The following appears in the context of a discussion of the semantic domain and meanings of δικαιόω (justify, declare righteous). Sippo opines:

I need to lay my cards on the table. IMHO Protestantism is a demonic deception. It is founded on the philosophy of the medieval via moderna and not in any way on the Bible. Nothing remotely resembling the Protestant doctrie of JBFA ever existed until mentally disturbed Martin Luther needed a psychological catharis for his clinical depression. His solution was an amoralist understanding of righteousness as a merely formal declaration completely devoid of ontological foundation. This tallies nicely with a nominalist understanding of concepts but makes no sense in a realist worldview such as we have in the Scriptures. Even Alister McGrath admitted that this was a complete innovation (“a theological novum”) unknown previously in Christian theology.

   Of course, that’s a pretty gross misuse of McGrath’s intention, as anyone who has read McGrath knows, but what’s new? In any case, when I noted Sippo’s inability to differentiate between “I disagree with position X” and “the person promoting position X is a liar,” I couldn’t help but notice Dave Armstrong had to demonstrate that he, like Sippo, lacks the same basic cognitive capacity. Once again using his “play with pictures” technique of apologetics, Armstrong accused me of doing the very thing Sippo was doing. But, to make his case, he actually had to cite me, and the truly sad and embarrassing thing for Armstrong is, anyone who reads what I said will notice that Armstrong “just doesn’t get it.” Being able to differentiate between a difference of opinion and saying someone is a liar does not require you to believe that dishonesty does not exist in the world. All the examples he gave lacked the one thing they needed to be relevant: a logical parallel to the actual case at hand. This is why I do not bother with Armstrong any longer: not only has his incapacity as a serious writer or apologist been documented far too many times over the years here, but the simple fact is that he is sort of like the Wall-E of Catholic apologists: he gathers bits and pieces from here and there and cobbles them together, often without sufficient background or knowledge to understand how they should or could be related, and then adds a generous helping of self-citation and a mountain of excess verbiage to give the appearance of substance. Unfortunately, he lacks Wall-E’s adorable personality, or, at least, big eyes. Armstrong knows he only has one “safe” place in this world, behind his keyboard: he will never, ever venture out in the real world to face those he so confidently mocks in real debate. So while I’m sure he will get his six-months worth of satisfaction for having been noted again, I truly wonder if he realizes just how often he documents his own failure to provide a consistent and compelling case?

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