On Friday, April 22, 2005, I was sitting at my desk at Saint Louis University, trying to think of a good remaining reason not to be Catholic. I had been investigating the Catholic question intensely for over a year, and one by one I had been discovering that my objections were largely based on straw [...]
When Protestants become Catholic, one reason they typically give for doing so is the prospect of attaining unity. They recognize both that the perpetual fragmentation between Protestant denominations cannot be the fulfillment of Christ’s prayer in John 17 that His followers be one, and that this fragmentation is perpetually insoluble by way of sola scriptura [...]
Jack W. Sawyer Recently I had the pleasure of coming across an article entitled “Christ’s Test of our Orthodoxy” on Ordained Servant, a Journal published by the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. I was a member of this denomination for six years, and the title immediately caught my attention. Pastor Jack W. Sawyer’s article can be read [...]
Protestants often caricature the Catholic doctrine on sacramentalism as if it taught that a sacrament was something like a magic wand waved over the recipient regardless of his disposition. But this is not an accurate description of the Catholic doctrine. In this short article, I will explain why. On this day, March 7, 1274, St. [...]
God the Son, taking our lowly form and walking among us, left us many imperatives which require faith first, but also hope. Believe in Me, He said, but also hope. Faith causes hope and hope, like faith, is a theological virtue. To follow through with an imperative requires faith in the imperator which precedes the [...]
Today, January 28th, is the feast day of one of the Church’s greatest theologians, Thomas Aquinas (c.1224-1274). For his penetrating syntheses of faith and reason, nature and grace, and speculative, practical and spiritual theology, he is known as the doctor communis, the Common Doctor among the bright and God-consumed minds of the Catholic tradition.
Catholics claim that when Jesus Christ established his Church, he permanently endowed her with a Magisterium that can teach infallibly on matters of faith and morals. Protestants deny this claim, appealing instead to the sole infallible authority of Sacred Scripture. Catholics respond to the principle of sola scriptura in various ways, including the claim that apart [...]
The following is a guest post written by Devin Rose. Devin is a 32-year-old software engineer and lay apologist who blogs at St. Joseph’s Vanguard. He and his wife, Katie, live in Austin with their four children. After years as a devout atheist, I converted to Evangelical Protestantism in February of 2000 and was baptized [...]
In the second part of the second part of his Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas explains the seven virtues: the three theological virtues (i.e. faith, hope, and love), and the four cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance). In his section on Faith, St. Thomas says something quite shocking to modern ears.
In this episode, Bryan Cross & Tim Troutman discuss the relationship between faith and reason and how to strike a balance between fideism and rationalism.
