Unsound Sticks, or, Arguments Catholics Shouldn't Use

Pugio Fidei ^ | May 1, 2009 | Ben Douglass, David Palm, Nick E.

[Alex Murphy]

1. Do not allege that there are 33,000 Protestant denominations.
2. Avoid the term "anti-Catholic."
3. Do not justify lack of charity by appealing to the example of St. Jerome.
4. Do not exaggerate the inadequacy of Sola Scriptura, as if it were not possible to understand the Bible at all without the Magisterium.
5. Do not insist that Protestants need to know, as a matter of faith, that Matthew wrote Matthew.
6. Do not think that it suffices, for falsifying Sola Scriptura, to demonstrate that inspired oral Apostolic Tradition existed during the Apostolic era (2 Thess 2:15, etc.).
7. Do not argue that since St. Paul knew that the magicians who opposed Moses were named Jannes and Jambres (2 Tim 3:8), these names must have been preserved in the old covenant equivalent of Apostolic Tradition.
8. Do not cite 2 Peter 1:20-21 against the Protestant principle of private interpretation of Scripture.
9. Never attack the textual integrity of the Bible.
10. Never compromise biblical inerrancy in order to score points against Protestantism.
11. Do not jump to James 2:24 in order to counter every Protestant proof-text for justification by faith alone.
12. Do not descend into arguments over whether we should give priority to Jesus or St. Paul as our teacher of the doctrine of justification.
13. If you wish to cite Acts 7:51 against the Calvinist doctrine of irresistible grace, be forewarned that there exists a cogent rebuttal.
14. Similarly, if you wish to cite Matthew 23:37 against the Calvinist doctrine of irresistible grace, be forewarned that there exists a cogent rebuttal.
15. Do not cite Ephesians 2:10 against justification by faith alone.
16. Avoid making hay about Martin Luther adding the word "alone" to Romans 3:28.
17. Never ask, if a Protestant believes his salvation is eternally secure, what motivation he has to do good and avoid evil.
18. Do no otherwise than reference ancient documents for what they are.

Avoid the term "anti-Catholic." The term is ill-defined. If it refers to a form of bigotry or prejudice then it could only be applied to individual Protestants (or other non-Catholics) on a case by case basis, and that only after they had exhibited a demonstrable pattern of bad faith. If, on the other hand, it refers to theological opposition to Catholicism, then it ought not to be used as a term of disdain. For Catholics are theologically opposed to Protestantism. Indeed, according to Dominus Iesus, Protestant "churches" are not, properly speaking, churches. The distinctives of Protestant theology are heresy, and the Council of Trent has pronounced anathema upon them. If, then, Protestants who believe Catholicism to be heretical are anti-Catholic, by the same standard Catholics who believe Protestantism to be heretical are anti-Protestant.

This article could serve as a survey of Catholic apologetics used on FR.

[pnh102]

Catholics and Protestants have more deadly non-Christian enemies and should be focusing on dealing with them instead of fighting amongst ourselves.

[keats5]

Agreed.

[Bainbridge]

Amen to this !

[bboop]

I’m with you! Enough of the in-fighting. There is work to be done against a common enemy.

[Lee N. Field]

A voice of sanity. < sarc>Well, that should cut some of the noise around here.< /sarc>

Saw this on James White's blog and bookmarked it.

[Carpe Cerevisi]

Seems like someone can’t take a little ribbing. Geesh.

[Religion Moderator]

Chick is not allowed on the Religion Forum, even in jest.

[PetroniusMaximus]

The fact that we have the intellectual freedom to disagree with each other and challenge each other’s beliefs proves that we are not like our “enemy”.

Do we really want to lose that?

[Alex Murphy]

The words I've X'd out in this line:

All in a convenient bot that will free up your valuable time to disperse XXXX XXXXX tracts

...certainly ran your post afoul of the RF rules. Oh, and it's a violation of Irving's Law to boot.

[Mad Dawg]

It will not satisfy any Protestant to object to his proof-text that "it can't mean that because then it would contradict this other passage over here." The Protestant will have his own understanding of that other passage over there as well.

Here's why I think this is wrong. I would amend it to "... do not appeal to Jas. 2:24 ... as if it were dispositive or conclusive."

So much of debate of biblical interpretation has to start with blunting the other side's swords -- or, rather, with pointing out how blunt they already are. This works both ways.

The whole proof-text approach to this conversation is useless. But if somebody says, "Such and such a text says thus and so," (and let us not overlook the lengthy bold-texted citations of Scripture before we jump on Catholic responses to them) it seems to me legitimate to ask "What about this passage over here where it seems to say the opposite?"

I certainly think that some of the approaches to the conversation are needlessly or excessively polemical, and the "round and round we go" character of the conversation suffices to show their futility.

BUT, an oversimplified statement of one side of an argument often generates an oversimplified retort. And more than once appeals for nuance and for careful consideration of the problem have been met with accusations of "parsing", as though the very thoughtfulness this guy seems to be advocating were itself suspect.

Indeed, I think this guy has himself fallen into the kind of error he cautions us against. The amount of time it takes to compose or to read a precise and careful, not to say ruminative, presentation of the truth of the matter not only militates against useful conversation but calls down charges of equivocation or obfuscation (to both of which charges I have been subject) and arguments that "It just can't be true if it's that complicated."

I think the apologetic enterprise, as carried out by either side, with the notable exception (most of the time) of Forest Keeper, is spiritually perilous and often intellectually vapid.

So There. Ah HAH!. Gotcha! Nyah nyah. Etc.

[Carpe Cerevisi]

Didn’t know about the Chick rule. Sorry!

[Petronski]

This article could serve as a perfect example of a boatload of bad advice.

Well, it’s not any dumber than Godwin’s Law.

[Terabitten]

Catholics and Protestants have more deadly non-Christian enemies and should be focusing on dealing with them instead of fighting amongst ourselves.

That's why I generally avoid the religion threads on FR. They rapidly turn into not much more than juvenile insult-fests.

It's one thing to say, "In brotherly Christian love, I respectfully disagree with you, and here's why." It's quite another to say, "You're wrong and you're a poopyhead." Unfortunately, the religion threads here typically turn into the latter.

[Terabitten]

The fact that we have the intellectual freedom to disagree with each other and challenge each other’s beliefs proves that we are not like our “enemy”.

Disagreement is one thing. Disrespect is another. Christians are free to disagree, as Paul says in Romans, but we're not free to be disrespectful or, as is so often the case here, downright mean to our Christian brethren.

[Alex Murphy]

...it’s not any dumber than Godwin’s Law

From a WIRED interview w/the creator of Godwin's Law, Mike Godwin:

I seeded Godwin's Law in any newsgroup or topic where I saw a gratuitous Nazi reference. Soon, to my surprise, other people were citing it - the counter-meme was reproducing on its own! And it mutated like a meme, generating corollaries...

....In time, discussions in the seeded newsgroups and discussions seemed to show a lower incidence of the Nazi-comparison meme. And the counter-meme [that the longer a discussion goes, the more likely a Hitler/Nazi comparison will be made] mutated into even more useful forms.

The origin of Irving's Law:

I am increasingly of the opinion that religious debate needs some kind of corollary to Godwin's Law. Here's my idea - once a comparison is made between the 1st century Pharisees and someone's theology, the discussion is immediately finished - and whoever makes the comparison automatically "loses" whatever debate was in progress, forfeiting all points previously scored.

And since I'm "inventing" this new rule here, I get to name it. And thus, I dub this new rule the "Irving Law".

[MeanWestTexan]

Ah, the reasonable moderate.

Doomed to be hated as the worst heretic by all sides.

[MrB]

Thread highjack alert.

I’m doing some “self-opposition research”. Since this is a Catholic thread, and bound to have a few Catholic readers, I ask -

is there any biblical justification for the assertion that man’s nature is “basically good”?

I have had a few Catholics (and Unitarian Universalist / Church of Oprah adherents) state that that is their view of the nature of man.

It has huge consequences... mainly “liberalism”.

[Terabitten]

Ah, the reasonable moderate. Doomed to be hated as the worst heretic by all sides

I'm not moderate - I'm a traditional 5 point Calvinist. What I'm asking for isn't moderation, but simple consideration.

I would *never* ask anyone to moderate their beliefs -- but I would ask them to simply be polite. Is that too much to demand from ourselves as Christians?