of faith or whether unwritten traditions are necessary as well

e. all things necessary to faith and morals may be collected or inferred from Scripture, but Rome denies this

f. the number of canonical books, the claims of the Apocrypha considered and shown to be without canonicity in the strict sense

g. Rome sets up the Latin Vulgate as the authentic version whereas the Protestants affirm the Hebrew and Greek originals

Most of these topics will be covered in the series. Since Whitaker in each topic interacts with multiple arguments, and levels multiple counterarguments of his own, there will be plenty of material to draw from. (I will do my best to make one post a week.)

If you would like to read and search it for yourself, the full English translation of Disputations can be found here.

I've also been informed by John Bugay that Green Baggins will soon discuss and analyze the content of Disputations.

_____________________________

1. A very short biography of Whitaker can be found in the preface to his Disputations.

2. David Coffin, Jr., "The Teaching of the Westminster Confession on the Cessation of Special Revelation," http://www.newhopefairfax.org/files/coffinconfessiononcessation.pdf (accessed May 19, 2010). In his footnotes, Coffin cites a chapter from To Glorify and Enjoy God. A Commemoration of the 350th Anniversary of the Westminster Assembly (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1994). I had hoped to verify the citation before this post, but I was unable. However, the dust jacket of my version of Disputations asserts the same relationship between chapter one of the WCF and Whitaker's work.

3. William Fitzgerald, introduction to Disputations on Holy Scripture, by William Whitaker (Cambridge: Parker Society, 1894; reprint, Orlando: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 2005), x.

4. Ibid., iii-vi. For the sake of brevity, this list is not given in exact form. Neither is it strictly in the same order.

A Roman Catholic Look at Causes of the Reformation #1

Joseph Lortz was a German Roman Catholic theologian. He's best known for his work on Martin Luther and the Reformation. In his book The Reformation: A Problem for Today (Maryland: The Newman Press, 1964), he has a chapter entitled "The Causes of the Reformation." One particular "cause" caught my attention. He states,

"When Luther asserted that the pope in Rome was not the true successor of Saint Peter and that the Church could do without the Papacy, in his mind and in essence these were new doctrines, but the distinctive element in them was not new and thus they struck a sympathetic resonance in the minds of many. Long before the Reformation itself, the unity of the Christian Church in the West had been severely undermined" (p. 37).

This type of sentiment is far different than that usually expressed by Roman Catholics. Typically, Luther is the grand innovator that tore the church asunder. Lortz though does something many don't bother to do- he sees a flow to history. In his chapter preceding this statement, he lists a number of ways in which the West was more than ready to grant that the pope in Rome was not the true successor of Saint Peter and that the Church could do without the Papacy. Here's how Lortz explains this comment:

The significance of the break-up of medieval unity in the thirteenth century, but even more during the Avignon period, is evident in the most distinctive historical consequence of the Avignon Papacy: the Great Western Schism. The real meaning of this event may not be immediately apparent. It can be somewhat superficially described as a period when there were two popes, each with his own Curia, one residing in Rome, the other in Avignon. This situation in which both contenders claimed to be pope (at one time the number increased so that many spoke of the "cursed trinity") was in the main corrected by the efforts of the German Emperor Sigismund at the Council of Constance in 1414. These statements are true, but the account they give is sketchy and superficial; they tell us nothing of the real significance of the Schism.

The real significance of the Western Schism rests in the fact that for decades there was an almost universal uncertainty about where the true pope and the true Church were to be found. For several decades, both popes had excommunicated each other and his followers; thus all Christendom found itself under sentence of excommunication by at least one of the contenders. Both popes referred to their rival claimant as the Antichrist, and to the Masses celebrated by them as idolatry. It seemed impossible to do anything about this scandalous situation, despite sharp protests from all sides, and despite the radical impossibility of having two valid popes at the same time. Time and time again, the petty selfishness of the contenders blocked any solution.

The split caused by the Western Schism was far from being merely the concern of theologians; no area of public or private life remained untouched; even the economic sphere was affected, mainly because of disputes in regard to the possession of benefices. Provinces of the Church, religious orders, universities, even individual monasteries and parish houses were divided. For decades, all experienced this profound division in all sectors of daily life. Good people on both sides, even saints, were not only unable to bring about unity, but in their allegiance to one or the other of the contenders they themselves were in sharp opposition. We find, for example, St. Catherine of Siena on the Roman side and St. Vincent Ferrer on that of Avignon. Furthermore, the settlement of the Schism at the Council of Constance did not really solve the problem. The triumph of the Conciliar Theory at Constance, and even more at Basel, extended the life span of the Schism from 1378 to 1448, when it finally came to an end in the person of the Antipope Felix V. The confusion and uncertainty about the valid pope and the true Church is manifest in the amazing twists in the allegiance of Nicolaus of Cusa and Aeneas Silvio dei Piccolomini, later to become Pius II, both of whom had begun by defending the Conciliar Theory in its most radical form.

This was an experience shared by the entire West — one which would leave its imprint in Western consciousness for a long time to come. The memory of this experience was still fresh a century later. It is not too difficult to see the effects of the Western Schism in preparing the way for the doctrines of the Reformation. When Luther asserted that the pope of Rome was not the true successor of Saint Peter and that the Church could do without the Papacy, in his mind and in their essence these were new doctrines, but the distinctive element in them was not new and thus they struck a sympathetic resonance in the minds of many. Long before the Reformation itself, the unity of the Christian Church in the West had been severely undermined (pp. 35-37).

On Being Guided In All Truth

Over the last week or so, I've been watching the massive thread on "the Doctrine of the Church" over at Greenbaggins. It started as a simple comment by Lane Keister to the effect that "Confessions of the church carry much more weight than an individual person’s opinion, even if they are not on the same level as Scripture." That comment in turn has been used as a wedge issue by Bryan Cross, and the whole thread has been turned into a circus by various Catholics.

Over the next few posts, I hope to be able to comment on a couple of different aspects of that thread. But following up on a posting about the misuse of 1 Tim 3:15, here's another common Catholic "proof-text" that is also badly misused:

The Spirit dwells in the Church and in the hearts of the faithful, as in a temple. In them He prays on their behalf and bears witness to the fact that they are adopted sons. The Church, which the Spirit guides in way of all truth (Cf. Jn. 16:13) and which He unified in communion and in works of ministry, He both equips and directs with hierarchical and charismatic gifts and adorns with His fruits. (from Lumen Gentium, paragraph 4).

Note a couple of things here: First, see that "the Church" is separate from "the hearts of the faithful." Even at Vatican II, "The Church" is significantly "the hierarchy."

But note also that little reference, "cf" which is used with respect to the reference to John 16:13. It's an abbreviation for the Latin word confer, meaning "compare" or "consult". The Roman hierarchy will throw that little reference out there -- it's not given as a firm exegesis for "infallibility," but possibly with the intention that through the process of "mental reservation," some of "the faithful" will begin to use this verse, incorrectly, as a proof-text. And in this thread, that's exactly what happened: John 16:13 was thrown out there as a kind of proof for infallibility of the Magisterium. See this statement from the Catholic Catechism:

The mission of the Magisterium is linked to the definitive nature of the covenant established by God with his people in Christ. It is this Magisterium's task to preserve God's people from deviations and defections and to guarantee them the objective possibility of professing the true faith without error. [Emphasis supplied, JB; see the comment from "Tori" below.] Thus, the pastoral duty of the Magisterium is aimed at seeing to it that the People of God abides in the truth that liberates. To fulfill this service, Christ endowed the Church's shepherds with the charism of infallibility in matters of faith and morals. The exercise of this charism takes several forms...

One form that's not explicitly given in the Catechism, but is nevertheless "out there" (cf) is that this verse is a support for "the Magisterium". See comment #400 by an individual named "Toli":

See Jn. 16:13. What does Christ say the Spirit will do? That text,among others, through good and necessary inference, opens the gate to an infallible magisterium. The continuity that exists is the same, but better.

This is one key reason why I think that Catholic apologetics, from the top level on down, is fundamentally a dishonest exercise.

What we've seen here is a clear, outright example of the Catholic Hermeneutic, as I've discussed, in which a Catholic does not rely on an exegetical process to understand what a verse means, but instead will start with an existing Catholic teaching, and then read that teaching back into the verse. This "method" has notably been defined by, among others, Pope Pius XII in his encyclical, Humani Generis:

“theologians must always return to the sources of divine revelation: for it belongs to them to point out how the doctrine of the living Teaching Authority is to be found either explicitly or implicitly in the Scriptures and in Tradition.”

But what does this verse really say? What does it promise? I've consulted two commentaries on John, both D.A. Carson (1991) and Andreas Kostenberger (2004) for clarification:

The Paraclete will guide you in (Gk. en is the best reading; eis, 'into', as in NIV, is secondary) all truth. If there is a distinction between 'in all truth' and 'into all truth', it is that the latter hints at truth the disciples have not yet in any sense penetrated, while 'in all truth' suggests an exploration of truth already principally disclosed. Jesus himself is the truth (14:6); now the Spirit of truth leads the disciples into all the implications of the truth, the revelation, intrinsically bound up with Jesus Christ. There is no other locus of truth; this is all truth. The notion of 'guidance' (the Gk. verb hodegeo) in all truth has nothing to do with privileged information pertaining to one's choice of vocation or mate, but with understanding God as he has revealed himself, and with obeying that revelation -- as the occurence of this verb in the Psalms makes clear (e.g. Pss 25:4-5; 143:10).

... it makes sense to suppose that the Holy Spirit is unpacking [the significance of Jesus' death/exaltation]. The verb used here and repeated in vv. 14. 15 (anangello, NIV 'tell' in v.13 and 'make known' in vv. 14, 15) suggests an announcement, indeed in this context a revelatory declaration (as its use in 4:25 suggests), but it is a reiterative announcement. These features square best with the view that what is yet to come refers to all that transpires in consequence of the pivotal revelation bound up with Jesus' person, ministry, death, resurrection and exaltation. This includes the Paraclete's own witness to Jesus, his ministry to the world (16:8-11) primarily through the church (15:26, 27), the pattern of life and obedience under the inbreaking kingdom, up to and including the consummation. All of this the Spirit of truth 'announces', yet in making it known he is doing little more than fleshing out the implications of God's triumphant self-disclosure in the person and work of his Son. (Carson, pgs 539-541, emphasis in original.)

Also Kostenberger:

Yet when the "Spirit of truth" comes (see 14:17; 15:26), he will guide (hodego) them in all truth. "Guidance in all truth" (better than "into all truth") entails providing entrance to the revelatory sphere of God's character and ways. In one very important sense, Jesus is the eschatological Word who has explained ["exegeomai", from which we get the word "exegesis"] the Father (1:18). In another sense, however, by salvation-historical necessity is the Spirit who guides his followers in "all" truth. Such divine guidance was already the Psalmist's longing (Ps. 25:4-5; 43:3; 86:11; 143:10). The prphet recounts how God led his people Israel in the wilderness by his Holy Spirit (Isa. 63:14) and predicts God's renewed guidance in the future (Isa. 43:19). Yet as he guides Jesus' followers in all truth, the Spirit will speak only what he hears--his dependence on Jesus enacting the pattern set by Jesus in relation to the Father--and also tell Jesus' followers what is yet to come. The object of revelation is "what is yet to come" subsequent to the giving of the Spirit, which cannot be the passion, but must be events following Pentecost. The emphasis may lie not so much on predictive prophecy but on helping the believing community understand their present situation in light of Jesus' by-then-past revelation of God. This entails both "a more profound penetration into the content of revelation" and "the application of that revelation to the behaviour of the community within the world."

I just wanted to suggest one more thing here. Note the verb "exegeomai," which Kostenberger refers to, John 1:18: "No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known..." This process of "making known" is "exegesis," which, used in the Gospel of Luke means "to give a full account" in the sense of "telling the whole story," which is the most probable meaning here, too.

Jesus is very clear, especially in the Gospel of John, that he only speaks what he hears from the Father (See John 3:34-35, 5:19-20, 7:16-18, 8:26-29, 42-43, 12:47-50, 14:10.) The Spirit repeats this pattern (John 16:14-15). If there is a pattern of "succession," it is this "succession in the truth," demonstrated within the Trinity, that is to be followed. This flies in the face of the "Catholic Hermeneutic," which superimposes its own meaning onto Scripture.

William Webster Responds to Beckwith’s "Return to Rome"

Why Scripture and the Facts of History Compel Me, a Former Roman Catholic, to Remain a Committed Evangelical Protestant A Response to Frank Beckwith’s, Return to Rome by William Webster

A compendium of resources on Eastern Orthodoxy, so far

James was contacted by an acquaintance inquiring about Eastern Orthodoxy, because he was alarmed at the rate of conversion to EOC among seminarians with whom he is familiar.  James (perhaps unwisely) forwarded him on to me, and I gave it my best shot.  I'd like to reproduce a distillation of our brief correspondence here, for future reference.  May the Lord use this information for His glory.

----

Hello!
I'm a coblogger/underling on James' blog, and in my blogging career, I've written on EOC and interacted a significant amount with EOdox.  That is mostly b/c a close friend of mine with whom I grew up in the faith, after some 6 years as a Bapticostal and a student at ORU in Tulsa, converted to EOC.  I was alarmed, of course, and tried to stop him, and our discussions actually for a time had me on the ropes.  I was unprepared for the things he'd already thought through a few steps ahead, and so for a time I felt my own foundations shaking.  Then, however, I was able to get on top of things with the help mainly of James White lectures and debates on Romanism (which is in many ways, especially in terms of authority and religious epistemology, very similar to EOC) and on Sola Scriptura, a couple of books by Eric Svendsen, and the 3-volume set "Holy Scripture: The Ground and Pillar of Our Faith" by Webster and King.

That started me down the road of being able to deconstruct the arguments that EOx put forward, and with all that behind me now, I can say with confidence (Lord willing) that EOC is totally off the table as a live option for piety toward God.  My further interactions with knowledgeable EOx, both in person and in the blogosphere, both have convinced me further of the folly of EOxy and have helped me develop even more powerful arguments against it.

I'd encourage you to learn a little about EOC.  A good place to start is Timothy Ware's "The Orthodox Church", but unfortunately it's a pretty sanitised version of EO theology.  All the really heretical and "red flag!  Danger, Will Robinson!" stuff is removed out of its presentation of EO theology, but not a bad place to start.  If nothing else, someone will ask you if you've read anything, and you can tell them that.  It might help satisfy them that you're not just shooting in the dark.
I've read a fair amount of "dialogue" and "conversion" stories, but most of them weren't any good, weren't helpful.  Two I think would be helpful would be:
--Conversion-themed stuff written by Peter Gillquist
--My friend's conversion story
Also, I'd recommend this short e-book/long pamphlet from a Romanian who is quite familiar with EOC theology and especially the more unsavory elements and sayings from their "church fathers".  I just finished reading it and recommend it because of its lengthy quotations and evaluations of what you might call "EOC's source documents" - the church writers who have gone before.  Point these pagan and Platonic ideas out to those who are wavering, and if they respond with "but that's not what the Church itself believes!", ask them on what basis these same early church writers are cited sometimes to back up EOC's authority and are sometimes cast aside as "speaking only as a private theologian".  It's a fatal epistemological flaw in EOC, and one that is, if nothing else, sort of fun to exploit, to watch the dancing and writhing commence.

Now, as for refuting EO assertions, I'd recommend, just like with a Romanist or a Mormon, majoring on the majors, and that would be the question of authority. I think you'll have a fairly difficult time if  you try to go at it from any other position than Sola Scriptura.  That is to say, the 3/4-legged stool I've heard expressed in certain Protestant contexts will not serve you well in this arena, but perhaps that's not where you're coming from.
Anyway, you can start with my recent debate on Sola Scriptura with a knowledgeable EO blogger.  It's maybe not the best ever done, but I think it was quite good, it raised a lot of good issues, and it was accessible, not super super long.

In other blogging arenas, a great deal of superior material has been delivered on the Triablogue.
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/search/label/Eastern%20Orthodoxy
I am in awe of these men's abilities and output.  I would encourage you not to unwisely confuse earnestness and gladness to know and be able to communicate the truth with nastiness.
My blog also has a lot of material on EOxy, so here you go:
http://rhoblogy.blogspot.com/search/label/Eastern%20Orthodoxy

My most fundamental recommendation would be, as I said, on the topic of authority.
Here are some posts I'd encourage you to focus on:
http://rhoblogy.blogspot.com/2010/02/reflection-on-sola-scriptura-debate-1.html
http://rhoblogy.blogspot.com/2010/03/irony-in-patristics.html

You'll probably also find that EOx will challenge you with "But there are so many denominations in Protestantism!"  Don't let them get away with it!
http://rhoblogy.blogspot.com/2009/12/special-pleading-of-sola-ecclesia-ists.html
http://rhoblogy.blogspot.com/2009/12/jesus-prayer-for-unity-in-john-17.html
http://rhoblogy.blogspot.com/2010/01/more-special-pleading.html

---/---

The correspondent replied:  I have been shocked and saddened by the number of seminarians turning Orthodox.  It seems to be the cool, sentimental thing to do.

I responded:  Yes, it is the cool sentimental thing to do.  It's embracing "ancient" faith, "the church of the church fathers", "the early church", with liturgy and all that stuff.  It looks mystically attractive.  It's much more sensibly rich than a Protestant service.  I can relate to the attraction.  But the false Gospel, you know...sorta spoils it for me.
And that is, of course, the bottom line - does this church preach the Gospel?  Does it teach that the filthy, spiritually dead, enemy of God, God-hating sinner can be reconciled to God and have peace with God by God's grace alone by repentance and faith alone in Christ alone as mediator for the forgiveness of sins?  Ask any Eastern Orthodox, and make the question specific enough so as to eliminate wiggle room, and you'll find that the answer is a very clear no.  Which makes the answer to the question, "Should I join this church?" pretty clear as well.

The Quotable Luther #9 Heresy

I found the following quote allocated to my blogger drafts. It's been there for quite a while, and now, months later, I don't remember putting it there. It must've been something I planned on writing on, but I've since forgotten what I intended to do with it. Now here's the irony: I forgot to include the source from where I got it. It definitely came from one of my books, not the Internet, and it was probably a sermon.

A heretic must be trapped by clear, strong passages, else they wriggle away from us and escape like fish that squirm through a net. Heretics are very slippery. It’s very difficult to hold them and they treat the divine Scriptures recklessly. That means all that they will use is everything in Scripture that bears their opinions, and the rest of Scripture must let itself be directed, bow down and defer to their noggins and understanding. That is why we must hear God’s Word with fear, and treat it in humility and not prod around in it with our own opinions.You’d do well to prefer falling into all kinds of sins rather than into your own darkness, so dangerous and destructive. For God’s Word is nothing to play around with. If you cannot understand it, then leave it alone. It will not suffer itself to be diminished nor defined by man, but rather it must be taken seriously. It must be respected and rightly handled. For that reason guard yourself that you don’t impose your own darkness onto Scripture, as if your life depended on it. When this malady takes root, then not I, but the devil is in charge. That is why it is good St.Paul says in Titus 3.10: “Depart from a divisive man after he is admonished once or twice, and know that such a man is perverted and sins as one who is self-condemned.” Therefore guard yourselves from the sects. It is easy to join them but very difficult to get out again. Believe me, you will have a harder time leaving them than joining.

This Wednesday: R.C. Sproul will be on Iron Sharpens Iron

On Wednesday May 19, R.C. Sproul will be on the Iron Sharpens Iron radio program. Dr. Sproul will discuss Tough Questions Christians Face (the theme of Ligonier Ministries' 2010 National Conference).

Iron Sharpens Iron is a live broadcast airing daily 6 to 7 P.M. (Eastern Standard time) on WNYG 1440 AM in the New York City area. You can listen live to WNYG here over the Internet. Tune in at 6 P.M. to hear Chris Arnzen interview Dr. Sproul.

You can also call in to Iron Sharpens Iron with your own questions during the first half-hour of Dr. Sproul's interview (6 - 6:30 pm) at (631)482-8300.

If you miss the live broadcast, a free archived mp3 recording will be available shortly after the broadcast at sharpens.org. Free mp3's of previous Iron Sharpens Iron show are also available, many with Dr. James White.

The super-super-super-Magisterial magisterial authority, part 2

Paul Hoffer was kind enough to comment at length on my last post, but unfortunately between his original comment that spawned the aforementioned post and his comments on the post, he forgot his own argument, and ironically in many places ends up affirming my own point.  For that, I thank him for tacitly disavowing his argument.  I commend the practice, of course, for while it is a common argument, it is also a very bad and stupid one.

Here is my response, first to another commenter named Space Bishop:


Space Bishop,

catholics have disagreement over the meaning of various things the magisterium teaches?

First off, you have to recognise that the Mag is a bit of a phantom target.  They avoid sticking their neck out very far on many topics, so as to avoid getting pinned down.
The problem for RCs is that this renders most of their claims to infallible guidance totally meaningless - if the infall guide doesn't speak, it's useless.
Anyway, your list, off the top of my head - evolution/not-evolution, inerrancy/errancy, Franciscan/Dominican, church should be poor or rich, heliocentrism/geocentrism, whether EOx are heretics and schismatics or not, whether Prots are heavenbound or not, sedevacantism vs not, Augustinian predestination vs not, whether Trent closed the Canon of Scr or not, whether the Shroud of Turin is authentic, whether Luther was right about the bondage of the will, whether logic is a good measure of truth, and quite a lot of others.  There are far, far too many to keep going listing them out.  Bottom line - you need to deal with reality, not the lines that Catholic Answers feeds you.


you have listed are not disagreements about what the magisterium teaches but rather examples of catholics who simply say that the magisterium is wrong.

That's a distinction w/o a difference.  Mere semantics.  If the RCC wants to put some teeth on its Magisterial teaching, maybe it should start excomming dissidents.


is not the magisterium better as if such a case of contradictory interpretations of the magisteriums teachings arose the magisterium alone can say " A is right and B is wrong" and if disagreements arose as to what is the correct interpretation of that ruling another ruling could be issued and so on and so on.

And when has the Mag done that?  How often?  In fact, often it goes to serious lengths to be unclear and obscure.



Protestants however dont have recourse to this

Yep, poor us.  Guess we'll just have to read the Bible or something.


Paul Hoffer,
I'm sorry you didn't understand that I parotted (Edit misspelling: parroted) you for a specific reason, that is, to show how the same "problem" of individual fallible interpretation is true for your position as well.  Positing a Mag only moves the question back a step, which is why I'm saying you'd need a super-super-Mag to fix the problem.  But then you'd need aNOTHER level back to which to move the question, and on and on unto infinity.


there is much about the Scriptures that is perspicuous, just not everything.

Yes, not everything in the Scr is perspicuous.
What's really funny about this is that the RC doctrines related to salvation and election and all that are pretty much impenetrable in their internal inconsistency, biblical illiteracy, and tradition-bound-ness. As James White likes to say: Give me Romans 8 anytime over the code of Canon Law.


. A written document, whether it is the Word of God as contained in the Scriptures or a Magisterial document interpreting the Word of God, do not “arbitrate” disputes. Rather, it the Church itself that safeguards and interprets the Scriptures that does the arbitrating.

Through written documents.  Thus you bolster my point.  Thanks!
Also, in oral proclamations, alot of the time they get written down.  Then, see above.
Oral proclamations, BTW, are not immune to this.  So you need a super-super-super-super-super-super-super-super-super-super-...



SHOW ME as Space Bishop asked where a Magisterial document

Now you're moving the goalposts.  You had originally made PEOPLE AT LARGE the measure of truth, and now you want me to show two Mag docs that disagree.  I probably could, and I know Carrie could easily, but that's not what we're discussing.


So rather than relying on my authority, I would rest my case on the Scriptures and how the Church interprets them.

Unless the Mag infallibly interped those Scr psgs, you're relying on private fallible interp in order to prove your position that the Mag is necessary to correct for people's private fallible interps.  Something is ironic about that...


It must be noted that Catholics do not put the Magisterium over the Word of God, rather the Magisterium is the servant of the Word of God

So why does it get the Gospel wrong?  And posit Purgatory?  And the Immaculate Conception of Mary?  And the Assumption of Mary?  And worshiping pictures of dead people?  And the treasury of merit and indulgences? And other examples of exceeding what is written all the time?



The Magisterium fulfills this role under the guidance of the sacred teaching authority. (Thus, bringing up stuff about how some Catholics are disobedient by advocating pro-choice agendas is a red herring.)

Since YOU were the one who introduced the idea that a teaching authority is apparently to be measured by the laity's obedience to it, that would be YOUR red herring.
And again, thank you for acknowledging that this argument is stupid.


Unlike Protestantism which bolds that each person is his own magisterial authority

How do strawmen help the Roman cause?  Is it Mag teaching that strawmen are the best strategy?  Is that in Lumen Gentium too?


Thus, the scenario you raise does not occur.

One wonders how you make it work every day with your head stuck that far in the clouds.


Besides, such argumentation is not really atheistic, but is more pantheistic as Whateverman is merely saying that as far as he is concerned he is his own god.

For those who've not spent much time arguing with atheists (as Paul apparently hasn't), atheism IS pantheism and vice versa, esp when it comes to questions of authority.
Which makes it worse for him - now the RC position isn't just echoing atheism, but pantheism as well.  Wow, have fun with that.


Frankly as a person who adheres to the notion of “Contra factum non valet argumentum,” I reject your assertion that logical argumentation is the measure of truth.

Ah, then Jell-O has farley bones and the further they 9 the much.
That reminds me; maybe we should add this to the long list of confusion and internal dissent within Rome - whether logic is the measure of truth or not.

Love your Pastor and pray for him

I've been chatting behind the scenes with Matthew Schultz. I'm an old guy (50), but Matthew is a young man, who is a seminarian, a husband, and a father. He confided to me that making the decision to take on an effort such as writing for Beggars All "should not be made without the feedback from the local church."

Providentially, the Lord provided just such an opportunity for me, on the very day that I received the invitation from James. Our church's family group at the time was right in the midst of a weekly series in which individuals are invited to share with the group just what it is that the Lord is doing in their lives. And I was able to share my invitation to write for Beggars All that very day.

My story was well received. And the reason it was so, is because my church, a PCA church, lives and breathes the doctrines that came out of the Reformation. We have, in fact, held special educational seminars to the effect that, yes, the Reformation was a necessary event, and it continues today.

My pastor is a relatively young man -- he's in his mid 30's, with a devoted wife and three small children. I know his family because, in addition to Sunday worship services, our church emphasizes "small group" meetings. He holds the "family group" meetings in his home, and I've been a part of that group for the last year or so. My family has been to his home on multiple occasions. My kids play with his kids.

He lives in an old wood-frame home, in one of Pittsburgh's older ethnic neighborhoods, and he's blessed to be able to live in a home that his grandfather lived in as a young man, back in the 1920's and 30's. [He has a photograph of his grandfather standing on the front porch, probably in the 1940's, with the house number clearly on display. That's the house he now lives in.]

I'm sure he feels sometimes like he lives in a fishbowl. He signed on to be a pastor of a church-plant, a start-up church, and within five years or so, this church has grown to have probably 200-250 people in attendance each week. Without a doubt, such growth is attributable to God's grace. And it has been God's grace that put him in this situation.

He is young, energetic, not afraid to try new things. Still, he understands where he came from -- his desire is simply to serve the city of his family's heritage. He is an excellent communicator; his sermons begin in real life situations. But he does not rely on his own wisdom. He is not afraid to turn to the Reformers to make a point, and he always returns to the Scriptures for clarification.

He got to go on vacation last week. It was his 10th wedding anniversary, and when we had our next family group meeting he and his wife were simply raving about the wonderful time that they had.

We should all pray for our pastors, and make sure that they have such times of blessing in their lives.


Your pastor is a man who once had (and may still have) a burning enough love for the Lord to have devoted years of his life, above and beyond a typical college degree, to learning the Scriptures and how to minister, with the intention of devoting his whole life to the service of the Lord through a life of service to the church. This type of devotion is a gift from the Lord. "The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching" (1 Tim 5:17).

Earlier in the year, we studied prayer in the New Testament. Here's one of the more memorable prayers for me. It is a prayer of the earliest Christians for their leaders. They didn't pray for easy lives; they prayed for boldness for them, with the understanding that God is sovereign:

On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David: “‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One. Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.

My advice is to love your pastor, pray for his boldness. Buy him books that celebrate the history and the theology of the Reformation. I thank God every day that I've found a church where it's understood that the Reformation was a necessary event in the life of the church, and more, that my pastor and elders understand this.

Erasmus was Wrong, Luther was Right, Says Roman Catholic Scholar

Would a Roman Catholic theologian ever side with Luther against Erasmus on whether the will is free or not? Yes.

The book pictured to the left is Catholic Scholars Dialogue With Luther (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1970). Yes, it's my copy. The book is an anthology of chapters from Roman Catholic theologians on aspects of Luther. One chapter is entitled Erasmus versus Luther- Compounding the Reformation Tragedy by Harry J. McSorley, C.S.P. Around the time of the writing of this chapter, Father McSorely had written an entire critique of Luther's battle with Erasmus: Luther Right or Wrong? An Ecumenical Theological Study of Luther's Major Work, The Bondage of the Will.

While Father McSorley doesn't agree with all of Luther's argumentation in the Bondage of the Will, he does stand with Luther in condemning the position argued by Erasmus. Remember, it was the Papacy that prodded Erasmus to engage Luther and write De libero arbitrio.

I found many of McSorley's comments honestly revealing. The following are but a small sample:

First, Erasmus shows little appreciation of the genuine meaning of Luther's thesis of the unfree will, namely, that the will of fallen man apart from grace is totally incapable of doing anything for salvation, totally unfree to do anything that is good in God's sight. Instead of coming to grips with this biblical concept of man's slavery to sin, Erasmus concentrates his attention on the secondary, non-biblical supporting argument which Luther used in the Assertio--the argument from the absolute necessity of all events (p.111).

Secondly, and more unfortunately, we find the leading scholar of the Roman Church doing a bad job in presenting the Church's teaching on free will. Erasmus defines free will as "the power of the human will by which man can apply himself toward or turn himself away from the things which lead to eternal salvation." This is a seriously defective definition of free will. Instead of defining free will in terms of the ability to choose between certain alternatives, Erasmus defines free will in terms of salvation--without mentioning grace. Erasmus gives no hint in his definition that man the sinner is enslaved to sin until he is liberated by grace. The definition is surely one of the "extraordinary blunders" which, according to P. Hughes, characterize De libero arbitrio (p.112).

A third striking fact about De libero arbitrio is Erasmus' unawareness that the Church, centuries before, had taken an official stand against a modified version of Pelagianism that came to be known, late in the sixteenth century, as Semipelagianism. Erasmus was not alone in his unawareness of the Second Council of Orange (529 A.D.) and its confirmation by Pope Boniface II in 531. As H. Bouillard has pointed out, the decrees of Orange II were in some way lost during the middle ages and are cited by no authors from the tenth until the mid-sixteenth centuries. This did not mean that the doctrine of Orange II was lost. Such biblically oriented theologians as Bernard, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, and Gregory of Rimini, who recognized Augustine as their theological master, especially in the doctrine of grace, were all agreed that the sinner is a slave to sin unless he is liberated by the prevenient grace of Christ. Thomas, without knowing of the decrees of Orange II, was even able to say that it is a "truth of faith" that the very beginning of faith is in us from God (p.112).

Now, several years after his excommunication, Luther finds the leading Catholic intellectual saying that the following Neo-Semipelagian position is a tenable option: ". . . [H]aving not yet received the grace which forgives sin, man can, by his natural powers, perform works which, as they say are morally good, by which justifying grace is merited not de condigno but de congruo..." (p.113).

Erasmus reveals his total unawareness of the Church's rejection of Semipelagianism in the Hyperaspistes, his lengthy response to Luther's reply to him in De servo arbitrio. Of the Ockham-Biel opinion, Erasmus says that as far as he knows it has not been rejected by the Church (p. 113).

Further, developing the concept of "natural" or "common" grace that he had mentioned in De libero arbitrio, Erasmus distinguishes a "human faith, " which is "a type of knowledge preparatory to the light of faith, "from a "faith which through grace justifies." Then he explains: ". . as there are degrees of justice, so there are degrees of gifts until you reach that which is merely natural. But even this is grace, since God is the author of nature. Thus Augustine is needlessly afraid of saying that the initium gratiae arises from man." Erasmus seems completely unaware that Pelagius had said exactly the same thing to Augustine: free will is a donum Dei; therefore no other donum is necessary! In this sense Pelagius could also say as Erasmus does: "We ascribe everything to God's goodness" (p. 113-114).

We have not compared Erasmus' opinion to the teachings of Orange II and Trent in order to indict Erasmus as a heretic. His unawareness that the Church had once taken a definitive stand in favor of the doctrine of fallen man's bondage to sin exculpates him from the charge of formal error or heresy. That the decrees of the Second Council of Orange went astray and that a new form of the old Semipelagian error arose among late medieval theologians would seem to be more than anything else the result of negligence in the exercise of the Church's teaching office (p.114).

As for Erasmus, it is sufficient to point out that his views on grace and free will are not normative for Roman Catholics. The Catholic commitment to the grace of God is recorded above all in Scripture and in the Councils of Orange II, Trent, Vatican I and Vatican II.Secondly, in De servo arbitrio Luther presents the most powerful biblical argument for fallen man's bondage to sin that the Church had heard since St. Augustine. Such a reformation proclamation was truly needed in the first quarter of the sixteenth century. It is no exaggeration to say that until the Council of Trent reaffirmed what was taught by the Second Council of Orange, Martin Luther was one of the few theologians in Germany who unhesitatingly defended the biblical and Catholic teaching on man's bondage to sin. He proclaimed that fallen man could do nothing whatever without grace to prepare himself for salvation. This he did at a time in which many, many Catholics - -including Erasmus--had either lost this truth or were uncertain about it" (p.117).