"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
The March For Life in Washington DC is quickly approaching, so for the next week or so I’m going to be posting exclusively on the subject abortion, even dispensing with some of my “regularly scheduled programming”, such as Music Monday and Friday Frivolity.
To kick off this series of posts, here’s a video of Catholic Apologist Trent Horn speaking with Dr. Malcolm Potts on “Issues on Reproduction”:
(Unfortunately, the audio quality isn’t good, but the content is great)
I haven’t done one of these in a while…
In case you haven’t seen my Quick Apology articles before, these are extremely short posts in which describe how I might respond in thirty seconds or less to objections I often encounter. These might be objections to my pro-life view, or the fact that I believe in God, that I’m a Christian or specifically to my being Catholic.
Today’s objection came from a friend:
“Catholics believe in mortal sin, but the Bible never talks about it. It never makes a distinction – sin is sin”
How might one respond to this objection?
I’ve spoken before about the objection that something is “not in the Bible”, but the above statement is one which can actually very easily be answered from Scripture alone.
When this particular issue comes up, I ask whether or not that person has read chapter five of John’s first epistle:
If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that.
– 1 John 5:16 (Revised Standard Version: Catholic Edition)
So there we go, John seems pretty clear that there is such a thing as mortal sin.
However, is this just a translation issue? After all, in the above Scripture quotation, I’ve quoted from a Catholic translation.
Well, the standard Protestant translation is the King James Version, so let’s see how that translation renders the passage:
If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.
– 1 John 5:16 (King James Version)
As we can see, the KJV renders “mortal sin” as “sin which is…unto death”. Even with this translation the same central meaning remains:
1. There are two kinds of sin
2. One kind of sin leads to “death”
3. Another kind of sin does not lead to “death”
However one chooses to interpret this passage, it’s very clear that Scripture is making a distinction between different kinds of sin and saying that one is more serious than the other.
As a quick follow up, I typically point out that John is not the only person in Scripture to distinguish between different kinds of sin. Although it’s a little different, Jesus Himself speaks to this subject:
Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven – Matthew 12:31
Again, regardless of how one chooses to interpret this passage, it’s clear that not all sins are the same.
After pointing out these two passages, I would typically conclude the brief exchange by saying that, despite these distinctions, in a certain sense it is correct to say that “sin is sin”. It is true that all sin is an offense against God.
The Catholic distinction between different kinds of sin doesn’t mean that venial sin is “okay”. No, all sin is serious. We shouldn’t just try and avoid mortal sin, but all sin and strive for the holiness for which we were made!
A Restless Pilgrim favourite, Trent Horn, recently engaged in an abortion debate on Atheist Analysis:
While enjoyable, I thought the pro-choice position was especially weak. Honestly, I’ve seen far better defenses of abortion. During the Q&A, Trent’s opponent repeatedly responded with “I don’t know”, “I’m not sure about that” etc. While this shows humility and that’s commendable, it doesn’t really speak highly for your cause if you’re unable to offer a rational, thought-out responses to simple questions…
In previous “Quick Apologies”, I’ve dealt with different aspects of the intercession of the saints. Today I’d like to address one of the final pieces of the puzzle…
After explaining the Catholic understanding of Saintly intercession, as well as having shown its merit, one is often presented with a common retort against many Catholic doctrines:
“But [Doctrine X] is not in the Bible!”
I’ve written before in another post about the problem with this objection and about the logical problems and presuppositions associated with it. However, is the claim actually true in this case? Is it correct to say that we don’t see saintly intercession within the pages of Scripture?
We actually do see Saintly intercession within the pages of Scripture. We see departed Saints offering prayers and pleading for God to take action upon the earth. In fact, we don’t just see departed Christians doing this…
In John’s Book of Revelation, we read the following:
And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints…
– Revelation 5:8
These “twenty-four elders” are deceased humans, yet we are told that they offer bowls of incense before the throne of God which are representative of the prayers of other Christians. If they are offering these prayers to God, it would make sense that they have some knowledge of their content too.
In response to this, I’ve heard a variety of attempts to deny that this passage teaches Saintly intercession. However, the fact cannot be denied that the Book of Revelation presents us with a picture of the deceased interacting in some way with the prayers of those on earth. This stands in rather stark contrast to assertions which Catholics often hear (“Christians in Heaven can have nothing to do with Christians on earth”).
A little later in the Book of Revelation, we read about how the martyrs in Heaven petition God:
…I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne; they cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before thou wilt judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?” – Revelation 6:9-10
Here we have a concrete example of deceased Christian martyrs pleading for God to take action upon earth!
A few chapters later, we see not only Saints, but angels as having something to do with prayers from earth:
And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer; and he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne; and the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God. – Revelation 8:3-4
One might ask how this is possible. How could an angel have anything to do with the prayers of men on earth? How could they know of the contents of a man’s prayer? If we recall that angels rejoice whenever a sinner repents (Luke 15:10) then surely anything is possible through the grace of God.
UPDATE 11/20/15 07:10 – I just got back from Mass where the First Reading included the first passage I quoted in this post. I had no idea prior to posting 🙂
Seventh Day Adventists (SDAs) believe that Christians shouldn’t worship on Sundays and that the Saturday Sabbath is still in effect. In recent weeks I’ve been having a discussion in a Seventh Day Adventist in response to my post Why do Christians worship on Sundays? The exchange has been good and I think it’s well worth a read and I’d invite you to check it out.
I haven’t had much interaction with SDAs before and I hope to do some posts looking at their more interesting doctrinal positions, of which there are quite a few. However, in preparation for this, today I would simply like to do a post where I catalogue all the places in the New Testament where Sunday is mentioned:
1. The Resurrection
All the Gospels record the Resurrection taking place on Sunday (Matthew 28:1-7; Mark 16:2, 9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1).
2. Resurrection Appearances
Jesus appears to His disciples on Sundays (John 20:19, John 20:26).
3. Pentecost
The original Pentecost took place on a Sunday (Lev. 23:16) and therefore so did Pentecost in the New Testament (Acts 2:1). On this day the first sermon is preached, three thousand convert and are baptized.
4. Preaching and celebrating the Eucharist
In Paul’s travels, it is recorded that the Christian community came together to hear Paul preach and break bread (Acts 20:7).
5. Gathered collections
Paul instructed the Corinthians to gather their charitable donations on Sunday (1 Corinthians 16:2).
6. Vision of Heavenly Worship
Jesus gave the apostle John the vision of Revelation on the first day of the week (Revelation 1:10).
I’ve referenced this podcast quite a few times recently in online discussions, so I thought it deserved a post. In the following article from Called To Communion, there is a thirty minute lecture on what we know about Christian worship in the First Century:
In my previous post, I recounted a little bit of my own story and how I came to reconsider the Catholic teaching concerning intercommunion. In today’s post I would like to present the two main issues around which this teaching revolves.
