Archive for category: Roman Catholicism

A poster using the name “BenYachov (Jim Scott 4th)” writes in response to MarieP, who protested that there’s a whole lot of accusing going on, but precious little proving: Well in his Bible Answer Man debate with James Akin the smarmy git implied the merits of our suffering in purgatory where from our own efforts & not from the Grace

The RC pep rally and general back-slapping rave going on at DA’s blog has continued unabated for a few days now, though I think eventually even these folks will get tired of repeating the same mantras over and over again. “Wow, that James White, we sure have refuted him, haven’t we!” “Yeah, sure did! Wow, he’s as dumb as a

      Mr. Armstrong has just recently noted, in reference to myself and others, Carry on, fools . . . we’re all watching, and it is high entertainment, believe me. You think you will get me to change my mind by these childish tactics and colossal errors of fact? You go right ahead. I’m documenting every vacuous, vapid insult and dumb

David Pacitti wrote to me (publicly, on DA’s blog): What is amazing to me is how James White and his followers actually think that he is write about anything. I have read James White work and have compared it to yours and others such as Steve Ray and Bob Sungenis and White’s work does not stand up to the evidence.

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

…I was informed today that my appearance on this blog has not gone unnoticed by our friends on the Envoy forum. Don’t worry, I know it’s not about me; it’s about Dr. White, of course. You see, because I happen to agree with Dr. White, and even chose to study for a Master of Theology degree (note that, not a

As we previously identified (link), Augustine had no concept of a continued bodily presence of Christ on Earth after the ascension. A very simple modus tolens logical argument shows that Augustine was not a Roman Catholic, in the sense of holding to the modern Roman Catholic view of the Eucharist. The argument is this: Premise 1: If Augustine were a

Jay Dyer has provided the odd accusation that Dr. White is a Monothelite (link to accusation in a comment box on my blog). Mr. Dyer tries to reason from inferences that Dr. White would hold to the idea that Jesus Christ has only one will. However, as brought to my attention by a commenter named “Alex,” Dr. White has explicitly

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

Once again, in citing Phil. 3:10 and Rom. 8:17, Armstrong does not consider it necessary to actually handle the verses, establish context, meaning, anything exegetical. They are simply cited, and then the assumption is made that Protestants have no place in their theology for “suffering.” And his source for this (if you happen to be widely read in meaningful Protestant

I’d like to ask Dave Armstrong to provide a biblically solid, textually grounded, linguistically accurate, contextually sound interpretation of Romans 4:6-8: Romans 4:6-8 6 just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works: 7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; 8 Blessed is the

Dave Armstrong lists four verses that “confound Protestants” under the subtitle of “The Binding Authority of Tradition, According to St. Paul,” beginning on page 37 of The Catholic Verses. They are: 1 Corinthians 11:2 Now I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you. 1 Thessalonians 2:13

I sometimes feel sorry for ancient artists. Their work gets plastered all across the covers of modern books, but they never get a dime for their efforts. It’s a shame. That odd observation aside, I picked up a copy of Dave Armstrong’s The Catholic Verses: 95 Bible Passages That Confound Protestants (Sophia Institute Press, 2004, 235 pp.), which sports said

And Dave Armstrong pops up again and throws me into the mix of people who turn off the comments sections of their blogs to hide from refutation. Uh, earth to DA…news flash, buddy…I haven’t graduated to RSS capable blogging. This is a plain ol’ html file, nothing more. Someday I may get a real blog, but for the moment, this

In God’s providence I was on the same shuttle bus that picked up Doug Wilson at the airport today, and as we were riding to the hotel he said, “I’ve only been in this blue state for ten minutes, and I already feel icky.” Yes indeed, I know the feeling. But you can look at it in a positive way:

It seems the Roman Catholics gang-called the Bible Answer Man show when Paul Maier was on regarding Luther. Around the 42 minute mark a fellow who sounds vaguely familiar to me who identified himself as a Roman Catholic, Mike from Covina, calls in with a clearly pre-written question presenting an argument against eternal security. He places it in the context

Dave:  Regarding your suggestion that you and I spend an hour on the DL “chatting” and getting to know each other: I don’t believe that would be a proper investment of an hour of our webcast. While at times we do less than serious things for portions of the show, I don’t think “getting to know your local Roman Catholic