Posted on 07/26/2013 2:04:17 PM PDT by NYer
Sunday, June 21, marked the 90th anniversary of the Scopes Monkey Trial decision. The questions surrounding evolution—meaning, in particular, the origins of humans—still raise large and important questions for how we understand human nature and the doctrine of original sin. But Jason Stellman thinks that the obsession with our physical origins, though understandable, is perhaps theologically off-kilter. Where we've come from biologically is not as important as where we're heading. It's not the beginning of the journey, man—it's the destination. Stellman's The Destiny of the Species (Wipf and Stock, 2013) is a brief, rollicking, and readable apologetic, notable not just for turning the question of origins on its head, but also for pioneering a slightly different route from the path taken by many Catholic converts in their first books.
From Prosecutor to Papist Stellman's own personal story is compelling. Born and raised in Orange County, California, Stellman came to serious faith in the context of the Evangelicalism of the California preacher Chuck Smith's Calvary Chapel ministries. He served as a Protestant missionary in both Hungary and Uganda before turning to a more theologically rigorous form of Protestantism: Calvinism. Stellman attended Westminster Seminary in Escondido, California and began ministering in the Presbyterian Church in America, the largest conservative Presbyterian denomination in the U.S., planting Exile Presbyterian Church in Woodinville, WA in 2004. Stellman's name came into the limelight when he was chosen to serve as the chief prosecutor in the 2011 heresy trial of fellow Presbyterian minister Peter Leithart, a Calvinist writer and scholar known to readers of journals including First Things and Touchstone. Leithart's views were accused of being in line with a school of Presbyterian thought known as the “Federal Vision,” and he was tried for, among other charges, allegedly failing to distinguish justification and sanctification, divine law and divine grace, and teaching that baptism confers grace and divine adoption. In short, Leithart was on trial for being too Catholic.
Although Stellman's work as prosecutor was acknowledged as solid at the time, Leithart was acquitted by the Northwest Presbytery. In the time after this trial, however, Stellman himself began to question certain historic Protestant beliefs like sola scriptura and sola fide. Through a number of contacts, including the group of formerly Calvinist Catholic apologists centered around the “Called to Communion” (calledtocommunion.com) website, which was founded to foster dialogue with and provide apologetics precisely for Calvinists who suspected the Catholic Church of being right or at least having something to say, Stellman began the journey that ended with his own entrance into the Church on September 23, 2012. Over the last year Stellman has been doing catechesis in a Seattle-area parish, and he now works at Logos Bible Software, developing resource material that will provide an easy way to look at the Scriptures in the light of Patristic and Medieval sources as well as the teachings of the Magisterium.
Apologetics for Everyone Much of Catholic apologetics in English-speaking countries, and increasingly in Latin America, has focused on the differences between Catholics and Protestants. This is not surprising given that large swaths of Evangelical Protestants were baptized as Catholics and left the Church due to the catechetical and spiritual failures of post-conciliar American Catholicism. Sherry Wedell of the Catherine of Siena Institute has written extensively of this phenomenon, which continues to this day—many Catholics who hunger for solid biblical teaching and help in living a life of Christian discipleship seek out elsewhere what they should find in Catholic faith. They find it in the Protestant world where large parts of the Catholic faith have been conserved, especially devotion to Scripture, a serious search for divine intimacy, and the main outlines of Christian morality. Thus Catholic apologetics has been naturally geared toward showing lapsed Catholics and the Protestants they have joined that Catholic faith actually fulfills what they are looking for in a more coherent and comprehensive way. This is an important task—and the importance of it has born great fruit over the last thirty years, not only bringing many serious Protestant pastors, academics, and laity into full communion, but changing the dynamic of Catholic-Protestant relations. During the last two papal conclaves, I have been asked a number of times by Evangelical Protestants about the candidates and what they have to offer. In 2005 one Evangelical Presbyterian friend asked me, “Are we going to get a really good Pope?” I was tempted to answer after the fashion of Tonto when the Lone Ranger asked what chance there was of the duo escaping a wrathful Indian tribe: “Who is this 'we,' white man?” But I didn't, because such a recognition shows how much anti-Catholicism has been tamed in the age of John Paul II, Catholic Answers, Evangelicals and Catholics Together, and all the other efforts of apologetics and dialogue.
Stellman certainly has done his part in explaining his own move, writing an essay titled “I Fought the Church, and the Church Won” and giving an in-depth interview on “Called to Communion” as well as engaging in various interesting questions about the real differences between Catholics and Calvinists on his personal blog, “Creed Code Cult”. But refreshingly, Stellman's Destiny of the Species is actually not geared toward Protestants interested in or annoyed by Mary, the Pope, Purgatory, and Indulgences. It is an apologetic for Christianity as a whole after the fashion of Chesterton's Orthodoxy or Lewis's Mere Christianity, geared toward those who might be “spiritual but not religious,” “nones,” lapsed Catholics who have left Christian faith behind altogether or are already practicing some other sort of faith, and Christians of all sorts, whether Catholic or not. What he has produced is an old-fashioned apologetic for everyone.
Back to the Future Stellman's book, written around the time of the 150th anniversary of Darwin's Origin of the Species, arrived not only in time for the 90th anniversary of the Scopes Monkey Trial, but also Pope Francis's first encyclical, Lumen Fidei, with which it bears some striking similarities. Destiny of the Species begins with the premise that while our biological origins are of interest to us, Darwin ultimately “doesn't scratch where we truly itch.” We certainly eat, drink, defecate, breathe, and move in ways that remind us we are animals. But unlike other animals, whose existence is instinctual, man “is not pushed but pulled, not driven but drawn.” Your dog may appreciate a good nap, a beef, and a burgundy, but we have desires for glory, love, and life that has no end. We are, says Stellman, “hard-wired for heaven.” All of the frantic search for someplace else and something new that Tocqueville found in so pure a form in America (and that more recent writers like David Brooks and Wendell Berry have wryly observed or excoriated) is the sign not simply of biological urge, but spiritual need. Stellman uses Chesterton's fine phrase to describe it: divine discontent. We all hunger for a future that is more than we can experience now.
Like Lumen Fidei, Stellman is proposing that human discontent and restlessness should be answered not by quelling them, but by seeking answers to them. Francis answers Nietzsche's dictum that “if you want peace of soul and happiness, then believe, but if you want to be a follower of truth, then seek,” noting that “autonomous reason is not enough to illumine the future”. Stellman observes that for the vast bulk of people, the way to apparent peace and happiness is not belief, but “worldliness”—simply following our biological needs and various emotional passions for things, fame, revenge, and pharmacologically-induced good feelings. The way of belief, according to Stellman, is actually the path to truth and the only way to real peace and happiness. The rest of his book is dedicated to illuminating the truth that, as Pope Francis puts it, “the light of faith is unique, since it is capable of illuminating every aspect of human existence.” It is “a light coming from the future and opening before us vast horizons which guide us beyond our isolated selves towards the breadth of communion.”
The seeker with a pure heart will not choose between belief and truth, but between competing beliefs. Again, like Pope Francis, Stellman emphasizes that our choice is really between true belief and idolatry. Stellman's middle chapters survey the various false gods that humans encounter, offering treatments of the five vanities surveyed in the book of Ecclesiastes, the temptations of a technologically advanced and affluent society, and how the universal acknowledgment of sin's reality usually issues in our identification of it in someone else's life. We all love to confess others' sins while staying silent about our own. Stellman's treatment is generally good in this section, though it must be said that his treatment of the dangers of life in a consumer society tend toward a sort of stereotyped vision of business and markets that might have been better left out or at least balanced by a recognition of the dangers of modern do-gooderism present in non-profit and government work, too. Stellman, whose views are probably left-of-center, occasionally seems as if he's making a brief against politically conservative Christians and not a brief for Christianity. Jibes at those who watch FOX News or take different views on political issues detract from what is solid and permanent in his exposition. This leads to a second difficulty in the book. Stellman uses a variety of pop-culture references to make his points. Many of them, such as his use of The Matrix to illuminate the choice we have to make between simply distracting ourselves and offering ourselves to seek the truth, hit home. Not all of them do. Rock music fans, especially U2 fans, sometimes need to be reminded that song lyrics seldom stand well on their own.
Stellman really excels when he is bringing out the great riches present in Scripture. Again, mirroring Lumen Fidei, Stellman shows how the Decalogue is meant not simply as a veto on naughty human actions, but as a liberation of humans from the passions and idolatries he's been describing and toward a life of spiritual abundance. (I would complain that he describes the Commandments using the Protestant rather than the Catholic numbering, but my own contribution to ecumenical outreach is to say let's do it the way Protestants and Jews do.) Using Job, Stellman shows how the real objection to God's existence, the problem of evil, is met by God's presence, ultimately in the form of Jesus Christ, whose Resurrection and Ascension show us, in a limited way, what we will be. Stellman's final pop-culture flourish is to use the movie Memento, which tells its story alternating between scenes starting in the beginning and moving forward and the end moving backward, as an analogy to the way in which the light of faith works. We know the destiny of the species is assured, but the light of faith, while illuminating all of life, doesn't usually show us more than we need for our own personal immediate steps ahead. “One step enough for me,” in Newman's famous words. Stellman's vision of Christianity answers exactly to the two primary aspects of Chesterton's personal philosophy in Orthodoxy. In the light of the future prepared for us, life is both familiar and unfamiliar, marvelous and unsatisfactory. It is not merely a biological process, but a high adventure. The Destiny of the Species: Man and the Future that Pulls Him
by Jason J. Stellman
Wipf & Stock, 2013
128 pages
ZC, in Jewish tradition is there any belief as to whether heaven is open or closed to man?
All that standing up waving both hands in the air, speaking gibberish, rolling around on the floor and playing with snakes creeps me out.
You are clearly unable to admit 'your church' is leading it's flock to destruction.
Get off the wide road is the advice you NEED and not an answer about Matthew. Being off the wide road, you would never have 'that' as a question.
You are stating something as if it were indisputable fact going back, according to you, from the start of Christianity. The facts do not support this no matter how much one needs to think they do. I asked for the "evidence" you claimed existed "from the start". Do you have writings from the first or second century of early church fathers that support your contention that everyone held that Mary was assumed into heaven body and soul or not? How about the third century? Anyone? So, explain why nobody wrote about such a miracle until five or six centuries later? Explain why the Roman Catholic Church waited until nearly two THOUSAND years later to even begin discussing the idea of whether or not it should be made a doctrine of the Catholic faith? They waited until 1950 to announce it as Divinely-revealed truth? What, God couldn't make up His mind?
There are additional dogmas of the Catholic Church which also can be proven to have had no basis in antiquity, that early Christians did NOT acknowledge nor the slightest reference in sacred Scripture. That really is the gist of my argument. I have nothing against the legitimate Mary. I honor her for the courageous and faithful woman she was and for which she was chosen by God to bear the Messiah. If there had been anything about such a miracle happening in Scripture, I'd have no problem accepting it - I readily believe the miracles that ARE written. But there IS no Scripture nor Apostolic directions about this - only much-after-the-fact declarations that slowly became mandated to be believed by ALL Christians from a hierarchy that has no such power nor authority to make such demands. Believe what you want, I have no desire to tell others what they can or cannot believe and the same consideration should be given to those of us who choose to reject non-scriptural demands of fallible men and, instead, stick to the rule of faith God DID reveal in Holy Scripture.
I believe that the longer cut and paste scriptural excerpts, the more persuasive arguments, whatever they might be, one way or another. Please don’t challenge my beliefs in violation of the forum rules.
Just one more thought on this statement of yours. IF, like you claim, it was "known everywhere and for a very long time" and that "everyone" accepted it was true, then how come there is so much uncertainty about WHERE she died, WHEN she died, WHERE she was buried, WHETHER or not she actually died and other specific questions? Wouldn't it seem logical that such a miraculous event that was "completely accepted" have even some of these details recorded and attested to by known leaders of the church? I don't think these are questions that shouldn't be asked nor is the asking of them any indication of lying or bigotry.
“You are clearly unable to admit ‘your church’ is leading it’s flock to destruction.”
Why would I ever admit anything that isn’t true? I guess Protestant anti-Catholics lie so often they assume others should too.
“Get off the wide road is the advice you NEED and not an answer about Matthew.”
I’ve never been on the wide road. I’m not a Protestant.
“Being off the wide road, you would never have ‘that’ as a question.”
I don’t have it as a question. It is a question I ask Protestant anti-Catholics so they can easily be seen for what they are, and what they are is not what they claim. It succeeded here as it always does. It will continue to do so.
“If you are unable to have a dialog with someone with whom you disagree without resorting to accusations of “lies” and “outright lies”, then you don’t belong on an open Religion Forum thread. I have NOT lied about anything I have posted, intentionally or outright, so stop saying I have.”
I don’t believe you.
You see, this is what was posted previous:
You: “I’d like to see all this “evidence” you have that disputes what even Catholic references have to say about the subject.”
Now, unless you can document that claim of yours - and you can’t - there is either a terrible error or a terrible lie.
You will fail to document your claim. I know this because I did not EVER dispute “what even Catholic references have to say about the subject.” What I did was discuss what references - like the ones you cited - do not commonly mention. Thus, again, you either posted an incredible error or an outright falsehood. Which is it?
Remember, this is what I said in response to you: “I never said anything that disputed “Catholic references”. What the Catholic references say is that there is no EXPLICIT scriptural reference and no EXPLICIT historical reference in the first 4 centuries. The earliest references show a complete acceptance of the doctrine and that acceptance could only come if it was known everywhere and for a very long time.”
And I am not kidding when I say, “It’s amazing how quickly and often anti-Catholics resort to lies.” It happens all the time. What you claim I did I never did. So, is it an error on your part of an outrageous and deliberate falsehood?
You wrote:
“then how come there is so much uncertainty about WHERE she died, WHEN she died, WHERE she was buried, WHETHER or not she actually died and other specific questions?”
Not necessarily. Where did she die? The two common possibilities are: Ephesus or Jerusalem. Where was she buried: Again, two common possibilities: Ephesus or Jerusalem. Whether or not she died before the Assumption: earliest sources say she died. It doesn’t matter in any case.
“Wouldn’t it seem logical that such a miraculous event that was “completely accepted” have even some of these details recorded and attested to by known leaders of the church?”
No. The inspiration of the New Testament was a whole series of miraculous events. We know not a single major detail in scripture or otherwise.
“I don’t think these are questions that shouldn’t be asked nor is the asking of them any indication of lying or bigotry.”
No, it wouldn’t be, but that’s not what you’re doing. You’re not asking questions. Here’s what you’re doing in this thread:
In post #272 you say something that is based upon a completely false idea of any thing I ever said:
“I’d like to see all this “evidence” you have that disputes what even Catholic references have to say about the subject.”
In post #232 you quote a Catholic women’s website as if it was an authoritative source. You didn’t ask a single question in that post. Not one. You’re apparent premise was also incorrect.
So, when you claim, “I don’t think these are questions that shouldn’t be asked nor is the asking of them any indication of lying or bigotry” I have to consider that nothing short of nonsense.
You can't admit to what you don't see because you've been blinded to the truth.
It is a question I ask Protestant anti-Catholics so they can easily be seen for what they are, and what they are is not what they claim.
We are Holy Spirit filled BELIEVERS of JESUS THE WORD and obedient to it. And that seems to rile up lots of animosity to those who aren't. So they ask questions according to their worldly knowledge of things because they lack understanding of the things of God.
It succeeded here as it always does. It will continue to do so.
What succeeded here is witnessing someone not willing to go to The Father as Jesus taught/Scripture teaches but unrelenting in seeking answers from 'man'. And it will continue as long as they choose to remain unteachable.
Like Jesus did, so do I, and that is walk away because He knew what was 'in them' - 'the unteachable spirit'.
“You can’t admit to what you don’t see because you’ve been blinded to the truth.”
No, I can’t admit what isn’t true. I am not blinded to the truth. I see things as they actually are. But you’ll probably still post outrageous falsehoods anyway.
The first mention of it is by Epiphanius in 377 A.D. and he specifically states that no one knows what actually happened to Mary. He lived near Palestine and if there were, in fact, a tradition in the Church generally believed and taught he would have affirmed it. But he clearly states that ‘her end no one knows.’ These are his words:
But if some think us mistaken, let them search the Scriptures. They will not find Mary’s death; they will not find whether she died or did not die; they will not find whether she was buried or was not buried ... Scripture is absolutely silent [on the end of Mary] ... For my own part, I do not dare to speak, but I keep my own thoughts and I practice silence ... The fact is, Scripture has outstripped the human mind and left [this matter] uncertain ... Did she die, we do not know ... Either the holy Virgin died and was buried ... Or she was killed ... Or she remained alive, since nothing is impossible with God and He can do whatever He desires; for her end no-one knows.’ (Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. 78.10-11, 23. Cited by juniper Carol, O.F.M. ed., Mariology, Vol. II (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1957), pp. 139-40). More
Challenging your beliefs would not be a violation of forum rules, unless it was a caucus thread. Making the exchange about a poster, and or calling someone a liar, etc., even if true, is i believe.
Making it personal (reading minds, attributing motives, making the thread 'about' another Freeper, calling him a liar, etc.) is not tolerable anywhere on the Religion Forum.
Thank you Moderator, but what all that has to do with the most obviously jocular post I entered in #305 I’ve no ideer!
If your church wants to 'teach' that Mary, like Elijah, was assumed up into Heaven in a similar manner; go ahead.
But the FACT that you have NO evidence to support this IS noted.
The BIBLE clearly states that those who 'die in Christ' WILL be resurrected at the Last Day.
Why is this not sufficient for you guys in Mary's case?
Y'all'd have more time to 'go ye into all the world' if you quit wasting so much of it talking to her!
To which you responded post #208:
Yes, you are. “If you guys would just leave this poor, dead woman alone, we’d be in MUCH more agreement with y’all!”
“If your church wants to ‘teach’ that Mary, like Elijah, was assumed up into Heaven in a similar manner; go ahead.”
Gee, thanks for your permission. By the way, Elijah did not go into Heaven. Heaven was closed to man until the death and resurrection of Christ. Your welcome for the Bible lesson.
“But the FACT that you have NO evidence to support this IS noted.”
We have evidence - it consistently has been taught by the Church.
“The BIBLE clearly states that those who ‘die in Christ’ WILL be resurrected at the Last Day.”
Yes, and? Are you saying Elijah was not assumed into some other “place”?
“Why is this not sufficient for you guys in Mary’s case?”
Why isn’t sufficient for you that all of the ancient Churches believe in Mary’s assumption?
“Y’all’d have more time to ‘go ye into all the world’ if you quit wasting so much of it talking to her!”
We don’t waste any time on her. About Mary there is never enough.
Notice your use of the words I bolded, in which you say this belief has "evidence" and that it was "consistently taught" by the church and that "all teh ancient churches believed in Mary's assumption". Elsie then replied in post #211:
I merely want to know WHY they 'believe' this; since there is NO evidence for it.
You countered in post #225:
“I merely want to know WHY they ‘believe’ this;”
Every Christian believed it. Not a single one ever expressed any doubt about it that we have even a single record of. The only logical conclusion is that it was true and known to be true.
That was when my interest was peaked, and I posted in #232:
Not so fast...not every Christian believed in the Assumption of Mary. Nor was it a common belief "from the start". In truth:
The idea of the assumption of Mary into heaven after her death is first expressed in narratives of the fifth and sixth centuries. Even though these were never official, they bear witness to the very early belief in a teaching of the Catholic Church which was not formally defined as a dogma (a teaching essential to the Catholic faith) until 50 years ago.
Though it was almost universally believed for more than a thousand years, the Bible contains no mention of the assumption of Mary into heaven. The first Church writer to speak of Mary's being taken up into heaven by God is Saint Gregory of Tours (594). Other early sermons on the Feast of Mary's entry into heaven are those of Ps.-Modestus of Jerusalem (ca. 700).
On May 1, 1946, Pope Pius XII, asked all bishops in the world whether they thought this belief in the assumption of Mary into heaven should be defined as a proposition of faith, and whether they with their clergy and people desired the definition. Almost all the bishops replied in the affirmative.
On November 1, 1950, the Feast of All Saints, Pope Pius XII declared as a dogma revealed by God that "Mary, the immaculate perpetually Virgin Mother of God, after the completion of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into the glory of Heaven".(http://www.wf-f.org/Assumption.html)
You responded in #235:
“Not so fast...not every Christian believed in the Assumption of Mary.”
Yes, they did - unless they were simply ignorant. And the quote you posted in no way gainsays what I said.
“Nor was it a common belief “from the start”.”
Yes, it was. There’s much more evidence for that belief than the reverse.
You and Elsie then went a few more rounds about this "evidence" and you continued to insist that there was plenty of evidence and that everybody who wasn't "ignorant" believed it all along. I responded to your post #235, with post #272:
While it is likely "they" accepted that Mary, the mother of Jesus, died and was buried, I'm specifically talking about the doctrine that she was miraculously assumed into heaven, body and soul. The Catholic Church has never formally defined whether she died or not and NOTHING in Scripture mentions anything about it and, if it is intended by God to be a divinely-revealed belief mandated (essential to the faith) for all Christians, it certainly should have been mentioned, wouldn't you think? Mary died decades before the letters of John were written, yet the Apostle Jesus entrusted the care of his mother to, never gives the slightest hint about this "miracle" happening to Mary. Why not?
We don't have ANY real knowledge of the day, year, and manner of Mary's death. The dates which are presumed for her death vary between three and fifteen years after Christ's Ascension. As the article I quoted earlier stated, the idea was first expressed in narratives of the fifth and sixth centuries. That doesn't sound like it was ALWAYS by EVERYONE believed, ignorant or not. It wasn't until the TWENTIETH (1946) century that the Catholic Church started to define it as a "proposition of faith" and then on November 1, 1950, the Feast of All Saints, Pope Pius XII declared as a dogma revealed by God that "Mary, the immaculate perpetually Virgin Mother of God, after the completion of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into the glory of Heaven".
I'd like to see all this "evidence" you have that disputes what even Catholic references have to say about the subject. And, again, y'all can believe whatever you want about this, where I object, and I am not alone, is when it becomes MANDATED for all Christians to believe and those who reject it are branded as heretics and mortal sinners for not accepting ALL that the magesterium decides is divinely revealed truth. This isn't a case of "we're" right everyone else is wrong and Catholics find themselves forced to defend a doctrine that they may not even agree with for the same reasons other don't, only they aren't ALLOWED to say so.
You shot back in post #278:
It’s amazing how quickly and often anti-Catholics resort to lies. I never said anything that disputed “Catholic references”. What the Catholic references say is that there is no EXPLICIT scriptural reference and no EXPLICIT historical reference in the first 4 centuries. The earliest references show a complete acceptance of the doctrine and that acceptance could only come if it was known everywhere and for a very long time.
To say anything else about what I said is to lie - outright lie.
I answered back at Post #304:
You are stating something as if it were indisputable fact going back, according to you, from the start of Christianity. The facts do not support this no matter how much one needs to think they do. I asked for the "evidence" you claimed existed "from the start". Do you have writings from the first or second century of early church fathers that support your contention that everyone held that Mary was assumed into heaven body and soul or not? How about the third century? Anyone? So, explain why nobody wrote about such a miracle until five or six centuries later? Explain why the Roman Catholic Church waited until nearly two THOUSAND years later to even begin discussing the idea of whether or not it should be made a doctrine of the Catholic faith? They waited until 1950 to announce it as Divinely-revealed truth? What, God couldn't make up His mind?
There are additional dogmas of the Catholic Church which also can be proven to have had no basis in antiquity, that early Christians did NOT acknowledge nor the slightest reference in sacred Scripture. That really is the gist of my argument. I have nothing against the legitimate Mary. I honor her for the courageous and faithful woman she was and for which she was chosen by God to bear the Messiah. If there had been anything about such a miracle happening in Scripture, I'd have no problem accepting it - I readily believe the miracles that ARE written. But there IS no Scripture nor Apostolic directions about this - only much-after-the-fact declarations that slowly became mandated to be believed by ALL Christians from a hierarchy that has no such power nor authority to make such demands. Believe what you want, I have no desire to tell others what they can or cannot believe and the same consideration should be given to those of us who choose to reject non-scriptural demands of fallible men and, instead, stick to the rule of faith God DID reveal in Holy Scripture.
Which brings us to this response of yours in this post where it appears there has been some selective amnesia where you claim I have made either a "terrible error" or a "terrible lie" because I made the claim that even "Catholic references" (and I gave one of them earlier) dispute the details of Mary's death and disposition afterwards. What you say I can't document, I already did.
It is blatantly obvious to anyone who reads this exchange that some anti-anyone-but-Catholics people will resort to twisted words and convoluted, cherry picked phrases all so that he might rationalize his bigoted hatred of those who reject his church's authority. It IS amazing how quickly and often anti-everyone-who-isn't-Catholic resorts to lies.” It happens all the time. What you claim I did I never did. So, is it an error on your part of an outrageous and deliberate falsehood? We'll let the reader decide.
Words such as "false" "wrong" "error" do not attribute motive.
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
This is what YOU claimed about the Assumption of Mary: Every Christian believed it. Not a single one ever expressed any doubt about it that we have even a single record of. The only logical conclusion is that it was true and known to be true.
And my response, to show you that your statements were not accurate was:
Not so fast...not every Christian believed in the Assumption of Mary. Nor was it a common belief "from the start". In truth... I quoted from one source that made factual statements. My "premise" was accurate and you have not sited a single source that can dispute it. This is not an honest way to carry on a dialog about issues of the Christian faith. I asked honest questions in subsequent posts and I have not been the one accusing you of lies or bigotry, although you have more than demonstrated such propensity with me and others here. Perhaps you should examine your motives for participating on this forum and consider that you just may not have the right "temperament" for Christian apologetics.
My cat was SINLESS ! She went STRAIGHT to Heaven!
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