Why Head Coverings blind Protestants.

I think I've formulated a new apologetics argument that should prove fun and (hopefully) fruitful when talking with Protestants. Basically, the way Protestants view the Sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist is similar to how Paul describes the reason for Head Coverings in 1 Corinthians 11. The result of this line of thinking would not only force Protestants to make Baptism indistinguishable from Eucharist, but also to 'raise' Head Coverings up to the level of a new Sacrament in itself. Let's see where this goes. 

As (Not So) Often As You Do This - another round of the crushing Protestant liturgical dilemma

Though I haven't had much time to blog recently, I wanted to show people a beautiful real-life example of the crushing effectiveness of the Ultimate Catholic Apologetics Argument (UCAA) against Protestants (which I posted about previously). 

A "Reformed Baptist" pastor named Ken at the Protestant apologetics site Beggars All had a post focused on criticizing Catholics for following "traditions of men" rather than the Bible, which turned out to be highly ironic shortly after I brought up the UCAA in the combox. There's no need to read the post or most of the comments, but if you're interested just see the last ten comments or so for how effortlessly the UCAA can take down the most committed "Bible Christian" (see THIS link to take you straight to the last few comments). 

The key post is when I responded to Ken saying, 

[Pastor Ken said]: None of what you say really carries any weight with me, since you are right in the sense that that an order of worship is not laid out word for word, but the general idea is for us to worship God by Scripture, prayer, singing, teaching, etc. and we can arrange the order however we want to and that is not a big deal to me.

[Nick's response]: The main problem I have here is that you haven't actually given any Scriptural verses that say what the "general idea" is for Christian Liturgy. The closest thing you've listed is the Lord's Supper, which you say you only do once a month. I don't even think you've given a verse that says singing is supposed to be done during liturgy.

As for your admission that you only celebrated the Lord's Supper once a month, this is astonishing because either it is part of liturgy or it isn't. If it is part of liturgy, you have no right to only do it 25% of the time. This suggests a person can celebrate the Lord's Supper as rarely as they feel like it, and by extension they can leave out Scripture, prayer, etc, as often as they feel like it. All this reduces down to a liturgical relativism, which really isn't liturgy at all, but more and more a man-made event according to personal taste.

As you can see, Ken was pretty trapped here, because while the Bible does indicate the Eucharist is the essential part of the liturgy, and thus is done "often" (1 Cor 11:26), both Ken and most Evangelicals do not do this that often. And as I also point out, to compound the dilemma they are in, that line of thinking means there is nothing actually essential to the Christian Liturgy, which is ridiculous, and results in the Protestant being able to leave out anything they want on any given Sunday.

Now, it's important to note that while this massive problem didn't bother Ken nor will it trouble most other Protestants, the fact is it should, and I believe that it eventually will bother them. For now, it's great that some seeds were planted. I strongly believe that if more Catholics would start using the UCAA, I swear that this will be the downfall of Westminster Seminary in a few short years.

The ultimate and most effective Catholic apologetics argument against Protestantism.

I have come to the conclusion that the most powerful apologetics argument that a Catholic can make against Protestantism is that their Sunday Liturgy is actually man-made and thus blatant idolatry. Let me explain this more.

The most important duty a human has, regardless even of whether they are a Christian or not, is to worship God. This should be - without a doubt - an obvious truth that everyone can agree upon. Given this, a person must not only worship God, they must do so properly, i.e., they must worship as God has instructed them to do. This means that Liturgy requires divine revelation, because otherwise the person is "worshiping" God based on what sounds good to their human mind...but there is a word for worshiping according to what sounds good to you: it's called idolatry. So the only way to escape idolatry is to worship according to how God has divinely revealed it. Which leads us to the key problem which all Protestants face.

Problems with the Reformed view of Federal Headship and problems with the Reformed view of Liturgy.

I have two new guest posts up at [old deleted blog]. Since the blog was deleted I will have to post them here: 

THE REFORMED DOCTRINE OF FEDERAL HEADSHIP:
The Reformed notion of Federal Headship states that all of mankind lives under the representative umbrella of a father figure, namely Adam or Jesus. They say the reason why God can consider all men subject to the consequences of Adam’s deliberate sin, even though we didn’t personally sin, is because God judges us ‘in Adam’. Likewise, when a person is saved, the Reformed say that person is worthy of the blessings of salvation, not for anything they did, but because of the perfect obedience of Christ, with God judging them to be ‘in Christ’. To put it crudely, it’s as if all mankind were placed in one of two boxes, one labeled “Adam”, the other labeled “Jesus”. God doesn’t judge you personally, only by proxy, only based upon the box you’re in.

With that imagery in mind, popularly termed “Imputation,” it can be easily seen why Protestants believe salvation cannot be lost and why they shudder to hear Catholics teaching that our works play a role in our salvation: If we are ‘covered up’ (hidden) in the box labeled “Jesus,” and that’s all God judges us worthy of heaven or hell based upon, then obviously God wont be judging us based on our personal sins (causing us to deserve hell) or on our person good works (causing us to deserve heaven). This is what Protestants mean by “Christ Alone” and “Grace Alone”.

But if this Federalism/Imputation framework is true, then why does the Bible frequently speak of our personal sins being forgiven and our personal sins being the basis of our damnation? Why is God concerned about our personal failings if He is judging us solely based on the failings of Adam? If we are in the box labeled “Adam,” and that’s all God looks at, why does God care or judge us according to the box of our own sins? The only answer I can envision is that Federalism/Imputation must wrong (or only half-true). It is wholly inconsistent and even equivocal for a Protestant to say Jesus as Federal Head represents the believer entirely but Adam as Federal Head represents us only partially. Just as “Jesus plus our works” is anathema to Protestant ears, by the same logic, so must “Adam plus our works” must be rejected…and yet the latter is contrary to Scripture’s frequent claims of our personal sins being the object of God’s wrath and forgiveness (Romans 1-3).

This is not to say that Adam and Jesus are not ‘heads of humanity’ in a real and crucial sense, because Catholicism certainly believes they are heads. The point is that it cannot be Sola Headship as the Reformed teach, but rather (somehow) a combination of headship and our personal living.

REFORMED APPROACH TO LITURGY:

Is a Christian free to worship God however he pleases? I think all of us would intuitively answer “No” to that question. Man’s duty to worship God is too important to just be a free-for-all. This is especially true for Christians who have God’s Revelation, particularly the Bible. The Confessional Reformed tradition (rightly) understands that man is not only not free to worship however he pleases (since this would ultimately tend towards man worshipping himself), but in fact man should not worship in any way not clearly laid out in God’s Word. This notion is known in the Reformed tradition as the “Regulative Principle of Worship” (RPW), wherein man must worship God how God has revealed He wants to be worshiped. The goal of this post is to show that while the RPW sounds good on the surface, I think it quickly runs into some serious problems.

Most non-Reformed Protestant traditions (especially Evangelicalism) take a more ‘lax’ approach to Christian worship, generally holding to the idea that many forms of worship are acceptable so long as they don’t contradict Scripture. That view doesn’t see the Bible as prescribing a specific form of worship, but rather only ‘ruling out’ unacceptable practices (e.g. the use of images). Clearly, the ‘worship question’ is not trivial, yet Sola Scriptura has led to a more relativistic, human-centered approach to Christian worship, as each believer is seen as autonomous, not having to be subject to any specific pastor/congregation and having the ‘right’ to worship however he pleases (including simply sleeping in on Sunday). Rather than go on a tangent about Sola Scriptura in general though, I think the Confessional Reformed RPW view should be analyzed in light of what Scripture says, because it seems to me the RPW has little to no Scriptural support – which is quite ironic.

The most obvious starting point in discerning whether the RPW is actually Biblical is to find whether Scripture lays out any specific example of Christian liturgy. Some Evangelicals will say they base their Christian liturgy off of “The Acts 2 Church,” but at that point in the Church (Acts 2:42-47) there wasn’t even a book of the New Testament written yet, so “The Acts 2 Church” couldn’t even have been a Sola Scriptura based Christian liturgy. Moreover, there aren’t really any details here or anywhere else in Scripture of what precisely early Christian liturgy looked like. (Such information comes mostly from inspired Apostolic oral teaching, which Protestants reject.) So given this lack of specific Biblical testimony, from what I’ve been able to gather, the RPW is really a bunch of verses strung together to ‘form a principle’ (hence the name RPW), which ironically leads Reformed liturgy becoming more a work of men than a command of God.

To see this problem more clearly, consider John Calvin’s official liturgy which he instituted in Geneva in 1542 [1]: The liturgy begins with Confessing Sins, Prayer for Pardon [2], then goes on to Scripture Readings [3], a Sermon, a Collection of Alms, the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed, Words of Institution, Consecration of the Bread and Wine, and concludes with the Aaronic Blessing (Num 6:22-27). Now we can all agree that none of this is necessarily a bad thing when considered individually. The problem is that this “liturgy” is nowhere instituted in the Bible. Is man really free to just lift the Aaronic Blessing from the OT and append it to the Christian Liturgy and call this approved by God? Not if they are being honest. And as anyone can see, a whole host of liturgies can be invented using this cut-and-paste method. [4] This is clearly an unacceptable position for a Christian to take.

Given this brief look at Reformed Liturgy, it seems to me that the RPW not only is self-refuting (since it’s not a specific principle taught in Scripture, just a gathering of verses here and there), it also exposes one more flaw in Sola Scriptura, since it makes liturgy more or less relative to the whims of the individual (guided at most by some generic ‘principles’). So while it is good that the Reformed take worship of God seriously, they unfortunately find themselves in a conundrum wherein as hard as they try to “worship God as He has commanded in His Word,” they end up worshiping God according to blatant traditions of men. Only an appeal to inspired Apostolic oral teaching and Apostolic Succession (both of which Catholicism has) can ground a Christian in true worship and prevent a slide into man-centered relativistic “worship”.

 

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulative_principle_of_worship#John_Calvin.27s_Liturgy

[2] It’s not clear to me how the Confession of Sins and Prayer for Pardon is compatible with the Reformed idea that man’s sins are completely forgiven at the moment of Justification and that God only views man in light of the Righteousness of Christ imputed to him. Why ask for forgiveness of sins every Sunday if you believe all your sins were already forgiven and that God never counts your sins against you?

[3] It’s also not clear to me if the Scripture reading is taken from a fixed lectionary of readings (if so, where did the Bible teach this?), or if the Scripture reading is a randomly chosen text (and if so, where does the Bible say we worship God by randomly selecting which texts we feel like reading?).

[4] Note that in the Wiki link above, Calvin had noticeably modified this 1542 liturgy from his 1540 liturgy, including removing Psalm 124:8 from the start, removing the recitation of the Ten Commandments (with each Commandment followed by Kyrie Eleison) and removing the Nunc Dimittis before the conclusion. Did the Bible tell him he could make such revisions? Does he not realize a whole host of liturgies can come about by this mixing/cutting/pasting?

Is Imputation taught in 2 Corinthians 5:21?

Protestants consider 2 Corinthians 5:21 to be one of the chief Biblical proof texts for for their doctrine of the Imputed Righteousness of Christ. In fact, they put so much emphasis on this verse that a lot of their credibility hangs on it. Given this, I want to provide Catholics with some key information on what to say when speaking with a Protestant on this crucial text, because if you can stop them in their tracks here, you'll have gone a long way towards causing them to rethink everything about their own position and what Catholicism has to offer them.

Reformed Professor Matthew Barrett and the shallowness of the Protestant grasp of Scripture

I'm not writing this brief article to make fun of anyone, but simply as an example of the sad situation Protestantism finds itself in when it comes to interpreting Scripture. I really want to emphasize this because for a long time and even still to this day Protestants are under a serious delusion that Catholics are too dumb to really know the plain teaching of Scripture. In this post I want to give a brief look at what a Reformed Seminary Professor posted on his blog.

Matthew Barrett has a PhD in systematic theology, is editor of a major Reformed magazine (Credo), and is a professor at a Reformed college. Just yesterday he posted on the Credo Magazine blog a post titled "It is finished: A reflection on John 19:30." Just by the title, you'd think that Dr Barrett is going to exegete this verse, and in fact I was drawn to read this post precisely because I know this verse is important for the Calvinist view of the Atonement. But when you read the brief "reflection," there's no actual exegesis of the text at all. He merely quotes the text in passing a few times, which is simply how most Protestants approach this verse. 

These two concluding paragraphs form the heart of his post, so that's all I'll quote and comment upon:

When we come to the cross and we see the enormous amount of suffering Jesus underwent, we tend to focus solely on his physical suffering: the crown of thorns, the nails, and the crucifix. But as important as all of this is, we cannot miss the main thing: the most excruciating thing about the suffering servant’s cross is that he bore the very wrath of God that was ours. The Lord laid upon Christ our iniquities and Christ took the due penalty for those iniquities. We see this and we hear it when Christ cries out, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Mark 15:34). And then come three beautiful words, “It is finished” (John 19:30).

What is finished? Christ, as he says in the garden of Gethsamani, has drunk the cup of God’s wrath in full (Matt. 26:39), and by doing so, as Hebrews 1:3 reminds us, Christ “made purification for sins.” As our high priest Christ “entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:11-12; cf. 9:13, 25-26). Indeed, this is good news.

Again, this man has a PhD in systematic theology, so he should know how to exegete Scripture and know how things fit together. And yet these handful of sentences show the most embarrassing level of interpretive skill and grasp of theology. But really, this is par for the course for the highest levels of orthodox Reformed Protestant scholarship.

Dr Barrett starts off by making the standard Protestant claim that Christ's physical sufferings at the hands of men, as dreadful as they were, were in fact nothing compared to the spiritual suffering of enduring the Father's Divine Wrath. Such statements are so obviously outrageous that I'd expect others to be speaking up against it. Dr Barrett both trivializes the physical sufferings of Our Lord and introduces a completely foreign concept of God's Wrath being poured out on Christ. Sadly, as I noted earlier, this is in fact the best Protestantism has to offer. It's not that they do this on purpose, but they have serious 'blinders' on that prevent them from thinking clearly. Such is the reality of sin, and such is the position one is put in when they're outside the Catholic Church. Trivializing the physical sufferings of Christ is equivalent to denying the Crucifixion, and God help me if I or any Catholic trivializes the heart of our salvation like that.

I'm not going to beat a dead horse on the "My God, why have you forsaken me?" comments, because I've covered that many times before. I just want people, Protestant and Catholic, to just stop and look at how shallow Reformed theology is and the liberties and desperation it takes with the Sacred Text. It's truly an abuse of God's Word if there ever was one. And to follow this up, Dr Barrett brings up the main text in question, "It is finished," as if he had actually exegeted and proved his thesis. He is oblivious to the fact "It is finished" has it's own context in John, and he's oblivious to the fact John (and Luke) never mention the "forsaken me" quote, despite Dr Barrett's insistence that this "forsaken me" text is the heart of the true understanding of the Cross. He has the audacity to ask "What is finished?" without even looking at the context. And he concludes by quoting all these texts from Hebrews, not realizing the absolute silence in Hebrews about any reference to God's Wrath (or Active Obedience). What's going on folks? And to think this is the enlightened 'wisdom' of men who don't want you to be Catholic? Give me a break.

Once you have the right glasses on, you have a hard time taking Protestantism seriously. To get the right glasses on, you just have to realize that Protestants don't really follow the Bible at all, but rather they follow a completely unbiblical "tradition of men"  called Sola Fide, and they accept this as a starting premise and from there proceed to make Scripture fit. The Reformation wasn't about Sola Scriptura, it was about Sola Fide, specifically the agenda of presuming its truth and forcing the Scripture's to agree (resulting in numerous other "traditions of men" they are forced to embrace). 

I guess what's really hard about reading this kind of stuff is that I really hoped for better, and I truly believe Protestants owe us Catholics better. But it's almost as if God's Word has a built in safety feature, where the moment someone starts to tamper with it, absurdities surface. That's precisely what happens with Protestant scholarship, and Reformed theology in particular. If the Reformed blogosphere isn't going to call out such embarrassing statements which the Reformed PhD's routinely make, then how can we really take them seriously?

Protestant apologetics site GotQuestions? says Jesus "spiritually died" on the Cross.

Sorry to annoy you dear readers, but I'm going to have to post a third post this week, after finding yet another big name Protestant apologist making it clear that God the Father damned His Son Jesus in place of damning us. This time it's the website GotQuestions?, a popular online source where Protestants can get their theological questions answered from a conservative Protestant viewpoint. I'll try to make this brief since I mostly just want it to be a "for the record" type post.

The following quotes about what kind of suffering Jesus endured come from various Question & Answer posts on the GotQuestions? website, so I'll quote and provide the link to each (quotes are trimmed down for brevity).

• A physical death is the separation of the soul from the body. Spiritual death, which is of greater significance, is the separation of the soul from God. When Adam and Eve heard the voice of the Lord, they “hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God.” The fellowship had been broken. They were spiritually dead. When Jesus was hanging on the cross, He paid the price for us by dying on our behalf. Even though He is God, He still had to suffer the agony of a temporary separation from the Father due to the sin of the world He was carrying on the cross. After three hours of supernatural darkness, He cried, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Mark 15:33-34). This spiritual separation from the Father was the result of the Son’s taking our sins upon Himself. That’s the impact of sin. Sin is the exact opposite of God, and God had to turn away from His own Son at that point in time. (Question: "What is spiritual death?")

Did St Paul really rebuke St Peter? ... Maybe not!

I came across a fascinating article by Catholic apologist James Likoudis which I'd like to discuss on whether or not Peter and Cephas were the same person. There appears to be strong evidence that would lead us to not make the identification of the two men, even if many people throughout Church history have. While this would not affect any dogma of the faith one way or another, it would shed a whole new light on the Incident at Antioch when Paul confronted "Cephas" (Gal 2:11-14) - which is a common text which opponents of the Papacy like to focus on. 

A Catholic Grand Slam against Protestantism

In baseball, a Grand Slam is when the batter hits a home run while the bases are loaded, resulting in an instant score of 4 home runs. Using that analogy, have come across 4 devastating quotes against Protestantism (and even Eastern Orthodoxy) coming from the Third Ecumenical Council, the Council of Ephesus (431AD). As I present the quotes, it will become clear from the significance of the things taught that one must take a stand and conclude either this Council was orthodox and Catholic or heterodox and untrustworthy.

Quote #1 - 

Forasmuch as the divinely inspired Scripture says, “Do all things with advice,” it is especially their duty who have had the priestly ministry allotted to them to examine with all diligence whatever matters are to be transacted. (Letter to the Synod in Pamphylia)

First off, credit goes to Joe and his excellent Catholic apologetics blog for finding this quote. The quote "Do all things with advice" comes directly from the deutero-canonical book of Sirach 32:19, and the footnote on this text quotes famous Protestant historian Philip Schaff who agrees that this Ecumenical Council plainly saw this book as divinely inspired Scripture. But Protestants say that this book is for sure not inspired Scripture and they threw out this book.

Quote #2 -

Proclaiming the death, according to the flesh, of the Only-begotten Son of God, that is Jesus Christ, confessing his resurrection from the dead, and his ascension into heaven, we offer the Unbloody Sacrifice in the churches, and so go on to the mystical thanksgivings, and are sanctified, having received his Holy Flesh and the Precious Blood of Christ the Saviour of us all. And not as common flesh do we receive it; God forbid: nor as of a man sanctified and associated with the Word according to the unity of worth, or as having a divine indwelling, but as truly the Life-giving and very flesh of the Word himself. For he is the Life according to his nature as God, and when he became united to his Flesh, he made it also to be Life-giving, as also he said to us: Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood. (Second Letter of Cyril to Nestorius)

This quote contains three powerful statements that should make any good Protestant cringe. First, St Cyril describes the Mass as the "Unbloody Sacrifice," meaning the Mass is a Sacrifice and re-presents the same sacrifice of Calvary but only in an 'unbloody' manner, the very thing Catholic Dogma teaches. Second, St Cyril says that the Eucharist is Christ's actual flesh and blood, not mere bread symbolizing Christ's flesh. Third, at the end of this quote Cyril quotes John 6:52-53, saying that this refers to the Eucharist. But Protestants cannot affirm any of these things, and in fact hold them as hallmarks of a false church. 

Quote #3 - 

Philip the presbyter and legate of the Apostolic See said: There is no doubt, and in fact it has been known in all ages, that the holy and most blessed Peter, prince and head of the Apostles, pillar of the faith, and foundation of the Catholic Church, received the keys of the kingdom from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour and Redeemer of the human race, and that to him was given the power of loosing and binding sins: who down even to to-day and forever both lives and judges in his successors.  The holy and most blessed pope Cœlestine, according to due order, is his successor and holds his place, and us he sent to supply his place in this holy synod, which the most humane and Christian Emperors have commanded to assemble, bearing in mind and continually watching over the Catholic faith. For they both have kept and are now keeping intact the apostolic doctrine handed down to them from their most pious and humane grandfathers and fathers of holy memory down to the present time (Session III)

This quote plainly says that there is no doubt and that it is known by all that Peter was the prince and head of the apostles and leader of the Church, and that Pope Celestine was Peter's successor and rules in his place. This quote is an abomination for both Protestants and Eastern Orthodox for obvious reasons: if the Papacy is true, both of those groups are in deep trouble! Eastern Orthodox love to espouse that the Papacy is the worst heresy ever, even worse than Arianism and Nestorianism. And yet nobody at this Council noticed the worst heresy ever being spouted right off in front of them! They must pick whether this Council taught heresy here or whether the Catholic Church is right. The truth is plain for those who want to see it.

Quote #4 - 

If anyone will not confess that the Emmanuel is very God, and that therefore the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God (Θεοτόκος), inasmuch as in the flesh she bore the Word of God made flesh let him be anathema. (Anathema #1 against Nestorius)

If anyone does not agree that in a real sense that Mary is the "Mother of God," then they are embracing heresy. Of course, this dogma has been widely misunderstood to mean Mary created/produced the Trinity, but all it means is that Mary bore and gave birth to the Second Person of the Trinity, God the Son. There are many Protestants who disagree with this dogmatic teaching and do not believe Mary is "Mother of God" and consider this a major heresy and blasphemy.

In the end, the Protestant really has to decide whether the Church went completely in heresy this early on in Church history or not. These teachings are too significant to sweep them under the rug or cherry pick the Council's teachings. This Council provided a benchmark for all Christianity at the time as to what was orthodox and what wasn't, so to claim heresy effectively entails the whole visible Church went apostate. I know many Protestants will try all kinds of fancy tricks to get around this, but really this isn't a hard issue to address. Catholics have no problem taking these things at face value as they're plainly taught, and we affirm these things even today. 

Either take Christian history seriously or don't. I would just hope that Protestant seminaries would be honest enough to admit that this Council sounds nothing like what any Protestant denomination would ever teach.

What's stopping you?

One question all Protestants need to ask themselves is what is stopping them or any other Protestant they know from going off and independently starting their own denomination. Most Protestants simply don't think about it, but every Protestant who has gone off and started his own church obviously has pondered this question and recognized their 'right' to do this. Ultimately, it reveals a fatal flaw in their system, and that flaw is that ultimately nobody is subject to anyone else. In fact, a well-informed Calvinist I spoke to recently came right out and said he doesn't submit to anyone but Scripture. But how is another Protestant going to stop him from believing this? I don't see a principled way out of this dilemma. And how can a Protestant truly accept texts like Acts 16:4 and Hebrews 13:17, along with the Pastoral Epistles, I truly don't know. I don't think they can. (So much for Protestantism being Biblical.)

This is one of those issues that the more informed Protestants like to keep hushed because it would completely expose the absurdity of their system. A lot of them know that they cannot challenge the 'pastorship' of even their most bitter enemies, because they know what would happen to their own claims to authority. And so they parade around as if their most bitter enemy with even less 'credentials' than themself is still entitled to be regarded as a pastor. When I've confronted Protestants on this issue, they'll often try to get around it by claiming their pastor was ordained by some board of elders or at a Protestant seminary, as if this sufficiently answered the question. But all they're doing is taking the question one step back to who authorized the board of elders or who authorized the seminary. Ultimately, it will always come down to a group of self-appointed pastors who made themselves into a board of elders or who founded the seminary, and acted as if their self-appointed authority was true authority. It's no different than a random dude starting his own mega church. It happens all the time. But the Catholic sees right through all this. The Catholic sees that this is one of the biggest hoaxes foisted upon the world.

In the end, this Protestant mindset ultimately says the visible Church isn't held together by anything concrete, since a person can break off into schism or heresy and be just as much part of the visible Church as anyone else. With this moral, doctrinal, and ecclesial relativism in full swing, the "visible Church" thus goes from something concrete to something abstract, and thus a self-refuting concept (since an abstract thing cannot be visible). And by this point you can realize that just thinking about such a world-wide hoax like this is exhausting. No wonder our society is so much in shambles when this kind of "logic" is running rampant.

St Cyril of Jerusalem gives an example of Tradition (Were the Early Church Fathers Protestant?)

Often times Protestants ask Catholics to "define Tradition," expecting to find some long drawn out list of teachings that weren't written down in Scripture. The problem is, that's not how Tradition is understood. Rather, a better understanding of Tradition is the Church's Liturgical life, seeing the oral tradition expressed in ancient prayers of the Mass. A good example of this can be seen in St Cyril of Jerusalem's Catechetical Lectures. 

Protestants are #1! (They can't be #2.)

A common rebuttal Protestants give to Catholics when accused of engaging in "Private Interpretation" of Scripture is that Catholics engage in "Private Interpretation" as of Scripture as well, particularly when it comes to a Catholic deciding for themself that the Catholic Church is the church to join. The Protestant envisions that he and the Catholic both are fallibly interpreting Scripture and each are coming to their own fallible conclusions. Given this, the Protestant sees any arguments given for submitting to Rome as not only unnecessary, but even engaging in the same fallible private judgment that Catholics clobber Protestants for doing. In short, the Protestant sees the Catholic engaging in circular reasoning and special pleading. 

When I encountered this for the zillionth time, here is the response I gave to one Protestant Blogger (slightly modified for this blog post):

The problem with that claim is there is a misunderstanding (even equivocation) going on with the term "interpret". Really, there are two distinct things going on:

(1) Studying the Evidence and coming to a fallible but plausible conclusion.

(2) Authoritatively teaching a binding doctrine, including authoritatively interpreting a text of Scripture.

Everyone must engage in category #1. That's not the issue. The issue is category #2. When it comes to addressing category #2, one must see that there either is an authoritative teaching body ("Magisterium") or there is not. If there is no Magisterium, then there are no definitive doctrines, only fallible but plausible opinions. That's basically the state of Protestantism and why fewer and fewer doctrines are seen as "essential". If there is a Magisterium, one must engage in #1 to locate and eventually submit to which Magisterium is the most credible.

Let me give an example of the problem with Protestantism. Let's say that St Paul came down from Heaven into your denomination and told your pastor that your pastor was teaching incorrect doctrines and rather your pastor should be teaching these other doctrines. In the Protestant view, your pastor could theoretically disagree with St Paul if your pastor felt Paul's comments did not align with your pastor's interpretation of Scripture. In the Protestant mind, both your pastor and St Paul were in the category #1 above: they were both fallible men doing their best to discern what the Spirit was telling them through Scripture. Neither could or were teaching authoritatively.

The problem with the above example is obviously that we know St Paul is not on par with your pastor, and in fact St Paul was entrusted by God with the role of #2 above. This means your pastor and his congregation, who are all in category #1, are not free to overturn Paul's teaching should they come to a different interpretation of the Bible. They'd be in the wrong and Paul would be in the right.

What you and other Protestants do is think that a Christian in category #1 has the (optional) duty of locating a denomination and pastor also in category #1. And since everyone is in category #1, then it's possible there could come a time when you disagree with your pastor's fallible but plausible interpretation of Scripture on a doctrine you plausibly but fallibly believe is important, and at that point you could leave to find another denomination or start your own. All the Protestant is doing is shifting between denominations of category #1, completely oblivious to or denying the existence of someone of category #2.

Unless Catholics and Protestants can differentiate and understand these two categories, they will continue to talk past eachother. The good folks at Called to Communion have written extensively about this, but I thought it should be repeated in a more concise form.

Why the Protestant Petros/petra argument is a joke.

A Catholic apologist named Sean showed me some good insights about the Petros-petra debate from Matthew 16:18. If you have never heard the Protestant claim, it's basically that when Jesus says "You are Peter [Petros] and upon this Rock [petra]" the Greek word Petros means "little pebble" while petra means "big rock". Thus, the Protestant is arguing that Jesus was not identifying Peter with "Rock," but rather contrasting Peter's littleness with the bigness of the Rock (i.e. Jesus). But this argument is simply ridiculous and desperate, and many Protestant scholars have rightly rejected it as well. 

1 Corinthians 11:27 - A King James Version quickie and a Transubstantiation teaser

The King James Version is one of the most respected and admired translations of the Bible in all of history and is still very popular today. While it actually has a lot of beautiful English in it, it should not be thought of the perfect and only true translation the way many Protestants (even today) think. These Protestants are known as King James Onlyists. One very good, quick, and easy traditional argument for discrediting the "flawlessness" of this translation is to point to 1 Corinthians 11:27, where Paul speaks about the sin of abusing the Eucharist:

KJV: Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread AND [Greek:ἤ] drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body AND [Greek:καί] blood of the Lord.

The KJV has botched a key word here by using the Greek word "AND" in both places when in fact the Greek word "AND" (kai) only appears in the second instance. In the first instance, the Greek word is actually "OR". How it should read is: Abusing EITHER the consecrated bread OR the consecrated cup makes one guilty of BOTH the body AND blood of Jesus. You might think, what's the big deal? The big deal is, this text is powerful for demonstrating the Catholic teaching that Jesus is fully present under either bread alone or cup alone, something Protestants repudiate since this only makes sense with transubstantiation. The KJV wants to get around this by tampering with the text and adding "AND" so that the text denies Jesus is fully present under each, and that each must be abused to be guilty of both. 

Conclusion: This is not to say the KJV is a horrible translation, but only that it is not flawless and has biases that affect key doctrine that cannot be swept under the rug. This should be simple enough to memorize that any Catholic should be able to pull this out when needed, even to Protestants who are not KJV Onlyists. Lastly, not only does the Greek totally refute the KJV here, but no respected Protestant translation uses "AND" here, they all use "OR" (see the list HERE), confirming that this isn't a Catholic invention but being true to the Greek.

Why Protestants do not worship God.

I have come to a startling conclusion after reading two articles that I recently saw online, and that conclusion is that Protestants do not really worship God. I obviously have to qualify and clarify this statement, since it is a most serious charge, but it centers around the fact Protestants must admit that formal worship is a non-essential Christian teaching. If you stop and think about it, the fact is Protestants cannot agree on how or when Christians should worship, and unless a Protestant denomination wants to take a dogmatic stance, they're forced to take on the repugnant position that it doesn't really matter how or when (if ever!) a Christian should worship.

The first article I want to point you to is called "10 Reasons to be Involved in a Church." Before clicking on the link, just let the title of that article sink in. The impression given off is that while it is a good idea to be involved in a church, it is not something absolutely necessary. In fact, it comes off as seeking a church that suits your preferences, not some objective criteria by which all Christians should approach the issue. The article was written because the author claims only 8% of Protestants in Britain and only 40% of Protestants in America attend a church on Sunday. In other words, attending church is now seen as something purely optional to the Christian life. And this makes perfect sense with the "don't tell me how to be a Christian" mentality that Sola Scriptura causes. Not unsurprisingly, all 10 of his reasons are nothing more than suggestions, and none of his reasons include because Christians must worship God a certain way, such as a formal Liturgy. The closest he gets is saying "corporate" worship provides a "unique joy" that private worship does not. This is precisely why the whole idea of denominations are disappearing and collapsing into to go-it-alone 'house churches'. 

This leads me to the second article, "In Praise of Denominations," in which a popular Reformed blogger is trying to validate the idea that bitter doctrinal divisions within Christianity is a good thing! (1 Cor. 1:10-11) For example, he says Denominations are critical because they provide members with "theological precision," the ability to have Church discipline, intervene in controversy, and provide unity. The irony of his arguments in favor of Denominationalism is that these qualities he seeks to "safeguard" are the very things Denominationalism undermines! He doesn't realize that if a Protestant doesn't like what they see in a denomination, they can move on to one that will preach what they want to hear. (2 Timothy 4:3) He doesn't realize that only the Catholic system can truly safeguard these things. It's also important to note that none of the things he sought to "safeguard" included worshiping God a specific way, which one would think should be the most important thing to safeguard. But we can easily see why, and that's because he unwittingly holds that one denomination can be just as good as another, which ultimately means formal worship is a non-essential.

The Church explains that even common sense shows us that it's absurd to suggest one can and should worship God as they please, as if one form of worship was as good as another. And realizing that God should be worshiped in certain ways compels us to seek out that Worship which is in fact the True one. This obviously requires one to find the True Church, which is impossible if Denominationalism is the norm. This practically makes the case for Catholicism in itself! 

One of the best documents the Church has issued in recent years is Dominus Iesus, in which the Church explained that while Protestants are Christians in virtue of having valid Baptism, it is wrong and offensive to speak of Protestant "churches" in any objective or formal sense. Rather, the more accurate term Rome says to use is "communities," and this is because Protestants lack Holy Orders, which is what defines the visible parameters of the Church. Included in this important fact is that Holy Orders are required for a valid Eucharist, which in turn means the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the formal worship God instituted and how God desires to be worshiped. Thus, to lack the Priesthood makes it impossible to truly worship God. And thus, in a very real (though not all extensive) sense, Protestants do not worship God.

The Papacy in the Parable of the Faithful Servant.

I don't remember where I first heard about this argument, but I was surprised that not many Catholics have quoted it when discussing the Scriptural proofs for the Papacy. The argument comes from the Parable found in Matthew 24:45-51 and also in Luke 12:

35 “Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, 36 and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. 37 Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them. 38 If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants! 39 But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. 40 You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

41 Peter said, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all?” 42 And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom his master will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the proper time? 43 Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. 44 Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. 45 But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, 46 the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and put him with the unfaithful. 47 And that servant who knew his master's will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating. 48 But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.

On the 'ordinary level' of this analogy, Jesus is explaining that a Master can put a chief servant in charge to the Master's place while the Master is away. This only makes sense to our everyday experiences, for it would be ridiculous to suggest a wealthy land owner would not put anyone in charge of his workers. But even more than this, the natural mind knows that it makes the most sense to delegate one person as the chief steward, as this hierarchy will be the best way to preserve order and unity. In this parable, Jesus is responding to Peter, who clearly is the spokesman for the rest of the Apostles, and Jesus responds with this Parable speaking of a singular chief steward. This chief steward is even said to have the task of delegating food to the household. This is a beautiful description of the duty and role of the Pope. This is an obvious proof that Jesus entrusted Peter with "more responsibility" that others, and in turn demands those who fill the Papal office have have "more demanded" from them. 

The Eastern Orthodox might say that Jesus was saying all 12 Apostles are signified by the chief steward, but I do not see this as plausible by the fact Jesus is speaking in the singular when He could (and does elsewhere) speak of servants in the plural in the parable just before this (Luke 12:35-40). Plus, it would not correspond to any actual real-life example, for there is no such thing as "master of the house" in plural, since in the real world this structure devolves into factions.

I see no other coherent or plausible alternative interpretation than what I've just given. Sure you can say every Christian can be inserted into this parable, and that's true to an extent, but any attempts to downplay or eliminate the overtones of hierarchy is simply doing violence to the text. The parable is saying Peter is the "master of the house," the chief steward, to which the other 11 are immediately under him, and collectively they run the Lord's House, the Church.


Update: January 26, 2013. 
While I do not have the tools to easily search through what verses the Fathers have commented upon, I found that most of the Fathers who comment upon the Faithful Servant parable speak in general terms about it. But I did find this quote from St Ambrose from the mid 300s:

1. “Who, then, is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.” Not worthless is this servant: some great one ought he to be. Let us think who he may be.
2. It is Peter, chosen by the Lord Himself to feed His flock, who merits thrice to hear the words: “Feed My little lambs; feed My lambs; feed My sheep.” And so, by feeding well the flock of Christ with the food of faith, he effaced the sin of his former fall. For this reason is he thrice admonished to feed the flock; thrice is he asked whether he loves the Lord, in order that he may thrice confess Him, Whom he had thrice denied before His Crucifixion.

St Ambrose says the ideal figure for the Faithful Servant who feeds the household is St Peter, leader of the Church and given the duty to "Feed Christ's Sheep". This confirms the argument I originally made that this Parable especially applies to Peter.

A convincing proof that Protestants don't really believe in Sola Scriptura (Romans 4:3)

Protestants (particularly Calvinists) believe that "the infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself," meaning that whenever there is a 'dispute' on a given text of Scripture there will necessarily be another verse somewhere in Scripture that speaks more clearly on the matter so as to definitively settle the 'dispute'. An irony here is that while this principle is not taught in Scripture, it is employed throughout the history of Catholic exegesis, while on the flip side it's really the Protestants who are the ones that deny it! This post will prove this beyond a doubt by taking a brief look at how Protestants ignore this principle on one of the most important verses in the Bible, Genesis 15:6.

St Paul quotes Genesis 15:6 in Romans 4:3 to show that Abraham was justified by faith. Protestants take this verse and interpret "faith was reckoned as righteousness" as saying that Abraham's faith was akin to that of an 'empty hand' that had nothing of value to it, but instead it 'reaches out' and takes hold of "Christ's Righteousness". They say that any other interpretation turns faith into a work and thus undermines the Gospel. Not only does the plain reading of the verse suggest no such interpretation, using the principle of Scripture-interprets-Scripture refutes this as well. Most people don't know that Genesis 15:6 is actually quoted three other times in the New Testament, but this is important for exposing the Protestant bias:

Romans 4: 18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. 20 No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”

Galatians 3: 5 He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit and worketh miracles among you, doeth He it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 6 Even as Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him as righteousness.” 7 Know ye therefore that those who are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached beforehand the Gospel unto Abraham, saying, “In thee shall all nations be blessed.” 9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.

James 2: 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

These texts explicitly show the faith Abraham had in Genesis 15:6 was a robust, God-glorifying faith, which God counted as inherently having the quality of righteousness. It was a faith that included hope, grew strong, and was active, rendering Abraham "faithful" in his walk with God. The astonishing thing is, Protestant scholars and apologists routinely ignore these texts when "interpreting" Genesis 15:6. Something's up. Clearly, if Protestants really believed in Sola Scriptura this would not be happening, but in order to salvage Sola Fide they must sacrifice their trust and reliance on the clear teaching of God's Word.

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.

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.

Does the Letter of 3rd John refute Protestantism?

The 3rd Letter of John is one of those interesting books of the Bible that everyone knows is there but pays little attention to. Being the shortest book of the Bible (with only 219 Greek words; 2nd John having 245, and Philemon having 335), one can wonder how much significance it has. Glossing over it, you see the standard stuff found in the rest of the New Testament, but since it's so brief it naturally it gets neglected. But could 3rd John actually contain information that knocks-out Protestantism in one punch? I believe so.