It is good to know that even on weekends the ever-vigilant Dave Armstrong is reading my blog. Seriously, only a few hours after posting my response to TGE below, DA (as he is so affectionately known by so many) posted a long, rambling response that, to be honest, has almost nothing whatsoever to do with what I said. I normally try to avoid DA when I write, since he seems to have no end of time nor any interest in actually focusing upon any one topic in his writings. In fact, he has written so much that it seems to be approaching critical mass, and may soon crash the internet due to all of his self-congratulatory self-citation. Anyway, if you dare mention him you will get a minimum of ten times the amount of text in return (witness this situation), and there is simply no end to the verbiage that can be pounded out on a keyboard connected to one of today’s high-speed computers.
Be that as it may, what I said was 1) DA lacks the ability to engage the text of the Scriptures in a meaningful fashion, and 2) DA will use anything to attack the truth. Unwittingly he has proven the second proposition true in his lengthy response and the argumentation it contains. As to the first, I simply direct anyone to the “exegesis” presented in A Biblical Defense of Catholicism, his 2001 publication. The book is a monument to how to ignore context, avoid grammar, shred syntax, and insert the traditions of Rome willy-nilly into any passage you cite. Sadly, given how rare it is for anyone to honor the Word by engaging in serious AND believing exegesis these days, few in the pews have the process modeled for them consistently in the pulpit or the Bible Study room, and hence are impressed by even this kind of rambling eisegesis. DA thinks himself a modern Socrates, yet, his writing takes wild leaps from topic to topic, inserts endless (and often gratuitous) irrelevant material that serves only to cover the shallow nature of what is being said, and in the end requires one to possess the skill of nailing jello to a wall to be able to respond to it for its utter lack of substance. Take away his quotes from the CCC and Newman, and there would be little left.
To demonstrate this with clarity, let me provide a contrast. DA has published a book in which he seeks to give a “biblical defense” of his theology (it is much more of a defense offered by selective citations of Newman than anything else). It struck me this evening that he “explained” issues regarding Hebrews 7 and Christ’s priesthood in his book, and I am writing an article for a journal on the same topic. So, the best way to substantiate what I have said is to just allow the reader to decide. Below I reproduce DA’s comments, and after that, my own as they will be published in an upcoming journal article. Click here for the comparison.
