I just found this e-mail on my system. It illustrates perfectly how no matter how clearly you state your case, those who do not want to hear will find a way not to:
You’ve spent mulitple Dividing lines now resting your entire argument on assuming that whatCatholics now call dulia must be judged by what a 2nd century BC translation might think it means. To rest all your argument on the dictionary would be to concede that if only the word say “appreciate” was used instead of “dulia”, (or maybesupercalifragilisticexpialidocious), then your entire thesis would fall apart. Similarly with “prayer”. Apparently if the word “talk” or some other word were used, your entire argument would fall apart.
How does it even begin to be a valid argument to compare the lexical meaning of words across completely different centuries and cultural settings, to be a valid argument? As far as I see, almost your entire debate was based on the worst kind of lexical fallacy.
For those who have been listening to the DL, you know that I have been insisting that God gets to define what is, and what is not, proper worship. He does so in Scripture. We have no right to change that revelation, or ignore that revelation. Since Rome claims to be guided by “Scripture and Tradition,” but that Tradition never contradicts Scripture, the fact that there is no latria/dulia distinction in the biblical teaching concerning service and worship should be, for the Christian, absolutely final in its definitions. But Rome says otherwise. So once again we have either God defining His worship in Scripture, or, man defining it in councils that did not even possess a meaningful level of biblical knowledge in the first place. Our Catholic writer doesn’t seem to understand that the “dictionary” is provided by God: the normative role of Scripture flies right past him due to the presence of his Roman tradition glasses. A classic case, yet, one that is still quite sad.
