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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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Why Do Roman Catholics Think that Mary Didn't Have Pain During Childbirth?
One belief that is common in Roman Catholicism today is that Jesus was born without Mary suffering any pain. While sometimes Roman Catholics think that this fits with the concept of Mary being immaculately conceived, when we examine this doctrine prior to the acceptance of the view of Mary’s immaculate conception, we see some slightly…
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"We Don't Worship Statues"
How many times have I heard the line, “We don’t worship statues”! It seems that whenever one brings up the subject of idolatry with a Roman Catholic, they invariably think it is a defense that they are not venerating the statue itself, but the thing it represents. My intuitive response has typically been: do you…
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Terms One Doesn't Find in Gregory of Nyssa
One of the interesting things about Gregory of Nyssa’s work are the things one does not find in the English translations of Gregory’s works: “pope” “papacy” “papal” “pontiff” “bishop of bishops” “vicar” “cardinal” “legate” “penance” (One might argue that the concept is there in Gregory of Nyssa the concept of penance, though not the term.)…
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Gregory of Nyssa on Sinlessness: Only Jesus Sinless
Some folks like to paint Gregory of Nyssa as though he were a Roman Catholic. Certainly, of course, there are points where his theology contains errors. His beliefs would not have squared with the Westminster Confession of Faith in every respect. So, to be clear, Gregory of Nyssa was neither a “Roman Catholic” nor a…
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Benedict XVI vs. James White
No, there is no such debate scheduled yet (though I’d love to see that debate). No, I’m pointing out an area where Dr. White has moved a technological step ahead of the Roman Catholic pope. Dr. White is on Twitter. (although TurretinFan is not)Pope Benedict XVI is not on Twitter. (although Patrick Madrid is) -TurretinFan…
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Vatican Praise for Calvin?
“Vatican newspaper praises French Protestant John Calvin” that’s the AP headline for this article (link). The paper apparently called Calvin extraordinary and emphasized that Calvin was a Christian. Isn’t interesting how times change? To God be the Glory!
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Irenaeus and the Reliability of "Early" Oral Tradition
People sometimes like to think that if you go back to the earliest fathers you’ll get very good accounts of extra-scriptural tradition. There is a certain amount of intuition to back this up. After all, the earliest fathers were closer in time to the gospel accounts than we are. Intuition is wrong – at least…
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Obama is a "Vatican II" President
So declares John W. O’Malley in a recent article in America: The National Catholic Weekly. John W. O’Malley, S.J., is university professor, theology department, at Georgetown University and author of What Happened at Vatican II. I found the article interesting on several levels. Not simply because he promotes Obama, but because he seemingly views the…
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What does Simon mean? and did "Peter" replace "Simon"?
I recently heard a terrible argument arguing that Simon means “grain of sand” and that when Jesus changed Simon’s name to Peter, he was changing this grain of sand into a Rock. Obviously, as you might guess, this argument came from someone who thinks that Peter was the first pope. There are two significant problems…