How Ridiculous Can Modern Churches Get?
June 12, 2010 3 Comments
And this applies to “Catholic” freaks as well. The churches have become circuses. This is some of the gayest, most bizarre stuff imaginable. Peruse the collage of absurdity below.
Taking the Law and Prophets Seriously: Judgments
June 10, 2010 7 Comments
The Prophet Samuel Hacks Up King Agag
By: Jay
I am sick and tired of the Law and the Prophets being a joke. This past year I’ve seen several Orthodox priests/prelates openly say they do not accept the “God” as presented in the Old Testament, as well as not a few Roman Catholics. Textual liberalism and rejecting “that kind of God” often go hand in hand, or are at least kissing cousins. One need only look at the history of Luther’s “reformation” and the explosion of textual liberalism that followed a few hundred years later in German higher criticism to see where these views lead.
Higher criticism and modern rejections of Moses may not have the same motivations, but they arrive at the same endpoint – the rejection of “that kind of God.” By that, what is meant is the God who condones exterminations of cities, is providential within all historical events, and punishes (even if remedially) descendants based on the actions of fathers and forebears. The simple question that arises is this – how do these people expect anyone to take them seriously as proponents of a religion which comes from the Law and the Prophets? Seriously? I am supposed to accept that you have the truth, and you tell me all these instances are “allegory” or at least not historical. Anyone with basic logic and an elementary knowledge of the Bible need only think for about 5 minutes about how implausible this is. Were I a serious Jew, I would not accept such ridiculous claims, and justly so. You prelates have told me that the very Book you accept is a-historical in crucial events, when all along it’s been viewed as historical – even amongst the various Christian groups, prior to higher criticism. In fact, in places where the New Testament views incidents in the Law and Prophets as historical, I have been told they are not – and that the New Testament writers are in error. What arrogance.
I am always bitched at for “not being practical.” Well, ok, here we go – let’s be practical. Let me examine the stories I was told emulate in Sunday School as a young boy – arguably the most simplistic and practial stories imaginable, and let’s see if these religionists persuade me to be practical according to their conceptions. Read more of this post
Christ United to All Men: What “Traditionalists” Need to Understand
June 5, 2010 4 Comments
St. Irenaeus: Early Bishop & Teacher of the Recapitulation
What Latin Traditionalists Need to Understand
By: Jay
My purpose here is to correct a tendency and misconception, which sometimes leads to an error. Debating the status of this document’s authority is also not in view, either. The Vatican II document, Gaudium et Spes, stated (with the relevant citations of Constantinople II and III):
“22. The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of Him Who was to come,(20) namely Christ the Lord. Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear. It is not surprising, then, that in Him all the aforementioned truths find their root and attain their crown.
He Who is “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15),(21) is Himself the perfect man. To the sons of Adam He restores the divine likeness which had been disfigured from the first sin onward. Since human nature as He assumed it was not annulled,(22) by that very fact it has been raised up to a divine dignity in our respect too. For by His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man. He worked with human hands, He thought with a human mind, acted by human choice(23) and loved with a human heart. Born of the Virgin Mary, He has truly been made one of us, like us in all things except sin.(24)”
And the references are:
20. Cf. Rom. 5: 14. Cf. Tertullian, De carnis resurrectione 6: “The shape that the slime of the earth was given was intended with a view to Christ, the future man.”: P. 2, 282; CSEL 47, p. 33, 1. 12-13. Read more of this post
There is No Such Thing as Calvinism
June 5, 2010 1 Comment
John Calvin's Beautiful (Purported) Grave
(Back by popular demand. -Jay 
By M. B.
One thing that amazes me when I read Reformed people’s arguments against Rome is not so much what they say about us, but the gall and arrogance they have to even say anything at all.
The funny thing about the Calvinism vs. Arminianism debate is that there is no such thing. What? That’s right. Calvinism does not exist, at least not any more than the Ku Klux Klan does. Oh sure, there are still several groups that run around in rural communities in the South, calling themselves everything from “The Traditional Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan” to the “International Keystone Knights of the Ku Klux Klan”. But everyone knows what Nathan Bedford Forrest started over a century ago after the War Between the States has long since disbanded, only be revitalized by kooks, losers, and provocateurs trying to keep the torch aflame every other decade or so. And the ironic thing is that they’re trying to revitalize some thing that, any student of history knows, would not be blessed by the men who first established it to fight Yankees and carpetbaggers.
And it’s the same with Calvinism, with its “Reformed Presbyterian Church General Assembly” and “Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States ”. These amounts to little more than malcontent American whites trying to revamp a failed experiment, some thing that has long since been swept away into the dustbin of history. Read more of this post
The Importance of Biblical Inerrancy
May 27, 2010 4 Comments
Moses receives the Law from God
A Presuppositional Critique: It’s Inseparability from Faith
By: Jay
I shouldn’t have to go to my local church [!] and end up having to defend the accuracy and authenticity of the Biblical texts. Unfortunately, this happened more than once. In a casual conversation one Sunday with someone I assumed was a kindred spirit, a heated discussion erupted over the reliability of the biblical texts. This prompted me to post some thoughts that hopefully illustrate the central importance of maintaining and defending, not just the accuracy and inerrancy of the texts, but also of the patristic and Traditional understanding of the texts as inerrant and historically reliable.
This is not a strict “scientific” treatment. This defense is more practical, patristic and presuppositional in nature. So please, no comments about an “unscientific” approach. I am familiar with different codices and their histories. That is the subject of another blog post or a whole series. And, on top of that, please, no comments about “fundamentalism.” I know firsthand what fundamentalism is (having been raised a Baptist “fundamentalist”), and I’ve read liberal higher critics. I’ve also read the Church Fathers, and conservative biblical scholars. I hope to show a couple presuppositional flaws that are apparent in the higher critical approaches, that it’s completely foreign to Tradition, and that the patristic tradition is unequivocally clear concerning inerrancy.
The first error made by my friend in conversation Sunday was the same error made by virtually all higher critics: because there are similarities in pagan texts and rituals in comparison with Christianity, the various biblical authors must have borrowed from these pagan sources. So, for example, the Gilgamesh Epic has a flood myth. Other pagan narratives have a first man or woman, so, the argument runs, the biblical account must have been borrowed and redacted these Ancient Near Eastern traditions. Note first of all that this rests on an obvious assumption—that the biblical authors borrowed from their pagan neighbors. Why not the other way? What if the devil inspired his minions to borrow from the true account and obscure it. “Absurd,” you say—”unscholarly and unscientific.” Beware, lest you come to find the hard way that “there is no wisdom or counsel against the Lord” (Prov. 21:30), and that “He overthrows the words of the faithless” (Prov. 22:12). Read more of this post
Response to Turretinfan on the Crucifixion
May 22, 2010 3 Comments
Part 7 from our old interaction
By: Jay
Turretinfan responded to the accusation that the strict legal imputation view must necessitate a damning, forsaking, cutting-off, or separation (choose whichever term you wish) of the Son from the Father. He writes:
“The Father that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all, shall also freely give us all things (Romans 8:32). This was no pagan sacrifice, but a fulfilment of the pious type (“type” in the sense of “shadow”) that Abraham provided by offering up Isaac his son (Hebrews 11:17-19). Jesus was stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted (Isaiah 53:4) and it pleased the LORD to bruise him, to put him to grief, and to make him an offering for sin (Isaiah 53:10). Nevertheless, God did not utterly forsake him, but raised him up on the third day when the work to obtain our justification was complete (Romans 4:25).”
The Incarnation Versus Calvinists and Lutherans
May 3, 2010 16 Comments
A Detailed Analysis of the Implications of Reformation Theology
By: Jay Dyer
St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote of the reason for the Incarnation:
“Sick, our nature demanded to be healed; fallen, to be raised up; dead, to rise again. We had lost the possession of the good; it was necessary for it to be given back to us. Closed in the darkness, it was necessary to bring us the light; captives, we awaited a Savior; prisoners, help; slaves, a liberator. Are these things minor or insignificant? Did they not move God to descend to human nature and visit it, since humanity was in so miserable and unhappy a state?” (Orat. Catech., 15)
The Catholic Catechism goes on to say as well of the Incarnation, quoting Ss. Irenaeus and Athanasius:
“The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature”: ”For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.” ”For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” ”The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.” (Par. 460)
In the never-ending debates with Calvinists (and Lutherans), the questions of the proper views of the Trinity, Incarnation and salvation continually arise. What becomes evident to those weathered in these disputes is he differing theologies that arise from these camps when compared with the Catholic view. As we will see, our Catechism in masterly fashion, explains the Scriptural, patristic and conciliar theology of the first seven centuries in an erudite, pristine fashion. And, to be sure, most Calvinists and Lutherans are not willfully desiring to be Nestorian or Pelagian, but as I’ve come to see, there’s often a lot of misunderstanding. In other words, they are these errors without knowing it. Read more of this post
Paul Washer is a False Prophet
May 3, 2010 40 Comments
By: Jay Dyer
I was, for several years, a huge fan and follower/disciple of Paul Washer. I thought he was a godly leader: a real missionary, and a true “reformer.” I had several of his sermons on tape and, in fact, made copies of his tapes and distributed them to my fellow college students who needed to hear the “true Gospel of God’s grace.” I met him and spoke with him on theology several times. However, I was on a Path that Paul Washer was not on.
As I researched biblical theology and Church History more in depth, and in particular, the formation of the biblical canon, I came to reject common Protestant notions, such as sola scriptura. The simple reason for this is that it was unheard of until the time of the Reformation. Prior to Luther and Calvin, the doctrines of sola fide and sola scriptura were non-existent. There is a complete blackout of Protestant theology for 1,500 years of the Church. Apparently, the Holy Spirit forgot the Church. But that brings me to an interesting point in regards to Paul Washer… Read more of this post
Monergism = one energy = monothelitism
May 2, 2010 12 Comments
Response to Turretinfan’s Monothelitism Post
Turretinfan, just as with the single subject issue, doesn’t understand the argument.
A fully human will, with its own natural energy, is part and parcel with orthodox Christology, if one accepts Chalcedon and councils 5 and 6. Will is a property of nature, and hence there are two wills in Christ as the Calvinists will admit, and one will in the Godhead. If they admit a human will in Christ, then absurdquestions arise: will they admit that is raised/deified? Nope. If not, then our wills are not healed/raised/deified. If we no longer have a natural will, then Christ is not consubstantial with us, even if he had two. St. Gregory of Nazianzus stated it perfectly when he said, “what is not assumed [by the Logos], is not deified.”
The Calvinists can’t grasp that they have a faulty anthropology and view of pre-lapsarian man, which inevitably screws up their Christology. They don’t understand that theology begins with Christology, not soteriology. God hammered it out that way in the councils. Every Calvinist who does grasp this has left that heresy (and I know several). Once they stop confusing nature and grace as well as nature and person, they see they light. Read more of this post
The Decree of Pope St. Gelasius – The Liturgical Joke of the Federal Vision
April 17, 2010 4 Comments
By: Jay Dyer
Protestants are generally clueless when it comes to the canon of Scripture. Even the best of them act as if the Bible dropped out of heaven into their academic circles, as God, of course, needs their rigorous scientific exegesis. But what’s the real problem with this? The problem is that the Protestants have taken the Bible out of its proper context – that of the Liturgy. And, for all you Federal Visionaries, the Church already has apostolic liturgies – we don’t need you inventing and fabricating your own. But at least the FV guys are moving in the right direction.
As I’ve stated many times in debates and discussions, the formation of the canon, whether new or old Testament, cannot be separated from the context that gave those books meaning – public liturgy. The only way we know the authorship of the texts is from Apostolic Tradition, as I’ve demonstrated many times, and the milieu of that Tradition was the public readings at the local liturgy. Scholars across various denominations have known this for years. This growth in the knowledge of God via liturgy and sacraments is called “mystagogy.” Eastern Orthodox theologian, Metropolitan Isaiah of Denver, explains:
“Strictly speaking, there never was a Bible in the Orthodox Church, at least not as we commonly think of the Bible as a single volume book we can hold in our hand. Since the beginning of the Church, from the start of our liturgical tradition, there has never been a single book in an Orthodox church we could point to as the Bible. Instead, the various books of the Bible are found scattered throughout several service books located either on the Holy Altar itself, or at the chanter’s stand. The Gospels (or their pericopes) are complied into a single volume — usually bound in precious metal and richly decorated — placed on the Holy Altar.” Read more of this post
