Part two of a longer piece on “Falling from Grace.” [Part one.] Catholics: Salvation is a Journey So then, Catholics view salvation not as a single, momentary event, but as a road, a journey, a pilgrimage, a race (Hebrews 12:1). We have not yet arrived at our destination, the heavenly Jerusalem. There is certainly, in …
Category Archives: Apologia
Justification Is Not the End of the Road
Part one of a series on “Falling from Grace.” Lately the Lord has been putting it on my heart to begin a series on the Sacrament of Reconciliation, also known as Confession. But first there are a few prickly issues which, approaching the subject from a Protestant perspective, I felt I needed to address beforehand. …
Some Early Testimonies to the Authority of Apostolic Tradition
Part of an ongoing discussion at Reformation500. As I’ve been arguing, I think Protestants, in thinking about “Tradition,” fail to see the forest for the trees. You (and I presume these historians) are looking for “traditions,” “hidden doctrines,” something concretely novel or different from the Word of God in Scripture — but given that, according …
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The Prior Authority of Tradition
This originated as an off-the-cuff reply this morning, in this thread. I thought it came out rather well. I think you’re overlooking the very crux of the matter. “Sola scriptura” is more than just a claim that Scripture is an infallible standard: it’s a claim that it is the only infallible standard. And if we …
“Sola Scriptura” is in the Bible? Thoughts on the Canon and Interpretation of Scripture
The following is a response to John Bugay’s review of Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books by Michael J. Kruger, in which John announces, “Attention Roman Catholics: ‘Sola Scriptura’ is in the Bible.” It proved too long for his comment box, so I thought I would put it in …
Reading Church History as a Protestant: The Epistemology of Sola Scriptura
Protestants argue that Scripture itself is sufficient to support the doctrine of sola scriptura — but a more important question to ask is if one, not having held such a doctrine before, could come to a doctrine of sola scriptura by Scripture alone. The “Great Apostasy” thesis presumes, first of all, that “true” Christianity originated …
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Reading Church History as a Protestant: The “Great Apostasy” Narrative
Recently I’ve been writing about assumptions and presumptions that Protestants make in reading the early history of the Church: particularly the presumption that if the Church they observe in early documents does not resemble their Protestant one, then it must have apostatized from the true, apostolic faith of Christ that they read in Scripture. Scripture …
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Reading Church History as a Protestant: The Early Church, Apostolic or Apostate?
I suppose there are only two or three ways for the Protestant reader of Church history to understand the Early Church (by which I mean the subapostolic Church, the Church of the first several generations of Christians after the Apostles). The inherent thesis of the Protestant Reformation is that the changes brought about by the …
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Was Peter the First Pope? A Comprehensive Response
Friends, here’s a very detailed post I’ve been working on, answering as comprehensively as I could, from Scripture and history, a question often asked by Protestants: Was Peter really the first pope? I’ve been working hard on this for a couple of weeks, so I hope you enjoy it. If anyone has any further questions …
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“Jesus” is not “Yay-Zeus”
I recently had a run-in with a man who was apparently a Oneness Pentecostal or some variant, a non-Trinitarian espousing the idea that God is not a Trinity, but that rather there is only one God, and His name is the LORD*. This was a new one to me: before I had heard that the …