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Does Scripture support relics of the Saints?

Why Are Holy Orders Necessary for Some Sacraments?

The doctrine of scriptural perspicuity, championed particularly during the Protestant Reformation, contends that the Bible <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-protestants-biggest-bible-problem">communicates clearly</a> such that an individual reading it should be able to understand the contents without an outside source. This belief should not be confused with the early Church’s statements on Scripture being clear, as those examples are often talking about a specific belief that is clear in Scripture, other beliefs notwithstanding.
The Protestant Revolution created a rather new idea: that Scripture is not only clear on some points, like that Jesus is God, but clear on every essential point. If this is the case, I am unsure why so many Protestants have <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/sola-scriptura-and-basic-illogic">differing views</a> on the essential points. This would seem to completely invalidate the point, but I digress.
Protestant apologist James White is a huge proponent of this belief. In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/g0iiVcz425k">a debate this past weekend</a>, in the process of making his point, White employed a formal logical fallacy known as denying the antecedent to make his claim.
Before getting to the specific example, it would be beneficial for me to explain what this fallacy consists of. Denying the antecedent has this logical form:
<ol>
<li>If A, then B.</li>
<li>Not A.</li>
<li>Therefore, not B.</li>
</ol>
This logical form is invalid, because even though A leads to B, the negation of A would not necessarily lead to the negation of B. Real-world examples often make it much easier for someone untrained in philosophy to recognize this. In plain English, we could think of this example:
<ol>
<li>If it rained, then the ground is wet.</li>
<li>It did not rain.</li>
<li>Therefore, the ground is not wet.</li>
</ol>
This is clearly an invalid logic structure. If it rains, the ground will be wet, but just because it didn’t rain, it wouldn’t necessarily mean the ground is not wet. There could be other reasons why the ground might be wet, like someone’s sprinkler going off or someone watering some plants.
Another example may go like this:
<ol>
<li>If Person X is a doctor, then he studied medicine.</li>
<li>Person X is not a doctor.</li>
<li>Therefore, Person X did not study medicine.</li>
</ol>
This is also an invalid logic structure. Although doctors study medicine, so do other professionals, such as nurses, as well as former medical students who decided to change paths.
As obvious as this may seem, it is the exact fallacy James White made in his debate against Joe Heschmeyer in their debate on the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/g0iiVcz425k?si=ldKFbEMtvS3PWiZC&amp;t=3050">Mass</a>.
The passage that White was quoting comes from 2 Peter 3:16. It reads, “There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.”
Specifically relating to the subordinate clause in this sentence, White used the phrase “which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures” in the debate to argue that if ignorant and unstable men twist Scripture, then knowledgeable and stable men will be able to understand them. Here is White making his point:
<blockquote>Peter warns that untaught and unstable men distort Paul&#8217;s words. . . . If he says “untaught and unstable men,” would it not follow that a taught and stable man can understand Paul&#8217;s words and can accurately handle what he wrote?</blockquote>
This statement is a textbook denying the antecedent fallacy. The form goes like this:
<ol>
<li>If they are untaught, they will twist Scripture.</li>
<li>They are not untaught.</li>
<li>Therefore, they will not twist Scripture.</li>
</ol>
This argument holds the same form as the logical form originally given in the original examples. It does not follow.
It also seems unusual to quote a verse from Peter’s letter saying that some things in Paul’s letters are hard to understand while also attempting to argue that taught men will not have trouble. Putting aside the formal logical fallacy problem, if White is attempting to argue that taught men will understand Paul’s writings, why is Peter saying they are difficult to understand? Was Peter not taught? One may argue that Peter meant that these difficult passages would be difficult to understand “for some,” but Peter never makes such qualifications. Why read into the text?
In any case, despite not naming the fallacy, Joe did a good job of giving a counterexample on the spot to prove that the logical form is invalid: “If I said Gnostics misuse this text, that doesn&#8217;t mean that if you&#8217;re not a Gnostic, you&#8217;re going to use it correctly. That doesn&#8217;t follow at all. That&#8217;s not logical.”
This is absolutely correct. If I say A leads to B, the negation of A does not necessarily mean the negation of B.
In conclusion, White&#8217;s defense of scriptural perspicuity through 2 Peter 3:16 falters due to his use of the denying the antecedent fallacy. The absence of the antecedent would not necessarily mean that the consequent would not occur. Heschmeyer&#8217;s counterexample effectively exposes this flaw. When defenders of perspicuity must employ fallacious reasoning, perhaps the doctrine needs reconsideration.

Peter Too ’Untaught’ for Paul?

Cy Kellett welcomes Catholic apologist Trent Horn as they dive into a thought-provoking discussion about the use of sacred images in worship. Addressing a question from an evangelical listener, Trent clarifies the Catholic perspective on images, drawing from Scripture and the early Church&#8217;s practices to explain how these elements enhance rather than detract from worship.
Transcript:
Caller: I&#8217;m an evangelical Christian, and I grew up in a tradition where the use of images was always seen as something that was idolatrous. I think back to, I believe it&#8217;s Acts 22, when the apostle Paul sees all the worship that the Greeks are partaking in and all the idolatry that&#8217;s going on, and he&#8217;s disturbed in his spirit.
And, you know, my question is essentially, I don&#8217;t see any indication that the Apostle Paul would be okay or condone or encourage the use of sacred images of Christ or of saints in our worship services and liturgies. And I&#8217;m wondering if you can speak into that question.
Trent: Sure. I&#8217;m not sure what you&#8217;re referring to here. In Acts 22, I know that at one point Paul does say that maybe, maybe it&#8217;s here. No, I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s in Acts 22. He says that the Lord does not dwell in houses made with human hands. So you&#8217;re right, of course, that Paul is, I mean, First Corinthians is Paul&#8217;s very clear about his denunciation of idol worship. He says that an idol has no real existence because these gods do not exist. These idols lead people away from God.
But I don&#8217;t think it would follow from that that Paul would oppose any use of an image in relation to worshiping God. For example, the Book of Acts also records how a handkerchief was taken from Paul&#8217;s workshop that was on his body and it was used to heal other people. So here we have an image. We have a tactile object that is associated with a holy individual that is used for healing others. And Paul never rebukes that. He never says, &#8220;Hey, just stop doing that. Stop taking rags out of my workshop and using them to heal people.&#8221;
People understand that similar to the bones of Elijah in the Book of Ezekiel, that relics related to holy people contain God&#8217;s ability to work through these to effect various good ends. Now, that&#8217;s different, but we&#8217;re on a similar track here. Relics are, of course, different than images, but we&#8217;re both dealing with God making himself known in the world through different material means.
So I agree with you that you shouldn&#8217;t worship an image as if that were God right in front of you. But if you have it to remind you of something that&#8217;s holy, I don&#8217;t see the problem here, because we see Josephus talks about, and the Old Testament talks about how there were images that adorned the temple in Jerusalem. Or in Numbers, chapter 21, God told Moses to make a golden serpent for the people to look at, to be healed from the plague of serpents that had attacked their encampment.
So I think it&#8217;s the context, not just the image in and of itself. Do you see what I&#8217;m saying?
Caller: Yeah, I think I do. And I think I messed up the scripture reference. I think I was thinking, if I may just really quick tag on this, the situation where they have the situation with Diana where Paul offends the sensibilities of the Greeks.
Trent: Well, I know that some people, like in Acts 19 and others, that when Paul was preaching the worship of Jesus to Greeks, they were abandoning their worship of idols. And that enraged the idol makers because obviously now they couldn&#8217;t sell their product to customers.
And so there, once again, we&#8217;re talking about idols to other gods that are receiving worship that belongs to God alone. But the church has long held that an image&#8230; And I attend a Byzantine Rite church. And so the church that I attend is filled, filled from floor to ceiling with images from the Gospels. I love it actually for my 4-year-old because, you know, sometimes Byzantine services can be, you know, an hour and 20 minutes long or something like that, an hour 40 in Lent.
But honestly, he just looks at it; it&#8217;s like a comic book inside the church and he just looks at the stories of Jesus. My favorite comment of his is he asks, &#8220;Why was there a bat giving Jesus a banana?&#8221; And that was where the devil&#8217;s giving a&#8230; asking Jesus to make a loaf of bread. That&#8217;s neither here nor there; that&#8217;s just a personal observation.
But I think that when we use our intuitions when it comes to the use of images, I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s a problem. So for example, do you think that it&#8217;s wrong for a non-denominational Protestant church to have a Nativity display outside during Christmas?
Caller: To be completely frank with you, the tradition, or I guess the tradition that I&#8217;ve been raised in, there have been people that have had disagreements about that, which is why I think&#8230;
Trent: What do you think about it? What do you think?
Caller: I personally am conflicted because I definitely see the point of&#8230; It&#8217;s a reminder of something that God has done. And I am not offering worship to the Nativity set or to the baby Jesus in the Nativity set. So I frankly, I don&#8217;t think that it&#8217;s an idol.
Trent: Yeah, and I would agree with you. Now, if somebody thought that baby Jesus was right there in their little town&#8217;s nativity set, that&#8217;s going to get problematic. So I think that that same logic, we can extend it to the use of imagery or statues in Catholic worship.
Another example might be wearing a necklace with a cross on it, just wearing a simple cross on a necklace. Or in a church, like, what do you think about a church that has just a single cross at the front of the assembly? I mean, that is an image, right?
Caller: Yeah, I&#8217;ve always interpreted that as a reminder.
Trent: Okay, great. Well, then I think that we&#8217;ve got a lot of room here. I tell you what, if you give your email to our call screener, so stay on the line, give your email to our call screener, I&#8217;ll send you my book, *The Case for Catholicism*. I can email it to you. I have a whole chapter on the intercession of the saints and includes a subsection on venerating images and the debate about images you may find to be helpful.
So I would enjoy sending that to you if you could give your email to our call screener.

The Statues Are Why I Can’t Be Catholic…

When it comes to the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura (Scripture as the only rule of faith), Catholics must remember: the first Christians did not have a Bible to call their only rule of faith!
The last book of the New Testament, Revelation, was not written until about the year A.D. 68. That leaves a thirty-five-year gap between Jesus’ ascension and the completion of the Bible as we know it. Can an incomplete Bible be the sole rule of faith?
Furthermore, if the doctrine of sola scriptura were true, then the Church would have existed for a time without its sole infallible rule of faith. During this time, there would have been controversies, doctrinal disputes, and other difficulties that could not be resolved. On the individual level, believers would have lacked the fullness of divine revelation. Both of these facts demonstrate a fatal flaw in the doctrine of sola scriptura.
[A note on Gospel dating: Some modern scholars assign a date of A.D. 90-100 for the Book of Revelation. But in the informed opinion of this author, the earlier dates given by Jimmy Akin and other Bible scholars are more trustworthy. Moreover, if the later date is accurate, it would mean that the Church existed even longer without the New Testament as the final authority, thus weakening the Protestant position even further.]
The first few decades of the Church’s existence were turbulent. Persecutions had already begun, and more were imminent (Matt. 10:16-18, Luke 21:12, John 15:20-21, 2 Tim. 3:11-12, Rev. 2:10). Believers were being martyred (Acts 7:54-60, 12:1-2). The apostolic teaching was met with resistance (Acts 5:17-18, 27-28; 17:5-6, 13), and false teachings had already appeared (Acts 20:29-30, Gal. 1:6-9, 1 John 4:1). If the Bible was the Christian’s only rule of faith at that time, and if the Bible was not fully written, by the earliest reckoning, until decades after Christ’s ascension, how did early Christians deal with immediate threats to the new faith?
The New Testament answers this question. In Acts 15, we read about the Council of Jerusalem. The issue at hand was whether a believer had to be circumcised according to the Mosaic Law in order to be saved (v. 1). Luke tells us that “Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them”—that is, those who were insisting on circumcision—but since the issue was still not settled, these two men were sent to Jerusalem to confer with the apostles and presbyters to put it to rest. “After there had been much debate,” Peter stands up and delivers his ruling on the matter (vv. 7-11), after which “all the assembly kept silence.”
This is a telling account, because conspicuously present is Peter’s teaching authority, and conspicuously absent is an appeal to Scripture. In fact, those in favor of circumcision were the ones appealing to Scripture (vv. 1, 5), but Peter overruled them on the basis of his own power to teach on matters of faith. The Magisterium functioned exactly as Jesus had designed it to.
At this point in the life of the Church, none of the New Testament had been written yet. But there were still Christians who wanted authoritative Christian truth, who wanted to be saved. God didn’t abandon them as casualties of a sola scriptura system that wouldn’t be functional until long after they were dead. It doesn’t seem reasonable, therefore, to think that even after Jesus revealed the fullness of the Father’s plan, imparted his teachings to the apostles, and established his Church to be the means by which those teachings were brought to the world, there would be one group of people who lacked a rule of faith (no New Testament) and another group, much later, who had it once the New Testament was complete.
A Protestant might object: “Christians necessarily had to wait until the completion of the New Testament. The apostles may have been the authority during that time, but once the New Testament was written and the Bible was complete, it replaced the apostles as the only rule of faith for believers.”
And here is how a Catholic can respond: “This claim is pure supposition and has no support in the New Testament. Aren’t the important teachings of Scripture—like what transpires in the Council of Jerusalem, where the apostles demonstrate their binding authority—sufficiently clear, as Protestants claim? If sola scriptura is a central doctrine, why would it be based on inference at best and supposition at worst rather than being explicitly stated in Scripture?”
Faced with the time gap between the Ascension and the completion of the New Testament, Protestants are left with three possibilities regarding temporary sources of Christian authority for that period: (1) nothing, (2) the Old Testament, or (3) the apostles.
Of course, having nothing as a rule of faith for Christians is untenable. It contradicts the passages where Jesus clearly gives his authority to the apostles, it leaves the Church vulnerable to the kinds of difficulties mentioned above, and it leaves no court of final appeal to settle the Church’s internal and disciplinary matters.
The Old Testament by itself cannot serve as the rule of faith because it needs to be interpreted, as evidenced by the scenario just mentioned in Acts 15—or Luke 24, where Jesus has to explain to the two disciples walking to Emmaus “the things concerning himself” in “all the [Old Testament] scriptures” (v. 27) as well as to the disciples in Jerusalem (vv. 44-45). It functioned alongside the Jews’ tradition and the seat of Moses, showing that in practice, it was not a sole authority. And if it were sufficient for Christians, then the New Testament would not have needed to be written.
That leaves us with apostolic authority. Nowhere does the Bible indicate that it would be temporary—still less that it would give way to the authority of Scripture alone. On the contrary, we see that the apostles chose successors, who, in turn, possessed the same authority to “bind and loose” (render authoritative decisions) that they had. This is why Matthias was elected as a replacement for Judas Iscariot (Acts 1:15-26) and why Paul passed on his apostolic authority to Timothy and Titus (2 Tim. 1:6, Titus 1:5). If anything, pointing to the apostles to solve the authority gap supports the Catholic position: since Jesus intended his Church to exist until his return, he intended apostolic authority (the Church’s Magisterium) to exist, as clearly evidenced by the selection of successors to their office.

Christians with No Bible!

<div id="cs_control_3683" class="cs_control CS_Element_Textblock">
<div class="CS_Textblock_Text">
<h3>Friday of the Fourth Week of Easter
Lectionary: 283</h3>
</div>
</div>
&nbsp;
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<div class="CS_Textblock_Text">
<div class="bibleReadingsWrapper">
<h4>Reading 1    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/acts/13:26">ACTS 13:26-33</a></h4>
<div class="poetry">
When Paul came to Antioch in Pisidia, he said in the synagogue: 
“My brothers, children of the family of Abraham, 
and those others among you who are God-fearing, 
to us this word of salvation has been sent. 
The inhabitants of Jerusalem and their leaders failed to recognize him, 
and by condemning him they fulfilled the oracles of the prophets 
that are read sabbath after sabbath. 
For even though they found no grounds for a death sentence, 
they asked Pilate to have him put to death, 
and when they had accomplished all that was written about him, 
they took him down from the tree and placed him in a tomb. 
But God raised him from the dead, 
and for many days he appeared to those 
who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. 
These are now his witnesses before the people. 
We ourselves are proclaiming this good news to you 
that what God promised our fathers 
he has brought to fulfillment for us, their children, by raising up Jesus, 
as it is written in the second psalm, 
You are my Son; this day I have begotten you.”
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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<h4>Responsorial Psalm    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/psalms/2:6">2:6-7, 8-9, 10-11AB</a></h4>
<div class="poetry">
R.    (7bc)  You are my Son; this day I have begotten you. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
“I myself have set up my king 
on Zion, my holy mountain.” 
I will proclaim the decree of the LORD: 
The LORD said to me, “You are my Son; 
this day I have begotten you.” 
R.    You are my Son; this day I have begotten you. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
“Ask of me and I will give you 
the nations for an inheritance 
and the ends of the earth for your possession. 
You shall rule them with an iron rod; 
you shall shatter them like an earthen dish.” 
R.    You are my Son; this day I have begotten you. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
And now, O kings, give heed; 
take warning, you rulers of the earth. 
Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice before him; 
with trembling rejoice. 
R.    You are my Son; this day I have begotten you. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia.
</div>
</div>
</div>
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<h4>Alleluia    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/john/14:6">JN 14:6</a></h4>
<div class="poetry">
R. Alleluia, alleluia. 
I am the way and the truth and the life, says the Lord; 
no one comes to the Father except through me. 
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
</div>
</div>
</div>
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<h4>Gospel    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/john/14:1">JN 14:1-6</a></h4>
<div class="poetry">
Jesus said to his disciples: 
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. 
You have faith in God; have faith also in me. 
In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. 
If there were not, 
would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? 
And if I go and prepare a place for you, 
I will come back again and take you to myself, 
so that where I am you also may be. 
Where I am going you know the way.” 
Thomas said to him, 
“Master, we do not know where you are going; 
how can we know the way?” 
Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. 
No one comes to the Father except through me.”
</div>
Source: <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/readings">cms.usccb.org</a>
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Daily Holy Mass: Friday, May 8, 2020

<div>Is my medal still a miraculous medal if the prayer has been omitted from the side of the medal with the image of Our Lady?</div><div>Sounds like an accidental defect in the manufacturing process. At this point, we advise you to replace it with a correctly made Miraculous Medal and have that new one blessed. As to your defective medal, if it’s been blessed, you can just bury it in the ground per usual norms for blessed objects.
</div>

Defective Miraculous Medal?

<div>Is it only the pope who is infallible? Are the bishops also infallible? What about priests? </div><div>For an overview of the Church’s teaching on infallibility, see <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/papal-infallibility">our tract on the subject</a>.
</div>

Is Only the Pope Infallible?

<div>is there biblical evidence of individual judgement and a judgement at the second coming?</div><div>The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) covers the particular judgment in CCC 1021-22. The Catechism cites several biblical passages that affirm each person will have a particular judgment with God, including Matthew 16:26; 2 Corinthians 5:10; and Hebrews 9:27.
The Catechism covers the Final or Last Judgment in CCC 1038-41. Two classic biblical passages that support this teaching are Jesus’ words in John 5:28-29 and Matthew 25:31-46.
</div>

Biblical Basis of Particular and Final Judgments

“Pulling an all-nighter” is, in our cultural memory, a kind of academic rite of passage. Maybe they have a new term for it now, but surely the idea will remain as long as there are assignments to do and people prone to procrastination. Despite the fact that you’ve known about the paper for a few weeks, you just haven’t found the time to work on it, so you stay up deep into the night while everyone else sleeps, staring at the computer screen and keeping yourself awake with candy or energy drinks or whatever.
I know how often this happened in my teaching days, both high school and college, because I’d see the time stamp of paper submissions at 3 A.M., 4 A.M., etc. Every time that happened, I’d ask: why didn’t you just ask for an extension? Or, at the very least, why didn’t you just take the lower grade for turning it in a day late? Chances are pretty good that what you produce at 3 A.M. isn’t going to justify the sacrifice of a night’s sleep.
As a preacher, I’ve had to learn this, too: burning the midnight oil on Saturday trying to produce some kind of homiletical magnum opus is rarely as edifying for my soul, or yours, as good rest.
We see these kinds of sacrifices elsewhere. Sometimes, maybe, they’re worth it, sometimes not. We’ve all met the person who basically sacrifices every single free moment for a sport or a hobby or some other good thing. Maybe it doesn’t feel like a sacrifice if it’s what you really love. But in other cases, there’s a conscious sacrifice—I’m giving up this time, or freedom, or money I could spend elsewhere—to invest in this business, or to have a chance at playing college football or whatever. But there’s no guarantee—in fact sometimes the odds aren’t all that good—that such sacrifices will bring clear results.
Those examples are making sacrifices for good things. I’m sure we can all think about the sacrifices for things a little farther down the hierarchy of goodness. Sacrificing time with your family so that you can get ahead at work. Sacrificing your grades so that you can watch more YouTube videos. Sacrificing your sanity so that you can be right in a comment war.
All three of our readings today talked about sacrifice and suffering—and they all point to the sacrifice and the suffering of one person: the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
So here’s the problem. We hear all the time that we ought to imitate Jesus. And we hear all this stuff about sacrifice and suffering and serving others and so on, and this is all good, but often this idea morphs, in our imagination, into the assumption that Christian sacrifice means that it is noble to give up things that we need for things that we don’t need. For that is normally how we talk about and think about sacrifice in the world. People make “sacrifices” so that they can go on a cruise, or go to Disney, or buy a new car. On this deep, subconscious level, I think that many of us feel justified in making sacrifices for things that don’t matter because we’ve been told over and over again that sacrifice is good, period, and so we never move beyond that to the question of what we’re making sacrifices for, and whether the sacrifice we’re making is actually worth something.
It&#8217;s interesting how this language of sacrifice has permeated our vocabulary. In the old world, sacrifice was what you did for a god. So sacrifice for something else would be what the biblical tradition has always called idolatry. We may not claim to worship things like our good looks, our résumé, our voting record, or our bank account, but the sacrifices we make for them may suggest otherwise.
The picture we get in Scripture is different. It’s not just a celebration of sacrifice and suffering; it’s a celebration of a particular sacrifice and suffering that takes away sin. The sacrifice of Jesus is wonderful not just because it’s a sacrifice. It’s wonderful not even because he gives his life for other people. It’s wonderful because it works. It fixes things. It resets the world. It starts everything in a new direction. And that has everything to do with who Jesus is—God and man in one. In other words, not you or me.
So here’s the point: do not imagine that you are following Jesus just because you occasionally give up one thing for another thing. It’s tempting to be like James and John in their casual insistence that they can “drink the cup” of the Lord’s sacrifice. I’m not sure if they really grasp the meaning, or if they’re as clueless as the modern Catholic who can’t even bother to give up meat on a Friday. Either way, the Lord’s rebuke centers on the fact that they’re focused on the wrong goal; being willing to pay the cost is meaningless when you’re aiming for the wrong thing. The sacrifice entailed with following Jesus means offering our life in service to the good that he revealed.
So if you’re making sacrifices to do what is good, beautiful, and true, you’re on the right track. If you’re making sacrifices so that you can spend more time with the poor, or better support the Church, or pursue the beauty of holiness and virtue, you’re on the right track. On the other hand, if you’re making sacrifices just to do what you enjoy, or to maintain your personal image, you’re probably not on the right track.
To find the right track, the right path, is hard. It requires us to pay attention not to ourselves, and not even just not to ourselves, but to one specific person—Jesus—who alone can direct us to the source and meaning of all things. Only in looking to him, and to his sacrifice, can we learn what it means to be human, what it means to be God’s children, and what it means to suffer through the changes and circumstances of this world. Amen.