I am only pointing out that I have actually “checked it out” pretty thoroughly, and from someone very smart, like you. Rod doesn’t have the academic credentials that you have, but he is one of the smartest and most creative persons I have every known.

It still doesn’t tip the scales for me.

I admit that the “your church raped the truth” was a harsh statement. But if we Protestants are right, and the issue is the most crucial issue of all, life and death, heaven and hell, and adding works as a condition for justification, then “the truth hurts”, is true, right?

On Ignatius’ statement in Syrneans 7:1 – yes, I know about that – but he doesn’t seem to be saying what you and RCC apologists are making him say, in my opinion. (and many other, as Jason Engwer also point out) Ignatius points out that the docetic heretics don’t partake of any Lord’s supper/Eucharist or prayer at all because they don’t believe Jesus had a real physical body in time/space/history.

But we DO have Eucharist/Lord’s supper and prayers to God because we believe He really was the God-man in history/time/space. So, I don’t see how Ignatius’ statement applies to Protestant doctrine who deny transubstantiation.

If we examine ourselves, repent, reconcile, worship, remember what Christ did; and believe in His real time/space/historical death for sin; what advantage/difference/benefit is the RCC view?

Jesus’ flesh . . . “which suffered for our sins and which, in his goodness, the Father raised.” — seems to emphasize the reality of the incarnation, and the celebration of that fact in history is a remembrance of the real physical history of the suffering of the cross and resurrection.

Thanks again for your thoughts; I sincerely mean it.

That should read “fundamental and polemical theology.”

First of all, I notice that you don’t rebut a single thing that Jason and I have said. So, to judge by your own performance, you regard your Catholic faith as indefensible.

Beyond that, your statement is a study in confusion. Whether we, as sinners, can merit our justification before God is a completely different question than providing an intellectual justification for our belief-system. An intellectual justification is not a question of personal merit, much less personal merit in relation to God. That’s hardly the “boasting” which Paul had in mind. Don’t you know the difference? And there’s nothing essentially “boastful” about an intellectual justification.

And if you think that providing an intellectual justification for one’s faith betrays the shallowness of one’s faith, then you condemn the Roman Catholic tradition of formal theology and polemic theology. Likewise, doesn’t Catholicism claim to be superior to evangelicalism? Why are you Roman Catholic rather than Protestant if you deem the two positions to be coequal?

Remember these things, O Jacob,
and Israel, for you are my servant;
I formed you; you are my servant;
O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.
I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud
and your sins like mist;
return to me, for I have redeemed you.
Sing, O heavens, for the LORD has done it;
shout, O depths of the earth;
break forth into singing, O mountains,
O forest, and every tree in it!
For the LORD has redeemed Jacob,
and will be glorified in Israel.

Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer,
who formed you from the womb:
“I am the LORD, who made all things,
who alone stretched out the heavens,
who spread out the earth by myself…

Faith is an empty hand that receives salvation from God. To consider that anything you work for counts as anything in God’s sight, goes far beyond God’s understanding of how He does things.

He doesn’t say anything about second causes here, for example:

I am the LORD, and there is no other. I did not speak in secret,
in a land of darkness;
I did not say to the offspring of Jacob,
‘Seek me in vain.’
I the LORD speak the truth;
I declare what is right.

Assemble yourselves and come;
draw near together,
you survivors of the nations!
They have no knowledge
who carry about their wooden idols,
and keep on praying to a god
that cannot save.
Declare and present your case;
let them take counsel together!
Who told this long ago?
Who declared it of old?
Was it not I, the LORD?
And there is no other god besides me,
a righteous God and a Savior;
there is none besides me.

“Turn to me and be saved,
all the ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other.

Anyone advocating the intercessory nature of the Catholic church, must show where God gave up this prerogative.

Yes, Chesterton:

Chesterton writing about the Church is like someone who has just made his first trip to the post office. Look, it delivers letters for the tiny price of a stamp! You write an address on a label, and they will send it anywhere, literally anywhere you like, across a continent and an ocean, in any weather! The fact that the post office attracts timeservers, or has produced an occasional gun massacre, is only proof of the mystical enthusiasm that the post alone provides! Glorifying the postman beyond what the postman can bear is what you do only if you’re new to mail.

(from The New Yorker)

“If you go back, way back, to Ignatius of Antioch (b. AD 50; died at Rome between AD 98 and 117), you find this church father connecting the heresy of Docetism to the denial of Eucharistic Realism: ‘[They] hold aloof from the Eucharist and from services of prayer, because they refuse to admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins and which, in his goodness, the Father raised. Consequently those who wrangle and dispute God’s gift face death.’ (Smyr 7:1).”

Ignatius could have the meaning you’re claiming, but his language and context are too vague to demonstrate that your position is probable. Earlier in the same letter, Ignatius writes:

“Yea, far be it from me to make any mention of them, until they repent and return to a true belief in Christ’s passion, which is our resurrection.” (5)

Are we to conclude that Ignatius believed that Jesus’ passion (or faith in His passion) is transubstantiated into our resurrection under the appearance of remaining Jesus’ passion (or faith in His passion)? Or that he believed in some sort of Passion Realism that would be similar to the Eucharistic Realism you mention?

The Docetists denied that the eucharist even represents historical, physical flesh and blood, so the most that could be maintained is that an Evangelical denial of a eucharistic presence is somewhat similar to a Docetist’s denial. On the most foundational issue involved, however, the issue of the physicality of the historical Christ and His work, there is no similarity. A Docetist would want to avoid a eucharistic service in any mainstream church today, including churches that hold the memorialist view.

The church fathers held a variety of eucharistic beliefs, and some apparently didn’t believe in a physical presence. Ignatius’ comments are vague enough, in the context he was addressing, to be consistent with all of the mainstream views that would later be expressed by individuals who addressed the subject in more depth. He may have believed in a physical presence in the eucharist, but his comments you’ve quoted wouldn’t lead us to that conclusion.

No, you just wait for the next papal encyclical to see if what you were required to believe the day before is what you’re forbidden to believe the day after.

Lovely, Ken. The good thing, however, is that it is apparently not “one of the most arrogant and unbiblical statements ever uttered in history.”

I’ve not only looked at some of the books you cite, I’ve read scores of others (over a period of over 30 years), far more sophisticated in defending and critiquing your point of view than the popular tracks you list above. And I finally concluded that Catholicism just has a better case. I can’t, of course, give you a detailed account of my reasoning in this venue. But I can tell you that it’s true what Chesterton said, the Catholic Church is bigger on the inside than it is from the outside.

For example, your little comment about transubstantiation and the language with which you decorate it reveals a cast of mind not unlike the one I had when I was a young Protestant Evangelical in my early 20s. It’s something I eventually matured out of, but it’s a harmful thing. For it is driven by deep desire to be right rather than a love of the truth. You, as I once did, get the “money quote” you need to thump the other guy, but you don’t go any further. You have no curiosity, inquisitiveness, or longing to know more. You are, like I once was, defensive, even fearful, of giving the Catholic Church a fair shake, learning about it on its own terms. Now back to the transubstantiation comment. Think about it. “Transubstantiation” is a term of art that in fact has its origin in the Middle Ages after Aristotelan philosophy begins to shape many thinkers in the Church. That is, the term has a philosophical content that helps scholars and theologians to conceptualize and articulate the idea behind it. But does that mean that the idea depends entirely on Aristotle’s philosophy? Luther thought so. But he was wrong. What he did not consider was the Eastern Church, which held to Eucharistic realism but was untouched by Aristotle. It did not use the term transubstantiation, or even offer a philosophical theory as one finds in the West (though some did), but it maintained that the bread and wine became the body and blood of Christ. Then you have to ask yourself this question, Why would the two branches of Christendom hold the same view for so long, even before the onset of Aristotelean thinking? If you go back, way back, to Ignatius of Antioch (b. AD 50; died at Rome between AD 98 and 117), you find this church father connecting the heresy of Docetism to the denial of Eucharistic Realism: “[They] hold aloof from the Eucharist and from services of prayer, because they refuse to admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins and which, in his goodness, the Father raised. Consequently those who wrangle and dispute God’s gift face death.” (Smyr 7:1).

So, here’s my suggestion, from the words of John Paul II: “Be not afraid.”

Ken, slow down. Reread my post. It’s not me. It’s a fictional person that I created to make a point about how people form beliefs. My own reflections are spelled out in greater detail in my book Return to Rome: Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic.

I’ve made the same mistake several times while reading others; so, don’t feel bad. But when you’re reading someone–especially someone who is making a pointed in an extended paragraph–you want to take your time.

So why do you suddenly introduce this disclaimer? Is that a fallback maneuver because you sense you’re losing the argument?”

Yikes Steve. I wrote this right after I dealt with King’s book. It was just a kind word to point out that none of us waits for the next issue of Theology Today or the next OUP catalog to see if its still rational to believe what we believe. For if we did, it would be a horrible and creepy (and thus, unhealthy).

Sheesh! Pour yourself a glass of vino and relax. It’s not the end of the world (unless, of course, you’re a dispensationalist). :-)

25 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

So these are not things that the New Testament writers created. They are the very teachings of Jesus Himself.

I will choose the Scriptures over your objections to God’s Word every time.

Every time.

Dualistic belief systems that believed Jesus was a different God from the OT God and descended from heaven already having his flesh persisted up to the 1500s when they appear to have finally been destroyed by joint persecution by Catholics and Protestants. The true religion of Christ (Chrestos) was never Catholicism but always one of the dualistic sects they were brutally masacring. After all, you shall know them by their works. The works of Jesus Chrestos are not murdering and lying but dying for the truth. Who then was really following Jesus? The Catholic murderers? The Protestant murderers who slaughtered anabaptists and non-trinitarians right and left? Or the persecuted dualists and anabaptists and such as were slaughtered by all you holier than thou only we can understand the Bible types? What good is understanding the Bible when Catholics have littered it with pollution and lies to prop up their system like that Isaiah 7-8 is about Jesus rather than Mahershalalhashbaz or that the OT says “he shall be called a Nazarene” when it doesn’t or that HOSEA 11:1 “when israel was young I loved him and called my son out of egypt” is about Jesus rather than Israel at the Exodus??? The Bible can only be understood if you recogni2 that Marcion was right and that th dualistic sects that the Catholics were constantly brutally murdering on up to the Reformation were the best representatives of the true doctrine of Jesus their was. When you realize that the God of Genocide and hate is not Jesus’ former self but an Enemy he came to defeat, then and only then will you trully come to know Jesus Chrestos.

Wow. Amazing . . . These things tip the scales for you and yet the massive “development” (adding, changing, corrupting) of unbiblical traditions (indulgences, penance instead of repentance; the treasury of merit; mortal sin and venial sin categories; possibility of actually loosing real justification; purgatory; ex opere operato sacerdotal powers just by words in ceremonies; gazing at and kissing and bowing down I front of relics, praying to Mary, rejection of justification by faith alone; Papal power and arrogance; Marian dogmas – PVM, IC, BA, Co-mediator (a clear violation of 1 Timothy 2:5) – all of these unbiblical things should have tipped the scales for Biblical Protestantism, for there is no sound exegesis of Scripture that upholds any of these things.

“It is necessary for all living creatures to be in submission to the Pope for salvation.” Boniface VIII, 1302, Unam Sanctum – This is one of the most arrogant and unbiblical statements ever uttered in history. All of these things are adding to Galatians 2:16; Romans 3:28; Romans 4:1-8; 4:16; 5:1; Acts 13:38-39; Acts 16:31; John 3:16-18; Romans 10:9-10; Romans 1:16-17. This one principle should tip the scales for true believers for Protestantism/Reformation theology every time, since they deal with specific verses and contexts that are addressing the issue about justification and salvation from sin.

Apostolic succession – if those ordained later drift from the apostolic doctrine/deposit; then the physical succession of laying on of hands or being in the same physical city whether it is Rome or Smyrna or Jerusalem or Ephesus – means nothing. Revelation 2:4-5 – “you have left your first love” – “I am coming to you and I will remove your lamp stand, unless you repent”. Galatians 1:6 – “I am amazed that you have so quickly deserted him who called you by His grace”. Historical churches fell away from God by their false doctrine. Physical place does nothing to guarantee that apostolic doctrine will be there in the future.

Athanasius said, “They hold the places (churches, cities, physical ordination by laying on of hands); but you have the faith.” – Festal Letter 29 (my emphasis)

“I know moreover that not only this thing saddens you, but also the fact that while others have obtained the churches by violence, you are meanwhile cast out from your places. For they hold the places, but you the Apostolic Faith. They are, it is true, in the places, but outside of the true Faith; while you are outside the places indeed, but the Faith, within you. Let us consider whether is the greater, the place or the Faith. Clearly the true Faith. Who then has lost more, or who possesses more? He who holds the place, or he who holds the Faith? Good indeed is the place, when the Apostolic Faith is preached there, holy is it if the Holy One dwell there…” Festal Letter 29

If those who are ordained in local churches fail to uphold the apostolic doctrine (which is only found in canonical Scripture), then physical apostolic succession means nothing.

Protestants who hold to the Bible (Scripture alone) as the final authority have more in common with true apostolic succession, the faith of Peter, and “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” than Roman Catholicism does.

That should tip the scales for Biblical Protestantism.

“Eucharistic Realism” – Real presence is more real spiritually, than the idolatrous nature of the transubstantiation doctrine. This was really begun in the 800s by Radbertus and continued to 1215 AD. Roman Catholic sacrifice of the mass / transubstantiation is no only unbiblical, but it also against reason, logic and impossible.

Jesus was standing there in His incarnate body when He said, “this is body”. It obviously, as clear as the noonday sun, did not mean “This is literally my physical body also, even though I am right now in space and time right here with you”; rather, it obviously meant, “This bread represents My body and what I will do for you on the cross”

The importance of avoiding schism – this is important; but the violations of the Roman Catholic Church against the truth of Scripture, on the first two points, are so grievous and massive; that truth tips the scales to favor Protestantism. Unity must be around the truth; and your church has raped the truth. John 17:17 – Thy Word is truth; Ephesians 4:1-16 – unity of the Spirit; unity of the faith – this means that if the RCC is wrong on the gospel, and we believe it is indeed; then the Reformation was not schism, but rather it was commanded by God to stand for the truth and separate out from a false gospel. Galatians 1:8-9

Ancient Patrimony – If you read some good Protestant books on the early church fathers, you may see that the evidence is not so one-sided as many of the new RC apologists today think. I wonder if you read any of these.

Sola Scriptura – edited by Don Kistler
Scripture Alone – R. C. Sproul
Scripture Alone – James White
Holy Scripture: the Ground and Pillar of Our Faith; King and Webster
Disputations on Holy Scripture- Whitaker
William Goode, The Divine Rule of Faith and Practice
George Salmon, The Infallibility of the Church

Justification in Perspective, edited by Bruce L. McCormack, editor

If a person honestly reads and studies these works, the scales would tip for Biblical Protestantism.

All of these together not only tip the scales in favor of Reformation/Protestantism, but break the scales with the weight of truth.

i) Why do you pose a self-defeating question? If you can ask me that question, then I can ask you the same question in return. So what does that move accomplish for you?

Have you settled for mutual skepticism? How does that give anyone a reason to be Roman Catholic rather than Lutheran or Anglican or Presbyterian or Baptist or Anabaptist?

For example, you earlier cited Cardinal Dulles. What if I replied by saying, “How do you know Dulles isn’t mistaken as well?” Surely you don’t think that’s an adequate response.

ii) Moreover, the possibility that so-and-so could be mistaken doesn’t ipso facto create a presumption that he is mistaken, or probably mistaken. And some folks are less likely to be mistaken than others. Benjamin King is a church historian who’s obviously made a specialized study of Newman. His monograph is published by a leading academic press. Is he infallible? No. But if we were to choose between his interpretation and yours, doesn’t he bring more expertise to the subject than you do?

Sure, you can challenge his interpretation. You might even be right. But you’d have to bring some counterevidence to bear. Not simply float the abstract possibility that he might be mistaken.

“One of the things you learn over the years…”

That line might work with one of your 19-year old students at Baylor. But since you’re about one year my junior, that just doesn’t fly.

“If I may offer a pastoral note here, it is really unhealthy to always be worrying about arguments as the woof and warp of your faith and walk with Jesus. Arguments are, of course, important. And I suspect less important than you think.”

Well, that disclaimer is rather duplicitous in this setting, don’t you think? Both you and Bryan are trying, kinda sorta, to argue for Catholicism. To argue against the Evangelical alternative.

So why do you suddenly introduce this disclaimer? Is that a fallback maneuver because you sense you’re losing the argument?

Disclaimers like this simply boomerang on yourself. It looks like you’re trying to preemptively minimize the value of arguments against Catholicism while, however, we’re supposed to take your arguments against evangelicalism (such as they are) far more seriously.

“Parts of the Development are clearly better than others, but in general I think he makes a good case.”

But that’s in tension with your initial appeal to “the first readers” of Scripture, the subapostolic fathers, &c.

As Mozley pointed out in his 19C review of Newman’s essay, if you’re going to invoke primitive tradition to validate Catholic dogma, then the dogma should be more evident upstream, not downstream.

“For example, Steve cites the B. King book, published in 2009. Are we to actually believe that prior to 2009 he was just waiting for the B. King book or something like it in order to not be tempted to cross the Tiber.”

I was merely responding to Beckwith on his own terms. A tu quoque argument. That doesn’t mean I have a dog in that fight one way or the other as far as Newman is concerned.

Eph 2:8For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Now, let’s be clear – our RC friends are saying that justification is at least PARTLY due to works, ie, justification is not by faith alone.
As for this passage, let us note how the ***same*** good works that God has prepared for us to do are the same works that are *NOT* the cause of our salvation. So if the 1st “works” are works of human invention or of the OT Law, then why isn’t the 2nd “works” the same?

Peace,
Rhology

I’m struck with two things: First, you point to how little someone like Jason Engwer knows about Catholicism, but it is interesting to see how little you knew, and how slight your regard, for Protestantism.

Second, if you have concluded that you are not among the elect, I’m inclined to agree with you on that.

“Because ‘justification’ for the Catholic is a state of being and not a commodity to be had, it’s clear you do not understand the Catholic view.”

I wasn’t commenting on that subject, and I left my language vague enough to apply to both concepts. But Evangelicals usually will speak in terms framed by what they consider to be correct. It doesn’t therefore follow that they’re assuming that everybody else agrees with them.

You write:

“As Bryan has pointed out, you are assessing Catholicism with the categories of Protestantism.”

It’s not as though there’s no overlap. And your accusation would carry more weight if it was more than just an assertion.