Ben Douglass, a traditional Roman Catholic, did a good post on bad RC arguments against Protestantism (with some focus on Calvinism).
Ben is not one of those Roman Catholics who is on the fence thinking about converting. Instead, he is a traditionalist who has thought things through...quite thoroughly. A worthy opponent indeed.
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3 comments:
I am one of the authors of the cited piece. I have posted my own comments concerning the varied reactions to it here:
http://thepalmhq.blogspot.com/2009/05/bad-argument-is-bad-argument.html
The straw dog of SS is another one, that we do not allow anything but the Bible in discerning truth, and have no "traditions," or if we have then that is contradictory.
And that we require explicit statements to support doctrine.
While i take a time out from another work, here are some more arguments or inferences i have encountered, .
1. Establishing books as being Scripture and preserving Truth requires a perpetual assuredly infallible magisterium of men.
2. Being the instrument and steward of Scripture means that the former (via a supreme magisterium) will be infallible in its formal universal definitions, and worthy of assent of faith.
3. That assurance of the claim of Rome to perpetual formulaic infallibility, that whatever the church will ever speak on faith and morals to the whole church, will be infallible (incapable of being in any error), is not based upon itself.
4. That the Catholic magisterium is not effectively their supreme authority on earth, and that its infallible decrees are dependent upon Scripture for their veracity, or that they do not require some interpretation, including as to whether they were formal infallible decrees.
5. That Catholics do not have the problem they criticize Prots for, that of a lack of an infallible interpreter for their supreme authority.
6. That promises of Divine superintendence and a historical line of decent from valid authority establishes veracity and unending perpetuation of that particular line by historical decent.
7. That the Christian church was itself not born out of dissent from those who held to the above premise, and thus challenged the Lord saying, “By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority to do these things?” (see Mk., 11:27-33)
But who established His authority on Scripture and the power of God it affirms, as did the apostles and early church, evidencing Scripture to be the transcendent material standard for truth.
8. The canon was infallibly settled prior to the Reformation, thus precluding debate, and thus Roman Catholics had a infallible canon for most of her claimed history, and thus enabling an infallible canon to have been given to the Protestants prior to Trent.
9. That Luther had no support from church fathers or Roman Catholic scholars in questioning or rejecting certain books as Scripture, but was the first to remove books from said canon, and so Prots follow his canon.
10. That there is no debate as to whether the canon of Trent is exactly the same as that of earlier canons such as that of Carthage and Hippo.
11. That all that Trent declared is infallible, including its attribution of Biblical authors.
12. That the Vulgate has the same authority as they original text (Divino Afflante Spiritu, #17), and that there is no dispute as whether any verse in the Vulgate is properly Scripture.
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