Author Archive for: DrOakley

It was the late 1980s. Remember them? Yes, well, things were developing in the Roman Catholic apologetics arena. Benny Diaz, a former Roman Catholic, and one who was working with us in reference to Jehovah’s Witnesses, kept pushing me to study the claims of the Roman Catholic Church. He introduced me to Catholic Answers and the materials they were producing.

I was not blogging when Scott Hahn’s Hail, Holy Queen: The Mother of God in the Word of God came out. I did, however devote two Dividing Line broadcasts to a review of it. The book set new “groan” records for its horrible, never-ending, “please, have mercy, it stopped being funny four chapters ago” use of pun-filled subtitles. It truly

Quick note: yesterday, when Dave Armstrong first posted his “I’m done with critics” stuff, his blog showed exactly two articles. Everything else was gone. Later in the day the rest of the material re-appeared. Obviously, at some point, an error was made in posting material (a common enough event). I’ve seen something similar happen at PowerLine, where all of a

As I noted in Part I, Dave Armstrong’s attempt to substantiate the sinlessness of Mary is one of the longest sections in his book. We have noted that he specifically claims to be offering sound exegesis and analysis of Luke 1:28, but so far, we have not found his comments to live up to the claims he makes for them.

Interestingly, though I presented these passages and this objection in the same section from which Dave Armstrong quoted, he did not address them. He did, however, make one of the most common errors one encounters in literature such as this: the “let’s look at a really basic definition in a Greek grammar and hope it applies to our particular text”

Now, all of this, up to this point, has simply been to work through the first of two issues I myself raised regarding what a serious Roman Catholic would have to explain to make a serious Protestant feel at all “confounded” at Luke 1:28. If kecaritwme,nh is telling us that Mary was sinless due to the possession of a perfection

First, Armstrong misunderstands why Svendsen cites Eph. 1:6 and its relevance, for he writes, “Svendsen thinks this defeats the Catholic exegesis at Luke 1:28, but the variant of charitoo (grace) here is different (echaritosen).” First, this is a verb, not a noun; hence, it is not “grace” but “to grace.” Secondly, this is not a “variant” it is a grammatical

Another RC apologist commented on DA’s blog (when he declined exegeting Romans 4:6-8): I can answer White’s question viz. who is the blessed man very easily. He is the justified believer who God reckons (logizomai) righteous because He has made him righteous in justification. That’s what the etymology of dikaiow would have us believe anyway. Great: so, if this person

As you can see, I’m investing some time in properly working through the published comments of Dave Armstrong. Two quick notes:      1) The Greek font I generally use is from BibleWorks, and is available for download and installation here (this includes the Hebrew font as well). In a recent article I used the Mounce font, which does not seem to

Armstrong stumbles right out of the block when he insists that Protestants are “hostile” to the idea that Mary was sinless and Immaculately conceived because this makes her a “sort of goddess.” No, we are hostile to all dogmas and doctrines that are claimed to be derived from Scripture or God’s authority but that are, in fact, completely devoid of

We know, from examining Dave Armstrong’s The Catholic Verses that he has one of my books, and has looked at a portion of it, though, seemingly, not all of it (even regarding the passages that are directly relevant to his own claims and work, which I am not alone in finding quite odd). And we know that at least a

Mr. Armstrong has provided a reading list on his blog. In essence, this means that instead of blaming ignorance for his very shallow misrepresentations of non-Catholic theology and exegesis, we must now assert knowing deception. So far, DA has been unable to provide even the slightest meaningful defense of his own published statements and their refutation. Which is really only

“holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these” (2Ti 3:5). The masculine plural participle e;contej has as its referent the “men” of v. 2; hence, the vice list in 2-4 refers to men who “hold” a “form” mo,rfwsij of godliness but they have denied (hvrnhme,noi, perfect tense over against present) the

Dave Armstrong is responding on his blog, but I confess, it seems to be pretty difficult to follow where he’s going. Here’s how today’s retort, which in its title speaks of “ad hominem,” starts. My words are in blue: DA has replied to my first comments on his book . They were…predictable. Armstrong says his book is

Two passages are cited by Armstrong under the subtitle of “Carrying Christ’s Afflictions in our Bodies,” 2 Cor. 4:10 and Col. 1:24. Colossians 1:24 is very commonly cited by RC theologians and apologists in reference to the doctrine of penance, purgatory, and indulgences, all related to the idea that our sufferings can be meritorious (when they meet certain conditions) and