A quickie apologetic on Papal Infallibility

I was in a discussion with a Protestant who was arguing that Catholic converts have a mental disorder because they seek a level of certainty that only God is capable of. His goal was to show that seeking after a Infallible Magisterium is nonsense because nobody can know the Bible the way God knows the Bible. Admittedly, that's a bizarre way of objecting to the idea of Infallibility, but it led me to show him how his claim was bogus. I asked him if Peter was infallible when he interpreted various OT passages in his epistles 1 & 2 Peter. He was forced to admit Yes, Peter was infallible when interpreting the OT. I then explained that he just refuted his main thesis, because Peter was able to infallibly interpret the OT on behalf of others.

This Protestant got very embarrassed and to save face kept bringing up that Peter acted sinfully and followed false authority (Judaizers) in the incident at Antioch when Paul rebuked Peter (recorded in Galatians 2). I merely had to reaffirm that Peter acting sinfully in one circumstance doesn't mean he couldn't be infallible in other circumstances, as was already proven. I then pointed out that the Peter example actually supports the Catholic claim on infallibility, whereby we see in the example of Peter that acting sinfully in certain circumstances does not preclude a person from being infallible in other circumstances. The Catholic claim has always been the Pope is only infallible under certain circumstances, never under all circumstances! 

I'll hopefully have another post this month in a week or two.

Is Peace (Shalom) unconditional in the Bible? (Romans 5:1)

Protestant apologist James White has a few claims he regularly brings up against Catholicism, and which many Protestants blindly repeat. The two most common claims I've seen him make are asking Catholics "who is the Blessed Man of Romans 4:8?" and "Roman Catholicism cannot provide the true peace which the Gospel provides us". White says in his book and website (see here):

There can be no doubt what lies behind Paul’s use of the term peace in this [Romans 5:1] passage. The Hebrew steeped in Scripture knew full well the meaning of shalom. It does not refer merely to a cessation of hostilities. It is not a temporary cease-fire. The term shalom would not refer to a situation where two armed forces face each other across a border, ready for conflict, but not yet at war. Shalom refers to a fullness of peace, a wellness of relationship. Those systems [e.g. Roman Catholicism] that proclaim a man-centered scheme of justification cannot explain the richness of this word. They cannot provide peace because a relationship that finds its source and origin in the actions of imperfect sinners will always be imperfect itself. The phrase "we have peace" [Rom 5:1] in regard to God, properly means, God is at peace with us, his wrath towards us is removed.

This all sounds well and good, but all too often it turns out that things that sound good to human ears are often not actually what the Bible teaches (cf 2 Tim 4:3). White's lack of Biblical analysis in his presentation of how the Bible uses the term "peace" was suspicious to me, so I decided to see for myself how the Bible uses the Greek/Hebrew terms Peace/Shalom (here). Does the Bible speak of Peace/Shalom as something that is permanent and unconditional the way White makes it out to be? Here are some texts I've found that use the same Greek/Hebrew term "peace" as in Romans 5:1 that I think cast serious doubt on White's bold assertions: 

Did Jesus forbid "vain repetitions"?

There are plenty of Catholic articles that address the issue of "vain repetition" which Jesus forbade in Matthew 6:7, so rather than repeat them I want to share some unique findings that most of those articles don't tell you. 

 

First of all, it is shocking how everyone automatically assumes "vain repetition" is even an accurate  translation in the first place! The Greek word that Matthew uses for "vain repetitions" is a single term, battalogeo (see here). This Greek word is found nowhere else in the Bible, and apparently nowhere else in Greek literature (see here). This detail alone means we cannot be too dogmatic about the meaning. The Greek term is a compound of "batta" and "words". You can look to see that scholars admit they aren't sure what "batta" means, so they can only propose various theories based on the rest of the verse! So not only does the Greek term not clearly suggest "repetition," much less "vain," there's actually plenty of room to propose other meanings. Scholars seem divided on whether "batta" refers to an ancient pagan king who "stuttered" (which could mean various things), or whether "batta" refers to a pagan poet who wrote long drawn out poems, or whether "batta" is a made up word and equivalent to our term "blah blah blah" (i.e. babbling). The last option seems the most reasonable if the word appears nowhere else, and thus Jesus was saying something along the lines of: "When you pray, do not pray blah blah blah like the pagans".

From this first point onward, we should stop giving the so-called translation "vain repetition" any credibility at all. The origin of "vain repetitions" seems to actually be a Protestant agenda to "translate" the Bible into English with an anti-Catholic spin. This is one reason Catholics were always suspicious of Protestant Bibles. Think about it, how often "vain repetition" is turned into an instant attack on the Rosary, when this one Greek term doesn't actually clearly say anything about "vain repetition"? This Protestant bias is confirmed in the fact the King James Version is what translated "vain repetitions," whereas some honest mainstream Protestant translations use other phrases (see here), such as "do not keep on babbling like pagans" (NIV), or "do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do" (ESV). The Catholic Bibles that I consulted say "speak not much, as the heathens" (Douay-Rheims and Latin Vulgate), and "do not babble like the pagans" (NAB), and "empty phrases" (RSVCE). Again, using the word "repetition" in one's translation is disingenuous per the limited data we have, and can really only signify anti-Catholic bias.

Augustine's insights on Genesis 15 - Revisiting Abraham's faith reckoned as righteousness - Part 5

Since my radical reevaluation of Genesis 15 last year, which I have in my "Revisiting Abraham's faith reckoned as righteousness" series (Here), I have recently come across a fabulous commentary by St Augustine on this situation which I feel further vindicates my position. I truly believe this will change the way most informed folks read and comment upon Genesis 15 and Romans 4. Let's jump right into it, with this passage from St Augustine's masterpiece, City of God (Book 16; Section 26):

After these things in Gen 16, Ishmael was born of Hagar; and Abraham might think that in Ishmael was fulfilled what God had promised him in Gen 15, after Abraham originally wished to adopt his home-born servant Eliezer (Gen 15:2), to which God said "This servant shall not be your heir; but he that shall come forth from your own loins, he shall be your heir." (Gen 15:4) Therefore, lest Abraham should think that what was promised in Genesis 15:4 was fulfilled in Ishmael the handmaid's son in Genesis 16, God appeared to Abraham in Genesis 17 to promise the birth of Isaac, and said "I am God; be well-pleasing in my sight, and be without complaint, and I will make my covenant between me and you, and will fill you exceedingly."

Here in Genesis 17 there are more distinct promises about the calling of the nations in Isaac, that is, in the son of the promise, by which grace is signified, and not nature; for the son is promised from an old man and a barren old woman [Rom 4:19]. For although God effects even the natural course of procreation, yet where the agency of God is manifest, through the decay or failure of nature, grace is more plainly discerned. And because this was to be brought about, not by generation, but by regeneration, circumcision was enjoined now, when a son was promised of Sarah. For what else does circumcision signify than a nature renewed on the putting off of the old? And what else does the eighth day mean than Christ, who rose again when the week was completed, that is, after the Sabbath? The very names of the parents are changed [Gen 17:5; Rom 4:17]: all these details proclaim newness, and the new covenant is shadowed forth in the old. For what does the term old covenant imply but the concealing of the new? And what does the term new covenant imply but the revealing of the old?

Wow, if only this passage of St Augustine was more well-known, it might have changed the course of Catholic & Protestant dialog a long time ago and completely changed the way we read Romans 4. This passage confirms a lot of what my own 'regenerated' understanding of Romans 4 seems to be about as I've explained in my Revisiting series. As a summary: I do not see Romans 4 as about Abraham converting in Genesis 15, nor about him getting justified a second time after Genesis 12. I do not necessarily even see circumcision as portrayed as a "work" (more on this in an upcoming post). Rather, I think the only feasible reading of Rom 4:2 "if Abraham was justified by works" can refer to is bringing about the Promised Heir of Gen 15:4 by natural human means, namely Abraham sleeping with Hagar in Genesis 16, right after the Covenant was established in Genesis 15. It makes little to no sense contextually or logically for "works" of Abraham in Rom 4 to be sins, good deeds, or even circumcision itself, much less the ceremonial works of Moses. If you do a simple substitution of any of those meanings of "works", the train of thought for Paul makes no sense. It is possible that Paul is saying Abraham's "work" of sleeping with Hagar was a "type" for the merely natural "works of the Mosaic Law" which lacked grace. Abraham truly Believed God's promise in Genesis 12 that his offspring would be great and bless the whole world, but his natural, earthly, human "Reason" was unable to see how this was to actually be. Perhaps it was Eliezer, Abraham's distant relative would be the heir. So God showed up go clarify in Genesis 15 that it was not Eliezer, but rather someone "from his own loins" (15:4b). Perhaps then it was Ishmael, Abraham's actual biological child. So God showed up again to clarify in Genesis 17 that it wasn't Ishmael, but rather a miraculous birth, made possible by regenerative circumcision. In all this, we see types/shadows/images of the insufficiency of the Old Covenant and the need to make way for the New Covenant. Paul is far more concerned with Divine Revelation unfolding, seeing Genesis with the Glasses of Faith, that he is with some silly, shallow Protestant debate on faith "versus" deeds. 

Is it reasonable to believe Mary & Joseph had other children besides Jesus?

In nearly every discussion about the Perpetual Virginity of Mary that I've come across, the debate almost always comes down to whether the "brothers and sisters" mentioned a few times in the Gospels were biological children or if this was just an ancient way of referring to cousins (which I hold to). But what if it was neither? The past few days, I got the inspiration to realize that there is indeed another possibility that Protestants don't consider: adoption! Why not? Remember that the underlying actual goal of the Protestant side is to attack Catholicism by attacking Mary, so if the "brothers and sisters" aren't biological children then their anti-Catholic mission has failed. The adoption possibility doesn't seem to be an explanation that I've ever come across, which is strange because it easily counters the Protestant when they reject the standard Catholic cousin explanation. It was actually very common in ancient times for parents to die of diseases and such, since there wasn't modern medicine or sanitation. So it was not uncommon for children of the same region, neighborhood, relatives, tribe, etc, to adopt those orphaned children. Could this be why James, the "brother" of Jesus, speaks so highly of taking care of orphans? (James 1:27) The genealogy lists that Matthew and Luke give list different forefathers at some points, but this is easily explained by the reality that some of those sons/fathers were adopted, and thus lineages crossed, but since it was all within the same Tribe of Judah, it was ultimately the same lineage. What is a Protestant really going to do if you respond by saying "yes, but these were adopted children"? The Protestant will realize that they cannot simply presume, and thus their argument is instantly deflated. Plus, we are all truly the brothers of Jesus by adoption in the spiritual sense, and would even extend that into being adopted by Mary (and Joseph), which is how many Catholic spiritual writers have understood the "rest of her children" in reference to Mary in Revelation 12:17.