Dave Armstrong's Blog, page 52

"Young Guns" in Catholic Online Apologetics: How Different Are They from the "Old Guard"? / Apologetics is Always a Difficult Spiritual Battle

 With fellow apologist Jimmy Akin at my house in 2004. We met again at the Catholic Answers offices this last May
This is a reply to an article by Devin Rose on the VirtuousPla.net site, entitled, Young Guns. My name was graciously mentioned in it. I had some thoughts in reply, that I posted there.* * * * *
People are people. Catholic apologists are Catholic apologists. Zebras have stripes, etc. I don't think it is that different. The fringe anti-Catholic wing of online Protestantism despises, e.g., the folks at "Called to Communion" (especially Bryan Cross) just as much as they detest us "older" apologists. I can attest to that, having seen many disparaging remarks. Whoever defends the Church will be in for the same treatment no matter how saintly and non-confrontational they act. That's just how it goes.


If one is loved by one and all, I question whether they are vigorously defending Holy Mother Church, because many people get offended when you disagree with them (believe me, I know, after 30 years of apologetics in both the Protestant and Catholic worlds). This is a dynamic that hold true in all times and places because it is the perpetual struggle of truth over falsehood; right over wrong. We don't want to be despised because we are truly jerks and uncharitable (because of our own poor behavior), but if we are loathed because we proclaim Catholic truth, then that is exactly what our Lord predicted would happen. It does not necessarily reflect badly upon how well we did our job, at all.

I have (friendly) quibbles with some of the characterizations: drawing contrasts where I don't see much of that, myself. You clarified on the charity thing. Good. As for Point 2, Scott Hahn doesn't interact online much (he doesn't debate), but all the other "old guard" named are very active in this fashion. We're all on Facebook and we all interact. Pat Madrid has 5000 Facebook followers; Jimmy Akin is up to 4581. I have 2500 in just eight months' time. I think most are on Twitter, too (I am). Most use radio and TV and various other media. I'm the least "public," by far (I just write away in my own home), but I have been on the radio about a dozen times.

As for Point 3 (being systematic), that's nothing new to me at all: I have over 2600 posts on my blog, categorized in over 50 separate web pages. I deal with everything: atheists, science, sexual issues, war ethics, ecumenism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, anti-Catholics, Orthodoxy, Catholic traditionalism, Church fathers, development of doctrine, romantic theology a la Lewis and Tolkien, conversion and converts, you name it. So that is not "different" from me. The Catholic Answers website is quite systematic; so is Pat Madrid's stuff, and Scott Hahn's website(s).

I'm not trying to toot my own horn, or that of the "older guys" or create some kind of silly rivalry (not at all); I'm merely making the point that I don't see the strong contrast that is drawn in the article, and question the accuracy of using the adjectives "new," "new era," "new wineskins," "different," "new media."

Obviously, with each new wave of apologetics and outreach efforts there will be innovations and fresh approaches. I want to see "new guys" who are doing a good job, get more exposure and recognition. More power to all of 'em. I commend any such efforts and rejoice to see them. But I don't think there is any essential (or even very great) difference here.

We're all in this together and can all learn from each other. If someone learns something from me I am flattered and give the glory to God; but I hope to always be open to learning from others, too, including the so-called "young guns." I don't want to ever become the "old dog" (at the ripe old age of 53) that can never learn "new tricks."

* * *
As an example of some of what I was contending above, see the feature article on the anti-Catholic Beggars All site, by John Bugay, entitled, "The Bryan Cross Method Alert" (5-10-10). After all kinds of swipes taken, Bugay concludes at length that Cross's "method of argumentation is inherently dishonest." Earlier in the article he characterized Cross's style as "knowingly to convey a misleading impression to another person." It's the old "jesuitical casuistry" charge. Bugay in the combox expressly states this: "I've pulled out my copy of Pascal's 'Provincial Letters,' and I'm going to give them a look, on the topic of 'casuistry.'"

Nothing new under the sun. If Cross is using some kind of "new" method that is distinguishable in any significant way from older ones, the net result in the anti-Catholic's eyes is exactly the same. It's not a whit more effective in convincing people who are fundamentally hostile, than anything that has been done in the last 20 years online. Bugay attacks Cross again in an article dated 3-25-11, saying,

Bryan is one of those individuals in search of "the correctly marketable term," a new phrase he can coin and throw out there to "the academy," which will have his name attached to it, and for which people will fawn over him. . . . Maybe, someday, Bryan can be known, like Bultmann, for having discerned "the separation of the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith."

These dynamics are inevitable. Called to Communion and Bryan Cross are relatively well-known, among the "young guns." Therefore, they are being increasingly attacked and savaged. The same thing will happen to anyone else who crosses paths with the leading anti-Catholics. The closer you get to the "front lines" and the longer you stay there, the more attacks will come (and with them the altogether human temptation to respond in kind, or to act in ways quite differently from a sweet, saintly demeanor). It's the nature of spiritual as well as military warfare.

Once a few points are scored in debate, then the anti-Catholic fangs come out and it is never the same again.  I guarantee that the young guns will not fare any differently, the more they engage these folks. And there is a time for a rebuke and strong language, too, if it is warranted. Jesus did that with the Pharisees; St. Paul did with various opponents (some of whom are named in his letters), and with entire churches (Galatians, Corinthians). Sometimes when a person is rightly rebuked, then the one doing it gets accused of engaging in the same behavior that was rebuked (I know from much personal experience!).

Any apologist who thinks that his work can and will always be "nicey-nicey" and "smiley" and all wrapped up in a pretty bow will have to learn the hard way, and may be in for some major disenchantment or disillusionment (I've seen many people "burn out"). If difficult scenarios and strong (personal) opposition aren't encountered, then (sorry), I don't think an apologist is fully doing his job. Opposition (and hence unpopularity) is inevitable.


With Protestants who are ecumenical, though, there is no problem achieving amiable, cordial, constructive debate. It's like night and day. Therefore, I contend that the essential difference is not some supposedly significantly "new" apologetic method vs. older ones, but rather, the difference in how an anti-Catholic Protestant responds, vs. how a Protestant who considers Catholics brothers in Christ will respond, and how the former responds, in direct proportion to how familiar he is with a Catholic opponent, and how many times he has been bested in argument by same.

Precisely the same dynamic also applies to apologetics in exchanges with atheists. There are the angry, irrational, "anti-Christian" ones (unfortunately the majority), and also the ones who can talk sensibly with those who differ from them. Nothing works with the former, but it is easy to dialogue with the latter. Again, the key is not the method of the Catholic, but the prior outlook of the particular atheist. This is crucial to understand. We won't be "successful" with everyone.

Our task as apologists is to vigorously share and defend the truth, with charity and gentleness and wisdom. The results are up to God, since it is only His grace that moves any heart closer to Him in the first place. Sometimes we are opposed and seem to achieve no result whatever (like Jeremiah); other times there is abundant visible fruit (as on the day of Pentecost or with St. Francis de Sales, winning back many thousands of Calvinists). Jeremiah was not at fault; nor could St. Francis claim final credit for "his results."


The spiritual battle for hearts and souls is being waged on a scale and height infinitely beyond whatever (good or bad) methods we may bring to the table. Our first and always most important task is to be obedient to our call and to be proper witnesses of Christ. If our Lord and many (if not most) saints were persecuted and killed; we will, at the very least, be personally savaged and attacked. We can expect this; if it is not present, we ought to seriously examine ourselves to see why that is.
We mustn't be naive enough to actually think that Satan and his demons won't put up a vigorous fight against anyone who is effectively sharing and defending God's truth and the fullness of the Catholic faith. We can count on it. It's not peaches and cream and all method and PR and getting folks to like us. Apologetics is ultimately spiritual battle. We can be friendly, nice, charming; all that (and I sure hope we all strive to be that way), but that doesn't nullify the fact that it is, bottom line, a battle (thus, "young guns" is a very apt metaphor indeed!).


* * * 
Devin Rose replied, and I counter-reply:

Thanks for chiming in. I did not intend my portrayal of the positive traits of the young guns to imply a lack of those qualities with you and the other more experienced apologists I mentioned.

On my blog a few weeks ago I tipped my hat to you for engaging in discussion with the more virulently anti-Catholic Protestant apologists. You have continued to engage them for many years, which is a service to people, since it is important work to do but often frustrating and even odious.

You are right that apologetics doesn't change in its essentials. The arguments we make were put quite well by St. Francis de Sales in the Catholic Controversy four hundred years ago. But we put old wine in new wineskins, addressing the particular issues that are important to our separated brethren today. And each new generation has a different perspective on this, and new voices to add. There are contributors on this site, over a decade my junior, and when I read their posts I realize, I would never have said something in that way–it simply would not have occurred to me given my background, experience, and even my particular "generation" (I'm somewhere between generation X and the "millennials").

Just time for one more comment. Certainly all of us apologists seek to be systematic, but the Called to Communion guys roadmap takes it, in my opinion, to a new level. The way they designed the articles to build on one another, as well as the quality of the writing and the arguments, is unexcelled in my experience. That is not to take away from your work, mine, or any other apologist's; it's simply an admirable strength that they exhibit as a group.

God bless your work for the Kingdom.
I am enjoying the intellectual stimulation (leading me to write so much in reply). Good topic.

I did not intend my portrayal of the positive traits of the young guns to imply a lack of those qualities with you and the other more experienced apologists I mentioned.

You clarified that in your remarks on charity

[he had written previously:

I almost left that part out because it implies that the "older" generation is uncharitable, which is not true at all. Also, many of us (myself included) fall to temptation to be uncharitable or trade punch-for-punch, so it is not an all or nothing kind of thing. Sometimes we do better and other times we do worse.

It might be helpful to say instead that the young guns know how to come across better in blog discussions. To be honest I don't see many of the older generation engaging in comments on blogs, even though they have blogs.]

and again here, and I gladly accept your report, but I think some of the language used in the article actually does logically imply this, if we take the remarks literally, because you emphasize all this "new" stuff, and talk about new wineskins and so forth; then you said "what's different about these young guns [?]" and "Something is different here," and mention three aspects: charity, new media, being systematic. If you say they are "different" in these ways, then that logically goes back to us old guys that you mention earlier, since they have to be "different" from someone or something, and that was the referent. See what I'm saying?

All you would have to do to change the logical thrust would be to say that the new guys are characterized or typified by thus-and-such, without the judgment of "different" (from what came before).

There seems to be some subtle negative insinuation against the "old guard" in other choices of words and metaphors; e.g., "hacked through the tangled jungle of apologetics with machetes" (doesn't sound like very subtle, fine-tuned apologetic work LOL) and "took part in heated debates . . ." The implication is thus left that newer apologists are vastly different in these respects (which I deny is the case).

Again; you say you didn't intend to draw this stark contrast. I believe you, but sometimes imprecise language can leave an impression that the writer didn't intend to convey.

I wholeheartedly agreed with the rest of your comments.



***

New Upcoming Project: Refutation of William Whitaker's Disputation on Holy Scripture on Sola Scriptura.

 
William Whitaker (1548-1595) was a Calvinist Anglican apologist. He attempts to vainly defend sola Scriptura. I will reply in depth to his volume, A Disputation on Holy Scripture: Against the Papists, Especially Bellarmine and Stapleton (primarily, the sola Scriptura sections).

I can't find any anti-Catholics today worthy to debate (they literally don't even know what the word means, and spend ten times more time lobbing insults than in producing rational arguments), so I have to go back to the old days. As a matter of policy and principle, I haven't gotten into an actual, multi-round theological debate with an anti-Catholic for over four years now, save one exceptional occasion when I replied to Jason Engwer for the sake of a friend who was confused by some of the anti-Catholic arguments. As usual, he didn't fully interact with my arguments, by a long shot (ignoring most of them). What else is new with these slanderous polemicists? But I used to go round and round with many of them, and refute their nonsense (see  the many scores of old debates on my Anti-Catholicism web page)

I hope you'll join me for this fun "journey." It'll be similar to my line-by-line replies to Calvin and the important early Lutheran theologian, Martin Chemnitz (one / two / three / four / five), as well as my numerous treatments of Luther. Bring on the best Protestant arguments (not the worst, as we too often see today)!

I've written more about sola Scriptura than any other topic in apologetics (as you can see on my Bible and Tradition web page), and it is always a popular area, and central to the Catholic-Protestant dispute. Authority is the bottom line. My book, Bible Conversations was partially devoted to the subject, and my 501 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura: Is the Bible the Only Infallible Authority? wholly devoted to it. Currently, I am finishing up a radical revision and shorter, much more tightly argued version of that book, in conjunction with my longtime editor, Todd Aglialoro (four of my books), called 100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura , to be published by Catholic Answers (probably this fall). The contract is already signed, so this is a certainty.

I'm ready for some good arguments to interact with from classic Protestant authors, who believed in their doctrines strongly enough to defend them (rather than merely assume them as true, sans any significant argument, like so many Protestants today, or to assume that no one can be certain enough of theological truths to vigorously defend them). Like these "old guys" or not, at least we can respect them that much. They stood for something, and zealously fought for it. There is nothing wrong with placing very high confidence in Scripture: it is only the unbiblical notion of sola Scriptura (that the Bible is the only infallible, binding authority; hence, a denial of this authority in the Church and apostolic tradition) that causes problems.

Here are some of the numerous current anti-Catholic touting of Whitaker's book as the be-all and end-all on the topic:

Bishop James White
One will scan his notes in vain for any reference to any classical works on, say, sola scriptura, such as William Whitaker's late 16th century classic, Disputations on Holy Scripture, . . . (8-18-10)

Since the Reformation, only a few godly servants of the truth have invested the time and effort necessary to produce for God's people a full-orbed defense of Scriptural sufficiency against those who would subject Scripture to external authorities. William Whitaker was one of those servants, and his work should be carefully studied by all concerned shepherds of Christ's flock. (September 2007)

Matthew D. Schultz
William Whitaker (1547-1595) was an Oxford-trained theologian of significant influence and prestige. One of his most important treatises was Disputations on Holy Scripture (hereafter Disputations), a work that set out to explain and defend the principle of Sola Scriptura over and against the arguments of Rome's foremost apologists. Whitaker's Disputations served not only to influence the formulation of the Westminster Confession of Faith, but continues, due in part to the unchanging nature of the debate, to be an important text in the modern controversies between Catholics and Protestants. . . .

The excellent reputation of Whitaker as a debater and the quality of his Disputations is difficult to deny. . . . even Whitaker's theological enemies considered him to be a formidable, even respectable opponent. . . . Whitaker has incisive analytical skills; his application of razor-sharp logic is demonstrated both in his ability to properly represent his opponents' arguments and in his ability to refute them. He also employs sound reasoning in selecting the strongest forms of his opponents' arguments to refute, having no interest in refuting weak versions and claiming an empty rhetorical victory. Perhaps the most remarkable features of Disputations is its timelessness. (5-20-10)

Pastor David T. King
Ever since I've known him, Pastor David King has been recommending this work as one of the best resources ever on Scripture.(John Bugay: 5-20-10)

Ligonier Ministries (R. C. Sproul)
In this book, Puritan William Whitaker forcefully and effectively deals with objections to the doctrine of sola Scriptura. He addresses issues such as the number of books in the canon, authentic versions of the Bible, as well as Scripture's authority, clarity, interpretation, and perfection. Many have said that Whitaker so greatly defended the Protestant position that "he cut off the head of his antagonist with his own weapons." [link]

Reformed Anglicanism Blog
This work will stand alongside Martin Chemnitz's towering work on the Council of Trent. It may tower over Princeton's "Lion," B.B. Warfield, on the subject of Scriptures. Whitaker was a Prayer Book man, Calvinist, and Anglican of the first order magnitude. We believe he's better than Hooker. In any case, this work still should be studied by any Reformed Churchman, especially Anglicans. (1-15-10)

Further Google searching will bear out the continuing very high esteem in which Whitaker is held in Protestant circles. As I said, I like to seek the best of theological opponents, not the worst, so I eagerly look forward to this project. If we can refute the very best defenders of sola Scriptura, where does that leave the false doctrine? Sola Scriptura is, in my opinion, the most biblically bankrupt, barren argument of all in the Protestant arsenal. It is fascinating to watch people so vigorously attempt to defend a hopelessly lost cause (and -- supreme irony -- to pretend that it is actually a biblical doctrine).

Biblical Evidence for Submission to Church Authority and Apostolic Tradition / Biblical Condemnation of the Rebellion of the Protestant Revolt

 Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15)

Prohibition of the Removal of Ancient Landmarks

Deuteronomy 19:14 (RSV, as throughout) In the inheritance which you will hold in the land that the LORD your God gives you to possess, you shall not remove your neighbor's landmark, which the men of old have set.

Deuteronomy  27:17 Cursed be he who removes his neighbor's landmark.. . .

Job 24:2 Men remove landmarks; they seize flocks and pasture them.

Proverbs 22:28 Remove not the ancient landmark which your fathers have set.

Proverbs 23:10 Do not remove an ancient landmark or enter the fields of the fatherless;

Hosea 5:10 The princes of Judah have become like those who remove the landmark; upon them I will pour out my wrath like water.


Submission to Ecclesiastical Authority (Even if Corrupt) and Apostolic Tradition

Matthew 18:17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Matthew 23:1-3 Then said Jesus to the crowds and to his disciples, [2] "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; [3] so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice.

Acts 16:4 As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions which had been reached by the apostles and elders who were at Jerusalem.

Acts 23:2-5 And the high priest Anani'as commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth. [3] Then Paul said to him, "God shall strike you, you whitewashed wall! Are you sitting to judge me according to the law, and yet contrary to the law you order me to be struck?" [4] Those who stood by said, "Would you revile God's high priest?" [5] And Paul said, "I did not know, brethren, that he was the high priest; for it is written, `You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.'"

Romans 8:7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot;

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.

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


The Church as the Foundation of Theological Truth and Therefore, the Necessity of Adhering to Her Teachings

1 Timothy 3:15 . . . the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth. 
Romans 2:8  but for those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury.

Galatians 5:7 You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?

1 Timothy 4:3 . . . those who believe and know the truth.

2 Timothy 1:13-14 Follow the pattern of the sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus; [14] guard the truth that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.

2 Timothy 2:24-25 And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to every one, an apt teacher, forbearing, [25] correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth,

2 Timothy 3:7-8 who will listen to anybody and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth. [8] As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith;

2 Timothy 4:3-4 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, [4] and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths.

1 Peter 1:22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere love of the brethren, love one another earnestly from the heart.(cf. 2 Pet 1:12)

1 John 3:19 By this we shall know that we are of the truth, and reassure our hearts before him (cf. 1:6; 2:21; 4:6)

2 John 1:4 I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children following the truth, just as we have been commanded by the Father.(cf. 3 John 1:1-4, 8, 12)


Obedience to the Church and Her Leaders

Acts 6:7 And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith.

Romans 6:17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,

2 Corinthians 2:9 For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything.

Philippians 2:12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;

2 Thessalonians 3:14 If any one refuses to obey what we say in this letter, note that man, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. (cf. 1:8)

Hebrews 13:17 Obey your leaders and submit to them; for they are keeping watch over your souls, as men who will have to give account. Let them do this joyfully, and not sadly, for that would be of no advantage to you.

1 Peter 4:17 For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?


Rebuke and Rule of Church Authorities


1 Timothy 5:17 Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching;

Titus 1:13-14 . . . Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, [14] instead of giving heed to Jewish myths or to commands of men who reject the truth.

Titus 2:15 Declare these things; exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you.

Hebrews 13:7 Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God; consider the outcome of their life, and imitate their faith.


The Evil of Schism, Division, and Denominationalism

Matthew 12:25 . . . Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand

John 10:16 . . . So there shall be one flock, one shepherd.

John 17:20-23 I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me.

Acts 4:32 Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, . . .

Romans 2:8 but for those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury.

Romans 16:17 I appeal to you, brethren, to take note of those who create dissensions and difficulties, in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught; avoid them. (cf. 13:13)

1 Corinthians 1:10-13 I appeal to you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no dissensions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chlo'e's people that there is quarreling among you, my brethren. What I mean is that each one of you says, "I belong to Paul," or "I belong to Apol'los," or "I belong to Cephas," or "I belong to Christ." Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

1 Corinthians 3:3-4 . . . For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving like ordinary men? For when one says, "I belong to Paul," and another, "I belong to Apol'los," are you not merely men?

1 Corinthians 10:17 Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

1 Corinthians 11:16-19 If any one is disposed to be contentious, we recognize no other practice, nor do the churches of God. But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, in the first place, when you assemble as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and I partly believe it, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.


2 Corinthians 12:20 For I fear that perhaps I may come and find you not what I wish, and that you may find me not what you wish; that perhaps there may be quarreling, jealousy, anger, selfishness, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder.

Galatians 5:19-20 Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit,

Ephesians 4:1-5 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

Philippians 1:27 Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you stand firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel,

Philippians 2:2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

1 Timothy 6:3-5 If any one teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching which accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit, he knows nothing; he has a morbid craving for controversy and for disputes about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions, and wrangling among men who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. (cf. 2 Tim 2:23)

Titus 3:9-11 But avoid stupid controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels over the law, for they are unprofitable and futile. As for a man who is factious, after admonishing him once or twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is perverted and sinful; he is self-condemned. (cf. Jas 3:16)

2 Peter 2:1-2 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their licentiousness, and because of them the way of truth will be reviled.


***

Anti-Catholic Crusader John Q. Doe Continues His Ridiculous Blaming of Catholic Apologists for Protestant Mistakes or Honest Scholarship, With Regard to Luther's View of the Canon

 [John Q. "Deadhead" Doe's words will be in blue]
It's simply amazing, the amount of misinformation, disinformation and propaganda John Q. Doe dishes out. He makes Baghdad Bob (remember that clown?) look like Abraham Lincoln. I would have thought that my previous copiously documented examination of his nonsense (Anti-Catholic John Q. Doe's "Luther / Esther / Canon" Polemics and Attempts to Solely Blame Catholics for a Questionable Luther Citation . . .) had laid to rest many of these bogus allegations, but Doe cannot help himself.

He's so used to -- in his profound anti-Catholic bigotry --  lying about and distorting anything that Catholic apologists do (above all, anything I do), that he literally could no sooner stop this than Niagara Falls could reverse its course.

His latest farcical entry is entitled Tossing Blog Comments Into the Elbe, Save One. He brings out his entire roster of sophistical tricks and unsavory tactics again, including the yawningly predictable obligatory citation of my papers (in this case, ancient, removed ones) without providing links or my name (not even an affectionate nickname: a courtesy I obviously extend to him).

Wasting no time in again attacking me (his favorite "apologetic obsession"), without naming me, of course (this is the game he has been playing for a while now), he writes:

Last night I briefly went through some archived web pages I have saved on an extra hard drive. Some of the web pages go back almost 10 years. I found a number of instances of Roman Catholics citing the very bogus quote in question. One old page stated, "Martin Luther, in accord with his posture of supreme self-importance as restorer of Christianity, even presumed, inconsistently, to judge various books of the Bible, God's holy Word."

Guess whom Doe chose, out of all the Catholic apologists in the world: to dredge up old "archived" papers? Yep, you got it. You're reading his words right now. To comment briefly on the second part of the above: it is precisely correct. I stand by it wholeheartedly. Luther did judge books of the Bible (which is technically a different notion from which books he left in his canon in his own Bible), solely on his own arbitrary, self-proclaimed, pseudo-prophetic "authority." It's not just us Catholics (oops, "Romanists") who think this, but even some Lutherans and other Protestants: some of whom are troubled by Luther's cavalier attitude towards the Bible.

I documented this almost seven years ago now, in my paper, Luther's Outrageous Assertions About Certain Biblical Books. For example, non-Catholic Luther and "Reformation" scholar Preserved Smith wrote (this and other sources can be found in the aforementioned paper):

. . . few of his followers have ever interpreted, commented on, and criticized the Bible with the freedom habitual to him. The books he judged according as they appealed to his own subjective nature, . . .

Lutheran Mark F. Bartling (WELS), stated:

It must be admitted that Luther did develop a personal criterion of canonicity that took its place along side of apostolicity and universality (those books unanimously accepted by the early church, homologoumena) . . . It was, of all people, Carlstadt who condemned Luther for this criterion. Carlstadt said: "One must appeal either to known apostolic authorship or to universal historical acceptance as to the test of a book's canonicity, not to internal doctrinal considerations." [De Canonicis Scripturis libellus, Wittenberg, 1520, p. 50]. This position of Carlstadt was also the position of Martin Chemnitz and of C. F. W. Walther [Compendium Theologiae Positivae, Vol. I. p. 149]. 

Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901), the great biblical scholar, was equally direct in his disagreement with Luther:

No Church could rest on a theory which makes private feeling the supreme authority as to doctrine and the source of doctrine. As a natural consequence the later Lutherans abandoned the teaching of their great master on the written Word.

Moral of the story: when Catholics say things like I did, in this respect, we are not saying anything that many Protestant (including Lutheran) or secularist critics of Luther (Carlstadt, Chemnitz, Walther, Smith, Westcott et al) have not already said. But when we do it, Doe says it is bad research and "propaganda." When a Protestant says the same thing, it is profound truth. Orwellian doublespeak . . . The Catholic is always wrong and the Protestant always right, even when they agree with each other. I agree: it makes no rational sense. Yet this is how Doe "reasons." 

Now, to the matter of archived papers. Doe has had his fun for nearly ten years now, consistently "rescuing" from oblivion many of my older papers about Luther (absurdly thinking that this would somehow be an embarrassment to me and prove to the world that I am an unscrupulous dope). When I first converted to Catholicism in 1991 and did some critical writing about Luther, I had at my disposal far fewer sources and resources than I have now.

I wasn't on the Internet yet (not for another five years, and six till I had my own website). I had one Catholic book about Luther of my own (the notorious, but not devil incarnate, Patrick O'Hare) and photocopies or handwritten notes from mostly two other early 20th century Catholic sources (Grisar and Janssen) from library research. Much of my earliest research utilizes these three sources. I also had Roland Bainton and some Protestant biographies of Luther as well. I had read Bainton's famous Here I Stand in 1984.

My first paper on Luther dates from 1991. Needless to say, I have learned a great deal about Luther since that time (anyone can see how much I have written about him, including now a book) and have refined many of my opinions, as I learned more and more. Does knows this full well. He knows that I systematically purged virtually all references to O'Hare's citations from my papers way back in 2002 (because he noted it in a post from 10 October 2006; the original version mentioned my name; the present one doesn't, but still cites my words).

But "Deadhead" Doe loves to keep citing my old papers, knowing that I have modified many opinions in them. I continue to develop my beliefs about Luther on an ongoing basis, and remove old stuff; he keeps bringing it back, without noting (apart from a very rare and reluctant "nod" like the above paper) that I have changed my mind. This is unethical: pure and simple. It's one of the many cynical tactics he uses to try to discredit my Luther research: a thing that has obsessed him, lo these past nine years. Thus, as soon as he wants to make a point about "Romanist Luther research" he dredges up an old Luther paper of mine. One tires of this; but I am happy to be able to expose his nefarious methods, as presently. If he keeps doing the same old stupid, tired thing, I will expose it for what it is.

The old paper of mine that he chooses here was entitled, Martin Luther: Beyond Mythology to Historical Fact. (the original URL can be traced on Internet Archive). The first version was dated 14 January 1991. There was a "5th Revised Edition" dated 11 November 2002. In the fifth edition, all the material on the biblical canon (that he cites in his latest paper) had been removed. The third edition of 18 January 2000 still contained it, and also the words above that Doe cites, without either attribution or URL. So did the fourth edition of 27 January 2002. But since November 2002, these quotes have not been on my website, in this paper. That's how far back Doe has to go to make me an example of what he considers shoddy Luther research.

The last time the paper was online, according to Internet Archive, was 11 October 2003, so it's been gone almost eight years. Sometime between then and 6 December 2003 it was voluntarily removed as outdated (which is not the same as discredited) research. It never made it to my blog, because that was begun in 2004. This is the paper Doe chooses to use as an example of Catholic ineptitude. Then when we look at  the particulars he presents to make his case, they uniformly fail to do so, since they all go back to Protestant sources, in terms of origin in English, and continued use.

Obviously, then, I was refining the paper as I learned more things. Most people would think that is a good and normal thing in legitimate research and inquiry (since all noted researchers and authors make revisions). Not Doe, though; he mocks this; has dozens of times through the years. He makes fun of the fact that I revise my opinions and research, as the facts and further knowledge warrant. He frequently claims that it is only because of his stellar, oh-so-superior Luther research, that I ever do so. He attributes to me the lowest possible motives for doing so. This is mostly why (by his own report) he keeps citing my older, removed papers (rather than my many current ones): to try to make some point that I am incompetent: when the facts suggest the exact opposite conclusion. Here are a few examples of how he interprets revisions in my Luther (and general) research:

If you visit DA's blog, you know his entries can appear, disappear, or change hour to hour. . . . I think Dave will probably edit his use of Luther in this instance, . . . Dave's blog is often now you see it, now you don't.  
(6-18-07 on James White's blog, where he hasn't been able to remove my name)


A Roman Catholic recently blogged a large amount of material on John Calvin. I held out reading any of it and waited to see what he'd put forth in a published book. So I recently received his book on Calvin. Material on a blog can be edited or deleted as if by magic. A published work though sets one's opinion and research concretely.

(3-22-10: one of Doe's several ludicrous book reviews of my book without mentioning my name)

It's rather childish and obnoxious, in equal measure. Doe acts like the snot-nosed prepubescent kid who happened to get something right over against an opponent of some sort and goes around triumphantly (with an expression of supreme stupidity) proclaiming "I told you so" for months afterward. Doe does the proverbial kid even better: he does it for years. And the funniest thing is that usually what he "told" is most often a distortion of the facts in the first place.

Doe proceeds to cite my ancient paper, where I cited O'Hare at length:

Of the Pentateuch he says: 'We have no wish either to see or hear Moses. Job . . . is merely the argument of a fable . . . Ecclesiastes ought to have been more complete. There is too much incoherent matter in it . . . Solomon did not, therefore, write this book . . . The book of Esther I toss into the Elbe. I am such an enemy to the book of Esther that I wish it did not exist, for it Judaizes too much and has in it a great deal of heathenish naughtiness . . . The history of Jonah is so monstrous that it is absolutely incredible . . .

Now if anyone were to search this blog, you'll find I've probably worked through all of the quotes, and in each instance, O'Hare proved to be a propagandist.
The last statement is untrue, in terms of O'Hare not being the source of these things (in English).  I already documented in my previous paper  that the source of this material in English (far as I could determine) was Sir William Hamilton: a Scottish Protestant philosopher, in 1834. He was utilizing and translating the standard edition of Luther's Works in the18th century (the state of the art at that time): Johann Georg Walch (24 volumes: Halle: 1740-1753). Walch in turn cited the Aurifaber version of Table-Talk, dating from 1566. Doe himself wrote a lengthy post describing the Walch edition.

Those three Protestant men are the originators of this material, not the Catholic O'Hare, who was writing in 1916 and utilizing the statements of Hamilton. Thus, O'Hare and other evil, wicked, wascally "Romanists cannot be uniquely blamed for this, as if it is poor research and a polemical motivation alone that caused them to pull things out of thin air in the effort to defame Martin Luther. It's just not so. O'Hare wasn't solely at fault. It wasn't simply "propaganda." It had a quite legitimate, scholarly  Protestant textual history. If O'Hare was a propagandist by using these words (and I myself by using his, which are Walch's translated into English), then so were Hamilton and Walch and Aurifaber. But Doe doesn't tell his readers that. No; he merely bashes O'Hare and the embodiment of evil and bad research, Dave Armstrong. O'Hare does indeed often engage in empty "anti-Luther" polemics and lousy research, which is why I don't use him anymore, but this instance is not an example of it.

In the previous paper I already made a lengthy comparison of Hamilton's section about Luther and the canon (translated from Walch, who cited Luther friend Aurifaber), and O'Hare's. I guess this went right over Doe's head: assuming he read my paper at all.  Here I'll do it line-by-line (using O'Hare portions that I cited in my old Luther paper), hoping and praying that Doe will "get it" this time; that it will sink in:

[Catholic] O'Hare, 1916: Job . . . is merely the argument of a fable . . .
[Protestant] Hamilton, 1834:  Job spake not, therefore, as it stands written in his book, but hath had such cogitations . . . It is a sheer argumentum fabulae. . . .

[many Protestants (usually liberals who were biblical skeptics) picked this up -- so we observe in a Google Books search -- and noted that Luther regarded the book of Job as a fable or mere dramatic story without factual basis; see also a general Google search along these lines]

O'Hare, 1916: Ecclesiastes ought to have been more complete. There is too much incoherent matter in it . . . Solomon did not, therefore, write this book . . .
Hamilton, 1834: This book (Ecclesiastes) ought to have been more full; there is too much of broken matter in it; it has neither boots nor spurs, but rides only in socks, as I myself when in the cloister . . . Solomon hath not therefore written this book 

O'Hare, 1916: The book of Esther I toss into the Elbe. I am such an enemy to the book of Esther that I wish it did not exist, for it Judaizes too much and has in it a great deal of heathenish naughtiness . . .
Hamilton, 1834: The book of Esther, I toss into the Elbe." [Ib.] ["And when the Doctor was correcting the second book of Maccabees, he said: --] . . . I am so an enemy to the book of Esther, that I would it did not exist; for it Judaizes too much, and hath in it a great deal of heathenish naughtiness. 

O'Hare, 1916: The history of Jonah is so monstrous that it is absolutely incredible . . .
Hamilton, 1834: The history of Jonah is so monstrous, that it is absolutely incredible.

[a Google Books search of this phrase reveals that many Protestants cited it throughout the 19th century: several noting that it came from the Protestant Hamilton. It was in common use before O'Hare was even yet born]

It wasn't only the Catholic O'Hare citing or paraphrasing these sections from Hamilton: not by a long shot. I have linked above to examples found in Google Books searches. Secularist Luther scholar (oops, "propagandist" according to Doe) Preserved Smith also did, just five years before O'Hare:

. . . he declared Job to be an allegory; Jonah was so childish that he was almost inclined to laugh at it; the books of Kings were "a thousand paces ahead of Chronicles and more to be believed." "Ecclesiastes has neither boots nor spurs, but rides in socks, as I did when I was in the cloister."

(The Life and Letters of Martin Luther, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911, 268)

The only section that couldn't be traced back to Hamilton was "We have no wish either to see or hear Moses." Very well, then; let's do a search on Google Books, since Doe (the world's greatest Luther researcher, so he insinuates at every opportunity) encouraged us all to do so, by writing, "Go ahead and Google search any of the quotes above." I did, but not much turned up. Since Doe had said he wrote a paper about the phrase, I checked out what the Master Researcher had to say.

All O'Hare stated was, "Of the Pentateuch he says: 'We have no wish either to see or hear Moses.'" I agree that this is inadequate, because it has no context at all and could easily be misinterpreted (especially knowing Luther and his frequent rhetorical exaggerations and oft-used sarcastic, non-literal mode of argumentation). On the other hand, O'Hare has not interpreted it himself. Doe claims this is part of O'Hare's propaganda. But the words themselves do exist in Luther, and in that sense, this is not "propaganda" per se, but the reporting of a fact.

Doe has found some very interesting stuff on this. He speculated in his paper on the topic, that this utterance was "from Luther's treatise Against The Heavenly Prophets In The Matter Of Images And Sacraments," and cited the context (my bolding):

Now then, let us get to the bottom of it all and say that these teachers of sin and Mosaic prophets are not to confuse us with Moses. We don't want to see or hear Moses. How do you like that, my dear rebels? We say further, that all such Mosaic teachers deny the gospel, banish Christ, and annul the whole New Testament. I now speak as a Christian for Christians. For Moses is given to the Jewish people alone, and does not concern us Gentiles and Christians. We have our gospel and New Testament. If they can prove from them that images must be put away, we will gladly follow them. If they, however, through Moses would make us Jews, we will not endure it.

(Luther's Works 40:92)

Good.  But this dates from after 1955, and wasn't available to O'Hare. Doe himself  wondered if it is the right one, because he found another. The Master stated:

In the excellent old volume Luther Vindicated by Charles Hastings Collette, he puts forth an extended snippet of the same quote, which is quite different than the context I cited. He states:

There is a passage quoted by Dr. McCave, as reported in his Lecture in The Midland Counties Express, as follows :—"It was Luther who said of the Pentateuch 'We neither wish to see nor hear this Moses; he is master of all hangmen, and no one can surpass him when there is a question of terrifying, torturing, or tyrannizing.' " I have utterly failed to trace this passage.

Collette's book was published in 1884, and he was a Protestant. This could very well be O'Hare's source (the reference to "the Pentateuch" strongly suggests it), in which case again it is a matter of O'Hare citing a Protestant, who is not hostile to Luther at all; a book, in fact, where he is expressly defended. "Dr. McCave" appears to be Canon James McCave, D.D.: a Catholic; Collette is not necessarily agreeing with what he cited, and couldn't trace it. Thus we have:

[Catholic] O'Hare, 1916: Of the Pentateuch he says: 'We have no wish either to see or hear Moses.'
[Protestant] Collette, 1884 (citing Catholic McCave):  It was Luther who said of the Pentateuch 'We neither wish to see nor hear this Moses . . .'

This was only one instance from one old web page. I can post more examples if needed from various Roman Catholic websites and discussion boards.
Right.  But for some reason, whenever Doe wants to give an example of what he thinks is terrible Catholic research, he almost always cites me (unattributed, undocumented). And it's always -- invariably -- a bum rap.

When I looked back on my older entries about this quote, you'll notice I never picked a fight with anyone specifically about this quote:

Luther: "The book of Esther I toss into the Elbe..."

Luther: "The book of Esther I toss into the Elbe"....Revisited


This is a lie. Doe doesn't even know what he did in his own papers. In the first paper above, he states, "Look for instance at this citation from a Catholic apologist" and then quotes my paper (by title, with the old website URL): The Apocrypha: Why It's Part of the Bible. Also, previously, Doe would usually mention my name when doing critiques, but he has been "de-Armstrongizing" his website. That was likely the case here. Yet he spins and plays the sophist now and informs his readers and lackeys that he didn't have any Catholic in mind "specifically."

This paragraph is nothing more than an O'Hare summary, and it's filled with inaccurate information. 

And that is talking about me, folks!

Luther did not consider Job to be a "fable."
According to Walch, he did. It came right from him, as Hamilton stated. According to Preserved Smith (writing in 1911), he thought it was "allegory." I await with baited breath, Doe's paper excoriating Walch as an anti-Luther polemicist.

And of course, finally, this Catholic apologist informs us Luther wanted to toss Esther into the Elbe river. Did he really? I am not convinced Luther ever said it. It is up to Roman Catholic apologists to present proof for their facts when challenged. 
That's referring to yours truly again.  But Doe says he had no one in particular in mind. Right.

So, I never picked any fight over this quote. I simply posted the facts of the matter.
Sheer nonsense, as shown. It's a remarkable phenomenon: that a man would shamelessly lie about what he clearly stated in his own paper. That takes some considerable chutzpah. 

The Esther / Esdras quote was just one of a number of quotes taken primarily from O'Hare's book over the last 10 years, and popularized on the Internet. . . . Go ahead and blame Protestants for the origin of the quote (which I think is ridiculous), . . . 
How in the world is it ridiculous to note that O'Hare drew directly from Protestant Hamilton, who translated into English the official Luther compiler Walch, who included Table-Talk from Luther contemporary and personal secretary Aurifaber? But this is O'Hare's fault that he dared to trust Protestants for accurately reporting the words of their hero Luther? And it's our fault for citing him, doing so? As if Doe has never utilized older pro-Luther research (he does all the time) and in so doing, trusted it implicitly for accuracy?

I was hopeful you'd see the very person you defend and want me to treat fairly (whatever that means) had no problem accepting Richard's comments. I don't recall ever talking about Romanist families, or family members. In my opinion, that little Facebook banter was despicable. Shame on all of you for the little laugh.
Doe has been making a big deal about some comments made on my Facebook page,  in the cross-posted thread of my last reply to him. In the combox of his previous paper on Luther and Esther, he had written, replying to my friend, Paul Hoffer:

Why don't you put your high standards into practice over here. Explain to me why you don't chastise your friends as the [sic] mock the relationship between me and my father. . . . If you want to keep company with such people, who can mock in such a way, and then come over here in shining virtue, you'll have to forgive me for being a bit skeptical. 

As usual, it is a case of a Calvinist with no sense of humor whatever (and of Doe's notoriously thin skin and drama queen histrionics). I went through this same silliness with Doe crony Steve Hays in the last few days (see the final section of my recent reply to him), and have many times with Bishop James White: the Grand Poobah of Anti-Catholicism, and a man utterly unable (like Doe) to take any humor whatsoever about himself. They all savagely mock others but can't handle the slightest "comeback" humor at their expense. It's quite hilarious to observe. Let's see the actual comment that Doe is overreacting to. Richard Marquis wrote in my Facebook combox for the same cross-posted paper about Doe:

According to my PSY 101 days, you remind him of his dad, Dave! : - )

Note the smiley icon (sideways smiley face). That means it was a humorous remark, folks (standard Internet protocol; understood by one and all). I replied:

Is that what it is, Richard? :-) I've tried to figure out his obsession with my work for many years. I do have some theories . . .

Note the smiley icon. That means it was a humorous reply: not to be taken seriously. A smiley icon has no place in a serious remark: intended literally. This proves it was humor. And again, Richard wrote:

That's the verdict of this barracks psychologist, mein freund. If his dad had only played catch with him as a kid, you wouldn't have to now! LOL

See the "LOL"? That means "laughing out loud."  So we have one smiley icon at first, followed by mine when I replied, and now "LOL." All that, yet Doe takes it dead seriously and gets all up on his ear, with big-time pouting and complaints. My friend David Maher had some fun in the new Facebook thread for this paper today (and I couldn't resist this; it wasn't in me [sorry, Doe!]):

David: Should one posit another humorous remark for him to take out of context do you think? :D

Me: Sure! Keep the famous stereotype of the dour Calvinist going! LOL :-) LOL :-) [making sure he interprets this as a tongue-in-cheek remark LOL :-) LOL] laughing, ha ha he he, grinning, smiling, engaged in hilarity, jollity, and merriment, etc. etc. 

Flat-out amazing . . . And this from the man who has heaped entire continents of insults on me for 7-8 years now, including saying that I suffer from "psychosis" and all-around mental instability. Those were without question dead-serious charges, not mere jokes and tongue-in-cheek remarks. Doe doesn't recall ever talking about "Romanist families, or family members." That's funny. I remember well how he implied that I am not supporting mine, since I supposedly don't have a job:

This is a big difference between DA and I. I've never been bored. I actually have a job, . . . On the other hand, I think DA considers sitting up in his attic tapping away on a computer all day an actual job. Oh that's right, he's a professional Catholic apologist. Part of his "job" must've been to post a large number of comments on my blog throughout the day. Sorry, this isn't "a job." . . . I fully accept the idea that someone can be a full time Catholic apologist. I don't think though, someone simply proclaims themselves [sic] to be one, at least these days. I would consider Hahn, Kreft [sic], Pacwa, professional Catholic apologists. They've been trained, and tested. A guy posting massive amounts of stupid comments on a blog is not a professional Catholic apologist. I could never justify that to my family, that's for sure. Wife comes in: Hi honey how was work today? Husband: today I spent all day posting inane blog comments and compiling a list of someone else's blog posts about me. Wife: That's great dear... how much did you get paid for doing it? Husband: well, um, err, um... (7-17-09; removed in the dead of night with no one looking, but never publicly retracted)

Isn't Catholic apologetics fun? This is the sort of crap I hear back from our anti-Catholic intellectual giants on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis. Mockery, incorporating lies, is the fastest tactic of the pathetic fool who is unable to rationally defend his viewpoints.



***

Anti-Catholic Calvinist Steve Hays: Lies, Slanderous Mockery, Sophistry, Rationalization of Grave Sexual Sins: All in a Day's Work, and in the Name of Christ

[Steve Hays' words will be in blue]
Steve Hays runs the large blog Triablogue . He is one of the most atrocious examples of a Christian apologist to be found online today. It's people like this who give my profession a bad name (I am an apologist myself, after all, so I can get lumped in with pathetic examples of apologists like Steve).

The latest nonsense comes in the aftermath of a dispute where I actually sided in part with Steve Hays, over against a fellow Catholic apologist and a Catholic woman and amateur apologist online, who has followed my work for some time (hence, received my amiable correction). It was implied that he wasn't a Christian, and I said he was (though assuredly a pathetic public example of one: giving Christianity a bad name, as well as apologetics). Then some claims were made that he made an illegitimate reductio ad absurdum argument in reply to what he was being charged with. I disagreed and said his use was quite legitimate, logically and ethically. I defended him in this way because he happened to be right, and his accusers wrong, in these particulars of disputational method.

The woman later apologized, in a great display of humility and Christian charity. That was blown off by Steve and not acknowledged, in two mocking posts (one / two). After I had defended his argument and right to be called a Christian, he had to (inevitably, with him) somehow question my motivation (since I am Attila the Hun and Vlad the Impaler all wrapped into one, in his eyes), so he wrote: "Armstrong's contribution would have been preferable had he not turned this into yet another pretext for self-aggrandizement. But by hogging the limelight, his intervention now looks purely opportunistic."

I always have to be wrong, simply because the man despises me, and because I defend Holy Mother Church and Catholic doctrine. This is par for the course with all of the most active anti-Catholic Protestant apologists.

Hays is not only a first-rate sophist ("give the devil his due": he is very good at a bad thing), but also a world-class mocker, in the very worst, most obnoxious sense of that term. It's his method of choice now, having apparently tired of seriously slanderous insulting rhetoric. Calling folks "actually evil" (4-13-09) or of "evil character" (1-29-10) or "schizophrenic" and characterized by "wild mood swings" and "emotionally unstable" (4-18-10), and in one classic outburst on 7-16-09: now deleted from John Q. Doe's blog: "hypersensitive, paranoid, an ego-maniac, narcissistic, with a martyr and persecution complex . . . self-obsessive . . . self-idolater. . . . singular, autobiographical personality cult" or "a stalwart enemy of the faith. . . . no better than Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens" (1-28-10) -- all of which was directed towards yours truly -- got old, and so now he is trying to use humor to get across his ultra-irrational contempt, and to smear my name and integrity in any, every conceivable fashion that occurs to his oh-so-fertile brain.

Hence, recently, after his fallacious and sophistical arguments were dismantled in a "discussion" about the former Catholicism of the conservative commentator and author Dinesh D'Souza, Hays stepped up his usual mockery, with profound posts at my expense (complete with lots of photos!): "The Dave Armstrong Photo Gallery" (7-28-11), "Split-personality Narcissist" (8-3-11): where I was delightfully described as a "bipolar solipsist", and "Prima Donna" (8-24-11), complete with picture of a ballerina, where he states: "I'll be the first to concede that Dave is not a team player. By definition, a prima donna can't be a team player. Prima donnas don't play team sports." Then we have the follow-up, "Crowd Control" (8-24-11), with this passage-for-the-ages:

. . . Armstrong is so fond of talking about himself that whenever he goes to confession, you have a line stretching all around the block as other parishioners wait their turn while Armstrong updates his priest on the very latest installments in the story of Dave. The police require advance notification to erect barricades and reroute traffic. Concession stands are wheeled in to feed the waiting parishioners. Tents are set up for overnighters. Trapped in the Confessional with the interminable Dave-a-thon, the famished priest must order delivery pizza on his cellphone.

How could I possibly "refute" that, huh?

Now, I figured I could have some fun with the "team player" bit, and so I went into the combox for "Prima Donna" and wrote:

We certainly know that you aren't a team player, Steve, since you defend masturbation so passionately (no pun intended). (8-24-11)

One Dominic Bnonn Tennant (fellow rabid anti-Catholic) replied:

Wow, much as I laughed out loud at that comment, I hope you're going to confess it to your priest. (8-24-11)

I shot back:

Why in the world would I have to confess telling the truth? It was a joke, and all I said, substantively (the serious point underlying the witty remark), was that he defended it, not that he did it himself: a fact that is indisputable. Look it up. (8-24-11)

Hays does do this, as I have documented twice (one / two). Hays has written (it's still on his site now):

I don't think that Christians should go around guilt-ridden if they engage in this practice. On the face of it, this seems like a natural sexual safety value for single men—especially younger men in their sexual prime. Like learning how to walk or perform other athletic activities, this form of sexual experience and physical experimentation may train an unmarried young man in attaining some degree of mental and muscular control so that he is not a total novice on his wedding night. . . . I can't say absolutely if it is right or wrong, but I tend to deem it permissible under some circumstances.

("Too hot to handle - 2", 7-15-04)

But us poor "Romanists" must always be conscious in bigoted anti-Catholic environments, that however much we are mocked, we aren't ever allowed to joke back or have a sense of humor, even when it is perfectly ethical and understandable to do so. That's a naughty no-no. As I explained, I was joking, yet it had a serious underlying point: Hays does actually wink at masturbation and at the very least takes a lax view on it, and compromises. It's the classic tendency of the liberalization of traditional sexuality within Christian circles, that we have seen for at least a century now. But I am not allowed to joke, and because I am so despised in Hays' circles of know-nothing anti-Catholic cronies, based on his years of mockery and slander (what else would people think, who follow him?), I receive back a reply like the following, from Dominic Bnonn Tennant:

I see that reports of your willful obtuseness and self-justification are not exaggerated. (8-24-11)

No attempt to actually interact with the claim that I made: that Hays defends masturbation . . .; rather the immediate personal insult, with the obligatory swipe at my supposed unsavory interior motivations. So I came back with this remark:

Right. Hays defends masturbation. If you can't see that, then I am talking to the wind as usual around here. Be well. (8-24-11)

And Hays himself chimes in with the good old standby , when no rational answer is forthcoming: the catholic sex scandal:

Armstrong defends institutional pederasty. (8-25-11)

Ally Matthew D. Schultz enters in at this point, delightfully supporting by personal example the long stereotype of the humorless Calvinist:

I wonder why Dave so regularly raises the issue of masturbation. It clearly wasn't the subject of this post. (8-25-11)

Yes. The "subject" of the post was that I was a "prima donna": like that is to be regarded as a serious topic? LOL But I don't dare joke about it and make a wisecrack about Hays' defenses of masturbation! Then I made a serious reply:

You're the one defending grave sexual sin, Steve, not I. I have never countenanced sexual abuse from priests. I condemn it wholeheartedly as an abomination and an outrage, as my Church did.

[see the lengthy statement on my "Catholic Scandals" page and my posts collecting many articles about it (one / two) ]

There is just as much (usually more) abuse, statistically, among Protestant clergy or any other large institution, as I have documented more than once. [one / two]

But you sit there and defend what has always been regarded as grave sin, by Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, until recently. Luther doesn't defend it,

[Here's what Martin Luther wrote about Onan and his practice of contraception that is the same in essence as masturbation (ejaculation deliberately separated from any possibility of conception):

Onan must have been a malicious and incorrigible scoundrel. This is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest and adultery. We call it unchastity, yes, a Sodomitic sin. For Onan goes in to her; that is, he lies with her and copulates, and when it comes to the point of insemination, spills the semen, lest the woman conceive. Surely at such a time the order of nature established by God in procreation should be followed . . . He was inflamed with the basest spite and hatred . . . Consequently, he deserved to be killed by God. He committed an evil deed. Therefore God punished him . . . That worthless fellow . . . preferred polluting himself with a most disgraceful sin to raising up offspring for his brother.

(Lectures on Genesis: Chapters 38-44; 1544; Luther's Works, 7, 20-21) ]

 Calvin doesn't; 

[Here's what John Calvin wrote about Onan, in his Commentary on Genesis:

I will contend myself with briefly mentioning this, as far as the sense of shame allows to discuss it. It is a horrible thing to pour out seed besides the intercourse of man and woman. Deliberately avoiding the intercourse, so that the seed drops on the ground, is double horrible. For this means that one quenches the hope of his family, and kills the son, which could be expected, before he is born. This wickedness is now as severely as is possible condemned by the Spirit, through Moses, that Onan, as it were, through a violent and untimely birth, tore away the seed of his brother out the womb, and as cruel as shamefully has thrown on the earth. Moreover he thus has, as much as was in his power, tried to destroy a part of the human race. When a woman in some way drives away the seed out the womb, through aids, then this is rightly seen as an unforgivable crime. Onan was guilty of a similar crime, by defiling the earth with his seed, so that Tamar would not receive a future inheritor. ]

 most historical Protestants have not [folks like, e.g., C. S. Lewis and John Wesley]. But you do.

You can lie all you want about myself, about my church, mock away and make an ass of yourself, and be a reprehensible example of a follower of Jesus Christ. You only hurt yourself. You're not harming my work at all: it is thriving more than ever, with two new book contracts in the works, etc. (8-25-11)

Without missing a beat, Steve "Whopper" Hays (you can see the basis of the richly-earned nickname by now) promptly put up another post in response, where he assumes the false premise (that sexual abuse is sanctioned at the highest level of the Church, and that individual sin is somehow the fault of the entire Church) and quixotically proceeds with his irrelevant analogy:

On weekends, Dave is a Green Peace activist condemning water pollution downstream. During the week, Dave is employed by the factory further upstream that contaminates the water. Dave the loyal company spokesman stoutly defends the polluting factory while Dave the volunteer protester roundly condemns the pollution.

Then he did his usual obfuscation, obscurantism, and sophistry in a further reply in the latest combox thread (8-25-11) -- my interjections in brackets:

When you have no argument, beg the question. [I have documented above how he defends or winks at masturbation] Are you claiming that Evangelical pastors sodomize underage boys at the same rate as Catholic priests? [see the statistics in the two links I listed above, for sexual mischief among non-Catholic clergy. Sexual abuse is a huge problem in society-at-large] When you don't have an argument, quote tradition.[opposition to masturbation and the related sin, contraception, historically, is a fact, among all Christian groups. I cited as examples, above, Luther, Calvin, Lewis, and Wesley] . . . Since you're not Lutheran, that's [citing Luther's opposition] a disingenuous appeal. [it is absolutely irrelevant what I believe, in discussion of known historical facts: folks' positions on this issue] Since you're not Reformed, that's [citing Calvin's opposition] a disingenuous appeal. [is Steve truly this dense, to not get this?] You're resorting to the same peer pressure that liberals and atheists deploy to bully the masses into accepting global warming or naturalistic evolution.[Right. Rather, I am merely noting what all types of Christians have held about sexual morality, until very recently] I've never lied about you or your church. However, that raises a striking conundrum: If I lie about a liar like you, or if I lie about your lying denomination, does that double negation mean I'm telling the truth? [its own refutation . . .] As P. T. Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute." I see you share his business ethic. [his self-refuting "reply" to my mentioning that my work is thriving despite his relentless attacks upon it]

There is no rational discussion with this guy. I've known that for several years now. This is a prime example of why I refuse to engage in an actual back-and-forth dialogue with anti-Catholics anymore, and have not for over four years now. No true discussion is possible. It's literally impossible. It never is possible when extreme hostility is in play. It's like the difference between an angry quarrel with a spouse, with one party in a rage, and a calm, loving, amiable, pleasant mutually respectful discussion with a spouse. It's like night and day.

But on occasion I like to document and expose for everyone to see, the sort of garbage and ultra-irrational slander and tomfoolery that characterizes anti-Catholic "thinking" online today. Is this the sort of person -- a man who "argues" in such a fashion -- who would make Christianity appealing to you if you were an atheist, or Calvinist Christianity look like a great option to you if you haven't decided what Christian communion has the most truth, or the fullness of truth (as we Catholics say about our Church)?

I utterly despise and detest the methodology that Hays uses and several things that he defends. I don't despise him as a person. By exposing his unethical, shameful tactics, which sadly typify anti-Catholic methodology, then indirectly I am showing that there is a much better way than this rotgut, and that way is Catholicism.

I hasten to add that not all Calvinist (or Reformed Protestants) act this way: not by a long shot. I have several Reformed friends, and many more Protestant friends of other persuasions. But sadly, anti-Catholicism and the usual accompanying bigotry is far too prevalent in Reformed circles: especially online (the Internet seems to bring out the worst tendencies of folks for some reason).

Thus, the present endeavor, tedious though it is, is a legitimate aspect of Catholic apologetics: exposing the unsavory methodological tactics of so many of the enemies of Holy Mother Church. Many misunderstand this, and I will get criticized for this post as I always inevitably do, by folks who don't grasp its rationale and purpose.

I am despised and detested by these sorts of apologists because I defend the Catholic Church and her teaching. Period. If it weren't for that, they wouldn't know me from Adam and I would never cross their minds. I would be perfectly irrelevant. But because I defend Catholicism and critique their garbage (and am publicly known in apologetics circles and to a lesser extent, larger theological circles, as one who does this), they attack me personally and engage in all the usual timeworn smear tactics: standard practice for those who have run out of arguments, ideas, and reasonable discourse. What we see in politics in that regard, we also sadly observe in the Christian world of competing theological truth claims.

* * * 
Steve is sadly continuing his mockery; now with yet another attack-post, "Tooting his own horn." He opines (my interjected words in brackets again):

Armstrong is a roided up version of Catholic piety. Incapable of doing any good deed out of purely disinterested concern for others. [Right. As always, Steve knows my interior motivations and every nook and cranny of my heart. Imagine saying about someone else that they don't do "any" deed for the right motives? It's mind-boggling how he cavalierly assumes that he can make such outrageous, unsupported claims. This is "Pharisaic method" x 100. It's wicked. Our Lord Jesus and St. Paul condemn this sort of attitude times without number] When I read his original post correctly defending my use of the reductio ad absurdum (before he had second thoughts and scrubbed the original post), [no "second thoughts" whatsoever; I was respecting the privacy of my Catholic friend, who had apologized; apparently that is a sort of ethics and Christianity that is incomprehensible to Steve; I had to have removed it for unsavory reasons; couldn't possibly be otherwise.] I asked myself, "Where's the catch? Where's the hidden fee?" [Again, Hays seems utterly unable to grasp the notion that I did it simply because he was right in that instance, and some Catholics were wrong, and I was defending the truth of the matter, as I saw it. His personal hostility to me (the wicked, "evil" person) is so great that he is almost totally blind when it comes to anything I do. According to his belief in the false doctrine of Total Depravity, he has no option but to think this] And sure enough, it didn't take long before he dropped by our combox at Tblog to collect tribute. [what tribute? I informed him that a person he was vociferously objecting to had apologized and retracted their position. This should have been good news. But Hays didn't have it in him to accept an apology, because of the rude, boorish ass that he so often is online. Minimal Christian charity was too much to ask of him, I guess] It's always for the greater glory of Dave. What's in it for him? That's the bottom line. [LOL Quite obviously, nothing at all was "in it" for me. I risked offending a fellow apologist; I did in fact cause some pain and consternation in the woman I publicly corrected, which was unpleasant to me. I knew full well from past experience that I would likely be mocked here afresh (precisely what happened). It's ridiculous to think that I thought I would personally gain anything from it, and that this explained what I did. I did it because it was right. Period. End of story.] So naturally he came by, with outstretched palm, demanding reimbursement for his good deed. [this is a total distortion of what happened, and a bald-faced lie. One would think that such continual lying and distorting of facts would become wearisome after a while. But all Hays has (very much like the liberal Democrats today) is insult and calumny, if no rational reply is forthcoming from him. He's trying to make as big a noise and throw enough manure on the wall (at my picture) so that some will eventually stick. But he only harms himself. it doesn't have the slightest effect on anything I do] And, come to think of it, that's the essence of Catholic piety: "As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs." [leave it to Steve, to utilize a distortion of Catholicism, that was never official teaching, to supposedly describe the "essence of Catholic piety." Thanks for the laughs and comic relief, Steve. That was very rich in both irony and absurdity.]

Not content with this ludicrous piece of sophistry and calumny, Hays waxes eloquently and stupidly in another combox comment:

First of all, masturbation has nothing to do with this post. For some reason, Catholics like Armstrong suffer from a masturbatory fixation. That says a lot about what they have on their minds most of the time.

Yeah, right. I'm a very happily married man, with a beautiful wife whom I adore (and am quite affectionate with!), and four children, yet according to Steve (a single, 50ish guy), I am obsessed with masturbation (as if there would be any need). Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

I'll repeat it again, s---l---o---w---l---y, so that maybe even Steve will "get it" this time, seeing that he has (for all his vaunted brain power) the most extremely difficult time comprehending the argument or tactics that someone else uses. It was a joke! Got that, Steve? He called me a "prima donna" (to add to his collection of 10,000 other insults through the years) and said I wasn't a team player (he was using as a springboard here certain aspects of the previous controversy over the reductio ad absurdum that he used, and I defended). He used humor; so did I. I "get" his, but I know that the serious charges underneath it (his really believing all this patent nonsense about me) are simply untrue, and I know that his "jokes" aren't funny when they are based on lies, because good humor (especially satire, above all) has to be truth-based in some respect in the end.

He talked about "team player" so I got the idea of making a joke about masturbation, since I knew he has defended that. My joke was funny, because even Hays' buddy Tennant admitted that he laughed at it. But Steve doesn't get it.  My joke was based in truth (his views on masturbation), which is exactly why it was funny. But Hays didn't get it, and had no comeback, so he resorted to more insult (including bringing up the ubiquitous sex scandal in the Church) and lied some more, saying I am obsessed with masturbation.

Now, let it be known that I am not saying that Hays himself engages in this sinful practice. Who knows? I don't read minds and know all interior motivations and secret acts of others, as Hays clearly thinks he does. But I confess that I did get a big chuckle over the analysis of Jon the atheist, who wrote on my blog:

I am genuinely baffled that people regard Steve as intelligent. I used to argue at Triablogue prior to being banned and I tried interacting with Steve for a while, but after much effort I finally told him that I would no longer address his criticisms of my statements. He had no ability to actually internalize what I was saying and respond to it in a coherent way.

I honestly concluded that Steve has an unhealthy and unnatural lack of empathy. His inability to walk in someone else's shoes, sympathize, and even understand what a critic would say, in my judgment made discussion with him completely unproductive. I involve myself in online discussions to learn, and to learn you need your critic to understand what you are saying. Steve either could not or would not. So there's nothing to be gained. Why do people read him? I have no clue.

My first inclination regarding his thoughts on masturbation was that it was good to see him defend something like this instead of being so legalistic, as is typical of Reformed Protestants. But having read enough of him and understanding his unnatural lack of empathy it's pretty clear that the only reason he allows devation from legalism in this case is because it's a practice he engages in.

Again, I am not agreeing with his assessment, as to Hays and masturbation, but if Hays insists on positively lying about myself, relative to this issue, then it is fair game for someone else to speculate about him. Hays lies about me and is dead serious; I merely share a chuckle about him, and joke about it: just as in my initial remark that he couldn't stomach and is now trying to spin away so vigorously that he is (physically and intellectually) dizzy as can be.



***

Neo-geos Come Unravelled (Guest Post by David Palm on Robert Sungenis and John Martin)

[see the URL of this post on David Palm's blog]
Bob Sungenis  and "johnmartin" have written "rebuttals" of my latest essay, Sungenis and "johnmartin" Studiously Miss the Point (they can be found here and here.)  Candidly, all they have done is to provide further proof that the neo-geocentric case is a massive exercise in ecclesiastical and scientific special pleading, gummed together with a hermeneutic of suspicion and a liberal dose of conspiracy theories to fill in the chinks.

I won't be spending much time on "johnmartin"'s response, for the simple reason that it's silly.  For example, "johnmartin" twice makes the argument that the Roman Catechism teaches geocentrism because a contested section involving the "earth" comes under the heading "The Formation of the Universe."  But in a previous piece he agreed with me that this heading is a mistranslation, all without skipping a beat.  Hello?  Then there's his commentary on John Paul II's statement concerning the contents of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  Here's what the Holy Father said:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which I approved 25 June last and the publication of which I today order by virtue of my Apostolic Authority, is a statement of the Church's faith and of Catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium.

Now most people understand that a "statement" means that you use actual words.  But "johnmartin" somehow manages to find geocentrism in the Catechism—despite it not actually being there:

JPII clearly states the doctrines taught in the catechism are "attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium", which means the catechism is illuminated by the decrees of past Popes against Galileo, the church fathers, who taught geocentrism and scripture, that teaches a stationary earth. As such, the catechism embraces geocentrism as a teaching of the church through scripture, the magesterium [sic] and the fathers.

Right.  Did you get that?  And does his argument sound familiar?  It should.  In other words, according to "johnmartin", geocentrism is found in what one might call the penumbras and emanations of the Catechism. 

He says of me that, "Mr Palm is a heretic who opposes the magesterium [sic] and as such, he has fallen from the faith" and issues the further rash judgment that, "Unfortunately it is Mr Palm who is making a shipwreck of the faith of many by perhaps making a god out of This Rock and any apologetics association he has association with such as Dave Armstrong or maybe Catholic Answers who back up his anti geocentrist arguments."  In light of such unceasingly silly and boorish behavior, it's no wonder that Dave Armstrong eventually banned "johnmartin" from making comments at his blog.  Recall, this same "johnmartin" has been singled out for high praise from "top" geocentric "experts" like Rick DeLano and Bob Sungenis.  In spite of such clownish behavior, "johnmartin" expects to be taken seriously enough that he should be answered "line by line".  I think I'll pass.

Now, turning to Bob Sungenis, while I've never been impressed by his scholarship in this area, I'm genuinely a bit shocked at the degree to which his arguments continue to degenerate.  He's supposed to have studied this issue in great detail (Galileo Was Wrong was essentially his putative doctoral dissertation on geocentrism) and yet his reply was just shot through with outright errors, not to mention more of his usual debater's tricks.  Here are just a few examples:

"For example, Copernicus' 1543 book, De Revolutionibus, which espoused heliocentrism, was put on the Index in 1548."

This is false.  The Index of Forbidden Books was not even established until 1559.  I think it's fair to surmise that Copernicus' work could not be put onto the Index before the Index was established.  (Bob's oddly anachronistic argument here is reminiscent of his repeated insistence that the essential context for St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, chapter 11 is the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, which took place 13 years after the writing of Romans and 3 years after St. Paul was dead; see here.)

In reality, Copernicus' work was not put on the Index until 1616, after the writing of the Roman Catechism.

"Rheticus' book on heliocentrism was put on the Index in 1541."

False.  Obviously Rheticus' book, like that of Copernicus, couldn't have been put on the Index before it was even established.  I find no evidence that Rheticus' works were ever put on the Index, but my search was certainly not comprehensive.  Even if they were at some point, it certainly was not in 1541 or even in 1616, so Bob's statement is false.

"It [the Roman Catechism] never says the earth moves and, in fact, says the earth "stands still""

False.  The Roman Catechism never uses that phrase.  Once again, Bob is adding words to the Catechism that are not there.  And it's time for him to stop dodging the exegetical argument I deployed that proves that the "foundation of the earth" passage has nothing to do with the position of the globe in relation to the universe, but instead speaks of the relationship of dry land to water on the surface of the earth.  Here is the passage again:

The earth [terram] also God commanded to stand in the midst of the world [mundi], rooted in its own foundation, and made the mountains ascend, and the plains descend into the place which he had founded for them. That the waters should not inundate the earth, He set a bound which they shall not pass over; neither shall they return to cover the earth. He next not only clothed and adorned it with trees and every variety of plant and flower, but filled it, as He had already filled the air and water, with innumerable kinds of living creatures.

Notice again that the Catechism states that God clothed the terram with "trees and every variety of plant and flower".  He also filled it with living creatures, "as He had already filled the air and water".  In other words, this terram is something distinct from the air and the water.  The passage makes perfect sense if terram means "dry land", as it does in Gen 1:10.  It makes no sense whatsoever if it means the entire earth, as in "the globe"—which is what the neo-geo needs it to say.

As such, I challenge Bob to provide a coherent counter-exegesis to support his interpretation or admit that this passage says nothing about geocentrism.  That goes for "johnmartin" too, who, as I accurately stated, did not even engage this exegetical argument.  It is Bob's claim that the Roman Catechism contains "One of the clearest official and authoritative statements from the Catholic Church defending the doctrine of geocentrism..." and he speaks of the "Roman Catechism's dogmatic assertion of geocentrism".  This is the passage that he claimed would, "expel any doubt about what objects are revolving".  Thus, he is the one who needs to prove that his is the only possible reading of this and the other passages.  Remember that he is the one making this claim that not even the prelates during Galileo's day made, that the Roman Catechism teaches geocentrism dogmatically and clearly.  He's already given the game away by saying my interpretation could be correct.  To support his exaggerated claims he would need to demonstrate that my view is not reasonable and that his is the only interpretation that is reasonable.  But while he's already given the game away by saying my interpretation could be correct, he has yet to show how his own interpretation is even reasonable at all, let alone the only correct one.  It is past time to stop dodging his burden of proof and provide some, or else finally admit that he has misread this passage.

"Oresme suggested the earth might be rotating, but such diurnal motion was rejected by the Index in 1541, 1548 and condemned both in 1616 and 1633."

False.  No such ideas were addressed on the Index in 1541 or 1548, because it had not even been established yet.  And the neo-geos have greatly exaggerated the nature of the condemnations of 1616 and 1633.  See my Neo-Geo Double Standards and Exaggerations on Magisterial Documents and also more detail in a forthcoming essay.

"the Tridentine catechism knew of no alternate scientific theory other than heliocentrism when it supported geocentrism. It made no statement accepting heliocentrism. It made no mention of acentrism, or any other view. It gave no credence to Oresme, Cusa, Aristarchus, Pythagorus or any view that said the earth moved;"

Gratuitous assertion and straw man.  Cardinal Cusa's theories were never condemned and Bob has no proof that the authors of the Catechism could not have been aware of them.  And once again, Bob is tilting at windmills.  I specifically said that the Catechism does not teach any cosmological system.  It teaches nothing and rejects nothing about specific cosmological systems.

"the Tridentine catechism knew that the Catholic tradition believed the earth did not move and it makes no statement that indicates a break with the Church's tradition, including no break against the consensus of the Fathers on geocentrism."

and

"How about the damage Mr. Palm creates when he puts the Tridentine catechism at odds with the very Tradition it came from? How about the damage Mr. Palm creates when he says that previous pontiffs, who based their condemnations of heliocentrism on Tradition and Scripture, made mistakes on cosmology, but the current clerics, who base their decisions on the shifting winds of popular science, are correct?"

Again, straw man.  One more time—The Catholic Church does not teach any system of cosmology as a matter of faith.  A Catholic is free to hold to geocentrism.  A Catholic is free to hold to acentrism.  No theory of celestial motion is a matter of faith in the Catholic Church.  Thus, obviously, I never said that the Catechism breaks with any tradition.  Rather, it uses generic language that does not assert any specific cosmological system.  So, enough of Bob's debater's tricks and straw men.

It belongs to a future essay to demonstrate that there is no such doctrinally binding consensus of the Fathers on geocentrism.

"the only reason Settele got his imprimatur was because a lie was being circulated by the Commissioner, Olivieri that the Church of the 1600s denied heliocentrism because it didn't have elliptical orbits."

False.  In the process of accusing a priest of purposeful subterfuge Bob has seriously garbled the facts.  Let me just cite two points here, with more to come in the future.  First, several times in GWW2 (e.g. pp. 233, 244-5, 261, 262) he speaks of Fr. Olivieri as the Commissary General of the Congregation of the Index.  But Fr. Olivieri actually held that position in the Congregation of the Holy Office (the same office that issued the Galileo decree.)  A relatively small point, perhaps, but if you're going to accuse a priest of ecclesiastical treason then it behooves you to get your facts straight.

What's made very clear throughout GWW2 is that Bob doesn't like Fr. Olivieri very much.  Here are just some of the charges he levels.  He accuses Fr. Olivieri of being "devious", of "tortured logic", of putting forth "one of the most ludicrous and egregious forms of rationalization ever propounded by an ecclesiastical ward", of "calculating and deceptive motives", of "duplicity", of "twisting the truth", of "outright falsehood", of "attempt[ing] to twist and distort the truth", of a "concocted analysis", of "specious argumentation", of "malicious distortion of the historical record", of a "deliberate attempt to confuse the issue by inserting the red herring of elliptical orbits", and of "one of the most deceptive pieces of propaganda ever foisted on the Catholic Church".  (Does this level of insult and invective sound like the kind of material you would expect to find in a "doctoral dissertation"?  Not to me.)

But the fact is that Bob has seriously misrepresented Fr. Olivieri's arguments.  In the quote above and in GWW2 Bob boils the whole thing down to a matter of "elliptical orbits".  He asserts, without evidence, that, "'devastating mobility' refers to non-elliptical planetary revolutions" (GWW2, p. 250).  He calls this claim "preposterous" and so it would be, if that was actually what the Commissary General was saying.  But Bob has misconstrued what Fr. Olivieri meant by "devastating motion".

When the Commissary General speaks of, "the devastating motion from which Copernicus and Galileo had been unable to free the motions of axial rotation and orbital revolution which they ascribed to the earth" (Finocchiaro, Retrying Galileo, p. 208), he meant that the natural philosophers of Galileo's day (and even Galileo himself) could not figure out how it could be that the earth was revolving around the sun and rotating on its axis and we don't experience that as a devastating motion that lays waste the surface of the earth.  He cites Msgr. Fabroni explaining just this:

The Roman theologians were stressing the great disturbances of which we spoke, that is, the confusion of things produced by the earth's motion. . . . the waters of the sea, the flow of rivers, the waters of wells, the flight of birds, and all atmospheric phenomena would be completely disturbed and intermingled (Finocchiaro, Retrying Galileo, p. 207).

Fr. Olivieri says, rightly, that this "devastating motion" was one of the reasons that the theological commission in 1616 said that Copernicanism was "absurd in philosophy", by which they meant natural philosophy, i.e. science.  But even neo-geocentrists have to admit that this ruling has been proved to be erroneous, that there is now no natural philosophical absurdity in saying that the earth rotates around the sun and revolves on its axis.  How in the world Bob equates "devastating motion" with "non-elliptical planetary revolutions" is a great mystery.  What is clear is that Bob has totally misunderstood and misrepresented Fr. Olivieri on this point.

Fr. Olivieri also pointed to many other instances in which the views of modern astronomers differed from a strict Copernicanism.  Elliptical orbits was one.  He also noted that astronomers no longer believe that the sun is the center of the universe.  They no longer believe that the sun is motionless.  They have solved the difficulties of the "devastating motion" problem, thereby clearing modern views of the natural philosophical absurdity that formed a key part of the evaluation of the theologians of the Holy Office in 1616.  And Fr. Olivieri pointed to additional scientific discoveries and observations—most notably aberration and nutation—that gave additional support to non-geocentric cosmology (these can only be explained in the neo-geocentric system through more special pleading.)

I will have more to say about the actions of the Congregation of the Holy Office in 1820-22 later.  But I believe what I have outlined above shows that Bob has vastly oversimplified and therefore garbled the matter by speaking only of elliptical orbits.  He then repeatedly slanders a Catholic priest based on his own confused analysis.

What's more, I would note something else that I will be expanding upon, namely, that this is all perfectly in line with the Church's actual canonical protocol.  The Catholic Church has taught from time immemorial that canonical censures are to be interpreted strictly.

Laws that establish penalties, restrict the free exercise of rights, or contain an exception to the law must be interpreted strictly (c. 18) It is long-standing canonical tradition that restrictive laws must be narrowly applied. . . . Strict interpretation means that the sense of the words of the canon and the scope of its application are limited as much as reasonably possible. (J. A. Coriden, An Introduction to Canon Law, 202-3)

Note well that it is the neo-geos who turn this principle on its head by striving to apply the 1633 decree against Galileo as broadly as possible, to as many people as possible.  Conversely, the Catholic Church applies her canonical principles to modern cosmological views and rules that these don't fall under the disciplinary decrees of the seventeenth century.


"In 1833, only 178 years ago, the Church required a disclaimer to be put on Newton's Principia stating that the "Supreme Pontiffs have decreed, against Newton, that the Earth does not move.""

This is yet another example of blatant neo-geo exaggeration and what might be termed "fabricative evolution".  Here's what Bob says about this matter in GWW:

when the three-volume edition of the Principia was published in Geneva, the Catholic Church apparently had enough power to assign two Minim friars from the Franciscan order, Thomas Le Seur and François Jacquier as editors . . . although Newton assumed the heliocentric system to be true, this was not the belief of the editors, Le Seur and Jacquier, who represented the Catholic Church (GWW2, p. 241).

Here, Bob starts with an assertion, made up out of whole cloth, that "the Catholic Church apparently had enough power to assign two Minim friars from the Franciscan order . . . as editors"  He claims that they were, "commissioned by the Church".  But he cites no evidence that the Church had anything officially to do with these friars being the editors of the Principia.  None.

But in his latest reply to me this gratuitous assertion takes on a life of its own and evolves even further.  Now, suddenly, according to Bob, " the Church required a disclaimer to be put on Newton's Principia" (my emphasis).  This is, of course, a gross exaggeration.  Two priest-editors with no official mandate suddenly evolve into "the Church".  If there were anyone who would have made hay of these priests' alleged official status, it would have been William Roberts.  Roberts wrote a book attacking papal infallibility based on the Church's handling of the Galileo affair.  Yet, even Roberts called this merely "the opinion of its Roman editors" (The Pontifical Decrees Against the Doctrine of the Earth's Movement, p. 53; my emphasis).

Considering the fact that Galileo Was Wrong was essentially Bob's putative "doctoral dissertation" on geocentrism and that Bob received particular praise from Calamus International for the alleged depth and caliber of his research, one wonders how he failed to even find, let alone interact with, the copious material I've presented here that contradicts his thesis.  It's not as if this material was hiding somewhere or as if I've spent the hours necessary to earn a doctorate.

"If the Church came out tomorrow with an official and binding statement and said that the previous Church was wrong in condemning heliocentrism and that science has confirmed that heliocentrism is true and the only cosmology we should accept, I and everyone else would forsake geocentrism in a second."

If Bob wants to assert once again that cosmology was somehow specifically excluded from these teachings of Leo XIII and Pius XII—despite the fact cosmology is considered the most obvious application for their words—then the burden is on him to prove that, not just assert it.  The point that seems to elude him is that these popes laid out a general principle that plainly applies to cosmology.  If he wants to carve out an exception to this principle for geocentrism, then he needs to provide justification from these encyclicals or some other authoritative source—something he has failed to do.  As such, his argument here is nothing more than bare, unsupported assertion—in a nutshell, more special pleading.

After that, he needs to explain why the entire Magisterium of the Church—popes and bishops—behaves and teaches as if these documents were addressing cosmology, even going so far as to publicly acknowledge the probability of non-geocentric cosmology.  Based on history, we can anticipate the likely answer: it's all the result of ineptitude and cowardice.

Still, if the statement above is Bob's real position then well and good.  But it is very, very different from what he has said elsewhere.  For example:

If we say the 17th century magisterium erred, then it is a fact that the Holy Spirit allowed the Church to err, and if the Church can err in what it then declared as a matter of faith and morals (i.e., it was a matter of faith because Scripture taught the earth didn't move, and Scripture cannot lie), then it can also err in matters of faith and morals today, and if that is the case then we simply don't have the Catholic Church we have claimed to have. This is an all or nothing game, gentlemen. We can no longer sit on the proverbial fence and shun one period of our official magisterium as seriously misguided and accept the unofficial musings of another period as correcting the former, especially since modern science gives us no help in substantiating the latter (link).

Or how about a talk he gave in Canada during which this was reported:

Later on in the lecture, he actually said verbatim that if you did not believe in a geocentric universe you were atheist [if Bob denies that he said that, fine, but apparently there is an audio recording of it.]

So which view does Bob hold now?  The Church could teach against geocentrism and that would be just fine, or that if the Church taught against geocentrism we simply wouldn't have the same Catholic Church?


"How many times have you heard people use the Church's supposed mistakes in the Galileo affair to posit that she can make mistakes in other important areas? Too many times. It's the very argument feminists use for a female priesthood, and homosexuals use to say that the Church is culturally biased against them, or any number of issues that involve an interpretation of both the ecclesiastical and scientific data."

Yes, some people argue this way.  That doesn't make it a good argument.  And how does this make the neo-geocentrist response tenable?  How does this make the scenario they paint any better than the scenario they're reacting against?  In order to make their case, the neo-geos argue that the Church has been run by such incredibly inept and cowardly leaders from top to bottom that the fullness of the faith has been effectively abandoned and hidden from Catholics for last 300 years!

Fortunately, there's a way to defend the Church aside from these two extremes that has the added benefit of aligning with the facts.  All the neo-geocentrists need to understand is that any alleged consensus of the Fathers only binds on matters of faith and morals (as Leo XIII teaches) and that the matter of geocentrism was, as Fr. Brian Harrison rightly said, "promulgated only in disciplinary documents, not in formally doctrinal ones . . . [and] was never promulgated directly and personally by any Pope, only indirectly, through the instrumentality of the Vatican Congregations of the Index and the Holy Office".  That is, the Church has never taught geocentrism as a matter of faith, in either her ordinary or extraordinary Magisterium.  As the Protestant scholar Karl von Gebler has said:

The conditions which would have made the decree of the Congregation, or the sentence against Galileo, of dogmatic importance, were, as we have seen, wholly wanting.  Both Popes had been too cautious to endanger this highest privilege of the papacy by involving their infallible authority in the decision of a scientific controversy; they therefore refrained from conferring their sanction, as heads of the Roman Catholic Church, on the measures taken, at their instigation, by the Congregation "to suppress the doctrine of the revolution of the earth."  Thanks to this sagacious foresight, Roman Catholic posterity can say to this day, that Paul V. and Urban VIII. were in error "as men" about the Copernican system, but not "as Popes."  (Karl von Gebler, Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia, trans. J. Sturge, London: C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1879, p. 239)

I personally might say "overreacted" rather than "were in error", but the point is that even a Protestant scholar can agree with what I wrote in a previous essay, "The seventeenth-century Popes knew perfectly well how to promulgate doctrinal decrees binding on the whole Church. But they consistently refrained from doing so with regard to geocentrism."  So if someone wants to continue to use the Galileo incident to excuse his rejection of the Catholic Church's authority, then let him.  But a sober evaluation of the actual facts—setting aside the exaggerations of both neo-modernists and neo-geocentrists—provides the solid ground any Catholic needs to be confident in the integrity of the Magisterium.

"If Mr. Palm thinks otherwise, he needs to find us a statement after 1943 on full biblical inerrancy, or find a Catholic institution today that teaches it. He won't be able to."


False.  First, and most obviously, note that 1943 is only 69 years away, which is a far cry from the 300 years Bob needs in order to create a parallel with geocentrism.  But even worse, he's just flat out wrong that 1943 was the last magisterial reiteration of full inerrancy.  In 1998 Pope John Paul II issued the document Ad Tuendam Fidem which amended Canon Law to include measures to be taken against heretics, those who publicly profess views contrary to the dogmas of the Catholic Church.  In its commentary on this document, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith laid out three tiers of doctrines and delineated the level of assent that is required for each.  The first category of doctrine contains those which are infallibly proposed, which are "defined with a solemn judgment as divinely revealed truths either by the Roman Pontiff when he speaks 'ex cathedra,' or by the College of Bishops gathered in council, or infallibly proposed for belief by the ordinary and universal Magisterium."  Examples include the Virgin Birth of our Lord, His bodily resurrection from the dead, the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff when speaking ex cathedra, the Immaculate Conception of our Lady, etc.  The CDF states that, "These doctrines require the assent of theological faith by all members of the faithful.  Thus, whoever obstinately places them in doubt or denies them falls under the censure of heresy, as indicated by the respective canons of the Codes of Canon Law" (link).

One of the truths which belongs to this category is "the absence of error in the inspired sacred texts".  The authority cited for this doctrine is Dei Verbum 11.  This, then, represents an authoritative interpretation of this passage from the Second Vatican Council.  According to the CDF, with explicit approval of the Pope, Dei Verbum 11 teaches "the absence of error in the inspired sacred texts," not (as the revisionists would have it) the absence of error insofar as the text in question is salvific in nature or some other such limiting interpretation.  The absence of error in the inspired sacred texts is not limited or modified in any way.

As such, Bob is wrong about the Magisterium not reasserting full biblical inerrancy.  Let's hope that he will rejoice with us at this good news rather than seeking out additional difficulties in order to hold on to his geocentric "pebble."

Finally, as for Catholic institutions that still teach full biblical inerrancy, Bob only asked for one, but here are three off the top of my head (I'm sure more could be added): Thomas Aquinas College, St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, and the University of Navarre.  Sadly, we can't add Bob's organization to that list because he was told by his bishop to take the word "Catholic" off his apostolate.

I hope that the material above will further help those who have encountered Catholic neo-geocentrists to see that neo-geocentrism is just as I have described it—an elaborate exercise in scientific and ecclesiastical special pleading, gummed together with a hermeneutic of suspicion and a liberal dose of conspiracy theories.


Postscript:
I would like to make clear that I continue to have mixed emotions about engaging Bob's arguments for geocentrism.  Among other things, I'm concerned that in the process of following these lengthy discussions, some readers may naturally tend to forget or be unaware of far more serious and dangerous problems related to Bob Sungenis' writing:  1) his continuing, public slander of Bishop Kevin Rhoades and 2) his anti-Jewish bigotry.  I want to ensure that no one is unwittingly drawn into these more dangerous areas as a result of these discussions and that I don't ever give the impression that I consider Bob's behavior in these other areas as anything less than outrageously unacceptable.

Bob has ignored the new essays that Michael Forrest and I have written that further expose what Bishop Rhoades himself calls Bob's "slanderous and erroneous" attacks and accusations against His Excellency (links below).  Bishop Rhoades has also rightly described Bob's attacks on the Jewish people as "hostile, uncharitable and un-christian."  Matters have degenerated to the point that a conference in England was shut down in large part because Bob was chosen as a last-minute replacement to speak there (see here.)

I think readers will also find in the documentation below ample parallels to the same sloppy scholarship, tendentious argumentation, and slander that we have seen him deploy here in support of geocentrism.  Bob needs to forthrightly retract and apologize for his ugly statements attacking the Jewish people (which can found here and here).  He also needs to retract his baseless, public accusations of heresy against Bishop Rhoades, issue an unqualified apology to His Excellency, and do penance in reparation for the scandal he has caused.

Bishop Rhoades and the Dual Covenant Theory

A Defense of Bishop Rhoades from More False Accusations by Robert Sungenis

Sungenis' Own Standards of Heresy: Why Don't They Apply to Bishop Rhoades?



***

Anti-Catholic John Q. Doe's "Luther / Esther / Canon" Polemics and Attempts to Solely Blame Catholics for a Questionable Luther Citation Passed Down by Three Protestants: an Editor, Major Compiler of Luther Works, and Admiring Biographer

 John Q. Doe is stretching and distorting the truth yet again, and that is a cardinal sin in apologetics. Tsk, tsk, tsk . . .


Anti-Catholic polemicist John Q. "Deadhead" Doe has a particular animus (and, I believe, a literal obsession) against yours truly. In a recent post, he tried to mock me (and Catholic apologists en masse) again (without ever naming me, as usual: his standard practice), regarding a paper I wrote (dated 24 March 2007) on Luther's view of the book of Esther. In it I explained (right at the top) that I had made an honest mistake, and was correcting it (unfortunately, it made it into my book, A Biblical Defense of Catholicism , completed in 1996 and "officially" published in 2003: p. 261, but not included in my book on Luther, ch. 3 on the biblical canon). This is never good enough for Doe. Now, over four years later, he uses the mistake and my open admission and retraction of it, to engage in his usual jaded put-downs and pitiable tomfoolery.

I think that for most people, an open and candid admission of a mistake and a retraction, is regarded as an admirable thing. We all make mistakes, and we all know it (well, most of us know that . . .). It's no big deal. It's part of being human. Heaven knows that we apologists, who are dealing with hundreds of arguments and counter-arguments and facts all the time, will inevitably make mistakes, including some botched citations. I've retracted things many times when it was my duty to do so, after receiving additional relevant information.

But there are such things as an honest mistake and on the other hand, an inexcusable mistake, that suggests incompetence and excessive ignorance. Mine was clearly an honest one, and as I already showed in my linked paper above, it was based on past initial, "primary research" errors of Protestants who were passing on Luther's writings (and obviously not critics of him), not Catholics seeking to discredit Protestantism by deliberately distorting his words (as Doe so often tries to make out).

Doe, on the other hand, shouts from the rooftops almost every instance of a mistake made by a Catholic apologist, in order to make out that the whole lot of us are utterly untrustworthy and a bunch of imbeciles or idiots, over against the Protestant (and/or anti-Catholic)  apologists, who never ever make mistakes and are of the utmost integrity (and perfect objectivity) at all times. We're the bad, wicked, wascally guys and they are the pure, noble knights in shining armor on a white horse: smart as the dickens and always, always, superior to us: and above all when we disagree on anything at all. So here are his comments in his recent screed (his words in blue, as throughout):

He first began by citing a Romanist web page addressing a botched Luther quote on Esther [that's me, folks, as one can learn by following Does' link to the discussion thread in question!]. What he doesn't appear to realize is that it was I who pointed this error out to the very Romanist he's citing. . . . I love finding little tidbits like this, because whatever Luther's view, such quotes show how poorly Romanists do their homework. My Anglican detractor didn't mention this. He appears to think the Romanist he cited simply was hit with a cosmic meatball of clarity one day and posted a correction to his previous years of error.

We're always the dummies, and it is always Doe who comes to the rescue of TRVTH, correcting us, in Christian charity, and the love of accuracy. Never mind, that he has been corrected himself with regard to factual errors scores of times (by myself, alone, but I'm not the only one).

To give just one example: Doe fancies himself a great expert in Luther and his Bible translation. Yet I demonstrated recently that he thought Luther's Bible was written in Low German, over against the "High" (i.e., hard-to-understand) German of previous Catholic translations, so the people could now understand it better (according to the fabled sola Scriptura principle of perspicuity, or "clearness"), since it was now in the "Low" German of the masses. This is a laughably ignorant understanding: i.e., for one who puts on airs as such an expert in these matters, and who regularly talks of the necessity of consulting German Luther primary sources, even though he can't read German himself.

The fact of the matter is that most of the many previous (Catholic) German translations of the Bible were  in High German, and so was Luther's. It was not fundamentally different in that respect. "High" and "Low" in this context have nothing to do with how difficult it is to understand, but rather, with regions in Germany: "Low" being the northern areas of low elevation, towards the Netherlands (literally, "lowlands") and "High" referring to the more southern parts of Germany, of higher elevation, approaching or encompassing the Alps. But Doe had opined, on 15 March 2010:

Luther's translation though [sic] far surpassed earlier German Bibles for two main reasons (the later [sic] being the more important): The printing press made Luther's Bible readily available to a society that was already purchasing his writings (that is, he was popular), secondly, his translation was not written in high German, but in [sic] written in a way that could be easily understood by the common man.

This is the kind of truly dumb mistake that Doe makes (and not infrequently, believe me), while simultaneously posing as some sort of expert. Yet now he wants to carp on an honest, innocent mistake I made, that was openly admitted and retracted four years ago? One can only stand for so much of this "method." Soon I shall give complete documentation of the history of the citation that Doe has now devoted at least three posts to (one / two / three) [later I discovered two more: four / five], in an effort to smear and condemn the methods of Catholic apologetics. In his first paper, dated 1 December 2006, he made the usual cynical jabs at Catholic apologists, after nothing the citation in question, culled from "numerous anti-Reformation web pages" (and "anti-Luther web pages": Doe and other anti-Catholics, constantly complain of that legitimate, scholarly term, while they regularly use their own "anti" equivalents):

The quote as it used in cyber-space appears to have originated from Patrick O'Hare's book, The Facts About Luther, page 202. I've yet to find any other secondary source using the quote in its popular internet-polemical form. I'm strongly tempted to say Father O'Hare miscited Luther's Tabletalk when he quotes Luther saying, "The book of Esther I toss into the Elbe. I am such an enemy to the book of Esther that I wish it did not exist, for it Judaizes too much and has in it a great deal of heathenish naughtiness." He either worked from an earlier version of the Table talk, or in scaling down the quote in the Table talk, he wrote down Esther instead or Esdras. Unless someone can find me a citation or source, my position is that Father O'Hare botched the citation. Roman Catholics seem to have extreme difficulty doing ad fontes research on Luther, they usually never check a quote like this before they use it, nor do they really care. Father O'Hare said it, Tan published it, so it must be true.. . . finally, this Catholic apologist informs us Luther wanted to toss Esther into the Elbe river. Did he really? I am not convinced Luther ever said it. It is up to Roman Catholic apologists to present proof for their facts when challenged.

Doe's second paper of 23 March 2007 is a little better, in that he starts documenting that the initial error about this passage was a result of a Protestant Luther devotee, and not quite the Catholic conspiracy, that he had suspected (and would have loved to have proven): 

The quote is derived from one of the versions of John Aurifaber's version of the Table Talk. I was going through an old biography of Luther and they confirmed my previous suspicion, that the quote is a mis-citation:

Soon after the publication of this article, I became aware , that Esther was here a mistake for Esdras; and this by the verse quoted. The error stands in all Aurifaber's editions of the Tabletalk; his text is taken by Walch, and from Walch I translated. 

[Source: Thomas Carlyle, Sir William Hamilton, Life of Martin Luther, (Michigan: American Book Exchange), 242]

This explains volumes. Even in his initial paper, Doe had stated, similarly, "The quote is probably derived from John Aurifaber's version of the Table Talk ." This is crucial information, because his earlier insinuation was that Catholics were wholly or primarily responsible for the mis-citation. As I wrote in my paper on Luther and Esther:

So the error is a result, not of sinister "anti-Luther" Catholics, but of Joannes Aurifaber and Johann Georg Walch: respectively the Protestant writer and later compiler of Table-Talk. . . . a mistake somewhere along the line in the transmission of Table-Talk.

Aurifaber (1519-1575) was a Luther disciple and contemporary; lived with him as his secretary, was present with him when he died, and later compiled his letters and the Table-Talk. Thus, if the mistake was his fault originally, obviously it was not based on any "anti-Luther" motivation. Likewise, this holds for Walch (1693-1775), a Lutheran theologian, who oversaw a famous edition of Luther's works in German, in 24 volumes (1740–1752). Walch incorporated Aurifaber, and Hamilton translated Walch/Aurifaber.

This is apparently the English source that made it into Patrick O'Hare's The Facts About Luther in 1916, where I first saw the quote. O'Hare was merely citing what he had seen in English, since at that time, most of Luther's works were not yet available in English, and the English-only speaker and reader had to look around quite a bit to find his citations in English at all. The major sets of Luther's writings in English were to arrive only as late as 1940 (six-volume "Philadelphia" edition) and 1955 (standard 55-volume edition, edited by Jaroslav Pelikan).

Sir William Hamilton (1788-1856) was an eminent Scottish philosopher, and also not a Catholic. He was no "Luther hater" either, as can be plainly observed in Memoir of Sir William Hamilton, Bart. , by John Veitch (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1869), pp. 331 ff.. The above remarks come from Life of Martin Luther (New York: Delisser and Procter, 1859), by Christian Karl Josias (Chevalier de) Bunsen (1791-1860), with "an estimate of Luther's character and genius," by Thomas Carlysle (1795-1881), and an appendix by Hamilton, entitled, "Reverse-Side of the Picture" (pp. 221- 250), about Luther's shortcomings (within an overall stance of admiration for him).

Oddly enough, for someone of Doe's self-professed extraordinary research abilities, he managed to miss the primary author of the book, in his documentation (Bunsen). Carlyle's section ("Spiritual Portrait of Luther") runs from pp. 183-219. Then we have Hamilton's section, where he retracts some earlier errors he had made. Doe cited his words from p. 242. I shall add a little more, to provide a fuller context and more information:

Soon after the publication of this article, I became aware , that Esther was here a mistake for Esdras; and this by the verse quoted. The error stands in all Aurifaber's editions of the Tabletalk; his text is taken by Walch, and from Walch I translated. It is corrected, however, in the recensions by Stengwald and Selneccer, and, of course, in the new edition of the Colloquia by Bindseil.

This all occurred in the Protestant theological and literary world, and had nothing to do with Catholic polemics (much as Doe would love this to be the case, for his anti-Catholic purposes). Aurifaber's version of Table-Talk dated from 1566 [source], whereas Selneccer's was from 1577, Stengwald's (or Stangwald's) from 1571 and a second edition in 1591, and Bindseil's and Fortsemann's from 1848 (after Hamilton wrote his initial article). [source: Preserved Smith, Luther's Table-Talk: A Critical Study , 1907, pp. 62-66] There were other changes and refinements after that, with modern critical textual research on the Table-Talk. [Smith, 66 ff.]

There is obviously textual confusion to some extent, then, in the Table-Talk (which was recorded and compiled by several people in the first place), and reasonable men can differ, without bringing in self-serving conspiracy theories of Catholic polemical mischief and "Luther-hating." 1916, when O'Hare wrote, is not long after all these developments, and he can surely be excused for his mistake regarding "Esther" rather than "Esdras." It's no capital crime, let alone a deliberate botching of a Luther citation to make him appear worse than he actually was. But Doe, unfortunately, didn't probe nearly deeply enough to discover all of these highly relevant facts.

Now, getting back to Hamilton, the "article" he refers to is one having to do with "Admission of Dissenters to the Universities," published in the Edinburgh Review in October 1834 (pp. 202-230). The sub-sections he refers to in his elaborations and partial retractions are the same: "Speculative Theology" (p. 224 in Bunsen), "Practical Theology" (p. 228), and "Biblical Criticism" (p. 239). Any remaining doubt as to his authorship of the then-anonymous article is removed in his own book, entitled, Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, Education and University Reform: Chiefly from the Edinburgh Review (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1858): see p. 458 ff.. 

Here is how Hamilton translated into English the disputed passage in question (pp. 492-496) -- all ellipses are Hamilton's own, except the ones before the second paragraph, which are my own; bolding is mine.

Biblical Criticism.—(1) "The books of the Kings are more worthy of credit than the books of the Chronicles.''- [Colloquia, c. lix. r 6.]—(2) "Job spake not, therefore, as it stands written in his book, but hath had such cogitations . . . It is a sheer argumentum fabulae. . . . It is probable that Solomon made and wrote this book." [Ib.]—(3) " This book (Ecclesiastes) ought to have been more full; there is too much of broken matter in it; it has neither boots nor spurs, but rides only in socks, as I myself when in the cloister . . . Solomon hath not therefore written this book, which hath been made in the days of the Maccabees by Sirach. It is like a Talmud compiled from many books, perhaps in Egypt, from the Library of King Ptolemy Euergetes.—(4) So also have the Proverbs of Solomon been collected by others [caught up from the King's mouth, when he spake them at table or elsewhere: and those are well marked, wherein the royal majesty and wisdom shine conspicuous." (Ib.)]—(5) "The book of Esther, I toss into the Elbe." [Ib.] ["And when the Doctor was correcting the second book of Maccabees, he said: --] . . . I am so an enemy to the book of Esther, that I would it did not exist; for it Judaizes too much, and hath in it a great deal of heathenish naughtiness. . . .

(6) "Isaiah hath borrowed his whole art and knowledge from David out of the Psalter."1 [Ib. c. lx. 10.]—(7) "The history of Jonah is so monstrous, that it is absolutely incredible.'" [Ib.]—(8) "That the Epistle to the Hebrews is not by Saint Paul; nor indeed by any apostle, is shown by chap. ii. 3 . . . It is by an excellently learned man, a disciple of the Apostles . . . It should be no stumbling-block if there be found in it a mixture of wood, straw, hay." [Standing Preface in Luther's Version.]—(9) "The Epistle of James, I account the writing of no apostle." [Standing Preface.] "St. James's Epistle is truly an Epistle of straw [in contrast to them," (" the right and noblest books of the New Testament") "for it hath in it no evangelical character.'" (Fragmentary Preface to the New Testament, 1524.)]—(10) "The Epistle of Jude is an abstract or copy of St. Peter's second; . . . and allegeth sayings and stories which have no place in Scripture." [Standing Preface, etc]—(11) "In the Revelation of John much is wanting to let me deem it either prophetic or apostolical I can discover no trace that it is established by the Holy Spirit." [Preface of 1522.]'

All of this is a compilation of a Scottish philosopher: Sir William Hamilton: an admirer of Luther and assuredly no Catholic (!). This is the origin. Now, Doe, in his usual dishonest selectivity of text (showing only what he wants to show, and no opposing viewpoints), cites at length, Julius Charles Hare's 1855 book, Vindication of Luther , which issued the correction to Hamilton's (actually Aurifaber's and Walch's) mistake of changing "Esdras" to "Esther." This in turn goes back to an earlier 1844 tract from Hare: see "Note W" (pp. 817 ff.): ten years after Hamilton's original article.

But Doe (conveniently) doesn't mention Hamilton's reply to Hare, which is included in the elaborating and clarifying footnotes of his Discussions on Philosophy from 1858. In those, Hamilton contends exactly as I did in my Esther paper: he admitted the one textual mistake, but argued that Luther, nonetheless, was still quite hostile to Esther, based on texts that are not disputed. Here are two Protestants arguing with each other over the proper text, and Luther's view of Esther. Catholics had nothing to do with it. 

One Protestant cited two others who were wrong about Luther's words. A second Protestant comes along and corrects the one who had erroneously cited the other two, and these two Protestants disagree with each other on what Luther thought of Esther. Several other Protestants pass down and comment on alternate renderings of Table-Talk from Aurifaber's version. Aurifaber is the original culprit back in 1566 (or so it seems, anyway: for all we know, he accurately transcribed Luther's words and the others did not). Yet Doe makes out that this is all virtually a Catholic conspiracy to smear Luther and botch his words for polemical purposes! 

Remember, Doe sought to mostly blame Catholic Luther biographer (and yes, polemicist in his own right) Patrick O'Hare (and myself, because I cited him), by observing, "I've yet to find any other secondary source using the quote in its popular internet-polemical form." As usual, Doe didn't search very hard. He stumbled on some key primary evidence when he ran across Bunsen-Carlysle-Hamilton, but he didn't follow the conclusions to the end, and so continues to bash "Romanists" in his recent entry: as if we are the primary culprits here, when the facts of the matter clearly show otherwise. I do thank Doe for continuing to attempt to smear my research, so I could dig in further and find all this great stuff today. Nothing like obstinacy and condescension to motivate me to do further research . . . thanks, Doe!

As far as I can tell, Hamilton introduced the Esther and similar "hostile to various books of the Bible" Luther quotes, into English language awareness, in his article of October 1834. This was corrected, as to Esther-Esdras, in 1844 by Julius Hare, and later in an 1855 book. Hamilton in turn recognized his error about Esther, but disagreed with most particulars and the overall thrust of Hare's critique, in 1858. But is that the end of it in the Protestant world? No. Doe missed the 1834 documentation from Hamilton. He also missed other instances of the quote that are easily accessed in Google Books:

1) John Kitto's Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature (1845) cites (on p. 663) the two Hamilton Esther quotes word for word, with complete documentation, including page number (p. 228).

2) A skeptical book by John Shertzer Hittell, The Evidences Against Christianity, Volume 2 (1857), cites Hamilton's translation of Luther's words at length on p. 271, without documentation.

3) The 1865 Catholic book, Points of Controversy, by Cornelius Francis Smarius, cites Hamilton at length, with slightly changed words (pp. 55-56). It notes the source on p. 56 as "Edinburgh Review, No. 121." He compresses of the two Luther/Hamilton statements on Esther, cutting out what was in between but not noting it. He also substituted "such" for "so", "wish" for "would", and "has" for "hath".

4) William McDonnell, in his 1873 volume, Exeter Hall: A Theological Romance, cites Hamilton's words at great length, without attribution, on page 111.

5) A History of the English Church from its Foundation to the Reign of Queen Mary (1875), by Mary Charlotte Stapley, includes the statement (p. 431), that Luther "wished the Book of Esther were tossed into the Elbe." 

6) Another skeptical book, The Bible, Whence and What? (1882), by Richard Brodhead Westbrook, echoes Hamilton's translation at length without giving the source, on p. 195.

7) The Literary Churchman and Church Fortnightly (23 November 1883, p. 511) parrots the same sentiment: "'Esther' he would like to toss into the Elbe."

8) In 1912, Catholic Everett Pomeroy published the book, "The Great Reformation": A Great Mistake. He followed (on p. 120) all four of Smarius' changes from Hamilton, regarding the "Esther" quotations, but adds a second deletion and compression, as well: omitting "I am so an enemy to the book of Esther, that . . .".

9) Catholic polemicist and apologist Patrick F. O'Hare is a latecomer to this scene. His book, The Facts About Luther is from 1916, and he (somewhat loosely) cites Hamilton, too, without attribution, on pp. 207-208 (my bolding):

[complete] Here are some examples of his judgments on them. Of the Pentateuch he says: "We have no wish either to see or hear Moses." "Judith is a good, serious, brave tragedy." "Tobias is an elegant, pleasing, godly comedy." "Ecclesiasticus is a profitable book for an ordinary man." "Of very little worth is the book of Baruch, whoever the worthy Baruch may be." "Esdras I would not translate, because there is nothing in it which you might not find better in Aesop." "Job spoke not as it stands written in his book; but only had such thoughts. It is merely the argument of a fable. It is probable that Solomon wrote and made this book." "The book entitled 'Ecclesiastes' ought to have been more complete. There is too much incoherent matter in it. It has neither boots nor spurs; but rides only in socks as I myself did when an inmate of the cloister. Solomon did not, therefore, write this book, which was made in the days of the Maccabees of Sirach. It is like a Talmud, compiled from many books, perhaps in Egypt at the desire of King Evergetes." "The book of Esther I toss into the Elbe. I am such an enemy to the book of Esther that I wish it did not exist, for it Judaizes too much and has in it a great deal of heathenish naughtiness." "The history of Jonah is so monstrous that it is absolutely incredible." "The first book of the Maccabees might have been taken into the Scriptures, but the second is rightly cast out, though there is some good in it."

O'Hare's "version" is word-for-word identical to that of the Catholic Smarius' section on Esther. The fact that O'Hare follows him in all three word changes and the compression into one statement, is virtual proof that he was directly citing (in his "Esther section) Smarius (and not, e.g., Pomeroy, who apparently followed Smarius, with one section deleted). So the citation trail to the present usual Internet form appears to be:

1) Protestant Sir William Hamilton: 1834.

2) Catholic  Cornelius Francis Smarius: 1865 (attributed), with three word changes and compression of the original statement.

3) Catholic Patrick F. O'Hare: 1916 (not attributed), drawing word-for-word from Smarius.

 4) Yours truly, in 1996 or earlier research, citing O'Hare and passing it onto the Internet after 1997, with a retraction in 2007. I have long since almost totally ceased to utilize O'Hare, because of both his strong anti-Luther bias, his sloppiness: of which the present example is rather typical, and the finding of much better sources these past twenty years since I have been doing Catholic apologetics.

We see, then, that Catholics did get in on the "Hare/O'Hare game" eventually,  but it was not only Catholics by a long shot, and all the original and primal errors involved leading up to Hamilton in 1834, came from Protestants, without exception, and many Protestants followed it, even after it was shown to be in error as early as 1844. Catholics merely followed the Protestant 1834 source, and hence are not responsible for its origin, since it is routine that folks will cite arguments from the opposing party, to avoid the charge of partisan bias. At best, one can say that people on both sides were not aware of either the origin or later correction of the passage.

The non-Catholic philosopher by trade, Sir William Hamilton (by all indications) is the person who brought this particular Luther "citation trail" into being, from German to English, in 1834. Doe constantly cries "ad fontes" ("to the sources"), yet when push comes to shove he doesn't follow his own advice and yet again reveals that he seeks not the truth so much as he seeks to run down Catholics, by any means possible or necessary, including lousy research and ethics alike. So now he is trying to bash yours truly and all Catholic apologists again in his recent posts, echoing the same tired rhetoric that he exhibited on 26 March 2007. After citing my retraction, Doe in his infinite wisdom and obvious-to-one-and-all intellectual superiority, opined:

This is not the first time this Romanist has been corrected by my Luther research. I realize it must be embarrassing for him, as he seeks to build his Catholic apologetic empire, and also craves to be seen as a legitimate quotable source on Luther. It is indeed sad when a beggar has to correct a glory theologian. He is more of a shoot first, do the research on Luther later type of writer. He claims to have done in-depth Luther research when he was converting to the Roman Catholic Church. Perhaps if he had really done in-depth research back then, he wouldn't have to explain why he freely quoted Patrick O'Hare's Facts About Luther, and why he has to apologize now for mis-quoting Luther.

I have said more than once my blog is my workshop- I work through material I read. I interact with texts, trying to determine truth and error. That's why many of my conclusions have a "tentative" ring. It's not my intention to make Luther anything than what he was. Remember: I am not a Lutheran. This little exercise with Luther's view of Esther was just that- trying to work with all the information available.

My evaluation of Luther's view of Esther is not complete. I actually look into it off and on, time allowing. The evidence of Luther's view on this book is not clear-cut. I could present evidence from Luther's writings in which he favorably quotes it. In other words, it is treated as canonical Scripture. On the other hand, are the negative comments from Luther that have already been put forth on this blog. This Romanist can shoot first and then back peddle. I will continue reading and working through texts, searching for sources, and learning as I do so.

Doe's goal is always to seek to embarrass and mock Catholics and Catholic apologists, and to use any tactic and methodology, however unsavory, in order to do so: including the utilization of selective presentation, out-of-context citation, cynical summaries of actual events, half-truths, absurdly spun "facts," extreme exaggeration and spinning, rhetorical exploitation of real (and/or admitted) errors, omission of crucial information important for understanding the whole picture, highly selective "memory," lack of links to Catholic (or even highly relevant non-Catholic) sources, ignoring and refusing to retract his own massive factual and logical errors, while highlighting and trumpeting the slightest error on the part of his theological opponents, etc. Double standards, obscurantism, sophistry, spinning, and obfuscation abound. In other words, he uses just about every "debater's and carnival barker's trick in the book.


This was a classic example. Rather than truly get to the source of the problem (Aurifaber, Walch, and Hamilton: non-Catholics and admirers of Luther all), so the "textual history" could be properly understood, he used the opportunity to bash my research for the umpteenth time (a minor error on my part that I corrected publicly four years ago), to imply that he is a far superior researcher to the rest of us mere mortals, and to excoriate Catholic apologetics in general. I grant that there is a lot of sloppiness in citation to be found (among scholars and non-scholars alike), but that is by no means exclusive to Catholic apologists online. 

To make out that it is a peculiar and widespread trait of Catholic apologists (and that O'Hare and myself are singularly responsible for the error) is nothing less then deliberate dishonesty and "partisan hack" polemics of the worst sort. I think it is worthwhile to expose such nefarious tactics once in a while, which is why I spent several hours doing this present research on a Saturday afternoon that could have otherwise been spent in leisure and recreation (as I had originally planned).

Books by Dave Armstrong: The Quotable Newman: Theology, Church History, and Conversion

.
.

[first draft: 655 pages; completed on 8-19-11 and ready for a publisher]

EXCERPTS

Cardinal Newman on Rationalistic Theological Liberalism vs. a Reasonable Catholic Faith (Tracts of the Times No. 73 of 1836)

The Anglican Newman (1833-1838) on the Falsity of Perspicuity (More or Less Self-Evident Clearness) of Holy Scripture

The Anglican Newman on the Falsity of Extreme Versions of the Protestant "Faith Alone" Viewpoint

Denominationalism and Sectarianism: Cardinal Newman Nails its Fundamental Error and Notes the Inevitable Bitter Fruits That  Unfold from It

Cardinal Newman on Anti-Catholic Prejudice

The Catholic Cardinal Newman's Opinion of Anglicanism

Cardinal Newman on Galileo and the Alleged Dogmatic Status of Geocentrism

ANNOUNCEMENT OF BOOK
Upcoming  Book (The Quotable Newman)

INTRODUCTION
The aim of this book is a simple, albeit very ambitious one: to compile notable quotations from Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) in the areas of theology and Church history, so that his thinking and wisdom might be more accessible to the reading public, and particularly to students (in school or out) of Christian theology and its history.

As with most works of this sort, the goal is to help make the quoted author more widely known: to spark interest and pique curiosity in more than a few readers. I envy those who will be embarking for the first time on a journey of serious reading of Cardinal Newman. It's pure joy for any thinker (and any Christian) to do so.

I also seek to create a handy reference source that can be consulted when particular topics come up. Newman's thought is so full of insight that it seems to have no end. With the help of the Holy Spirit and whatever gifts granted to me by God's grace, I shall do my best to compile the most substantive, pithy, and memorable quotations of Cardinal Newman that I can find.

The task of selection is necessarily subjective, and daunting, but this is a task I had to do, due to the huge debt I owe to John Henry Newman, in relation to my own spiritual journey: one that brought me happily to the Catholic Church in 1990, exactly a hundred years after Newman's death (largely as a result of reading his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine).

This work is, therefore, the fruit of a proverbial "labor of love." Whether it was labor at all, however, is questionable, since the experience of perusing all of these wonderful books and letters (even the selection process itself), and the enjoyment obtained in so doing, made any "work" involved almost beside the point.

I do have some experience in putting together a book of quotations: I was the editor for The Wisdom of Mr. Chesterton (Charlotte: Saint Benedict Press, 2009, 378 pages). A major difference between that volume and this one, however, is the length of citations. I restricted myself in that instance to single sentences. But this would be impossible to do in Cardinal Newman's case, because of his flowing, elaborate, complex, Victorian prose. Nevertheless, I shall attempt to keep the excerpts as brief as I can, without giving up any essential meaning.

Similar to the Chesterton collection, I will note sources with abbreviations and generally use chapter numbers rather than page numbers (since the latter will vary with different editions). I will attempt to keep quotations chronological within categories.

As indicated in the subtitles, I have narrowed the subject matter somewhat: primarily to theology and Church history. Newman also wrote widely on philosophy, education, spirituality, sociology or current affairs (Catholics in England, etc.), and produced poetry and fiction, among other things. But in particularly notable instances or topics, I was quite willing to extend the parameters and make an exception to my own "rule" -- out of love of Cardinal Newman's style, insight, and wisdom.

I chose to concentrate on theology and the history of theological doctrine and the Church, since those topics lend themselves to thematic unity and a coherent collection that can be referenced and used for the purpose of catechesis or apologetics (my own area).

Given the vast amount of Newman's writing involved, I thought it best to not attempt to cover everything. But for the areas I have covered, I have sought to be quite comprehensive, in order to provide a reference work of lasting value and utility: something a little different from the hundreds of works on Newman, and various anthologies and collections of his writing thus far available.

I need to note two factors that were important in my selection process, as an editor, so readers can be duly informed. As most who are reading this already are aware, Cardinal Newman was an Anglican for roughly the first half of his life, and a Catholic thereafter. Not infrequently in his earlier life, he not only explained, but vigorously advocated positions that he later renounced.

The question then arises, as to the criteria for selection of quotations in the earlier period. Or, more specifically: are they to be conceptualized as presenting (all things considered), at least in part, the "polemical Anglican (at times, outright anti-Catholic), Via Media proponent Newman" or rather, "the proto-Catholic Newman who anticipates and looks forward to his later Catholic beliefs, and holds them in kernel form"?

I have decided (probably predictably) to follow the latter course. Generally, I have not included opinions that the later Newman would have disavowed, or literally did renounce (as we see in his later corrective notes of his earlier writing). I am a Catholic, and I'm afraid that my natural bias in that direction considerably affected how the Anglican period quotations were selected and edited.

Yet I don't think this is a complete "loss" for Anglican or otherwise non-Catholic readers, since the (ecumenical) result is an "Anglican Newman" who is expressing ideas concerning which Catholics and more traditional or "high" Anglicans can readily agree. It is not unimportant to highlight agreement where it is present. Non-Catholic readers can also see how very much a Catholic can agree with the Anglican Newman's thinking, since I have deliberately set out to highlight the larger areas of agreement (in light of his later change of mind).

The Anglican devotee of Cardinal Newman could, in this sense, particularly benefit from the earlier quotations insofar as they present a "Catholic Newman" (i.e., Catholic in the more all-encompassing definition Anglicans use) who is not, in these compiled instances, expressing pointed disagreement with another "branch" (so to speak) of the universal Catholic Christian Church.

The second factor that ought to be highlighted (something Introductions are good for!) is my determination to include, by and large (though not always) passages in Newman's writing that give actual arguments for positions, rather than being only beautifully expressed descriptions or sentiments and not necessarily defenses. Newman is such a good writer that virtually everything he writes is eloquent, in any event; but my goal is to emphasize the apologist Newman: the one who can provide a rationale for why we should agree with his positions.

Thus, it is apparent, that my status as a Catholic, and as a Catholic apologist, by occupation, has influenced how I edit. But I suppose this is to be expected, and I don't believe it detracts from the utility of the overall effort in the slightest, especially since I have stated my goals and "biases" upfront, so as to avoid any misconception.

May the reader enjoy and be edified and educated by what I have compiled from Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman's delightful writing.

Index of Topics
AbsolutionAdamAltar Calls Altars Anathemas AngelsAnglicanismAnti-Catholicism (Theological)AntichristAntiquity (the Early Church)Apologetics and Evangelism Apologia pro Vita suaApostates; Apostasy ApostlesApostolic Deposit of Faith Apostolic Succession ArianismAtonementAtonement: Universal Babylon, Whore of BaptismBaptism and Regeneration Baptism, InfantBaptism of DesireBeatific VisionBishopsCardinalate (His Own)CardinalsCatechumens CelibacyChurch, The (Ecclesiology)Church and Salvation Church GovernmentChurch, Indefectibility of Church, Infallibility ofChurch ("Roman Catholic": Anglican View of)Church, Sinners in Church, Visible (vs. Invisible) Circumincession / Coinherence / Perichoresis ConfessionConscienceConversion and Converts Conversion (His Own) Cosmological Argument for God's ExistenceCouncils, Ecumenical Creation; NatureCreedsCrucifixes "Dark Ages" (Anti-Catholic Myth of)Demons (Fallen Angels)Denominationalism; Sectarianism Deuterocanon ("Apocrypha") Development (of Doctrine) DevotionsDiscipleship Discussion; ArgumentDivorce Doctrine; Dogma Doctrines and HistoryDoctrines: "Primary vs. Secondary" Ecumenism; Non-CatholicsEden, Garden of Election Essay in Aid of a Grammar of AssentEssay on the Development of Christian Doctrine Eucharist Eucharist: Communion in One Species Eucharistic Adoration and BenedictionEvilEvil, Problem of Exegesis (of Scripture) Exorcism FaithFaith Alone (Protestant Notion of Sola Fide) Faith and ReasonFaith and Works Faith, "Blind" (Charge Against Catholics) Fasting and AbstinenceFathers of the Church GalileoGeocentrist CosmologyGodGod, Omnipotence ofGod's Love Gospel; Good News Grace Healings Heaven Hell Heresy; Heresies Hermeneutics (Interpretation of Scripture) HistoryHistory and Christianity Holy Spirit Holy Spirit: Indwelling of Honorius (Pope)Idolatry Ignatius of Antioch, St. Ignorance, Invincible Images, Use and Veneration of Indulgences Inquisition / Temporal PunishmentsJesus: Divinity of Jesus: Incarnation and Two Natures of Jesus: Judaism andJesus: Passion and Suffering ofJesus: RedeemerJesus: Sacred Heart DevotionJoyJudasJudgmentJustification Justification and Human Free Will and Cooperation (Synergy)Justification and Indwelling of the Holy Spirit Justification and Sanctification Justification by Faith Alone (Falsity of) Justification, Infused Justification (Luther vs. St. Augustine) Laity; the Faithful Latitudinarianism Law and Gospel; Antinomianism Liberalism and Nominalism, Theological LiturgyLutheranism Mary: Assumption ofMary, Blessed Virgin (General)Mary: Devotion to; Veneration ofMary: Holiness and Immaculate Conception Mary: Intercessor, Mediatrix, and Spiritual Mother Mary: Mother of God (Theotokos)Mary, Perpetual Virginity of Mary, Queen of HeavenMary: Seat of Wisdom Mary, Sufferings of Mass, Sacrifice of Merit MethodismMiraclesMonks and NunsMortification and Self-DenialMystery (Biblical, Theological) Old Catholics (Those Who Reject Papal Infallibility)Ordination; Holy Orders Original Sin; The Fall of Man OrthodoxyOxford University SermonsPaganism and Christianity; ClassicsPapal Infallibility Papal Sins, Limitations, and Lack of Impeccability Papal Supremacy and Petrine PrimacyParadox: Christian or Biblical Parochial and Plain Sermons PenancePerspicuity (Total Clearness) of Scripture (Falsity of) PrayerPrayer for the Dead Prayer (of the Righteous) PreachingPredestination Presbyterianism Priesthood; Priests Private Judgment Prophecy Protestantism; EvangelicalismProvidence PurgatoryReform, Catholic "Reformation" (Protestant) RelicsRepentanceRevelation Rosary, TheRule of Faith / "Three-Legged Stool" (Bible-Church-Tradition) Sabbath and Sunday WorshipSacramentals and Sacramentalism SacramentsSacraments and SalvationSaints and HolinessSaints, Communion of; Veneration of Saints, Intercession of Saints, Invocation of SalvationSalvation: Absolute Assurance of, UnattainableSalvation, Moral Assurance ofSanctificationSatan Schism Scholasticism; SchoolmenScience and Christianity ScientismScripture Scripture, Canon of Scripture, Material Sufficiency of Second Coming (of Christ)Sheol / Hades / Limbo of the FathersSinSin, Mortal Sola Scriptura / Bible Alone (Falsity of) Superstition Teleological Argument for God (Argument from Design) Testimony, Eyewitness Theology and Theologians Theosis; DeificationTotal Depravity Tractarianism; Oxford Movement; Via MediaTracts for the Times Tradition, Apostolic Transubstantiation Trent, Council of Trinitarianism; Holy Trinity VisionsVocation (Calling) WitchcraftWorld, The (World System; Cosmos)Worship Writing (Books, Correspondence, Articles) Writings (His Own)
[The book also contains an Index of Correspondents, that runs 25 pages]

Last updated on 19 August 2011.

***

Dialogue with Two Protestants on the Woman of Revelation 12: Is She the Blessed Virgin Mary?

This discussion was condensed from a combox on my friend Mary Patsy John's Facebook page. Guy's words will be in blue; Brian's in green.
* * * * *


Guy Duininck I also don't accept that the ark of the covenant is a type of Mary.......that is all far too presumptious [sic] for this careful student of Scripture. I also don't accept that she is the woman in Revelation. . . . This [is] all speculation which then becomes a foundation for further argument.


That's fascinating. Her son is described as "one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne," (12:5, RSV); so you deny that this is Jesus? If it isn't Jesus, who is it? And if it is, then how can you deny that His mother is Mary? Catholics believe that there is a double application here to the Church and to Mary (a common phenomenon in Scripture). But to deny the application to Mary altogether runs into the exegetical absurdities that I note. 

Brian Sleeman   Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary:

12:1-6 The church, under the emblem of a woman, the mother of believers, was seen by the apostle in vision, in heaven. She was clothed with the sun, justified, sanctified, and shining by union with Christ, the Sun of Righteousness. The moon was under her feet; she was superior to the reflected and feebler light of the revelation made by Moses. Having on her head a crown of twelve stars; the doctrine of the gospel, preached by the twelve apostles, is a crown of glory to all true believers. As in pain to bring forth a holy family; desirous that the conviction of sinners might end in their conversion. A dragon is a known emblem of Satan, and his chief agents, or those who govern for him on earth, at that time the pagan empire of Rome, the city built upon seven hills. As having ten horns, divided into ten kingdoms. Having seven crowns, representing seven forms of government. As drawing with his tail a third part of the stars in heaven, and casting them down to the earth; persecuting and seducing the ministers and teachers. As watchful to crush the Christian religion; but in spite of the opposition of enemies, the church brought forth a manly issue of true and faithful professors, in whom Christ was truly formed anew; even the mystery of Christ, that Son of God who should rule the nations, and in whose right his members partake the same glory. This blessed offspring was protected of God.

But then I've seen interpretations that the passage refers to a succession of Christian Emperors.

Seems that deciphering Prophecy can be a difficult task - I wouldn't be ready to my money on any of the interpretations yet. 
  
Hi Brian. Since Guy hasn't answered my question about the woman in Revelation and Christ, maybe you will. It's right above your last comment. Please do inform all of us who this "Son" is, and who his mother is. I'll even help you with cross-reference clues:

Psalm 2:7-9 (RSV) I will tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to me, "You are my son, today I have begotten you.[8] Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. [9] You shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel."

Revelation 19:13-15 He is clad in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. [14] And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, followed him on white horses. [15] From his mouth issues a sharp sword with which to smite the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.

Revelation 12:5 she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne,

I can cite Protestant commentators, too. Baptist A. T. Robertson (Word Pictures in the New Testament - six volumes), says of Rev. 12:5: "There is here, of course, direct reference to the birth of Jesus from Mary". Eerdmans Bible Commentary likewise states: "the 'catching up' is sufficiently similar to the victorious ascension of Jesus to make plain its real meaning in this context."
Jamieson, Fausset,and Brown Commentary states: "rod of iron . . . ch. 2:27; Psalm 2:9, which passages prove the Lord Jesus to be meant. Any interpretation which ignores this must be wrong." It also notes the reference to the ascension.
Yet you guys can't see that this is referring to Jesus; therefore, that an interpretation that the mother of Jesus in this passage is Mary, cannot be ruled out? It can have a double application to the Church as well, but if we're talking about Jesus' mother, that has to be Mary, because Jesus wasn't born of the Church; He set up the Church.  
Well David, lets set some things straight - I DO NOT deny the virgin birth / immaculate conception of Christ (but that does not automatically make Mary sinless). There are OT references to the coming Messiah via virgin birth. Paul does not figure into anything to do with the acceptability of the process of Christs conception.

Yes, I have seen Commentaries that say exactly what you are saying too. What I was trying to point out out is that not everyone agrees on the interpretations of 'unfulfilled' prophecy. So, if you want to go down that road - let's maybe look at all the interpretations of Revelation that say that the Whore of Babylon is the RCC - I'm sure you can find many who do not hold this same view - but to go on 'weight of numbers', well that too is not scriptural. Majority vote is not the way God works.

The only Authority to be followed is what comes from God - you may believe that the RCC holds that authority - many don't see that that is supported through scripture. Like I have pointed out - and as did Christ constantly throughout His ministry - traditions can be dangerous because they lead away from God and His Word (even when they do sound right and good and true - because they came from scripture, but with a twist) - Christ even said your traditions nullify the Word of God - how much more 'stick to scripture' do you need? Timothy is a classic - what was the traditions he was told to hold too? The instruction of the Law from his beginning (From his mother and Grandmother) i.e. don't forsake the importance and need to uphold the Truth in all that you do - and the same in ministering to all. Continue to meet with fellow believers obey the sacraments (the ones prescribed in scripture). Where do all these 'traditions' stem from? The scriptures.

If you feel that your actions and approaches are correct and true, then that is between you and God - if your conscience is not pricked then maybe you are right or maybe you are blinded - it is not my place to determine. I for one see the dangers that Christ so readily despised and criticised in the Pharisees and Scribes (the 'church' of the OT if you will) and try to be conscious of discerning practices and traditions that may be following that poor example of the religious leaders of that time. 
I search in vain for any answers to my arguments in your reply. Lots of non sequiturs, miscomprehension of the nature of my arguments, and you're all over the ballpark (anything and everywhere except replying directly to me): the fabled Protestant "101 objections [to Catholicism]" routine. But like a lawyer who is stuck with a bad case, if you have no rational arguments and facts to bring to bear, you throw up whatever you can to obfuscate, and hope no one (in the lawyer's case, juries) notices what you are doing.

I don't think most Protestants who do this are even aware that they are doing it, because all they are focusing on is opposing Mary and any other distinctive Catholic teaching at all costs, no matter what Scripture has to say on the matter. 

So what did I not answer Dave? - Yes I have seen interpretations of Revelation that say that passage refers to Christ - and if you want then to draw the conclusion that the woman, by definition MUST be Mary (even though Christ existed before her). Yes, as I said, I've seen it. I also stated earlier that I wouldn't put my money on ANY of the interpretations to date (not because I specifically disagree with them) - so it's not that I don't answer your questions - it's that you don't like my answers perhaps?

Did I not agree with the immaculate conception?

Please point out what I did not answer? From what I can see I gave you the most honest response I can - I acknowledged that there are interpretations (apparently based on scripture) that support your argument - and yet there are others (also apparently based on scripture) that don't. I'm not particularly interested in getting caught up in 'what Revelation might mean' - I take it basically as thus, that it is the Revelation from Christ to show that He has returned to Heaven, is in Authority and that He is moving to the time of His return. Wasting time looking for the 'indicators' and 'signs' may be of interest and benefit to others, but not to me - too many 'false' conclusions have been drawn from this book. 
Thanks for your reply. Very instructive . . . 

‎I DO NOT deny the virgin birth / immaculate conception of Christ . . . Did I not agree with the immaculate conception?

The only (huge) problem is that you don't understand that the Immaculate Conception refers to Mary, not Christ. She was "immaculate" at the moment of her conception by a special act of grace by God, removing original sin from her soul. It helps discussion quite a bit to get the basic definitions of the things being disputed, correct.
OK, how do 'we' determine . . . that the immaculate was not that she conceived with out intercourse? 
Again, you are thoroughly confused. That has nothing to do with the immaculate conception; that is the Virgin Birth. The immaculate conception is a development of the notion that Mary was without sin, and was the second Eve (very prominent in the Church Fathers). If you believe she was without sin, then upon reflection it was thought by the Church that she was also freed from original sin, by God's grace. That takes it back to conception because that is when the soul is created directly by God, and where original sin is transmitted, since the fall of Adam and Eve. 


The argument from biblical analogy that I made for the immaculate conception noted Isaiah being called from the womb (Is 49:1, 5); also Jeremiah (Jer 1:5). John the Baptist was :filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb" (Lk 1:15). Paul was called and set apart "even before I was born" (Gal 1:15). Being the Mother of God is a far greater role in the scheme of things than being a prophet or apostle; hence by analogy, we believe God especially sanctified Mary for her profound task: making her as Eve was before the fall and giving her extra grace (Lk 1:28). It also seems possible to me that if Mary was not of the nature of man (by having no original sin), then Christ was not then from the seed of the woman - who was a 'product' of man. This is another basic category error. Man does not have a "sin nature." That is heresy and not NT teaching. Man's nature is a thing that is distinct from original sin. It is not intrinsic to being human, that we have to be fallen. Hence, Jesus had a human nature as well as a divine nature, but both were without sin. Mary was a human being, yet without sin, just as Adam and Eve were human beings without sin, before the fall. Dave, I get what your saying about immaculate conception (now) - seems a bit far fetched to me at this point. I can't readily refute what you say, nor do I see anything to support it - I can't see how those references you've listed actually make the case, so I'll stick with "I don't know" and accept that Mary was a very special person in the process of Gods plans and that Christ was born, to her a Virgin, as part of the fulfillment of prophecy. Earlier in the discussion, Brian denied the doctrine of original sin, which is rank heresy:
It is true that Mary did not contract the guilt of Adam's original sin, because nobody has. . . . Guilt simply is not inherited. The child does not bear the iniquity of the parent (Ezekiel 18:20). Human beings go astray; they are not born that way (cf. Isaiah 53:6). One is spiritually dead because of his personal sin (Ephesians 2:1), not due to the sin of others.

It is true that we aren't responsible for the actual sins of others (I've written about that too). But original sin has to do with the entire human race falling, since we were "in" Adam. See my paper: The Biblical Evidence for Original Sin.
 ***

Dialogue with Two Protestants on the Irrational, Unbiblical Protestant Demand for Multiple, Explicit Scriptural Prooftexts for Every Doctrine (Especially Marian Doctrine): The Virgin Birth as a Difficulty for This View

 This discussion was condensed from a combox on my friend Mary Patsy John's Facebook page. Guy's words will be in blue; Brian's in green.
* * * * *
Guy Duininck I can't support the view that Mary was born without original sin. . . . there is no scriptural evidence for this. I think that some would like to wish it was so and look for reason to make it so, but that doesn't mean it is so. . . . I think there should be one supporting scripture at least. Jesus' sinlessness is mentioned very often. . . . One clear scripture is very important......at least for me to even consider believing something of this import. :) . . . I really prefer that my doctrine come from the Scriptures. And in this particular case, I have not believed Mary had a sinless nature for 30 years and have not seen any Scripture evidence to support that she did. :) . . . And I'm not too interested in the "overwhelming tradition of the church." I'm interested in the Scriptures and what they say and don't say. . . . I prefer several clear NT scriptures for NT doctrine. . . . But for doctrine, I need 3-4 clear NT scriptures. Does Paul or any other NT writer even reference Mary?


Where are your "several clear NT scriptures" for the notion that all doctrines have to be established by "several clear NT scriptures"? Good luck (you'll need it, believe me). 

I said that I....me.....prefer 3-4 clear NT scriptures. 
Why? Where does that idea come from in the first place? Traditions of men and not Holy Scripture?

Brian Sleeman What are we told scripturally about 'evidence' that it should come from two or three witnesses - why then would God not expect the same 'verification' of His instructions - that the scriptures provide two or three references to support it has a 'prescription' of action and not just a 'description' of events?


Protestants build their entire rule of faith and theology upon sola Scriptura (the notion that the only infallible authority is Scripture, and in practice, that every doctrine needs explicit biblical proof to be believed at all), yet this idea is never found in Scripture anywhere (it was basically invented by Luther out of thin air, under pressure in a debate). So why the irrational double standard? You can base that false tradition of men on nothing whatever in Scripture, yet demand all kinds of explicit biblical proofs for every Marian doctrine, as if that is necessary, when there is plenty about Mary in Scripture: just not enough to your arbitrary taste. And what is there many Protestants don't or can''t see, under the principle of "no man is so blind as he who will not see." 

Is the Virgin Birth of Jesus a very important, fundamental doctrine of Christianity? 


Yes, and it was pointed to in various places. Are we told in multiple places to treat the virgin in any special way because she (as is every other creation of God) an implement for bringing about His Will? And does it anywhere say that the Virgin would herself be sinless? The conception of Christ was immaculate - not Mary herself.

I believe the Virgin Birth is mentioned in two places only in the New Testament: Luke 1:35 and Matthew 1:23. Paul never mentions it; the Gospels of Mark and John never do, nor do the rest of the NT books.

So by the usual hackneyed, fallacious Protestant reasoning, the fact that Paul doesn't mention the Virgin Birth would supposedly be a proof (if we consistently applied this false "demand") that it is a false doctrine, just as it is argued that Marian doctrines are false because Paul doesn't mention her.

We have two texts in two Gospels for the Virgin Birth. But we have the same amount for Mary's sinlessness: Luke 1:28 ("full of grace") and the texts that illustrate the ark of the covenant parallel. Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman also notes another fascinating biblical indicator:

Even created excellence is fearful to think of when it is so high as Mary's. As to the great Creator, when Moses desired to see His glory, He Himself says about Himself, "Thou canst not see My face, for man shall not see Me and live;" and St. Paul says, "Our God is a consuming fire." And when St. John, holy as he was, saw only the Human Nature of our Lord, as He is in Heaven, "he fell at His feet as dead." And so as regards the appearance of angels. The holy Daniel, when St. Gabriel appeared to him, "fainted away, and lay in a consternation, with his face close to the ground." When this great archangel came to Zacharias, the father of St. John the Baptist, he too was troubled, and fear fell upon him." But it was otherwise with Mary when the same St. Gabriel came to her. She was overcome indeed, and troubled at his words, because, humble as she was in her own opinion of herself, he addressed her as "Full of grace," and "Blessed among women;" but she was able to bear the sight of him. Hence we learn two things: first, how great a holiness was Mary's, seeing she could endure the presence of an angel, whose brightness smote the holy prophet Daniel even to fainting and almost to death; and secondly, since she is so much holier than that angel, and we so much less holy than Daniel, what great reason we have to call her the Virgo Admirabilis, the Wonderful, the Awful Virgin, when we think of her ineffable purity!

(Meditations and Devotions [posthumous], "Meditations on the Litany of Loretto, for the Month of May: I. On the Immaculate Conception," May 5)

***