March 2015 - To Give a Defense

How I write. 7QT XX, seriatim.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 20, 2015 • Blogging & Writing; Seven Quick Takes

When I was in graduate school (this was in the 1990s), I wrote everything longhand, keyed my rough drafts into an Apple IIGS using Appleworks Word Processing (I know; I’m 45), and revised, by hand, on the hard copy. Then I would repeat over a series of maybe 8 – 10 more drafts. Then, along about 2001, with the sudden ability to do a great amount of research directly from the Internet, I began to write entirely on the computer, in Microsoft Word. That was not a good idea: Inevitably, my computer crashed. And so I returned to longhand.

Is the novel Protestant? A reply to Joseph Bottum.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 8, 2015 • Literature

Of all things in literature, the one that is the most futile and impossible to generalize about is the novel. There are no limits to its form: That is a mark of its strength. No one can agree even on when the novel began; the standard narrative is that the first novel was Robinson Crusoe (1719), but that’s more a myth of convenience — and cultural chauvinism — than anything else. What about the 11th century Japanese Tale of Genji? The 12th century Arabic Hayy ibn Yaqdhan? The “Four Great Classical Novels” of the Ming and Qing dynasties?

The woman of the Apocalypse according to popes.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 4, 2015 • Apologetics; Marian Dogmas

In a recent post, Steve “Purple” Hays of Failablogue (he calls it Triablogue) tries to pit those wicked “lay Catholic pop apologists” against “their religious superiors” in the USCCB. The USCCB says the woman clothed with the sun is the Church, and Hays will side wth the bishops. That’s progress. Perhaps, then, he’ll also side with the bishop of Rome. Pius X, Pius XII, Paul VI, and John Paul II have said the woman clothed with the sun is also Mary. And before you cry, “Contradiction!” Haydock’s Commentary of 1859 says the woman clothed with the sun is Israel, the Church, and Mary.

Did Theodoret of Cyrus teach sola scriptura? White vs. Matatics (1997), part 2.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 3, 2015 • Apologetics; Debates; sola scriptura

Not satisfied with his effort to co-opt St. Cyril of Jerusalem into a defense of sola scriptura, Dr.* James White (Th.D., D.Min., etc., etc.), of Alpha & Omega Sophistries, goes on to abuse the text of Theodoret’s Dialogues by quoting him out of context too. This comes at about the 23:00 mark in his 1997 debate with Gerry Matatics. The quotation Dr.* White provides us is this one: “The doctrine of the Church should be proven, not announced. Therefore show that the Scriptures teach these things.” I will get there presently. First some background.