Too Slow To React In Time

Recently, I was watching this Dividing Lines podcast with James White. White has been saying for some time that the Roman Catholic pope Francis is at least an inclusivist (i.e. you don’t need explicit faith in Jesus Christ to be saved: any faith move towards God counts as implicit faith …

Sola Scriptura

Let’s look at those four things, shall we? But before we do that, let’s build start with question 0. Question 0 I start with this question because like all metaphysical presumptions, it’s more important than the four questions he explicitly asked. Recall what I wrote: John C. Wright claimed that …

Sacraments, Part 2: Tertullian

In “The Eucharist, Part 9: Tertullian” (2024-04-06), we discussed how Tertullian was the first early church writer to refer—in the first decade of the third century—to baptism and thanksgiving as sacraments. He did so a century before anyone else did, so his writings constitute the most important evidence. Consider the new …

Sacraments, Part 1: Divisions

Over at Anabaptist Faith, commenter Seeker gives the standard objection: We’ve heard this before: But regarding the question “what is truth?” this objection is a non-sequitur. All that the varied disagreement of denominations proves is that people will always try to disagree with each other, for whatever reason. This has …

Do Witches Exist?

I’ve been writing a lot about mystical experiences recently. In particular, I’ve noted (here and here) that supernatural events have two possible sources: God or demons. It is simply not true that only God can grant the experiences that you have prayed for. Demons can, and do, grant miracles and endow powers. This …

The Eucharist, Redux #4

This is part of a series on Roman Catholicism and the eucharist. See this index. The 40-part series on the eucharist focused primarily on the liturgy itself. But there is some question as to whether or not the Eucharist involves leavened or unleavened bread. The Orthodox assert that it is …