Archive for category: Roman Catholicism

Two of my blog team have posted articles on their personal blogs that you really need to read, especially if you have interest in Roman Catholic polemics. James Swan, the master of all odd Luther quotes, has just blown a hole in the boat of many of Rome’s pop apologists who constantly hammer away at the “Luther and Calvin believed

I hope those who wished to listen live to the purgatory debate last night we able to do so. I had to go with straight “house sound,” so it wasn’t as clear as, for example, the Silverman debate was, but hopefully it was still useful. Another clear delineation between the God-centered gospel of a powerful Savior and the man-centered gospel

On debate days I try to remain focused upon the topic of the debate (I even dropped a previous opportunity to speak today when it became clear it would be a massive distraction from my primary reason for being here in Oregon today). Central to the debate with Rome over her dogma of purgatory is the interpretation of 1 Corinthians

Roman Catholic Michael Liccione recently provided a comment in the comment box of a Roman Catholic blog that I think highlights two of the problems with Roman Catholic theology: (1) the disparaging of the authority of Scriptures themselves; and (2) the deification of “the Church.” He said: What’s needed is a concrete, communal, continuous locus of “the sources” that is

Over at Called to Communion, in the comment box, Bryan Cross wrote: In the first century, no one needed to confess that Christ is homoousious with the Father. But after the fourth century, to deny the homoousious is to fall into heresy. This is dead wrong and gets things exactly backwards. It has always been heresy to

Randy wrote: Regarding today’s Dividing Line, you *do* use “Anti-Calvinist” quite a bit, along with “Anti-Trinitarian,” and “Anti-Reformed” rather than calling them by their “postive” terms. So, stay consistent as to whether people should be defined by what they are positively (Arminian, Oneness believers) or whether it’s fair game for folks to call each other Anti- whatever. Because, you do

On Friday, September 10, Dr. White debated Roman Catholic apologist Robert Sungenis on the assumption of Mary. Dr White Discussed this debate on Iron Sharpens Iron. You can listen to it here. Other recent ISI shows: Jamin Hubner: The Atheist vs. Christian Debate on ‘Is the New Testament Evil’: One Christian’s Analysis TurretinFan: The Debate on the Immaculate Conception &

There seems to be a new conversion story every day of a lost Protestant finding his way across the Tiber. Based on these testimonies, one may be tempted to think the Roman church is growing while Protestant churches are dwindling. Haven’t Rome’s defenders been doing such a stellar job with apologetics, so that the conversions are coming fast and furious? Shouldn’t the number

My busy schedule has left me little time to write, however, I do still check in on a number of Roman Catholic apologists each day. Here’s what I found today. In some cases, there really isn’t anything new under the sun. Take for instance Gerry Matatics. Gerry updates his website a few times a year, if that. His recent offering

It’s a beautiful morning here in Santa Fe. I have become accustomed to arising early in the mornings of late, but this morning—I didn’t. It takes quite a while to wind down after two full debates (on two widely divergent topics), so I didn’t get to bed overly early either. In any case, I’m 4/6ths of the way through the

Augustine wrote: It is by these manners of speech, when we speak of things that do not happen to God as though they did, that we acknowledge it is he who makes them happen to us, those things at least that are praiseworthy, and these only to the extent that scriptural usage allows it. I mean, we certainly ought not

Every few weeks a thread pops up on the Catholic Answers forums relating to yours truly. Most are normally “eye-rollers” involving the penchant of folks to only want to listen to one side, find a quick and easy rebuttal that has little to do with truth, and move on. But recently one has popped up regarding the issues relating to

Our very own TurretinFan will be on Iron Sharpens Iron at 8PM EDT here to continue examining the claims of Christopher Ferrara regarding the truth about Mary. I just learned about it, so I’m blogging the announcement as quickly as I can.

I recently received an email from someone who was trying to argue that Augustine “clearly” taught that Mary was immaculate conceived. The person writing to me provided the following quotation (emphasis is his): “Now with the exception of the holy Virgin Mary in regard to whom, out of respect for the Lord, I do not propose to have a single

During Dr. James White’s debate with Christopher Ferrara on the alleged sinlessness and Immaculate Conception of Mary, Mr. Ferrara questioned the fact that a half dozen popes taught or held a position contrary to the dogma that was later defined as the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Dr. White provided a citation to Schaff, the respected church historian, who identified

TurretinFan will be discussing my debate with Christopher Ferrara on Iron Sharpens Iron tonight, 8pm EDT (5pm PDT). TurretinFan wrote a helpful article after the debate, and has another he’s working on as well, so it should be a great program. You can listen here. Why am I not going on? Because I have four debates in 22 days coming

On Saturday, August 28, 2010, Dr. James White debated Mr. Christopher Ferrara on the topic of Mary’s alleged sinlessness and immaculate conception. While the debate audio/video are not (to my knowledge) yet available for purchase, here are a few points that I’d like to address. 1) Does Ineffabilis Deus lie about the patristic testimony? During the debate, Dr. White brought

Peter Stravinskas is threatening to bring legal action against us. Why? For a single blog article and my reporting that the proposed debate between us was cancelled. You can find the discussion of what happened and how I reported it here. Notice the terrible and libelous things I said there! I said the debate had been “scrubbed.” I said Stravinskas

Session XXV: Rule IV of the Ten Rules Concerning Prohibited Books Drawn Up by The Fathers Chosen by the Council of Trent and Approved by Pope Pius: Since it is clear from experience that if the Sacred Books are permitted everywhere and without discrimination in the vernacular, there will by reason of the boldness of men arise therefrom more harm

Francis Row Your Boat Ashore So I think the answer to our question has been answered fully, and fairly. It has never surprised me that Frank Beckwith returned to Rome. He had never left it in key and fundamental ways. Surely he had moved from non-Catholic church to non-Catholic church, and had embraced a non-Catholic view of justification. But even

That Sola Scriptura Thing The most eye-opening portion of Return to Rome for me was Beckwith’s self-admission that he had never held to a serious, confessional, historically and biblically grounded doctrine of sola scriptura. As one who has defended this divine truth against leading Roman Catholic apologists for most of my adult life, I found the ease with which Frank

He further goes on to say that it was through his study of the church fathers and the development of liturgical traditions that liberated him with respect to his views on church tradition. He says a lot more than that, actually, that is highly problematic, and has been addressed by a number of folks since his conversion a few years

Why Aren’t You A Catholic? Dr. Beckwith narrates a conversation he had with his niece. She asked him why he was not a Roman Catholic. His response was, I proceeded to tell my little niece that I had great respect for the pope and that I have learned much from the Church’s great thinkers, including Popes Benedict XVI and John

When I was first contacted about the reversion of Frank Beckwith, the then president of the Evangelical Theological Society, I immediately discussed the topic on my webcast, The Dividing Line. I held open the possibility that the report was premature, or in error, but, failing that, I immediately called for Dr. Beckwith’s resignation as the president of the Evangelical Theological

Christians are those who follow Christ, who have faith in Christ for salvation. They ascribe to him power and glory, which they do not ascribe to any creature. They have one mediator, as it is written: 1 Timothy 2:5-6 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom

With the advent of the Vatican II Council, there has been a greater focus on scriptural authority in the RCC. I have witnessed that first hand in some recent viewings of Catholic masses on EWTN. I actually was impressed with the amount of scripture being read and taught and found little that I disagreed with in the messages. Yet, I

IRON SHARPENS IRON Radio Presents ROMAN CATHOLIC VS. PROTESTANT Debate on Long Island “The Immaculate Conception & Sinlessness of Mary” FEATURING CHRISTOPHER A. FERRARA – Founder of American Catholic Lawyer’s Association Christopher Ferrara is an attorney and widely published Catholic author and commentator. He serves as President and Chief Counsel of American Catholic Lawyer’s Association , an organization dedicated to

Roman Catholic apologists often let us know how crucial it is to have an infallible magisterium and church Tradition in order to interpret the Bible correctly. With so many Catholic apologists now commenting on sacred scripture, I thought it would be interesting to provide their commentary on the Bible. Let’s see how they’ve been able to rightly divide the word

This morning I was directed to a new feature of the Catholic Answers website, their video wall, found here. And what to my wondering eyes should appear right at the top of the “wall” but a video I reviewed over two years ago when Steve Ray linked to it by one Russ Rentler. At the time I produced the video

Unless something changes, my next debates will be in September/October, all in the area of Roman Catholicism. I have shifted my studies over to that area on my rides. For example, while climbing some 15% grades this morning I was listening to Bill Webster lecturing on penance (an interesting conjunction, in that Bill and I have ridden together in the

Here’s yet another converts tale. A Reformed person swimming the Tiber has made a fallible decision to submit to a self-proclaimed infallible authority. He set out four possible authority options to submit to now that he’s decided to leave his Reformed church. The one that appealed to him is the following: Submit to a form of Christianity that does not