[Apologetics] Purgatory is key issue

[Bret Bellamy]

"They really believe that "all Catholic doctrines are unbiblical - even the ones I agree with".  Pressing on the contradiction tends to make them prefer heresy (God never disciplines true believers) to admitting that they might agree with Catholics on just a few points."

I've noticed the same things, even back when I was still Anglican and on Dave Armstrong's old lise serve some ten years ago.  That list serve had a mix of Catholics, different Protestants and some Eastern Orthodox (who were sadly so ugly that I turned off crossing the Bosphorous as an option).  There were cases where some (but not all) Protestant agreed with a Catholic doctrine, but because it was Catholic, they had all sorts of issues and hangups about it.  

Bret

-----Original Message-----
>From: "Stuart D. Gathman" <stuart at gathman.org>
>Sent: Apr 10, 2008 10:57 AM
>To: apologetics at gathman.org
>Subject: [Apologetics] Purgatory is key issue
>
>I think the purgatory issue is the key to ending the Catholic and 
>Evangelical straw-man massacre.  Evangelicals will repeat the doctrine of 
>purgatory over and over again in their own words, but continue to denounce 
>the Catholic doctrine - even when presented with the same vocabulary! 
>There really is a suspension of reason.  They could reasonably claim that 
>I am mis-representing the Catholic position (and I have gotten that on 
>occasion - those Catholics are tricky, they pretend to use words in a 
>different way just to deceive you!).  But instead there is a cognitive 
>dissonance with affirming a doctrine when attributed to Evangelicals, but 
>denouncing the same doctrine with same words and same scriptures when 
>attributed to Catholics.  Amazing.  They really believe that "all Catholic 
>doctrines are unbiblical - even the ones I agree with".  Pressing on the 
>contradiction tends to make them prefer heresy (God never disciplines true 
>believers) to admitting that they might agree with Catholics on just a few 
>points.
>
>Sugarman just hit me a slow high return just asking for a slam dunk:
>"The bottom line is if no doctrine can be back up by scripture then its 
>not true."  Boy could I have fun with that.  But I'll restrain myself. 
>I'll just lament with the Professor in Narnia: "Logic!  What do they teach 
>in schools these days?"  It may be that apologetics is useless without an 
>introductory logic course first.  It may be better to just quote a few 
>scriptures and leave it alone.
>
>-- 
> 	      Stuart D. Gathman <stuart at bmsi.com>
>Business Management Systems Inc.  Phone: 703 591-0911 Fax: 703 591-6154
>"Confutatis maledictis, flamis acribus addictis" - background song for
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