"Traditionalist" Catholic Attacks on Pope John Paul II: Accusations of Incompetence, Modernism, Compromise, and Heresy

Just so you're aware of how "far out" the so-called "traditionalists" have gotten, even if they may not be formally schismatic yet (I have habitually called opinions such as these "quasi-schismatic"):

Robert Sungenis:

Yes, as far as reacting to a direct disobedience of his orders not to consecrate the four bishops, the pope acted "legitimately." On the other hand, Lefebvre had "legitimate" complaints about the pope that the pope thoroughly ignored (e.g., Assisi 1986, liberalism, false ecumenism, the suppression of the Latin Mass, etc). Hence, insofar as legal legitimacy, yes, the pope had his rights, but as far as dealing with Lefebvre's concerns of a Church leaving her traditions and going down the wrong path, the pope totally missed the mark. Lefebvre will be judged for disobeying the direct disciplinary order of the pope, but the pope will be judged for bringing the Church to the edge of apostasy.

. . . If John Paul II really wanted to integrate Vatican II with Tradition, he should have called all the bishops of the world to Rome to pray to God for world peace. As it stands, it seems that John Paul thinks more highly of pagans than he does his own prelature. He won't call the bishops to Rome to consecrate Russia, and he won't call the bishops to pray for world peace. This is a pope who has little control over the Church, and that is because he has failed to discipline his Church. Scripture says that the pope is supposed to rule the nations and the Church with a rod of iron, but this pope has been little more than milquetoast for 25 years, and thus the Church is in the worst condition it has ever been.

. . . Yes, proper respect and allegiance should be given to the magisterium. But when the prelates behind the magisterium go off into heterodoxy by asserting their personal opinions, then it is the "right and duty" of the Christian faithful to point these aberrations out to them, according to Canon Law 212, 2-3. If we don't point them out, then we are being negligent, and God will judge us. Although the Great Facade is, as Mr. Likoudis frames it, "a book of relentless contestation of the magisterium...," Mr. Likoudis' apologetic is to the other extreme – a relentless acceptance of innovation and opinion of the present pontificate, regardless whether it squares with Tradition or even Vatican II, and the failure to speak out about the abuses that this pontificate has perpetrated on the Christian faithful.

. . . Yes, God is still in charge. The question is whether He can find brave warriors to stand up for the faith and put the blame right where it belongs – on the pontificate of John Paul II. Unfortunately, Mr. Likoudis does not seem to have the ability to hold respect for the papacy and the pope, and at the same time point out in public where the pontificate has gone wrong. As long as Mr. Likoudis maintains that dichotomy, he will be called a "neo-Catholic" by Ferrara-Woods and many other people. How Mr. Likoudis can live with the unprecedented aberrations this pontificate has promoted without registering these complaints in public is mind-boggling. Here's just a partial list:

- A pontificate that prays with pagans and encourages pagans to pray to their false gods for mundane favors.

- that doesn't once preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to them for the saving of their souls.

- that sanctions voodooism and other such abominable religions.

- that gives high-profile jobs to known pedophile protectors (Cardinal Law).

- that fails to rid the seminaries, chanceries and universities of homosexuals, and fails to deal with bishops who sanction and perpetuate homosexuality and homosexual priests.

- that fails to discipline heretical and immoral prelates, but pounces on others who seek to adhere to the Traditional Church.

- that teaches that the Jews have their own covenant with God, and need not convert to Christianity, and that the Old Covenant has not been revoked, in direct opposition to Scripture and Tradition.

- that strongly suggests by carefully chosen language that most, if not everyone, will be saved

- that signs joint statements with Protestants that have the Catholic side agreeing to the statement "justification is by faith alone" (Section 2C, Annex, JD)

- that allows the production of Catholic bibles (NAB) and commentaries (NJBC) that question or deny major tenets of the Catholic faith.

- that promotes the idea that Scripture has historical errors and that the Gospels are anti-semitic.

- that has consistently refused to consecrate Russia, by name, as Our Lady requested in 1929, and pretends that the consecration has already been performed and that the Fatima apparitions are passe.

- that has never completely released the Third Secret of Fatima, even though Our Lady commanded it to be released as far back as 1960.

- that promotes a Mass to conform to Protestant sensibilities, and gives lip service to the Traditional Mass.

- that has weakened the wording of certain sacraments.

- that says, in certain instances, the consecration formula is not necessary to confect the Eucharist.

- that allows women to act like priests and parade on holy altars, and hold positions of high authority in dioceses and universities.

- that teaches that husbands and wives are to be in "mutual submission."

- that promotes altar girls, even after it promised not to do so.

- that teaches our children that they descended from apes as if it were a fact of science.

- that makes life very hard for those who remain faithful to pre-Vatican II traditions.

- that teaches that the United Nations is the best hope of mankind (even though the UN promotes abortion, population control, contraception, euthanasia, and many other moral atrocities)

- that, instead of recognizing its own faults, makes profuse apologies for the actions of past popes and saints.

- whose policies of ecumenism are an unmitigated failure. (Recently the 22 nations of the European Union rejected the pope's request to add the phrase "Europe has traditional roots in Christianity" into its constitution, yet Europe has been the focus of this pontificate's "ecumenism" for the last 25 years).

(A Frank Discussion with Jim Likoudis about Vatican II, John Paul II and The Great Facade)

Whereas in Noah’s day there were only eight people saved while the rest were condemned when the doors of the ark were shut (1 Pt 3:20), quite the opposite is taking place today, and John Paul II comes very close on many occasions to declaring that everyone in the world will be saved. Right from the beginning of his pontificate, starting from his 1979 encyclical Redemptor Hominis (an encyclical, incidentally, which uses “church” 150 times but does not mention “Catholic” once), to his January 2002 gathering of 160 world religions at Assisi to “pray” for world peace, John Paul II has given us a steady stream of universalist-type messages, but he has preached little, if any, messages of judgment and condemnation of the world for its sins.

I believe John Paul II does this because the essence of his “ecumenical” gospel appears to be that man is saved until proven otherwise, whereas our traditional gospel holds, as Noah did, that man is under condemnation until he is saved.

. . . Other men have been branded as heretics for saying things not half as troublesome as some of the above statements.

. . . As it stands, there are many other things John Paul II has said and done that make it hard for one to be defensive of his teachings in the light of tradition.

. . . Although one cannot possibly cover all of them in one essay, there are, in fact, many such alarming and troubling statements made by the pope in Crossing the Threshold of Hope.

. . . It appears from his writings and teachings, however, that John Paul II has gone sufficiently beyond both Scripture and conciliar teaching to warrant our sincere concern about his basic understanding of how salvation is procured and to whom it might be given. More to the point, I think it would be no exaggeration to say that it is precisely John Paul’s view that every man is a recipient of ‘salvation until proven otherwise’ which is behind all the “ecumenical activities” . . .
The pope’s liberal views on salvation . . .

(When a Pope Errs)

Christopher Ferrara
(co-author of "the most feared book in Neo-Catholic Land": The Great Facade)

. . . . This brings us to the heart of the matter: How is it that a world in the grip of apostasy had nothing but praise for the Pope whose moral teaching it simply ignored? On every major television network politicians of the Left and the Right, conservative and liberal journalists and political commentators, Protestant ministers, rabbis, Imams, Hindus and Buddhists, rock stars and even MTV video jockeys--spokesmen of every conceivable persuasion and political orientation nanimously offered unstinting tribute to the Pope.

How does one explain this seeming paradox? . . . there has to be more to the explanation than this, for the Church has never seen anything like the unceasing hosannas offered to John Paul II by virtually every organ of world opinion. Far more is involved here than the usual expressions of worldly respect for a deceased Pope. What is going on?

. . . The conclusion is inescapable: Whatever the Pope’s subjective intentions might have been (and these are known only to God), the world’s unprecedented praise for John Paul II clearly arises from the perception that his pontificate, unlike any other, served the world’s interests as opposed to the “narrow” sectarian interests of the Roman Catholic Church.

. . . How did this perception arise? Is the world not responding to the Church’s own “opening” to it at the Council? Is the world not rejoicing in the legacy of a Pope it sees as having, at long last, brought the Church down to earth, dispelling once and for all its aura of divine majesty as the one and only City of God, ruled by a king who is Christ’s Vicar?

. . . EWTN’s implicit denigration of the preconciliar Popes (a basic element of neo-Catholic thinking) continued on Marcus Grodi’s show The Journey Home, where Grodi opined that John Paul II had made Protestants “feel welcome” in the Church, whereas before his reign “there was not that welcome.”

. . . In the eyes of the world, then, John Paul II is more worthy of admiration than any Pope before him because he, unlike any of his predecessors, was willing to lend credence to many of the world’s accusations against the Church, especially the accusations of the Jews . . . Here, as in so many other areas, we see the contradictory nature of the pontificate that has just ended. And it is precisely these contradictions the world now exploits in its great show of adulation for one Pope above all others. What Catholic would want to assist in the exploitation by failing to protest, as a Catholic should, that no Pope is utterly inerrant, and that not everything John Paul II said and did was in the best interest of the Church or a model for other popes to follow?

For 26 years the neo-Catholic establishment chanted: “John Paul II, we love you!” But did they love the Pope as a Pope should be loved, in charity and in truth, being willing, as St. Thomas teaches, to admonish even the Pope should the danger of scandal to the Faith arise? Or did they love instead the cult they themselves had built up around the man in sports stadiums and at the World Youth Days?

As he viewed the Pope lying in state in St. Peter’s Basilica during EWTN’s coverage, Marcus Grodi said that people must develop an appreciation not only for the Catholic faith, “but for the meaning of John Paul II.” When the person of a Pope is raised to the level of a “meaning” that is held to be something over and above the Faith itself, we are witnessing a process of papal deification that is foreign to our religion and must arouse in us no little fear of what is to come in the days ahead.

. . . We who call ourselves traditionalists can only object to this whole eerie spectacle, the likes of which the Church has never seen before. Whoever wishes to love the Pope as he ought to be loved must be willing to say now, in charity and in truth, that John Paul II was a ruler whose words often said one thing while his actions said another, and that the contradictions which marked his reign have produced enormous confusion in the Church that must be undone by his successor.

(Did They Love You, Pope John Paul II?)

Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
(co-author of "the most feared book in Neo-Catholic Land": The Great Facade)

[question from interviewer] 9. Many European Catholics see with some disconcertment that American Catholics who were supposed to be "orthodox" are pro-war although they used to share the Vatican’s position in moral matters. Has the crisis inside the Church weakened their confidence in the Pope, especially in his interpretation of the just-war doctrine?

I don’t think so. In fact, most neoconservative Catholics have defended John Paul’s handling of the crisis to an almost embarrassing degree, blaming everything on bad bishops or biased media coverage. There have been a few exceptions, like Rod Dreher of National Review (one of the most hawkish magazines), who argued in this context that John Paul’s moral authority had indeed been compromised, but in general the crisis does not seem to have influenced people’s perceptions of John Paul’s ability or moral right to apply just-war criteria to the conflict with Iraq. Whether there was a crisis or not, the Catholic neocons would have adopted the political positions they have now. They would not have been more likely to support John Paul.

Interestingly, it has been Catholic traditionalists, who have been most critical of John Paul’s pontificate, who have been more likely to agree with his judgment about the war. These traditionalists have been forthright in their criticisms of Rome in the present crisis, arguing that we cannot seriously be expected to believe that the situation could have grown this bad without any Vatican knowledge of it at all, and it is the Vatican, moreover, who appoints these appalling bishops in the first place (ignoring the pleas of orthodox faithful entirely). And yet they have generally supported the Pope on the war issue. So there does not appear to be a connection between the two.

(The Split on the Right)

Michael J. Matt
(editor of The Remnant)

. . . While watching some of the constant live feed from the Eternal City this past week, compliments of the cable news networks, it occurred to me to wonder if we were not perhaps viewing, in a sense, a Requiem for the old Catholic Faith itself. For whatever his strengths and weaknesses, Pope John Paul II is likely the last Pontiff who will have deep roots in the old Church and who will have clear memories of the way the Church once was but is no more. His pontificate was the bridge from the old to the new; with his passing, the bridge is no more. The next Pope is apt to have had his priestly formation solidly rooted in the new Church of Vatican II.

. . . As traditional Catholics we felt so terribly alone this past week, asking, even as Mary Magdalene asked at the tomb, “What have you done with him? What has become of the Catholic Pope?” One priest commentator on Fox News summed it up perfectly: “Previous popes were popes of the Catholic Church; Pope John Paul was the pope of the world!” With few exceptions, they praised him, they eulogized him, some even seemed intent upon deifying him. What does it all mean? Humanly speaking, it may well mean that the Revolution has triumphed, or at least believes that it has triumphed, to such an extent over the past fifty years, and the Catholic Church has fallen so low in her human element, that the world no longer fears her or her human leaders. In its heart and soul, of course, the world knows that there is only one true Church and that it is the Catholic Church. But in true demonic fashion, the world also seems eager to test its apparent triumph over the Church by holding aloft like some trophy the Catholic pope and saying: “Wasn’t he a great man! He was one of us.” The same world that vilifies Pius XII on a daily basis now claims Pope John Paul as one of its own. Indeed, these are dangerous times.

. . . this long and in so many respects tragic pontificate, . . .

. . . Now, at the eleventh hour, it is time, it seems to us, for Catholics to beg God on bended knee to arrange it so that the next Pope will be given the grace to see the absolute necessity of abolishing that catastrophic experiment called the New Mass—that unmitigated disaster that has failed so completely to preserve and protect the Faith, and that has, instead, proven itself expertly capable of destroying within the Catholic masses the belief in the Real Presence—once and for all, while using the full weight of his august office to reinstate the sacred Mass of the Roman Rite…the Mass of the Saints…the Mass of the Ages…the Mass of Tradition!

(On the Eve of Another Conclave)

David Palm

I do not think it would be difficult to reach a broad consensus among NOR (NEW OXFORD REVIEW) readers that the state of the Catholic Church today is downright confusing on many fronts. Where we would begin to diverge from one another is in the analysis of the root causes of that confusion. Although all would likely agree that there is no single source, orthodox Catholics have increasingly stated in public that at least part of the confusion in the Church today has its origins at the very top — that some of the words, deeds, and omissions of Pope John Paul II are causing confusion among faithful Catholics.

. . . I will point out a number of examples in which right Catholic belief and practice would be wrongly altered by following the example set by John Paul II.

. . . One of the most pernicious errors that plagues the Catholic Church today is creeping universalism . . . One finds, unfortunately, that support for this new-fangled notion may be found at the very top of the Church's hierarchy . . . Creeping universalism has very troubling practical results. Most notably, it dampens missionary zeal and Catholic evangelism.

. . . Could it be that our Holy Father does not exercise his disciplinary authority because he is not convinced that we can know whether there is anyone in Hell? Is it not possible that certain theological conclusions and practical outcomes logically go hand in glove?

. . . Here, it seems, is a direct clash between the Church's pre-conciliar Thomistic realism and a post-conciliar emphasis on a certain kind of personalism which increasingly looks like a divorce from reality and a rejection of common sense. Further, as the years have passed since Vatican II, these now-stock excuses for why the Vatican has refused to discipline renegade priests and bishops have crumbled, one by one. Certainly the many decades over which the crisis has spread have been sufficient to gather the information necessary to judge the erroneous opinions of various priests and bishops accurately and justly. And the "greater scandal" argument — most often formulated in terms of the avoidance of an open schism — has now been shown false in the most recent clerical sex scandals. The Holy Father could have removed many deviant bishops and priests with complete impunity. The other bishops would not have dared defy him on such an issue, especially since those most apt to break openly with Rome tend to have scandalous skeletons in their own closets. With even the secular world rightly expecting tough treatment of such deviancy, who would have dared go into schism over the situation? But has any disciplinary action been taken? Rather, in yet another bow to the novelty of collegiality, the entire problem was handed back to the national hierarchy which, through its own laxity, spawned the scandal in the first place.

. . . Creeping universalism may lie behind another phenomenon in the Catholic Church as well, the quasi-official change in her stance regarding the status of non-Catholic Christians . . . But today, there are no more calls issued from the Vatican for those Christians separated from the Catholic Church to return to her. Rather, the new outlook is one of a mutual journey of Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestants along a common path toward unity.

. . . On the other hand, Dominus Iesus (DI) issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on June 16, 2000, with the Pope's approval, stated that there is only one Church of Christ, the Catholic Church, that "the unicity and the unity" of the Catholic Church "will never be lacking," that other Christian communities suffer from "defects," that those who do not have a valid Episcopate "are not Churches in the proper sense," and that the "fullness of Christ's salvific mystery belongs" to the Catholic Church (#16-17). This would imply — though it is not stated explicitly — that Christian ecumenism requires some kind of return to the Catholic Church . . . the Pope went out of his way on October 1, 2000, to affirm DI, saying that it "is close to my heart" and "was approved by me in a special way." So where does John Paul really stand? Who knows? It's a mystery, one that engenders confusion in the Catholic faithful.

. . . Truly, these are confusing times in the Catholic Church. I have tried to clarify that the source of at least some of this confusion is found in a place that many orthodox Catholics have been unwilling to examine. Until relatively recently, I shared this resistance. I expect there will be those who proclaim that this is all just "Pope bashing." It is not. Any annoyance with what I've written should at least be tempered by a realistic evaluation of the concrete examples that have been presented (and, unfortunately, a great many more could be) . . .

(Catholic Confusion at the Very Top: originally published in The New Oxford Review and later reprinted in Seattle Catholic: 6 April 2004)

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It's not my intention to combat all these errors here (which require an extreme time commitment: so great and deep are the falsehoods and misunderstandings). I simply wanted to inform readers of the nature of such criticisms of the late great Holy Father. For my own opinions, see my page:

"Traditionalist" and Schismatic Catholics

For web pages or blogs specializing in "traditionalist" controversies and error, see:

F. John Loughnan's Page
Agenda (William Grossklas)
Ultratraditionalists ("Matt 1618")
The Lidless Eye Inquisition (Pete Vere & Shawn McElhinney)

I believe all of these men, with the exception (I think) of "Matt1618," were formerly in the SSPX or otherwise in the so-called "traditionalist" camp. I was not, so I don't write with either the knowledge or interest that they have. I approach the matter primarily from a "flawed premises" perspective. I recognize that the troubled opinions arising from the "traditionalist" mindset" inevitably come from some false idea or hidden premise that was adopted and built upon. "Traditionalists" invariably want to argue about 10,000 particulars -- especially of a "legal / canon law / liturgical" variety. My point is that such a discussion is pointless unless one's first premises are established beforehand. But that is rarely done. I could go on and on, but I'll leave it there.

Will the real Steve Hays please stand up (for those of you old fogeys who remember the game show, "What's My Line?")? This one, at any rate (presumably the same as the one below) is a student at Reformed Theological Seminary

"Oreo Cookie Catholicism": The Curious Observations of One Steve Hays

I stumbled across a fascinating commentary on my position as an apologist and my own supposed beliefs, by Steve Hays, a Reformed Protestant (I'll briefly answer in brackets):
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Helping old mother church across the street

Every now and then I tune into Dave Armstrong's RC website to see what's new, if anything, in this alternative universe.

[thanks for visiting!]

Among other things, Armstrong has a list of 25 books in defense of Catholicism.

[see my list]

One of the striking things about his list is that only two titles were written by members of the Magisterium. And of those two, both are
of pre-Vatican II vintage.

[why is that "striking"? This makes a number of unwarranted assumptions: namely:

1) that apologetics is the sole domain of the magisterium;
2) that lay apologetics is intrinsically subpar;
3) that Catholicism supposedly requires legitimate apologetics to only be written by those in the magisterium;
4) that somehow the "pre-Vatican II" era is to be regarded as inferior in some strange way to the (what I presume Mr. Hays would call) the "post-Vatican II" era.

Moreover, titles written or overseen by members of the magisterium include two which (contrary to Mr. Hays' description) postdate Vatican II: the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the book by Archbishop Charles Chaput (whom I had the pleasure to meet). One can't help but wonder about the identity of the "two" persons whom Mr. Hays considers members of the pre-Vatican II magisterium? Cardinal Gibbons is the only such person I am aware of. Ludwig Ott was not a bishop, as far as I know]

By contrast, quite a number were written by laymen, some of them Evangelical converts to Catholicism.

[but this is a total non sequitur, as explained; who cares if someone is a convert or not? St. Paul was a Christian-persecuting Jew before his conversion; St. Augustine was a womanizing Manichaean; Cardinal Newman was an anti-Catholic Anglican. So what!]

What makes this so striking is the disconnect between the ecclesiology and the polemical theology. For what we have here is a bottom-heavy defense of a top-heavy institution. But if a layman can make a case for the Magisterium, who needs the Magisterium?

[This is strange logic indeed. By this "reasoning," a Protestant could argue:

1. The Bible is the sole infallible authority in Protestantism.
2. Laymen can make a case that the Bible is what it is.
3. This presents the striking phenomenon of a non-biblical defense of a Bible-heavy institution.
4. Therefore, who needs the Bible?

How does it follow that something is not necessary simply because an entity outside of it argues that it is true and necessary? Furthermore, the very magisterium that Mr. Hays absurdly attempts to pit against Catholic laypeople, has itself made it very clear that those laypeople have a definite, important role in apologetics and catechesis and evangelism: Vatican II: Decree on the Apostolate of Lay People (Apostolicam Actuositatem). That magisterial document states:

. . . the Council earnestly exhorts the laity to take a more active part, each according to his talents and knowledge and in fidelity to the mind of the Church, in the explanation and defense of Christian principles and in the correct application of them to the problems of our times.

(ch. II, section 6) ]

Isn't the raison d'être for the Magisterium the correlative denial of the right of private judgment?

[Yes]

So in what sense is Karl Keating or Scott Hahn or Dave Armstrong an authoritative voice in defense of Catholicism?

[only insofar as we are in harmony with what that magisterium teaches, as the Council explained in my citation above. And -- to be clear -- we lay apologists have no "authority" per se: we only have more or less degrees of truth in what we assert is the Church's teaching. If we defend what is actual Church teaching, then our activities are perfectly legitimate and fully Catholic, and indeed highly encouraged by the Church -- as the magisterium confirms]

Yet another striking feature of the list is what is left out. The greatest Catholic apologist of the 20C was, without doubt, Karl Rahner. So why doesn't Rahner make the cut?

[Probably because my emphasis was on lay apologetics or on those works written more for laypeople than primarily for other theologians or academics]

The reason, I'm sure, is that Rahner is much too liberal for Armstrong.

[He's "sure"? Really? Absolutely sure? That's interesting, since he is wrong. Such a thought never crossed my mind. I was simply cruising amazon.com for appropriate books to link, and found 25 of them]

Yet Rahner was a peritus to Vatican II, and died in good standing with the Church.

[It must be a conspiracy of exclusion then! Who needs further proof?!]

In a sense, then, Armstrong and his cobelligerents

[Very interesting (and revealing) term. I thought we were simply apologists . . . ]

have never really converted to Catholicism at all.

[Really, now? What have we converted to, then? Ah, I wrote too soon, as Mr. Hays provides his answer in the next section]

Instead, they've founded their own little private Victorian Catholic cult, with Newman, Knox, Belloc, Chesterton, and Tolkien as their patron saints --

[It's neither "private" nor "Victorian" nor "founded" nor founded by any of us lay apologists. Only Newman from the above list was even writing in the Victorian period. Also, many of my own influences are non-Victorian and/or non-English: Louis Bouyer, Cardinal Ratzinger, Henri de Lubac, Karl Adam, the pope, all the current apologists who influenced my conversion and ongoing apologetics, Thomas Merton, St. Therese, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Francis de Sales, Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J., Cardinal Gibbons (American), Ludwig Ott, Muggeridge, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Thomas More, Erasmus, Sheed, Pascal, Socrates, etc. So this is absurd and ridiculous on these and many other grounds. The massive provinciality and sectarian exclusivism today is to be found in Protestant ranks. One of the Catholic Church's glories is its universality, as opposed to mere nationalistic fetishes]

whereas the real Roman Catholicism is represented by the likes of Rahner and Raymond Brown.
[Raymond Brown was not even an orthodox Catholic in many beliefs. Yet Mr. Hays wants to lift him up as an example of "real Catholicism," while in effect denigrating the above monumental figures]

Theirs is not official Catholicism, but a treehouse for child actors.

[Is that so? Rather than comment on such a fundamentaly silly and frivolous remark, I would prefer to let Mr. Hays come here and defend it, along with his other quite debatable assertions]

This is Oreo cookie Catholicism--Popish on the outside, but schismatic on the inside.

[ :-) I would say (to return the favor) that Mr. Hays' peculiar polemical outlook is "sophistical contra-Catholicism" -- educatedish and informedish on the outside, and misinformed and irrationally judgmental on the inside]

====================

Mr. Hays is very clever and sharp: I'll give him that much. But cleverness is not enough. See, e.g., his three-part series: Back to Babylon, where he makes many absurd statements, such as, for instance:

Because the Roman Church has a low view of providence, she has a low view of Scripture.

Appeal to a magisterium also ignores the tradition of nonconformity in the Bible.

For a denomination that regards the right of private judgment as so spiritually perilous, the Roman Church has shown itself to be remarkably shy about formally and infallibly committing itself on a wide range of fundamental questions in faith and morals. Why has an ecumenical council never issued an infallible catechism? Why has the papacy never produced an ex cathedra commentary?

But what we instead witness is an organization that brandishes maximal authority-claims while venturing minimal truth-claims. It bears a sneaky resemblance to a psychic who dons an air of superior foresight while remaining strangely vague about names, dates, and places.

According to Catholicism, the Pope is the supreme teacher of the church. But if that were the case, it is passing strange that of the 260 plus men—give or take an antipope—who have occupied the office, not one has been a theologian of the first rank.

1. Without NT precedent: There is no precedent for apostolic succession.

In addition to the examples above, there are a number of other celebrated cases implicating at least a half dozen of the popes, viz., Liberius, Zosimus, Vigilius, Julius I, Honorius I, Celestine I, and Eugenius IV. Besides von Döllinger, consult J.N.D. Kelly, The Oxford Dictionary of Popes (Oxford, 1986); B.J. Kidd, The Roman Primacy to AD 461 (London: SPCK, 1936); R. McBrien, Lives of the Popes (HarperCollins, 1997), and The New Catholic Encyclopedia (CUA 1967, rev. 2003-).

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Perhaps Mr. Hays will come by and "chat" a bit with us (seeing that he already visits my website occasionally). I've notified him via his webmaster, James Anderson, a man with a Ph.D. in Philosophical Theology and an M.A. in Philosophy and Apologetics (great stuff!). Apparently Steve Hays is somewhat of a mysterious figure. I could find no personal information on his blog, compiled by James Anderson, nor on the Internet-at-large. J.P. Holding, a prominent Protestant apologist who debated Hays on predestination and free will issues, wrote at the end of that dialogue, concerning him:

Some have wrongly identitied Hays with a certain Steve Hays who is a professor at Ohio University. They are not the same person. There is no indication anywhere of who THIS Hays is and what credentials he actually has. I have spoken to the Hays at Ohio U. and he has confirmed that it is not him.

Maybe Mr. Anderson will be kind enough to provide more information. Why all the secrecy? It's an odd endeavor, trying to find out something about Mr. Hays. For example, in an article linked on a Van Til website, Hays' co-author is John Frame. Both authors' names are linked. Frame's link confirms that he is a professor of systematic theology and philosophy at Reformed Theological Seminary (with 31 years at Westminster Theological Seminary). That's impressive indeed. But Hays' link simply leads to his blog, where one can find no further information about him. I find this quite curious. A second article from that same Van Til page doesn't even have a link.

To paraphrase a famous line from the movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, "Who is this guy?" Hopefully, Steve Hays, if he takes up my invitation to visit here, will further enlighten us.

2nd Reply to Anglican Edwin Tait on Historical Ecclesiological Arguments and Development of Doctrine (Complete)

Previous installments:

Part I

Part II

Part III (final section) is below.

Edwin's words will be in blue. Any past words of mine will be in green. Past words of Edwin's will be in red.

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I don't know if I presuppose private judgment, because private judgment can mean all sorts of things (as does sola scriptura). If private judgment means that the individual Christian has to make decisions about which things presented to him/her for belief are true and which are false, then yes, I presuppose "private judgment," and I observe all Catholics exercising it.

It doesn't mean simply "decision-making." It is a technical term for a particular epistemological outlook. This state of affairs that you describe is not at issue. But I deny that it is private judgment.

Indeed, it seems axiomatic that everyone exercises it all the time.

Yes it does.

If you mean by "private judgment" that the individual's decisions are ultimate, in such a way that having decided X I would never change my mind to Y because of ecclesiastical authority, then no form of Protestantism to which I belong presupposes any such thing. Certainly you find Protestants and Protestant churches who teach this. But it is not a necessary consequence of Protestantism.

I don't mean that, either.

If you mean that the individual's decisions are ultimate in the sense that submission to an authority depends on a prior decision that the authority is valid--a decision that might be reversed if more evidence of some kind turned up--then again, I think everyone exercises this, except those who simply believe what they believe because the religion or culture or nation in which they were educated teaches it (a position that I think has more merit than modern people recognize except when it rests on mere subservience to political power). If for instance you found convincing reason to believe that all documents and artifacts of the history of Christianity before the Middle Ages were forged, you would almost certainly reexamine your commitment to Catholicism, I suspect. Of course, there is no probability that this will happen--something like it is maintained by some crackpots, but neither of us take them seriously. That, however, is the point--we both make a judgment of our own that they are not worth taking seriously.

I agree again.

Finally, you may mean that the individual is responsible for more than simply determining the validity of an ecclesiastical authority (such as the Catholic Magisterium) and the degree of weight the Magisterium itself intended a given pronouncement to have, but rather must analyze each decision of the Magisterium against a background other than its own pronouncements and expressed intentions. This probably is what you mean, and it is a meaningful distinction.

Yes; that "background," is, of course, Scripture, in this system, which is the only infallible authority. But that has to be interpreted, etc. Who authoritatively interprets if there is no binding authority other than Scripture? It seems obvious to me that in the end, in such an individualistic system, the individual decides, in some very real sense.

I've dealt with the nature of private judgment in at least four lengthy papers:

The Logical Circularity and Hidden Premises of Sola Scriptura and Private Judgment (with Brent Arias)

Catholic vs. Protestant Conceptions of the Meaning and Consequences of Private Judgment (Including Lengthy Citations From Reformed Protestants Arthur W. Pink, Archibald Bruce, and Charles Hodge, Four Protestant Confessions, and Catholic John Henry Newman)

Private Judgment: Its Meaning and How it is Viewed by Protestants and Catholics

Private Judgment and "Reformed Catholicism"

But I don't think I'm presupposing it. I'm saying that anything else seems hopelessly circular in a way that really does vitiate Catholic claims (in a way that the alleged Orthodox circularity doesn't vitiate Orthodox claims, because they aren't resting so much on it). If the Magisterium is the only interpreter of itself, then of course you wind up theoretically with internal consistency, because the current Pope can always explain away any conflict. As a matter of fact, the problem you face is that the Pope doesn't choose do to this. He allows Cardinal Ratzinger to say that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is infallible instead of saying it himself, for instance. He allows apologists and historians to speculate about the intention of Boniface VIII and reconcile it with Vatican II, instead of issuing a pronouncement himself (as far as I know).

Exactly! So much for the opinion that the pope is telling us how to think and what to do regarding everything but whether to blow our nose and what color socks to wear. :-) Furthermore, the magisterium is more than just the pope.

The relative reticence of the Papacy (which I find commendable and a strong argument for its claims) makes necessary the kind of private judgment you're arguing Catholics find superfluous.

No, because you're still utilizing an incorrect definition of private judgment. It is not synonymous with merely "thinking." It's a particular system of authority or a rule of faith, closely allied (if not intrinsic to) sola Scriptura. This is not just my Catholic opinion. I have backed it up with Protestant sources as well.

When you believe Ratzinger that OS was infallible, and another Catholic doesn't, you're both making an act of private judgment, in the sense you seem to be using the term.

I agree that it is a judgment, but it is an improper use of the term private judgment.

The Protestant can't simply presuppose all this stuff, analyze Catholicism by using it and then declare victory. And that is because Catholicism operates on a different rule of faith and a different epistemology than does Protestantism.

I'm not declaring "victory."

I know; I was speaking generally.

I'm simply saying that the kind of logic games we get involved in when the issues are put in this way are totally unconvincing to me.

Yeah; me too.

Of course if I accepted your presuppositions it would all make sense.

You can do that by utilizing reasons exterior to those presuppositions, so that they are not circular. The truly circular stuff comes far prior to these considerations: "does God exist,?" "do I exist?," etc. You can't absolutely prove either of those propositions, nor a host of other things, if we want to get philosophically technical about it.

The purpose of my blog was to try to sketch why I don't accept your presuppositions.

And I have tried to clarify my position and show why I don't agree with your reasoning where we disagree. It's been an excellent and stimulating dialogue. I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have.

So immediately the question becomes, rather: "why does Catholicism disallow these beliefs and this epistemology? And why does Protestantism accept them?"How is that resolved? Well, it's resolved in the usual way that all such disputes are: by recourse to Scripture, Church history, reason, and (I would add) practical workability. Sola scriptura and private judgment (as an epistemological approach inexorably tied to sola Scriptura) fail on all four counts. These notions cannot be found in Scripture (despite many near-ingenious attempts to do so from our esteemed Protestant brethren). They can't be found in history, either (ditto to my last parenthetical comment). Both history and Scripture also offer tons of directly contrary evidence. Nor are they reasonable or workable.

I don't find that the kind of Catholic position you're outlining (one that attempts to exclude "private judgment" in sense 4) meets these tests, frankly. I think it fails historically and it's not workable. You can say that that's because I'm working with Protestant presuppositions--of course I am.

You need to specifically deal with these things and make arguments of each type, to convince me of your position and refute mine.

Similarly, you're analyzing Protestantism with Catholic presuppositions.

No doubt I have that bias, but I maintain that my arguments against Protestantism primarily depend on its own internal inconsistency and failure to meet the tests of reason, history, and (I dare say) Scripture (where it disagrees with us). In other words, my counter-argument neither depends on adopting Catholic presuppositions, nor is it circular. Anyone could make the analysis. You have shown that in a few major areas now, you have misunderstood my position and premises (not intentionally, of course). That has affected even this present paper of yours, because you end up trying to "reply" to something I don't hold in the first place (just look and see how many times I have entirely agreed with various of your statements). Now that those things have been explained further, this can be an even more interesting dialogue. I only hope you have the time in the near future to continue it, just as it is getting really fascinating and constructive. If we wait three-four years again, we'll have to start from square one and go through the whole process . . .

One obvious example--Protestantism fails from history if one assumes that there must be an infallible ecclesiastical authority.

That's not my argument. One doesn't have to depend on that. One merely has to accept the premise that there is one Christian truth, which is quite biblical, and until recently in history, a completely uncontroversial belief held by pretty much all Christians. The so-called "reformers" didn't believe in theological relativism or (to use a milder term) "healthy theological diversity". They each believed that their version of Christianity was the true (or most true) one, and that the others were seriously wrong. But many Protestants today try to explain away their continuing internal differences by relegating all sorts of theological areas to de facto (usually not self-understood) selective relativism, holding that it simply doesn't matter if folks disagree on a, b, and c. This would have been completely foreign to Luther, Calvin, and, I think, even Martin Bucer (though probably a bit less so for him than for the other two).

But if ecclesiastical authority is fallible, then those teachings of the Fathers that point toward infallibility may themselves be mistaken.

Well how do we determine if God intended infallible Church authority or not? You tell me. I say that it is clearly expressed in Scripture, and that one reasonably believes in faith that a broad consensus among the Fathers in one direction is highly indicative that something is true. Both require faith. One exercises faith (with reasons) that Scripture is revelation, and that patristic consensus indicates a likely divine stamp of approval.

I don't think this is any more circular or self-serving than the Catholic position--maybe less.

Easy to assert, I say; much more difficult to prove once it gets down to particulars: trying to show the superiority of one system over others, by this method.

My claim is that the need for an infallible authority is not itself a convincing reason to become Catholic. At least I have not found it so.

As stated above, I would prefer to say that the question is better stated as a need for a binding authority that can overcome the de facto theological relativism that the Protestant system inevitably produces. If we accept logic, we must admit that it is certain that error absolutely exists in Protestantism wherever there is doctrinal contradiction. Both parties might be wrong in such instances, or only one, but both can't be right. Therefore, error exists. And if it exists, then millions of people are being falsely led insofar as they are following false teachings (whose existence are certain due to contradiction).

This is not a good thing (I think you'd agree). There must be some way (it seems quite reasonable) to resolve these difficulties. But history shows that Protestantism is intrinsically incapable of doing so. Therefore, it is fundamentally flawed, because it produces error by its very nature and (even worse) cannot find an internal method for alleviating the resulting relativism and sectarianism. It's always been this way and always will be. I think 500 years is more than enough to demonstrate that the system has failed in its well-intentioned purpose of uniquely preserving and/or restoring true Christian doctrine.

As C.S. Lewis said, "the rules of chess create chess problems." Catholics can easily look at all these alleged "historical difficulties" the way a Protestant approaches alleged "biblical difficulties."

Absolutely. The analogy here is with a Protestant (there are many such) who should use a claim of Biblical inerrancy as a reason to become a Christian (the Bible is free from error, therefore Christianity is true). This seems patently wrong-headed to me.

Yes; it's circular; therefore utterly non-compelling. Yet if such a person saw instance after instance where the Bible was shown on external grounds to be true, they could generalize that it all was true, and revelatory; therefore Christianity is true. There is an at least partially non-circular way to go about that.

One judges the problems raised by lack of papal authority to be insuperable or not. I judge them to be not. Grave, but not fatal, given that I'm not committed to a view of the Church's perfection like that of your Communion.

How does one make such a judgment? What's the basis for it? Do you not agree that the necessary existence of doctrinal error is a very serious problem that needs to be solved?

I contend that this viewpoint cannot be squared with the biblical one, where it seems to me that all doctrine is considered to be highly important and non-negotiable (we especially see this in St. Paul's writings).

I don't recall anywhere where St. Paul says that all doctrine is non-negotiable. I can find plenty of places where right doctrine is considered highly important--but I can find at least as many (probably more) where holiness of life is considered highly important.

First of all, there is no need to pit holiness against doctrine. No one is denying the supreme importance of holiness. But that has no relation to whether Paul held to the notion of one true body of teaching that should be held in its entirety. I would contend that he suggests this in the following passages:

1 Corinthians 11:2 I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you.

No qualifications here; no common Protestant distinction between "primary" and "secondary" issues (baptism, the nature of the Eucharist, Church government, etc.). It's very cut-and-dried. If you think you can locate the usual Protestant distinctions of non-negotiable and negotiable doctrines in this passage, by all means, show me how you do that.

2 Thessalonians 2:15 . . . stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth, or by letter.

2 Thessalonians 3:6 . . . keep away from any brother who is living in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.

2 Timothy 1:13-14 Follow the pattern of the sound words which you have heard from me . . . guard the truth which has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.

2 Timothy 2:2 And what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

Again, no qualifications or distinctions are made. If we take the last two passages, for example, and utilize the illustrative technique of re-writing the Bible so it is more in conformity to (current-day) Protestantism, then they ought to read as follows:

2 Timothy 1:13-14 Follow the pattern of the sound words which you have heard from me, regarding the central doctrines of the faith . . . guard the truth of those doctrines which has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. You are free, however, to hold a diversity of views with regard to the secondary doctrines.

2 Timothy 2:2 And what you have heard from me regarding the central doctrines before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Exercise your own private judgment concerning the secondary doctrines, which are not able to be determined or resolved without contradiction. Do your best . . .

Non-Pauline Scripture presents the same picture:

2 Peter 2:21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.

Jude 3 . . . contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

Matthew 28:20 teaching them to observe ALL that I have commanded you . . .

I think it's harder to prove from Scripture that infallible doctrine is a necessary mark of the true Church than it would be to prove (from the Pastorals especially) that uniformly holy bishops are a mark of the true Church.

With a few very straightforward deductions from passages such as the above, and others which discuss the Spirit guiding us into all truth, etc., we arrive at something very close to, if not identical with, infallibility. That doesn't trouble me, though, because much of Christology and trinitarianism requires much the same sort of deduction and further reflection. "Holy bishops" involves human weaknesses and all that goes with that, so it is not a valid comparison to a doctrine that -- if true -- is easy to ascertain as part of revelation, and true whether or not human beings fail in holiness or not.

Of course this second view is false--we both agree there. I don't see why the first is any truer. Bishops are supposed to be characterized by certain moral qualities. They are also supposed to maintain the deposit of faith without the slightest error. I don't see anywhere in Scripture where divine assistance is promised to the latter more than to the former. Neither holiness nor truth will fail utterly from the Church--that's about as much as I can see in Scripture.

I think this is presupposed and able to be deduced from the above passages. It's common sense that if there is such a thing as a Church that has the power and prerogative to bind men, that it should and would be protected from error, by the power of the Holy Spirit; lest men be bound in conscience to falsehood. I can't see why God would desire that frightful state of affairs.

The Church reached this conclusion long ago with regard to morals. There's no doubt that modern Catholicism has nothing like the moral rigorism of early Christianity. Why is that any less damning to Catholicism than our relative doctrinal laxity is to Protestantism? With regard to morals, we have clearly discovered that even horrendous shortcomings do not compromise the validity of the Church (because all churches have moral shortcomings, though small sectarian churches sometimes manage to do a little better on some fronts). What reason can you give for resisting a similar conclusion with regard to doctrine?

That's simple: one is a set of doctrines that are uniformly true. God is able to both communicate that and to preserve it by His omnipotence and will. The other involves human behavior, which will always fall short of the mark. It can't be perfect like a set of true doctrines because human free will is just that: free to rebel against the right and the good (God can't compel us to be perfect). I've always said that this ultimately comes down to faith. The Catholic believes that God could and would do such a thing. Protestants seem to think it isn't possible for God to infallibly preserve doctrine because of human sin. To me that is a despairing conclusion, and not in accord to what we know about God from Scripture.

The fathers would have said: "the Church decrees thus-and-so. Who are you to disagree, and on what basis? You don't decide these things. The Mind of the Church does."

True enough, but there was a lot of give-and-take involved in this. Origen, for instance, sorts out very carefully which Christian beliefs of his time he understood to be part of the Rule of Faith, and which were open for speculation. Eventually many of his speculations were seen as contrary to the Rule of Faith, but that took centuries.

Yes. Well now we have the hindsight and wisdom of many centuries of theological reflection, don't we?

I wouldn't say I decide "as an individual." I would say that I decide as a member of the Body of Christ.

But unless you apply that in the context of an authoritative Church, it's a dictinction without a difference. You can say that you are acting in some corporate sense, but if that sense isn't binding on that group, then what is the difference? You just find so many people who all agree, call it "the Church" and adopt some opinion. That's far from catholicity . . .

I deny that epistemology is itself part of the content of the Faith. I deny that the Faith must itself deliver to me a valid epistemological framework in order to be true. Of course every attempt to decide what is true is epistemological by definition.

I agree with all three sentences.

That is what Protestants and Orthodox are objecting to--a view of papal authority that makes convincing the rest of the Church unnecessary.

This contradicts what you just stated, for "convincing" is epistemology or, if you will, apologetics. But you just told me that epistemology is not itself part of "the Faith." So why the objection to a decree handed down without all the rationales for why it is true? The latter is not always required. I agree, it is a good thing, and should be present very often. But it's not intrinsic to authority, nor a disproof of same where it is absent.

And this is what we see Catholic apologists trying to short-circuit by lumping a diverse collection of epistemological positions together as "private judgment" and condemning them.

I haven't overlooked anything. I've written more on this issue of authority than on any other topic, in my apologetic writing. You may say I'm an exception to the rule, but I think it's a possibility that I've written more on these particular topics than virtually any Catholic apologist now writing.

In other words, it may be perfectly right for a Catholic to be certain about contraception, but equally right for me as an Anglican (given the different stance of my ecclesiastical authorities) to be uncertain. That doesn't mean that there is no right or wrong, only that our access to absolute truth is not always immediate or obvious.

This gets back to my earlier comments about doctrinal contradiction. I can't see how this would be what God desires for His people and Church. Why would He want millions of people to be in error? What good could that bring? The devil is the father of lies (and, I say, falsehood), not God.

I certainly wouldn't wish on anyone the kind of conflict I've been through in the past ten years. But I'm sure God had some reason for letting me go through it, wherever I end up . . . .

May God grant you peace and comfort as you continue to seek His will (a good wish for all of us!).

This post has taken a very long time for me to write, and if you respond quickly (as is your custom) it may be quite a while before I respond in turn. And at that point I'll try to keep things briefer. But I appreciated your in-depth critique and wanted to try to respond adequately. Thanks for keeping me accountable to thinking through the implications of my position!

You're welcome, and the pleasure has been all mine. It's a breath of fresh air to be able to engage in a meaty, interesting, stimulating dialogue with a very sharp, conscientious, educated Christian such as yourself, with complete ecumenical amiability and mutual respect. Oh, how I wish dialogue could be like this so much more often! It's such a joy to me; I absolutely love it (which is one reason that God called me to do what I do). But I'll take what I can get. Thanks for your time and your helpful challenges towards me as well.

Now, if we could only get the massive group participation in the discussion that regularly occurs on the Pontifications blog. . . how does he do it??!!

2nd Reply to Anglican Edwin Tait on Historical Ecclesiological Arguments and Development of Doctrine, Part II

See Part I. Edwin's words will be in blue. Any past words of mine will be in green. Past words of Edwin's will be in red.

It was the intersection of historical truths and ecclesiological claims which fascinated me and ultimately drew me in, via Newman's Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. In fact, my strong tendency was away from centralized or infallible authority, since my biggest beef was with infallibility. I fought that with all my might in the year preceding my conversion, utilizing Dollinger, Kung, Salmon: many of the most-used anti-infallibilist tracts. Cardinal Newman overcame my objection through the force of reason as applied to history, and the argument from analogy.

Interesting. Are you saying that you were inclined to become Catholic on other grounds,

Moral theology was the first thing that drew me in; particularly the issue of contraception; but not the issue alone, as a mere abstract belief. It was the issue as related to the history of the Church's teaching with regard to this moral teaching and others. Even as a low church Protestant, I thought that the entire Church would not and indeed could not have gotten something so wrong for 1900 years, only to be corrected through the unparalleled spiritual insight of Anglicanism in 1930. Whatever the truth was, it certainly couldn't be that! The third major factor in my conversion was studying the events and beliefs in the 16th century from a Catholic perspective (having previously approached it solely from a Protestant perspective).

and Newman simply cleared away your objection to infallibility by showing that it was compatible with a theory of development?

That was one of the things he did, yes. Mainly he demonstrated to me that true historical or apostolic continuity was explained plausibly only as fully residing within the Catholic Church. What his theory did was also to demolish the "Protestant myth of origins": the notion that the early Church believed certain things, became corrupt and then was restored by Luther, Calvin et al to what it was (the very definition of the word "reform"). The facts do not support this. Additionally, he provides the key, I think, to understanding how Church which looks quite different today in many respects, is, in fact, the same Church, developed.

Or are you saying that Newman gave you a decisive reason to become Catholic by proving that infallible authority was necessary?

Good, probing questions. In the end, it wasn't so much over infallibility, as it was about historical continuity. Contraception was just one issue of many that provided a "test case" to apply to the theory of development. Once you accept the idea that the Church (in the generic Protestant sense that I used to hold) is guided by the Holy Spirit and protected from serious doctrinal error (even if only in a sub-infallible sense, as I would have believed then), then it is senseless to believe that a theological or moral doctrine could be completely reversed from what was universally held before (e.g., contraception), or, conversely, to believe that totally new doctrines can be introduced which had never been believed before as any sort of church-wide consensus (sola fide, sola Scriptura, etc.). Studying what I now call "the Protestant Revolt" provided ample documentation for me that the latter error was rampant in those troubled times.

If the latter, then my argument stands.

I don't think that infallibility is absolutely, undeniably necessary in any case, or any possible world. I think strong ecclesiastical authority (Church and Tradition) is necessary. I think preservation of what came before, and not rejection or transformation (in a macroevolutionary sense) of it is necessary. I am speaking epistemologically. Practically speaking, on the other hand, one might make a plausible case that it was necessary to have binding doctrines, in order to prevent relativism and confusion (the biblical canon comes to mind immediately).

But it seems that you are saying the former, in which case my critique doesn't apply to you (and since frankly you're one of the pillars of what I think of as "authority-based" Catholic apologetics, this is a major issue).

Newman and development weren't the sole grounds in some logically circular sense, as discussed previously in this dialogue. It looks, then, that you have at least partially-misunderstood my epistemology, which is not uncommon. People (for whatever reason; probably mostly my fault for inadequate communication or expression) have all sorts of misconceptions about my views which come out in these dialogues.

I recognize that there are sincere and intelligent people who become Christians on these grounds. Given that I was brought up to believe, it's a different sort of issue for me and I can't really comment. But those arguments have never been primary in keeping me a Christian. Rather, arguments about the historicity of the Resurrection are in my view sufficient to make it not unreasonable to accept the Resurrection. I don't think they would convince me if I were not a Christian, and if asked why I was a Christian they would not be the answers that would first spring to mind--certainly not the answers that would lie closest to my heart.

I basically agree with this. I converted both to evangelicalism and Catholicism based largely on moral arguments or moral theology: the first time in a more intuitive, philosophical sense ("the moral argument"); the second time more so in a "history of Christian morality" fashion. But this is a much-different argument or grounds than Josh McDowell-type historical evidences. Hence these arguments bolster one's confidence that Christianity is reasonable, as you say. That's actually what apologetics accomplishes far more often than not: it helps those who already believe more than it convinces non-believers. I've always believed this.

The Resurrection and the Christian story generally speaks first to the human condition as I experience it. It is a story that makes sense of my life and of the world around me, and one that I receive experientially as having the ring of truth and goodness. Then I look at the evidence to make sure that I'm not fooling myself. And when I find that the evidence for the Resurrection is quite remarkably good compared to other claims of supernatural events, and when I see other assorted bits of historical evidence for the truth of Christianity, then that helps settle my faith over against arguments purporting to show that Christianity can't be true. But if Christianity did not make sense of the universe as I experience it, the existing evidence would be hopelessly inadequate to convince me. You can call this post-modern or subjectivistic or whatever, but I don't know any other way to proceed in these matters.

Whatever one calls it, I completely agree with you. This is a far more psychologically-complex approach to faith and conversion, which is quite consistent with Newman's own epistemology (particularly as explicitly laid out in his Grammar of Assent).

The same is true of Catholicism. I think the historical argument for Catholicism is quite enough to permit people to remain Catholics if they are inclined to do so on other grounds. Whether it is strong enough to convince me that being Catholic (in the sense of submitting myself unconditionally to the teaching and authority of the Roman Communion) is a necessary consequence of being a Christian--that is precisely the question with which I've been struggling for years. It certainly would not, on its own, convince me if I were not already a Christian, or if I were a Christian for whom questions of ecclesiology were not primary.

I look at it in a bit of a different way: I think that the historical argument is so decisively in favor of Catholicism that one almost has to adopt Catholicism by default. Other ecclesiologies and Christian self-understandings simply cannot hold up to historical fact when scrutinized. I truly believe that. For this belief we are criticized endlessly as "triumphalistic" or "arrogant" or what-not. I don't think it must follow that such a view is arrogant at all. If one believes that Christian history proceeded a certain way and that there is only one Church which is fully consistent with that history, then what is wrong with that? One may disagree, but there are no grounds for the automatic charge of arrogance or "intolerance" and all the other garden-variety accusations directed towards Catholics (of course, you can always find arrogant individuals). In the end, each side must make its historical case. Then we can compare for factuality and plausibility.

Now, once that occurs and a person decides (with as little bias as possible and a fair examination of competing claims) that Catholicism is the most plausible, it is still a big jump (personally and epistemologically) to actually becoming a Catholic and submitting oneself to the dogma and the pope. Grace and faith are required. It isn't merely an intellectual exercise. I didn't find that difficult to do at all (and I was quite the independent thinker as a Protestant, I can assure you) once I was convinced that this was THE Church. I thought to myself:

If this is indeed the Church that Christ founded, which has existed continuously since the apostles, then I submit to its teaching, and gladly do so, as I don't know everything, and never will figure out every doctrine on my own. This is how God intended it. We're not supposed to search our entire lives for Christian truth. This stuff is supposed to be worked out for us by Christian Tradition, so we can get on with serving God and other people, with assurance that what we hold is true. The
purpose of the Christian life is service, not endless theological searching.

I don't reject circular reasoning as false. Most positions wind up with some kind of circularity.

Such beliefs may have other grounds for being true, such as intuition or revelation or experience, but if they are logically circular, logic itself cannot be the grounds for their truthfulness. How to arrive at reasonable axioms is the fascinating question (since we all have them).

(In my opinion Biblical arguments for Catholicism are completely circular

That would make all three of my published books and much of my website material circular, and of course I completely disagree with that. :-) I'd love to see you unpack any particular biblical argument I make and try to prove this. That would be almost as enjoyable as this discussion.

and the attempt of one Catholic Answers tract to make a non-circular argument by relying on historical evidence for the basic accuracy of the NT fails completely, because the evidence just isn't strong enough to bear that kind of weight.)

I'd have to see the argument and how you tried to refute it.

Circularity isn't self-refuting

It is in a logical sense, as explained above. But circularity does not automatically mean something is untrue: only that logical reasoning by which it is supposedly derived is fallacious.

but it's not going to convince someone who doesn't accept the necessary presuppositions.

Of course.

The Orthodox position is not circular because it doesn't rest on this kind of argument at all. Converts to Orthodoxy discern that Orthodoxy is uniquely continuous with historic Christianity based on a whole complex of factors. Sorry to bring in Abraham again, but I think he's made the case well--everyone has different epistemological reasons for accepting whatever set of canonical authorities they do accept. A standard apologetic is not a necessary part of a religious system, as you seem to be demanding.

I think that if you make everyone's reason for believing completely independent and unique, in terms of adoption of various classical arguments for this or that position, that this amounts to an unacceptable relativism or subjectivism. There are (necessary) objective historical, biblical, and rational arguments for every Christian position; I don't care what it is. A true position cannot be illogical or unfactual. There are historical facts to be dealt with (and biblical parameters). There either was an historic papacy or there was not. If there was, and this papacy had real power and jurisdiction, then Orthodox and Protestants have to explain how it is that they can exist without it (in any practical terms) and yet try to hold to apostolic succession in some form (or historical continuity, if one prefers that paradigm).

There was a theological and ecclesiological reality in the united Church of the first millennium; whatever one thinks it was, and so it is perfectly reasonable to look at the two sides after 1054 and make a judgment as to which more closely approximates (thus, more perfectly continues) what existed before. Those are only two examples among many. Individuals can choose based on sheer fideism or any number of additional factors, but if we are to do a comparative ecclesiology, objective facts must be dealt with. And they cannot vary according to every individual.

In other words, we can engage in a sensible, objective discussion on many levels of whether Orthodoxy or Catholicism is the better choice as the legatee of the early Church. It's not simply a personal or subjective matter. Personally, I don't see Orthodoxy as nearly as different from Catholicism as a lot of Orthodox folks that I have met. They seem to want to accentuate the differences; I want to emphasize common ground, without compromising my apologetic for my own position.

Abraham can make the argument he does because he is philosophically what he calls a "soft rationalist" (a wonderful term which excited me when I discovered it, because it described the position I'd come to years before but hadn't had a name for). A soft rationalist holds (in contrast to a fideist) that religious truth is based on rational evidence, but (in contrast to what Abraham calls a "hard rationalist") that you can't necessarily quantify the evidence. In other words, one decides to believe in one religious view rather than another based on a whole set of converging factors--experiences of saintliness or beauty or the presence of God, historical arguments, internal consistency of teaching, and so on. There is no fideistic "leap of faith" except in the sense that at some point one says "OK, all of these things add up to enough certainty that I'm ready to make a commitment." One can't point to certain specific arguments and say "these alone are necessary and sufficient reasons." I think that's what you and many other Catholic apologists are asking for, and I don't think it's a reasonable thing to ask with regard to religious commitments.

Well, no. Again, you do not sufficiently understand my position. I would never make the above quoted statement. I agree almost entirely with the above paragraph, and so does Newman. You can find this in previous papers of mine if you look hard enough. I've believed for many years now (man, probably over 20 years) that one accepts a worldview based on a convergence of many different evidences or aspects or influences, and that cumulative probablity, not absolute certainty, is the key. This is precisely Newman's argument in Grammar of Assent.

I could never get Tim Enloe to grasp and understand this about my position or Newman's (not for lack of trying, believe me). It would be very good and heartening to see you do so. Once you lay out your position and you see me say "I completely agree with you," then I think you learn quite a bit about my position that you didn't realize before. Where you assumed a disagreement, there was, in fact, none. Now, if we have a very similar "religious epistemology," then the interesting thing to discuss is why we have arrived at different theological or ecclesiological conclusions, where they exist. The one thing is settled; then it would be on to applying the common epistemology to the practical problem of existing religious differences.

I agree of course with your rejection of anti-Catholic Orthodoxy. Any view that depends on caricaturing another view is flawed from the start (my first encounter with this was a schoolteacher in Romania who assured me that Catholics believe that God "remains parallel to the world"; I may have misunderstood a Romanian metaphor, but this has always stuck in my mind as particularly bizarre, though I can see what she was trying to say).

Good. And I reject just as paasionately any true anti-Orthodoxy or anti-Protestantism. I just utterly condemned and decried one unfortunate outbreak of the latter on my blog.

Well, that's an argument that I'm afraid is going to have to take place within your own Communion. As an outsider, I can certainly judge that many Catholics have views that don't correspond to official Catholic teaching. But I am in no position to acquiesce to the view that they "aren't really Catholics."

They aren't consistent or orthodox or obedient Catholics; that's how I prefer to put it. I'm very reluctant to claim that one is not a Catholic at all. I can't be certain about that (based on baptism, among other things). But I can be quite certain about the other statements, because they are simply applying objective criteria as to what the Church holds and what each Catholic is obliged, by definition, to hold.

Certainly I doubt that you are willing to grant that John Shelby Spong "isn't really an Episcopalian," even though he clearly contradicts defined teaching of our Communion.

But that defined teaching changes, which is precisely the problem. Yesterday contraception and divorce and homosexual clergy (even female clergy) were quite unacceptable. Today your conferences take a vote and suddenly these things are permissible. That hasn't happened in Catholicism. Only renegade individuals have claimed that heterodox or immoral things are now fine and dandy.

In my opinion the Catholic claim that Protestants are in a different category because we have "private judgment" is a cop-out. We have looser teaching than you do, true. But I don't think we can reify "private judgment"--it's a vague and not very useful slogan used by many modern Protestants, but I don't think it's the kind of Basic Principle of Protestantism Catholic apologists claim it to be.

That's a huge discussion, and I have written much about it. I contend that it is one of the essential components of sola Scriptura, by its very nature. This is quite easy to demonstrate, both logically, and based on how it has always worked out in Protestant sectarian history. So much error and trouble and difficulty follows from this foundational error.

All churches have definite teaching of some sort, and all churches I know of have members apparently in good standing who don't accept every aspect of what appears to be the definite teaching of their communion. Certainly Catholics have a particular emphasis on this, and the Catholics I have in mind are indeed in a difficult tension between their belief that Catholicism is the necessary center of unity and their inability to accept some of its current teaching. But of course if such people remain Protestants they're in just as much tension.

Yes, I agree. In the one case, they refuse to accept the truthfulness of any authoritative Church whatsoever (as sola Scriptura dictates that the sole binding guide is Scripture). In the other, they refuse to accept some of the teachings of this particular Church, that they have supposedly accepted as a binding authority. Thus, the first entails an error of premise (regarding proper Christian, biblical authority, or the rule of faith), while the latter involves an internal inconsistency in application of a supposed premise ("the Catholic Church is authoritative and ecclesiologically unique, and as such, its members are bound to its teachings").

I choose to do that precisely because it seems the more honorable course. But I can sympathize with those who persuade themselves otherwise, and believe for whatever reason that things the Vatican teaches as defined are not in fact defined. They (the ones I know anyway) are intelligent and sincere people--argue with them, not me. As I said, it's an issue you're going to have to deal with within your own communion, and you can't blame me for observing what I see.

I don't have to "argue" with them, myself. My job is to simply point out to them what the magisterium has taught regarding the particular issue. They then choose whether to abide by it or not. If they choose not to, it is a clear instance of a failure to understand the nature of Catholic obedience, and our rule of faith (or conscious, rank disobedience, much as a three-year-old can stare down a parent and refuse to carry out an order). They're acting like Protestants, whether they know it or not (almost always, they don't seem to know). Having believed in both systems in my life, I can smell quasi-Protestantism a mile away. It's not a matter of name-calling or some Pharisaical kind of "judgmentalism." It's a simple factual matter; very straightforward. To be a Catholic means certain things. To paraphrase a proverb: "If one looks like a Protestant, smells like a Protestant, thinks like a Protestant . . . " Someone said that if you scratch a Latin American Catholic, you get an atheist, but if you scratch a North American Catholic, you get a Protestant." How true, sadly far too often . . . I encourage such people to simply become Anglicans, where no glaring self-contradiction and disobedience would be present.

But as you pointed out earlier, if one believes in the need for unity and the historic role of the Papacy, then Anglicanism or other forms of high-church Protestantism do _not_ "fit the bill perfectly." Granted, the tension is probably less, and certainly doesn't reach the point of dishonesty. Which is why I'm still a Protestant, however uncomfortable a one . . . .

If you respect the papcy as much as your recent highly moving, eloquent eulogy of John Paul II suggests, it would indeed be a most uncomfortable tension for you to resolve. I sincerely hope you do resolve the tension, for your own sake, even if you don't wind up where I, of course, would prefer to see you wind up.

The first quarrel I have with this is the meaning of the word "Church." Even granted that it doesn't include me, as an Anglican--

In this context, I meant the Teaching Church, or Magisterium, or (in a Protestant sense) simply teaching authority.

nonetheless I observe Catholics wrestling with the same issues. And even Catholic bishops (let alone priests) clearly do not always come to unanimous conclusions on this point. So when you mean "Church" you mean in fact "the Magisterium" as defined in modern Catholicism--the Pope and those bishops (and in some sense also those priests and laity) who agree with him on any given point. The Magisterium and only the Magisterium has the right to speak; all its pronouncements are authoritative; and everyone else must simply listen.

When they finally do definitively speak on something, yes, the faithful Catholic listens. But don't make the mnistake of thinking that all of us, in the sensus fidelium, do not have any input in that process. We do. Laypeople help form the mind of ther Church, which the popes and bishops are bound to follow. There can be a long dialogue and a process, in defining doctrines. For example, at the moment, there is discussion about further Marian dogmas. Pope John Paul II decided that it was not time to make these declarations (I agreed with that prudential decision, while accepting the doctrines -- as he did himself).

This would seem to mean that authority in Catholicism does (as anti-Catholic polemicists claim) boil down to "what the Pope says."

Practically, in the cases where it is on the highest level of infallibility, yes. Strictly speaking, no, as the pope is bound to Tradition and the Bible and cannot go counter to either. Hence, it is not him alone. There are many areas where we can disagree with him. I disagreed with him, for example, on the Iraqi War. Others disagree as to the propriety of capital punishment. We're allowed to do this, because both are prudential issues. The pope did not declare as binding an absolute pacifism. He couldn't do that, because it contradicts previous Catholic teaching. But a Catholic is not allowed to dissent on, e.g., contraception or women priests. Those were virtually declared as forbidden, on the highest levels of papal authority. They are binding and irreversible teaching.

Or, as one of my best friends (a Christian Church pastor) put it, "add Pope and stir." If it doesn't simply mean that--if a lay Catholic, or even a priest or bishop, sometimes has to interpret a document and figure out just how authoritative it is--then my point stands and what you're calling "private judgment" exists within Catholicism.

There is some interpretation that goes on, and some disagreement -- even within a framework of orthodoxy -- but in my experience it is almost always blown way out of proportion (which is in the liberal's self-interest, so they do this all the time).

It seems pretty evident to me that this is not how Catholicism functions. What you are calling "private judgment" when I do it is done routinely by all Catholics I know. (By Catholics who believe in the death penalty, for instance--they have to make the determination that the Pope's views on that subject are not in fact authoritative in the way that other teachings are.)

As explained, this is not private judgment, because Catholics are perfectly able to dissent from the pope on this one, since it is not a matter of dogma, but of prudential application of the principles of justice. Private judgment would be disagreeing on contraception or Mary's Immaculate Conception, or papal infallibility, or something along those lines, where the teaching is absolutely binding and irreformable. In those cases, the person is applying a Protestant way of looking at things: they don't personally agree with something, so they thumb their nose at what the Church teaches. And whenever I see it, I invariably ask, "if this is the way you see Christian authority, why aren't you a Protestant, since they believe precisely this: that individuals [when all is said and done] ultimately can decide what is true or false, not churches and institutions"?

I don't think Protestantism as a whole presupposes anything.

If there is anything that it presupposes in common (in areas where it differs from us), it is certainly private judgment. That is far more true than even sola fide or sola Scriptura itself. But I agree that one has to always generalize when discussing Protestantism, and exceptions can always be found. That's the reality of sectarianism (and private judgment).

[to be continued in Part III]

A Fun Comparison of My Books & James White's, in Reply to a Bogus Criticism

Amazon.com sales rank, as of today:

A Biblical Defense of Catholicism (Sophia, 2003; originally self-published in 2001): 5,734
More Biblical Evidence for Catholicism (AuthorHouse, 2002): 49,740
The Catholic Verses (Sophia, 2004): 29,714

The "can't resist" or "nya nya nya nya nyaaaaaa nya" department:

Anti-Catholic Baptist apologist James White was (and not for the first time) essentially mocking me (in quite condescending fashion) a few months ago because I was supposedly barely published at all, etc. (hence -- so his rhetoric proceeded -- I was not worth replying to, because I was too insignificant and not enough people would read our exchanges, until recently, when he has gone nuts writing about me all over the place on his blog), whereas he has many books and is a professor and a big shot and a "real" professional apologist, blah blah blah. Even then, mine were holding their own with his, at least on amazon (which is a fair indication of how good a book is doing overall) -- as I showed at the time. Here are some comparative numbers as of today on amazon:

Justification by Faith (Crowne Publications, 1990): 2,114,036
Answers to Catholic Claims (Crowne Publications, 1990): 2,160,702
The Fatal Flaw (Crowne Publications, 1990): 914,845
Letters to a Mormon Elder (Bethany House, 1993): 525,335
The King James Only Controversy (Bethany House, 1995): 64,797
The Roman Catholic Controversy (Bethany House, 1996): 45,558
Is the Mormon My Brother? (Bethany House, 1997): 522,998
Grieving: Our Path Back to Peace (Bethany House, 1997): 615,213
Mary - Another Redeemer (Bethany House, 1998): 192,590
The Forgotten Trinity (Bethany House, 1998): 138,373
The Potter's Freedom (Calvary Press, 2000): 116,178
The God Who Justifies (Bethany House, 2001): 149,602
Dangerous Airwaves: Harold Camping Refuted and Christ's Church Defended (Calvary Press, 2002): 633,235
Scripture Alone (Bethany House, 2004): 61,341
Debating Calvinism (with Dave Hunt) (Multnomah, 2004): 119,528
Perspectives on Church Government (one of five authors) (Broadman & Holman, 2004): 73,949


So there you have it. White certainly trumps me in numbers of individual books out, yet no single book of his is currently outselling my two books with Sophia. Only one of his books could even outsell my self-published second book, and that only by about 4,000. Granted, amazon sales rank numbers are notoriously "jumpy." Yet I think anyone can see I'm doing quite well, and have better numbers overall than White does, however they may change day to day.

So much for his mockery of my failure in the publishing world, as an insignificant "nobody," as he has been trying to desperately assert for ten years now, since we first engaged in lengthy correspondence. White, with his Master's degree from Fuller Seminary, and all these books, and all his bigtime debates and his webcast and chat room, and all the rest (that he talks about endlessly -- which is the only reason I am mentioning all these things), can't even outsell my books? How embarrassing; how not the way he wishes reality to be.

I know this may seem petty to some (and perhaps it is to some extent), but I'm merely trying to make a point with some objective data. White tries to dismiss me in this way precisely because he has been so unsuccessful in doing it by means of rational argument. Apparently the method has not caught on, judging by sales (especially seeing that the evangelical book market is probably far larger than the orthodox Catholic publishing world and market that I move in).

I should note (in anticipating the usual objections) that this is an apologetic (not merely personal) exercise in defeating one particularly outrageous ad hominem fallacy committed by White against my person and my apologetics. It's yet another instance where he has lied about me, in opposition to the plain, demonstrable facts. And at some point, I would hope that some of those who follow his work so closely, and who admire him so much, will ask themselves why he feels compelled to stoop to such low tactics.

Let him rejoice in all his published books (some of them I would even fully or largely agree with, since they are not devoted to anti-Catholic arguments). I understand that particular personal satisfaction (it's a wonderful thrill to see your own book in print), and have no problem with it at all. But it is unworthy of any Christian to mock others who may not be doing so well in this or any other department (especially when the assertion isn't even true in the first place, which compounds the sin of pride or arrogance with an additional bearing of false witness).

[I was soon informed that White had replied to this post. I counter-responded. White's words will be in red]

Well, folks, this exactly proves my point about the level of White's "apologetic" discourse when someone turns the tables on his pitiable and condescending rhetoric. Clearly I hit a nerve, and White blew his stack. This is how one speaks arrogantly and with pompous condescension (a virtual case study). Here's White's reply, in full:

05 April

The Most Pathetic Post I've Ever Seen…

…at least from an "apologist." This just appeared on Dave Armstrong's blog. You remember Dave Armstrong. Yes, he's the fellow who kept stealing Angel's artwork, having a four-year old butcher it, and posting it on his blog. Same fellow who melted down into a puddle of apologetic goo when I finally invested the time to start working through his book, The Catholic Verses, and that after years of wanting to "debate" me in writing (but, of course, never in person). Same fellow who then took an oath to stop interacting with "anti-Catholics" (convenient use of terminology)—-which had the not overly unexpected result of basically killing his blog, which then went into hibernation during Lent anyway. And so now what do I find but a listing of my books and their Amazon sales ranks compared to who else, but DA! Honestly, how utterly pathetic can someone become? It was bad enough that his work was shown to be consistently shallow, and worse that his attempts to respond were shrill and panic-filled (leading to his melt down and his unwillingness to even attempt further defense), but evidently he was stewing a good deal more than anyone knew to stoop this low. Of course, there's a little problem: Amazon is not a major outlet for my works. My own ministry, other Christian ministries, and bookstores (including academic ones: a number of my works are used as textbooks in various Bible schools and seminaries) make up the majority of my distribution. Now, I don't personally care if Mr. Armstrong does in fact outsell me: the Prayer of Jabez sold more books than I will ever sell in my entire lifetime, and it remains a vapid waste of paper. But it truly amazes me that someone who utterly lacks the tools to do the work he claims to do with such expertise continues to be dragged along by the rest of his compatriots. Just another example of "as long as it is in the service of Mother Church, it is all good." What a contrast: we seek to be consistent in honor of the truth, which at times requires us to speak to less-than-popular topics (such as our exposure of the many errors of Dave Hunt). Where is that kind of consistent dedication to truth on the "Roman" side?

(link to White's paper)

So, to summarize, according to the good bishop, I'm:

1) a thief

2) a plagiarizer

3) not a real "apologist" — so I must be some kind of charlatan (later he wrote about me as "someone who utterly lacks the tools to do the work he claims to do with such expertise")

4) an intellectual coward as soon as I become fed up trying to answer his sophistical arguments (whereas he can ignore many of mine for years without somehow being subject to the same suspicion)

5) not a real debater because I prefer written to oral debates

6) a user of supposedly deceptive, illegitimate terminology ("anti-Catholic") — I've explained this countless times, even documenting a common usage of the term among historians and sociologists; whereas White himself is often guilty of a blatant double standard in this area. For example, in an open letter to Dave Hunt (5-19-02), he described the latter's arguments as "anti-Calvin [or, in a second place, 'Calvinist'] rhetoric". In another page, he allows the same letter of his to be described as "James White Comments on Dave Hunt's New Anti-Reformed Book".

7) a purveyor of "consistently shallow" apologetics

8) supposedly characterized by "shrill and panic-filled" responses

9) given to "stewing" (ROFL!)

10) supposedly "dragged along by the rest of [my] compatriots"

11) not dedicated to "truth" like (of course) Mr. White is.

12) "utterly pathetic"

Of course, you don't hear a word from White about my passionate condemnation of the rhetoric of the anti-Protestant "Catholic Dude," which he cited on his blog, and my insistence that the charge of "hatred" against White was unwarranted. But this is what the man does. He'll ignore anything positive from me (it's happened over and over again), and pick something that he feels he can exploit in his ongoing attempt to make me look as bad as possible. Absolutely classic James White polemics and sophistry . . .

I particularly loved (as high farce) his contention that forsaking debate with anti-Catholics "had the not overly unexpected result of basically killing [my] blog" and then the (for him, inevitable and utterly predictable) insinuation that my long-needed Lenten break had something to do with this fiction in his own hard head. LOLOL! This guy is just too much! I'm DYING laughing over here . . .

Just for Mr. White's own information, I haven't dialogued or debated with anti-Catholic sophists like him since I made my most recent resolution (hence his mocking me for that very thing). Far from being "killed," the number of daily visitors to my website was 457 when I just checked: quite comparable to what it has always been (though I recall the average being closer to 300 back when I was dealing regularly with White's nonsense). Far from being solely dedicated to fighting his sort of nonsense and ludicrosities, I always received more criticism than any other time when I dealt with anti-Catholics. But hey, we all know that no one has any "consistent dedication to truth on the 'Roman' side" and we know that Bishop White never engages in ad hominem argumentation!

One time I pointed out to White that my website has tons of stuff besides anti-Catholic issues. That's only a small part of what I do. But he simply couldn't process that. He just muttered some gibberish about my opposing his ilk as the only thing I am about. Anyone who has the slightest acquaintance with my website knows how utterly ridiculous this is. I need not even document anything. Just go look at the listing of all my papers on my Super-Link Page, and how many topics are covered. The irony is that in many of these papers and dialogues (pro-life, opposition to non-trinitarians, atheists, homosexuals, etc.), White would totally agree with me. But because he absolutely will not acknowledge any good thing that I ever do or write about, he has no choice but to pretend that I do nothing except oppose the stupid, idiotic errors of anti-Catholicism.

To reverse a common proverb: one has to cry to keep from laughing at this. Mainly, though, I just shake my head in amazement. I truly pity this man. Please pray that my pity will always lead to a greater concern for his soul and spiritual well-being, and much more prayer on his behalf.

The New Catholic Answer Bible (I'm Co-Author of the Apologetic "Inserts")

I have a new book out (well, kinda sorta; let me "splain" . . . )

Our Sunday Visitor has just published The New Catholic Answer Bible (on March 30th, according to the amazon.com page). This is an expansion of The Catholic Answer Bible (see amazon and OSV pages).

The older work was published in 2002. It is the NAB Bible along with 22 two-sided "inserts" on apologetic topics, or 44 total articles, written by yours truly. They contained "more than 800 references to Scripture and the Catechism." It was a bit of a bummer that this work did not include my name anywhere in the Bible, nor even in the OSV or amazon pages for the publication. No one knew that I wrote the notes (!); that is, unless they happened to frequent my website, and saw that this was my work. This was particularly disappointing because, though I received a very generous one-time payment for this writing, I no longer receive royalties, and at least some further name-advertising would have been most helpful.

But better late than never. Now that "oversight" has been corrected. The new Bible contains double the number of one-page apologetic commentaries: 88 instead of 44, with the additional ones written by Paul Thigpen, editor of The Catholic Answer magazine, and fellow contributor to the testimony book, Surprised by Truth (edited by Patrick Madrid). My name is now on the back cover and on the title page. The back even mentions my two books published with Sophia Institute Press, which is pretty neat for another publisher to do. The main page for Our Sunday Visitor (OSV) still lists the older work as a "Catholic bestseller": one of only seven, at least as of today. The new Bible isn't even yet listed in the OSV catalogue.

If the new version sells as well as the old, then the "advertising" of my name will come in real handy, as I continue to struggle to meet my bills (I have four children and own a house). Half of my income comes from royalties and donations; the other from my seven-day-a-week newspaper route (which is increasingly physically-exhausting me because I now work 70-80 hours every week). I would ask those of you reading this to please prayerfully consider becoming a monthly supporter or a generous one-time contributor if you think my apologetic and evangelistic work is important. If you don't, then by all means, don't support it. I'm only asking those of you who do think it is worthwhile for teaching purposes, to consider this. You share in this work if you financially support it, because you literally make it possible. Thanks for bearing with my "pitch."

Meanwhile, my two books with Sophia Institute Press, A Biblical Defense of Catholicism and The Catholic Verses: 95 Bible Passages That Confound Protestants, have recently also been added to the Catholic Answers book catalogue, (see its pages for Biblical Defense and Catholic Verses), which has been a great blessing indeed, for further "free advertising."

This development seems to be having a fairly dramatic effect on my book sales. When I checked my sales ranks on amazon today, I discovered the highest-ever rank that I have seen for my first book, and also for my self-published second book. The third is doing very well, too. All are under the 50,000 rank, which is considered very good -- so one of my editors told me (the lower the number the better; number one means it is outselling all other books on amazon):

A Biblical Defense of Catholicism (Sophia, 2003; originally self-published in 2001): 5,734
More Biblical Evidence for Catholicism (AuthorHouse, 2002): 49,740
The Catholic Verses (Sophia, 2004): 29,714

James White's, Eric Svendsen's, and Jason Engwer's Glowing Tributes to Pope John Paul II

[emphases added throughout]

James White

Now, it is obvious that I could spend great effort talking about the Pope's political or cultural activities, or how nice a man he was, or how well traveled he was, etc. (things I noted in the very first blog entries when the story broke), but it would make not a wit's worth of difference. What this man, and his compatriots, and sadly, many alleged Protestants, just don't seem to "get" is the great disrespect being shown to Christ and His Word and His Gospel not only by Roman Catholics (who do so daily by embracing falsehood) but by the media and non-Catholics who, by their completely ignoring the issue of the gospel the man preached and passing him instantly into the realms of glory based upon who he was rather than upon the gospel of Christ! What these Roman Catholics are in essence demanding is that we be silent about the gospel. That we subjugate the gospel of Christ to their emotions, to their feelings, at the time of the death of a man who bore titles due to God alone and who promulgated a gospel that is sending thousands to a Christless eternity every single day. Who mourns for those people? Who mourns for the broken lives that result from the endless treadmill of works and merit that is Rome's theology in the vast majority of the world?

(Insight Into the Roman Catholic Mind: 4-4-05)

NTRMin Areopagus Discussion Board (Eric Svendsen's haunt)
[link]

"Rhology" (4-1-05)

May he, during his last time on this earthly journey, feast his eyes on the shining glory of Christ Himself and reach out to Him. May he forsake the idolatrous practices of the life he has lived under "Totus Tuus," ardently devoted to the veneration and promotion of Mary rather than Jesus Christ, Who died for his sins.

———————————-

To which Eric Svendsen ("NTRMin") replied: "Great prayer."(4-1-05)

————————————

Jason Engwer, anti-Catholic apologist ("JasonTE"):
(4-1-05)

If the Pope is saved, and I hope he is, he wasn't saved by means of the gospel of Roman Catholicism. It was by means of a different gospel, the same gospel that saved the thief on the cross through faith alone. The true gospel is far simpler and far greater than what Roman Catholicism offers and what this Pope tragically spent such effort teaching.

. . . I'm grateful for the good he did, and he did much good. A lot will be said, rightly, about his opposition to Communism, for example, and his respect for life, in the womb and in old age, is commendable. He seems to be a kind man in many ways and to have many positive attributes.

. . . either Pope John Paul II taught a false gospel and a false system of authority or Billy Graham did. And whoever erred erred badly. It isn't enough to say that they were both kind old men who taught some good things about Jesus. You probably could have said the same thing about some of the Judaizers in the first century.

. . . But I do think that we ought to make a distinction between a Pope John Paul II and a Billy Graham. Both deserve respect, but a lifetime of teaching the true gospel deserves more respect.

[Billy Graham certainly wouldn't agree with this dichotomy: see his remarks]

————————————————-

Eric Svendsen (4-4-05), starting out bitterly sarcastic about what he sees as evangelical laxity, in response to a remark from Jason Engwer:

Don't you know by now that the Evangelical way is to come to Christ by faith alone, give personal testimony that God and God alone saved you by his own grace and apart from any good thing you have done, insist in your testimony that you merely believed in Christ and trusted in him alone for your salvation, forsaking any good works as a means to your salvation—and then forget all that and confidently assert that the pope, who spouted Roman Catholic reliance on good works, baptism, the sacraments, Mary and the saints, and believed in a universalism, has "gone home to be with the Lord" and is now in heaven? What's wrong with you anyway? It doesn't have to be logical, as long as it sounds spiritual!

I cringed this Sunday as someone (a layperson) in my own church, during public prayer time, said "thank you, God, that you brought Terri [Schiavo] and the pope home with you this week." Now, I have no idea what Terri Schiavo's spiritual state was before or after she lapsed into her vegetative state. Maybe be she trusted in Christ while in that state, I just don't know. I'm more concerned about the comment regarding the pope. The person in church, as a layperson, at least can claim ignorance on theology. What is the excuse of the so-called Evangelical leadership who appear on the media?

—————————————————————

In strong contrast, this is how Billy Graham (that flaming liberal closet papist) replied to Larry King:

KING: There is no question in your mind that he is with God now?

GRAHAM: Oh, no. There may be a question about my own, but I don't think Cardinal Wojtyla, or the Pope — I think he's with the Lord, because he believed. He believed in the cross. That was his focus throughout his ministry, the cross, no matter if you were talking to him from personal issue or an ethical problem, he felt that there was the answer to all of our problems, the cross and the resurrection. And he was a strong believer.

Open Forum

PLEASE, everyone; confine your discussions that have nothing to do with the subject matter of a post, to these open forums (fora?). As it is, now three threads having to do with the memory of a great, extraordinary man, our beloved Holy Father, John Paul II, have all been hijacked by Alexander, an extreme anti-Catholic. If someone wants to answer him, please do it here. I've politely asked him (in the name of common decency) to say his piece here, too.

Brothers in Christ, against the world-system: Chuck Colson: Baptist ecumenist and politico-social activist, with Pope John Paul II

Protestant Praise for Pope John Paul II as a Great Christian Man and Leader

[emphases added throughout]

1) Peter J. Leithart (Reformed pastor):

The obituaries and eulogies for John Paul II will be written in superlatives. That is as it should be. A handful of men were responsible for the collapse of the Soviet regime, the evil empire that tyrannized millions and cast a shadow over the 20th century, and the Pope was one of that handful.

. . . Protestants view John Paul II, as they view any pope, with ambivalence. The Roman Catholic church is still riddled with errors, and this Pope held to many of them with passion.

. . . Flawed though his theology was, he remains far and away the greatest Christian leader of the past century. No Protestant comes anywhere close. Billy Graham may have preached more (maybe!), but Graham had nowhere near the political weight or the theological depth of Pope John Paul II. John Paul II's life is not only testimony to the wonders that God can perform through imperfect instruments but an inspiration for all Christians, whether or not we aspire to pope.

2) Douglas Wilson (Reformed):

. . . we are grateful for John Paul’s role in bringing down one of the greatest instances of human wickedness in history—the practice of international communism in Eastern Europe. We are grateful for his stand against the secularist culture of death, and his unwavering opposition to the carnage of abortion. We are grateful for the good he did within his generation.

We do not say this in the grip of an ecumenical fuzziness, in a sentimentalist blur, that wants to pass over every difference, however important, in order to get to the eulogy. We are mindful of the many idols that remain in our day, and we want to be faithful in resisting them, whether they are Roman or Protestant idols. And yes, this would include the idols that John Paul did not topple.

3) John H. (Lutheran):

. . . unflinching opposition to the culture of death, and his role in bringing freedom to countries under Communist oppression (not least, of course, his homeland).

. . . But the immediate question is how we respond to Pope John Paul II. Should this man's greatness, and self-evident Christianity, put into question our opposition to the papacy as an institution? Well, I find it helpful to bear in mind that what our confessions take aim at is not the individual person who holds the office of pope at any time, but the office of pope itself. Pope John Paul II held this office; but he also held other offices, not least his office as a pastor in the church of Jesus Christ; and then there are his own personal qualities as a human being.

. . . As Pope, John Paul II has held an office that is indeed, in the anathemas it has upheld against the pure Gospel, "antichrist". As a pastor in the church of Christ, however, he has done and said much that should command our respect. As a human being, he must be recognised as one of the most impressive individuals of the past 100 years. And as our fellow Christian, asking (as Pr McCain reports) that the accounts of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection be read to him on his death-bed, receiving the Sacrament of the Altar to the end, we do indeed hope and pray that he will die trusting in the Gospel of Christ and not in the office he has held.

4) Paul T. McCain (Lutheran pastor):

As a pastor who is pledged to the Lutheran Confessions, I am keenly mindful of how deep and pernicious the errors of Roman Catholicism are and continue to be. There is no question in my mind that the Roman Catholic Church continues to be a source of deep anti-Gospel teaching in the world. And I can not even begin to describe the agonizing grief this causes me as a Lutheran.

. . . What am I as a Lutheran feeling as we observe what appears to be the impending death of Pope John Paul II? Quite honestly, sadness. Sadness on two counts. Let me explain.

First, John Paul II has been for the twenty-six years of his Pontificate a powerful leader and spokesman against what he termed "the culture of death" and a powerful advocate for, again, what he termed, "the culture of life" -- consistently he has provided worldwide leadership on issues that all faithful Christians share in common: a deep concern for the spectrum of life issues, from birth to death. And I am saddened to be losing this powerful voice in defense of life. He also played an extremely critical role in the downfall of Communism, another thing for which I am deeply appreciative. I am saddeneed to think the world is losing this powerful voice on these issues.

Though I disagree, profoundly and deeply, with many of his core theological convictions, I have great respect for him and for his church. Unlike churches that share the name "Lutheran" with me, John Paul II never compromised what his church stood for.

. . . I am most deeply sad to realize that in spite of all the good that John Paul did during his long career, he was head of that organization and institution that continues, at its very core, to deny and stand in opposition to the clear proclamation of the Gospel. There is so much that is right, so much beauty, but there is so much that continues to obscure the glory and merit of Christ--alone. And this is what causes me continuing sadness. I pray that God would in some way bring Reformation to the institution known as the Roman Catholic Church.

And so while I deeply oppose the essential theological errors that John Paul II has stood for and embraces, I admire the man and respect him for many things. I find him to be one of the most fascinating personalities and leaders of our time.

5) Billy Graham:

Pope John Paul II was unquestionably the most influential voice for morality and peace in the world during the last 100 years. His extraordinary gifts, his strong Catholic faith, and his experience of human tyranny and suffering in his native Poland all shaped him, and yet he was respected by men and women from every conceivable background across the world. He was truly one of those rare individuals whose legacy will endure long after he has gone.

It was my privilege to meet with him at the Vatican on various occasions, and I will always remember his personal warmth to me and his deep interest in our ministry. In his own way, he saw himself as an evangelist, traveling far more than any other Pope to rally the faithful and call non-believers to commitment. He was convinced that the complex problems of our world are ultimately moral and spiritual in nature, and only Christ can set us free from the shackles of sin and greed and violence. His courage and perseverance in the face of advancing age and illness were an inspiration to millions - including me.

(2nd link / 3rd link)

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He'll go down in history as the greatest of our modern popes," the Rev. Billy Graham told TIME magazine. "He's been the strong conscience of the whole Christian world."

(link)

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Billy Graham appeared on the Phil Donahue show on 10/11/79, and in discussing Pope John Paul II's visit to the U.S.A., said: "I think the American people are looking for a leader, a moral and spiritual leader that believes something. And the Pope does. … Thank God, I've got somebody to quote now with some real authority."

"No other man in the world today could attract as much attention on moral and spiritual subjects as John Paul. He is articulating what Catholic and Protestant churches have traditionally held, the moral values from the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. The country is responding in a magnificent way. It shows there’s a great spiritual hunger. The Pope has reached millions of Protestants. The organized ecumenical movement seems to be on the back burner and ecumenicity is now taking place where Roman Catholics and Protestants share beliefs in matters like the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection of Christ" (Billy Graham, Time, October 15, 1979).

"Since his election, Pope John Paul II has emerged as the greatest religious leader of the modern world, and one of the greatest moral and spiritual leaders of this century … The Pope came [to America] as a statesman and a pastor, but I believe he also sees himself coming as an evangelist. … The Pope sought to speak to the spiritual hunger of our age in the same way Christians throughout the centuries have spoken to the spiritual yearnings of every age-by pointing people to Christ" (Saturday Evening Post, Jan.-Feb. 1980)

On coming to Vancouver less than a month after the Pope had been there, Graham commented on the Pope's message: "I'll tell you, that was just about as straight an evangelical address as I've ever heard. It was tremendous. Of course, I'm a great admirer of his. He gives moral guidance in a world that seems to have lost its way" (Foundation, Vol. V, Iss. 5, 1984).

(link)

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6) Gerald B. Kieschnick, president of the Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod

[The pope] provided inspiration and leadership, not only to Roman Catholics but also to the greater Christian world and beyond with his uncompromising stances in favor of life and against the culture of death.

7) Mark Noll (evangelical historian and author):

Billy Graham and John Paul II are indisputably great men. However much of what they accomplish should be attributed to their own actions and however much is due to other factors, these two must be considered significant actors in 20th-century history. For Billy Graham in 1957 to invite participation at his New York City evangelistic campaign from representatives of all willing churches--thereby opening up a wide array of ecumenical possibilities for former fundamentalists, new-style evangelicals and many mainline Protestants-was indisputably an important action. But even that significant action will probably receive less attention in the history books than John Paul II's trip to Poland in June 1979, when millions of his compatriots ignored official disapproval to attend masses and other Catholic services--and so accelerated, or maybe sparked, the shaking that eventually brought down state-communism in Eastern Europe.

8) Charles Colson (Baptist author and founder of a well-known prison ministry):

Pope John Paul II is one of the truly heroic figures of the 20th century. He will be remembered not only as a great leader, but as one of the handful of people singularly responsible for the collapse of the Soviet empire. Stalin once derisively asked, How many divisions does the Pope have? John Paul II answered that question and changed the world.

I had the honor of meeting his Holiness, and I have actively been a part of a collaborative fellowship called Evangelicals and Catholics Together. The Pope's willingness to reach out to Christians outside of the Roman Catholic faith was critical to promoting unity across the Christian family. His vision, his determination, and his loving spirit will be missed by Christians around the world.

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The most hopeful words from any Christian leader today have come from John Paul II....

(How Now Shall We Live, 1999, 302-303)

9) Dr. James Dobson: well-known evangelical family advocate (Focus on the Family):

Today's passing of Pope John Paul II is an immeasurable loss - not only to our friends of the Roman Catholic faith, but to the entire world. We found common cause with him and with the 'culture of life' he espoused so eloquently; the legacy he left us is to be cherished.

While we grieve the profound loss of this remarkable man, we celebrate his life, his ministry and his undeniable impact on the world. During his time as leader of the Catholic Church, he embodied the belief that freedom is a gift from God that should not be infringed by any government; that all life is precious and should be protected; and that dying is part of living and should not be feared nor hastened artificially.

Pope John Paul was an uncompromising voice on the sanctity of life - in fact, his was one of the greatest contributions of the 20th century to that cause. The 'culture of life' will forever be indebted to the man who championed the value of all human life, even to his last breath.

10) Pat Robertson (evangelical broadcaster):

He has been a man of great warmth, profound understanding, deep spirituality and indefatigable vigor . . . [I am] deeply grieved [at the death of the pope]. John Paul II has been the most beloved religious leader of our age--far surpassing in popular admiration the leader of any faith.

11) Jerry Falwell (Baptist pastor and conservative activist):

The world has lost a great moral leader and we will certainly feel his loss . . . [Pope John Paul offered] unparalleled pro-life and pro-family leadership.

12) Os Guiness (evangelical writer):

Pope John Paul II is, in many ways, closer to Luther and Calvin than many of Luther and Calvin’s followers today.

13) Norman Geisler (evangelical apologist and prolific author):

Catholics and evangelicals share a common core of beliefs about salvation. ... For both groups salvation is by grace and is not prompted by human works. It comes as a gift of God to undeserving humanity" (pp. 81,103,104).

Since evangelicals and Roman Catholics have so much in common doctrinally and morally ... we believe that there are, nonetheless, many areas of common spiritual heritage and practical social and moral cooperation possible. ... In this final section we wish to end on a positive note, firmly believing that a cooperative effort between Roman Catholics and evangelicals could be the greatest social force for good in America. ... Our common doctrinal and moral beliefs are too large and the need in America for a united voice on them is too great for us to dwell on our differences to the neglect of crucial cooperation needed to fight the forces of evil in our society and our world. ... Even the most reactionary of Protestant fundamentalists has more in common with Cardinal John O'Connor and John Paul II than with Joan Campbell and John Spong (pp. 357,358).

Perhaps evangelicals felt a bit guilty when they realized they were 'Johnnie-come-latelies,' given the fact that Roman Catholics had been alert to the moral dimensions of the problem while their evangelicals neighbors were spiritually asleep (p. 360).

(from: Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences, co-author: Ralph MacKenzie. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1995; page numbers given above)

14) Richard Land (president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission):

I've got more in common with Pope John Paul II than I do with Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton. [both Southern Baptists]

15) Franklin Graham (president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan's Purse, an international Christian relief organization):

Pope John Paul II has modeled three qualities I will always associate with him--faith, courage, and forgiveness. He also reminds us that, regardless of one’s power or status, we all answer to an Almighty God. It is this God, and not the Vatican or the Catholic Church that Pope John Paul II looked to for strength and wisdom and guidance during often-perilous times in our world.