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Friday, September 21, 2012

Why do Calvinists reject the sufficiency of the Cross?

I am becoming more and more irritated by the double-standards of much of Calvinist theology. One of the more outrageous instances involves the Reformed view of Christ's work on the Cross. I've heard James White make the repeated accusation that Catholics "deny the sufficiency of the Cross," and yet as truth would have it, White and other Reformed have it exactly backwards! In this post I will quote an short article by Calvinist R.C. Sproul advocating for the doctrine of the Imputation of Christ's Active Obedience, which will also show that it is Calvinists who reject the sufficiency of the Cross. Sproul's comments represent the majority of Reformed theologians, so this isn't just his lone opinion. 

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Romans 9 Debate (Concluded)

A Reformed Protestant named Miguel has agreed to a debate on Romans chapter 9.
The Debate Thesis:
Is corporate (as opposed to individual) election the true focus of Romans 9?
I will be affirming; he will be denying.

The debate format is as follows (I will link to the Essays below each week):

Week 1: Opening Essay (Due 9/8)
Affirmative / Negative

Week 2: Rebuttal Essay (Due 9/15)
Affirmative / Negative

Week 3: 5 Cross Examination Questions (Due 9/18)
Affirmative / Negative

Week 3: Answers to Questions (Due 9/22)
Affirmative / Negative

Week 4: Closing Essay (Due 9/29)

If anyone has ideas on the best way to host the Essays, please tell me. I'm using Google Docs, which is kind of annoying, but better than creating a new Blog Post each essay.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

A knock-out blow to Calvinism (Romans 4:6-8)

Anyone following this blog will note my obsession with Romans 4 and imputation (logizomai), particularly in my recent posts (e.g. Here and Here). I've studied and discussed with Calvinists enough to know just where to go for the "knock out punch," and it's at the point where few Calvinists will dare take on my claims. It is my hope that more and more Catholics become aware of these simple arguments, so that they can send a message to the Protestants they know.

Regarding the text in the title of this post, Romans 4:6-8, what has been traditionally considered by Protestants as a knock-out punch to Catholicism will be shown to be just the opposite. This post will consist in a formalized restating of what I presented (and stunned silent) a Calvinist on a post I made at the Called to Communion blog. The following are 4 reasons why Romans 4:6-8 (quoting Psalm 32:1-2) soundly demolishes Calvinism:
(1) Paul says a Justification took place in the prayer David made when composing Psalm 32. Since David is not converting to Judaism at that time, it can only mean he lost his justification through grave sin (adultery and murder) and was repenting to become Justified again. In fact Luther himself taught David lost his salvation: “[W]hen holy men, still having and feeling original sin, also daily repenting of and striving with it, happen to fall into manifest sins, as David into adultery, murder, and blasphemy, that then faith and the Holy Ghost has departed from them” (Smalcald Articles #43). This irrefutably contradicts the Calvinist idea that Justification cannot be lost. 
(2) The text of Ps 32:2b says “in who’s spirit there is no deceit,” which means an inner sanctification took place at that moment as well. Some might object that Paul didn't quote the rest of Psalm 32, including this stanza, and thus he didn't mean to include 32b in his lesson in Romans 4. But if that is true, it means Paul selectively quoted David out of context (which nobody believes). This conforms to David’s description of being forgiven elsewhere, such as being “upright of heart” (32:11) and “wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin … purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” (51:2,7). It is plain that Psalm 32 and 51 go together, especially since there cannot be two forms of God's forgiveness. This description of what Justification entails, namely an inner sanctification of the soul, is precisely what Catholics teach but completely unacceptable for Calvinists because they think it would be conflating Justification and Sanctification (though Paul never makes this distinction that Calvinists teach). 
(3) When David says “blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not reckon his sin,” this can only mean God will not reckon him a sinner because his sins have been forgiven, as the context clearly speaks of forgiveness (32:1). The term “reckon” here puts the Calvinist in another serious bind, since it’s the same Greek term Paul uses throughout the chapter when speaking of “reckoning righteousness”. The Greek term (logizomai) cannot mean “to transfer,” since it would then mean “Blessed is the man whom God will NOT transfer his sin” – and thus the term “reckon” can only mean to ‘evaluate as’. This means that when Paul speaks of faith being “reckoned as righteousness” (in the very same context), he cannot be speaking of transferring an alien righteousness, but rather must mean ‘evaluating faith itself as having a righteous quality’. 
(4) In Romans 4:6-8, Paul equates the phrase “reckoning righteousness” with David's phrase of “not reckoning sin”. In other words, rather than being two different reckonings, they are one and the same, simply from two different perspectives. For example, if I clean a stain off my shirt, I can just as easily "reckon cleanliness" to my shirt as I can "not reckon a stain" on it, since both phrases refer to the same reality. This realization is huge and explicitly refutes the Calvinist notion of double-imputation, where not reckoning sin (i.e. forgiving) is seen as one half of the equation, bringing the sinner from a "-1" to a "0" state, and reckoning righteousness (i.e. transferring a perfect obedience to God's law to his record) is seen as the other 'half' of Justification, bringing the sinner the rest of the way from a "0" to a "+1" state. Given Paul's equating of the two, it’s impossible to say “reckon righteousness” is one half of the picture and “not reckon sin” is the other half, since they are synonyms here. To buttress this point, Luther and Calvin made this same claim, namely that Paul is teaching the two phrases are synonymous, which is also why they didn’t believe in the Active Obedience of Christ

Monday, August 27, 2012

7 Reasons to reject Sabbatarianism (Seventh Day Sabbath Keeping)

Sabbatarianism is the movement within Christianity that teaches the Seventh Day of the week (Saturday) is the day of rest, dedicated to the worship of God, and that to disregard this teaching is an abomination. It's strongest appeal is that the Ten Commandments seem to plainly teach that man is to "Keep the Sabbath Day holy," in which the Third Commandment states, "six days you shall labor, but the seventh day is the Sabbath". Though historically in the minority, Sabbatarians (especially the Seventh Day Adventists) have been very vocal and quite often very anti-Catholic. The reason for this is because they (rightly) realize that to boldly disregard one of the Ten Commandments is a grave error, and since the Catholic Church has been very strongly promoting Sunday worship then this can only mean the Catholic Church is some sort of anti-Christ movement set out to "hide" the Ten Commandments from mankind. Since the number 7 is the theme of this post, I will give seven reasons why Christians should reject Sabbatarianism.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

The third most important passage in Protestantism (2 Corinthians 5:21)

I cannot count the number of times I have seen a Protestant appeal to 2nd Corinthians 5:21 in support of their view of Imputation. In fact, they quote it so often and place so much emphasis on it that I consider it the 3rd most important passage in all of Protestantism, behind Romans 4:5 (which I wrote about here). In 2 Corinthians 5:21, Protestants see encapsulated the epitome of salvation: the doctrine of Double Imputation. In this post, I will show that the Protestant understanding of this text is totally erroneous, and just how desperately they will latch onto such verses to support the heresy of Sola Fide.

Monday, August 6, 2012

The second most important passage in Protestantism (Romans 4:5)

Following closely behind 2nd Timothy 3:16-17 (which I address here), the second most important passage of Scripture for Protestants is Romans 4:5, especially the part that says God "justifies the ungodly". In the Protestant mind, Paul's chief concern in life is how a holy God is able to declare an unrighteous person to be righteous, without violating His justice. This mindset first originated with Luther, who struggled to explain and understand how he, being a rotten sinner, could stand before an all-holy God and yet be found acceptable. The "solution" to this dilemma is what Luther and Protestants think is the heart of the Gospel: that God formulated an ingenious legal scheme, through Jesus Christ, which made it possible for God to declare the unrighteous person to be righteous and thus justify them, all without violating his holiness, justice, and integrity. This mentality has taken over the minds of most Protestants throughout history, and is perpetuated through the mistaken appeal to Romans 4:5.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Sorta-Scriptura or Sola-Scriptura?

Those who follow this blog (and my comments) know that I am a huge fan of Biblical exegesis, that is making apologetics arguments from properly interpreting Scriptural texts. Everyone is well aware that Protestants like to parade around holding up the Bible as if it is their trusted book for guiding their paths, but over the years I have come to see how utterly false and deluded this attitude is. In reality, it is just the opposite: Catholics are the ones who base their teachings from Scripture, while Protestants do not. And any Truth in Protestantism was already considered Truth in Catholicism, so it follows that any uniquely Protestant doctrines are unscriptural by this very fact. Since Protestants do not follow Scripture alone but rather traditions of men, Catholics need to start insisting the term "Sola-Scriptura" is inaccurate and rather opt for the more correct slogan: "Sorta-Scriptura". I say this for the same reason that Catholics should stop granting Protestants the use of the term "Reformation" when in reality what happened was a DEformation. St Francis de Sales (patron of this Blog) was even in the regular habit of calling Luther and Calvin "Pretend Reformers," because they didn't do any genuine reforming at all.

What does Sorta-Scriptura mean? It means Protestants "sort-of" follow Scripture. Throughout Protestant history they have had good insights to various texts when defending traditional Catholic teachings, so this should not be discounted. In those situations, Protestants are following Scripture. But when it comes to unique Protestant teachings (including Sola Scriptura itself), most Catholics have no idea just how embarrassingly shallow the Protestant proof-texts are. Take the widespread doctrine of The Rapture as one prime example: the chief Protestant proof-text is 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17, which they claim teaches that Jesus will "take up" (Rapture) all true Christians just prior to the Great Tribulation in order spare them the suffering it will entail. Yet this passage indicates no such thing, instead it is plainly talking about the very end of the world, when Jesus returns and separates the Sheep from the Goats to judge them (Matthew 25:31-46). Can you believe that millions of American Protestants (including many with Ph.D.'s) actually believe in the Rapture and think that there is all this great Biblical proof for it? Or take another example, the Reformed teaching that Christ, in our place, kept all the commandments we were required to keep: their chief proof-text is Romans 5:19, yet the "obedience" mentioned here says nothing about keeping the commandments for us. Rather, when the Bible uses the term "obedience" in reference to Christ, it is referring to Christ's sacrificial "obedience unto death" for us (Phil 2:8; Heb 5:8).

Other examples of significant Protestant doctrines being built on the most laughable of "Biblical foundations" are: the Baptist notion that Baptism is purely symbolic; the Anglican idea that the King of England holds a supreme leadership position in God's Church; the Lutherans name their church after Luther and give Luther a Popish status; the Seventh-Day Adventists say Ellen White is a prophetess and that Jesus judged the world in the year 1844; the Salvation Army rejects the Sacraments of Baptism & Communion; and the Pentecostals believe speaking in tongues is a ordinary rather than an extraordinary gift. The list could go on, but you get the idea.

The problem, in a nutshell, is this: Protestantism is not built on Divine Revelation, but rather on traditions of men, and so the Protestant mind first embraces the tradition of men and only then proceeds to "find" Biblical support for it. Catholics would do well to remind other Catholics and Protestants that Catholicism is the only Biblical religion while Protestants reject and denigrate the full teaching of Scripture. The Bible is a Catholic book, and the Catholics who know their Bible can easily trounce any Protestant of any denomination.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

1 Corinthians 15:44-50, a Jehovah's Witness favorite

Jehovah's Witnesses (JWs) love 1 Corinthians 15 because they think it teaches that Jesus was resurrected as an angelic “spirit-creature” (St Michael the Archangel, to be exact, but that's another story) rather than being resurrected as a human with His same body. Most don't realize it, but the JWs deny the bodily resurrection of Jesus, which is a cornerstone of the Christian faith. Instead, JWs teach human bodies cannot go to heaven, only “spirit type” creatures, like angels, can go to heaven. So when the Bible speaks of Jesus being resurrected, the JW will say they agree, but that's because they've tampered with the definition of “resurrect”. To add insult to injury, they teach there are two types of resurrection, one type as a spirit-creature reserved for Jesus and 144,000 faithful witnesses, and a second type as a bodily resurrection for regular faithful Witnesses and all those billions of people who never heard about the Gospel. The reason why they teach this dual resurrection is to support their other twisted doctrines, for example their denial of an immortal soul. The unsuspecting Christian should be on the lookout for this, because the key proof-text the JWs use can scandalize the unsuspecting Christian. That text is from 1 Corinthians 15:44-50, which will now be examined.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

The Five Patriarchs (Pentarchy) - Separating Fact from Fiction

It is often argued by the Eastern Orthodox that rather than there being a Papacy in the early Church, there was a Pentarchy, consisting of the co-equal leadership of the Church by the Five Patriarchates: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. From this the Eastern Orthodox argue that Rome "fell away" from the orthodoxy of other Four Patriarchs, demonstrating that Rome is the odd-man-out and clearly in the wrong. Obviously only one of these can be correct, as they are two mutually exclusive forms of ecclesiology. The focus of this post will show that the Eastern Orthodox concept is false, and from this refute the idea that Rome is effectively 'out voted' 4-to-1 by the other Patriarchs. I will be presenting two definitive blows to Eastern Orthodox ecclesiology in this matter.

Friday, June 15, 2012

My biggest work on Imputation/Logizomai. Protestantism is in trouble.

I cannot believe I forgot to alert readers about Devin Rose hosting a long article on Imputation/Logizomai that I worked very hard on. You can read it HERE. The article consists of basically two parts, a Biblical look at imputation and a look at what Protestant pastors and scholars say about imputation. People will be shocked to see what they say.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Southern Baptist Professor tells how the books of the New Testament were chosen.

Protestants are an interesting bunch. On one hand, they radically distrust Church history, on the other hand they rush to appeal to Church history when it suits their needs. This is especially true for Baptists, who stand alone against 99% of all Christians (Lutheranism, Calvinism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Catholicism) on the issue of infant Baptism, which means history is an extremely unreliable guide in the Baptist mind. Confirming this, Baptist John Piper wrote an astonishing article last year on how Christians today are on a more sure foundation doctrinally because we have the complete Bible, where as the early Christians did not. Just a few days ago, a Baptist professor named Timothy Jones wrote an article explaining how the New Testament canon was formed. Unlike Piper, who wasn't opposing any errors in general, Jones has to defend the NT canon against an apostate (and now anti-Christian) apologist, Bart Ehrman. The sole defense Jones has to appeal to is, ironically, the testimony of the Early Church Fathers - which, in turn, refutes the doctrine of Sola Scriptura.

Monday, June 11, 2012

5 Ways Evangelicalism Has Failed Our Children

I came across an interesting post recently written by an Evangelical, titled "5 Ways Evangelicalism Has Failed Our Children". I thought it was well written overall, but he doesn't seem to realize some of these problems are self-stemming from Protestant itself, not just an abusive 'strain' of Protestantism. I'll quote his 5 reasons and give a brief commentary on them.
1. Evangelicals have identified themselves with the conservative political movement. Being pro-life and anti-gay marriage doesn’t mean those who hold those positions can communicate the Gospel in any coherent manner, and if we can’t communicate the Gospel clearly, lucidly, then our conservatism means very little, if anything, doesn’t it?
I thought this was very insightful. He clearly shows that "Conservative" is not synonymous with "Christian". That's because, as I noted in other posts on the matter, Conservatism says nothing specific about religion. In effect, what we have today is a large Conservative base with less and less specifically Christian content or rational supporting it. But it almost has to be this way because Conservatism has a 'big tent' mentality behind it, meaning that one can be pro-life and allow abortion under certain circumstances, allow contraception, or promote otherwise anti-family policy (e.g. mothers working outside the home). The same thing goes for being anti-gay-marriage, since Conservatives, as a whole, allow divorce, and more and more are in favor of "civil unions"

Friday, June 8, 2012

Why do bikinis fit Conservative women so nicely?

By the title of this post you might be wondering why a blog dedicated to Apologetics and Traditionalism has to do with bikinis fitting. Don't worry, this post isn't about some diet or exercise regimen that a lot of Conservative women must be into these days while gearing up for summer, but rather a different type of fit all together. All Conservatives "know" that Liberals are all about being promiscuous and immodest, but what Conservatives don't realize is the striking inconsistency with their own position. If you stop and think about it, wearing a bikini is the epitome of immodesty and promiscuity, so why do Conservatives (in general) see nothing wrong with bikinis?

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Kicking kids out of the house at 18 years old.

This time of year is both a time of excitement and of dread. Graduating is obviously something to celebrate, but what about the next step? While millions of these high school graduates will be looking forward to going to college, a significant percentage are living in unnecessary fear. This fear isn't about which college they will attend, or what vocation they're called to, or even what job they will pick up over the summer. Those are normal fears. The fear I'm talking about comes from none other than their own parents, who tell their children they will kick them out of the house now that they've turned 18. What is not surprising to me, but will be to many readers, is that this problem is the worst among Conservative parents (both Protestant and Catholic), and I've seen them make such comments quite frankly. But what many don't realize is that it is very anti-Catholic, since it's totally contrary to Catholic Social Teaching and the furthest thing from being Pro-Life.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Blessed is the man whom the Lord will NOT forgive? (A Silver Bullet against Calvinism)

I'm pretty sure I have discovered another devastating verse against the Protestant doctrine of Imputation. If you have followed this blog or know the basics of Justification by Faith Alone, you know that Protestants interpret "faith is counted as righteousness" in Romans 4:5 to mean "faith transfers the righteousness of Christ to the believer". (Protestants flatly deny that faith itself is what is counted as righteousness.) But is this consistent with how Paul argues in Romans 4:8, using the same term "counted" (Greek: logizomai)?

Consider the verse: "Blessed is the man whom the Lord will not count his sin."
Now the substitution: "Blessed is the man whom the Lord will not transfer his sin."

Clearly, with the substitution, the text is now saying the blessed man is the one who's sins God will not take away. That's plainly absurd, especially considering the verse prior (v7) explicitly says "who's sins are forgiven." Thus, the only possible answer is that "counted" (logizomai) cannot mean "transfer". Instead, "counted" must mean something akin to "regarded," so the blessed man is he who God will not regard as a sinner, but consistency requires a reinterpretation of the prior verses, meaning we must read verse 5 as "faith is regarded as righteousness". This is unacceptable to the Protestant side, and thus they either must embrace a contradiction and shoddy exegesis or abandon their doctrine of Imputation.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Gold nugget in Galatians 3:9 (Sola Fide)

I came across a 'gold nugget' while researching information for a bigger project that I wanted to share. I noticed it when reading the famous "Abraham believed God and [his faith] was reckoned as righteousness" in Galatians 3, which many overlook since they're so fixated on reading this in Romans 4. Here is how Paul recounts the passage in Galatians 3,
5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— 6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”? [Gen 15:6] 7 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” [Gen 12:1-3; Heb 11:8] 9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
What this Protestant translation (ESV) and various other modern Protestant translations 'hide' (not sure if it's intentional) is that in verse 9 when it says "along with Abraham, the man of faith," the more accurate rendering of this verse is "along with faithful Abraham". See this list of standard translations and note how the more literal and older versions are more accurate.

This, to me, is a significant translation error, because verse 9 uses two different Greek words for 'faith' here: pistis (faith, G4102) and pistos (faithful, G4103). The words are extremely similar and they derive from the same Greek word for 'trust', but the point here is that though different they are being used the same. Why does this matter? Because Protestants insist "faith" in this context, especially for Abraham, is an 'empty hand' that has no intrinsic value, but simply 'reaches' and takes hold of the "righteousness of Christ". Though that Protestant notion of faith is totally novel (with no basis in Scripture, cf Heb 11:6) and read right into the text, this Protestant idea is further refuted by the fact Paul employs (see Gal 3:9b KJV) the term "faithful" instead of "faith". The term "faithful" is synonymous with "faith" in Paul's thought here, and it's plainly ridiculous to suggest "faithful" can mean faith is an 'empty hand'. So what Paul is saying, and this fits perfectly with the Catholic understanding, is "those who are of faith are justified along with faithful Abraham," which is not the sort of "faith" that Protestants can accept.

The significance of this seems to be missed in the various Protestant commentaries I've consulted, but this is understandable since it's easy to overlook (particularly when a poor translation is used).

Friday, May 18, 2012

Sola Fide dilemma: When did Abraham turn 100 years old?

I've come upon another argument that I believe further turns up the heat on Protestants claiming Romans 4 as their own. Though many don't realize it, Protestants basically 'tune out' after verse 8 in Romans 4, treating the rest of the chapter as an appendage. I've already written extensively about the horrendous exegesis Protestants have for Romans 4:1-8, so I wont go into that now. Instead, I'm going to focus on Romans 4:16-22,

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Were Saints Justin Martyr and Pope Clement really Christians?

I am currently in the process of writing one of my most important articles on Sola Fide, and as I was doing some research I came across an astounding facepalm quote in a well respected Protestant dictionary. The TDNT speaking on imputation says this about Romans 4:3-8:
Justin Dialogue 141.2-3 rather misses the point when he suggest that repentance is the ground of nonimputation (cf. Faith in 1 Clem. 10.6).
This is a polite way of saying Saint Justin and Saint Clement totally misunderstood and botched a fundamental text of salvation (Rm 4:3ff). Upon tracking down those two quotes, I felt it worth making a short post about it.

Monday, May 7, 2012

The importance of 70AD for Christianity - Was Revelation actually the first NT Epistle?

I have come to truly appreciate the relevance of the year 70AD. This date is most popularly associated with the year the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed for the second time (and has never been rebuilt to this day). I have posted on this subject tangentially in the past on a post I made about Judaism. For anyone who takes the Bible and Christianity seriously, it cannot be seen as an insignificant event in Salvation History for the Temple to be destroyed (2 Kings 25:8-9; Jer 21:10; Jer 26:18; Mich 3:12 - and see these Church Father quotes). We often forget that God still directs the events of history, and instead tend to think God only interacted with Israel and the Church during Biblical times, after which He left man alone. That latter view is called Ecclesial Deism, and it must be rejected.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Why identifying the Papacy with the Antichrist is an "essential" doctrine of Protestantism.

Over at the Called To Communion blog, Dr David Anders (who is one of the most solid converts in recent memory) wrote an article called Why Protestants Need the Antichrist. I highly encourage you to read the article and subscribe to CTC's feed. The thesis of the article is how some Protestants (not all!) have shifted their historical world-view from that of a restored Gospel to a developed Gospel. The tough part about the restoration thesis is that the Protestant must necessarily approach Christianity from an anti-intellectual standpoint, essentially ignoring Christian history from approximately the Apostolic Age up until the (Pretend) Reformation. Since this doesn't sit well with the more educated class, the "alternative" is essentially that of the classical Liberal Protestant thesis, which holds that the Gospel truths developed over time, right up to today. While classical Liberal Protestants went so far as to suggest doctrines such as Christ's Divinity were developments from primitive Christianity, this (rightly) doesn't sit well with many modern Liberal Protestants (i.e. Evangelicals) today, who thought that took "scholarship" too far. Instead, these Evangelicals felt there had to be some way to not ignore Christian history, yet still ignore or downplay the very unProtestant (and very Catholic) looking historical facts.