Image by “HypnoArt” (February 2017) [Pixabay / CC0 public domain] *** Human beings can offer grace to each other. This is entirely biblical. The Bible describes St. Paul acting as a “mini-mediator” of grace that originates, of course, from God. Paul distributes it to others: 2 Corinthians 4:15 (RSV) For it [his many sufferings: 4:8-12, 17] is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.... Read more
Original title: Catholics and Protestants Agree on Grace Alone and the Necessity of the Presence of Good Works in Regenerate and Ultimately Saved Persons; Disagree on Faith Alone The Good Samaritan, by Théodule Ribot (1823-1891) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] ***** If works (even ones enabled, caused by, and soaked in grace from A to Z) have nothing to do with salvation whatsoever (the standard Protestant position), how are these 50 passages about the final judgment (that I have collected) to be... Read more
Abraham and the Angels, by Aert de Gelder (1645-1727) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] *** Lutheran Pastor Ken Howes (LCMS) is a friendly dialogue partner, whom I respect a lot: especially how he always conducts himself like a Christian gentleman in discussion. His congregation is very blessed to have him. These exchanges occurred on a public Facebook thread. His words will be in blue. ***** The Defense of the Augsburg Confession was cited by someone else: it’s section on Invocation of... Read more
“Light Special Effects03” by “RAJESH misra” ( [PublicDomainPictures.net / CC0 public domain] *** Lutheran Pastor Ken Howes (LCMS) wrote on a public Facebook thread: I have told this story many times, but it’s always worth the retelling. I was about six or seven years old, and I was sitting out on my back porch with my friend Mark, who was a Roman Catholic. Mark started telling me how we should pray to Mary and that she was holy. I interrupted,... Read more
Holy Family Catholic Church (Oldenburg, Indiana). Photo by “Nheyob” (9-21-13) [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license] *** (11-29-07) *** A Catholic woman asked some questions and was critical of certain statements made by CHNI (probably Marcus Grodi). Here was my response. Her words will be paraphrased and in blue. * * * * * When I go to Mass (so I have been taught), it is just God and myself, and no one else. Obviously, the... Read more
St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague. Photo by “kirkandmimi” (9-29-16) [Pixabay / CC0 public domain] *** (2-11-04; some new recommended links added on 5-2-17) *** [Derived from actual correspondence with one such person (without violating any confidences): hence the use of first-person address] ***** If you consider yourselves actually out of the Protestant position, then I will simply have to help persuade you of the Catholic one, so you can get out of this limbo. I know you are the type of... Read more
St. Cyril of Jerusalem, by Francesco Bartolozzi (1727-1815) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] *** (8-1-03) *** For preliminaries concerning my methodology and the burden of proof for showing if a Church Father believed in sola Scriptura, see my paper, Church Fathers & Sola Scriptura. St. Cyril of Jerusalem’s’ words will be in blue. Anti-Catholic polemicist Jason Engwer’s words will be in green. *** Here is a passage from St. Cyril that anti-Catholics think prove his adherence to sola Scriptura: For... Read more
Church Fathers: 11th century mosaic; lower portions: oil painting of the 18th c. St. Sophia of Kyiv [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] *** (8-1-03) *** For preliminaries concerning my methodology and the burden of proof for showing if a Church Father believed in sola Scriptura, see my paper, Church Fathers & Sola Scriptura. Hippolytus’ words will be in blue. Jason Engwer’s words will be in green. *** Anti-Catholics cite the following passage in supposed proof of Hippolytus’ advocacy of sola... Read more
Image by “geralt” (8-20-14) [Pixabay / CC0 public domain] ***** An atheist geologist who goes by the nickname of “ButILikeCaves” (he must be a spelunker) showed up on one of my posts at Patheos: ***** I place my confidence in the centuries of research, billions of man-hours, millions of pages of documentation, and mountains (literally, mountains) of physical evidence that refute the validity of any of the myriad religious creation myths out there. [this is a canned response I have noticed... Read more
Photograph by “||read||” (5-28-09) [Flickr / CC BY 2.0 license] *** (9-20-07) *** “DagoodS” is a friendly atheist with whom I have had many enjoyable dialogues in the past (usually about alleged biblical contradictions) [later we met in person several times]. Recently on his blog I asked him if he could write out his “deconversion” story for me to critique, and he has commenced doing so. His words will be in blue: * * * * * Where is your... Read more
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