Liccione Quixote

Erick wrote, in response to Paul Bassett: The problem remains however that the universal church for 15 centuries did not understand the last word on any issue, doctrinal or disciplinary, to be in one’s individual interpretation of Scripture, or even a collective interpretation by a huge community in schism (Presbyterian, Baptist, etc). Obviously, reading the …

On mining for support for doctrines “after the fact”, and finding “100% certainty” “under certain conditions”. Or: “Dogma-appreciation 101”.

This is something that Nathan Rinne picked up on a couple of weeks ago: Earlier in the thread [the “Visible Church” thread], in post # 221, John Thayer Jensen wrote: “… people often seem to me to make the mistake of deciding, first, what things are true – which implies some external canon – and …

Straining at a gnat, while swallowing the camel of centuries’-worth of ‘distinctively Roman accretions’

Continuing with my very long discussion with Michael Liccione at Called to Communion: Mike 286: That remark is as good a place as any to start for the sake of explaining what’s wrong with your approach at the most fundamental, philosophical level. There is nothing wrong with my approach at any level, much less “the …

Michael Liccione finds ‘the Lutheran Mind’ ‘utterly unsatisfactory’

I thought this was funny: From a discussion at Called to Communion Nathan Rinne is a Lutheran writer, and Lutherans are quite fond of holding out to Reformed folks that there are things that God just consigns to mystery, and we are  best not to inquire about them. [Reformed theologians go with the things which …

‘Papal Infallibility’ is a cause for confusion

“Papal Infallibility” is not a point of unity even among conservative Roman Catholics. Michael Liccione said: What is at issue is whether any church is ever divinely protected from doctrinal error, not moral error, under certain conditions. Elsewhere he described one component of this: “In Catholic theology, it is not even a matter of dispute …