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Response to Heschmeyer's Purgatory Thought Experiments
Joe Heschmeyer at Shameless Popery has provided some “thought experiments” regarding purgatory (link to his post). Heschmeyer has two similar experiments – in both cases an object is dropped and broken. Heschmeyer asks whether the object’s owner can forgive the breaker of the object and still demand that the person who broke it clean up…
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John Wesley on "Turretin"
I recently came across this blog post recording John Wesley’s negative reaction to a book called “History of the Church” by “Turretin” (link to post). I had hoped this might be a work by Francis Turretin, but I was disappointed. It was instead a reference to Historiae ecclesiasticae compendium usque ad 1700 by Jean-Alphonse Turretin,…
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Response to Dan's Use of Pluperfect
Recently (link to mp3 of July 30, 2009, Dividing Line Program), Dan called into the Dividing Line radio program. He was calling to discuss the following verse: Acts 13:48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.…
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Footnote to the Perspicuity Discussion – Liberius' Lapse and Athanasius the non-Papist
Roman Catholic David Waltz has chimed in with his two cents on the exceedingly minor issue of whether or not Athanasius might have been mocking Liberius when he (Athanasius) mentioned “the eunuchs of Constantius” (link to Waltz’s piece). I had even stated in my original post, “But that’s an aside.” (link to my original post).…
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Blueprint for Reliability Following the Lord's Example
Gennadius (died about A.D. 496) on James of Nisibis (aka “the Wise”) (died after A.D. 350): “He composed also a Chronicle of little interest indeed to the Greeks, but of great reliability in that it is constructed only on the authority of the Divine Scriptures.” (Gennadius, Supplement to Jerome’s Illustrious Men, Chapter 1) Gennadius (died…
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Have I Offended You, Dear Reader?
I appreciate the many folks who read this blog. Some of them I necessarily offend, because I affirm that men are sinners and that the gospel is that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. That message in itself is bound to offend sinners who…
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Arminius' Impact on Calvinism
Dan (“GodIsMyJudge”) has an interesting post in honor of the 400th anniversary of Arminius’ death (link). One criticism I have, is that I think he overstates the significance of the infralapsarian wording of Dordt’s discussion of election. In fact, one could walk away from GodIsMyJudge’s post thinking that Arminius was an infralapsarian Calvinist who prevailed…
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Am I Safe from Rome's Anathemas?
A pseudonymous blogger under the penname Reginald de Piperno (RdP), responding to my opening post in my series on Trent (link to post), stated: For example, TF claims that he is under the anathema of Trent. But unless he is or was formally Catholic, this is flatly impossible. I do not understand the seeming fondness…
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Oral Tradition, The Early Church, and Paul Pavao's Astonishment
I had written (in this previous post): That’s rather the point about the early church fathers – they did not transmit an oral apostolic tradition to us, rather they were our predecessors in trying to search out the meaning of Scripture. Where they do a good job they are to be commended, and where they…
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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…