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I will be improving upon this, Lord willing, as time allows.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I sure hope<\/i> so, because it is a pathetic historical \u201cargument\u201d thus far: wrong and incoherent at every turn.<\/p>\n This book and my friend\u2019s conversion to Rome in 1996 was one of the main reasons I sought to understanding early church history and the early church fathers better, and apologetic answers to the issues that Rod was bringing to me. <\/span><\/p>\n Unfortunately, that understanding has advanced very little these last 18 years. And it won\u2019t<\/i>, as long as the fathers are viewed through the dim, decrepit glass or \u201cfilter\u201d of anti-Catholic bias.<\/p>\n A few months after I returned from the mission field in Turkey, he called me (I think, it was sometime early in 1996 ? I cannot remember exactly) and invited me and my brother to his house. \u00a0 I had just been reading R. C. Sproul\u2019s book, Faith Alone.<\/i> \u00a0 It was a real shock when he announced he was converting to Roman Catholicism. \u00a0We then had 8 years (1996-2004) of informal debates by sometimes 5 hour discussions, lunches, emails, phone calls, etc. \u00a0Then, sometime in 2004, Rod told me he did not want to \u201cdebate\u201d or discuss theology anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n I think we can see why . . .\u00a0 I spent 11 years online trying to debate anti-Catholics (the papers remain up on my Anti-Catholicism page) and finally gave up in 2007, since it was always a completely futile effort. This present effort is strictly an exception to my rule, as explained in Part I. The only redeeming value such exchanges have is for those reading, who may be able to be persuaded to see how very bad and misleading anti-Catholic arguments about the Church fathers are. Once in a blue moon an anti-Catholic is persuaded of the truthfulness of Catholicism. It does<\/i> happen. Scott Hahn was an anti-Catholic. I was not; but I was extremely \u201cpro-Protestant\u201d as the superior option.<\/p>\n I was motivated to find answers, even though I basically knew that Roman Catholicism was wrong; I was seminary trained afterall (smile), and thought I had a fairly good grasp of church history. \u00a0However, 3 courses in church history does not adequately prepare one for these arguments that most Evangelicals had never heard before.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Exactly right.<\/p>\n Rod was using a lot of Cardinal John Henry Newman and his \u201cdevelopment of doctrine hypothesis\u201d and other former Evangelical Protestants like Scott Hahn and similar arguments that other Roman Catholics, both former Evangelicals and cradle Catholics make, like . . . Jimmy Akin, Patrick Madrid, Mitch Pacwa, Robert Sungenis, Tim Staples, Peter Kreeft, Kenneth Howell, the Surprised by Truth<\/i> book series, Karl Keating, Catholic Answers, etc. were making. \u00a0That is what motivated me to find Dr. White\u2019s materials, web-site, and debates (around 1996), and James Swan\u2019s work here, and other good answers by William Webster, David King, Eric Svensen, R. C. Sproul, John Bugay, and Jason Engwer, Steve Hays, and others at Triablogue, Keith Matthison, Turretinfan\u2019s blog, and Michael Kruger\u2019s material on the canon. <\/span><\/p>\n We are what we eat. I\u2019m familiar with all the anti-Catholics listed, excepting Kruger, and have refuted them all, again and again (see them listed under their names on my Anti-Catholicism page). Webster and King, especially, have shown times without number that they don\u2019t have the slightest clue what they\u2019re talking about, when it comes to Church history (i.e., in the conclusions<\/i> they draw). Both men are completely out to sea when attempting to discuss Cardinal Newman and\/or development of doctrine. One can either understand a subject matter or not. They do not<\/i>. To see why<\/i> I believe that (mine is not mere empty rhetoric), read the papers I have written about them. I\u2019ve done the homework. I\u2019ve shown how they distort facts and engage in sophistry and historical obfuscation and obscurantism. Even their own credentialed Protestant historians don\u2019t agree with them.<\/p>\n Oddly enough,. Ken gravitates to the very worst <\/i>historical argumentation from anti-Catholics with an axe to grind. We are what we eat. If this garbage is all that Ken reads on the topic (from his \u201cside\u201d), then he will come out regurgitating the same fallacious arguments. I know from personal experience with Ken, that he keeps repeating the same thing over and over, like a parrot, no matter how many times he is refuted. This is standard anti-Catholic methodology. If roundly refuted, simply assert the same thing again as if nothing had happened. It may impress, say, a six-year-old, but not a conscious, sane adult who actually understands what true dialogue and the burden of proof require<\/i>.<\/p>\n Since that time, there has emerged other Evangelicals converting to Rome, such as the Called to Communion web-site and other folks like Jason Stellman and Frank Beckwith, also making the same basic arguments.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And we see the same desperate, pathetic, utterly fallacious, false \u201carguments\u201d attempted by anti-Catholics against them.<\/p>\n I have waited a long time to publish this, because I never wanted to hurt Rod personally, and, the biggest reason, is that I also felt I really needed to study the issues deeper. \u00a0 I hope anyone and everyone who comments will keep the discussion to the issues and not go ad hominem or bombast on either side. <\/span><\/p>\n I think Ken is a nice guy. He\u2019s probably the nicest anti-Catholic person I\u2019ve met, and truly does refrain from ad hominem<\/i> attacks. He writes mainly on a site whose owner is on record, saying (with a straight face!) that I am a psychotic. Steve Hays has said that I am of \u201cevil character\u201d and Eric Svendsen (since, thankfully departed from the Internet) made a satirical spoof claiming that I am in league with Holocaust deniers<\/a>. \u201cDr.\u201d (???) White has made every insult under the sun about me.<\/p>\n But despite all, hanging around all these slanderers, whom he trusts as legitimate sources for serious theological and historical argument, Ken maintains his gentlemanly demeanor. I greatly appreciate and commend that. It\u2019s his arguments<\/i> that I think are atrocious and terrible. It\u2019s not \u201cpersonal\u201d on my end anymore than it is personal from Ken against Rod (I believe him when he states that).\u00a0 But bearing false witness against fellow Christians (in the doctrinal sense) is a serious offense. That <\/i>is what we object to. Very true, and I commend Ken for saying it. Believe me, I know, having been on the receiving end of such mockery online for 18 years. I think he would see that. I see it. But the arguments<\/i> are absolutely pathetic and weak. That<\/i>\u2018s what I assert, and Rod would agree, no doubt.<\/p>\n Except for baptismal regeneration, none of the dogmas or doctrines that Rome claims were there, were actually there, in the same way that Rome promotes them today. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIn the same way\u201d refers to development of doctrine, which is a huge discussion, and a topic that anti-Catholics to a person misunderstand or don\u2019t understand at all. I have the experience in debate with them to make<\/i> this claim, believe me.<\/p>\n (Baptismal regeneration is the one belief in the early church that seems to be there; but without the ex opere operato RC take on it; but, even then, I sincerely believe that the early comments and interpretions on<\/span> John 3:5<\/a> and<\/span> Titus 3:5<\/a>, and related passages, etc. were wrong on that issue. \u00a0It was a wrong interpretation of the Biblical texts.)<\/span><\/p>\n If Ken can see this<\/i> fact, then it is within the realm of possibility that he can come to see that a host of other<\/i> Catholic doctrines were also present in the fathers. A ray of hope . . . I will see how he argues these things specifically, in Part III. It\u2019s easy to assert<\/i> things; much more difficult to demonstrate<\/i> them.<\/p>\n Hans Burgkmair the Elder (1473-1531),\u00a0The Whore of Babylon; sitting on the seven-headed beast, St John and the angel looking on from a cloud in top right corner.\u00a0From a series of 21 woodcuts of the Apocalypse for Martin Luther\u2019s translation of the New Testament (Augsburg: S. Otmar, 1523)\u00a0[public domain \/\u00a0Wikimedia Commons] *** (4-26-14) *** See\u00a0Part I\u00a0and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2331,"featured_media":3582,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[231,239],"tags":[858,855,2361,240,857,856],"class_list":["post-142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anti-catholicism","category-fathers-of-the-church","tag-four-witnesses","tag-anti-catholic","tag-anti-catholicism","tag-church-fathers","tag-ken-temple","tag-rod-bennett"],"yoast_head":"\n
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\n<\/span>I will delete any comment I think is mocking or bombast or ad hominem or off topic. \u00a0Another reason I have not done this before is that I personally think some on my side are too hot-headed and mocking; and that is not a good witness for Christ.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
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\n<\/i><\/b>As an additional note, I really appreciate what Dr. White has been saying recently on recent Dividing Line programs; \u00a0to some other Reformed folks who go overboard against Arminians and Charismatics and those that are not balanced when dealing with Muslims and Islam. \u00a0We need to both stand for the truth and be godly in our behavior. \u00a0Let that be a warning.\u00a0<\/span>
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\n<\/i><\/b>And let it become a trend<\/i>. But, sadly, I see no sign whatever of that happening. Ken would have to rebuke the folks above publicly and by name, if he thinks it would ever stop or even lessen. But if he did that, he\u2019d quickly become a pariah in his own community and would be outcast. Anti-Catholics don\u2019t police themselves. Ken makes these general condemnations of insults, which is good, but he won\u2019t rebuke specific examples of it by the big shots of anti-Catholicism. So nothing really changes. Glad to see \u201cDr.\u201d [???] White softening a bit about Arminians. Back in 1995, in our postal debate, he claimed that I was never truly a Protestant because I wasn\u2019t a Calvinist.
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\n<\/i><\/b>Please pray for Rod Bennett. \u00a0If and when Rod sees this, I hope he will see my efforts are focused on doctrines and principles and issues, historical facts, and not ad hominem attacks. <\/span><\/p>\n
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\n<\/span>Just because the early church used the words \u201ccatholic\u201d or \u201ceucharist\u201d or \u201ctradition\u201d or \u201cbishop\u201d, etc. does not mean what Rome claims they mean.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n