When Carrie dismissively
responded to Paul Hoffer with this:
Wrong. The scriptures are active, a constitution is not.
Paul
did the right thing - he gave her a chance to explain herself.
Ok, I will bite...how is Scripture in and of itself active if no one reads it or interprets it?
Before she could reply, someone else
did:
If no one reads it? That's the wrong question.
And as for how it's living and active, I'd ask the author of Hebrews.
Just so. But that's really the question, isn't it? It's a question of
interpretation: what does it mean for the Word of God to be living and active? We're blithely, dismissively told to ask the author. But what does that mean? How does he answer such questions? What are the means he uses to do so? Where do we get the answers that the author provides? The Protestant proposes answers to these questions I've asked, but those answers are inadequate. That's what started me down the road to Mother Church, by the grace of God.
8 comments:
Hello!
Dawn Eden (sorry can't link from my phone) has a guest editorial from "Bend"about someone advocating the end of the human race as the solutuon to all our problems. Seeming off topic of Carrie busting on Catholics but the post is about how do you respond to someone who has abandoned reason, IMHO, everyone at BA and TAO too. Can you even attempt a conversation? I would answer "No".
Perhaps someone following their mindless posts can be lead by Paul's and your own posts to Christ. Futher, I read your remarks (and Pauls) for the beautiful roses you grow from their fertilizer.
Still, to give anyone at these blogs credit for anything other than mindless anti-catholicism is a bit much. Engaging in a debate, sorry Nick, seems way over the top.
BTW: what's the debate over? "Are Catholics Christian"?, I hope.
Just to keep you guys up to date:
Turretin Fan has posted his opening comments:
http://catholicnick.blogspot.com/
Hi Martin,
What you describe is why I've abandoned commenting at the Beggars site; TF's inability to treat Catholics with courtesy was the reason I gave up on him. If I'm going to invest the time and energy to deal with folks who disagree with the Catholic Church, I think it's reasonable to expect them to behave themselves. And irrational or intellectually dishonest "arguments" don't count as courtesy. That's not to say that I don't occasionally find something on TF's site that is worth a remark or two, or maybe even at Beggars, but the grind of a combox or blog-entry debate is too much trouble with these folks.
@Nick - thanks for the update!
--RdP
Hi RDP, Thanks for following the action over at Beggars All and for your thoughts on the matter. Your commentary often gets to the point of the matter while I, being a lawyer, say things in a hundred words what I should have said in ten. BTW, I responded to Rhology's comment as well.
Hi Martin, I truly appreciate the kind words. They were very uplifting and I read them at an opportune moment (We live in a 140 year old house and our pipes burst in a crawl space that has no easy access Friday and I have been rather frustrated trying to fix them).
As far as responding to anti-Catholics, I try to keep in mind both parts of 1 Peter 3:15. While we are called upon to defend our faith, we are to do so with gentleness, reverence and clarity of conscience. I also keep an icon of Jesus on the shelf above my computer to remind me of why I am doing this, as well as a picture of JH Newman to remind me how to do it, and most recently a picture of Blessed Bartolo Longo to remind me that no matter how anti-Catholic someone is, there is hope of converting them to the Catholic faith by our shared efforts.
Furthermore, if we do not try to respond to some of the stuff the folks at BA, Thoughts of Turretin, AOMin, Trialblogue, etc, they may end up succeeding in leading someone astray and thereby putting their soul at risk. I will say this in defense of the folks at BA, they tend to be more cordial and willing to treat us as fellow Christians (although seriously flawed ones in their minds). Their remarks seem to be more misguided than malicious although it is true they don't seem to learn.
I used to leave comments over at Turretinfan's blog, but he cherry-picks what he will allow on his blog through comment moderation and I end up wasting an evening's research writing up a response that he never posts. It is easier to post a response over on my own blog, although answering his errors tends to be time-consuming.
Hi Nick, I enjoyed your opening statement and will be over soon at your blog to read what Mr. Fan has written.
God bless all!
Hi Paul,
while I, being a lawyer, say things in a hundred words what I should have said in ten.
To the contrary, your excellent response to Rhology doesn't leave him any room to wriggle, IMO. Mine was a mere summary. Keep up the good work!
RdP
My dad was a plumber...I remember once when he was tearing some old solid lead pipes out of the walls of our house.
"You know Martin, sometimes I say to myself, 'They just don't male things like they used to' and sometimes I answermyself back, 'Thank God for that' ".
I'll add Paul's pipes, posts and personal health to my prayers.
..."make"..darnit the word is "make" stinky cell phone. Just blew the only good joke in my lexicon.
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