Saturday, April 28, 2007

My interaction with anti-Catholics

Having documented what I considered to be the M.O. of the anti-Catholic, which is just B.S. in the philosophical parlance, I thought I should provide a list of the discussions I've had with these folks to make it easier to review them. I've provided a brief summary of the general subject of the discussion as well.

General:
Explaining how Catholics see arguments
On why Evangelical arguments are unconvincing to Catholics (with Scriptural supplement)
On discussion on these matters being functionally impossible (and now I know why!)
The swift and simple refutation to Evangelicalism from the Catholic perspective
On why Evangelical arguments are based on confusion
On the pervasive Evangelical appeal to unjustified authority principles (with clarifications)
Advice from Tertullian
More on the appeal to authority without benefit of argument
On bad Evangelical theology based on this authority principle
Initial assessment of the M.O. used by James White, James Swan, and David King
The diagnosis: sola solipsista

James White:
Interactions with Catholic apologists
Monotheletism (I've found a supplemental reference for this one. White's absurd statement is as follows: "One of the characteristics of personal existence is will. Few would argue the point in relationship to the Father, as He obviously has a will. So too, the Son has a will, for he says to the Father in the Garden, "not as I will, but as you will." (Matthew 26:39) The ascription of will to the Persons indicates the ability to reason, to think, to act, to desire - all those things we associate with self-consciousness. As we shall see later, there is a difference between nature and person, and one of those differences is the will" [my emphasis added]. Yuck!)
White's qualifications in church history
Historical Christianity
The hilarious Vatican Secret Archives account
Trashing Paul Owen
White's Christological problems
White's accusations of his sister's alleged ignorance
White on Fr. Hugh Barbour and Nicaea

Eric Svendsen:
Svendsen's anti-Catholic hate speech
Nestorianism and the term "Mother of God"
Nestorianism (Part 2)
Nestorianism (Part 3)
Nestorianism (Part 4)
Nestorianism (Part 5)
Nestorianism (Part 6)
Nestorianism (Part 7)
My apology to Svendsen (back when I thought Svendsen was sincere but mistaken, an assumption I would now consider inaccurate)
A good statement on how one should respect the truth in these interactions
Giving Svendsen more credit that he deserved
Comments on a relatively decent discussion with Paul Owen (with comments by Paul Owen)
The anti-Catholicism starts cropping up with Paul Owen
Tridentine merit theology (this one, again, was when I thought Svendsen was sincere but mistaken. Seeing how the same topic was handled in the Denver Seminary incident defeats that hypothesis).
Another post on how one should respect the truth even in these interactions
Nestorianism (Part 8)
Nestorianism (Part 9)
Interlude on what makes Nestorianism bad
Nestorianism (Part 10)
Nestorianism (Part 11)
Nestorianism (Part 12)
Nestorianism (Part 13)
Nestorianism (Part 14)
Nestorianism (Part 15) (this is a great example of abandoning rational argument in favor of BS)

Jason Engwer:
Patristics
Patristics and historical methodology
On Engwer's standards of argumentation (excellent example of the M.O.)
The BS historical argument

David T. King:
Nestorianism

Steve Hays:
Tridentine merit theology
Tridentine merit theology (Part 2)
Tridentine merit theology (Part 3) (this discussion went reasonable well, probably because it was a preliminary discussion rather than an actual dispute)
Scriptural authority (again, when it's not a dispute, things usually go well)
Antiochene exegesis (here's where it started getting confrontational, and Hays started trying to BS his way into Scriptural authority)
Antiochene exegesis (Part 2)
On Hays's hand-waving ("hand waving" would be an apt term if done sincerely; if done insincerely, it is the definition of BS)
More of the same from Hays
Evangelicals abandon basic standards of rational argument
Evangelicals abandon basic standards of rational argument (Part 2)
Evangelicals abandon basic standards of rational argument (Part 3)
Evangelicals abandon basic standards of rational argument (Part 4)
General observations on the standards of argument (This was really when I first started to perceive the problem I documented as sola solipsista)