I have often heard Protestants object that the Catholic concept of Tradition is practically useless. There are usually two arguments for this position. First, Tradition allegedly reduces to “whatever the Magisterium says,” in which case it is redundant. Alternately, the concept of Tradition is supposedly too vague to be serviceable. On this view, there is [...]
In today’s readings from the Divine Office, we find a particularly clear statement of the Catholic view of salvation. St. Fulgentius of Ruspe was a North African Bishop in the 5th and 6th centuries. He was a champion of Chalcedonian Orthodoxy against the Vandal Arians, and was strongly supported by Pope Symmachus (498-514). In his Treatise on [...]
Protestant defenders of traditional marriage unwittingly concede too much in the gay “marriage” debate. They correctly argue for marriage as a divine institution, and for the absolute rights of the family as prior to and superior to any recognition by the state. But the theory of rights and of law that undergirds their position in [...]
How was the Papacy understood in the ancient Christian East? This is the topic of an essay by Archbishop Roland Minnerath entitled ”The Petrine Ministry in the Early Patristic Tradition.” [1] I address Archbishop Minnerath’s essay because I do not want it to become an occassion for misunderstanding. In this ecumenical essay, the Archbishop acknowledges, “The East never [...]
My conversion to the Catholic faith was a slow process, and contained many surprises along the way. One of the biggest surprises was the change in my thinking about relics, saints, and the Virgin Mary. As a good Presbyterian, I had naturally grown up with a revulsion to such things. The derision of Calvin’s Treatist [...]
There has been a great deal of discussion at CTC about the rational superiority of the Catholic interpretive paradigm over the Protestant interpretive paradigm. As Michael Liccione, and others, have pointed out, Protestantism has no principled way to differentiate dogma from theological opinion – no coherent way even to identify the contours of Christian doctrine [...]
Is it wrong to desire certainty in our act of faith? If you peruse the Reformed blogoshpere these days, you might come to that conclusion. As more and more Reformed Christians join the Catholic Church in search of doctrinal certainty, an all-too common response from the Reformed world has been to impugn this desire for certainty as [...]
Nothing characterized early Calvinism more than the “reform” of liturgy and worship. John Calvin railed against late medieval liturgy and devotion as superstitious and idolatrous, and even called on governments to suppress such “superstition” with the sword. In his mind, “superstition” was any form of worship not prescribed directly by God in Scripture.
I’ve noticed a change of late in how Evangelical and Reformed Protestants interact with history, and I don’t think it bodes well for the coherence of Protestant apologetics. In short, some Protestants have left off restoration or recovery as their primary metaphor and replaced it with development or fruition. The logical results of this move, I [...]
When I first began to study Calvin in earnest, I was puzzled by what seemed a glaring omission in his writings and sermons. He never counseled his readers and listeners to be “Born Again.” This struck me as odd because I knew our denomination (PCA) considered Calvin to be our true founder. I also knew [...]
