The Protestant vs Catholic Audio Debate.

Catholic apologist Patrick Madrid in his website http://www.surprisedbytruth.com/ contains (among other good resources) a Protestant vs Catholic audio debate entitled, "What Still Divides US? A High-Powered Catholic Protestant Debate". On the side of the Protestants are URC (United Reformed Church) minister and professor of church history at Westminister Escondido, Robert Godfrey (whose entry in Theonomy: A Reformed Critique I recall enjoying), Rod Rosenbladt, Lutheran minister and professor of theology at Concordia Irvine, and Michael Horton, another minister from URC and professor of theology at Westminister Escondido.

Representing the Roman Catholic position are, William Marshner, Thomistic scholar and professor of theology at Christendom College(1), Patrick Madrid, Catholic apologist, and finally Bob Sungenis, Catholic apologist.

This debate was held over several days, was held at a Protestant church in Southern California and was sponsored by the Protestant ministries network C.U.R.E (which later merged to become "A.C.E" http://www.alliancenet.org/). The main issues under disputation were, sola Scriptura and Justification.

· On Sola Scriptura: Nothing ground breaking or new was added to the old debate in my opinion. But it was a good introductory presentation for the crowds at attendance. The Protestants argued under various points to show how Scripture should be held as the only rule of faith and doctrine. In response the Catholic team urged that to divorce Scripture from its historic context leads to hermeneutical anarchy(2) and modern day Protestantism is proof. Instead of the novelty of "sola Scriptura" it is argued that the historic hermeneutical pattern should be followed, namely Scriptura read by the Regula Fidei, or the patristic interpretation (rule of faith).

· On Justification: The Protestants argued that Rome's soteriology is warped at best and semi-Pelagian at worse (proof citing their arguments with canon's of Vatican II). In Response Dr. Marshner shows that Roman Catholic formulation of justification "never was and with God's grace never will be" Pelagian, semi-Pelagian, a "works-righteous" system or any of the other straw man labels given by the misinformed. It is rather Augustinian and thus sola gratia and further, Vatican II if properly read in context bears witness to this fact.

All in all this debate is a fascinating hear and most impressive of all was the intellectual dominance of Bill Marshner. He stood head and shoulders over all of the commentators, wielding a command of the issues(3) that is incredible in breadth. The thoughts of Marshner(4) on these issues alone are worth the price of the debate. A major dissapointment in this debate was the lack of representation for the Anglican position, the Via Media. Instead of a serious contributor of this tradition, the moderator of the debate (the Anglican ) played the proverbial act of the neutral observer(5).



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(1). Bill Marshner is a convert from Lutheranism.
(2). A point that is brought out often sometimes in comedic fashion by the Catholics to exhibit the intellectual frailty of the Protestant hermeneutical position. Often time's it is signaled out that the Protestant claims of exclusive truthfulness cannot be supported since the Protestant panel differ's among themselves as to the "true" position on a given doctrine.
(3). Such as church history and the various intricate nuances among the theological traditions.
(4). Such as the poignant perceptions that Calvinism is a minority report among even the Protestant traditions, or that the Gallic priest Lucidius was "Calvin, a thousand years before" and how the extreme views of Lucidius (views which anticipate the French reformer) were soundly condemned at the council of Arles in 476 A.D.
(5). And what a poor choice for Anglican representation, a self-professed Arminian...
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Book Review: A Biblical Defense of Catholicism.

After reading and reviewing Dave Armstrong's less than stellar "Catholic Verses" (review below) I was pointed to this work by the same author, published by Sophia Press 2003.

What we are giving here (despite the pleading of the author that he is a mere layman) is a detailed, well written, non-technical defense of Roman Catholicism. Sounds familiar? Well probably, but Armstrong takes a braver approach, namely defending Catholicism not from a patristic-historical stance but he bases his arguments fromn Scripture (with the occasional citation of a father or council as the need arises). Apparently, this work is aimed for the educated layman or clergy since Armstrong does not deal with any of the best and modern secondary literature on the passages in question but does cite well known (mostly Protestant) general reference works (usually of the first half of the 20th century).

· Chapter 1 "Bible and Tradition". An excellent introductory treatment surrounding the foundational hermeneutical questions that distinguish the Protestant approach from the Roman Catholic (a very helpful chart of the patristic acceptance of the books of the New Testament in the early church is given).

· Chapter 2 "Justification". Armstrong gives us a solid introduction to the difficult question of justification from a Catholic perspective. He gives an analysis and critique of the Protestant formulation "sola fide" and continues to show from the Scriptures how the broader encompassing view of Catholicism is much closer to the evidence of Scripture.

· Chapter 3 "Development of Doctrine". Basing his argument on the philosophical foundation of John H Newman and the Catholic fathers Armstrong erects an unbreakable fortress of logic proving that the early Christians using the concepts found in Scripture and the Regula Fidei, hammered out Christian theology with the guidance of God the Holy Spirit.

· Chapter 4 "The Eucharist". Without a doubt Armstrong's presentation of the Eucharist is one of the clearest and most cogent treatments found in the popular literature.

· Chapter 5 "The Sacrifice of the Mass". Armstrong on the Mass is one of the weaker entries in this work. Many of the conclusions from Scripture seem rather stretched and convoluted and ultimately fail to convince (obviously what makes this doctrine shine is the testimony of the fathers).

· Chapter 6 "The Communion of the Saints". Again we are given a fresh and cogent defense of the Communion of the Saints from a non technical level. Armstrong is nimble around Scripture and proves many steps leading to innvocation but in my opinion fails to prove the final link in this chain, the actual innvocation of the saints.

· Chapter 7 "Purgatory". A well written presentation indeed in which Armstrong demolishes the awkward "third state" theologies of the Protestants and gives a strong defense of the Catholic interpretation of the third state, namely purgatory.

· Chapter 8 "Penance". A sober defense and clear demarcation of the Catholic conception of penance against Protestant complaints. What Armstrong convincingly demonstrates from Scripture is the embryonic stages of penance, the question is, does he prove without a doubt the later Roman Catholic formulation of penance?

· Chapter 9 "The Blessed Virgin Mary". An eye opening and educational presentation teaching what Catholics actually believe concerning Mary (and how some of the first reformers held high views of Mary). In the final analysis, Armstrong fails to convince on many points (some of the scientific exegesis of pericopes are very light and stretched beyond any credulity).

· Chapter 10 "The Papacy and Infallibility". Another informative treatment at the hands of Armstrong. He mounts a mammoth Scriptural defense of the primacy of Peter (50 Scriptural points to be exact) and convinces on many of the points.

· We are then given 6 short appendixes. Ap 1 on the so called "perspecuity of Scripture", the fantasy that Protestants have invented which holds that even the most uneducated field worker can correctly understand the deep theological tenets of Christianity (doctrines which took the best minds of Christendom no less than 500 years to hammer out). Armstrong then continues to demolish the Protestant misnomer that holds "unity in the essentials and flexibility in the secondary issues". There is no such thing as secondary issues Armstrong correctly notes, logically the house of theological cards stands or falls in its entirety, you cannot pick and choose ending up with a frankensteinian theology. In Ap 2 Armstrong gives us a short by penetrating critique on the schismatic nature of Protestantism, a nature we are warned about again and again by the testimony of the New Testament. Ap 3 mounts an impressive defense of the inspiration of the so-called Apocryphal books. Ap 4 is a short defense of the celibacy of priests under the Western Latin Roman rites ( I remain unconvinced over mandatory celibacy).

In the final analysis, what Dave Armstrong has given us in this his magnum opus is a clear and very informative presentation of the basis of Roman Catholicism from the Scriptures. Not all points are convincing but at the very least the reader will be challenged time and again from cogent arguments extracted from the Old and New Testaments.

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Expelled Exposed?

Last night I got a chance to see Ben Stein's new docu-drama "Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed". At first I did not know what to expect since the documentary interestingly was not critically reviewed (they did not let critics give reviews beforehand)? So perhaps I was in for a "decent" semi-popular level documentary such as Lee Strobel's "Case for Christ". I already had a red flag placed in my mind when Stein was interviewed by famous Presbyterian scholar R.C Sproul on his "Renewing your mind" radio show and the show seemed to go out of its way to preface Stein's interview by the recurring statement, "Renewing you're mind does not endorse all the views expressed by Ben Stein and the documentary Exposed".

Without going into all the various details and debates of the documentary what I witnessed was a rather poor attempt by Stein and his collaborators to use emotion rather than fact and professional protocol (such as showing both sides of an issue without bias or logical fallacies, such as strawman arguments, ad hoc, red herring, etc). And a good job Stein did in his bombastic presentation of the very serious issues surrounding intelligent design vs the thesis of common descent. Sure the audience laughed and pointed at the caricatures that were made of Dawkin and the "evil evolutionists" but this does a great disservice to the American popular mind. Instead of presenting the very serious issues on this great debate of our generation in a sober and analytical fashion, we are given cartoons. A much more intelligent and cautious introduction to these issues starring powerhouses of both sides (Dr. Alister McGrath, celebrated Anglican scholar and Professor Richard Dawkins) is found here - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6474278760369344626.

The problems trailing Expelled do not end here on philosophical grounds. The guerilla ambush tactics and falsehoods that the producers of Expelled used are well documented, one example by the NY Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/science/27expelled.html?_r=1&oref=slogin. Very disconcerting and problematic are the deliberate falsehoods and decievements of the producers of Expelled to get these scholars "in" their documentary, classical methods of the unlearned crowds, similar to the way heretical groups such as the "Jehova's Witnesses" do to patristic scholars to bolser their views upon the ignorant.

The question naturally arises, what does the church then believe concerning human evolution? The regula fide is obviously silent on this issue since this scientific concept is a relatively new one post-dating the fathers and the major thinkers of the historic church. However since Darwin proposed his theory the response of Christians have been one of these two;

1. Reject all forms of evolution and believing God created instantaneously mankind (represented mostly by fundamentalist Protestants who hand in hand believe that the world is 6000 years old and a literal 7 day creation).

2. Belief that the evolution of humans was providentially guided by God (known as the Theistic view of evolution). Usually this view is accompanied by the old age earth or that it is billions of years old and that the account in Genesis is poetic genre not to be taken as literal 24 hour periods.

Protestants being consistent in their hermeneutic (sola scriptura) you can understand why they would be trenchant about taking the account of Genesis literally and thus believe evolution to be unholy, the work of a blind universe unconcerned about love or the care of the infirm. Catholics on the other hand have been much more open to Theistic evolution (not blind untheistic evolution). Pope Pius XII declared that "the teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions . . . take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—but the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God" (Pius XII, Humani Generis 36). In other words, Catholics are not obliged to believe in evolution or on the other hand, in an instantaneous creation of humanity. Behind this thinking for Catholics is the thought that God reveals Himself both in Sacred revelation (the regula fide and the Scriptures) and in the natural world (as Paul explains to us in Romans 1). Our Protestant brothers once again rob themselves following slavishly the fantasy of sola scriptura and thus by believing in a "young earth" blind themselves to the painful truth (to them) that science has revealed certain dates about the earth's age. Catholics are much more common sense people in basing their epistemic conclusions, obviously the earth is not young since it is manifest to our eyes in science, likewise obviously the innovation of sola scriptura is not right since the New Testament was not canonized until the fourth century in Athanasius' Easter Letter and thus the early Christian church looked to the regula fide as well as Scripture for the correct interpretation of doctrine.

But I digress, the point being far from ignoring God's handiwork in His universe we should embrace and meditate on the great truths He is displaying in them. What is necessary for Catholics is the understanding that the souls of mankind are not in anyway a process or developed (or undeveloped). God is the sole and unique creator of the souls of man and He does this for a specific reason, His Son died for these souls in redemptive history. Our final resurrected bodies is what really counts, not that we are ugly, fat, dismembered, eaten by lions or burned at the stake in this world.

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Book Review: "The Catholic Verses".

A few years ago (2004) I read this work by author Dave Armstrong which is a Roman Catholic apologetic piece sly'ly entitled, "The Catholic Verses, 95 Bible Passages That Confound Protestants" which is a play on words contra Luther's 95 nailed thesis.

It is a basic introduction to Catholic apologetics - I presume aimed for the Catholic layman since in depth notes, rigorous exegesis of the Greek text and/or pericope is missing and we are only given the most general introduction on key issues in the heated debates between Catholics and Protestants today.

Armstrong does however a good job wrestling with both Luther and Calvin (among others) on strong issues and I especially liked the small but concise entry on 'The Church' and her authority concerning the philosophy of hermeneutics. The discussion of justification is handled well and I particularly like Armstrong's citations of John Newman on this issue. Most other issues are likewise given small but able treatments but the weaker entries were the defense of the sacrament of penance, communion of the saints, purgatory and the prayers for the dead seemed a bit strecthed. Highlights of the book were the entries on Priestly celibacy, and the notorious "Sin of Onan" or in other words, contraception.

All in all, a good 'short' read and highly recommended for students new to Catholic apologetics. For the serious scholar look elsewhere.