Archive for category: Roman Catholicism

The Called to Communion clique is fond of replacing “Scripture” with “your interpretation of Scripture.” This has the rhetorical effect of making the appeal to Scripture sound less authoritative. After all, “that’s just your interpretation” is idiomatic of something that has little value. It’s part of the culture of relativism, in which your interpretation is just as good as my

I skimmed through this recent account of a swim across the Tiber: An OPC Pastor Enters the Catholic Church. I found this comment from the author deep in the comments section: Karl Adam, in his book Roots of the Reformation, offers an honest summary of the state of Christendom at the end of the 15th century: “mongst the common people,

Back in 1987, at the Bayview Baptist Church, Karl Keating engaged in a debate against Peter Ruckman.  Although Dr. White has had an open challenge to Keating since October of 1990 (see the discussion here), we have yet to see a debate between Karl Keating and James White. Perhaps this critique will prompt Keating to step up to the debating

A poster using the handle “Gabriel Serafin” wrote: Protestantism is a religion based on a book. But Jesus Christ did not hand out Bibles, He established a Church and gave her authority to teach. God gave us the Bible through His Church; thus the Catholic Church defined the Canon of Scripture in the first place. “Bible-only Christians” who dismiss the

We have noted recently the insular nature of the Catholic Answers Forums. We have also documented the libelous false accusation of one of their users, whose screen name is Ignatius, alleging that we have edited debate tapes, an accusation made not by a named individual with any direct evidence, but by a forum member who, evidently, is free to make

Here’s a tidbit I came across from Roman Catholic scholar Raymond E. Brown, 101 Questions and Answers on the Bible (New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1990), p. 142. Here’s another comment from the same writer, Raymond E. Brown, The Critical Meaning of the Bible (New York: Paulist, 1981), pp. 39-40.

I’d be interested in how James White answers the questions that we’ve all discussed on this forum dozens of times. How does he justify sola scriptura, when it is so easy to show that it is the tradition you use to interpret scripture that dictates how you understand it? How does he justify eternal security when it is so obvious

You would think that when faced with facts even normal folks would step back and go, “Oh, sorry about that, I guess we were completely wrong about those issues.” But no, not when you serve Mother Rome. Infallibility seems to be endemic. After exposing all the errors in the afore-mentioned thread, do we find “mea culpas” and the like? No,

Recently a thread at the CA forums has illustrated yet once again how incredibly truth-challenged that particular corner of the Internet can be. As we have noted many times, in the CA Forums, anything will be believed, as long as it is 1) supportive of Romanism, and 2) at least negative, or better, slanderous, concerning yours truly. Some of the

Truly makes me wonder how long we will be able to engage in debates with Muslims before such activity is “illegal.” Of course, will anyone note that the Qur’an condemns as “unbelief” the Christian confession of Jesus as the Son of God? Well, not in today’s media and culture, that’s for sure. Christianity is fair game. Inconsistency is the sign

I did not check the citation of Luther yesterday (just didn’t have time, and checking Luther quotes is James Swan’s calling in life—I would not wish to barge into his field of expertise!), but here is Swan’s analysis of Voris’ use of Luther.

40,000 Protestant denominations? Wow, we have proven the 33,000 number a bold-faced lie many times in the past, but hey, I guess it is just a matter of inflation! Hard to take promoters of Romanism who repeat these absurdities seriously…but it is even worse when they will stare into a video camera and claim that no one…NO ONE, ever accused

Yes, Steve Ray spelled it “Dillusional,” though I suspect he meant “Delusional.”  But what is the basis for Ray’s complaint?  Ray quotes Spurgeon as saying: It seems odd, that certain men who talk so much of what the Holy Spirit reveals to themselves, should think so little of what he has revealed to others. Ray does not provide the context. 

As I’ve understood Roman Catholicism, it isn’t determined one way or the other that Mary died. A Roman Catholic is free to believe either. Catholic Answers founder Karl Keating states, The Church has never formally defined whether she died or not, and the integrity of the doctrine of the Assumption would not be impaired if she did not die, but

Steve Ray seems to think that there are questions that we Bible Christians cannot answer. (Link to his post) Not only can we answer them, we have answered them. For the most part, they are a bunch of loaded questions that are actually not that hard to unload and answer. The answers I provided below may not even be the

It ought to be well-known that Rome’s dogma of the Immaculate Conception was denied by her leading medieval saint, Thomas Aquinas (as outlined here). This has been something of a thorn in the side of those contending that Mary was immaculately conceived. They have tried to explain Aquinas’ position away in various ways – such as by arguing that Aquinas

I admit that I’ve never had a high view of Mark Shea’s scholarship, yet a mixture of surprise and amusement washed over me as I took in Shea’s breathtakingly ignorant response to a reader’s question regarding Augustine and Sola Scriptura. A reader had pointed out to Shea that Augustine, in responding to the Arian heretic Maximinus, had sounded exactly like

One of the Reformed criticisms of Rome is that she has placed herself above Scripture in various ways. She claims that her interpretation of Scripture is authentic and unchallengeable, that her dogmatic teachings (even when they are not interpretations of Scripture) are infallible and irreformable, and she claims that the Old Latin Vulgate embodies both the authentic canon and the

One of the latest blog entries from Called to Communion (CTC) is entitled Calvin, Trent, and the Vulgate: Misinterpreting the Fourth Session. The writer explains the “Reformed” popularly portray Trent as “enshrining the Vulgate” at the expense of Biblical linguistic research. Note the following excerpts: When I first began to take interest in theology, and in Reformed theology in particular,

“Catholic Answers” recently published a book attributed to Jimmy Akin entitled “The Fathers Know Best.” It purports to be “Your essential guide to the teachings of the Early Church.” The book does not provide any meaningful contribution to the study of patristics and little to the Roman-Reformed dialog. Content in General Part one of the book (pp. 15-93) contains an

Roman Catholic Apologetics never ceases to amaze. For years I’ve read through (or listened to) explanations of Luke 1:28 (And coming in, he said to her, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you“). A typical Roman Catholic explanation would hold the Greek word kecharitomene means an “indication of an unparalleled grace given by God to our Lady: She was

Which of Rome’s defenders is at the front of the battle, zealously seeking to protect and instruct the Roman church? Catholic Answers you say? No, it’s none other than Catholic Apologetics International (CAI) founded by Robert Sungenis. His website states, “CAI is a Catholic lay apostolate dedicated to the teachings of Jesus Christ preserved by the Magisterium of the Catholic

I think I have developed “follow the link clickitis,” as have most other modern info-maniacs. You scan through topics in your RSS feeds, click on interesting topics, then click a link in the interesting article, and eventually you find yourself off in the wilderness somewhere twenty minutes later wondering how you got there in the first place. It was on

Suppose you are reading through the writings of Gregory of Nazianzus and you hear him say that either the apostle Peter or the bishop of Rome is “entrusted with the chief rule over the people, in other words, the charge of the whole world.” Would you think that he was affirming the universal jurisdiction and primacy of the Roman see?

Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger wrote the important work, “The Pope and the Council.” One of his interesting observations regarding the mutation of the papacy is this: Innocent Iv. supplemented the hierarchical organization by adding a link hitherto wanting to the papal chain, when he established the principle that every cleric must obey the Pope, even if he commands what

Bryan Cross at Called to Communion posted a response to Keith Mathison’s book, “The Shape of Sola Scriptura.” Dr. Mathison’s detailed response to Bryan Cross may be found at the following link (link). Dr. Mathison nails many of the central issues, without trying to be exhaustive. In particular, I think that the readers may enjoy the first portion of the

The term “Molinism” is making it into the headlines of the blogosphere a lot these days. So perhaps you want to know, in thirty seconds, how Molinism differs from Calvinism. The short answer is that Molinism views man’s will differently, and that consequently Molinism holds to “middle knowledge” to explain how God can have a comprehensive plan for all of

Francis Beckwith explains (in a blog entry / column titled: “Transubstantiation: From Stumbling Block to Cornerstone“): The Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist is a real stumbling block to some Protestants who are seriously considering Catholicism. It was for me too, until I explored the subject, historically and scripturally. Transubstantiation is one of those Roman dogmas that spectacularly fails the tests

One of the claims we sometimes hear from Rome’s apologists these days is that the Scriptures are materially sufficient, but that they are not formally sufficient. This sounds better, no doubt, than simply saying that the Scriptures are “insufficient.” In a series of posts, Pastor David King and I (TurretinFan) are exploring the topic of the sufficiency of scripture in

Taylor Marshall has not been a devoted follower of Rome for very long, but he has surely learned the standard tactics of the Roman Apologetics Group (RAG) quickly. The RAG manual is very large (we managed to obtain one covertly from a liberal Church of England guy—not even the Jesuits could tell he wasn’t one of them!), and contains an