Classic Reflections on the Communion of Saints

Last updated on: July 29, 2018 at 4:17 pm By Dave Armstrong

The following material is from the first draft of my book, A Biblical Defense of Catholicism (1994). It ran about 750 pages and contained many citations (along the lines of Josh McDowell’s Evidence That Demands a Verdict). I revised the whole thing in 1996, incorporating citations from the new Catechism and omitting much material (particularly early Protestant history). I think the revision makes for a much better book, yet what was deleted is not, I think, without value and usefulness. Protestant quotations will be in blue... Read more

Catholic Conversion: Random Thoughts & Reflections

Last updated on: July 28, 2018 at 12:47 pm By Dave Armstrong

***** When it comes to things like conversion (to Christ or to another faith community) it really comes down to faith. This is how conversion works. We are not computers or machines. We are whole people. Christianity is a faith, and requires faith to adopt (in whatever one of its brands). There is no avoiding this. One can never absolutely prove their system. That is not only true for Christianity but for any thought-system, in my opinion. Faith is also... Read more

Flawed Conversion Blurb & James White’s Personal Insults

Last updated on: July 28, 2018 at 12:27 pm By Dave Armstrong

Words of the anti-Catholic polemicist James “Dr.” [???] White will be in blue. ***** King of the anti-Catholics, Reformed Baptist apologist James White has issued his by now standard mocking “reply” to any reasoned criticism I offer to his work (the latest one having to do with his unfortunate and ultimately heretical claim that “vicar of Christ” can only apply to the Holy Spirit and not to the pope). [see a similar later paper of mine] There is little new... Read more

James White’s Lies Re the Return of Francis Beckwith to the Church

Last updated on: July 27, 2018 at 7:05 pm By Dave Armstrong

It seems that Bishop White was itching for some good discussion on this matter and wanting very much to defend his atrocious ethics of announcing someone’s conversion before the party in question wanted to announce it. He could have done so here, or he could have on Jimmy Akin’s blog, in a discussion that had more than 150 comments. But that would entail dealing with experienced Catholic apologists: both quite familiar with his methods, and others with such experience, too,... Read more

Q & A: Catholic View on Sexual Morality & Contraception

Last updated on: November 20, 2019 at 12:45 pm By Dave Armstrong

Photo credit: Adam and Eve (c. 1508), by Jan Gossaert (1478-1532) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] This article has been re-posted, under the title of “Q & A: Catholic Sexual Morality and Contraception” ***** Read more

Reflections on the Spiritual Motherhood & Mediation of Mary

Last updated on: July 26, 2018 at 11:47 pm By Dave Armstrong

From the 750-page first draft version of my first book, A Biblical Defense of Catholicism (1994). Protestant quotations will be in blue; Orthodox in green. ***** I. Introduction Dom Ralph Russell “Distinguished Anglican scholars (Hoskyns, Lightfoot), besides . . . Roman Catholics, suggest that in a text to which St. John attaches such importance on Calvary more is involved than simply asking the disciple to look after his mother. For one thing, it is his mother whom he addresses first. Then... Read more

Reflections on Mary: Preliminaries & Devotional Excesses

Last updated on: July 26, 2018 at 11:44 pm By Dave Armstrong

[From the original, much-larger 1994 version of my book, A Biblical Defense of Catholicism. Words of Protestants will be in blue] ***** I. GENERAL INTRODUCTION C. S. Lewis “There is no controversy between Christians which needs to be so delicately touched as this. The Roman Catholic beliefs on that subject are held not only with the ordinary fervour that attaches to all sincere religious belief, but (very naturally) with the peculiar and, as it were, chivalrous sensibility that a man feels... Read more

Orthodoxy & Contraception: Continuity or Compromise?

Last updated on: November 22, 2021 at 2:00 pm By Dave Armstrong

[with Fr. Deacon Daniel G. Dozier] Chapter 9 (pp. 225-244) of my book, Orthodoxy and Catholicism: A Comparison (3rd revised edition, 2015), co-authored with Fr. Deacon Daniel G. Dozier, M.A., who is a Byzantine Catholic clergyman, with degrees in theology and organizational leadership. He is the author of The Twelve Great Feasts of the Messiah and the Mother of God (Eastern Christian Publications) and Classics Made Simple: The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola (TAN Publishing). He speaks periodically on the... Read more

Does the Holy Eucharist Give Us Spiritual “Power”?

Last updated on: July 26, 2018 at 11:02 am By Dave Armstrong

I received a remarkably critical letter (in the worst sense of that term), in response to my last column in The Michigan Catholic, entitled, “The Sunday Mass obligation makes perfect sense.” The woman more or less completely misunderstood my central point, which was not to say that we should attend Mass only out of some dead legalistic obligation (see my first paragraph and several other parts that denied that), but that the Mass obligation was a good thing for the... Read more

The Blessed Virgin Mary: Biblical & Catholic Overview

Last updated on: July 25, 2018 at 8:01 pm By Dave Armstrong

I. INTRODUCTION AND DEFINITIONS * 1. MOTHER OF GOD Mary is the true physical mother of Jesus Christ, Who is truly God; hence Mary is the Mother of God. The doctrine was defined at the Council of Ephesus in 431 in order to counter Nestorius, who thought that Mary gave birth to Jesus Christ’s human nature only. The Catholic Church responded by stating that persons, and not natures, are conceived and born, and that Jesus Christ was a Divine Person,... Read more