Bøger af Dave Armstrong

Protestants (especially Reformed Protestants, or Calvinists) often assert that St. Augustine's views were closer to theirs than to the present-day Catholic Church. My aim is to systematically document St. Augustine's advocacy of positions that historic Protestantism has expressly rejected, and (conversely) detail his opposition to some doctrines or beliefs that it has (generally speaking) espoused. Quotations are drawn from 44 separate works of St. Augustine, arranged under 157 topics, and also arranged chronologically within topics, insofar as that can be determined. This helps to clarify any development in Augustine's views. Editorial input is kept to an absolute minimum: confined to an occasional bracketed clarification (usually a contextual matter or reference) or briefly stated fact considered to be indispensable in understanding some aspect of the quotation. I'm delighted to pass along to readers a "capsulized version" of St. Augustine's wonderful and eloquent theological writing.

This volume consists entirely of papers, essays, and dialogues originally posted on my website and blog (both named "Biblical Evidence for Catholicism"): written between 1995 and 2011. These have been edited, revised, and combined in various ways, in order to clarify the thoughts and eliminate repetition. Most of the queries that I originally responded to came from our Protestant brethren in Christ. These occurrences afforded me the opportunity to defend and clarify what Catholics believe with regard to the communion of saints, why we do, and to demonstrate that Catholic beliefs are in harmony with Holy Scripture. Many topics are covered in the 21 chapters, including the invocation, intercession, and veneration of saints and angels, images, idolatry, relics, purgatory, prayer for the dead, and "controversial" devotional practices. It is my sincere hope and prayer that my own ruminations along these lines may be of some benefit to others, and both edifying and educational.

The present work mainly uses reason and Holy Scripture in order to explicate Catholic moral theology, in the areas of sexuality, gender, and the family. Far from being a merely "moralistic" or "puritanical" or "Victorian" sort of outlook (often perceived by many as a set of unnecessary, stifling, negative rules), Catholic moral theology is based on what God has revealed to us in His inspired Word, the Bible, and is a positive teaching about who man is, and what fulfills him, in accordance with God's purpose for His children, made in His image. It is my hope and prayer that this book will help Catholics to better understand the rationale behind their own Church's sometimes difficult-to-live-out beliefs concerning personal and institutional morality, and aid non-Catholics in finding common ground with Catholic moral teaching, and to better appreciate it, even where they find themselves in disagreement.

C.S. Lewis, the famous Anglican writer, once wrote: "The very possibility of progress demands that there should be an unchanging element . . . the positive historical statements made by Christianity have the power . . . of receiving, without intrinsic change, the increasing complexity of meaning which increasing knowledge puts into them" ("God in the Dock," Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI, 1970, 44-47). Doctrine clearly develops within Scripture ("progressive revelation"). Examples: doctrines of the afterlife, the Trinity, the Messiah (eventually revealed as God the Son), the Holy Spirit (Divine Person in the New Testament), the equality of Jews and Gentiles, bodily resurrection, sacrifice of lambs evolving into the sacrifice of Christ, etc. This book serves as an introduction to the notion of doctrinal development, written from a popular lay apologetics standpoint.