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Athanasius, the Canon, and Sola Scriptura against Matthew Bellisario and Rome
Recently, Mr. Bellisario provided comments in a comment box attempting to attack the Reformed position using the issues of the canon and Athanasius (his post here). The following is a detailed reply. MB wrote: “Turretin, the Church doesn’t lie to me, your own flawed intellect deceives you.” It shows your zeal to state this so…
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Augustine on the "We Gave You the Scriptures" Argument
One argument that we sometimes hear from Roman Catholic apologists is an argument that Roman Catholicism gave us the Scriptures, in the sense of preserving them for us over the centuries. This claim is, of course, anachronistic (the folks who preserved the Scriptures from the 4th decade to the 4th century, for example, could hardly…
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Aquinas’ Affirmation of the Primacy of Scripture
A few folks have thought that the following quotation is significant with respect to the issue of Aquinas’ view of Scripture’s primacy. I answer that, Neither living nor lifeless faith remains in a heretic who disbelieves one article of faith. The reason of this is that the species of every habit depends on the formal…
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Don’t Be Surprised if You Make Some Mistakes
Jerome wrote: And if the ingenuity of perverse men finds something which they may plausibly censure in the writings even of evangelists and prophets, are you amazed if, in your books, especially in your exposition of passages in Scripture which are exceedingly difficult of interpretation, some things be found which are not perfectly correct? –…
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Athanasius Praising the Psalms
The man who was God’s instrument to bring me to faith in Christ recently brought to my attention a letter from Athanasius. The letter is Athanasius’ Letter to Marcellinus. If it were not in the form of a letter, I’d be tempted to call it has work “In Praise of the Psalms.” Here are some…
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Infinite Punishment and Liberalism
One adherent to liberalism/progressivism recently commented on my post regarding eternal punishment (link to my post). He wrote: Dear Turretinfan, Sin against an infinitely holy God deserves an infinite punishment? Why? Out of necessity? And if not out of necessity, what kind of God would purposely frame a reality so that such a barbarous claim…
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Did Hippo, Carthage, or Rome’s Bishop Settle the Canon?
Some Roman Catholics are under the false impression that the councils of Hippo (A.D. 393) and/or Carthage (A.D. 397) authoritatively settled the canon of Scripture for the church – either directly or by endorsement by one or more Roman bishops. To be deep in history, however, is to cease to be so naive. John of…
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Aquinas on Sola Scriptura
Some folks seem to imagine that a rejection of Sola Scriptura was the “established faith” prior to the Reformation. Those folks ought to read their Aquinas (emphasis supplied in the following: Article 8. Whether sacred doctrine is a matter of argument? Objection 1. It seems this doctrine is not a matter of argument. For Ambrose…
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Surprising Wisdom from Harold Camping
“If this world is still in existence after the end of 2011, we will know that there is still much more we can learn from the Bible.“ – Harold Camping, “Time Has an End,” Preface, page xxii Mr. Camping is right about this. The problem, I fear, is that on January 1, 2012, he will…
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Flattening Flimsy Flim-Flam
Mr. Mark Shea (link) seems to think that Dr. White’s post (link) is so much “huff-puffery.” Thankfully, the flim-flam from which Mr. Shea’s argument is constructed is so flimsy that it is flattened by even fairly rudimentary analysis. Mr. Shea seems to have forgotten the important lesson of the story of the three little pigs.…