2025-07-11T16:54:55-04:00

Last updated on: July 11, 2025 at 4:54 pm   By
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Calvinism
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I. REPLIES TO REFORMED BAPTIST GAVIN ORTLUND
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II. REPLIES TO STEVE HAYS
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III. CALVINISM AND ST. AUGUSTINE
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IV. SACRAMENTS: ESPECIALLY BAPTISM AND THE EUCHARIST
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V. PREDESTINATION, SUPRALAPSARIANISM, SOVEREIGNTY, JUDGMENT, UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION
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VI. “TULIP”: TOTAL DEPRAVITY / LIMITED ATONEMENT / IRRESISTIBLE GRACE / PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS
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VII. REPLIES TO FRANCOIS TURRETIN (1623-1687)
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VIII. ZWINGLI AND OTHER CALVINISTIC “REFORMERS” / MARIOLOGY IN PARTICULAR
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IX. ECUMENISM
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X. ICONOCLASM AND INTOLERANCE
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XI. APOLOGETIC METHOD (PRESUPPOSITIONALISM)
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XII. GENERAL / MISCELLANEOUS
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Protestantism (General)
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XIII. THE PROTESTANT WORLDVIEW AND THE SO-CALLED “PROTESTANT REFORMATION” SCRUTINIZED
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XIV. THE PROTESTANT “QUEST FOR UNCERTAINTY” / THE SO-CALLED CATHOLIC “PROBLEM” OF THE “INFALLIBILITY REGRESS”
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XV. PROTESTANTISM: LOGICALLY SELF-DEFEATING / REDUCTION TO SELF-CONTRADICTION
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XVI. DENOMINATIONALISM AND SECTARIANISM 
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XVII. CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANTS
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XVIII. ANGLICANISM
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CALVINISM

I. REPLIES TO REFORMED BAPTIST GAVIN ORTLUND

Reply to Gavin Ortlund’s “Sola Scriptura Defended” [4-27-22]

Augustine & Sola Scriptura (vs. Gavin Ortlund) (+ Part 2) [4-29-22]

Reply to Gavin Ortlund’s “Relics: A Protestant Critique” [5-12-22]

Reply to Gavin Ortlund on Purgatory (+ Part 2) [5-14-22]

Reply to Gavin Ortlund on Praying to the Saints (Including a Reply Regarding the (Blasphemous?) “Excesses of Marian Prayers” from the Protestant Point of View) [5-15-22]

Reply to Baptist Gavin Ortlund’s Critique of Icons [5-19-22]

Reply to Baptist Gavin Ortlund on Baptism [5-20-22]

St. Jerome, Papacy, & Succession (vs. Gavin Ortlund) [1-20-24]

Reply to a Gavin Ortlund Argument Against Infant Baptism [1-26-24]

Reply To Gavin Ortlund’s 6-Minute Sola Scriptura Defense (Including the Biblical Case for Prophets as Inspired and Infallible Authorities Besides Holy Scripture) [1-26-24]

Reply to Gavin Ortlund: St. Ignatius & Bishops (+ St. Polycarp and St. Clement of Rome On Early Church Ecclesiology) [2-1-24]

Dave Armstrong Responds to Gavin Ortlund on Jerome & the Monepiscopacy [30-minute audio presentation Suan Sonna’s YouTube channel, Intellectual Catholicism, on 2-4-24]
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Biblical Arguments for the Papacy: Reply to Gavin Ortlund [Including Gavin’s Exceptionally Ecumenical & Irenic Statements About the Catholic Church & Catholics] [3-12-24]
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II. REPLIES TO STEVE HAYS

Series: Replies to [Steve] Hays’ “Biblical Calvinism”:

Reply #1: Preliminaries; God “Hardens” Hearts?; Few or Many Saved? [6-12-23]

Reply #2: Sin & God’s Providence; Does God Cause Infirmities & Send “Evil Spirits”?; Examples of God’s Immediate Judgment, Including Absalom; “A Lying Spirit” [6-13-23]

Reply #3: Does God “Micromanage” Every Intent?; God Judges Assyria; Israel Judged in Isaiah 6; Predestined Crucifixion; Acts 13:48: “Ordained to Eternal Life”; Catholic Church & God’s Providence [6-14-23]

Reply #4: Catholicism: The Elect Are Predestined; Reprobate in 1 Peter 2:8; God’s Providence (We Agree!); False Prophet as God’s “Tool”; Good Ol’ Romans 9 [6-15-23]

III. CALVINISM AND ST. AUGUSTINE

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IV. SACRAMENTS: ESPECIALLY BAPTISM AND THE EUCHARIST

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Reply to François Turretin #12: Transubstantiation, Pt. 1 (Does Turretin think biblically in this regard or hyper-rationally and skeptically?) [2-26-25]

Reply to François Turretin #13: Transubstantiation, Pt. 2 (Language of “bread” & “wine” after consecration; transubstantiation and transformation: compendium from the Church fathers) [2-27-25]

Reply to François Turretin #14: Eucharist, Pt. 2 (False premises; unfounded, unbiblical divine “impossibilities”; cessationism; ten types of physical divine presence) [2-28-25]

VIDEO: How Can That Be Jesus? (Turretin & the Eucharist): Calvinist Hyper-Rationalism vs. the Biblical Teaching of Twenty Kinds of God’s Presence [Catholic Bible Highlights, 5-23-25]

Dialogue on Reformed Eucharistic Theology [5-25-25]

Zwingli’s Watered-Down Original Sin and Rejection of Baptismal Regeneration as its Antidote [6-24-25]

V. PREDESTINATION, SUPRALAPSARIANISM, SOVEREIGNTY, JUDGMENT, UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION
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Dialogue on God’s Middle Knowledge & Foreknowledge (vs. Dr. Alexander Pruss) [1997]
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Catholic Predestination, Molinism, & Thomism in a Nutshell [3-27-08]

Bible vs. Double Predestination (No Reprobate Parallels) [4-22-10]

Romans 9: Plausible Non-Calvinist Interpretation [4-22-10]

Is God the Author of Evil? (vs. John Calvin) [Oct. 2012]

Reply to James White’s Exegesis of James 2 in Chapter 20 of His Book, The God Who Justifies [10-9-13]

God “Hardening Hearts”: How Do We Interpret That? [12-18-08; expanded on 1-4-17]

Does God “Want” Men to Sin? Does He “Ordain” Sin? [2-17-10 and 3-16-17]

Luther (Unlike Lutheranism) Taught Double Predestination [1-11-18]

Atheist Ignorance of Christianity: Typical Example (Calvinists make up only some 5% of all Christians, so why do atheists so often think that Calvinist double predestination is the only accepted view in Christian theology?) [12-12-20]

Hays’ Calvinist Prooftexts #1: “Hardening Hearts” [10-23-21]

Hays’ Calvinist Prooftexts #2: Eli’s Sons (1 Sam 2:25) [10-25-21]

The Lord “Bringing Evil” Means Righteous Judgment [10-25-21]

Hays’ Calvinist Prooftexts #3: Absalom’s Judgment [10-27-21]

Hays’ Calvinist Prooftexts #4: Judgment of Assyria [10-27-21]

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VI. “TULIP”: TOTAL DEPRAVITY / LIMITED ATONEMENT / IRRESISTIBLE GRACE / PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS
 
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Total Depravity: Reply to James White: Calvinism and Romans 3:10-11 (“None is Righteous . . . No One Seeks For God”) [4-15-07]

Calvinist Total Depravity: Does Romans 1 Apply to All Men? [4-10-08]

2nd Council of Orange: Sola Gratia vs. Total Depravity [1-5-09]

Dialogue with a Calvinist Regarding Falling Away from Grace or Salvation [7-28-09]

Books by Dave Armstrong: Biblical Catholic Answers for John Calvin [3-11-10]

Gospel = Total Depravity, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace? [4-6-10]

Dialogue: Double Predestination, Total Depravity, & Limited Atonement [4-14-10]

Bible vs. the Reformed Doctrine of Total Depravity [October 2010]

Bible vs. the Reformed Doctrine of Limited Atonement [October 2010]

Calvinist Irresistible Grace vs. the Bible [October 2010]

Calvinist Dialogues with Ghost of Plato [10-31-11]

Should We Pray for “All Men” (1 Tim 2:1) or Not? (Bible and Calvin Say Yes; Anti-Catholic Calvinist Ron Van Brenk Sez No) [11-16-11]

St. Francis de Sales: Bible vs. Total Depravity [11-24-11]

A Biblical Critique of Calvinism (Dave Armstrong): Introduction [10-1-12]

Total Depravity and the Evil of the Non-Elect (vs. John Calvin) [10-12-12]

Refutation of Calvinist Total Depravity [10-12-12]

Can Only Regenerate Men Perform Truly Good Works? (vs. John Calvin) [Oct. 2012]

Books by Dave Armstrong: A Biblical Critique of Calvinism [10-23-12]

Calvinist Irresistible Grace: Biblical? [2013]

Exchange on My Humorous Meme About Calvinism (vs. Dr. Glenn Peoples and William Tanksley, Jr.) / How Satirical Humor Works  [1-6-14]

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Good Works and Men, God’s Grace, and Regeneration [National Catholic Register, 8-6-20]
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Eternal Security vs. the Bible [National Catholic Register, 8-23-20]

There Never Will Be a Single Human Being for Whom Christ Did Not Suffer [National Catholic Register, 4-28-21]

Perseverance of the Saints: Reply to a Calvinist [5-17-21]

Westminster vs. Bible #1: Assurance of Salvation [5-19-21]

Limited Atonement: Refutation of James White [9-1-21]

Jesus vs. James White on Who Can be Saved [10-12-21]

Biblical Reasons Why Catholics Don’t Believe in ‘Limited Atonement’ [National Catholic Register, 10-27-21]

More Biblical Reasons Why Catholics Don’t Believe in ‘Limited Atonement’ [National Catholic Register, 10-30-21]

Limited Atonement Biblical Arguments Refuted (33 NT Passages Against Limited Atonement and in Favor of Universal Atonement) [11-21-24]

VIDEO: “Once Saved Always Saved” REFUTED! – [20+verses] [Dave Armstrong & Kenny Burchard at Catholic Bible Highlights, 11-22-24]

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VII. REPLIES TO FRANCOIS TURRETIN (1623-1687)

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Turretin Lied About the Catholic View of Scripture [8-24-22]

Turretin, 1 Timothy 3:15, Infallibility, & Eisegesis [8-24-22]

Self-Interpreting Bible & Protestant Chaos (vs. Turretin) (Including Documentation that St. Basil the Great — Contrary to Turretin’s Claim — Did Not Believe in Sola Scriptura) [8-29-22]

Christ’s Descent Into Hades (vs. Francois Turretin) (Biblical and Patristic Support Examined) [9-1-22]

Francis Turretin: the 2nd Greatest Calvinist Theologian After John Calvin, Endorses “Mother of God” Terminology [Facebook, 3-10-23]

Francis Turretin: the 2nd Greatest Calvinist Theologian After John Calvin, Believed in the Perpetual Virginity of Mary [Facebook, 3-10-23]

Vs. Turretin #1: Communion Of Saints 1 (Preliminaries) [12-21-23]

Vs. Turretin #2: Communion Of Saints 2 (Veneration) [12-22-23]

Vs. Turretin #3: Communion Of Saints 3 (Intercession) [12-23-23]

Vs. Turretin #4: Communion Of Saints 4 (Invocation) [12-26-23]

Vs. Turretin #5: Communion Of Saints 5 (Relics) [12-27-23]

Vs. Turretin #6: Communion Of Saints 6 (Images) [12-27-23]

Vs. Turretin #7: Intercession & Veneration Of Angels [12-29-23]

Vs. Turretin #8: Church #1 (Infallibility 1) [1-4-24]

Vs. Turretin #9: Church #2 (Indefectibility) [1-9-24]

Vs. Turretin #10: Sanctification [5-7-24]

Salvation Through the Eucharist According to Francois Turretin (1623-1687) [Facebook, 2-23-25]

François Turretin and the Debate Over the Lord’s Supper [Vs. Turretin #11: Eucharist, Pt. 1] (Does a traditional literal reading of “this is my body” entail “a thousand absurdities and contradictions”? The book of Job is instructive) [2-24-25]

Reply to François Turretin #12: Transubstantiation, Pt. 1 (Does Turretin think biblically in this regard or hyper-rationally and skeptically?) [2-26-25]

Reply to François Turretin #13: Transubstantiation, Pt. 2 (Language of “bread” & “wine” after consecration; transubstantiation and transformation: compendium from the Church fathers) [2-27-25]

Reply to François Turretin #14: Eucharist, Pt. 2 (False premises; unfounded, unbiblical divine “impossibilities”; cessationism; ten types of physical divine presence) [2-28-25]

VIDEO: How Can That Be Jesus? (Turretin & the Eucharist): Calvinist Hyper-Rationalism vs. the Biblical Teaching of Twenty Kinds of God’s Presence [Catholic Bible Highlights, 5-23-25]

VIDEO: Eucharist = Jesus? Protestant Doubts vs. Biblical Faith [Catholic Bible Highlights, 5-29-25]

VIII. ZWINGLI AND OTHER CALVINISTIC “REFORMERS” / MARIOLOGY IN PARTICULAR

Perpetual Virginity of Mary: Held by All Protestant Reformers [1-27-02]

Luther’s Mariology: Have Catholic Apologists Exaggerated It? (And Has Present-Day Protestantism Maintained the Classical “Reformation” Protestant Mariology?) [4-26-03; rev. 7-15-20]

Protestant “Reformer” Zwingli Denied Original Sin [5-27-06]

“Moderate” Heinrich Bullinger: “Reformation” Anti-Catholicism [1-16-07]

Zwingli: Protestant “Reformer”, Fornicator, & Vow-Breaker [12-20-07]

Zwingli, Bucer, Oecolampadius: Luther & Lutherans Not Christians [1-10-08]

Mary’s Assumption & “Reformer” Heinrich Bullinger [4-6-08]

Mary Mother of God: Protestant Founders Agree (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and Bullinger) [10-10-08]

Protestant “Reformer” Martin Bucer: Death for Adulterers! [9-18-09]

Turretin & Bullinger Accepted Mary’s Perpetual Virginity [1-5-10 and 6-1-10]

Zwingli’s Belief in Mary’s Sinlessness [9-30-10]

Mariology of “Reformers” Zwingli & Bullinger [4-28-16]

Zwingli vs. Scripture: Worshiping God Through an Image [6-22-25]

Zwingli vs. John the Baptist & Baptism Re Salvation [6-23-25]

Zwingli’s Watered-Down Original Sin and Rejection of Baptismal Regeneration as its Antidote [6-24-25]

Zwingli Believed in Mary’s Perpetual Virginity [Facebook, 6-24-25]

Zwingli’s Anti-Biblical Silliness Regarding Absolution of Sins [Facebook, 6-24-25]

Intercession of the Saints: Zwingli vs. Scripture (Are We Never to Seek Intercessory Aid from Departed Saints or Even from Righteous People on the Earth?) [6-26-25]

Zwingli’s Blindness Regarding Biblical Merit / The Ten Clearest Biblical Passages on Merit [Facebook, 6-26-25]

Zwingli’s Childish Trashing of the Character of Catholic Theologian and Apologist Johann Eck [Facebook, 6-26-25]

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IX. ECUMENISM
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The Real Diet of Augsburg (1530) vs. the Protestant Myth [3-3-04]

Regensburg (1541) & Poissy (1561): Protestant “Ecumenism”? [4-27-04]

Zwingli, Bucer, Oecolampadius: Luther & Lutherans Not Christians [1-10-08]

John Calvin: Authoritative Council Needed to Unite Protestants [1-18-08]

What I Like About Calvinism and Calvinists [June 2009]

John Calvin Rebukes Lutheran “Beasts” and “Evil”, Calls Luther an Idolater [Facebook, 3-23-10]

Total Depravity and Salvation Outside the Church (vs. a Calvinist) [4-4-17]

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X. ICONOCLASM AND INTOLERANCE
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“Graven Images”: Unbiblical Iconoclasm (vs. John Calvin) [Oct. 2012]
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PROTESTANTISM (General) 
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XIII. THE PROTESTANT WORLDVIEW AND THE SO-CALLED “PROTESTANT REFORMATION” SCRUTINIZED 
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My Respect for Protestants / Catholic Ecumenical Principles [2001; addendum: 1-8-03]

Catholic Critique of Anglicanism and the Via Media [11-12-01]

Books by Dave Armstrong: Protestantism: Critical Reflections of an Ecumenical Catholic [May 2003]

Protestantism Was Not a Revolt? [6-2-03]

Clerical Celibacy: Hostile Protestant Commentary & Catholic Replies [2-21-04]

The Revised Fundamentalist Baptist Version (RFBV) [5-18-04]

Early Protestant Hostility Towards Science [7-9-04]

Word “Protestant” Stemmed from Intolerance of Catholic Worship [2-8-06]

Why Write “Bad” Stuff About Protestant “Reformers”? [5-22-06]

James White Deacons-Elders-Bishops Controversy (Original title: “Dumbbells and Deacons: Does No Protestant Denomination Whatsoever Regard Deacons as the Equivalent of Pastors and Elders — or Even Bishops?) [6-16-07]

Catholic “Both/And” vs. Protestant “Either/Or” Dichotomies [2-4-08]

George Washington’s Religious Views [5-23-08]

Erasmus vs. Luther Disputes Documented [Feb. 2009]

Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Philip Melanchthon Wax Astronomical and Geocentric, Oppose Copernicus [2-5-09]

Calling of St. Paul & Church Authority: Dialogue w Calvinist [10-24-11] 

Books by Dave Armstrong: The Quotable Wesley [5-2-12]

Dialogue on the Term, “Protestant Reformation” and Proposed Alternatives Like “Era of Reformations” and “Protestant Revolt” (vs. Anglican historian Dr. Edwin W. Tait) [1-7-14]

Protestant & Catholic Holiness, Miracles, & Reform [9-23-14]

Comments on the Question: “Are Protestants Heretics?” [vigorous Facebook discussion on this topic and about anti-trinitarianism, 10-10-14]

“Who Cares About Early Protestant Mariology?” [10-16-14]

Broad Exchange with a Former Catholic, Bible-Only Protestant (vs. John Hallman)  [4-13-15]

“Why Convince Protestants to Become Catholics?” [4-30-15]

Debunking the Mythical Invisible Church [9-14-15]

Arbitrary Bias in the NIV Against “Tradition” [9-18-15]

“Armstrong vs. Geisler” (Series of Ten Mini-Debates) [Facebook, 3-2-17]

Why Do Atheists Almost Always Prefer Protestantism to Catholicism? [Facebook, 10-25-17]

Critique of Ten Exaggerated Claims of the “Reformation” [10-31-17; its 500th anniversary date]

Why Not Become a Protestant, Due to the Sex Scandals? [3-7-19]

Reply to “Why Remain Protestant?” (Steven Nemes) [4-22-22]
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XIV. THE PROTESTANT “QUEST FOR UNCERTAINTY” / THE SO-CALLED CATHOLIC “PROBLEM” OF THE “INFALLIBILITY REGRESS”

Dialogue on the Logic of Catholic Infallible Authority [6-4-96]

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XV. PROTESTANTISM: LOGICALLY SELF-DEFEATING / REDUCTION TO SELF-CONTRADICTION
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XVI. DENOMINATIONALISM AND SECTARIANISM 
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Denominationalism and Sectarianism: An Anti-Biblical Scandal [1996]

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“Absurd” Protestant Divisions: Calvin’s Revealing Lament to Melanchthon [2-6-06]

Philip Melanchthon’s Agony Over Protestant Sectarianism [2-8-06]

Bible vs. Denominationalism and Against “Primary / Secondary” Doctrines [8-18-06]

Melanchthon in 1530 Longed for Return of Catholic Bishops [11-30-07]

John Calvin: Authoritative Council Needed to Unite Protestants [1-18-08]

Unbridled Sectarianism, Sola Scriptura, Luther, & Calvin [6-24-09]

Short Dialogue with a Presbyterian and a Baptist on the Definition of “Fundamentalist” [Facebook, 1-7-10]

John Calvin Rebukes Lutheran “Beasts” and “Evil”, Calls Luther an Idolater [Facebook, 3-23-10]

Melanchthon’s Agonized Tears Over Early Protestant Divisions [6-15-11; additions on 10-11-17]

Bible on Submission to Church & Apostolic Tradition / Biblical Condemnation of the Rebellious & Schismatic Aspects of the Protestant Revolt [8-27-11]

Early Protestant “Unity”: Calvin vs. Westphal vs. Luther [11-6-11]

Bishop Bossuet on the Schismatic Nature and Internal Difficulties of Protestantism [Facebook, 1-4-12]

33,000 [?] Denominations & “Thankful” James White [2-20-16]

Church Authority vs. Rampant Sectarianism [9-22-16]

Orthodoxy and Heresy: Biblical Notions? [9-23-16]

“Reply to Calvin” #4: “Primary” & “Secondary” Doctrines [4-3-17]

Catholicism is True and Denominationalism is Anti-Biblical [National Catholic Register, 6-27-17]

Sectarianism & Denominationalism: Reply to Calvin #6 [12-19-18]

Does Sola Scriptura Create Chaos? (vs. Steve Hays) [5-15-20]

Unbiblical Denominations (vs. Lucas Banzoli) [6-9-22]

Jason Engwer’s Anti-Papalism Refutes Denominationalism [8-2-22]

Has Lutheranism Avoided Denominationalism? (Widespread Lutheran Compromise & Caving on Abortion & Same-Sex “Marriage”) [8-10-22]

Martin Luther vs. Sectarianism and Fanaticism [10-26-22]

How Steve Hays Squared Jesus’ Prayer for Unity in John 17 with Denominationalism [Facebook, 6-2-23]

“Catholic Verses” #5: Denominationalism (Including “Straight Talk” on the Catholic and Protestant Inquisitions) [10-27-23]

Catholicism & Non-Catholic Salvation (Vs. Gavin Ortlund) + How Early Protestants Widely Damned Other Protestants Who Held Different Theological Views [2-9-24]

Early Protestant Idyllic Unity & Catholicity (1525-1563): One Big Happy and Tolerant Family [Facebook, 2-10-24]

Denominationalism & The Bible: Reply To Gavin Ortlund (+ Does the New Testament Present an Ecclesiology of “The Church”?) [2-27-24]

“Ecclesialism” vs. Sola Scriptura (vs. “The Other Paul”) [3-25-24]

Calvin & Cranmer: Councils Necessary For Doctrinal Unity [5-8-24]

Luther: “As Many Sects And Creeds As Heads” (James Swan Misses the Forest for the Trees / Calvin & Melanchthon Embarrassed & Scandalized by Protestant Sectarianism) [6-17-24]

Martin Luther Classified Zwingli, Karlstadt, & Oecolampadius as “Heathen” Non-Christians with “hyper-bedeviled heart[s]” etc. [Facebook, 7-11-24]

Reply to Lucas Banzoli’s 30 “Common” (?) Protestant Views [4-24-25]

DOCUMENTARY: Civil War Chaos: Luther vs. Other Protestant Leaders, Etc. [Lux Veritatis, 5-4-25]

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XVII. CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANTS 

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TV Interview: On Catholicism, Over Against Protestantism (Transcript) (also, listen to the audio; see #5) [5-1-99]

My Respect for Protestants / Catholic Ecumenical Principles [2001; addendum: 1-8-03]

Word “Protestant” Stemmed from Intolerance of Catholic Worship [2-8-06]

The Catholic “Both/And” vs. the Protestant “Either/Or” Dichotomous Mindset [2-4-08]

On the Definition of “Evangelical” [3-20-08]

Dialogue: Definition of “Christian” (vs. Reformed Pastor) (+ Did Trent Anathematize all Protestants?) [6-5-10]

Reply to Robin Phillips’ Why I’m Not a Catholic [1-31-12]

Michael Voris’ Anti-Protestant Rhetoric [8-8-13]

Should Catholics Try to Persuade Protestants? [5-25-16]

“Armstrong vs. Geisler” (Series of Ten Mini-Debates) [Facebook, 3-2-17]

Critique of Ten Exaggerated Claims of the “Reformation” [10-31-17; its 500th anniversary date]

Response to All-Over-the-Ballpark Criticisms of my National Catholic Register Article, “Here’s Proof That Not Every Protestant Doctrine is Biblical” [Facebook, 3-9-18]

Why Not Become a Protestant, Due to the Sex Scandals? [3-7-19]

Series of Replies to Theologian and Apologist Norman Geisler

#1: “Apocrypha” 1: Propheticity [7-3-25]

#2: “Apocrypha” 2: NT Citations (Including Related Discussion on Confused, Baffled Protestant Exegesis of Matthew 2:23: “He shall be called a Nazarene”) [7-7-25]

#3: “Apocrypha” 3: Septuagint [7-7-25]

#4: “Apocrypha” 4: Early Church [7-8-25]

#5: “Apocrypha” 5: Fathers (Also Including Analysis of Josephus’ and Philo’s Views, Jewish Scholars at Jamnia [c. AD 90], and the Qumran Community) [7-9-25]

#6: Sola Scriptura 1 (Including Inscripturation; 2 Timothy 3:16; Is Only the Bible Inspired?; Oral Torah) [7-11-25]

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XVIII. ANGLICANISM

Replies to Anglican E. B. Pusey

#1: Agreement on Ecumenism and Various Doctrines; Sola Scriptura [1-20-25]

#2: Mary’s Intercession Analogous to “The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects” (James 5:16) [1-23-25]

#3: Admirable Ecumenical Sentiments; Mary as Our “Hope” & “Refuge” & “Comfort”; Must We Always Know of Mary’s Co-Mediation? [1-26-25]

#4: Infallible Ecumenical Councils; Nature of Saints’ Intercession [1-29-25]

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Apostolic Tradition: 28 Passages in Paul’s Epistles (Including Incisive Commentary from the Anglican Tractarian John Keble: 1792-1866) [1-29-25]

DOCUMENTARY: 15 “Roman Catholic” Views of C. S. Lewis [Lux Veritatis, 5-20-25]

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Last updated on 11 July 2025

 

 

2017-05-29T15:44:05-04:00

Last updated on: May 29, 2017 at 3:44 pm   By
. . . Absurd Alleged Biblical Indications Against Apostolic Tradition
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[see book information including purchase options]

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(10-20-11)
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Whitaker’s words will be in blue. Page numbers will correspond to the above book version.
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I come now to another argument, the last of those touched upon by Bellarmine, and derived from various passages of scripture wherein traditions are condemned: as, Matth. xv. 6, “Ye have made the commandment of God of none effect by your traditions;” and the words of Isaiah, c. 29, alleged by Christ in that same chapter, “In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men:” and Galat. i. 14, where Paul says that, before his conversion, he was “zealous for the traditions of his elders.” From these and the like places, we reason thus: Christ and the apostles condemn traditions: therefore, they are not to be received; and consequently scripture is sufficient. (pp. 637-638)
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This is the same weak, silly argument that we hear again and again. The gist of it is that, for many Protestants, “tradition is a dirty word.” But the Bible presents it in a far more nuanced way than this portrayal would have it. In the Bible there is a legitimate apostolic, divine tradition, that is good, and a false ‘tradition of men” over against God. St. Paul contrasts the two in the following passage:

Colossians 2:8 (RSV) See to it that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. (cf. 1 Cor 11:2; 2 Thess 2:15; 3:6; Phil 4:9; 2 Tim 1:13-14; 2:2)

The particular sense being used is always clear from context. Hence, in two of Whitaker’s examples above, we see the qualifiers: “your traditions” (i.e., over against God’s); “commandments of men” (i.e., ones that contradict the commandments of God).

Galatians 1:14, on the other hand, is a more neutral expression. It’s clear that Paul did not reject all traditions in Judaism. After all, he referred to himself as a “Pharisee” twice, after his conversion to Christianity  (Acts 23:6; 26:5). He still acknowledged the authority of the high priest as his “ruler” during his trial, even when the latter had him struck on the mouth (Acts 23:2-5). Paul and Jesus and the early Christians still participated in Temple worship and rituals, and attended synagogues. When addressing non-Christian Jews, Paul calls them “brethren” (Acts 13:26,38; 22:1; 23:1,5-6).

St. Stephen did the same before a council with Jewish elders, scribes, and the high priest (Acts 6:12; 7:1), addressing them as “brethren and fathers” (7:2). Paul was still worshiping and even presiding over the services in synagogues (Acts 13:13-44).

Bellarmine hath but one reply, namely, that Christ and the apostles did not condemn those traditions which the Jews had received from Moses and the prophets, but those which they had received from certain later persons, whereof some were idle, and some impious. (p. 638)
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And St. Robert Bellarmine was exactly right, because this is what Scripture teaches, and it is almost self-evident.

I answer: Firstly, it is false that the Jews received any traditions from Moses and the prophets. He himself does not prove they did, . . . (p. 638)
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This is a remarkably clueless, extreme anti-traditional position that virtually no Protestant theologian, Bible scholar, or historian would hold today. It is well-known that the Pharisees accepted the oral tradition, and that early Christianity inherited several beliefs (angelology, the resurrection, notions of purgatory and prayer for the dead), including belief in this oral tradition, from that school.

Finally, it is evident from the scriptures: for Christ says, “Search the scriptures,” not tradition; and Abraham says, “They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them.” Now by Moses and the prophets the scriptures are meant, as in Luke xxiv. 27. There is no mention in scripture of these traditions: the scriptures say not a single word about them: there were, therefore, none. (p. 638)
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Whitaker essentially puts his head in the sand like an ostrich, and covers his eyes and ears like a monkey: he refuses to see the dozens; scores of biblical indications of tradition. He’s like the man who can look all over the sky on a clear day at high noon in the summer, and not see the sun. It’s such a breathtakingly ridiculous position that I feel like a clown seriously entertaining it at all. But this paragraph of Whitaker’s needed to be documented, lest no one believe that it could have been written by an intelligent student of the Bible. I’m embarrassed for my esteemed Protestant friends, that one of their proclaimed “champions” would make such utterly ludicrous “arguments.” But this is the pathetic intellectual level of anti-Catholicism. I shouldn’t be surprised.

. . . when Christ objects the commandment of God, and opposes the scriptures to tradition, it is plain that he condemns all unwritten traditions. . . . all unwritten traditions are condemned by Christ. (p. 639)
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It’s not plain at all that this is the case! Jesus qualifies it by noting that mere men‘s traditions, held in opposition to God, are what should be condemned. If it were a blanket condemnation, the qualification wouldn’t be there; it would simply say “tradition.” If Jesus were supposedly completely opposed to all Jewish tradition at all (which included oral tradition); even tradition within Christianity, then why in the world would He say?:

Matthew 23:2-3a “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; [3] so practice and observe whatever they tell you, . . .

Even “Moses’ Seat” is not a phrase found in the Old Testament. It is found in the (originally oral) Mishna, where a sort of “teaching succession” from Moses on down is taught. Jesus upholds the Pharisees’ teaching authority even though He goes on to say that they are hypocrites, and to not follow what they “do,” and lambasts them in no uncertain terms, shortly afterwards, according to Matthew’s record. Despite all that, their teachings are still to be followed, even by His disciples.

These are the same people and faction, whom Paul referred to as possessing “traditions” (Gal 1:14; noted by Whitaker himself, at the top of this paper). They’re the same ones that Paul identifies himself twice as being a part of (after his conversion). All this, but there is no legitimate “tradition” whatever in the New Testament, according to “see no evil / hear no evil” Whitaker.

. . . Christ and the apostles always remand us to the scriptures . . . (p. 639)
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That’s not true at all. There are scores and scores of evidences against such an absurd, unfactual statement. Here are several of the more famous non-biblical references in the New Testament:

1 Corinthians 10:4 and all drank the same supernatural drink. For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ.

The Old Testament says nothing about such miraculous movement, in the related passages about Moses striking the rock to produce water (Exodus 17:1-7; Numbers 20:2-13). But rabbinic tradition does.

2 Timothy 3:8 As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith;

These two men cannot be found in the related Old Testament passage (Exodus 7:8 ff.), or anywhere else in the Old Testament.

James 5:17 Eli’jah was a man of like nature with ourselves and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.

The reference to a lack of rain for three years is absent from the relevant Old Testament passage in 1 Kings 17.

1 Peter 3:19 in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison,

This is drawn from the Jewish apocalyptic book 1 Enoch (12-16).

Jude 9 But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, disputed about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a reviling judgment upon him, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.”

Not found in the Old Testament (see Deut 34:5-6 for the account of Moses’ death), but it was part of a Jewish tradition that Jude assumed his readers were familiar with.

Jude 14-15 It was of these also that Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord came with his holy myriads, to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness which they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”

This is a direct quotation of the apocalyptic book 1 Enoch (1:9). Here is one translation of the latter passage:

And behold! He cometh with ten thousands of His holy ones To execute judgement upon all, And to destroy all the ungodly: And to convict all flesh Of all the works of their ungodliness which they have ungodly committed, And of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.

That is not from any Scripture; yet it is said that Enoch “prophesied.” Thus, authentic, genuine prophecy is not confined to the Old Testament written record. If this is true prophecy (as we know it must be, because it is described as such in inspired revelation), who knows how much more of 1 Enoch or other non-canonical ancient Jewish books also contain true prophecy? That is tradition . . .

Moreover, the New Testament massively cites passages or thought-patterns or concepts found in the Deuterocanon: books that Protestants and Whitaker reject as canonical (and call the “Apocrypha”). Therefore, these are numerous additional examples of “Christ and the apostles” doing what Whitaker tells us they never supposedly do: citations of something other than what he thinks is Scripture.

Now the papists have run into still more intolerable errors in this matter than the Jews of old, since their religion is wholly occupied in observing and performing not those things which Christ sanctioned and enjoined, but those which man’s boldness and curiosity have devised. For example, those who are esteemed religious amongst the papists observe the rules of their founders far more punctiliously than the commands of God: the truth of which remark hath been now for a long time no secret to all the world. (p. 640)
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Right. Just a slice of genuine, old-fashioned, bigoted anti-Catholicism, to remind us of the tunnel-vision mentality we are here dealing with. I especially love the imbecilic inanity of the use of “wholly”. It’s no wonder that Whitaker makes such poor, Scripture-torturing  arguments, in defending sola Scriptura. His judgment is clouded by this sort of purely irrational, self-refuting  nonsense.

At the time he was writing such things, men were having their hearts ripped out of their bodies and intestines slowly drawn out, then legs and arms and heads cut off (along with various other outrageous brutalities) in merrie olde “Reformation” England, for the horrific, treasonous crime of simply believing what their forefathers had believed for many hundreds of years: the Catholic faith of St. Anselm, the Venerable Bede, St. Boniface, Blessed Duns Scotus, St. Thomas Becket, St. Thomas More, St. John Fisher, and Alfred the Great.

The fourth place is taken from Luke xxiv. 25 and 27. Christ, in verse 25, blames the disciples for being slow “to beheve all that the prophets have spoken.” But where can those things be found? This appears from verse 27. There it follows: “Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” Hence we frame the following argument: If all the things that the prophets spoke may be found in the scriptures, then may those also which the apostles spoke be found in the scriptures also. The first is true: therefore also the second. The force of the consequence is manifest. For the same reason which impelled the prophets to commit all they said to writing, led the apostles also to take a similar course. For if the prophets wrote all that they spoke, why should we not suppose that the apostles and evangelists, proceeding with the same prudence, governed by the same Spirit, and having the same end in view, committed likewise to writing the sum of that doctrine which they delivered to the churches? The same judgment should be passed where the cases are the same. And hence those are refuted, who dream of the existence of some unwritten prophetic traditions. For Luke makes all that the prophets spake to be comprised in the scriptures. Therefore, there were no unwritten traditions of the prophets. Therefore, there were no unwritten traditions of the apostles. The reason is precisely the same. If the ancient church had every thing in scripture, the christian church likewise hath every thing in scripture. The antecedent is plain ; therefore also the consequent. Otherwise God provided better for the Jews than for us. (pp. 643-644)
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This whole line of reasoning collapses, by the numerous examples I have provided above, which show that the writers of the New Testament, our Lord, the apostles, disciples, and early Christians all acknowledge traditions (and non-recorded acts) that go beyond the letter of the Bible. No passage in the Bible says that the entirety of the prophetic message (let alone the apostolic message) was committed to writing, in the Bible alone. That is simply a tradition of men, invented out of whole cloth. It is not deduced by the passages that Whitaker produces. It’s a mere fancy. There is no need to even refute it because no evidence (let alone biblical evidence) is given for it. Whitaker’s supposed strong deductions are simply faulty, wishful thinking “logic.”

It’s refuted also in the inspired New Testament, in examples we have already seen. James 5:17 informs us that Elijah the prophet prayed and caused rain to cease for three-and-a-half years. Why, then, was this not recorded in the Old Testament? Surely it was very significant: a miracle even greater than the plagues of Moses upon Egypt. It is used as an illustration of the power of the righteous man’s prayers. But it’s not there.

If Whitaker supposedly excels at logical deduction, perhaps he can grasp this one. This event occurred, because we know it for sure from inspired revelation in the New Testament. But it was not recorded. Therefore, it follows that extraordinary miracles from prophets were not all recorded in writing (or in the Bible), and were preserved, rather, in non-biblical tradition of some sort: precisely the opposite of what Whitaker would have us believe. Elijah lived about a thousand years before James, so that tradition had to be passed down somewhere other than in the Bible. It probably was an oral tradition at first.  James cites the tradition matter-of-factly, as if there would be no doubt as to its authenticity.

Jude 14-15 said that Enoch (who lived much further back in history than Elijah) “prophesied.” Therefore, a prophecy occurred in remote centuries past, that was not a biblical one; yet regarded as authoritative by a New Testament writer and apostle: significant enough to be cited. How can this be, under Whitaker’s (false) premises? It cannot. His view is overthrown by Holy Scripture itself.

Likewise with Jude 9, which appears as a factual account, having to do with Moses, the devil, and the archangel Michael: nowhere to be seen in the Old Testament. So why is it cited as an authentic narrative of actual history? The New Testament was not dictated from above by God. The Bible writers utilized their own knowledge, which was preserved from error and inspired by God.

The seventh place is taken from Acts xvii. 2, 3, where Luke writes that Paul reasoned for three sabbath-days out of the scriptures, . . . that Christ had suffered; so that this was the Christ whom he preached unto them. Paul then discoursed from the scriptures, and confirmed his whole doctrine by the scriptures. Hence we gather the following argument: If Paul used no other evidence than that of scripture in teaching and delivering the gospel, and refuting the Jews; then all testimonies which are requisite either to confirm the true doctrine of the gospel or to refute heresies may be taken out of scripture. The former is true, and therefore the latter. The consequence is manifest. For if any other testimony had been necessary, the apostle would have used it. But he confirmed his doctrine only by the scriptures; and therefore, in verse 11, the Bereans are praised for having searched the scriptures, and examined Paul’s teaching by them. Therefore we ought to do likewise. Now no heretics are more keen disputers, or more difficult to be refuted, than the Jews. (pp. 645-646)
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This is altogether silly, because it is amply refuted by Paul himself. When preaching to the Athenians (no intellectual slouches themselves, as the founders of philosophy), and doing his best to persuade them of the truth of the gospel, the great apostle didn’t stick to Scripture alone; he cited their own poets and philosophers:

Acts 17:22-28 So Paul, standing in the middle of the Are-op’agus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. [23] For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, `To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. [24] The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man, [25] nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything. [26] And he made from one every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their habitation, [27] that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him. Yet he is not far from each one of us, [28] for `In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your poets have said, `For we are indeed his offspring.’

Here he was citing the Greek poet Aratus: (c. 315-240 B.C.), and philosopher-poet Epimenides (6th c. B.C.). As I wrote elsewhere (one bracketed footnote presently added):

. . . the line that Paul cited on Mars Hill in Athens (Acts 17:28), from Aratus, was actually, in context, talking about Zeus:
Let us begin with Zeus, whom we mortals never leave unspoken.
For every street, every market-place is full of Zeus.
Even the sea and the harbour are full of this deity.
Everywhere everyone is indebted to Zeus.
For we are indeed his offspring… (Phaenomena 1-5).
So Paul used a pagan poet, talking about a false god (Zeus) and “Christianized” the thought, applying it to the true God. That’s Pauline apologetic method, . . . The Church has done this, historically, by “co-opting” pagan holidays and “baptizing” them, thus eventually wiping out the old pagan holidays.
The citation from Epimenides (the poem Cretica) involves the same thing; it was originally written about Zeus; Paul (Acts 17:28 again) takes it and applies it to Yahweh, the true God:
They fashioned a tomb for thee, O holy and high one—
The Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies! [used by Paul at Titus 1:12]
But thou art not dead: thou livest and abidest forever,
For in thee we live and move and have our being.

St. Paul expressly cites these pagan Greek poets and philosophers precisely because that is what his sophisticated Athens audience (including “Epicurean and Stoic philosophers” — 17:18) could understand and relate to. He was using wise apologetic method and strategy.

Paul also cited the Greek dramatist  Menander (c.342-291 B.C.) at 1 Corinthians 15:33: “bad company ruins good morals”. Thus, Whitaker’s claim, “if any other testimony had been necessary, the apostle would have used it. But he confirmed his doctrine only by the scriptures” is shown from Holy Scripture (three times) to be a falsehood (and we know where falsehood derives).

The eighth place is taken from Acts xviii. 24 and 28. Apollos was mighty in the scriptures, and refuted the Jews forcibly, . . . out of the scriptures. We may argue here as in the former case: If Apollos made use only of the scriptures in refuting the Jews and confirming the doctrine of the gospel, then the gospel may be confirmed and heresies refuted by the scriptures alone. The former is true, and consequently the latter also. (p. 646)
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But the text doesn’t say that Apollos “made use only of the scriptures” (my italics). This is yet another of the now notorious incorrect deductions from plain biblical texts that Whitaker is a master of (one might call this sophistry). Acts 18:28 describes him as “showing by the scriptures that the Christ was Jesus.” But it doesn’t say that he made no arguments besides ones drawn from Scripture. To show that the Messiah (often mentioned in the Old Testament) was Jesus was something specifically related to the Bible and to the Jews (over against the Gentiles). So that is to be expected.

But in Acts 18:25 it states: “he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus.” Unless he was prooftexting the OT messianic texts, and only doing that (as in 18:28), virtually anything else about what Jesus was doing or teaching was based on present eyewitness accounts, and was not “arguing from the Bible” (the Gospels not having yet been written) but rather, from experience (i.e., oral tradition at that point). Thus it is quite likely and plausible (though not certain) that he also talked about things other than (OT) biblical texts.

It may be a fine point but it is a crucial technical distinction. Whitaker merely reads into the text what he already assumes. It’s not present in the text. The text is consistent with a hypothetical scenario whereby only Scripture was used, but it doesn’t prove that or disallow another scenario. It’s not conclusive in and of itself. This sort of bad logic and unwarranted leaps from texts is almost a constant in Protestant apologias for sola Scriptura. Then Whitaker makes a false deduction from a false conclusion: if the example is of using Scripture alone in sharing the Christian faith, then we should do the same.

The tenth place is taken from Acts xxvi. 22, where Paul says, that through the divine assistance he continued up to that very day, witnessing both to small and great, saying nothing beside, . . . “those things which Moses and the prophets did say should come.” Therefore Paul in preaching the gospel uttered not a word extraneous to the scriptures of the law and the prophets. From this passage we reason thus: If Paul, when he preached the gospel, uttered not a word beside the Mosaic and prophetical scriptures, then all things necessary to the preaching of the gospel are contained in the scriptures. Now the former is true, and therefore also the second. The consequence holds: for Paul preached the whole gospel, being designed for this special purpose by God, and in the whole explication of it spoke nothing beside the scriptures. In Acts XX. 27, he says that he declared to the Ephesians “the whole counsel of God.” Therefore the whole counsel of God in announcing the gospel may be learned from the scriptures. Hence another syllogism follows: If Paul taught nothing beside the scriptures, then neither is it now lawful for any one to deliver anything beside the scripture. But the former is true, and therefore the second. For who will dare to assume to himself what Paul could not or ought not to do? (p. 647)
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Good grief. I have already shown that Paul did not cite only Scripture, in noting his four citations of pagan poets, philosophers and dramatists: two of them in the very act of preaching the gospel on Mars Hill in Athens. Therefore, since he is our model (as he said many times, and as Whitaker says), we don’t have to do so, either. Is Whitaker unable to read the biblical text for himself without missing so many obvious things in it? Who in the world does he think Paul was quoting in Acts 17:28, 1 Corinthians 15:33, and Titus 1:12? Paul also cites many times from the Deuterocanon, as documented in my paper on NT citations of those biblical books that Protestants reject. Every time Paul does that, it refutes Whitaker’s contention that he supposedly never does (since Whitaker thinks he never cites anything but Scripture, and for him, this is not Scripture).

Matters entrusted to men’s memories are easily consigned to oblivion. These are notorious truths. Let us see how our opponent meets this argument. He answers very confidently, that it is impossible that these traditions should not be preserved, because the care of them rests not on men, but on God. Here he notices God’s care in preserving his church; how God preserved traditions inviolate from Adam to the time of Moses, and the scriptures from Moses down to our times. Therefore, says he, God can now also preserve unwritten traditions. I answer; In the first place, I confess that the divine Providence can preserve from destruction whatever it chooses; for God can do whatever he wills. But if we choose thus to abuse the divine Providence, we may, in the same manner, infer that there is no need of the scriptures, that every thing should be trusted to the Divine Providence, and nothing committed to writing, because God can preserve religion safe without the scriptures. (p. 652)
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Nice try. This is a failed reductio ad absurdum (a logical technique of trying to draw from opposing premises an absurd conclusion: I use it all the time). Whitaker takes the opposing position to a supposed necessary extreme, in order to dismiss it as absurd. He concedes that “the divine Providence can preserve from destruction whatever it chooses,” which is nearly the entire point and argument. Then he goes off and mocks a notion of having no Scripture at all as a result. But Catholics accept and revere Scripture as much as Protestants do. We are simply saying that there is tradition and an authoritative Church also.

Whitaker grants an indefectible Church in the following section, but in order to do so he has to (as an Anglican) redefine “the Church” as always historically understood, and give up many biblical attributes of it. He says that God can preserve what He wants to preserve, yet he has to fight against all semblance of tradition whatsoever, in defending his extreme sola Scriptura viewpoint. His position is incoherent and internally inconsistent (as all Protestant variations always are, in the final analysis).

But God hath nowhere promised that he will save and protect unwritten traditions from being lost: consequently, the church and tradition are not parallel cases. I can produce innumerable testimonies and promises wherewith God hath bound himself to the church to preserve it: let them produce any such promises of God respecting the preservation of traditions. Now this they cannot do. Secondly, I confess that God preserved his doctrine from Adam to Moses orally transmitted, that is, in the form of unwritten tradition. It cannot be denied. But then it was amongst exceeding few persons: for the great majority had corrupted this doctrine. (p. 652)
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This is a fascinating study in illogic and cognitive dissonance. Whitaker denies that apostolic tradition could be preserved. Then he turns around and concedes that there was indeed an oral tradition and doctrine from Adam to Moses: an extraordinary concession indeed! He says that is possible and factual, but apostolic tradition, with the fuller revelation of the new covenant, and an indwelling and guiding Holy Spirit is not. Whether it was preserved by a few or ten million is irrelevant. It was preserved by God. New Testament tradition is indicated in many passages that I have already alluded to in the course of this series of refutations. It is always casually assumed to exist and to be authoritative.

Besides, God frequently and familiarly shewed himself to the holy fathers who then lived; conversed with them, and often renewed and restored the doctrine orally delivered, and brought it back to its integrity and purity, when not preserved from all corruption even by those godly men themselves. Thus God conversed familiarly with those ancient patriarchs: and if the reasoning of our opponent were of any weight now, God would still treat us in the same manner. But there is the greatest difference between those things and ours; and consequently his reasoning hath no weight. (p. 652)
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The Bible says that we have far more privileges and access to God than the patriarchs of old. They were only selectively filled with the Holy Spirit, but every Christian is now. We have a much fuller, developed revelation. We have the appearance of Jesus, and all His teaching. We have a Church that even Whitaker grants is protected by God and indefectible. Yet Whitaker oddly concludes that oral tradition is far less possible now than it was then, and that we are vastly different from the great men of old. Jesus said of John the Baptist, who is considered the last of the prophets:

Luke 7:28 I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John; yet he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.

Thirdly, the fact of Moses having written his heavenly doctrine is a point of great importance against tradition, and strongly confirmatory of our opinion. For if God had seen that religion could have been preserved entire and uncorrupted without the scriptures, he would not have enjoined Moses to consign it in the lasting monuments of written records . . . (pp. 652-653)
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More self-serving straw men . . . The argument is not over whether Scripture is necessary. No Catholic has ever denied it. The argument is whether there is such a thing as an authoritative Christian tradition. All of this writing wasted on defending the usefulness and great utility and blessing of Holy Scripture is a perfect non sequitur, because the parties are in total agreement. We’re not the ones who want things to be alone (like “Scripture Alone”). Our view is neither solo traditio nor sola ecclesia (if that is proper Latin). Apparently, Whitaker, not able to grasp this, thinks that in defending tradition, we must somehow denigrate Scripture, as if it were a zero sum game. Therefore, tradition could be defended to such an extent that Scripture is conceivably ditched altogether. But we haven’t ever thought or done so! It is Protestantism that has unbiblically ditched both tradition and an authoritative, infallible Church.

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2017-05-29T15:50:38-04:00

Last updated on: May 29, 2017 at 3:50 pm   By
(vs. Nathan Rinne)
WittenbergChurch
Lutheran church in Wittenberg, Germany where the Protestant Revolt began, with Martin Luther [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license]
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(10-17-11)

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Nathan’s words will be in blue.

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I concede that just because an early church father argues from Scripture this does not necessarily mean “that only Scripture has authority to rebuke error and bind people…”.  Not necessarily.  But – do we find the church fathers consistently rebuking error and binding people for not believing non-Lutheran things in the Church without using evidence from Scripture (whether this is implicit or explicit evidence)?

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No. They usually argue from Scripture; then if that fails, they appeal to the Church, apostolic succession, unbroken historical tradition of doctrine, and the authority of the Church (St. Irenaeus probably being the prime exemplar of this method). The whole process of appeal to the pope to settle doctrinal controversies is an obvious example of “pure” Church authority.

(Or: do the early church fathers explicitly [and consistently] say that [non-Lutheran] doctrines are inseparable from the Rule of Faith?)

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Church fathers (like the Bible and the Catholic Church) generally think all doctrines and practices are important, and don’t as readily draw fine-point distinctions along these lines that Protestants are prone to make.

In other words, we are not just talking about this or that father, for instance, simply sharing how churches in their region, for example, use this or that custom [perhaps from this or that Apostle]  – after all, while essential doctrines are not adiaphora, or “indifferent things”, how they are taught and encouraged though rites and ceremonies can be.  Further, if you can come up with examples of them rebuking error and correcting and binding people in this way (i.e. without Scriptural demonstration), what are the reasons that they give for saying that people should believe/do  these things – and what are or should be the consequences if they don’t?

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Because the Church says so, in turn because it had always been believed in some fashion. If we want to move forward, we’ll have to get specific and discuss one doctrine or one father at a time.

Just because these Fathers also clearly uphold the authority of the Church as the ground of truth in addition to Scripture – admittedly, talking in ways that most Lutherans generally don’t talk today – does not mean that they, in actual practice, do not utilize the Rule of Faith the way Chemnitz says the Church does/should (i.e. they do not do the wrong tradition of #8)

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They believe in an infallible Church. Ecumenical councils presuppose this. Lutherans do not. It’s as simple as that. You guys have departed from the precedent set by 1500 years of Church history. Pelikan, Schaff, Oberman, and Kelly all confirm that the Church fathers en masse viewed the rule of faith in this way. They did not hold to sola Scriptura.

After all, in their own words do they not  talk about how it is true that the Apostolic Faith and its Rule that was received were “in agreement with the Scriptures”?

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Yes. All doctrines agree with the Scripture. Ho-hum. Truth is truth. It’s all of one piece.

As best I can tell, in the earliest church writings (like Ignatius, Polycarp, Clement, the Didache, Justin Martyr, and Athenagoras, for example), heresy is fought via appeals to the Scriptures (yes, Ignatius does talk about being in fellowship with bishops quite a bit : )).  With Irenaeus and Tertullian, it seems they assert that all the essential, Rule-of-Faith, teachings that are given orally are rooted in the Scriptures and can be proven from them.  Irenaeus’ “ace-card” vs. the Scripture-mangling (claiming it both supported them and that parts of these were in error, that they had the true tradition of its interpretation, etc.) gnostics may have been the argument from Apostolic succession (i.e. this was the most effective argument to make against them), but as Chemnitz reminds us, he afterward spent the lion’s share of his treatise proving from the Scripture “the same thing that he had first shown from tradition” (237).  Another way of saying this is that Scripture simply must be interpreted by its guardians according to its own rule and hypothesis (and though Church may disagree on what constitutes the canon en toto, the books that all agree are Scripture – some are more clearly inspired than others – certainly contain the Rule of Faith [what essential doctrines do Esther, Nehemiah, Ezra, the deutoerocanonical books, James, Hebrews, II Peter, and Revelation have anyway that cannot be found elsewhere?]).  Tertullian says “I adore the fullness of the Scripture… If it is not written, let [Hermogenes] fear that woe which is destined for those who add or take away” (156).  Chemnitz also quotes Jerome saying “Whatever does not have authority in Holy Scripture can be rejected as easily as it can be approved.” (i.e. it is not binding, and therefore, not a part of the authentic Apostolic tradition and Rule of Faith) and then says himself “it was not a contrary, nor a different, nor another, but one and the same doctrine which Paul delivered either by word of mouth or by epistle”. (p. 109).  To this, you [and evidently the Roman Catholic Magisterium] say: “”of course!” and “Amen!” — “twin fonts of the same divine wellspring” . . .” (quoting the late 16th century Saint Francis de Sales, I believe)

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Yep, amen. Nothing new here that I haven’t dealt with 20, 25 times in various papers and books.

It seems to me, that if this is true, it is important that all the essential doctrines of the faith ought to be able to be clearly established, demonstrated, and proved from the Scriptures – not just for the Lutheran but for the Roman Catholic.  I guess this is your calling card Dave… after all, you are the guy who literally writes the books about how, after being correctly informed about Roman Catholic teachings, one can then go back to the Scriptures and find Scriptural support for those teachings (e.g. the “Catholic verses”, etc.: “all Christian, Catholic doctrines can be found in Scripture, explicitly, implicitly, or deduced from same. And all Catholic doctrines are certainly harmonious with Scripture” you have said).

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Indeed. We can provide such corroboration. Protestants cannot when it comes to key distinctives that they invented in the 16th century.

In any case, I think even you will admit that one can demonstrate infant baptism from the early Church Fathers and the Scriptures in ways that other non-Lutheran doctrines cannot.

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There is a decent biblical case to be made, by deduction of whole families being baptized, and the analogy to circumcision.

Without any reasonable doubt, the evidence is definitely stronger any way you slice it (what would you say are your “strongest cases” from the “Catholic verses” you find in the Scriptures?).  It seems to me that even non-believers would be able to agree with this (external clarity), even if they do not see the Fathers and Scriptures with the eyes of faith (internal clarity).

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The Catholic rule of faith (falsity of sola Scriptura), the Catholic view of justification, purgatory, and the papacy.

In any case, let’s not get too far away from the point I am making here.

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You said it; not me! :-)

I just conceded that simply because an early church father argues from Scripture this does not necessarily mean “that only Scripture has authority to rebuke error and bind people…”.  But again – if it really is the case that the church father’s ability to rebuke goes beyond Scripture, my question is whether we find the church fathers consistently rebuking error and binding people for not believing distinctly non-Lutheran things in the Church without using evidence from Scripture (whether this is implicit or explicit evidence)?

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Sometimes we do find that. I’ve already provided several examples, when we got into individual fathers.

And again, if this is the case, what are the reasons for why they are doing so – and the consequences if people do not obey? (does a refusal to acknowledge them as binding doctrines result in separating one’s self from the Church, and therefore Christ?)

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It could eventually, if someone is obstinate in a heresy.  Church authority is sufficient. When the Jerusalem Council made its ruling, as far as we know from the account in Acts 15, Bible passages about circumcision weren’t even discussed. Yet it was a binding decree that Paul even proclaimed in his missionary journeys (Acts 16:4).

Lutherans accept that there are non-essential teachings or practices (i.e. those that cannot be clearly demonstrated from the Scriptures) that can, in principle, be present, and practiced, and even upheld in the Church (how is it upheld though?).

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Well, then it is the game of “essential” vs. “non-essential” that is another arbitrary Protestant tradition of men, and very difficult (if not impossible) to prove from the Bible itself. 

Remember the argument of Paul Strawn: the fact that these traditions existed was not necessarily the problem.  The problem was that these traditions regarding faith and morals which were not provable from Scripture were to be regarded as equal to those clearly demonstrable from Scripture.

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Then the argument comes down to what is “provable” and complicated aspects of development and material sufficiency. 

Now, could we have had fellowship with Augustine?: Lutherans themselves do not decry penance, venial sins, prayers for the dead, and free will it they are understood correctly – I know that the Lutheran confessions actually say we believe in the last 3 for sure.  Nor do we believe in double predestination.  Regarding things like merit, infused justification, purgatory, the sacrifice of the mass, and faith alone, I’m sure we could have had a very fruitful discussion with Augustine (or his faction at Trent) – more so than the folks at Trent, at least!  In any case, I can actually conceive of Lutherans content to be a part of a church with people who believe in purgatory, do the Corpus Christi festival, think bishops are a good practice by human rite, do the sacrifice of the mass (yes, really), do prayers for the dead (we do this by the way, in our own way), pray to the saints and Mary, do pilgrimages, think there is holy water, think of the Apocrypha as Scripture, don’t eat meat on Friday, etc.

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Luther felt himself to be closer in spirit to Catholics than to the Sacramentarians, who denied the real presence in the Eucharist. He thought they were damned.

So long as they do not contradict the doctrine of justification in the way they do these things – and do not tell us we are cutting ourselves off from the Church if we think that such opinions either ought not be held at all or not be held with the same reverence as those essential things clearly revealed in the accepted Scripture.  In other words, these could perhaps be held as “pious opinion” or “pious practices” – concepts I know are not foreign to Roman Catholics.  As early 17th c. theologian John Gerhard said, “If the confession of true doctrine and the legitimate use of the Sacraments had been left free for us, perhaps we would not have departed from the external fellowship of the Roman church”. (On the Church, p. 139)

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The problem is that all this is merely abstract and a mind game. It’s like Anglo-Catholicism. In principle, there could be all sorts of Lutheran approaches to Catholicism and affinities and warm touchy-feeling unity on many fronts. But in practice, it can scarcely be found in actual existing Church bodies. It exists only on paper and in a few individual heads (like yours) who care about Church unity. Cardinal Newman observed this about his friend Edward Pusey’s religious views. The Catholic Church is the only Christian body that can demonstrate historical continuity and institutional unity all the way back to Christ. We still have a pope and councils, and bishops and all the rest, as they had existed in the Church from the beginning. 

Again, serious Lutherans like Chemnitz believe the same thing.  Note that insofar as any tradition not specifically sanctioned in Scripture does not mitigate the Gospel, it can be accepted (i.e. we are “conservative” when it comes to traditions: with Chrysostom we think that even unwritten traditions of the Church are “also worthy of credit”) – but again: only insofar as it is not insisted that these traditions be held with the same reverence as those which are clearly put forth there (i.e. stuff that was so important it found its way into the Scriptures in a way that cannot be denied: even baptism is like this: “the Promise if for you and your children”) in the Scriptures.  And of course, in the background here is the idea that our very salvation depends on our keeping these traditions that Rome insisted on.  Saying all this is not to say that Lutherans will never have a good, knock-down debate about what we believe among ourselves, but this is indeed our faith – which we would contend is synonymous with the Rule of Faith.

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Again, I would contend that the Bible itself doesn’t seem to make these distinctions of primary or essential and secondary (or optional) doctrines. About all that can be found along these lines is Romans 14; but note what Paul is discussing there: what to eat and drink and what holy days to observe. That is not even doctrine; it is practice. As to this question of so-called essential and secondary doctrines, the Bible doesn’t seem to differentiate; it merely assumes a “truth” that is known and binding upon all believers:

John 8:31-32 (RSV) Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

John 16:13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

1 Corinthians 2:13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who possess the Spirit.

Galatians 5:7 You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?

1 Timothy 2:4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

1 Timothy 3:15 if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

1 Timothy 4:3 . . . those who believe and know the truth.

2 Timothy 1:14 guard the truth that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.

2 Timothy 3:7-8 who will listen to anybody and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth. As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith;

2 Timothy 4:4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths.

Titus 1:1 Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to further the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth which accords with godliness,

Titus 1:14 instead of giving heed to Jewish myths or to commands of men who reject the truth.

Hebrews 10:26 . . . the knowledge of the truth, . . .

James 5:19 My brethren, if any one among you wanders from the truth and some one brings him back,

1 Peter 1:22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth. . .

1 John 2:21 I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and know that no lie is of the truth.

2 John 1:1-2 The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth, and not only I but also all who know the truth, because of the truth which abides in us and will be with us for ever:

3 John 1:3-4 For I greatly rejoiced when some of the brethren arrived and testified to the truth of your life, as indeed you do follow the truth. No greater joy can I have than this, to hear that my children follow the truth.

Jude 3 . . . contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

An example of a non-biblical matter being made binding and obligatory was the Quartodeciman controversy, regarding setting the date of Easter. The Council of Nicaea in 325 settled it once and for all: Easter was to always be observed on a certain Sunday of the year. There is nothing about that in Scripture. Lutherans agree with Catholics on the date of Easter.

I think one can make differentiations of importance, at least in a sense (of course): things like the Trinity, belief in Jesus as Lord and Savior, His work on the cross on our behalf, His resurrection, etc. that all Christians hold in common. My exact point in this isn’t to deny that, but to say that Catholics don’t believe that anything deemed to be part of the apostolic deposit is up for grabs or merely optional (as you guys think) because it is regarded as of less importance.

We do have some things that are optional, such as the Molinism vs. Thomist debate on predestination, where both sides can be held (I am a Molinist). But that is an extremely fine, abstract point of theology, and one of the deepest mysteries for anyone to figure out.

When I was a Baptist-like evangelical, I would have thought Lutherans were too strict in their dogmas of the Eucharist and baptism. So it is relative to the viewpoint of the observer to some extent. I had less dogmas than you then; now I have more, and you think ours are too many and too legalistic. So there has to be some method to determine how many dogmas ought to be binding. We go by the judgment of the historic Church, which has decided things, just as the Jerusalem Council did, with Peter, Paul, and James present.

Scripture is not over the oral, unwritten tradition, the Rule of Faith – insofar as the Rule of Faith really is the rule of faith.  As Irenaeus and other Fathers pointed out, these must always go hand and hand and say the same thing (more on how this plays out on the ground with Lutherans and Irenaeus directly below).  Further, the continuance of the Apostolic ministry is critical: necessary, but not sufficient.  We simply see this as unfolding and playing out in a different way.

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Lutherans deny an infallible Church. It always comes down to that. It is the essential difference: the nature and role of the Church.

Irenaeus may not be consistently applying his method to everything that he assumes is true about the church (and indeed, there really was no need to, as there was no challenge).  For us the question would be whether Irenaeus, if he had been explicitly asked about it, would have believed that all of these things were clearly given in the Scriptures.  If he answers this question in the positive, we’d have a lot of questions for him, based on the Scriptures, that would no doubt get him thinking (For example: Why are there multiple bishops in one city? [Phil. 1:1] ; Why not only this, but why are they also called presbyters? [Acts 20:17-28, Titus: 1:5-7] ; Why do presbyters ordain? [I Tim. 4:14], Etc., etc.  What do the Scriptures seem to imply is the genuine Apostolic tradition here?)  If he answered this question in the negative, the question would then be how he would treat persons who respected these traditions (i.e. the place of bishops over and against pastors) but did not revere them the same way which they revered other doctrines that were essential (i.e. the creeds, the Rule of Faith).  In any case, I would guess that it would be unlikely that Irenaeus would have felt any compulsion to search the Scriptures for verification on this issue unless circumstances had arisen in which he would have felt he needed to.  Since having bishops was a useful arrangement at this time, there was no reason for anyone to question it. In other words, we can agree that these things, in particular situations and times may have been useful and important –

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Bishops are casually assumed in the Bible to be a permanent Church office. Why is it, then, that Luther got rid of them and placed power in the secular princes? Why do most Lutherans no longer have bishops today? Some things (like this) are absolutely obvious in Scripture, yet various Protestants dissent against them. It is an unbiblical, non-apostolic tradition of men to ditch things that Holy Scripture presents as necessary and permanent.

but here is the ultimate question: is Irenaeus’ case here ultimately a practical argument (whether he would have put it in these terms or not) or is it one that actually hinges on the infallibility of the church which is delivered in Apostolic Succession (after all, note that for Ireneaus, it is not only the bishops and the bishop of Rome who have received “the infallible charism of the truth”, but presbyters [“order of the priesthood”] as well [of whom Luther was one of those validly ordained] – note how Jerome, for example,  also speaks about how these distinctions were by human rite)?  Lutherans argue the first, RCs the latter.  In short, if he had been pressed, would he have said that the office of bishop was something that was by divine rite or human rite? Again, if the latter is a possibility (and I think it clearly is, given other things that Irenaeus says about the importance of proving things from the Scriptures, where in the Scriptures it is clear that presbyters and bishops are sometimes used synonymously, and there is no explicit command that an office of bishop be put in place which is over that of presbyter) how would Ireneaus respond to someone who insisted that these things were by divine rite – and that this must be held to with the same level of conviction as the essential Christian doctrines (found in things like the Rule of Faith for example)?  That is the question.

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Now we’re off into fine points of ecclesiology. My most basic treatment of this question is in my paper, “The Visible, Hierarchical, Apostolic Church.” I have many other papers on my Church (Ecclesiology) web page.

After this you do a lengthy commentary on what Irenaeus supposedly might believe (if asked certain things). I think the methodology is fruitless, where people have generally different interpretations. Instead of speculations upon speculations and summary statements (which mean little, as neither you nor I are patristic scholars), your burden is to try to establish and document by the actual words of Irenaeus that he believed such-and-such and denied so-and-so. I’ve done that in several of my papers and books, and in links that I have provided.  I have provided concrete facts; by and large you have not. So it makes it awful difficult to interact with. If you give me some quotes to examine, I can look them over and make some kind of cogent reply.

The wider in scope and more abstract and “summary” our discussion becomes, to that extent it is fruitless and inconclusive for readers, of whatever persuasion. It’s simply an exercise of one party saying, “I think X believed a” and the other saying, “no; X actually believed b” — with no documentation, or saying, “X woulda done y if c were the case”. That helps no one. We have to either document words of the person being discussed, or at least cite a scholar who is familiar with all the relevant data.

Now, Irenaeus says: “Inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously…”  And he can speak from experience.  He knows that this has worked – that the faithful men really have held to the Apostolic teaching, and this is clearly what the Scriptures put forth, even if the heretics deny it.  There is no good reason for him to be speaking and thinking any differently at this point.  But now: what if historical circumstances, when compared vis a vis Scripture, seem to clearly imply that “the apostolic tradition has not been preserved continuously” – at least, among the majority of the top leaders of the church?

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This is where Lutherans and Protestants at large lack faith in God’s preservation of His Church, which is discussed in Scripture, with promises of indefectibility. We have the faith that God can preserve truth in an institution comprised of a bunch of sinners, just as He preserved inspired words in a Scripture written by a bunch of sinners. Infallibility is not as extraordinary of a thing as inspiration is. Therefore, if one can believe in an inspired Scripture (the more difficult proposition), one can certainly believe in faith the lesser proposition of an infallible, indefectible Church. But Protestants reject the latter. In short, it is most unbiblical to believe that the Church could fall away, institutionally, and depart from the apostolic deposit of faith. To believe that is not simply not being (distinctively) Catholic. It is also a most “unbiblical” notion.

The question also becomes: who is competent and has the authority to judge, by scriptural criteria, if and when the Church has not faithfully preserved the apostolic tradition? Certainly one monk had no such authority. It is ridiculous to think that he did.

Irenaeus himself indicates that even those who have received the “infallible charism” can fall, for he says, “if they discharged their functions honestly, would be a great boon [to the Church], but if they should fall away, the direst calamity “ (Book 3, chapter 3).

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Yes, any individual could fall away, but it doesn’t follow that they were not infallible, when they exercised their office. St. Irenaeus (in context of Book 3, chapter 3), never says that apostolic succession is or ever would be in any peril. One bishop falling away no more endangers that than one disciple out of twelve falling away, upset the initial apostolic succession. It didn’t at all. They simply chose another (Matthias) to take the place of the traitor.

Yes, what if under the temptations of the world, the Church has gone astray, with the pastors, though rightly holding their blessed offices, have ceased to shepherd appropriately?  What happens when persons who were at one point given the infallible charism faces off against others?  Then what? The highest authority is always right?  The “consensus” is always right?  Does the consensus mean “majority” (one thinks of the sizable faction of more “radical” Augustinians voted down at Trent)?  How does the concept of remnant fit it to all of this?

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The Church can, and often has become very corrupt, yet true doctrine was preserved, because God saw to that. Consensus means what has always been believed; what has been passed down.

What happens when presumably faithful believers in the Church can no longer convince themselves that the Scriptures and the supposed “Apostolic tradition” – which one knows really must not (can’t ever?) contradict each other – are saying the same thing?

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Then obviously they reject the Catholic Church, having lost faith in God’s guidance of her, and in the infallibility and indefectibility of the Church. They do so by adopting new arbitrary traditions that are not Bible-based (things like sola Scriptura, an invisible church, denominations, etc.).

Then, it seems to me that one must use their Spirit-inspired wisdom to choose…

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Yep, it is radical individualism and private judgment vs. an unbroken theological doctrine and tradition, preserved by the Holy Spirit in the Church.

(note we are talking about consciences captive to the Word of God, not UCC consciences….) even if Ireneaus would have never been able to conceive of such a tragic and painful situation…

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No, he wouldn’t, because it is so far from the biblical picture of one faith, one Church, total unity of doctrine.

Let us remember that something similar happened in Jesus’ day.  The Assembly, or Ekklesia (Church), or that day – those who sat in Moses’ very seat – rejected the One who told the people to listen to them (obviously, insofar as they, the legitimate rulers of the Assembly [at this time], spoke the truth – elsewhere he counters them as false teachers nonetheless).

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And he told his followers to do what they teach, even though they were hypocrites, and Paul acknowledged the authority of the high priest  and kept calling himself a Pharisee, and Jesus and Paul and early Christians still observed temple rituals, even though they were not “Christian” rituals, and observed feast days, etc. Therefore, none of that can be applied to any analogy of Lutherans and other Protestants deciding to split from the Catholic Church.

Likewise, similar things happened in the days of the prophets, when those who were supposed to be the leaders (priests and prophets) failed to speak the oracles of God, running where God had not told them to run.  The Assembly has always been unfaithful in their teachings and their practices, but God has always been faithful in spite of this, bringing the Church through via faithful remnants in this or that quarter.

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The Old Testament proto-Church did not have the Holy Spirit and express promises from God that it would be protected and never defect. So that analogy won’t fly, either. We’ve advanced and developed far beyond the Old Covenant. God is indwelling each individual believer.

Roman Catholics may think that this indicates that we do not believe that God preserves the visible Church, but in the case of Lutherans at least, nothing could be further from the truth.  Using our both our eyes and our ears, we can know with certainty where Church is being created and growing – and also where the opposite, due to Christ-denying doctrine, is happening (this place we can reserve for all non-Christian religions as well as the folks like the modern day Arians among us, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons, for example).

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“Christianity” and “the Church” are different things. This gets into visible vs. invisible church categories. Whatever the Church is, (biblically speaking) it has one unified doctrine. This notion can’t be sustained within an invisible church (Protestant) paradigm.

Of course, there may be a lot that we may not know as well (in other words, a lot in between those two poles), but we are happy to be a part of the remnant that holds to the Rule of Faith in its truth and purity.

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You can’t establish that you hold it “in its truth and purity”: neither historically nor from the Bible.

. . . whether he [St. Irenaeus] would have thought this way in different circumstances. – circumstances that might drive him back to the Scriptures for answers.

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By this method of speculation about “woulda coulda shoulda”, debate about it becomes impossible: it is subjective mush. All we can go by is what  father did write and believe. If we start rationalizing and saying, “well, if Church father X were alive in the 16th century, he would have changed his mind and become a good Lutheran . . .” based on sheer speculation, that proves nothing. It’s just special pleading, trying to transform a person who believed a certain thing at a certain point of time, into what we want then to be.

On the contrary, we would see Apostolic Succession as a sign which is a good indicator that something is genuine… but stops short of offering a “guarantee”.

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Then you depart from the fathers in so believing. People can believe whatever they like. It’s when they wrongly appeal to the facts of what the fathers believed, that it is objectionable.

Irenaeus: “the faith of all is one and the same, since all receive one and the same God the Father… and preserve the same form of ecclesiastical constitution”… Those, therefore, who desert the preaching of the Church, call in question the knowledge of the holy presbyters, not taking into consideration of how much greater consequence is a religious man”.

Note here again the focus on presbyters, as opposed to bishops and Popes.

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Against Heresies, Book III, Ch. 3:

It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these [heretics] rave about. (1)

. . .the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. (2)

St. Irenaeus was a bishop himself.

But the faithful will also recognize them by the words they speak, for even faithful laypeople recognize the voice of their Shepherd, and even if their understanding of the Rule of Faith is not terribly firm and strong, they still know enough to be driven back to the Scriptures, which were firmly established by the fulfillment of prophecy, the workings of signs (“miracles”) and of course their continuity with the faith received by Adam and Eve from the beginning (Gen. 3:15) up until their present time…  Again, the sheep hear the voice of the Shepherd …and they are always going back the sacred writings of those prophets and Apostles whom their Shepherd chose.  . . . Of course, the sheep do not go looking for gross falsehood among the pastors who have been validly ordained, but when they encounter it, they know something is wrong….

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Show me in the Bible where there is ever such a thing as a mere layperson disagreeing doctrinally with a leader in the Church based on Bible reading and thereby being justified in his dissent and schism by that method? I say it isn’t there. And if that is true (if you can’t produce it), the question becomes: why do you believe this in the first place, since it isn’t biblically grounded at all? St. Paul warns against division, contentiousness and schism again and again and again. It’s believed because this was Luther’s initial methodology, and to deny it would be to go against the entire spirit of his revolt from the Church. One can’t start denying foundational things that typified the founder of the belief-system one is part of.

And when a shepherd arises among them (Luther) who gives voice to what they have been knowing deep down was wrong – they still are hearing the True Shepherd’s voice. God preserves His remnant, in the visible Church at large (as the south [Judah] falls out of fellowship with the north [Israel], within the visible Church [the wheat, not the tares], and even outside of the visible church [“I have preserved 7,000 in Israel”]).

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Now the burden of proof (besides the unbiblical ecclesiology) is to prove one’s beliefs from Scripture (having claimed to be based on Scripture alone). And you have to disprove the import of the biblical evidence for the indefectibility of the Church, in order to bolster the scenario of Luther and Protestants who followed him “dissing” the historical Catholic Church.

. . . as time rolls on, and Satan steps up his efforts more and more as the Last Day nears…  To the tragic chaos created by the Reformation, I simply say this: “Is Christ divided?” In Gods’ eyes, of course not (intrinsic, see Eph 4:4-5). In our eyes, yes. We are hid in Christ; the Church is hidden under the cross (extrinsic).  In spite of the fact that in this fallen world “there must be divisions among us”, let us always work towards agreeing with one another (I Cor 1:10).

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We don’t do that by creating or winking at hundreds of denominations, whose doctrines contradict, so that falsehood is necessarily massive present.

Of course the “Church’s peculiar and traditionally handed down grasp of the purport of revelation” can also be found in the Scripture as well, although this does not thereby mean that an authoritative and interpreting church is not necessary!

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How is a Church”authoritative” if any individual can judge it and decide it’s wrong and split? Of what use is it? Even civil laws are more binding than that! This is what Luther did. He thumbed his nose at the authority of the Catholic Church of history, and now he expects his followers to respect the merely arbitrary authority in Lutheran circles? Hence Protestant tradition and history has at least been consistent: men can decide to start new denominations at whim. Luther detested that, but he never showed how it wasn’t consistent with his own actions and beliefs.

Dave: “The always partisan yet thoroughly fair-minded Schaff takes the position himself that Athanasius ‘ position is neither the present-day Catholic or Protestant one.”

Right.  It’s the Lutheran one, as expounded by Chemnitz.

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Not at all. St. Athanasius was a Catholic, not any kind of proto-Protestant.

But Lutheranism does not reject this [an infallible Church].  We believe that this is indeed the case, but that we need to take more seriously than ever before the concept of remnant, and the actual histories of God’s people in the Old and New Testament.  As regards infallibility, here it is like what C.S. Lewis said about not getting the “second things” unless the “first things” are focused on.

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It does indeed reject it in effect, by changing the definition of the Church. If I have to change the rules of arithmetic so that 2+2 no longer equals 4, then it is a rejection of arithmetic as it has always been known. That being the case it would be foolish to call “arithmetic” by the same name, because it had always meant something — always had certain characteristics — and now no longer does.

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2023-03-18T12:16:47-04:00

Last updated on: March 18, 2023 at 12:16 pm   By

“. . . A Definitive Guide to His Central Thoughts and Ideas“

Cover (551x827)

[completed on 19 August 2011; accepted for publication by Sophia Institute Press on 28 September 2011. 415-page version edited down on 29 February 2012. Paperback published on 12 October 2012]

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[cover design by Carolyn McKinney]— For purchase information, go to the bottom of the page —
[see also The Quotable Newman, Vol. II]

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Foreword by Joseph Pearce

EXCERPT 
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Cardinal Newman on Rationalistic Theological Liberalism vs. a Reasonable Catholic Faith (Tracts of the Times No. 73 of 1836)

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 BOOK REVIEWS
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Matthew Archbold (Campus Notes: The Cardinal Newman Society Blog, 10-17-12)

Dr. Jeff Mirus (Catholic Culture, “Reading the Greats During the Year of Faith: Newman and Chesterton”, 11-20-12)

Amazon Book Reviews

Fr. Peter M. J. Stravinskas, in The Catholic Response (Vol. IX, No. 4, Jan / Feb 2013, p. 58):

Cardinal Newman does not admit of sound-bites but Dave Armstrong has done a creditable job of giving us easily digestible portions of Newman’s thoughts on a host of topics, conveniently arranged in alphabetical order with a precise citation following each entry. This is a wonderful addition to Newman scholarship.

Dr. Jeff Mirus (Catholic Culture, “Newman, a Model for Converts,” 2-1-13)
*
Dr. Steven Schloeder (The Sacred Landscape: Reflections of a Catholic Architect,  3-7-13)

Stephen J. Kovacs (New Oxford Review, October 2013) 

Matthew Celestis (Christian.Tory.Monarchist, 6 March 2015)

***

MISCELLANEOUS

***

The Quotable Newman and The Quotable Newman, Vol. II: Complete Index of Correspondents

Cardinal Newman’s Conversion Odyssey, in His Own Words (September 1839 to December 1845)  [list compiled from two of my Newman quotations books] [19 March 2015]

Sophia Institute Press Flyer / Press Release

Meet the Author, with host Ken Huck, produced by Radio Maria. 45-minute interview about my books, The Quotable Newman, and The Catholic Verses, 17 January 2013. Listen to the audio file: see #14. I’ve also posted my written interview notes, that contain a lot of material that we didn’t get to, due to the constraints of time.


FOREWORD / PREFACE

[written by the eminent Catholic biographer, Joseph Pearce — read it in its entirety]
*

[Pearce’s Foreword was posted at Catholic Exchange, 16 October 2012, and in Crisis Magazine, on 23 January 2013]

 

INTRODUCTION
***

The aim of this book is a simple, albeit very ambitious one: to compile notable quotations from Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) in the areas of theology and Church history, so that his thinking and wisdom might be more accessible to the reading public, and particularly to students (in school or out) of Christian theology and its history.

As with most works of this sort, the goal is to help make the quoted author more widely known: to spark interest and pique curiosity in more than a few readers. I envy those who will be embarking for the first time on a journey of serious reading of Cardinal Newman. It’s pure joy for any thinker (and any Christian) to do so.

I also seek to create a handy reference source that can be consulted when particular topics come up. Newman’s thought is so full of insight that it seems to have no end. With the help of the Holy Spirit and whatever gifts granted to me by God’s grace, I shall do my best to compile the most substantive, pithy, and memorable quotations of Cardinal Newman that I can find.

The task of selection is necessarily subjective, and daunting, but this is a task I had to do, due to the huge debt I owe to John Henry Newman, in relation to my own spiritual journey: one that brought me happily to the Catholic Church in 1990, exactly a hundred years after Newman’s death (largely as a result of reading his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine).

This work is, therefore, the fruit of a proverbial “labor of love.” Whether it was labor at all, however, is questionable, since the experience of perusing all of these wonderful books and letters (even the selection process itself), and the enjoyment obtained in so doing, made any “work” involved almost beside the point.

I do have some experience in putting together a book of quotations: I was the editor for The Wisdom of Mr. Chesterton (Charlotte: Saint Benedict Press, 2009, 378 pages). A major difference between that volume and this one, however, is the length of citations. I restricted myself in that instance to single sentences. But this would be impossible to do in Cardinal Newman’s case, because of his flowing, elaborate, complex, Victorian prose. Nevertheless, I shall attempt to keep the excerpts as brief as I can, without giving up any essential meaning.

Similar to the Chesterton collection, I will note sources with abbreviations and generally use chapter numbers rather than page numbers (since the latter will vary with different editions). I will attempt to keep quotations chronological within categories.

As indicated in the subtitles, I have narrowed the subject matter somewhat: primarily to theology and Church history. Newman also wrote widely on philosophy, education, spirituality, sociology or current affairs (Catholics in England, etc.), and produced poetry and fiction, among other things. But in particularly notable instances or topics, I was quite willing to extend the parameters and make an exception to my own “rule” — out of love of Cardinal Newman’s style, insight, and wisdom.

I chose to concentrate on theology and the history of theological doctrine and the Church, since those topics lend themselves to thematic unity and a coherent collection that can be referenced and used for the purpose of catechesis or apologetics (my own area).

Given the vast amount of Newman’s writing involved, I thought it best to not attempt to cover everything. But for the areas I have covered, I have sought to be quite comprehensive, in order to provide a reference work of lasting value and utility: something a little different from the hundreds of works on Newman, and various anthologies and collections of his writing thus far available.

I need to note two factors that were important in my selection process, as an editor, so readers can be duly informed. As most who are reading this already are aware, Cardinal Newman was an Anglican for roughly the first half of his life, and a Catholic thereafter. Not infrequently in his earlier life, he not only explained, but vigorously advocated positions that he later renounced.

The question then arises, as to the criteria for selection of quotations in the earlier period. Or, more specifically: are they to be conceptualized as presenting (all things considered), at least in part, the “polemical Anglican (at times, outright anti-Catholic), Via Media proponent Newman” or rather, “the proto-Catholic Newman who anticipates and looks forward to his later Catholic beliefs, and holds them in kernel form”?

I have decided (probably predictably) to follow the latter course. Generally, I have not included opinions that the later Newman would have disavowed, or literally did renounce (as we see in his later corrective notes of his earlier writing). I am a Catholic, and I’m afraid that my natural bias in that direction considerably affected how the Anglican period quotations were selected and edited.

Yet I don‘t think this is a complete “loss” for Anglican or otherwise non-Catholic readers, since the (ecumenical) result is an “Anglican Newman” who is expressing ideas concerning which Catholics and more traditional or “high” Anglicans can readily agree. It is not unimportant to highlight agreement where it is present. Non-Catholic readers can also see how very much a Catholic can agree with the Anglican Newman’s thinking, since I have deliberately set out to highlight the larger areas of agreement (in light of his later change of mind).

The Anglican devotee of Cardinal Newman could, in this sense, particularly benefit from the earlier quotations insofar as they present a “Catholic Newman” (i.e., Catholic in the more all-encompassing definition Anglicans use) who is not, in these compiled instances, expressing pointed disagreement with another “branch” (so to speak) of the universal Catholic Christian Church.

The second factor that ought to be highlighted (something Introductions are good for!) is my determination to include, by and large (though not always) passages in Newman’s writing that give actual arguments for positions, rather than being only beautifully expressed descriptions or sentiments and not necessarily defenses. Newman is such a good writer that virtually everything he writes is eloquent, in any event; but my goal is to emphasize the apologist Newman: the one who can provide a rationale for why we should agree with his positions.

Thus, it is apparent, that my status as a Catholic, and as a Catholic apologist, by occupation, has influenced how I edit. But I suppose this is to be expected, and I don‘t believe it detracts from the utility of the overall effort in the slightest, especially since I have stated my goals and “biases” upfront, so as to avoid any misconception.

May the reader enjoy and be edified and educated by what I have compiled from Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman’s delightful writing.

 ***
INDEX OF TOPICS
***
(123)
***
Absolution
Adam 
Angels
Anglicanism 
Antiquity (the Early Church)
Apologetics and Evangelism
Apostles
Apostolic Deposit of Faith
Apostolic Succession
Atonement
Atonement: Universal
Baptism
Baptism and Regeneration
Baptism, Infant
Baptism of Desire
Church, The (Ecclesiology)
Church, Indefectibility of
Church, Infallibility of
Confession
Conscience
Conversion and Converts
Conversion (His Own)
Councils, Ecumenical
Creation; Nature
Demons (Fallen Angels)
Deuterocanon (“Apocrypha”)
Development (of Doctrine)
Divorce
Doctrine; Dogma
Doctrines and History
Doctrines: “Primary vs. Secondary”
Eden, Garden of
Election 
Eucharist
Eucharist: Communion in One Species
Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction
Evil
Faith Alone (Protestant Notion of Sola Fide)
Faith and Reason
Faith and Works
Fathers of the Church
God
God, Omnipotence of
Gospel; Good News
Grace 
History
History and Christianity
Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit: Indwelling of
Honorius (Pope)
Ignatius of Antioch, St.
Ignorance, Invincible
Images, Use and Veneration of
Indulgences 
Inquisition / Temporal Punishments 
Jesus: Divinity of
Jesus: Incarnation and Two Natures of
Jesus: Passion and Suffering of
Jesus: Redeemer
Justification
Justification and Human Free Will and Cooperation (Synergy)
Justification and Indwelling of the Holy Spirit
Justification and Sanctification
Justification by Faith Alone (Falsity of)
Justification, Infused
Justification (Luther vs. St. Augustine)
Laity; the Faithful
Liberalism and Nominalism, Theological 
Liturgy
Mary: Assumption of
Mary, Blessed Virgin (General)
Mary: Devotion to; Veneration of
Mary: Holiness and Immaculate Conception
Mary: Intercessor, Mediatrix, and Spiritual Mother
Mary: Mother of God (Theotokos)
Mary, Perpetual Virginity of
Mary, Queen of Heaven
Mass, Sacrifice of 
Merit
Miracles
Mortification and Self-Denial 
Mystery (Biblical, Theological) 
Ordination; Holy Orders
Original Sin; The Fall of Man
Orthodoxy
Papal Infallibility
Papal Sins, Limitations, and Lack of Impeccability
Papal Supremacy and Petrine Primacy
Paradox: Christian or Biblical
Penance
Perspicuity (Total Clearness) of Scripture (Falsity of)
Prayer for the Dead
Prayer (of the Righteous)
Predestination
Priesthood; Priests
Private Judgment
Purgatory 
Reform, Catholic
Relics
Rule of Faith / “Three-Legged Stool” (Bible-Church-Tradition)
Sacramentals and Sacramentalism
Sacraments
Sacraments and Salvation
Saints, Communion of; Veneration of
Saints, Intercession of
Saints, Invocation of
Salvation
Salvation: Absolute Assurance of, Unattainable
Salvation, Moral Assurance of
Sanctification
Satan
Scripture
Scripture, Canon of
Scripture, Material Sufficiency of
Sheol / Hades / Limbo of the Fathers
Sin, Mortal 
Sola Scriptura / Bible Alone (Falsity of)
Total Depravity
Tractarianism; Oxford Movement; Via Media
Tradition, Apostolic
Transubstantiation
Trent, Council of
Trinitarianism; Holy Trinity
 ***
PURCHASE INFORMATION
***
[PAPERBACK: various prices for new and used copies at Amazon] [KINDLE: 9.95] [NOOK: 9.95] [ePub, PDF, or MOBI 3.99: purchase via email / PayPal: [email protected]]
***
Last updated on 18 March 2023
2017-05-30T19:26:08-04:00

Last updated on: May 30, 2017 at 7:26 pm   By

NEWMAN6

 [19 October 2004]

* * * * *

 
Was Cardinal Newman a “Rationalist”?
 
Fr. Stanley Jaki disagrees with classifying Newman as a “rationalist”:

Then there is the Grammar‘s method that looks very similar to what later took by storm the philosophical and theological scene under the name phenomenology. It stands for a systematic aversion, to use a Pauline phrase again, to reasoned assurance about things that do not appear, that is, are not phenomena. Finally, there is the perspective of the Grammar, a perspective of unabashed personalism.


(Jaki [1] )

Anthony Kenny, philosopher and President of the British Academy, gives a much more accurate appraisal of Newman’s philosophical acumen, foresight, and influence:

In the analytic tradition, which is dominant here and in much of the United States, the beginning of modern philosophy is often taken to be the writing, by Gottlob Frege, of an essay entitled Begriffschrift in 1879.

. . . Ten years before the Begriffschrift, in the Grammar of Assent, Newman had made many of the same distinctions which Frege was to make, sometimes in the same terms, sometimes in different terms. Newman distinguished between the apprehension of a proposition and assent to a proposition, between the notional or logical content of a proposition and the realization of its content in the imagination. But whereas Frege disjoined logic from psychology in order to discard the psychology, Newman disjoined the two to downgrade the logic. Unknown to Newman, the logic which he downgraded was in its last days.

 

. . . in recent decades professional philosophers in the analytic tradition have become interested in the topics which concerned him.

 

. . . Wittgenstein turned in his last years to the traditional problems of epistemology, seen from a new standpoint. His posthumously published On Certainty covers many of the same topics as the Grammar of Assent, uses many of the same illustrations, and draws some of the same conclusions.

 

The most influential philosopher of religion in the analytic tradition at the present time, Alvin Plantinga of Notre Dame University, has devoted much of his best work to the question which is at the centre of Newman’s book: How can religious belief be justified, given that the evidence for its conclusions seems so inadequate to the degree of its commitment?

 

(Kenny, 98-100)

Historian of philosophy, Frederick Copleston, S.J. best describes the exact relationship of Newman’s thought to philosophy per se:

Newman’s approach to the philosophical topics which he discussed was that of a Christian apologist. That is to say, he wrote from the point of view of a Christian believer who asks himself to what extent, and in what way, his faith can be shown to be reasonable. Newman made no pretence of temporarily discarding his faith, as it were, in order to give the impression of starting all over again from scratch . . . it was a question of faith seeking understanding of itself rather than of an unbelieving mind wondering whether there was any rational justification for making an act of faith.

 

. . . his attempt to exhibit the insufficiency of contemporary rationalism and to convey a sense of the Christian vision of human existence led him to delineate lines of thought which, while certainly not intended to present the content of Christian belief as a set of conclusions logically deduced from self-evident principles, were meant to show to those who had eyes to see that religious faith was not the expression of an irrational attitude or a purely arbitrary assumption.

 

. . . Newman . . . is more concerned with showing the reasonableness of faith as it actually exists in the great mass of believers, most of whom know nothing of abstract philosophical arguments . . . he tries to outline a phenomenological analysis . . .

 

. . . it is obvious that the belief in God with which he is primarily concerned as a Christian apologist is a real assent to God as a present reality, and an assent which influences life or conduct, not simply a notional assent to a proposition about the idea of God . . . from this it follows that Newman is not, and cannot be, primarily interested in a formal demonstrative inference to God’s existence.

 

(Copleston, 270-271, 279)

He specifically details Newman’s opposition to rationalism:

He argues . . . that the rationalist conception of reasoning is far too narrow and does not square with the way in which people actually, and legitimately, think and reason in concrete issues. It must be remembered that his contention is that faith is reasonable, not that its content is logically deducible according to the model of mathematical demonstration.


(Copleston, 276)

Copleston agrees with Kenny that Newman was a man ahead of his time, rather than merely a creature and product of it:

. . . the growth of interest in his philosophical thought and in his style of apologetics has coincided with the spread of movements in philosophy and in apologetics which, on our looking back, are seen to have certain affinities with elements in Newman’s reflections.


(Copleston, 287-288)
Was Cardinal Newman More Inclined to Realism or to Nominalism?
 
 
Fr. Stanley Jaki makes it very clear where Newman’s affinities lie:

Newman was taken up so much with the concrete, tangible facts as to create time and again the momentary impression of being a latter-day follower of Ockham, if not a replica of Mister Gradgrind teaching but facts and nothing but facts.


(Jaki [2], 201)

Philosopher Anthony Kenny agrees:

He was nominalistic in temper . . .

(Kenny, 100)

Newman wrote:

We reason in order to enlarge our knowledge of matters, which do not depend on us for being what they are.

. . . Science, working by itself, reaches truth in the abstract, and probability in the concrete; but what we aim at is truth in the concrete.

 

. . . There is no such thing as stereotyped humanity; it must ever be a vague, bodiless idea, because the concrete units from which it is formed are independent realities. General laws are not inviolable truths; much less are they necessary causes.

( Grammar, 222-224)

 

. . . as to reasonings in concrete matters, they are never more than probabilities, and the probability in each conclusion which we draw is the measure of our assent to that conclusion . . . Abstract argument is always dangerous . . . I prefer to go by facts.

 

(Grammar, 136)

We are in a world of facts, and we use them; for there is nothing else to use.

 

(Grammar, 272)

 

By means of sense we gain knowledge directly; by means of reasoning we gain it indirectly, that is, by virtue of a previous knowledge.

 

(Grammar, 210)


What is the Relationship of Cardinal Newman’s Thought to Aristotle and Scholasticism?
 
 
Fr. Jaki notes in passing that this was not Newman’s school of thought:

The answer is not to be sought in Newman’s reading of Thomas Aquinas or other scholastics, a reading rather limited.


(Jaki [1] )

Jaki gives his opinions as to Newman’s greatest philosophical influences, stating that his:

. . . reading of modern philosophers which, with the exception of J. S. Mill, was not extensive at all. He showed much too great a sympathy for Bacon, Locke, and Bishop Butler, for him the par excellence British philosophers.

 

(Jaki [1] )

James M. Cameron weighs in on Newman’s Christian philosophical pedigree as well:

We are inclined simply to say that he is in the tradition of Augustine and Anselm. Credo ut intelligam is the pervading maxim of his thought and to love the truth, and thus to believe or to move towards belief, is to be filled with the Divine love. Again, we may see in him an anticipation of the Kierkegaardian doctrine of the leap of faith, a leap which presupposes a cognitive gap, as it were, between what we know and what we are called upon to believe.

 

(Cameron)

Philosopher Anthony Kenny asserts:

Newman . . . was a philosopher in the British empiricist tradition. When he argues he argues with Locke and Hume. He was ill at ease, in his Catholic as well as his Anglican days, with scholastic philosophy.

 

(Kenny, 100)

Biographer Ian Ker wrote about the initial reception of Newman’s primary philosophical work, Grammar of Assent:

Predictably, it was criticized in the Month and the Tablet for its obvious lack of conformity with scholastic philosophy. Newman was not very concerned: it was clear to him that syllogistic reasoning would not solve the problem he had attempted to meet.

 

. . . The reviews in secular journals were not concerned with the absence of scholastic philosophy, but they noted that the Grammar was in the tradition of Butler’s Analogy and the Oriel ‘Noetics’ rather than of contemporary thought.

(Ker, 637-638)

 


Fr. Copleston denies that Aristotle was a key player for Newman:

As a student Newman acquired some knowledge of Aristotle. And though nobody would call him an Aristotelian, the Greek philosopher certainly exercised some influence on his mind . . . Of British philosophers he certainly studied Francis Bacon, and he knew something of Hume, whom he considered acute but dangerous; but in the Apologia he states that he never studied Berkeley. For Locke, however, he felt a profound respect . . . ‘there is so much in his remarks upon reasoning and proof in which I fully concur . . . ‘ Besides Locke we must mention Bishop Butler, who exercised an obvious and admitted influence on Newman’s mind . . . Of German thought, however, Newman appears to have known little . . . As for Scholastic philosophy, Newman knew little about it . . . the old-fashioned textbook Thomism would hardly have been congenial to Newman’s mind . . . His approach was quite different.


(Copleston, 273-274)


What Was Cardinal Newman’s Opinion of Idealism, Platonism, and Universals?
 
 
Fr. Stanley Jaki, author of many books on Christianity and science, who also has a Ph.D. in physics, and specializes in philosophy of science, states about Newman:

He has more scorn than praise for the universals. He does not once take into consideration that every human word stands for a universal. Time and again he seems to give comfort to those who, then as now, take the view that the question of universals can be disposed of by labeling it a scholastic problem.


. . . Perhaps part of Newman’s saving grace was that he left uncut half of the pages of his copy of Meiklejohn’s translation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. At any rate, he saw through Kant and the German idealists. His comment on the monograph on them by Chalybaus, professor of philosophy at the university of Kiel, was as brief as devastating: “I do not think I am bound to read them . . . for notoriously they have come to no conclusion.” Transcendental Thomists, better to be called Aquikantists, may take note. If conclusions, to which assent is to be given, can ever be the fruit of mere philosophical reasoning, however genuine, they certainly cannot issue from the miscegenation which transcendental Thomists try to bring about between Aquinas and Kant.


(Jaki [1] )

In a similar article, Fr. Jaki expands upon this:

. . . when Newman explicitly speaks of universals, he comes very close to denying any real content in them . . . He has little use for general man, which he calls the auto-anthropos. For him universals are wholly subservient to individual things.

 

. . . Newman’s thinking is poles apart from Kantianism, and even from that Aquikantianism that is transcendental Thomism, as shown by his flat declaration: “By means of sense we gain knowledge directly.” The Kantian principle whereby the mind’s categories create reality is contradicted by Newman’s statement: “We reason in order to enlarge our knowledge of matters, which do not depend on us for being what they are.”

(Jaki [2], 201; citing Grammar, 210, 222)

Ian Ker highlights Newman’s goal in his Grammar of Assent:

Newman insists that his purpose is not metaphysical, like that of the idealists who defend the certainty of knowledge against sceptical empiricists, but is ‘of a practical character, such as that of Butler in his Analogy‘, namely, to ascertain the nature of inference and assent.

 

In the last analysis, then, the Grammar is not a ‘metaphysical’ work. But that does not mean it is a ‘psychological’ study. Rather, it is a philosophical analysis of that state of mind which we ordinarily call certitude or certainty and of the cognitive acts associated with it; and as such, it has come to be recognized as a classic by philosophers of religion.

(Ker, 646, 649)

We have seen in the section above this one how Newman was in the school of philosophy exemplified by Locke, Bacon, and Butler. Now, how do those men view idealism, Platonism, and universals? Baptist theologian Bernard Ramm wrote specifically about this, in discussing Butler’s famous Analogy of Religion:

In philosophical background he was deeply committed to Locke . . . Locke was famous for his attack on the notion of innate ideas . . . Cardinal Newman was also much impressed with the Analogy and believed Butler to be the most authoritarian voice in Anglican theology . . .


Butler placed himself within this Lockian empirical tradition with its emphasis upon limitation of knowledge . . . Butler renounced both rationalism and idealism and cites Descartes as an example of a philosopher resting his case
upon hypotheses, i.e., upon unverifiable contentions . . . He defends a strict empiricism and a strict inductionism. It is a system which attempts to make both theology and apologetics vigorously empirical and deductive contrasting sharply with any speculative approach to these two areas . . .


Butler follows the pathway of common sense, a reserved agnosticism, and a rejection of speculative metaphysics. He seeks to ground religion — to use a recent expression — in brute fact. He is against Plato, Augustine and Thomas in so far as Thomas represents a speculative metaphysics. The ultimate data of religion must be of the same stuff as the ultimate data of science. It must be that sort of stuff which has unquestionable authority to the man of common sense . . .


Butler is telling the world that there is no a priori knowledge of God that is coercive. God’s existence and ways are to be deciphered from His handiwork, and our conclusions are not absolutes but probability statements . . . According to Butler no absolute proof for anything exists. The prudential man acts on the slope of the evidence, and when he detects the direction towards which the evidence slopes he acts accordingly . . .


His apologetics proper is built upon the combined principles of probability and analogy, although he does warn us that the proof of Christianity is essentially the total impact of the evidence. Probability provides the grounds for action and analogy the direction.


(Ramm, 107, 109-113, 116)

Philosopher John F. Crosby stresses Newman’s emphasis on the “personal”:

Newman had a definite pastoral reason for his fascination with real assent. He realized that we human beings are so constituted as to be moved to action much more through the imagination than through the intellect. If our apprehension of the world is mediated too much by universals and general notions, we are left in the position of spectators. But the more we apprehend the world and other persons in their concreteness, the more engaged we become with them, the more capable of acting towards them, and so the more we live as persons.
. . . We have here, then, another reason for Newman’s uncanny power of exercising personal influence in his sermons. If he had spoken more abstractly and had aimed mainly at mediating universal knowledge, he would disappear from his words, and his influence on us would be only intellectual, not personal. In fact, his influence is highly personal because he has this rare gift of affecting us with the concrete reality of God and the soul.

(Crosby)

Newman eschews traditional metaphysics and idealism, according to philosopher Anthony Kenny:

Newman disliked metaphysics of the German kind:


“Let it be considered how rare and immaterial . . . is metaphysical proof: how difficult to embrace, even when presented to us by philosophers whose clearness of mind and good sense we clearly confide: and what a vain system of words without ideas such men seem to be piling up . . .”


The words of the young Newman are politer than those of the young A J Ayer a century later: but the attitude to metaphysics is not dissimilar.
(Kenny, 100-101; citing Newman, Sermons chiefly on the theory of religious belief, preached before the University of Oxford, London: Rivington, 2nd ed., 1844, 210)

Frederick Copleston concurs:

. . . when he is reflecting on grounds for belief in God, he tends to neglect impersonal metaphysical arguments addressed simply to the intellect and to concentrate on the movement of the mind which, in his opinion, brings a man up against God as a present reality, as manifested in the voice of conscience . . . He does not profess to provide demonstrations modelled on those of mathematics. Given this approach, it is not surprising that the name of Newman has often been linked with that of Pascal.

 

. . . As for Platonism, which in certain respects he found congenial, Newman’s knowledge of it seems to have been obtained mainly from certain early Christian writers and the Fathers.

 

(Copleston, 272-273)

Newman wrote:

. . . universals are ever at war with each other; because what is called a universal is only a general; because what is only general does not lead to a necessary conclusion . . . Let units come first, and (so-called) universals second; let universals minister to units, not units be sacrificed to universals.

Each thing has its own nature and its own history. When the nature and the history of many things are similar, we say that they have the same nature; but there is no such thing as one and the same nature; they are each of them itself, not identical, but like. A law is not a fact, but a notion.

(Grammar, 223-224)

 

Experience tells us only of individual things, and these things are innumerable.

 

(Grammar, 44)

 

Belief, on the other hand, being concerned with things concrete, not abstract . . .

(Grammar, 87)
What Was Cardinal Newman’s View as to the Limitations of Syllogistic Logic?
 
 
Newman wrote:

. . . science has . . . little of a religious tendency; deductions have no power of persuasion. The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a man will live and die upon a dogma; no man will be a martyr for a conclusion. A conclusion is but an opinion; it is not a thing which is . . . To say that a thing must be, is to admit that it may not be.


. . . Logic makes but a sorry rhetoric with the multitude; first shoot round corners, and you may not despair of converting by a syllogism . . . Logicians are more set upon concluding rightly, than on right conclusions. They cannot see the end for the process . . . man is not a reasoning animal; he is a seeing, feeling, contemplating, acting animal.


. . . no religion yet has been a religion of physics or of philosophy. It has ever been synonymous with revelation. It never has been a deduction from what we know; it has ever been an assertion of what we are to believe.


(Grammar of Assent, 89-92)

Newman expert James M. Cameron commented on these thoughts of Newman’s:

These are fighting words, designed to cheer us up, as of course they do. What they say is that in practice the conclusions of demonstrative arguments do not interest us very much, do not move us; whereas considerations that, reduced to propositional form, fall short of demonstrative force, may nevertheless, put forward by persons we admire or in tones of voice that excite us, lead us to do and sometimes to die.


(Cameron)

Biographer Ian Ker elaborates upon similar themes:

It is in fact, Newman argues, the cumulation of probabilities, which cannot be reduced to a syllogism, that leads to certainty in the concrete. Many certitudes depend on informal proofs, whose reasoning is more or less implicit. As we view the objects of sense, so we grasp the proof of a concrete truth as a whole ‘by a sort of instinctive perception of the legitimate conclusion in and through the premisses.’ Such implicit reasoning is too personal for logic.


(Ker, 645)

Philosopher Anthony Kenny puts it very succinctly:

The Aristotelian syllogistic which Newman sniffed at is now seen as only a small fragment of formal logic. But post-Frege logic, however expanded, and the philosophy of logic which deals with meaning, entailment, and formal proof, still needs to be supplemented, if we are to give a philosophical account of the human mind, with a theory of mental acts of the kind that Newman gave.


(Kenny, 99)

And Newman observes:

. . . logic is useful . . . but it does not give us to know even one individual being.


(Grammar, 226)
Was Cardinal Newman’s Theory of Doctrinal Development a Variant of the Teleological Argument (Argument From Design) — Particularly William Paley’s?
 

 

Edward T. Oakes writes, in the above-mentioned article:

The problem with this whole line of argumentation is not just that the intelligent design partisans need to reread their Hume, although they do. The man they really need to consult is, once again, Cardinal Newman, who leveled devastating artillery against the argument from design, especially in The Idea of a University, which despite its well–deserved fame has long gone underutilized by philosophers of religion, perhaps because his critique of their work is so devastating. In any event, he rightly calls any attempt to read the nature of God directly from the universe “physical theology,” which, he says, he has ever viewed with the greatest suspicion: “True as it may be in itself, still under the circumstances [it] is a false gospel. Half of the truth is a falsehood.”

[Univ. of Notre Dame edition, 1982, p. 340, from chapter, “Christianity and Physical Science,” section 10]

. . . One concludes this book not only grateful for the Pope’s letter on evolution, where all of Johnson’s mistakes are assiduously avoided, but also in admiration for the Holy Father’s lavish praise of Cardinal Newman in his more recent encyclical Fides et Ratio. For in the fewest possible sentences Newman has summarized every logical flaw in this book: “Half the world knows nothing of the argument from design—and when you have got it, you do not prove by it the moral attributes of God—except very faintly. Design teaches me power, skill, and goodness [meaning here, cleverness in craftsmanship], not sanctity, not mercy, not a future judgment, which three are of the essence of religion. . . . I believe in design because I believe in God, not in a God because I see design.”

So much for the attempt to link Newman directly to Paley and the teleological argument. He is much more in the line of thought of Butler’s analogical thinking. Philosopher David Hume (the rationalist) is the one who accepted the argument from design, or teleological argument, which is interesting because many folks (even philosophers) seem to have this goofy idea that Hume was an atheist and that he destroyed the teleological argument. This is not true. In any event, Newman rejected it, contra claims that his theory of doctrinal development was actually a species of it.
 
Likewise, Mark A. Kalthoff, in his article, “A Different Voice from the Eve of The Origin: Reconsidering John Henry Newman on Christianity, Science, and Intelligent Design”, contradicts this very limited and inaccurate (but sadly widespread) understanding of Newman, especially in his final two sections, “The Critique of Inductive Theology or Newman Contra Paley” and “Newman Ponders the Intelligent Design Movement”. Here are some excerpts:

Thus although the natural sciences properly appeal to Baconian and inductive methods, Newman insisted that “it was nothing more than a huge mistake to introduce the method of research and of induction into the study of Theology at all”.


While granting that physical theology may claim some merits and that it has rendered “great services” to faith generically conceived, Newman doubted whether genuine Christian faith really owed anything to the work of physicists. To begin with, he argued that the Design Argument owed nothing to Baconianism or modern science. Its force today, he maintained, is no different than is was in ancient Greece.


Well then, so much for Paley, or (perhaps for that matter) for Michael Behe’s “irreducibly complex” bacterial flagellum or, maybe even, for William Dembski’s “explanatory filter.”


He continued by suggesting that physical theology could be positively evil. “If it occupies the mind,” he asserted, “it [tends] to dispose it against Christianity.” Natural theology proper can only trade in laws. Accordingly, it cannot contemplate miracles, which, argued Newman, “are of the essence of the idea of a Revelation.” In short, the god of physical theology was likely to become an “idol.” Powerful? Yes. Good? Yes. Wise? Yes. But no more; and, therefore, concluded Newman, the god of natural theology “is not very different from the God of the Pantheist. … I really doubt,” he ended, “whether I should not prefer that [the natural theologian] should be an Atheist at once than such a naturalistic, pantheistic religionist. His profession of theology deceives others, [and] perhaps deceives himself”.


Elsewhere Dembski has argued that “design should be readmitted to full scientific status.” Newman would certainly squirm. Here also would surface Newman’s distrust of the connection between design theory and Christian apologetics, a connection endorsed by more than one ID leader, including a director of The Discovery Institute and the publishers of Touchstone magazine.


So while Newman would sympathize with ID theorists’ attacks on metaphysical naturalism, he would reject their attempt to reinstate design in science, and consider their assault on evolution much ado about a red herring. The upshot, then, when rating Newman on Intelligent Design remains mixed; apparently one count for, one against, and one shoulder shrug. This ambivalence is important to acknowledge in our day of polarized conversation between parties often bent on dichotomizing for selfish reasons.

In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article, “The Epistemology of Religion,” it is stated in section 5: “The Relevance of Newman”:

Although pre-dating the current debate, Newman’s rejection of Locke’s and Paley’s evidentialism is relevant to the problematic of contemporary epistemology of religion. First he quite clearly rejected the hegemony of epistemology. His procedure was to examine how in fact people made up their minds on non-religious issues and argue that by the same standards religious beliefs were justified. As a result he qualified evidentialism by insisting that an implicit and cumulative argument could lead to justified certainty.

Newman wrote:

I have not insisted on the argument from design, because I am writing for the 19th century, by which, as represented by its philosophers, design is not admitted as proved.


(Letter to W. R. Brownlow, April 13, 1870 in Letters and Diaries, [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961], vol. XXV, p. 97, referring to his Grammar of Assent)

Thus I was brought to the popular argument for a Creator drawn from the marks of what is commonly called Design in the physical world. Led on by Lord Bacon, I found I could not give it that high place among the arguments for religion which is almost instinctively accorded to it by a religious mind. Such a mind starts with an assumption which a man who is not religious requires in the first instance to be proved. A believer in God recognises at once, and justly recognises, the marks of design which are innumerable in the structure of the universe, and has his faith and love invigorated and enlarged by the sight of so minute and tender a Providence. But how is an objector to be met who insists that the problem before us is, when viewed in itself, simply which of two hypotheses is the best key to the phenomena of nature—a system founded on cause and effect, or one founded on a purpose and its fulfillment? It is a controversial question,—not as to what is true to hold, but as to what is safe to maintain. Many things are true in fact which cannot be maintained in argument. What is true to one man is not always true to another. Final causes, says Lord Bacon, “are properly alleged in metaphysics; but in physics are impertinent, and as remoras to the ship, that hinder the sciences from holding on their course of improvement, {106} and as introducing a neglect of searching after physical causes.” [Note 6] (Vide my Idea of a University, p 222.) Was Bacon an infidel or a sceptic?”

I happen to disagree with Cardinal Newman (my Catholic intellectual hero) on this point (lest anyone think I never do that). I am rather fond of the teleological and cosmological arguments, and always have been. They were never intended to “prove” the entire attributes of God in the first place (Newman seems to be vague on that point), only that He is creator and designer, and I think they succeed in that purpose (i.e., by making His existence highly probable and plausible), in conjunction with modern scientific findings.
 
The point at hand (to remind readers) is the oft-made claim that Newman’s theory of doctrinal development was practically a species of the teleological argument, stemming directly from Paley because of intellectual and chronological proximity. Materials cited above suggest quite otherwise.
 
Since Newman disagreed with Paley and rejected the teleological argument, it can hardly be the case that the Essay on Development was a variant of it.
 

What Did Cardinal Newman Think of Natural Theology?
 
 
Fr. Jaki observed:

About the first way, the evidence of nature, he is never enthusiastic, though never doubtful either. It appears but fleetingly in the Grammar.1 At any rate, in his time the cosmological argument was the victim of a philosophically atrophied natural theology in which the argument from design held the center stage. Newman was certainly to the point that the argument from design cannot be a starting point.


(Jaki [1] )

Philosopher John F. Crosby concurs:

Newman could never warm to the God of the philosophers. He kept his distance from the traditional cosmological arguments for the existence of God. He did not deny their validity or their legitimate place in the Church, but he said that they “do not warm me and enlighten me; they do not take away the winter of my desolation, or make the buds unfold and the leaves grow within me, and my moral being rejoice.”

 

. . . The metaphysical necessities of the natural theologian tend to block the view of the living, personal God, who reveals Himself not just in what He necessarily is but also in what He unpredictably does. In one early sermon Newman exults in the fact that Christianity discloses to us not a divine principle but a Divine Agent. “Here, then, Revelation meets us with simple and distinct facts and actions, not with painful inductions from existing phenomena, not with generalized laws or metaphysical conjectures, but with Jesus and the Resurrection.”

(Crosby)

Philosopher Anthony Kenny concluded:

With regard to the justification of religious belief, Newman gives up the intention of demonstrating either natural religion or Christianity . . . ‘For me’, says Newman, ‘it is more congenial to my own judgement to attempt to prove Christianity in the same informal way in which I can prove for certain that I have been born into this world, and that I shall die out of it.’


Newman’s proof for Christianity will only work for those who are prepared for it, imbued with religious opinions and sentiments identified with natural religion.


. . . one may ask: Why should one believe in God and in a future judgement at all? In response to this question Newman makes his celebrated appeal to the testimony of conscience. He is not confident in the probative force of the traditional arguments to the existence of God from the nature of the physical world.


(Kenny, 114-115; citing Grammar, Oxford: Clarendon Press edition, edited by Ian Ker, 264)

 

SOURCES:

Cameron, James M., “John Henry Newman: Apostle of Common Sense?,” Faith and Reason, Winter 1989.
 
Copleston, Frederick, A History of Philosophy: Volume 8: Modern Philosophy: Bentham to Russell, Part II, Graden City, NY: Doubleday Image, 1967.
 
Crosby, John F., “Newman on the Personal,” First Things 125 (August/September 2002): 43-49.
 
Jaki, Stanley L. [1], Meditation on Newman’s Grammar of Assent, Faith and Reason, Spring 1989.
 
Jaki, Stanley L. [2], “Newman’s Assent to Reality, Natural and Supernatural,” pp. 189-220 in Newman Today, edited by himself, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989.
 
 
Kenny, Anthony, “Newman as a Philosopher of Religion,” pp. 98-122, in David Brown, editor, Newman: A Man For Our Time, Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 1990.
 
Ker, Ian, John Henry Newman: A Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988 (764 large pages)
 
Newman, John Henry, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, 1870, Garden City, NY: Doubleday Image, 1955.
 
Oakes, Edward T., “Books in Review: The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism,” First Things 109 (January 2001): 48-52. Subtitled: “Newman, Yes; Paley, No.” See further extensive discussion of the teleological argument, including Newman’s views, in the follow-up piece, “Edward T. Oakes and His Critics: An Exchange,” April 2001, 5-13.
 
Ramm, Bernard, Varieties of Christian Apologetics, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1962.
 

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “The Epistemology of Religion,” section 5: “The Relevance of Newman”.

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2017-06-02T17:38:39-04:00

Last updated on: June 2, 2017 at 5:38 pm   By
MythologyNorse

The giants Fafner and fasolt seize Freya. Illustration (1910) of Arthur Rackham (1867-1939), for Richard Wagner’s opera, Das Rheingold. [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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(1-3-07)

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drunkentune’s words will be in blue. My cited words will be in green, his cited words in purple.

 

* * * * *

 
You two seem to have this conversation under control. I’ll let you two have at it amongst yourselves.

Very clever way to sidestep the issue.

Doesn’t your dogma preclude all other contradicting faiths? You have to contend with Zoroastrianism, for example.

I haven’t claimed that Christians have no dogma, nor that all dogmas are necessarily bad. My claim is, rather, that the atheist has his own sort of dogmas as well (i.e., unquestioned, unproven axioms), and must exercise as much faith (belief without ironclad proof or even evidence) as any Christian, at least at certain crucial points.

I’ve also claimed that this is rather easy to show. But obviously you and I will never get to that point because you are unwilling to go there. It’s too threatening to go that deep in examining one’s own premises. It could turn out to be like an onion peel: you keep peeling and end up with nothing.

It’s not like this is anything new. I’m as familiar with it as the back of my hand. Atheists are almost always unwilling to take a close look at their first premises. I suppose I would be the same if I were an atheist, because there is nothing there. It would look foolish to have this exposed, when it is so much fun to make fun of supposedly gullible, stupid Christians, as if there is a huge essential rational and epistemological difference between the atheist and the Christian. It’s much easier and more fun to keep the illusion of inherent superiority going.

Thanks for the little tidbit of Norse mythology. I love Wagner and Tolkien.

 “It takes a ton of faith (much more than a Christian exercises) to believe that something can come from nothing.”

What are you saying here?

That y’all believe something came from nothing.

Can you rephrase this?

I don’t see what the point would be. It’s pretty clear.

I don’t believe that something can come from nothing,

I see. So you hold that matter is eternal and never did not exist?

so I think you may either be confused with what atheists actually believe, or are misrepresenting the current scientific literature’s conclusions.

That’s fine. Just state what your own opinion is. I contend that my critique (i.e., followed through to the end) will work with any atheist (at least any materialist atheist).

Again, you have to contend with other religions out there.

I’m not talking about them, but about what the atheist believes.

The atheist dismisses them all (including yours) because there’s no evidence for them (and yours).

Yet you yourself believe things without any evidence. So why the double standard? How can you dismiss one thing because it has no evidence and then turn around and do the same thing that you just dismissed? Does that make any sense?

Your use of language reveals a good deal.

I should hope so. If it didn’t reveal anything, it wouldn’t be of much worth now, would it? :-)

The universe didn’t create itself. No atheist I know believes that, and I certainly don’t believe that too.

I see. So the conclusion follows that it is eternal, if there is no God to create it and it didn’t create itself. Matter must be eternal. I don’t see that it is possible to deny that. There are only so many basic choices.

Just two months ago the theory of an oscillating universe, contracting and expanding, was given a boost after the background radiation of the universe was observed. I forget if they did or did not, but they may have won a Nobel Prize in astrophysics for their work.

As far as I know, it can’t be proven. If you disagree, please show me some evidence that it can be. It requires every bit as much faith (if not more) as believing that God created the universe.

The verdict’s still out on the origins of the universe,

Really? Then how can you be so sure God didn’t do it, if the verdict’s still “out”? A bit of dogma, perhaps? “God can’t possibly do it”? Now, if you can have that as your unproven dogma, why can’t the theist turn it around and say, “It’s not possible that God didn’t do it?”

[By the way, I would not actually make that claim myself, but that’s beside the present point]

If one guy can say it’s impossible that God created, what stops the next guy, on the same epistemological basis, from asserting the contrary? Both are equally “dogmatic” and equally unprovable in any absolute sense.

but I don’t see how the faith you describe comes into play when we’re measuring dark matter and proposing different theories.

Is that so? So you are claiming that you have airtight premises and axioms all down the line, that require no inductive leaps or speculations. No gaps of knowledge are present. It is all utterly demonstrated and cannot be disproven? Fascinating indeed! Are you really that philosophically naive? I wouldn’t have guessed as much.

On one hand, we have a holy book and a religion verses a couple thousand holy books and religions; on the other, we have testing, observation, and peer review.

I love it! This is how your dogmatic atheist mind works: on one side is rationality, science, love of observation, respect for facts and the rational process of analysis, and everything good about the intellectual life.

On the other hand is the ignorant, gullible, infantile (perhaps mentally ill) Christian, exercising blind faith: anti-science, anti-reason, anti-logic, anti- evidence and observation.

Obviously with that huge straw man set-up from the get-go, who in their right mind would choose the Christian side? But when you create a ridiculous either/or choice like this one, that is almost entirely the problem of thinking, category, and condescension that I am critiquing. It’s the very way you choose to distort reality and separate people en masse into such arbitrary, laughable categories, that is the problem.

“It takes a ton of faith (much more than a Christian exercises) to believe that science provides the only possible reliable knowledge to be had.”

Science engages in practical naturalism. We cannot test for the existence or nonexistence of God, the supernatural, or all sorts of quackery. In fact, why should we even want to do such a thing?

I’m very well aware of what science is, thank you, and how it operates, and what it’s limits are. Your problem is that you assume I (and most Christians) are ignorant of it. I presuppose all of that coming into the discussion. But you assume profound ignorance. And so we are forced to go into these tedious digressions about things I already know backwards and forwards. But you are too prejudiced against Christians to accept that I do. It’s all absolutely irrelevant to my present argument, which presupposes a respect for science. It’s not based on running down science at all; only on recognizing that it doesn’t constitute all knowledge, and that it is not dogmatic truth.

Again, you show yourself epistemologically naive. I’ve gone many levels of analysis deeper than this Science 0101 routine that you want to play. Perhaps that’s why you keep avoiding the main issue.

“It takes a ton of faith (much more than a Christian exercises) to believe that only matter exists and there is no spirit. Even Albert Einstein denied that.”

How do you see this? I don’t see evidence for the existence of the spirit, so why is it a matter of faith to not believe?

You couldn’t care less about what I believe, so why don’t you, in effect, ask Einstein? Don’t waste time with an average Christian like myself! HE managed to believe there was something beyond mere matter. How did he do it?

We can test for matter; we can’t test for the spirit, whatever it is. I don’t even know what you mean when you say “spirit”, so could you define it for me?

There’s no point. You have already defined it out of existence by definition or category exclusion. Your paradigm won’t permit its entry.
* * * * *


Your choice quote of Dawkins mystifies me. I think that faith is dangerous – especially when children are indoctrinated. I should hope you agree that propagating dogma – no matter the ilk or stripe, does not better the advancement of good ideas.

Every parent indoctrinates his child to some extent. This is no different for atheist or Christian. How could it be otherwise? A young child is in no position to rationally decide the big issues for themselves, so they are simply told.

As they are old enough to think for themselves, then they ought to be encouraged to do so, and to understand the reasons for why Christianity teaches certain things. This is what I do for a living: I’m an apologist. I teach Christians how to think rationally about what they believe, to understand the reasons for various doctrines, and to understand competing views, and to see why ours is intellectually superior to them.

It should be pointed out that Dawkins doesn’t attack Christians in the passage; he attacks “a state of mind that leads people to believe something – it doesn’t matter what – in the total absence of supporting evidence.”

He’s in the same boat you are in (and everyone else): he comes to a place where he does the same exact thing. So his criticism towards only religious people rings hypocritical and hollow.

[Biologist Steven Rose wrote: “Richard’s view about belief is too simplistic, and so hostile that as a committed secularist myself I am uneasy about it. We need to recognise that our own science also depends on certain assumptions about the way the world is – assumptions that he and I of course share.” – Quoted in The Sunday Times 19 Nov 2006. Dawkins is cited in the same article ranting as follows: “The enlightenment is under threat . . . So is reason. So is truth. We have to devote a significant proportion of our time and resources to defending it from deliberate attack from organised ignorance. We even have to go out on the attack ourselves, for the sake of reason and sanity.” – emphasis added presently]

If Christians are included with other faiths, that’s because they all employ faith.

And so does anyone who thinks and admits that he doesn’t have all the answers concerning the Big Questions.

I combat such notions each day, be it from a vocal Christian or a vocal non-Christian. Such an example immediately springs to mind: a friend has recently convinced herself that she has premonitions. She daydreamed about an event, and then a similar event occurred within the day. She has faith that she can see into the future, so I took the time to ask her which was more likely: she had premonitions; or, it was happenstance. To me, it looks like a mental disorder, since they are clearly delusional.

That’s easy: just test the thing! That’s the scientific attitude, ain’t it? If she claims ability to predict the future, then keep score and see if she does or not. It’s a very easy, scientific method:
and (guess what?!) it comes from the Bible: this was precisely the test for the ancient professed prophets. If what they said didn’t come to pass, they were stoned. Very straightforward: very “evidence-oriented” and scientific. But hey, I thought Christians (and Jews) were supposed to be about the negation of, or complete apathy towards evidence????!!!!!

* * *


I gave your comments another passing over, and I almost missed this little tidbit:

“Science, in turn, rules out (by definition) explanations involving non-material elements or aspects. But that is pure dogma, and simplistic to boot.”

If I may, to paraphrase what you have said, Science is dogmatic because… it doesn’t attempt to explain using untestable “elements or aspects”.

I did not say that. You have warped my comments and taken them out of context. Let me provide readers with the full context, so they can see how you have twisted this to your own ends:

How about the question of spirit and matter, that has occupied philosophers for centuries? The materialist atheist (not all atheists are materialists, but most are) cannot accept the existence of spirit, because his materialist dogma forbids it. The Christian, of course, can, so his worldview is less dogmatic and less exclusive.

The materialist has the underlying dogma that science is pretty much the only path to truth (albeit constantly capable of being revised, but even so, it can give us much reliable truth about reality). Science, in turn, rules out (by definition) explanations involving non-material elements or aspects.

But that is pure dogma, and simplistic to boot. The Christian, on the other hand, recognizes that science is but one philosophy (roughly-speaking, empiricism): one which involves unproven axioms from the outset. To claim that it is the only way to arrive at truth is philosophically naive in the extreme.

The Christian is under no such constraints. Recognizing that science is but one species of philosophy, and that it can’t possibly exclude things that are beyond its purview (just as religion does not and cannot preclude science, because it is a separate inquiry), we can discuss and incorporate non-scientific avenues to truth.

But the atheist, by and large, cannot do that, because their dogma (generally-speaking, as throughout) confines them to one method, and then they labor under the illusion that this method is the be-all and end-all of reality (itself in turn reduced to materialism by most atheists).

The entire argument is far far more subtle and nuanced than the stupid straw man that you set up to then tear down. I don’t need to explain any further. Folks need simply to read how I argued, and then see what you did with that and how you either deliberately chose to misrepresent what I said, or (far more likely) simply couldn’t grasp it because (again):

1) you assume I am far more ignorant about science than I am,

and

2) your arbitrary categories of thought and your premises do not allow you to see otherwise, and so you wind up distorting what you don’t understand.

When you assert: “[Science] is pure dogma, and simplistic to boot,” I can’t help thinking that you haven’t looked at their definitions. I feel that you are trying to pull the wool over my eyes, or that you are actually ignorant of the scientific method. 

See what I mean, folks? This is so classic it is beyond funny. You prove one of my contentions (pervasive atheist prejudice against theists) 1000 times better than I could myself. Thank you!

Now, what is dogma? The definitions of “dogma” I looked at specifically state that it is a religious belief, and the one or two that did not say so, had each something on par of, “a belief that is held to be unquestionably true”, and there’s a bit at the end about believing in something even with a lack of evidence, or in spite of evidence to boot.

Exactly. There is certainly an application beyond religion.

So what is science? I looked for a good definition, and found this one: “Science refers to either: the scientific method – a process for evaluating empirical knowledge; or the organized body of knowledge gained by this process.” There’s usually a bit about methodological naturalism in there somewhere.

Any process that is designed to test the natural world by “evaluating empirical knowledge” and observation is by definition nondogmatic.

You are a piece of work. You actually believe that all of science from A to Z is absolutely epistemologically neutral and involves no speculations of a nature that they cannot themselves be proven? I’ve already covered this elementary ground, but you ignored it and proceeded to define science for me as if I didn’t know what it was. Science is itself a philosophy. It is not absolute truth. It doesn’t preclude other kinds of knowledge, nor does it preclude spirit.

The proper scientific attitude would say, “science is about matter; we make no statement about possible non-material reality.” That is objective and recognizes inherent epistemological limitations.

But you and many atheists don’t want to do that. You want to make out that science excludes things that it clearly – by definition – doesn’t deal with in the first place. This is irrational. How can one field of knowledge dogmatically rule out that which it doesn’t deal with at all in the first place? How can it authoritatively speak to that which it has nothing to do with?

The objective, fair-minded, philosophically sophisticated doctor who faces a miracle cure in a patient (and there are plenty of those documented: I wrote a paper about one such case: a son of a friend who was pronounced brain dead by three neurologists), will say he cannot explain it, not that it is impossible. How does he know what is possible or not? He doesn’t possess all knowledge.

In fact, the first half of your assertion (“Science, in turn, rules out (by definition) explanations involving non-material elements or aspects.”) doesn’t seem so bad. Take for istance this short piece on naturalism:

“[T]here is only one reliable method of reaching the truth about the nature of things . . . “

This is sheer nonsense! Why should any thinking person accept the supposed truism that only science can give us truth about reality? It’s almost self-evidently false.

“this reliable method comes to full fruition in the methods of science, . . . and a man’s normal behavior in adapting means to ends belies his words whenever he denies it. Naturalism as a philosophy not only accepts this method but also the broad generalizations which are established by the use of it; viz, that the occurrence of all qualities or events depends upon the organization of a material system in space-time, and that their emergence, development and disappearance are determined by changes in such organization. . . . naturalism as a philosophy takes [the word “material”] to refer to the subject matter of the physical sciences. Neither the one [philosophical naturalism] nor the other [science] asserts that only what can be observed exists, for many things may be legitimately inferred to exist (electrons, the expanding universe, the past, the other side of the moon) from what is observed; but both hold that there is no evidence for the assertion of anything which does not rest upon some observed effects. (Paul Kurtz, “Darwin Re-Crucified: Why Are So Many Afraid of Naturalism?” Free Inquiry (Spring 1998), 17.)”

No! That’s sheer nonsense, too, because it oversteps the bounds of its own definition. A true scientific attitude would say that matter can be subjected to scientific scrutiny, but not that all reality whatsoever comes under the umbrella of science. For to make such a claim is “meta-scientific.” To make a claim about science is necessarily to step outside of science in order to do it. Science cannot prove by its own method that it is the only way to arrive at knowledge (this would be, of course, logically circular, or “begging the question”). Assumptions are already brought to the table.

What’s so bad about that? In this light, your assertion that science is “simple” makes little sense to me. It’s good that “Science, in turn, rules out (by definition) explanations involving non-material elements or aspects,” because they have no observable effects whatsoever.

Spirits can have plenty of observable effects. That’s what we claim miracles and fulfilled prophecies are.

When you assert that science is dogmatic, you look, at least to me, like a fool or a charlatan caught in the act. I do not wish to believe you are, yet it’s difficult not to, especially when coupled with your tone.

Great. Go in peace, then. Clearly, you are unwilling or unable, or both, to go in this conversation to the place where it is necessary to go for me to demonstrate beyond doubt what I am saying. You don’t have the slightest clue what I am arguing (which is truly amazing, since I have laid it all out and it isn’t rocket science or calculus). You’ll keep caricaturing, insulting, and misunderstanding.

If Benny (or any other atheist) can read these comments and grasp what I am saying, and wants to pursue the discussion, fine. But my patience for having my thoughts warped and twisted in such a way only goes so far (not very far, I’m afraid).

Happy new year again, to you and all here.

* * *


You have had a bone to pick with me since our first encounter. I realize that you have had that on your mind for some time. Now, your ranting is fine in other venues, but when you insult me and go on and on, ranting about atheists and their “unproven axioms”, I can’t help but feel taken advantage of. soulster and I did not want this to occur.

This website isn’t for you: it is to further dialogue, and you are attempting to dampen our chances. You have a problem with me? Visit my website. We can talk there as gentlemen.

. . . Stop trying to pick a fight. Just go with what I said: you claim you have revelation; other religions do too. Science does not have revelation. It is you that inferred that I was talking about “ignorant, gullible, infantile Christian[s], exercising blind faith.” Are you really that self-absorbed that you must think everything in relation to Christianity? There have been thousands of religions claiming the Ultimate Truth, and Christianity is only one of them. All I’m asking is for you to prove it. That is not dogmatic.

Please see the difference between observation and revelation. You claim that you are aware of science and “how it operates”, but I don’t see that you do. Instead, you rant and insult me, give ridiculous “definitions” to science, and continue to claim that science is dogmatic, because science, Dave, is methodological naturalism, and you have this notion that naturalism is dogmatic because it rules out supposed things when we can not observe their effects.

. . . I have never claimed that science is the only possible way to gain knowledge. There may be other ways. But first, you must show me why there are other ways to discover the truth. Demonstrate how we can use supernaturalism to discover the truth.

Just tell me about it, and give it a rest. The rest is hyperbole on your part. If there is a method beyond the empirical, don’t assert it.

You couldn’t care less about what I believe, so why don’t you, in effect, ask Einstein? Don’t waste time with an average Christian like myself! HE managed to believe there was something beyond mere matter. How did he do it?

And you resort to simple appeals to authority? You’ve been around the block before, and you know plenty well that your argument means little. Einstein was a human being. He married his cousin and helped begin the Manhattan Project. He’s also dead. What he believed/disbelieved in the supernatural has no bearing, just as Isaac Newton’s faith had nothing to do with the theory of gravity.

. . . If you don’t tone it down, Dave, I won’t be held responsible for what happens next. soulster [the Christian on the forum] may just tear your heart out, because I am seething. Remember: you represent to many an angry, paranoid Christian personally attacking a mannered atheist, and you have an audience of many. Do not start a flame war; do not insult me.

* * *

Thanks for the New Year’s Eve entertainment!

* * *


It would be entertaining if you’d show us if there are ‘other than empirical facts, say spiritual or transcendent facts.’

———————–

But hey, I thought Christians (and Jews) were supposed to be about the negation of, or complete apathy towards evidence????!!!!!

You might not have heard, but I wrote a small post on that here.

Gideon asks God to dry wool set out overnight as evidence for his existence (Judges 6:36-40).

Isaiah asks God to change the shadow of the sun 10 degrees as evidence for his existence (2 Kings 20:8-11).

Thomas asks to touch Christ’s wounds as evidence for his resurrection (John 20:24-29).

Jesus appears before hundreds as evidence for his resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:5-9, Matthew 28:1-10, Luke 24:13-31, etc.).

If they can test for God’s existence, or see proof, I can too. We don’t have to rely on faith to be a Christian. The sealed box by my bedside is still locked, and I’m still waiting.

* * *


Thomas asks to touch Christ’s wounds as evidence for his resurrection (John 20:24-29).

Right. And at the end of the very passage you cite Jesus says:

Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. (RSV)

The import is clear: Christians have plenty of evidence to go by, yet faith is also required, and the Bible repeatedly says that men know that God exists even if they are not granted an extraordinary miracle to help them believe.

If they can test for God’s existence, or see proof, I can too.

Sure; and then Jesus would respond to you in the same way He responded to Thomas and others. He habitually called us on to a more sublime faith. For instance, in Matthew 12:38-39, Jesus had one of His frequent run-ins with the Pharisees, who requested of Him:

“Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.”

(cf. Matthew 16:1-4, Luke 11:29-30, John 2:18-22; NRSV)

Note that He does implicitly appeal to the sign of His Resurrection, but look how He regards the seeking of signs! (see also Mark 8:11-12).

Signs, wonders, and miracles (that is, in the empirical, outward sense that you and many atheists demand) do not suffice for many hard-hearted people anyway:

. . . If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.

(Luke 16:31)

For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles……For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

(1 Corinthians 1:22-23,25)

We don’t have to rely on faith to be a Christian.

This is not what Jesus would say (as shown). Or are you now deciding the content of the Christian faith, over against the One Who started it? The biblical view is as follows: God may or may not provide evidence of the sort you seek. He may choose to do so on occasion for reasons known only to Him (just as He chooses to do miracles in general only rarely). He also has no problem per se with evidences, observation, testing hypotheses, etc.

But be that as it may, God also requires faith, of everyone. Even if one witnesses a miracle, faith will still be required. So evidence and faith are not set in antithesis against each other, as you seek to do.

Reason and faith are harmonious, and not in conflict with each other but (like science), reason has its limitations and religious faith is more than simply reason. It goes beyond reason without being contrary to it, just like (to use an analogy everyone can grasp) sex is much more than simply biology and nerve endings. If you reduce something down to only one aspect of several, you cheapen and trivialize it.

* * *


I point you to comment #71: are there “other than empirical facts, say spiritual or transcendent facts”? I haven’t heard a peep out of you on this.

I see no faith in Isaiah asking God to change the orbit of the Sun. Isaiah asked for proof and it was given. He did not suffer after asking, even though the Bible explains clearly not to ask. So, we’re either allowed to test, or we’re not. The Bible tells us both, and I’ll go with the former.

You seem to miss the point of the comment: contrary to your assertion “Christians (and Jews) were supposed to be about the negation of, or complete apathy towards evidence????!!!!!”, there are plenty of Christians and Jews in the Bible that love evidence.

If that’s so, I’d love to see it.

Reason and faith are harmonious, and not in conflict with each other but (like science), reason has its limitations and religious faith is more than simply reason.

1. What are the limits to reason?

2. How are reason and faith not in conflict?

3. How are reason and faith harmonious?

* * *


I’m not gonna follow your rabbit trail. That’s simply one more evasive, obscurantist technique from you, so that you don’t have to face your own epistemological music.

It would be quite ridiculous and time-wasting for me to go down your little rabbit trail of 10,000 objections to Christianity when the very discussion in the first place (that I initiated) was the epistemological foundations of atheism.

Apparently, you don’t want to deal with those, so instead you keep trying to change the subject back to your usual relentless attacks on Christianity and hoping I’ll take the bait.

Doesn’t work with me. I don’t play those games. And I can spot them a mile away, from my 25 years of Christian apologetics and dialogues with those holding every kind of belief under the sun.

You’ve already made your stupid insults of me (and by extension many or most Christians, if not all). Do you think trying to change the subject changes that? If you had the courage of your intellectual convictions you would be willing (in fact, happy) to subject them to scrutiny, rather than evading seven different ways and resorting to personal attack.

I thought we had progressed way beyond that after your apology for your conduct when we first met. But here you are back doing it again and making out that I am the one personally attacking.

All I’m doing is testing to see if you can back up what you believe and in the process of showing you that as an atheist you exercise faith in things you can’t prove just as any Christian or any thinker alive or who ever existed, also does.

But you can’t (won’t?) allow that to happen, and so you continually try to change the subject or obfuscate by attacking my intelligence and motivations before it can ever get off the ground.

Keep it up; by all means. This will be on my blog. People will be able to see what is happening, as they always can, because I present both sides and let them make up their own minds.

* * *


Anticipating that you and others of like mind won’t know to what I refer [“stupid insults”]; some examples:

you are actually ignorant of the scientific method.

[after butchering my comments out of context and not even having a clue what I was arguing in the first place]

When you assert that science is dogmatic, you look, at least to me, like a fool or a charlatan caught in the act. I do not wish to believe you are, yet it’s difficult not to, especially when coupled with your tone.

[again, since you utterly misunderstood my statement on science vis-a-vis possible dogmatism, then made a “conclusion” from a distorted falsehood, it makes this remark hilarious as well as notoriously ad hominem]

This website isn’t for you: it is to further dialogue, and you are attempting to dampen our chances.

[How does your being afraid to examine your own first premises have any possible reflection on me and whether or not I truly want to dialogue or not? That’s like saying, “Socrates made people very uncomfortable; therefore he was opposed to the true dialogical spirit and simply wanted to insult people.” It doesn’t follow; it’s not logical. You opted out of the dialogue before it began, so don’t blame me for it.]

You claim that you are aware of science and “how it operates”, but I don’t see that you do. Instead, you rant and insult me, give ridiculous “definitions” to science, . . .

[LOL. Translation: “I don’t have a clue what you are arguing about, so it’s best that I completely caricature it and insult you, and make you out an idiot (in matters of science), and hope that folks won’t notice what I’ve done, so I can cover my own rear end and appear so enlightened while you are a dolt who doesn’t even know what science is.” Or, in more crass terms: “if I throw enough manure against my critic, some of it’ll eventually stick and people will think that I prevailed in the argument”]

Remember: you represent to many an angry, paranoid Christian personally attacking a mannered atheist, . . .

[This is precious; one for the ages. I’m an angry, paranoid SOB because I dare to question atheist first premises and unproven assumptions, and no one can ever do that! That might accomplish a breakthrough of the usual atheist condescension towards Christians! It might be seen that we actually have more in common than many atheists have assumed. That would never do! It’s too radical. It’s too “uppity” on the Christians’ part. We are supposed to know our place and know that we are vastly inferior intellectually to our atheist overlords.

And you are “mannered”? Don’t make me laugh. But why launch the rank insults here documented? Does it give you a charge or something?]

* * *


My argument rests with,

Is there a method discontinuous with that of rational empirical method which will give us conclusions about what exists on earth or heaven, if there be such a place, concerning which all qualified inquirers agree? Tell us about it. (Sidney Hook, The Quest for Being, pp. 173–174.)

If you cannot or unwilling to show that there is a different method than naturalism, then I am at a loss.

. . . I’ll give you one more:

[E]xcept for humans, philosophical naturalists understand nature to be fundamentally mindless and purposeless. . . . Of course, this doesn’t eliminate the possibility of supernatural mind and purpose in nature; the only requirement would be the demonstration of its existence and mechanism, which is up to the supernaturalist to provide. We are still waiting. (Schafersman, “What Is Science?” in “Naturalism Is an Essential Part of Science.”)

And another one for good measure:

In contrasting the Western religions with science, the most important criterion of distinction is that the supernatural or spiritual realm is unknowable in response to human attempts to gain knowledge of it in the same manner that humans gain knowledge of the natural realm (by experience). . . . Given this fiat by the theistic believers, science simply ignores the supernatural as being outside the scope of scientific inquiry. Scientists in effect are saying: “You religious believers set up your postulates as truths, and we take you at your word. By definition, you render your beliefs unassailable and unavailable.” This attitude is not one of surrender, but simply an expression of the logical impossibility of proving the existence of something about which nothing can possibly be known through scientific investigation. (Arthur N. Strahler, Understanding Science: An Introduction to Concepts and Issues, p.3.)

I am still waiting.

1. I answered your questions in comment #59. They were appeals to ridicule, but I answered them anyway, and then asked you questions to clarify what you meant. You did not respond, and instead took time to rant.

2. I then countered your claim that science was ‘dogmatic’, and advanced the notion that naturalistic science, while perhaps ridiculous to you, works.

 3. I pointed to several odd things you said, and commented on them, such as your use of quotes from Dawkins, or using Einstein’s beliefs. You stood your ground, even when I explained that you were making perfect examples of flawed logic.

4. I now stand here, mouth agape, wondering how I have ‘change[d] the subject or obfuscate[d] by attacking my intelligence and motivations before it can ever get off the ground.’

You have lambasted, telling me,

‘You don’t have the slightest clue what I am arguing (which is truly amazing, since I have laid it all out and it isn’t rocket science or calculus). You’ll keep caricaturing, insulting, and misunderstanding.’,

‘Are you really that philosophically naive? I wouldn’t have guessed as much.’,

‘See what I mean? This is so classic it is beyond funny. You prove one of my contentions (pervasive atheist prejudice against theists) 1000 times better than I could myself. Thank you!’,
‘You are a piece of work.’

I made it clear from the beginning that,

When you assert that science is dogmatic, you look, at least to me, like a fool or a charlatan caught in the act.

If you take that to be an insult, than I retract it. You are not a fool. You only look, to me, as I originally stated, like a fool when you assert that science is dogmatic.

* * *

Where to begin (I feel like a mosquito in a nudist colony)?

Having no desire to pursue what I consider (in light of your responses) an absurd, pointless exchange, I’ll confine myself to just a few things that are irresistible.

I don’t have the slightest problem with methodological naturalism in science. In fact, I have consistently advocated it (for at least 25 years) from both creationist and evolutionist Christian outlooks.

I’ve always said that the Christian need not introduce the Bible or God into science; he should just do science like anyone else without involving specifically Christian elements. On the other hand, I have also openly pointed out where scientists overstep their bounds and become dogmatic and start claiming that science rules out God or the supernatural, when it has no business doing so.

What I oppose is, rather, metaphysical naturalism, not methodological. To give an example: Michael Behe does science and then comes to a place where he believes that science is no longer sufficient to explain the origin of something. At that point he will say that God may be a possible explanation. But when he says that he isn’t doing science proper (as I think he would agree). He is acknowledging that the explanation may lie outside of science and scientific inquiry.

He’s being sensible and open-minded; the very opposite of dogmatic and “unscientific.” He doesn’t rule it out. Someone like you does, or comes close to doing so, based on science alone. That’s where the line is crossed.

Secondly, you completely misunderstood my reference to Einstein. It was entirely rhetorical, not any sort of appeal to authority. Nice try. Again, you make out that I am over my head and unacquainted with basic logical fallacies.

You seem to always assume the most ignorant explanation of anything I say that you either don’t like or misunderstand. I get no benefit of the doubt at all. If I say something that you can utilize as fodder for the anti-Christian crusade, then you run with it, with little concern for what I may actually have meant or intended. I cite Einstein and (presto!) it automatically must be the fallacy of appeal to authority (when in fact it was perfectly permissible rhetoric), because that makes me look the stupidest.

If I make statements about science and dogmatism (abracadabra!!!): all of a sudden this obviously proves I don’t have a clue about scientific method at all. Whatever I say is interpreted as if I am as ignorant and clueless as possible. And in both cases, I would say that context made it very clear that I did not believe what you attributed to me. But what do you care about context (at least when it comes to me)? So you ignored that and moved ahead. After I clarify how you did this, you ignored that too. One gets weary of this very quickly.

God forbid you actually ask me to clarify! You’d rather launch into rhetoric designed to make me look as dumb (and as stereotypically “fundamentalist” [which I’ve never been]) as possible in the eyes of the atheists who read the exchange, whom you know will tend to side with you. This is unethical sophistry, as far as I am concerned.

My actual point was that there is such a thing as an atheist who is not a materialist (David Chalmers, whom I mentioned in the same thread or the one next to it, is one such, and I have immense admiration for his intellect and fairmindedness). You asked me how this could be, so I replied rhetorically (paraphrase), “why ask me?; go ask someone like Einstein how this can be.”

It’s clear that discussion between us is futile. Prior to your outbursts tonight I was hoping that we could actually rationally engage and make a new start, but it is clear to me now that this is not the case, and that you are just one of a long line of atheists I have met (not all, by any means) who want to substitute insults and assumed profound ignorance of opponents for true dialogue.

When one thinks their opponent is profoundly ignorant of basic stuff (like, oh, science and logic), dialogue is literally impossible, because the supposedly “ignorant” opponent will continually be underestimated, uncharitably and illogically judged, with asperions cast upon his motivations. All those things kill dialogue. And you have already used these “techniques” against me (all just on this night alone).

I don’t have time for that sort of thing. I’m interested in rational, amiable dialogue and people who are as willing as I am to subject their opinions to close logical and factual scrutiny.

There are still a few atheist venues where I continue to hope (and have good reason to believe) that such a goal can be achieved. I haven’t given up yet. But I rapidly tire of atheists who “argue” as you do and who can’t even figure out what I know and don’t know: stuff that should be assumed (in charity, extending the benefit of the doubt) in conversations from the outset, not questioned when the other is trying to avoid answering hard questions himself.

Logic and science are things where atheists and Christians can have considerable, even massive, common ground. But to see them both used constantly as clubs against the Christian, as if we somehow oppose both and opt for some silly, foolish “blind faith”, is to sabotage conversation from the outset.

You can put me down as you like and make out that the problem here is mine (I’m “angry and paranoid,” etc.), but I confidently predict that if you keep up this modus operandi, you’ll have to look far and wide for truly thoughtful, educated, informed, intellectual-type Christians with whom you can converse. You’ll go through this again and again, and many Christians will not be nearly as restrained as I have been.

And that’s a shame, because I believe you truly do want to engage in those conversations (hence this blog). But you don’t know how to do it in the proper manner. If all you can do is talk to Christians who don’t challenge you, what good is that? If you lose it whenever someone offers a critique that can actually challenge and push the envelope a bit, then that will be your loss. It’ll be counter-productive to your stated goals.

Farewell, happy new year, and best wishes to you and all the good things in life (here and hereafter).

* * *


1. You assert that I said, “you are actually ignorant of the scientific method.”

The full words:

I feel that you are trying to pull the wool over my eyes, or that you are actually ignorant of the scientific method. (Comment #61)

. . . Your definition of science and ‘how it operates’:

“The proper scientific attitude would say, ‘science is about matter; we make no statement about possible non-material reality.’ That is objective and recognizes inherent epistemological limitations.”

The definition of science:

So what is science? I looked for a good definition, and found this one: “Science refers to either: the scientific method – a process for evaluating empirical knowledge; or the organized body of knowledge gained by this process.” There’s usually a bit about methodological naturalism in there somewhere.

Any process that is designed to test the natural world by “evaluating empirical knowledge” and observation is by definition nondogmatic.

* * *


One last thing before I depart:

Do you ever tire of making mincemeat of all context where my statements are concerned? You write:

Your definition of science and ‘how it operates’:

“The proper scientific attitude would say, ‘science is about matter; we make no statement about possible non-material reality.’ That isn’t objective and recognizes inherent epistemological limitations.”

Whew . . . Of course this is not my “definition of science” at all (nor is an “attitude” a “definition”; for heaven’s sake! . . .). I was strictly referring, not to that, but rather, to the lines where science ends, and non-scientific inquiries and fields of knowledge begin, and how the two are related (a far different thing indeed).

In fact, that is not science at all, technically-speaking, but rather, epistemology, part of philosophy proper. It’s meta-science. It’s a complex issue; all the more important to understand statements in their context and in light of a person’s other expressed thoughts. But far be it for you to offer me that courtesy.

As so often in our atrocious “dialogues,” my point was a great deal more nuanced and subtle than you thought. You just didn’t get it. And in so doing, you casually assumed that I was profoundly ignorant when this was not the case at all. If anyone was [ignorant], it was you, by virtue of such abominable treatment of your opponent’s arguments.

* * *


If I am ignorant, as you so claim, then your job is easy: just show me.

If you cannot or unwilling to show that there is a different method to discovering the truth than naturalism, then I am at a loss.

As for Behe and others that resort to a supernatural answer (such as yourself): the supernatural cannot logically exist. [my emphasis]

 A specific event of history in a specific time segment must fall into either (a) divine causation or (b) natural causation. Our logic is as follows: ‘If a divine causation or (b) natural causation. Our logic is as follows: ‘If a [divine, supernatural causation], then not b [natural causation]. If b, then not a.’ To follow with the proposal ‘Both a and b’ is therefore not logically possible. Moreover, one cannot get out of this bind by proposing that God is the sole causative agent of all natural causes, which in turn are the causative agents of the observed event. This ‘First Cause/Secondary Cause’ model, long a standby of the eighteenth-century school of natural theology . . . adds up to 100 percent supernatural creation.

Consider the analogy of cosmic history as an unbroken chain [of causal explanations] made from all possible combinations of two kinds of links, a [supernatural cause, as in religion] and b [natural cause, as in science]. . . . When a theist declares any link in the chain to be an a-link (whereas all the others are b-links), an element of the science set has been replaced by an element of the religion set. When this substitution has been accomplished, the entire ensuing sequence is flawed by that single antecedent event of divine creation and
must be viewed as false science, or pseudoscience. The reason that replacement of a single link changed the character of all ensuing links is that each successor link is dependent upon its predecessor in a cause-effect relationship . . . that divine act can never be detected by the scientist because, by definition, it is a supernatural act. There exists only the claim that such an act occurred, and science cannot deal in such claims. By the same token, science must reject revelation, as a means of obtaining empirical knowledge. (Strahler, Understanding Science, pp. 345–346.)

That may not matter to you. Rhetoric or faith may be more important to you than the truth, but I don’t care. [my emphasis] I answered your questions truthfully, asked you to clarify several points. There is a reason why I had answers to your questions. . . . you did not ask the correct questions to tease out my premises. Perhaps you ‘casually assumed that I was profoundly ignorant when this was not the case at all,’then rode a tangent like a tidal wave.

Why don’t we do two things, since I’m so ignorant of everything:

1. Show me that there is a different method to discovering the truth than naturalism. That should be a simple task, since I “just don’t get it”.

2. Ask me more questions.

* * *


Your divisive actions, and your constant obsession with the ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ of Christianity v. atheism, naturalism, et al., get on my nerves. I do not find you a ‘paranoid, angry’ Christian; after reading your comments, and seeing your behavior, I find you a paranoid, divisive, angry person. I could be wrong, but I think you are projecting an image to others that does a disservice to your argument and your position. People respond to honey, not venom, and if you want to prove me wrong on my judgment, drop the act.

* * *


This paragon of virtue in discussion, this self-described “mannered” atheist, happens to have another blog (entitled [yeah, you guessed it] “Drunken Tune”). What kind of “honey” do we find over there? And why would anyone in their right mind have the slightest suspicion of anti-Christian prejudice on “drunkentune’s” part? You tell me!:

[fil-a-lay-thee-a] n. love of truth.

Ben Cheek [aka. Soulster] and I have decided to start Philaletheia, a website that encourages atheist/Christian dialogue. Each of us began our work by posting a “How to.” We both agreed that instructing Christian and atheist alike on how to give arguments that the other side can stomach can only be for good [i.e. less headaches on both sides].

While there, I’ll be leaving my condescending tone and insular streak behind me: [right; isn’t that patently obvious?] Philaletheia is well-mannered dialogue [yep, no doubt!]; Drunken Tune is insane rants. I’ll cross-post occasionally, but it will be primarily a dialogue between us – anyone that wishes to comment may do so.

(11-17-06) [linked]

And here’s another profound classic:

Everything You Know is Wrong

Sometimes, I feel that there is no way to fight the insanity in the world. Faith in something super-natural or magical makes no sense. These people are blind, content to live in a particular delusion of many due to culture or happenstance. It is the belief that they are somehow special, that the world is different than it is. As Douglas Adams said, “Isn’t it enough to see that the garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”

The idea of a geocentric universe, of a flat earth with the heavens rotating above, of the sun orbiting the earth, of the world created for us, of the universe less than 6,000 years old: these thoughts are just selfish, not noble; moronic, not insightful. Do theists really want more? We have the whole world, and theists aren’t satisfied.

Let them deal with their shit, I say. Let them have their holy war. Yet, can I really live with myself when crimes today are still conducted in the name of a magical being that lives in the sky? Can I really let them deal with the shit they’ve created, sitting aside laughing at the horror, and be content to watch the destruction of humanity unfold? Sometimes I see no way to fight faith – belief despite, or in the face, of evidence – for it is an impossible war. I can only attempt to prevent any case of delusion I can.

. . . [Darwin] was the man willing to give up some of his beliefs to more properly align them with the facts – with the truth. He lost dogma and embraced reality. Is this the way to combat faith?

That is why I chose his likeness. He stands – for me – as a symbol of the scientific method – a desire to learn through observation, testing and intellect – in the face of ignorance and duplicity.

( 11-10-06 )

And don’t forget his posting of this famous blasphemy and so-called “art” (on 11-10-06), as if he is flat-out yearning to publicly prove himself to be a clueless boor, when it comes to matters religious, he posted this comment underneath the blasphemous “art”:

Well, for one thing, it’s pretty easy to hate religion [objectively and unemotionally, and with total rationality, of course, no priejudice at all here!] when you live in America, surrounded by the mentally stunted, the happy fools, the purposefully [nice additional touch] ignorant. Religion breeds mental imbalance in the individual. [yes! we’re all nuts! Whoopeeeeee!]

But more than that, I cannot tolerate any system of belief that advocates faith devoid of reason, denounces inconvenient facts, demands obedience to an imagined authority, places people into ‘in groups’ and ‘out groups’ where no such division exists, and can easily justify any action with a meaningless catchphrase. Religion has all of these, and religionists are proud of it.

And again on 11-12-06:

I swear, at times it feels like I’m surrounded by a country full of intellectually stunted children.

How lonely he must be, being so much smarter and possessing far more wisdom than almost everyone he meets . . . he continues his idiotic and prejudicial ruminations on 11-13-06:

There is no difference between a Christian, a Muslim, and an atheist, other than dietary laws, ignorance, faith, and imaginary friends.

. . . Of course I get “all riled up” at the mention of faith, religion, or god. I find it a mass delusion perpetuated over the ages.

Imagine, if you could, that you were in my shoes, and you lived in a world where people professed faith in a thing that obviously was a figment of their imagination, an imaginary friend held by millions of people that happened to have the same name, namely “Jesus.” [exactly; and our imaginary calendar stems from this imaginary historical figure; also, the Jews wrote negatively (in the Talmud) about this fictional character who somehow created a huge imaginary and unhistorical religious movement that broke away from their own and took some Jews with it. Makes eminent sense to me . . . ]

. . . Imagine that people who give their lives to this bizarre belief are held in high regard, while science is considered mundane, and in some cases, frowned upon because the imaginary friend’s holy book says that science is wrong. [really?! Wow, I musta missed that one . . . learn sumpin’ every day, huh?!]

Imagine that you live in this world, and if someone says the words “faith,” “religion,” or “god,” you scream a little inside, because they’re part of the insanity. [One flew over the cuckoo’s nest, in other words: the lunatics are running the asylum] You want out of this crazy world!

Now, that’s why I wrote that entry, and previous ones like it. God is a delusion, a myth, an imaginary being, just like fairies, the boogeyman and unicorns.

More revealing ravings (and I don’t even cite the blasphemous vulgarities):

I woke up this morning with a clear conscience. The usual hate that runs in circles had moseyed on over to a back alley of my mind, to rest for a while in fitful wimpers. I thought, “Why so much hate towards faith? It’s in no way helping me. I’ll only hurt my body and mind, waste my time and alienate others by hating people I do not know.” I wished that I, and many other atheists, freethinkers, and other wise and understanding people of many beliefs, could stop wasting our time on something so futile – the eventual dismemberment of faith in all its forms. I woke up this morning with a clear conscience, and threw out the notion that the world has a monstrous stormcloud above it, obscuring reality’s warmth from many of the faithful.

[then after citing a lunatic who killed his family in the name of God]

I dare not accept faith as a reasonable lifestyle for anyone. Faith leads only to violent death, pain, subjugation and undeserving guilt, unneeded fear, horrible loss, and the grimmest, most profound misery.

[In comments underneath, drunkenmind does his usual hatchet job on his straw man of what “faith” supposedly is]:

Faith is unsubstantiated belief. Faith is telling yourself something is true, when there is no evidence that it is true, or there is contrary evidence.

(10-24-06)

Pray for this man. Do penance for him (I certainly will). This is one confused, sad, lost soul indeed. When unbelief is this entrenched, only prayer can (as with the demons) dislodge it. I may have my frustrations and self-torturing moments trying to actually reason with a guy like this (and am as disgusted with all his lies and slanders as any Christian reading this), but in the end, one must compassionately view him as a human being who needs God; who needs meaning and purpose in his life.

His self-admitted “hate” will do him no good (like Ebeneezer Scrooge, he will suffer more than anyone else he inflicts with the hatred). He’s clearly been hurt and/or disenchanted. He’s gotten a raw deal somewhere along the line, to become both so bitter and irrational (not to mention blasphemous). It’s good to always keep this in mind when we meet people who live without God, and (in his case) who have a curious need to mock and get furiously angry about that which allegedly doesn’t exist.

Pray. My job as an apologist is to expose the false ideas and the folly, but there is always a man or a woman behind the facade who needs to accept the love and truth of God and His gospel. Most of us will never meet this man or other atheists we come across online, but we can pray that some Christian who can share love and truth with him, will meet him. And we can pray that God will speak to his heart and break down the walls that he has constructed.

 

2017-06-03T11:29:40-04:00

Last updated on: June 3, 2017 at 11:29 am   By

D&J0297 (2)

Dave & Judy Armstrong in February 1997: the month I began my website, Biblical Evidence for Catholicism
*****

I want to thank from the bottom of my heart everyone below who was kind enough to write to me and compliment my work. I am very humbled by this, and thankful for the privilege of playing a small part in spreading the word of the Gospel and the Catholic Church.
Soli Deo Gloria! 

Dave Armstrong

Website of the Year Award (Envoy)

On behalf of Editor Patrick Madrid and the staff of Envoy Magazine, I am very happy to tell you that Biblical Evidence for Catholicism was chosen as the winner of the “Website of the Year” [1998] category and that you were nominated for the “Best New Evangelist” category in the second annual Envoy Awards for Excellence in Evangelization. The other nominees for the “Website of the Year” were Catholic Online, Catholicity and New Advent. The other “Best New Evangelist” nominees were Curtis Martin, Fr. Daniel Gagnon and Robert Sungenis.

. . . we see the importance of recognizing and encouraging those who are truly effective in their efforts to proclaim the Catholic Faith. Nominees are selected and voted upon by the staff and several of our advisors.
 
Thank you, Dave, for the tremendous good you and the Biblical Evidence for Catholicism website have done and are doing for Christ and His Church. All of us at Envoy Magazine love you and support you in our prayers and the work of our apostolate. Please remember us in your prayers.

All the best in Christ,
Matthew Pinto
President (dated 16 March 1999)

Dave: I wish to publicly express my deep appreciation and gratefulness for this award. We all need the encouragement in the battle for the Gospel and the Church, and I am greatly touched by this gesture, from my fellow Catholic apologists at Envoy whom I respect so highly. Thanks so much, and may God abundantly bless your excellent efforts at Envoy. I know I speak for many when I say that your apologetic work is some of the best currently available, and that the graphics and layout make for a very attractive and appealing publication – which in turn can only enhance and render more effective the edifying and informative articles contained therein.

You utterly amaze me! Such good stuff . . . Dave, keep up your effective and eternally valuable apologetic journalism!

Marcus Grodi, 5-2-97
Catholic Apologist; former Presbyterian pastor, story in Surprised by Truth, Director of Coming Home Network, and host of EWTN’s TV Program The Journey Home

You are an inspiration to me. I love your feisty, logical, loyal defense of the Faith. I am very impressed that you have put so much time and personal energy into . . . your wondrous home page, and personal correspondence, too.

Lynn Nordhagen, 8-2-97
Convert from Calvinism, story in Journeys Home (ed. Marcus Grodi; Queenship Pub. Co., 1997), Envoy magazine, and Coming Home Newsletter.

. . . The site contains many excellent articles. He uses the best Catholic sources as well as drawing on good Protestant sources which support the Catholic position . . . We highly recommend this site . . . everything on the site is faithful to the Magisterium.
We highly recommend this site. In our opinion it is one of the best places to visit on the Internet.

  • Fidelity: A
  • Resources: A
  • Implementation: A (Purpose: A; Maintenance: A; Organization: A; Appearance: B)

Peter’s Net Catholic Website & Search: Reviews and Ratings of 8-11-97 and 7-8-98
 
We have selected your site as our Site of the Week. Further, we will include the article you mention [ “How Cardinal Newman Convinced me of the Apostolicity of the Catholic Church” ] on our Catholic Library CD.

Catholic World website, 8-11-97

I’ve been noticing a lot of positive comments from around the country on your apologetics efforts on the Internet. Bravo!

I admire, as ever, your fantastic and penetrating work for Christ and His Church. You can always count on my prayers – please let me count on yours.
Keep up the fantastic work with “Biblical Catholicism.” All of us at Envoy love it and often refer people to it.

Patrick Madrid, 8-12-97 / 6-16-98 / 3-14-99
Catholic Apologist and editor of Envoy magazine, and of the bestseller Surprised by Truth (which includes my conversion story); author of Any Friend of God’s is a Friend of Mine (Basilica Press, 1996)

I have read Surprised by Truth and especially enjoyed the insight and good humor of your own contribution . . . I have bookmarked your website and will keep checking it. It looks like a really good resource.

Alfred J. Freddoso, 8-25-97
Philosophy Department Homepage: http://www.nd.edu/~afreddos University of Notre Dame

I checked out . . . your Web Pages tonight, and all I can say is WOW! . . . What a great job you have done pulling together such wonderful resources!!! Congratulations on a job VERY well done!
 
Fr. Bob McLaughlin, 9-2-97
Archdiocesan Director Newman Apostolate Archdiocese of Philadelphia (Latin Rite)

You have an excellent [G.K. Chesterton] site. Thanks for your good work on behalf of GK Chesterton!

Dale Ahlquist, 9-10-97
President: American Chesterton Society

First I want to thank you so very much for providing the Faithful with such an invaluable resource. I can’t tell you what an inspiration your site and your resources are and what a tremendous help you have been to me in so many different ways.

On occasion, we acknowledge the special excellence of sites that we know our readers and viewers simply must go see, not only for the excellence of the site and layout, but most especially for content. You site is an example of just such a “must-see” that we love to commend to our readership.
 
To that end, though, I wanted to send you our TOP 1% Best Catholic Site award . . . This one is only for the best of the absolute best, and there is no question that yours is indeed the best on the Web for the subject matter.

Michael Shea, 11-3-97
The Immaculate Heart of Mary http://www.immaculateheart.com

I absolutely love your site. I’ve been borrowing info from your tracts and articles for apologetics use for most of this year and felt like I needed to drop you a note to express my gratitude.

Martin Beckman, Catholic Apologist, 12-19-97

You do such good work. Without pride, don’t minimize the gifts God has given you. Your web page is excellent and you are obviously a self-taught man.

Dr. Kenneth Howell, 5-29-98
Former Presbyterian pastor, author of Mary of Nazareth (Queenship Pub. Co., 1998)

[Yours is] my very favorite web site, a veritable treasure-trove of apologetics info, with fascinating articles galore.

Diane Kamer, 6-16-98

Catholic freelance writer; conversion story appeared in Envoy magazine.

I’m sure many people say this but I’ll say it again: God bless you and your family for all the work you put into defending the Faith! Wow! I’m amazed.

Ron Kneusel, Catholic apologist, 6-17-98

In the handout Catholic Web Sites, for her discussion: “How to Be an E-Mail Apostle” at the Defending the Faith Conference at Franciscan University of Steubenville (July 10-12, 1998), Kris (who called me the “King of the Internet” :-), recommended my website and wrote that it was: “strongly recommended by everyone I know.”
 
Kristine Franklin, 7-11-98
Catholic speaker and free-lance writer for periodicals such as Envoy, New Covenant, and Our Sunday Visitor. Kris has written 10 children’s books, including two award-winning novels, Eclipse and Lone Wolf.

An empowered, faithful, educated and technically astute laity is a wonderful phenomenon and Dave Armstrong, a free lance writer and Catholic apologist, is just such a character. His Biblical Evidence for Catholicism pages provide both a good in-depth resource for those seeking to better understand the Catholic Church and a witness to the joy of a life lived in the Truth. The site is designed well for the user, easy to navigate and explore and has a good mix of the dry and the funny. How can a guy go wrong when, at the top of his page, pictures appear of John Henry Cardinal Newman, the rose window from Notre Dame, Paris, and G.K Chesterton with his beloved wife Francine?

David Morrison
Review of my website in New Covenant magazine, August 1998

You have done a VERY great job on your web site. Keep up the excellent work!

Steve Wood, 8-13-98
Prominent pro-life and pro-family activist; convert from Presbyterianism

You have got one heckuva great website – the info. on it is simply overwhelming!

Kelvin Chia, 8-15-98
Lay Catholic Apologist

Your site continues to look good and to be among the most useful.

Mark Brumley, 9-28-98
Catholic Apologist and now President of Ignatius Press

Over the past few weeks, as I prepare for my lectures in Church history, and a further graduate unit in Moral Theology for 1999, I have visited, re-visited, and read/reflected on your pages extensively. May I say, that I have now listed your Site in their study-notes as a “Must-Visit” Site/Pages for my undergraduate and graduate students. Absolutely breathtakingly marvelous!
 
Yuri Koszarycz, 1-19-99
Senior Lecturer in Religion (Ethics) Australian Catholic University http://honey.acu.edu.au/~yuri/index.html

Your site is an amazing fount of faith and knowledge. “Impressed” doesn’t do justice in regards to what I have read at your site.

A soon-to-be convert to the Catholic Church, 10-9-97

You know so much. Your zeal for the faith is evident in your writing. I wish all the “formally” trained people could express (and believe) the way you do. God is obviously doing great things through you.

A Catholic layman, 10-26-97

I am a French Catholic academic . . . I am specially indebted to C. S. Lewis – I wrote my PhD Thesis on him (on the relation of imagination to reality), and translated The Abolition of Man in French . . . thanks for your magnificent page.

Irene Fernandez, convert, 11-5-97

Your web site is one of the very best. I am VERY impressed.

Fr. John Abberton, parish priest of St. Peter’s in Bradford, England, 11-16-97

What a GREAT website you have! . . . I wish that I had known of your site when I was struggling with my faith . . . Thanks again for this tremendous site! I just wanted to drop an “e-mail” line thanking you for your wonderful web page, especially the section having to do with the Orthodox Church, . . . which was a GREAT help. I was going through a SERIOUS crisis concerning the dual claims of both the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church as to being the True Church . . . Thanks again, Dave, you have been such a great help to me.

Catholic layman, 11-97

I am in awe at the worth of material you have gathered and made available . . . This material is a valuable resources for homilies and confirmation classes.

Rev. Deacon Thomas M. Basta, 11-97

Hi, I’m a teenager . . . your site is always a great aid to me. Also, its nice to see such a wealth of information . . . Thanks so much for SUCH a useful tool and for the great background it provides.

Catholic laywoman, 1-14-98

I can’t say enough about the resources you have taken the time to put on the web.

Catholic layman, 1-16-98

I have just finished reading some of the transcripts of your Sola Scriptura discussions posted on your web site. As a left-brain dominant Catholic (math, science, engineering undergrad and law grad)… I probably enjoyed your logical crushing of the Sola Scriptura position more than a good Christian should! You really can tighten an intellectual vice…. I am always impressed by someone who demonstrates superb logic and consistency in a debate.

Catholic layman, 1-20-98

Greatly enjoyed your website. I am a former Protestant minister of 15 years and am now a Catholic . . . Your site has a wealth of truth that helped me in my conversion to Catholicism. Your site, Catholic Answers, John Michael Talbot helped me a lot see “the light”.

Catholic layman and convert, 1-24-98

I just wanted to thank you for your efforts on your web page and in talking to me personally. I . . . will be received into the Church this Easter. Your web site really facilitated much of my research into the Catholic Church. Newman’s Development of Christian Doctrine, which you recommended to me, played a large part too.

Catholic layman and convert, 2-9-98

Thank you (and Almighty God) for providing a most interesting and informative website . . . It gives me great joy to see that people like you are entering Mother Church and defending her. Keep the faith!

Catholic layman, 2-9-98

I just realized how AWESOME [your website] is!!! What a great beacon and pillar you are! . . . I’ve started to read your article on Luther and what I’ve read so far is AWESOME!

Catholic layman and convert, 2-10-98

When I stumbled onto your website, I was thrilled with how complete it is, how well organized, how friendly, how humble, and just how charming it is. Thank you for the wonderful service you are providing for people like me . . . I appreciate very very much what you have done here.

Catholic laywoman, 2-22-98

Let me begin by praising you for all the work you put into letting the truth be known! How proud our Lord must be of this awesome effort. I enjoy immensely the intelligent and rational views of the Catholic Faith . . . Thanks for all the info you lay out there, without forcing your own opinion. It’s like an on-line library.

Catholic layman, 3-3-98

Eternal thanks for your site . . . This site is an immeasurable treasure to me and I will pass it on. Thank you for this most critical work!

Catholic layman, 3-7-98

Wow, this is wonderful work. You are one of the more erudite Catholic apologists I have run into . . . One senses, however, an overarching charity in your approach.

Catholic layman, 3-7-98

What a dynamite web site! . . . I’m very grateful to you for establishing it.

Catholic layman, 3-8-98

You have one of the BEST web pages I have ever visited.

Catholic layman, 3-9-98

Congrats on your wonderful site . . . I plan to make frequent use of the material there in discussions with Protestant and non-believing friends. Thank you for putting it together in such a clear and organised way.

Catholic layman, 3-10-98

Just visited your web site and I just have to tell you that I think it’s wonderful. At times, it can be very disheartening to witness to the truth – especially when it’s Catholics that we have to witness to. It’s web pages like this and people as yourself that give me strength and hope to continue.

Catholic layman, 3-22-98

I am immensely grateful for your web site. It is a veritable treasure of mentally stimulating material for which I give thanks to God for His unspeakable gift in Christ . . . For twelve years I served as a pastor in the Free Methodist Church of North America . . . Thanks be to God for the internet which was and is my path way to a Catholic education. To abbreviate, I will be received into the Catholic Church this Easter vigil . . . Again, Dave, I so deeply appreciate the wealth of material you have provided. I intend to drink deeply at this well.

Catholic layman and convert, 3-24-98

Thank you for your site. I am a cradle Catholic who has been Baptist (SBC) for 10 years. It now seems as if the RCC is more biblical than the Protestant denominations . . . I really didn’t even know there were Catholics out there like you and the folks at Catholic Answers.

Catholic layman and “revert,” 3-24-98

[I am] astounded by the links you have accumulated and shared . . . You have gathered together groups of links that are enormously helpful to me, and I am certain, to many others.

Catholic (?) layman, 3-30-98

I am sending you this message to congratulate you on your most excellent WEB page. I have seen many Catholic Apologetic WEB pages before but yours is most definitely one of the best I’ve seen to date.

Catholic layman, 4-15-98

You have so many marvelous, incredible articles and links on your site – it is great!!!!

Catholic laywoman, 4-16-98

I’m a 16-year old Catholic from Singapore and have been looking around for an ideal Catholic apologetics website and I must say yours is the best! It provided answers to many of my doubts.

Catholic layman, 4-22-98

I just visited your web page and I was astonished at its completeness.

Catholic layman, 4-24-98

Great job you are doing! Your articles are so well written, orthodox Catholic, well researched and ecumenical! Love your bibliographies too.

Catholic layman, 4-27-98

What a wealth of information to study and learn from. And as a “re-vert” to Catholicism, this is something I sorely need.

Catholic laywoman, 4-28-98

Your site . . . is very well done and full of really good information.

Sam Ranelli: Webmaster EWTN Online Services www.ewtn.com, 4-29-98

Your page . . . is just what I needed to communicate Catholic doctrine to a Protestant group . . . in order to communicate to Bible-centered denominations one must know the biblical origins of our beliefs. Thank you for giving me that language.

Catholic layman, 4-29-98

Your web pages are a superb effort . Please accept my warmest congratulations . Maybe in the coming months I will be able to offer the possibility of a mirror site in Spanish for the whole of South America. Warmest greetings from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Prof. Dr. Cesar Augusto Gigena Lamas, 5-1-98

Your web pages . . . [are] A GOLDMINE . . . THANK YOU . . . I spent nine years in the convent and read my Bible every day . . . wish more Catholics did. With all my theological training etc, I am still at a loss when it comes to understanding the differences in Protestant and Catholic versions of the Bible, and the nuances of these differences . . . I feel like I hit the mother lode . . . For months I have been looking for something like this . . . . Now I have somewhere to go to get answers.

Catholic laywoman, 5-11-98

I am amazed at your writing ability. You have a gift Mr. Armstrong, and I am blessed by it . . . As a convert myself, I am really happy to be able to read material from such as yourself. Keep it up, the Church and the world needs you!

Catholic layman, 5-12-98

Just read your text on your conversion as per Cardinal Newman. You did an outstanding job . . . Keep it up . . . it helps people like myself greatly.

Catholic (?) layman, 5-14-98

I live in an area that is predominatly fundamentalist Protestant and find my faith being challenged on an almost daily basis. I am grateful for your site because it has given me many answers backed up by Scripture with which to answer some of the criticisms I receive. Thank you for all your dedicated work to provide us with the “weapons” to be “warriors for our Faith.”

Catholic laywoman, 5-14-98

You have provided us with the best list of links I have ever seen.

Francis X. Brown O.P., 5-19-98

Thank you for your fantastic web page – it’s great. I am a life-long Catholic and finding such enthusiasm is such a help. So many Catholics do not have a true love of the faith . . . hopefully with individuals-like yourself this may turn the tide!!!

Catholic laywoman, 5-20-98

I’ve been to your website and I felt like I found a treasure chest of knowlege about my faith which I can share with my friends, specially, my priest-friends!!!!!!

Catholic laywoman, 5-26-98

Your site scares me – Its like all off a sudden I found my Home Site that someone else had created for me . . . It’s like looking into a spiritual mirror . . . I have placed your site at the top of my “Favorites.”

Catholic Deacon, 5-27-98

Simply a marvelous site that clearly is a labor of love. Just had to share my joy at discovering you.

Catholic (?) layman, 6-21-98

I have been fascinated reading the wealth of information on your superb website! Maybe it’s time the Church adopted lay preachers!

Catholic layman, 6-23-98

Please accept my thanks for your web site. It is an invaluable source of information for me. When I have a question I need to research, your site is the first place I visit.

Catholic (?) layman, 6-25-98

I’ve been very active in promoting your Justification Page in many postings in various EWTN Forums. It is truly outstanding, as are all of the sections of your web pages . . . The information you have on display in all of your categories is really awesome. The fantastic articles you have put together will bring many, many people into the truth of the Catholic faith . . . Thank you for the wonderful work you are doing for the Catholic Church.

Catholic layman, 7-7-98

What a terrific website you have! . . . I’m planning to start a Catholic apologetics program in my parish and your website is one of several I’m sure I’ll be referencing frequently! It’s charitable, professional and full of the “joy of being Catholic” – a wonderful witness.

Catholic laywoman, 7-9-98

Just a brief note to say how much I enjoy your website. It gives me a lot of hours of spiritual and intellectual satisfaction. It’s really nice to see someone who is so appreciative of the Faith and values the deep history and literature available to Catholics . . . it is a pleasure to read your page.

Catholic layman, 7-10-98

This webpage is absolutely and unbelievably terrific!

Catholic (?) laywoman, 7-11-98

While I have viewed many fine Catholic web pages, yours is probably the most comprehensive.

Catholic layman, 7-11-98

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Catholic layman, 8-1-98

I have used your research and study on Catholic doctrines in your website so many times . . . Your research and study have been very useful to me . . . So please accept my heartfelt thanks . . . It is difficult to fathom the appreciation and joy I feel for your hard work, but I do.

Catholic layman, 8-2-98

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Catholic layman and “revert”, 8-10-98

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Catholic laywoman, 8-13-98

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Catholic layman, 8-16-98

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Catholic layman, 8-23-98

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Catholic (?) layman, 8-30-98

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Catholic layman, 9-5-98

I write with great excitement as I peruse and explore your web site. You have done a remarkable job . . . I just wanted to thank you for providing such a wonderful site that provides so much valuable information. Sites such as yours make the Internet the valuable tool that it should be, rather than the thoughtless, valueless, wasteland that it so often is.

Catholic layman, 9-9-98

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Catholic layman, 9-12-98

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Catholic seminarian, 9-15-98

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Catholic (?) laywoman, 9-16-98

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Catholic layman, 9-19-98

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Catholic (?) laywoman, 9-27-98

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Catholic laywoman, 10-3-98

Your site is a continued source of inspiration and is starting to become one of the pillars that holds up my faith.

Catholic layman, 10-6-98

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Catholic laywoman, 10-14-98

[Yours is] one of the best Catholic websites I have seen. It’s been a great blessing for me when I want to read something truly Catholic . . . The site has helped me in talking to Protestants and even non-Christians about the faith.

Catholic layman (considering the priesthood), 10-22-98

Thank you so much for your wonderful website. There is a wealth of information that is useful for me in RCIA, for responding to questions about our Catholic faith, and for my formation in the permanent diaconate. Although I am a cradle Catholic, people like yourself, Scott Hahn, Thomas Howard and Peter Kreeft are truly an inspiration to me. Your love for the Catholic faith fuels and reinforces my love for Christ and His Church. Thank you also for promoting the interfaith dialogue. With God’s help, we will some day all be one.

Catholic layman (soon to be deacon), 10-23-98

I love the John Henry Newman Page and all the treasures that are to be found through it.

Catholic (?) laywoman, 10-27-98

I’ve been browsing around your website … just a quick private note to tell you how much joy your story – and your witness – gives to me . . . I was deeply moved by your story . . .

Catholic layman, 10-27-98

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Catholic laywoman, 10-27-98

I find your site very useful in understanding Christian beliefs and doctrines. The essays in the site are very sophisticated and of high standards.

Catholic (?) layman, 10-29-98

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Catholic layman, 10-29-98

I dropped by and was amazed by your website. You have the most comprehensive collection of links and resources I have ever seen.

Catholic (?) layman, 10-29-98

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Catholic laywoman, 11-3-98

You have a great web site. I use it all the time, including using it for my catechism class that I lead.

Catholic layman, 11-3-98

You have easily one of the top Catholic sites on the internet.

Catholic layman, 11-3-98

Thank you for an excellent respositary of Marian material for study and devotion . . . I am a future student of Mariology (a perspective STD candiate at the University of Dayton’s Marian Institute.

Fr. Robert M. Santry, 11-9-98
Chaplain (Lieutenant Colonel) US Army

Your page is wonderful, very helpful and full of good insights. Also, you seem to be very charitable.

Catholic (?) layman, 12-3-98

I stumbled onto your web site while looking for Catholic apologetics information….wow! What a treasure trove of information. I certainly will be a frequent visitor.

Catholic (?) layman, 12-4-98

I have been a Catholic all my life and I use your site along with another one to teach the Faith to my Protestant girlfriend and her friends. You provide wonderful articles that tackle the tough issues. When they are finally converted and become part of the Body of Christ, I will be able to owe some of the thanks to your site.

Catholic layman, 12-5-98

I want to thank you for your wonderful internet site. It is truly a treasure trove of all kinds of fascinating and salutary information. I particularly enjoy reading your dialogues, which display great erudition and certainly cause one to think (for a lawyer like me, its like being back in law school again!).

Catholic layman, 12-7-98

Congratulations and thanks for such a terrific site! I’m amazed at the depth and variety of links you’ve assembled, and particularly appreciate the excellent and tasteful graphics. The interconnections between Christianity, music, and art are well drawn and nicely brought out in (for example) your discussion of C.S. Lewis and Romanticism . . . Also it has been a real revelation (no pun intended) for me to see the deep roots of Catholic doctrine in Scripture, which Evangelicals converts naturally tend to bring out very well.

Catholic layman, 12-18-98

I am a 25 year-old lay Catholic from Christchurch, New Zealand. I think your website is great, . . . and [it] has contributed to a huge interest that I have now in Catholic apologetics, history and doctrine . . . And best of all, my faith has been strengthened tremendously.

Catholic layman, 12-21-98

You have an outstanding page that is a great source of information. I admire your position on striving to maintain a mutual respect for each other, something that seems in short supply in other forums.

Catholic layman, 12-22-98

Your format is very user-friendly and the abundance of material is impressive. In addition, your apologetic work is excellent . . . Your web site is a Catholic treasure chest . . . You are very gifted and certainly have blessed me.

A Catholic Deacon, 12-26-98

This is just a quick line to say how much I appreciate your work . . . You are teaching me so much more than I learned in four years of theology in seminary.

A Catholic Priest, 12-27-98

I am a big fan of your . . . website. I must have visited your home page 100 times. I cannot imagine how you could have amassed that much information. You do an excellent job of explaining Catholic thought.

Catholic layman, 12-28-98

You have an AWESOME website. You’ve helped me so much this past year. Much of the stuff on your site helped me convert to the Faith as well. You have answered many of my questions and you are a very skilled apologist. Your dialogues are very good and entertaining to read. Overall it is the best site around. Thank you Dave for introducing me through your website to Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman, more of the Church Fathers, and a deeper look at the Faith.

Catholic laywoman, 1-12-99

Dave, this is simply the best and most extensive site I’ve seen! It’s a virtual treasure of Catholic Apologetics. God bless you for providing such a weapon in defense of our faith.

Catholic layman, 1-15-99

In the last couple of months I’ve had the opportunity to witness to some local Jehovah’s Witnesses, help a friend deal with an antagonistic, anti-Catholic co-worker , and assist my wife in learning the biblical basis for the Catholic doctrines regarding the Blessed Virgin Mary. For each question, the first web site I’ve gone to is Biblical Evidence for Catholicism; I consider your site invaluable.

Catholic layman, 1-22-99

I feel greatly in debt to you; you (and your site) were the “good samaritan” that helped me on that road back home. Thanks.

Catholic layman, 1-27-99

Just a short note to thank you for all the info. When I stumbled onto your site, I was amazed. I wish I had time to feast, but when I have that precious moment, late at night, I pull up my start page (yours) and savour one or two articles or nibble here and there. It’s like being at an all-you-can-eat buffet, you don’t know where to begin. I sometimes copy one and leave it on the kitchen table, so my husband has something to read over breakfast or on break at GM. We enjoy reading one each night before we go to bed . . . The more I read, the more I learn, and the more I retain. It’s like law talk, medical jargon, dental (my field) lingo – as I digest each page, I become more fluent in articulating my beliefs to others. Thank you Dave. Thanks from all of us.

Catholic laywoman, 1-29-99

I finally had some free time and I visited your webpage. Incredible! I could spend another year just reading the articles posted . . . Your web page is very similar to the one I have been envisioning to create . . . Your site was very informative and encouraging (especially the personal stuff). I thank God for your ministry.

Catholic layman, 2-2-99

Your site has been a godsend to me. In the past year, I have had numerous online debates with anti-Catholics. My apologetical skills as a defender of Catholicism have improved 100% – due almost entirely to your site. Thanks to the “font of information” which you have there, I can usually find almost anything I need to defend the Church against even the most obscure or bizarre charges . . . I owe a lot to you and your site.

Catholic layman, 2-2-99

Your site is outstanding. Sites like yours are a blessing. I read your chapter in Surprised By Truth some time ago and have admired you since. You have compiled a powerful presentation here and quite a collection of resources. For all your work in this life to teach the truth of our faith, your reward will be great in heaven.

Catholic layman, 2-8-99

I . . . check[ed] out your website . . . I am impressed. Where were you last year when I was needing this??? Thank God I have found the treasure chest at last. I can hardly wait to get into the articles. Thanks in advance for all the input you will have in my faith journey.

Catholic laywoman, 2-14-99

You are doing such a wonderful gob with your much needed web site . . . As soon as I see any of the following names; Karl Keating, Cardinal Newman, Augustine, Aquinas and Chesterton, then I KNOW I have reliable information! It is the cream:) And I thank you! I just wish to congratulate you and give you a little moral support by letting you know that you are included in my regular prayers, and mass intentions, so that you persevere in your good works and EXCELLENT information!

Catholic laywoman, 2-18-99

I really appreciate your network of sites, both internal and external; I have found your personal writings very helpful and extremely useful and insightful. I am utterly amazed that you’re not a theologian by profession. Your piece on Transubstantiation was particularly helpful at a time when I was unable to coherently formulate my belief in the Real Presence to a Protestant friend who vehemently failed to see any truth whatever in the doctrine. Since then, I’ve consulted your page many times for a variety of reasons.

Catholic layman, 2-24-99

I came across your website today for the first time – I found it quite thorough and enjoyable. Your conversion story is like mine in many ways. I wish I had known about your site when I was going through my three-year-long “can the Catholic Church really be true?” phase that every convert from the Evangelical world experiences. During my conversion, I relied heavily on the Akin/Keating/Hahn materials, but found nothing quite so thorough on the web as you present here.

Catholic layman, 2-25-99

You have a great website and the articles on it are absolutely wonderful. My family is Catholic. My brother was attending a Protestant church and he came up with all the Protestant arguments you know so well. My mom was praying and praying.Then I found your site and e-mailed him a whole slew of your writings. Now, he’s arguing against Protestants, not with them. Praise God!

Catholic laywoman, 2-27-99
 
Catholicism is Biblical

There are some key topics that non-believers like to confront Catholic about to prove
that Catholicism is not rooted in the scriptures. Unfortunately, we sometimes feel helpless and downright dumb because we lack adequate information to respond to these objections. “Biblical Evidence for Catholicism” will give you the facts that you
need.

. . . John Henry Cardinal Newman was an outstanding intellectual, an Anglican who
became a Roman Catholic. His writings have influenced many people to turn to
Catholicism. Other such influences are C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and Malcolm
Muggeridge. This site is certainly influenced by thinkers such as these.

The topics discussed here include: papacy and infallibility, purgatory, Mary, the
sacraments, to name just a few. These are the classical topics that seem to differentiate Catholics from other Christian denominations. However, this site’s explanation of these topics is very classy. There are presentations by the author, but other noted Catholic authors supplement this basic information. In addition, there are links to other web sites for an even greater explanation.

This site also goes beyond the typical objections to Catholicism and addresses more
contemporary topics. The author of this page seems to be a strong intellectual. Thus, the author tackles topics such as the occult, worldviews, the Church Fathers, and politics. This last topic was particularly interesting. All of the articles in this section of the web pages seemed to be well thought out. The selection of other authors was also very impressive.

Most of the pages at this web site have some very interesting and unique Christian
art. The artwork alone makes a visit here worthwhile. The unique aspect of “Biblical
Evidence” is the depth of the articles. The contents of these pages are definitely for the intellectual and for the one who wants to go beyond the brief responses found elsewhere. To spend time here will open your eyes to the world of Catholic scholarship.

“Biblical Evidence” is definitely not for the faint hearted or for someone looking for a
quick argument. Go here for some real content. You will discover the world of serious
Catholic scholarship.

Rev. Msgr. Robert H. Aucoin, 3-10-99
Magazine review (http://www.wadhams.edu/aucoin/)

This is the best Catholic website! I am putting a lesson plan together for CCD tomorrow and I found everything that I need.

Catholic layman, 3-13-99

I think the reason I like [your website] so much is because the way you explain things. Some terms are still above my head, but for the most part, I understand what you’re saying. So many times when I look something up in the Catechism, Catholic Encyclopedia, or other theological book, I’m not much better off after having read them. Too many of the terms are words that I am not at all familiar with. It’s like a lay person looking up a drug in the Physician’s Desk Reference!

Catholic laywoman, 3-14-99

I have just discovered you web site and I am astounded at the excellence of the content. You are to be congratulated for such a powerful Apostolate.

Catholic layman, 3-14-99

I just wanted to commend you on a terrific site. Your site is a wonderful launch pad for further exploration of the wonders of our faith. I also wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed your debates with our fellow Christians. Although I am a cradle Catholic, I often feel that converts put us to shame when it comes to understanding the teachings of our faith and being able to defend those same teachings. Because of sites like yours I have a profound and renewed interest in apologetics.

Catholic layman, 3-17-99

I just want to thank you for dedicating so much of your time and energy to giving “an account of our hope” (1 Pet. 3:15). You have clarified many misconceptions and answered numerous questions.

Catholic layman, 3-17-99

I just wish to drop you a note saying how much I appreciate your website. I have been accessing your site several times a week for over a year now and every visit I am enlightened and fortified in my faith. Well done!

Catholic layman (recent convert), 3-27-99

I just wanted to tell you how helpful your site has been for me. As a high school theology teacher, I find that your web site helps me to answer any question that a teenager in this age of skepticism might have . . . I am constantly recommending your site. I feel it is one of the best on the net.

Catholic layman, 3-27-99

Thank God for you. Your insight into these matters of apologetics is phenomenal. You are obviously blessed by God. Please keep up the work that you do.

Catholic layman, 3-29-99

I’m extremely pleased to learn that you’ve won the Website of the Year Award from Envoy Magazine. Congratulations on this outstanding accomplishment! The fantastic work you’ve done has been evident for a long time. Your efforts have touched the lives of people in ways which will reverberate through eternity. And this award will serve as a means for even more people to discover your wonderful web site.

Art Kelly, Catholic Internet Apologist 4-6-99

I really appreciate your site and think that it is marvelous, one of the best I have seen on the web . . . I have also had the opportunity to enter into dialogue (a nice ‘PC’ word!) with some of our Protestant brethren of late and have found your site to be of great assistance in doing some of the groundwork I have to do in order to give a reason for the hope within me.

Catholic layman (considering priesthood?), 4-6-99

I just wanted to thank you for helping to bring about my reception into the Holy Catholic Church. Without your efforts and the wealth of information you’ve made available, I doubt that I would have been received into the Church this past Easter. As a former Protestant, who moved through Anglicanism to Catholicism, I can tell you that every possible question I could conceive of asking, was answered on your website. And as the scales fell from my eyes, I not only knew I must convert, but I longed to do so. Now that my longing has been fulfilled, I again thank you. For the Grace of GOD has worked through you to me, and hopefully it will continue through me, onward. May the Peace of GOD always be with you, and with all those you love.

Catholic layman (recent convert), 4-11-99

Your website is not only a great source of information, but also of spiritual guidance and inspiration . . . Thank you for bolstering my faith. Keep up the great work!

Catholic layman, 4-14-99

I wanted to also thank you for your ministry, . . . on behalf of my husband . . . I was a cradle Catholic who was reconciled to the Church from somewhat fundamental Protestantism last October. I provided him with your website and the Hahns’ book to reassure him about my choice . . . Since I last was in touch with you, the following miracles have happened: Both our former marriages were annulled. My husband attended the most recent RCIA class. He was baptized, confirmed and received his first Communion Easter Vigil. Our marriage was convalidated Easter morning. Your website was of tremendous help to him, both in making this decision and in answering the questions (some challenges, I think) from loved ones and friends who questioned our choices.

Catholic laywoman and recent “revert” (whose husband recently converted), 4-14-99

I’ve just returned from looking at your lighthouse photos, with verses from Holy Scripture – really beautiful, Dave . . . I think you did an admirable job. And ‘killing two birds’ by adding quotes from Scripture made the experience of viewing your photos doubly thought- provoking.

Catholic layman (?), 4-17-99

Your Biblical Evidence site really was one of the most powerful influences of my decision to re-embrace Catholicism and I don’t think I could be grateful enough.

Catholic layman and “revert”, 5-2-99

I congratulate you on the fine job you have done. You have perhaps the finest apologetics page on the Internet.

Catholic (?) layman, 5-12-99

Great site. I visit it often. You have the best apologetic site I’ve seen . . . Cardinal Mohoney says: “The internet is the modern day Sea of Galilee, where Jesus walks, calling Disciples to himself.” Your site makes these words come alive.

Catholic layman, 5-20-99

I have never felt compelled to send an e-mail message to any other website. Sheer gratitude has prompted me to make an exception to this “rule” and drop you a note today. In particular, I wish to express thanks for the apologetical information contained on your site regarding the Eastern Orthodox Church . . . Since we have been so eager to recognize all that is and remains authentic within the separated Eastern Churches, the tendency has been to ignore the remaining differences.

Catholic layman, 5-21-99

I’ve been spending more time on [your website] lately, especially the pages regarding justification and baptismal regeneration. I am in awe of how extensive it is in terms of sources and articles. You are doing a great service for those of us who are converts from Reformed Protestantism and involved in explaining the Faith to our former church members, friends, and relatives.

Catholic layman, 6-10-99

I wrote that note shortly after I got onto your site, and I must say it only got better and better. I forwarded it to several people I know would appreciate it. I thank you for all the work you put into it. It will take a long time for me to get through all the info. you present but I know it will a most pleasant search . . . Of course, the information on the Church was the most valuable (and treasured!) and will bring me back again and again . . . I think Saint Paul would have made a site like yours.

Catholic layman, 6-22-99

I am really at the verge of tears of thanks for your excellent website which has “saved” me before – I probably dropped you a line then, too. I just had what felt like an argument with my very best friend, a lovely Protestant woman, quite an evangelist in her own right, who challenged me on Purgatory and the intercession of the saints. I handled Purgatory fine I think (I’m a convert from Evangelical Protestantism and I can assure you I did LOTS of thinking and reading before converting) but the strain and anguish of dealing with my closest friend’s deep concern that I was in tremendous error, etc, wore me out and I said I really needed to get back to her on the saints . . . I found so much great information, clearly organized and credible, as usual, organized by YOU, and I am referring her to some of these articles which I do feel explain things more clearly than I can in a defensive or emotional state. I am so thankful you have done all this research and work, I also teach RCIA and a Bible study in our parish (much easier for me to work with/concentrate with people who aren’t in a critical mode!) and I know I will be referring so many people here. God bless you!!! I know He will! What a ministry!!!!! From the bottom of my heart, thanks.

Catholic laywoman, 6-27-99

I’m a 17-year old Catholic, and I just wanted to say thank you for your great website! I love it! I’m a convert, and your website has helped me greatly in defending my Catholic beliefs (as well as Christian beliefs in general). I have to say you’re my favorite Catholic apologist. I love how you use so much Scripture and logic in your papers. And one thing I especially like is how you are ecumenical as well! . . . Thank you for your awesome site!

Catholic layman, 6-30-99

As for some students who are spending a summer in Oxford, most of the material we have drawn from the net has been from the links on your page, especially those concerning Newman, Chesterton, and C. S. Lewis. Thanks for propagating our ideas and beliefs through your pages!

Catholic laywoman, 7-1-99

Thank you for a great site. As a cradle Catholic I never understood much of the theology. Thanks in part to your site, . . . I have begun reading theology and have taken an interest in the “intellectual” topics. Your hypothetical and actual discussions are very informative and easy to understand.

Catholic layman, 7-5-99

Your web page (and also Catholic Answers) has really brought me into a new dimension of my faith – the dimension of the mind married to the heart – and I have become my own budding apologist . . . So, I basically just wanted to thank you for your ministry: it is SO IMPORTANT! Catholics need to know what they believe and why! You’re doing a great thing. Please continue to engage in fair, rational, even-handed and above all charitable dialogue with those who oppose you – this truly glorifies God and is witness to the Spirit of Christ at work. Don’t give in to the urge to return insult for insult! I have read too many “apologetic dialogues” that have left me feeling saddened and discouraged because of the baseness of the interaction. Thanks Dave!

Catholic layman, 7-7-99

I spent over an hour romping around your website. Nice, very nice . . . Good stuff. Keep up the great work . . . To be perfectly candid, after seeing your website, I’m really interested in working with you more closely, especially if that would mean harnessing your rather remarkable cyber-talents . . .
I am really excited about the idea of having your web-site linked to the Missionaries of Faith . . . I look forward to staying in touch and working more closely together. Thanks again for the great work you’re doing for Christ and His Church. No matter how long it’s taken, the Lord clearly has you right where He wants you.

Dr. Scott Hahn, personal letters of 8-21-99 and 9-1-99
Dr. Hahn is arguably the preeminent and most well-known Catholic apologist today.

Keep up the good work. I am constantly sending people to your page to find answers for their questions and sources for their search.
Did you know that your website, and rightfully so, was one of the few websites to be listed in the new 2000 Catholic Almanac by Our Sunday Visitor? Thought you’d like to know. It’s on page 578. [It] only has about 40 websites listed. Your is under the category: Catholic Megasites, Directories and Links. It then has your website name and address. Quite impressive, eh?

Steve Ray, 1-24-99 and 1-31-00
Author of “Crossing the Tiber” and “Upon this Rock” (Ignatius Press)
Conferences & Tapes thru St. Joseph Communications

Wow, Dave – the fountain just keeps gushing! You’ll never know this side of
eternity just how many souls have been brought closer to the Kingdom and to the
fullness of the Faith through your efforts. I recommend your website frequently;
thanks for making it possible for me to put folks in touch with so much truth so
easily – all in one place! Just wanted to let you know I appreciate your labors of love . . .
God bless.

Paul Thigpen, 1-31-00
Catholic apologist; story in Surprised by Truth.

Dave, I’ve just started reading your stuff and I think it has pulled me out
of an attraction to “traditionalism”. I didn’t even know there was even a
name for it. However I can now see the disobedience and hypocrisy in that way
of thinking . . . Thank you for your incredibly helpful dialogues.

Catholic layman, 2-1-00

Your website is fantastic. I normally don’t read apologetic writing, but your articles go beyond the usual defensive, parochial style. Your boldness and frankness make for very engaging reading. You don’t regard orthodoxy as something static . . ., but as something dynamic and alive. Because of the high value and original content of your site, I am listing it at my Ressourcement Page, http://ressourcement.aquaetignis.org. This page is devoted to the European spiritual and cultural renewal during the 1930s-1950s (leading up to Vatican II). Thank you for your work in maintaining your Biblical Defense of Catholicism page.

Fred Kaffenberger, 3-1-00

Thank you and God bless you for your splendid witness through your website.
God bless you in your indefatigable labors on behalf of the Faith! Only God
knows how many lives your efforts have touched with the truth. May God
continually bless you and guide you and enable you eventually to give
yourself full-time to this essential ministry. I can hardly imagine how
much more you would do than you now do if you were a full-time apologist!

Fr. Ray Ryland, 3-30-00 and 8-20-99

Catholic apologist, connected with Catholic Answers, The Coming Home Network, and the Franciscan University of Steubenville.

Because yours is probably the best and most comprehensive apologetics page on the web, I have placed it as a featured link on TCR’s front page as “apologetics”. I hope this will help drive even more traffic to your already highly regarded site, and that many will be helped and consoled as a result of contact with your hard work.

Stephen Hand, 4-6-00
Webmaster, Traditional Catholic Reflections & Reports

You have a great site. I cannot tell you enough how much it and your
writings have helped in my journey back into the Catholic Church. I
am a revert, and have been back in the Church for about a year now.

Catholic laywoman, 8-16-00

Thank you for your wonderful site! In brief, I was raised Catholic, but
drifted away when I went to college. But thanks to the many great Catholic
apologetics sites on the WWW, I have returned to the Church as a full member.
Needless to say, the very broad and deep resources on your site played a
major role in getting all this straightened out. So, thanks again for your
help, and I will continue to drink from this marvelous well you have dug.
The important thing is that I add to the chorus you hear from every day
that lets you know just how great a job you are doing so you have the
encouragement to keep going. I really don’t know how you do it. Just keep
doing it!

Catholic layman and “revert”, 8-23-00

I just wanted to take a moment to commend you on your site. I have found it extremely informative and appreciate the way you have presented your arguments, even under the scrutiny of others. I was born and raised Catholic (I am 18 now) but, not until recently (last couple years) have I really striven to understand the teachings of the church. Which, I admit, is/was a poor choice. However, I just wanted to say that your site has made a difference to me. It has helped me with my knowledge of basic theology and helped me fend off attacks from non-Catholic peers. In closing, I just wanted to thank you and tell you how much I have enjoyed and appreciated what you have done with this site; it has been a great help to me.

Catholic layman, 9-2-00

Thanks again for all your help. I found your website about 6 months ago and
have been reading a lot of your writings, which have been instrumental in my
conversion and in my understanding of Catholic doctrine.

Catholic layman (catechumen), 9-9-00

Thanks for the absolute best Catholic apologetics site on the planet! Praise
be to God for the quantity and quality of material you make available through
your site.

Catholic layman, 9-10-00

Let me just say again what a lovely site you’ve created. Way to go!
 
If you want to know, I think you have one of the best sites on the web. It’s so amazingly thorough I’m dazzled (double dazzled, now that I know how much time it takes) at the incredible work you’ve put into it! Way to go! May God continue to bless the work of your hands, friend.

Mark Shea, 10-3-00, 9-3-01
Catholic apologist and author of By What Authority? and other books.

I just want to let you know that I consider your website to be the best Catholic resource on the web. The amount of information you provide is extensive and well arranged making for easy access – I really do appreciate all the time and effort you put into it. A very close friend of mine recently became a Catholic (last Easter in fact). He was previously Youth Minister in a Baptist Church – so his journey to the Catholic Church entailed many questions/study about the Church. Being able to draw on your resources helped me to answer the many questions he had, as well as deepening my own personal understanding of our glorious and holy Catholic faith. For this I would like to thank you deeply.

Catholic layman, 10-9-00

Please know how much I appreciate your Biblical Evidence Site. Undoubtedly a labor of love for Jesus and the Church and it shows. Keep up your fine work. With a sincere promise of a remembrance in my prayers,

Fr. Ron Vierling, 10-17-00
Webmaster of The Internet Padre

Please accept my humble congratulations for your site and your apologetical work concerning the defense of the Faith. It is not a small duty, and such a tremendous work you are [doing], as far as I can judge, proudly, honestly and with the utmost elegance and charity.

Catholic layman, 10-24-00

I was just clicking along looking for good “Catholic” web sites, . . . when I just happened along to yours . . . all I could say is “Oh my God.” What had opened up before my eyes was a mountainful of Catholic information. I couldn’t believe what was before me. I felt like a kid in a candy store staring at all the information there. I thought to myself that this is a one stop shopping store for all the information a Catholic could want. Anyway, I am spending hours researching your web site and I am in seventh heaven. Couldn’t be any happier. After all the Catholic web sites I have gone too, yours is the best, thorough, comprehensive and most informative . . . Yes, when I need some information, I know where I’ll be coming. I will be right here at this site, delving through all the material here and having a ball.

Catholic layman, 12-18-00

I simply wanted to say thanks for the VOLUMINOUS wealth of information on your site . . . Your site was (and is) one of the strongest sources of information for me. This is due in large part to the due diligence you pay to going to the source for information, striving for clarity and adherence toapproved (or should I say “Traditional” or “Orthodox”) materials and theology. What always amazes me on your site is the thoroughness of information. I often have to stop in the middle of an article to follow a link to a new page that teaches me something else that is quite compelling. You do a very good job with your links.

Catholic layman, 1-1-01

I want you to know first of all that your web site is just amazing. You top my list of apologetics sources, right up there with Pat Madrid’s writings (Pope Fiction and Envoy magazine, especially) and Rev. William G. Most . . . Thank you so much for all the work you’ve done putting this site together; you are truly doing the work of God.

Catholic layman (18 years old), 1-11-01

I’m writing this brief note to tell you how impressed I am with your
website, and have been for some time. I find your articles quite lucid and
logically sound, and refer to them often. I only wish I had the
evangelical zeal I once had, which you so clearly demonstrate . . .
I had been very fortunate in the past to encounter in person the major
apologetical luminaries: Thomas Howard, Dr. Scott Hahn, Patrick Madrid, and
I look forward to the day when I can add another “notch to the cord”
someday (meaning you).
 
Franciscan Brother (OFM), 1-21-01

I thank God for the talents he has given you and thus to the Church . . . I live
in Australia and many of my friends, both Catholic and Protestant, make use
of the extensive theological resources you that offer on your website).

Catholic layman (Australia), 1-23-01

Lately, a few relatives of mine who were Catholics and now belong to the Assemblies
of God Church, have been bombarding me with anti-Catholic comments. I was starting to doubt Catholicism & almost converted to “Biblical Christianity.” I’m learning a lot about my Catholic faith through your web site . . . BRAVO !!! You’re providing the church with a great service.

Catholic layman, 1-23-01

I think [your website] is the best one I’ve seen, both for the amount of material available
to someone seeking apologetics, and to the quality of the links. Every time I do a web search for pertinent sites, I always get frustrated and end up returning to your page. I think you’ve done a great job on it, on your own essays, and in acting as a clearing house and one-stop site for essential
information.

Catholic layman, 2-20-01

No one until I stumbled across your site has been able to give the clear, nearly objective answers to questions concerning the Church’s role and accountability in stopping and (sadly) propagating human misery and suffering . . . Either I have been told I am a monster in a Church of humanity’s worst monsters, or I have been given a mantra of “don’t question” . . . I remind you that what you do as an apologist is important, and not in some ivory tower exchange with “The Big Bad Liberals” across the fence. It matters because it reaches and satiates and renews the inquisitive such as myself . . . Thanks again for what you do. It is reaching people, even the young.

Catholic layman (20 years old), 4-29-01

I stumbled upon your website today . . . I truly admire [your] Socratic method of
philosophical discourse . . . I would like to compliment you on the lucidity of your
arguments. They are refreshing, not only scripturally based, but intellectually based, seemingly free of the sentimentalism (although well-intentioned) that bogs down the discussions of most amateur apologists (my mom, my CCD teachers as a child, etc etc.) . . . Its an entirely different [thing] when you can back up the Catholic Church as Truth . . . with a wealth of intellectual, historical and real-world facts, precedents and examples. I look forward to reading your books and delving more into your arguments.

Catholic layman, 7-6-01

. . . how great an influence you and your webpage has been . . . I had been desperately trying to convert my Catholic friends . . . I could generally beat them in argument, but in my fervor to do more and more research I came across your webpage, along with some others. I read just about every single word on your webpage, and, long story short, I was received into the Catholic Church Easter 2000 . . . I really think that your writings were absolutely instramental in my conversion. Your words struck me as utterly logical, and often you frame things in the same way I would if I were making an argument, although often you have a ton more knowledge to back up that reasoning that I have. The only other person I can say had as much influence as you was the Blessed Virgin Mary, but her proseltyzing was more subtle.

Catholic layman (convert), 7-24-01

Your website is excellent. Indeed, I was received into full communion with the Catholic Church this past Easter by Theodore Cardinal McCarrick in large part because of your wonderful apologetic enterprise. Thank you so much.

Catholic layman (convert), 8-13-01

I’ve just started engaging non-Catholics on the Internet . . . As a budding apologist, this is a goldmine. I’m not sure I have enough life in me to read it all, but I’ll try. Thanks for all your efforts.

Catholic layman, 8-19-01

Over the past two years I have been a devoted visitor of your site., I have watched your site grow and grow, and bring more people (like myself) to the Faith. Now you are publishing your book, and winning even more people. I tip my hat to you, sir.

Catholic layman (convert), 9-2-01

I’m a Catholic Contemporary Christian Music artist. Before coming to the
Lord, I co-starred in movies for Paramount, Columbia Pictures, was a lead in
the US National Tour of “Cats” etc… Now I sing for the Lord. I love my
Catholic Church and am very active. But being a Christian contemporary
artist, I find myself forever playing at evangelical organised Christian
music events and TV shows. So it has been helpful to have your apologetics
articles to keep me firm in my faith and calmly respond to the occasional
radical evangelical who can’t understand how any real Christian could be
Catholic. Thanks for your work to keep me safe.

David MacDonald
http://www.DavidMacD.com

Catholic layman, 9-2-01

I belong to a Bible class that is made up of fundamentalists. I’m the only Catholic. You have made my job so much easier with your quality material to dispel the myths and damaging propaganda that is circulating around Christian circles of today about the Catholic Church. I truly did not know the hate for Catholics until I joined this class. Again thanks very much for your hard work and unwaning determination to get the truth out.

Catholic layman (New Zealand), 9-3-01

I wanted to thank you for the enormous work that you’ve done in putting together your website! I have referred many people to it; I call it the “Wal-Mart supercenter” of Catholic apologetics (I hope you don’t mind that analogy). I wanted you to know that your work has been a great aid in my decision to become Catholic (from a Baptist background).

Catholic laywoman (convert), 9-21-01

I just want to commend you on your website. It gives an understandable and excellent explanation of Catholic doctrine.

Catholic laywoman, 10-5-01

I am a Catholic priest in Canada. I want to thank you for your wonderful website. You are a great gift to the Church. You present arguments well, have great insight, and are enthusiastic about defending the faith. It needs defending. We are being attacked by everyone and sadly, for years, we just took it under a misconceived notion of ecumenism and openness to the world. Internally we have suffered tremendous defections and dissent. Now God is sending us great apologists to fight the good fight. I am so glad you have addressed the Orthodox Church’s claims and criticism. No one else does! I have been looking for refutations for years. Your links are also excellent . . . God bless your work. God bless your family. And I’ll be looking forward to the publication of your book.

Catholic priest, 10-13-01

I am a Catholic priest, studying the Biblical sciences at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, now. I have seen your web page, and very often I return back to read the wonderful articles, very well based. Since in my land, in Slovakia, after the fall of communism, an invasion of hundreds of sects, cults and “churches” have come from America, we are not very well prepared to answer to all of these. We even wonder who is who. We are now, after Communism, 73% Catholics (both Latin and Greek), some 10% protestants (Lutherans, Calvinists). Some are very agressive. They enter our parishes, without asking the priest, . . . and then they start to attack our faith . . . Your web page is an excellent means to defend the faith we inherited from Sts. Cyril and Methodius in 863. Dear Dave, I use your articles in the dialogues (even with our Slavic Orthodox, who are under the Patriarchate of Moscow, but at the same time very influenced by the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia) . . . I want to ask you, could you permit me to make the translation of your web page into my Slovak language (possibly as a mirror site)?. My language is intelligible for Czechs and Poles also. It would be a great thing.

Catholic priest, 11-8-01

I am a college student . . . I have decided to join the Catholic Church . . . The materials on your website helped me along immensely, as did your recommendation of Cardinal Newman.

Catholic layman (convert) 11-9-01

Only a simple note to thank you for your website,
which has been of great use to me in my theological
studies, in preparation for the Priesthood. I never
have to worry about the content of any of the essays I
read and quote from (never plagiarise!). Keep up the
good work. Your work, your family and yourself are in
my prayers, and especially in my intentions during the
upcoming Novena to the Immaculate Conception, which
our Order (the Friars Minor Conventual) prays every year.

Franciscan friar and future priest, 11-13-01

Your web page has been the most instrumental cause of my spiritual and apologetical formation and I would not have the knowledge I have now about Christ and His Church if it weren’t for your invaluable works.

Catholic layman, 11-29-01

Your work has aided me a great deal . . . I think your work is phenomenal, and I pray that God helps you in it always. May God bless you and your family, and may He bless your ministry even more than He already has.

Catholic layman, 11-29-01

I have been a regular visitor to your web site for over two years now. I have used it as my primary source on information on Catholicism, and because of it, I am now attending RCIA sessions. I have bought your first book and am waiting for the next to come out. I have found it to be a very useful learning tool.

Catholic layman (recent convert), 11-29-01

I have been inspired by your writings and you have been instrumental in my decision to join the holy Catholic Church . . . I found your website and found many of my own thoughts out in the open…on the net. And it was a great relief. Reading more and more I began to see the truth in the Catholic Church and now I’m coming home…my greatest thanks from the bottom of my heart.

Catholic layman (“revert”), 11-29-01

One of the great blessings in my life has been your website, where I have spent hour upon grace-filled hour. It would be a very great personal loss to find it no longer available.

Catholic laywoman, 12-2-01

I feel like I know you . . . You have brought me back, and by extension, many others with whom I have taught with your information. You have been an instrument of Christ in my life, and I thought you should know.

Catholic layman (“revert”), 12-6-01

Many a time I have begun to type a laudatory missive extolling the virtues of your prose,
your logic, your Christian charity, and, above all, your apologetic mastery. But in fear of
sounding like an adulating sycophant with a propensity towards using polysyllabic words,
which, I assure you, I am :-), I quickly deleted my efforts. However, I must let you know that anytime I have ever needed you, . . . you have been there for me. And now that I have an opportunity to somehow show my gratitude for your work, I am ready to be there for you, albeit nowhere near proportionally, for I could never truly repay my debt for your labors.

Catholic layman, 12-7-01

I regularly visit your web site and it was the first Catholic site that I logged onto and it
remains my favourite. It has exposed to me Catholic apologetics for the first time as a structured,comprehensive, and rational defense of the faith . . . Keep up the good work; it is making a difference.

Catholic layman, 12-8-01

Your website has helped me immensely, and any amount of money could never repay my debt to you. Your writing and exegesis was instrumental in my conversion to the faith (I will be confirmed this Easter!).

Catholic layman (convert), 12-10-01

Your website helped me immensely while I was considering converting to the Church.

Catholic layman (convert), 12-10-01

I am no longer greatly troubled with “Protestant doubts” to my Catholic faith, but that was not always the case. Your website helped me through some pretty tough times, and your well-researched and well-documented papers were always helpful. I used to visit your site several times a day. And, to this day, your site is the link to the world of my heroes C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton.

Catholic layman, 12-12-01

I have recently reverted back to the Catholic church, and much of the intellectual conversion was a direct result of your web pages (of course, we both know that God was involved, too…). I can’t thank you enough for the posting of so many thoughtful papers and interactions that you have made available on your site.

Catholic layman and “revert”, 12-14-01

I just wanted to let you know that partially as a result of your strong witness for His Church, I and my family (wife, who was RC and became an Evangelical before we ever met, and two daughters aged 7 and 10) are going to be received into the Church this Easter, God willing. Her parents, both staunch Catholics from the Emerald Isle, are extremely happy about this as well as many of her relatives who have been praying for us.

Catholic layman (convert), 12-24-01

I have long considered it a terrible case of injustice that you are not a full-time apologist and writer, properly compensated for the fruit of your talents. Your writing is lucid and your thinking is first-class – honest and undeniable. You have a definite gift for making the case for truth plain and easy to see in any argument. On a personal level, your writings were very instrumental in my conversion. When I first felt leanings towards the Church, I came across your web site and was immediately absorbed. It was not long before I became convinced of the Catholic position. Also, your writings were a comfort after my wife and I were broadsided by the modernism and liberalism which plagues the Church today. Later, you helped me work through the controversies over Vatican II. And your web site has been a huge resource and help for me during debates with Protestant friends . . . My family and I have benefited so much from your writing, that it would be criminal for us not to support you.

Catholic layman (convert), 12-26-01

Thank you for your extensive research and work done on behalf of our faith. Your work was instrumental in my reversion from Evangelicalism. Without your website I wouldn’t have had any clear understanding of the differences and errors inherent in Evangelicalism.

Catholic layman and “revert”, 12-28-01

*****

Meta Description: Unsolicited feedback from 1997-2001, regarding the work of Catholic apologist Dave Armstrong.

Meta Keywords: Catholic apologist Dave Armstrong

2025-06-18T10:22:11-04:00

Last updated on: June 18, 2025 at 10:22 am   By

Maxwell

Engraving of the great Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) by G. J. Stodart from a photograph by Fergus of Greenock. Maxwell was a devout Presbyterian, and formulated the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, bringing together for the first time electricity, magnetism, and light as manifestations of the same phenomenon. His discoveries helped usher in the era of modern physics, laying the foundation for such fields as special relativity and quantum mechanics. His contributions to the science are considered by many to be of the same magnitude as those of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

*****

TABLE OF CONTENTS

***

Philosophy

I. GENERAL / EPISTEMOLOGY / PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

II. THE PROBLEM OF EVIL / SUFFERING

III. THE “PROBLEM OF GOOD”

IV. EDUCATION / HOMESCHOOLING

Theistic Arguments

V. THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (BIG BANG, ETC.)

VI. THE TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (DESIGN) 

VII. THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
VIII. MISCELLANEOUS
Science
IX. GALILEO
X. EARLY MODERN SCIENCE AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO RELIGION
XI. PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE / SCIENTIFIC METHOD
XII. BIBLE, CHRISTIANITY, AND SCIENCE ISSUES

XIII. NOAH AND THE FLOOD

XIV. CLIMATE CHANGE / GLOBAL WARMING ISSUE
XV. THE KOOKY FUNDAMENTALIST REVIVAL OF GEOCENTRISM
XVI. MIRACLES 
XVII. CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
*** 
***

PHILOSOPHY 

 
I. GENERAL / EPISTEMOLOGY / PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
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Did Jesus Use “Socratic Method” in His Teaching? [National Catholic Register, 4-29-19]
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Apologetics = Anti-Faith or Absolute “Certainty”? (Or, “Does Christianity Reduce to Mere Philosophy or Rationalism?”) [7-5-20]
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II. THE PROBLEM OF EVIL / SUFFERING
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Problem of Evil: Treatise on the Most Serious Objection (Is God Malevolent, Weak, or Non-Existent Because of the Existence of Evil and Suffering?) [2002]
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The Problem of Evil: Dialogue with an Atheist (vs. “drunken tune”) [10-11-06]
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God, the Natural World and Pain [National Catholic Register, 9-19-20]
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Is God Mostly to Blame for the Holocaust? [National Catholic Register, 5-31-21]
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III. THE “PROBLEM OF GOOD”
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IV. EDUCATION / HOMESCHOOLING
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Homeschooling: Response to Kevin Johnson’s Criticisms [7-12-05]

On Homeschooling & Dilapidated Public Education [1-3-09]  

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THEISTIC ARGUMENTS
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V. THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (BIG BANG, ETC.)
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A Variation of the First Way of Thomas Aquinas (+ Part II / Part III) (Dr. Dennis Bonnette) [1982]

How “Creation” Implies God (Dr. Dennis Bonnette) [1985]

Atheism: the Faith of “Atomism” [8-19-15]

Cosmological Argument for God (Resources) [10-23-15]

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Creation Ex Nihilo is in the Bible [National Catholic Register, 10-1-20]
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VI. THE TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (DESIGN) 
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Quantum Mechanics and the “Upholding” Power of God [National Catholic Register, 11-24-20]
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Star of Bethlehem, Astronomy, Wise Men, & Josephus (Amazing Astronomically Verified Data in Relation to the Journey of the Wise Men  & Jesus’ Birth & Infancy) [12-14-20]
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VII. THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
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VIII. MISCELLANEOUS
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SCIENCE
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IX. GALILEO
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X. EARLY MODERN SCIENCE AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO RELIGION
 
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Astrology: Philip Melanchthon’s Enthusiastic Espousal [5-21-06]

Did St. Thomas Aquinas Accept Astrology? [5-30-06]

16th-17th Century Astronomers Loved Astrology (+ Part Two) [5-25-06]

Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Philip Melanchthon Wax Astronomical and Geocentric, Oppose Copernicus [2-5-09]

Christianity: Crucial to the Origin of Science [8-1-10]

Scientific & Empiricist Church Fathers: To Augustine (d. 430) [2010]

Christian Influence on Science: Master List of Scores of Bibliographical and Internet Resources (Links) [8-4-10]

33 Empiricist Christian Thinkers Before 1000 AD [8-5-10]

23 Catholic Medieval Proto-Scientists: 12th-13th Centuries [2010]

Who Killed Lavoisier: “Father of Chemistry”? [8-13-10]

Christians or Theists Founded 115 Scientific Fields [8-20-10]

John Calvin Assumes a Non-Spherical Earth & Severely Mocks Plato for Believing that the Earth is a Globe [9-4-12]

St. Augustine: Astrology is Absurd [9-4-15]

Catholics & Science #1: Hermann of Reichenau [10-21-15]

Catholics & Science #2: Adelard of Bath [10-21-15]

Science and Christianity (Copious Resources) [11-3-15]

Dialogue with an Agnostic on Catholicism and Science [9-12-16]

A List of 244 Priest-Scientists [Angelo Stagnaro, National Catholic Register, 11-29-16]

A Short List of [152] Lay Catholic Scientists [Angelo Stagnaro, National Catholic Register, 12-30-16]

Science, Logic, & Math Start with Unfalsifiable Axioms [1-6-18]

Seidensticker Folly #44: Historic Christianity & Science [8-29-20]

Exclusive Empirical Epistemology?: Dialogue w Atheist [2-25-19]

Modern Science is Built on a Christian Foundation [National Catholic Register, 5-6-20]

The ‘Enlightenment’ Inquisition Against Great Scientists [National Catholic Register, 5-13-20]

Embarrassing Errors of Historical Science [National Catholic Register, 5-20-20]

Scientism — the Myth of Science as the Sum of Knowledge [National Catholic Register, 5-28-20]

Seidensticker Folly #59: Medieval Hospitals & Medicine [11-3-20]

Seidensticker Folly #60: Anti-Intellectual Medieval Christians? [11-4-20]

Medieval Christian Medicine Was the Forerunner of Modern Medicine [National Catholic Register, 11-13-20]

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XI. PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE / SCIENTIFIC METHOD

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Albert Einstein’s “Cosmic Religion”: In His Own Words [originally 2-17-03; expanded greatly on 8-26-10]
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Flat Earth: Biblical Teaching? (vs. Ed Babinski) [9-17-06]
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Did Darwin Prove Genesis a Fairy Tale? (Dr. Dennis Bonnette) [2007]
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Must Human Evolution Contradict Genesis?  (Dr. Dennis Bonnette) [2007]
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Historicity of Adam and Eve [9-23-11; rev. 1-6-22]
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Modern Biology and Original Sin (+ Part 2) (Dr. Edward Feser) [9-23-11]
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Time to Abandon the Genesis Story? [Dr. Dennis Bonnette, Homiletic and Pastoral Review, 7-10-14]
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Origin of the Human Species (3rd edition, 2014, by Dr. Dennis Bonnette)
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A List of 244 Priest-Scientists (Angelo Stagnaro, National Catholic Register, 11-29-16)
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Reflections on Joshua and “the Sun Stood Still” [National Catholic Register, 10-22-20]
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Quantum Mechanics and the “Upholding” Power of God [National Catholic Register, 11-24-20]
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Dark Energy, Dark Matter and the Light of the World [National Catholic Register, 2-17-21]
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The Theory of Evolution & Catholicism [Ch. 10 of my book, Reflections on Radical Catholic Reactionaries (December 2002; revised in November 2023 for the purpose of the free online version) ] [11-22-23]
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XIII. NOAH AND THE FLOOD

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Old Earth, Flood Geology, Local Flood, & Uniformitarianism (vs. Kevin Rice) [5-25-04; many defunct links removed and new ones added: 5-10-17]

Adam & Eve, Cain, Abel, & Noah: Historical Figures [2-20-08]

Noah’s Flood and Catholicism: Important Basic Facts [8-18-15]

Do Carnivores on the Ark Disprove Christianity? [9-10-15]

New Testament Evidence for Noah’s Existence [National Catholic Register, 3-11-18]

Seidensticker Folly #49: Noah & 2 or 7 Pairs of Animals [9-7-20]

Pearce’s Potshots #36: Noah’s Flood: 40 or 150 Days or Neither? [7-1-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #37: Length of Noah’s Flood Redux [7-2-21]

Local Flood & Atheist Ignorance of Christian Thought [7-2-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #38: Chiasmus & “Redundancy” in Flood Stories (Also, a Summary Statement on Catholics and the Documentary Hypothesis) [7-4-21]

Local Mesopotamian Flood: An Apologia [7-9-21]

Noah’s Flood: Not Anthropologically Universal + Miscellany [10-5-21]

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XIV. CLIMATE CHANGE / GLOBAL WARMING ISSUE
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XV. THE KOOKY FUNDAMENTALIST REVIVAL OF GEOCENTRISM
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(comprehensive website run by David Palm)
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Does the Church Support Robert Sungenis’ Novel Theories? (Jonathan Field) (+ Part Two) [11-8-10, at Internet Archive]
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Geocentrism: Not at All an Infallible Dogma of the Catholic Church (David Palm and “Jordanes”) [11-20-10, at Internet Archive]
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Actress Kate Mulgrew Says she Was Duped Regarding her Narration of the Geocentrist Film, The Principle [Karl Keating article and Facebook discussion and media links, 4-8-14]
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XVI. MIRACLES 
 
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Biblical and Historical Evidences for Raising the Dead [9-24-07; revised for National Catholic Register, 2-8-19]
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My oldest son Paul was healed of serious back and neck problems [You Tube video testimony linked on Facebook, 8-28-18]
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Reflections on Joshua and “the Sun Stood Still” [National Catholic Register, 10-22-20]
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Moses, Science, and Water from Rocks [Catholic365, 11-18-23]
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XVII. CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC 
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[For related reading, see: Atheism, Agnosticism, and Secularism Page]

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Practical Matters:  I run the most comprehensive “one-stop” Catholic apologetics site: rated #1 for Christian sites by leading AI tool, ChatGPT — endorsed by popular Protestant blogger Adrian Warnock. Perhaps some of my 5,000+ free online articles or fifty-six books have helped you (by God’s grace) to decide to become Catholic or to return to the Church, or better understand some doctrines and why we believe them. If you believe my full-time apostolate is worth supporting, please seriously consider a much-needed monthly or one-time financial contribution. “The laborer is worthy of his wages” (1 Tim 5:18, NKJV).
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PayPal donations are the easiest: just send to my email address: [email protected]. Here’s also a second page to get to PayPal. You’ll see the term “Catholic Used Book Service”, which is my old side-business. To learn about the different methods of contributing (including Zelle and 100% tax-deductible donations if desired), see my page: About Catholic Apologist Dave Armstrong / Donation Information.
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You can support my work a great deal in non-financial ways, if you prefer; by subscribing to, commenting on, liking, and sharing videos from my two YouTube channels, Catholic Bible Highlights and Lux Veritatis (featuring documentaries), where I partner with Kenny Burchard (see my own videos), and/or by signing up to receive notice for new articles on this blog. Just type your email address on the sidebar to the right (scroll down quite a bit), where you see, “Sign Me Up!” Thanks a million!
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Last updated on 18 June 2025
***
2025-05-01T12:47:56-04:00

Last updated on: May 1, 2025 at 12:47 pm   By
Stalin2
Portrait of young Joseph Stalin (1878-1953): one of history’s most famous and notorious atheists (I’m not sayin’ all atheists are like him!), from the Stalin Museum in Gori, Georgia. Photo by Adam Jones (6-4-15). He was responsible for some 20 million deaths, according to historian Robert Conquest [Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0 license]
***
FEATURED:
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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I. GENERAL
II. THE PROBLEM OF EVIL 
III. THE “PROBLEM OF GOOD”
IV. AARON ADAIR
V. LIBBY ANNE
VI. “ANTHROTHEIST”
VII. “AXELBEINGCIVIL”
VIII. ED BABINSKI
IX. RICHARD CARRIER
X. NEIL CARTER
XI. STEVE CONIFER
XII. VEXEN CRABTREE
XIII. JON CURRY
XIV. “DAGOODS”
XV. RICHARD DAWKINS [THE GOD DELUSION]
XVI. TED DRANGE
XVII. BART EHRMAN
XVIII. “EPRONOVOST”
XIX. “ERIC”
XX. JD EVELAND
XXI. STEWART JAMES FELKER
XXII. “GRIMLOCK”
XXIII. “GUSBOVONA”
XXIV. “HELENINEDINBURGH”
XXV. ADAM LEE
XXVI. LEX LATA
XXVII. JOHN LOFTUS [DEBUNKING CHRISTIANITY BLOG]
XXVIII. DR. DAVID MADISON
XXIX. JONATHAN M. S. PEARCE
XXX. “PROF MTH” (MITCH) 
XXXI. WARD RICKER
XXXII. DR. JAN SCHREURS
XXXIII. BOB SEIDENSTICKER [CROSS EXAMINED BLOG]
XXXIV. SUSAN STRANDBERG
XXXV. EXTENSIVE COLLECTIONS OF SCHOLARLY LINKS DEALING WITH THE QUESTIONS AND CHALLENGES OF ATHEISTS
XXXVI. CHRISTIANITY, ATHEISM, SCIENCE, AND PHILOSOPHY
XXXVII. ANTI-THEISM AND THE SUB-GROUP OF “ANGRY ATHEISTS”
XXXVIII. MIRACLES
XXXIX. COMMON GROUND / CONCILIATORY APPROACHES 
XL. GOD (ATHEIST OBSESSION WITH THE SUPPOSEDLY NONEXISTENT) 
XLI. ABORTION / ANIMAL RIGHTS 
XLII. SEX, MARRIAGE, AND WOMEN
XLIII. SECULARISM AND SOCIETY
XLIV. “THE BUTCHER AND THE HOG”: THE ATHEIST APPROACH TO THE BIBLE
XLV. ATHEIST “DECONVERSIONS”
XLVI. FAMOUS ATHEISTS (REAL AND IMAGINED) 
***
***
I. GENERAL
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The Class Struggle [cartoon tract; art by Dan Grajek, 1985]
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Silent Night: A “Progressive” and “Enlightened” Reinterpretation [12-10-04; additionally edited for publication at National Catholic Register: 12-21-17]
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Clarifications Regarding My Atheist Reductio Paper (referring to the immediately preceding, vastly misunderstood satirical piece) [8-20-15]
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Dialogue with an Atheist on First Premises (vs. Ben McGrew) [9-17-15]
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Yes, Virginia, Atheists Have a Worldview [National Catholic Register, 3-23-21]
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II. THE PROBLEM OF EVIL  
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Problem of Evil: Treatise on the Most Serious Objection(Is God Malevolent, Weak, or Non-Existent Because of the Existence of Evil and Suffering?) [2002]
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The Problem of Evil: Dialogue with an Atheist (vs. “drunken tune”) [10-11-06]
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God, the Natural World and Pain [National Catholic Register, 9-19-20]
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[see more in the “Problem of Evil” section of my Philosophy & Science web page]
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III. THE “PROBLEM OF GOOD”
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VI. “ANTHROTHEIST”
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VII. “AXELBEINGCIVIL”
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Dialogue w Atheist on the Borders of Science & Theology [1-16-23]
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VIII. ED BABINSKI
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XI. STEVE CONIFER
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XII. VEXEN CRABTREE
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XIV. “DAGOODS”
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XV. RICHARD DAWKINS [THE GOD DELUSION]
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XVI. TED DRANGE
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XVII. BART EHRMAN
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XVIII. “EPRONOVOST”
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XX. JD EVELAND
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XXIII. “GUSBOVONA”
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XXIV. “HELENINEDINBURGH”
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XXV. ADAM LEE
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XXVI. LEX LATA
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XXVII. JOHN LOFTUS [DEBUNKING CHRISTIANITY BLOG]
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XXVIII. DR. DAVID MADISON
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XXIX. JONATHAN M. S. PEARCE
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How Anti-Theist Atheists “Argue” Online (I.e., Insult) (Examples from Pearce’s Blog) [3-18-21]
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XXX. “PROF MTH” (MITCH) 
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XXXI. WARD RICKER
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XXXII. DR. JAN SCHREURS
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Dialogue w Agnostic: Relativist vs. Absolute Morality (vs. Dr. Jan Schreurs) [June 1999]
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Isaac and Abraham’s Agony: Dialogue with Agnostic (vs. Dr. Jan Schreurs) [June 1999]
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XXXIII. BOB SEIDENSTICKER [CROSS EXAMINED BLOG]
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Seidensticker Folly #63: Answer Comfort But Never Armstrong? (ditto for Dr. William Lane Craig) [11-24-20]
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XXXIV. SUSAN STRANDBERG
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XXXV. EXTENSIVE COLLECTIONS OF SCHOLARLY LINKS DEALING WITH THE QUESTIONS AND CHALLENGES OF ATHEISTS 
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XXXVI. CHRISTIANITY, ATHEISM, SCIENCE, AND PHILOSOPHY
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Old Earth, Flood Geology, Local Flood, & Uniformitarianism (vs. Kevin Rice) [5-25-04; many defunct links removed and new ones added: 5-10-17]
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Flat Earth: Biblical Teaching? (vs. Ed Babinski) [9-17-06]
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XXXVII. ANTI-THEISM AND THE SUB-GROUP OF “ANGRY ATHEISTS”
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XXXVIII. MIRACLES
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The Resurrection: Hoax or History? [cartoon tract; art by Dan Grajek, 1985]
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XXXIX. COMMON GROUND / CONCILIATORY APPROACHES 
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Secular Humanism & Christianity: Seeking Common Ground (with Sue Strandberg) [5-25-01]

Are Atheists “Evil”? Multiple Causes of Atheist Disbelief and the Possibility of Salvation [2-17-03]

God is Merciful to All! (Fake “Church Sign” About the Possibility of Atheist Salvation) [Facebook, 12-4-06]

16 Atheists / Agnostics & Me (At a Meeting) [11-24-10]

Should We Ignore Atheists or Charitably Dialogue? [7-21-10 and 1-7-11]

My Enjoyable Dinner with Six Atheist Friends [6-9-15]

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XL. GOD (ATHEIST OBSESSION WITH THE SUPPOSEDLY NONEXISTENT) 
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XLI. ABORTION / ANIMAL RIGHTS 
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XLII. SEX, MARRIAGE, AND WOMEN
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XLIII. SECULARISM AND SOCIETY
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XLIV. “THE BUTCHER AND THE HOG”: THE ATHEIST APPROACH TO THE BIBLE
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[see also related papers in the “Alleged Biblical Contradictions” section of The Bible, Tradition, Canon, & Sola Scriptura Index Page, and under “Bob Seidensticker” above, and my compilation web page of these sorts of articles: Armstrong’s Refutations of Alleged Biblical “Contradictions”]
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Old Earth, Flood Geology, Local Flood, & Uniformitarianism (vs. Kevin Rice) [5-25-04; rev. 5-10-17]
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Flat Earth: Biblical Teaching? (vs. Ed Babinski) [9-17-06]
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Death of Judas: Alleged Bible Contradictions Debunked (vs. Dave Van Allen and Dr. Jim Arvo) [9-27-07]
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Atheist “Refutes” Sermon on the Mount (Or Does He?) [National Catholic Register, 7-23-17]
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Inspired!: 198 Supposed Biblical Contradictions Resolved (free online book) [6-3-23]
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[see also numerous related posts in the “Dr. David Madison” / “Jonathan MS Pearce” / “PROF MTH” / “John Loftus” / “Ward Ricker” / “Vexen Crabtree” sections above, near the top]
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XLV. ATHEIST “DECONVERSIONS”
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XLVI. FAMOUS ATHEISTS (REAL AND IMAGINED) 
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Albert Einstein’s “Cosmic Religion”: In His Own Words [originally 2-17-03; expanded greatly on 8-26-10]
*

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***
*

Practical Matters:  I run the most comprehensive “one-stop” Catholic apologetics site: rated #1 for Christian sites by leading AI tool, ChatGPT — endorsed by popular Protestant blogger Adrian Warnock. Perhaps some of my 5,000+ free online articles or fifty-six books have helped you (by God’s grace) to decide to become Catholic or to return to the Church, or better understand some doctrines and why we believe them. If you believe my full-time apostolate is worth supporting, please seriously consider a much-needed monthly or one-time financial contribution. “The laborer is worthy of his wages” (1 Tim 5:18, NKJV).
*
PayPal donations are the easiest: just send to my email address: [email protected]. Here’s also a second page to get to PayPal. You’ll see the term “Catholic Used Book Service”, which is my old side-business. To learn about the different methods of contributing (including Zelle and 100% tax-deductible donations if desired), see my page: About Catholic Apologist Dave Armstrong / Donation Information.
*
You can support my work a great deal in non-financial ways, if you prefer; by subscribing to, commenting on, liking, and sharing videos from my two YouTube channels, Catholic Bible Highlights and Lux Veritatis (featuring documentaries), where I partner with Kenny Burchard (see my own videos), and/or by signing up to receive notice for new articles on this blog. Just type your email address on the sidebar to the right (scroll down quite a bit), where you see, “Sign Me Up!” Thanks a million!
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*
Last updated on 6 January 2024
***
2025-05-01T11:46:30-04:00

Last updated on: May 1, 2025 at 11:46 am   By
Hell5
 Gila National Forest, New Mexico (May 2012). Photo by Kari Greer [Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0 license]
*****
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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I. Hell and Sheol (Hades) / Damnation & Reprobation / Heretical Annihilationism
II. Universalism / “Hoping All Will be Saved”
III. The Devil (Satan) and Demons
IV. Judgment / Second Coming
V. Last Things (Eschatology) / Prophecies 
VI. Heaven / Souls (Theological Anthropology) / “Soul Sleep” / Resurrection  
VII. Limbo
***
***
  I. Hell and Sheol (Hades) / Damnation & Reprobation / Heretical Annihilationism
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Biblical Evidence for an Eternal Hell [1998]

Jewish and Old Testament Views of Hell and Eternal Punishment [4-14-04]

Dialogue w Agnostic on Basic Differences and Hell [5-17-05]

Replies to Some Skeptical Objections to the Christian Doctrine of Hell (“Religion Is Lies” website) [5-24-06]

Biblical Annihilationism or Universalism? (w Atheist Ted Drange) [9-30-06]

Dialogue w Atheists on Hell & Whether God is Just [12-5-06]

Dialogue on Sheol / Hades (Limbo of the Fathers) and Luke 16 (the Rich Man and Lazarus) with a Baptist (vs. “Grubb”) [2-28-08]

“The Gates of Hell Shall Not Prevail” Against the Church [11-11-08]

Hell: Dialogue with a Philosophy Graduate Student [12-26-08]

Dialogue: Hell & God’s Justice, Part II [1-2-09]

Purgatory is the Waiting Room for Heaven [4-25-09]

Luke 23:43 (Thief on the Cross): “Paradise” = Sheol, Not Heaven, According to Many Reputable Protestant Scholars [5-25-09]

Our Prayers and Souls Ending Up in Heaven or Hell [3-26-14]

Catholic Mystics & Contemplatives on Hell [2014]

Can Hell Actually be Defended? My Shot … [10-7-15]

Atheism & Atheology (Copious Resources, including on hell) [11-5-15]

A Defense of Hell: Philosophical Explanations of its Plausibility, Necessity, and Factuality [12-10-15]

Exchanges with an Atheist on Hell & Skepticism [12-17-15]

Did Jesus Descend to Hell, Sheol, or Paradise After His Death? [National Catholic Register, 4-17-17]

How to Annihilate Three Skeptical Fallacies Regarding Hell [National Catholic Register, 6-10-17]

Lawler vs. Pope Francis #3: The Pope Annihilated Hell? [1-2-18]

Pope Francis, Hell, Phil Lawler, Lies, Damned Lies, . . . [3-30-18]

Hell as a Deterrent: Analogy to Our Legal Systems [10-3-18]

Taylor Marshall’s Whopper: Pope Francis Denies Hellfire? [6-7-19]

Salvation and Eternal Afterlife in the Old Testament [8-31-19]

Salvation and Immortality Are Not Just New Testament Ideas [National Catholic Register, 9-23-19]

Vs. Atheist David Madison #41: God’s a Sadistic Tyrant (Hell)? [12-18-19]

Luke 16 Doesn’t Describe Hell or Purgatory, But Hades [1-16-20]

The Bible Teaches that Hell is Eternal [National Catholic Register, 4-16-20]

Pope Francis’ Satanic, Demonic, & Hellish Views [6-7-21]

Christ’s Descent Into Hades (vs. Francois Turretin) (Biblical and Patristic Support Examined) [9-1-22]

Defense of Immortal, Conscious Souls (vs. Lucas Banzoli): #11 (“Second Death” = “Lake of Fire” = Eternal Torment in Hell. Jesus & Luke Believed in Both Hades and Hell) [11-25-22]

Eternal Hell: 125 Biblical Evidences [12-2-24]

*

II. Universalism / “Hoping All Will be Saved”
***

Dialogue on Hell & the “Possibility” of Universalism [May 2004]

Biblical Annihilationism or Universalism? (w Atheist Ted Drange) [9-30-06]

Did Pope St. John Paul II Teach Universalism? [4-26-11]

Did Julian of Norwich Teach Universalism & Deny Hell? [3-24-14]

Analysis of “Hoping All Will be Saved” / …Hell is Empty” [8-20-15]

Book of Revelation Annihilates Universalism [8-31-15]

Universalism is Annihilated by the Book of Revelation [National Catholic Register, 6-23-19]

Wishing & Desiring For All To Be Saved, Like God Does [1-29-24]

III. The Devil (Satan) and Demons

***

The Stupidity and Idiocy of the Devil (Dialogue) [2-23-97 and 4-10-97]

Unbiblical Antipathy to Miracles & Exorcism (vs. Calvin #53) [12-22-09]

Satan Tempting Jesus as a Proof of His Divinity [2015]

Demonic Possession or Epilepsy? (Bible & Science) [2015]

The Devil’s Stupidity & Vanity [3-4-16]

Screwtape on the Neutralization of Effective Apologetics and Divine Callings (National Catholic Register, 2-5-17) [see also, the original 20% longer Facebook version] [1-25-17]

“Withstand”! Satan Exploits Errors & Falsehood for His Nefarious Ends [3-4-17]

Satan is Highly Intelligent—and an Arrogant Idiot   [National Catholic Register, 11-27-17]

Are We Allowed to Rebuke and/or Mock the Devil? [11-30-17]

Satan Referenced 24 Times in Gaudete et Exsultate [4-9-18]

Christians & the Stupidity of Satan (vs. Insulting Humanist) [11-9-18]

7 Takes on Satan’s Persecutions and the Balanced Christian Life [National Catholic Register, 11-24-18]

Seidensticker Folly #36: Disease, Jesus, Paul, Miracles, & Demons [1-13-20]
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Pope Francis’ Satanic, Demonic, & Hellish Views [6-7-21]

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IV. Judgment / Second Coming

Judgment of Nations: A Collection of Biblical Passages [9-21-01]

Judgment of Nations: Biblical Commentary and Reflections [9-21-01]

Reflections on Judgment and Sufficient Knowledge for Salvation [6-7-02]

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V. Last Things (Eschatology) / Prophecies

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VI. Heaven / Souls (Theological Anthropology) / “Soul Sleep” / Resurrection  
 
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Defense of Immortal, Conscious Souls (vs. Lucas Banzoli) [17-Part Series]:
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VII. Limbo
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*
***
*

Practical Matters:  I run the most comprehensive “one-stop” Catholic apologetics site: rated #1 for Christian sites by leading AI tool, ChatGPT — endorsed by popular Protestant blogger Adrian Warnock. Perhaps some of my 5,000+ free online articles or fifty-six books have helped you (by God’s grace) to decide to become Catholic or to return to the Church, or better understand some doctrines and why we believe them. If you believe my full-time apostolate is worth supporting, please seriously consider a much-needed monthly or one-time financial contribution. “The laborer is worthy of his wages” (1 Tim 5:18, NKJV).
*
PayPal donations are the easiest: just send to my email address: [email protected]. Here’s also a second page to get to PayPal. You’ll see the term “Catholic Used Book Service”, which is my old side-business. To learn about the different methods of contributing (including Zelle and 100% tax-deductible donations if desired), see my page: About Catholic Apologist Dave Armstrong / Donation Information.
*
You can support my work a great deal in non-financial ways, if you prefer; by subscribing to, commenting on, liking, and sharing videos from my two YouTube channels, Catholic Bible Highlights and Lux Veritatis (featuring documentaries), where I partner with Kenny Burchard (see my own videos), and/or by signing up to receive notice for new articles on this blog. Just type your email address on the sidebar to the right (scroll down quite a bit), where you see, “Sign Me Up!” Thanks a million!
*
***
*
Last updated on 17 March 2025
*****
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