The Importance of Social Customs in the Christian Tradition

Perhaps because the “sophisters, economists, and calculators [have] succeeded” (Edmund Burke), it is fashionable today for Christians to forget or dismiss the importance of social customs, traditions, and manners in the maintenance of societal order. These rarely receive consideration in discussions on Reformed social ethics; and, when considered, they are discarded as “old prejudices” or unreasoned habits useful …

A Brief History of the Christian Doctrine of God, Part 1: Anselm

Anselm of Canterbury and the Beginnings of “Classical Theism” The Westminster Confession of Faith explicitly endorses reason as well as Scripture as being a source of doctrine, when it says, “The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, …

Bluster without truth or substance

Responding to Andrew McCallum in comments below, Joseph Richardson not only misrepresented what “tradition” really meant in the New Testament, but he went further and congratulated himself for doing a fine job of things, and related it in a standalone blog post. Nevertheless, he showed himself to be making several crucial errors, and demonstrating a …

“Divine Revelation” in Roman Catholic and Protestant Polemical Discussions, Part 1

What follows is a part of an ongoing discussion I am having with Andrew Preslar, who is linked down below. I think it is vitally important to define our terms, and what follows is my attempt to define what “divine revelation” is. Of course this definition will not be accepted on both sides, but the …

The Roots of the Reformation: Indulgences

Everyone knows the role that Indulgences played during the Reformation. But does anyone know where they come from? A relatively recent work, The Roots of the Reformation: Tradition, Emergence and Rupture (by G.R. Evans, Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, ©2012), looks at the issues that were prominent in the Reformation, and traces them back to …

Paradigms, Tradition, and the Lexicon, Part 2

Or, Jason Stellman’s “already-existing apostolic tradition” In his article The Tradition and the Lexicon, Bryan Cross says: In general, Protestants think differently about how to go about interpreting Scripture than do Catholics. When trying to understand the meaning of a passage in Scripture, Catholics have always looked to the Tradition; we seek to determine how …

Putting “Lent” and “Ash Wednesday” into perspective

I wrote about Lent several years ago. It’s worth bringing this up every year, I think: For all you Catholics out there, [yesterday was] “Ash Wednesday”. It’s the beginning of the Lent season – the 40 days prior to Easter, a very old tradition of the early church. For all you Protestants, you should know …

How do we really know what God wants from us?

In response to a comment asking “how do we know?” I wrote: Who wants their faith to be formed around a legend? I certainly don’t. But that is the legacy of hundreds of years-worth of papal “history”. This the right question to ask. We all want to rest our faith on something certain, that’s not …

Some Interesting Food For Thought From Jonathan Fisk

Ash Wednesday and the practice of Lent

For all you Catholics out there, today is “Ash Wednesday,” (sorry I’m posting this in the evening). It’s the beginning of the Lent season – the 40 days prior to Easter, a very old tradition of the early church. For all you Protestants, you should know that there’s a difference between “tradition” and “Tradition” in …