Triablogue

Fulfilled Prophecy As A Down Payment

2026-08-16T07:21:41.343-04:00

I've discussed the prophecies of Isaiah in some recent posts. Something that's significant about Isaiah is how it combines so many prophecies that have already been fulfilled and so many that haven't been. And they're often in close proximity.

Think of Isaiah 7-9 and the prophecies there that often come up at Christmastime and in other contexts. Here's a collection of some of my posts on Isaiah 9:1-7, for example, a passage I've done a lot of work on. Critics of Christianity, such as advocates of Judaism, often cite the eternal kingdom of peace referred to in Isaiah 9:7 as an example of Christianity's alleged failure to fulfill what the Old Testament anticipates.

But prophecy fulfillment can be likened to a down payment. What's already been provided gives you reason to expect the rest to be paid. As my Isaiah 9 posts linked above demonstrate, Christians have a lot of evidence warranting a Christian view of the passage, the conclusion that Jesus has already fulfilled a substantial part of it, and the expectation that he'll fulfill the rest as well.

And think of the nature of what's predicted in verse 7. It's an eternal kingdom. When will eternity end? Never. Can we perpetually object that not everything has been fulfilled? It would be absurd to object, after a million years of the Messiah's reign with worldwide peace, that those million years don't qualify as eternity and, therefore, not everything has been fulfilled. So what? You need to address the evidence for what's been fulfilled already. Prophecy already fulfilled gives us reason to expect more fulfillment in the future.

And it's not as though everything has been fulfilled in Judaism. Jews, like Christians, have to appeal to partial fulfillment.

And chapters 7-9 in Isaiah aren't all that's relevant here. There are other passages for which we have good evidence of Christian fulfillment that's already occurred, such as the Servant Songs.

Keep in mind that just as the portions of Isaiah that are still unfulfilled can seem distant to us, passages like the relevant portions of chapters 7-9 and the Servant Songs had the same status for pre-Christian readers. That was true to some extent for the earliest Christians as well, since Jesus' influence on the Gentile world, anticipated in so much of Isaiah, took centuries to develop to the extent it's gotten to in our day.

One reason, among others, why you can trust the prophecies of Isaiah that still aren't fulfilled is that there are so many others that have been fulfilled.

The Assumption Of Mary Isn't Just Absent In The Earliest Sources

2026-08-13T05:29:54.065-04:00

People often underestimate the evidence against an assumption of Mary and the evidence against the idea that her assumption is an apostolic tradition always held by the church. While it's true that the concept of an assumption of Mary is absent in the earliest generations of church history, the evidence against the concept goes far beyond that. See my posts here and here about how often the Biblical and extrabiblical sources discuss a wide range of topics relevant to an assumption of Mary, mentioning many individuals other than Mary in the process, without saying anything about an assumption that Mary experienced. Here's a post that discusses other contexts, like ancient Christian artwork, in which an assumption of Mary or other relevant events (e.g., her being raised from the dead) could have been included, but weren't. Again, keep in mind that many people other than Mary are included in such contexts, even though Mary isn't. There's also the fact that some patristic and medieval sources either expressed agnosticism about whether Mary was assumed (see here and here) or denied that she was assumed (see here and here). And here's a post about a medieval Pope who referred to belief in Mary's assumption as optional. On the problems with appealing to doctrinal development in support of an assumption of Mary, see here.

You can find many other posts with relevant material in our archives. See the list of posts under the Assumption of Mary label here, for example.

Notice Where Canon Discussions Begin

2026-08-11T05:18:33.498-04:00

What assumptions are being made at the start of the discussion? For example, when somebody like Cameron Bertuzzi is assuming the truthfulness of Christianity, that certain individuals of past generations were Christians, what writings attributed to those individuals are genuine, etc., did he get to those conclusions by a means he's criticizing Protestants for utilizing? Cameron has made a series of canonical judgments, about canons other than the canon of scripture, before he begins his criticisms of Protestantism on canonical matters. How does he know which documents attributed to Athanasius or Augustine, for instance, are genuine and which aren't? What's the canon of Athanasius' writings or Augustine's, Jerome's, Innocent I's, and so forth? Cameron probably frequently relies on Protestant scholarship on patristic issues, much as he relies on other sources who aren't conservative Catholics on patristic issues and issues pertaining to the Bible, church history, and so on. That includes scholars who are highly antagonistic toward Christianity, like Bart Ehrman, a source Cameron recently cited on canonical issues. Ehrman not only has been a scholar in the field of New Testament textual criticism, but also has done work in related areas. His doctoral thesis was on textual issues in Didymus the Blind, a church father. So, Cameron's conclusions on matters related to the Bible, church history, the church fathers, church councils, etc. depend on fallible, probabilistic judgments derived largely from scholarship that isn't part of conservative Catholicism (moderate Catholics, liberal Catholics, Protestants, Eastern Orthodox, atheists, agnostics, etc.).

When conservative Protestants are faulted for depending on sources they have significant disagreements with, keep in mind that conservative Catholics do the same. When conservative Protestants are faulted for relying on fallible, probabilistic judgments about controversial and complicated issues, keep in mind that conservative Catholics do the same. Etc.

Prepare Yourself For Canon Discussions

2026-08-09T06:54:37.310-04:00

Over the past several days, I've been responding to Cameron Bertuzzi's recent videos about issues related to the New Testament canon. I responded to him on Facebook and on Triablogue here and here. These issues come up frequently, not just in the context of Roman Catholicism, but also in other contexts, like Bart Ehrman's recent comments in response to Wes Huff. But few people are well prepared to address these topics. That needs to change.

A good place for starting to prepare yourself for future discussions is an article I wrote in 2009 about the evidence for the acceptance of our 27-book New Testament canon before the time of Athanasius' Festal Letter 39 in 367. Read Athanasius' letter. Read the other sources involved, especially Origen's seventh homily on Joshua. Think through the issues. Prepare yourself for future discussions, and speak up. If you don't like how these things have been handled so far, and you shouldn't like it, one thing to do is to make better use of your own responsibilities and opportunities.

Problems With Appealing To Doctrinal Development In Support Of The Assumption Of Mary

2026-08-06T05:24:15.292-04:00

One approach advocates of her assumption could take is to argue that the earliest Christians weren't aware of Mary's assumption, but that an understanding of it developed over time. It wasn't a new revelation, but rather is an implication of one or more aspects of the apostolic faith, an implication that wasn't recognized until sometime after the apostles.

There are some problems with that sort of approach, some of which I've discussed before. I want to repeat some points I've brought up in other discussions and add some that I don't think I've mentioned in the past.

The first point to be made is that an assumption of Mary isn't an implication of anything in the apostolic faith. An argument that an assumption of her seems fitting, is an implication of one or more passages in Revelation 11-12, or some such thing has to involve a demonstration that the assumption is a probability, not just a possibility. That's never been done, and it can't be done. We've addressed some of the relevant issues elsewhere on this blog, such as in my discussion of the material in Revelation here.

Another factor to take into account is the nature of the event under consideration. If Mary was assumed, people should have known about it and should have discussed it in our extant records, even if nobody other than Mary had been present when the assumption occurred. It shouldn't have taken decades or centuries for people to have developed an understanding of her assumption.

I'll discuss a few potential scenarios in which Mary could have been assumed:

- She was assumed without dying. If so, people should have noticed that she was missing. They also should have noticed that she wasn't ever found after a search was made for her. Dionysius of Alexandria wrote in the third century:

"Chaeremon, who was very old, was bishop of the city called Nilus. He fled with his wife to the Arabian mountain and did not return. And though the brethren searched diligently they could not find either them or their bodies." (cited in Eusebius, Church History 6:42:3)

And notice that Eusebius had enough interest in Dionysius' account to include it in his church history. Both men were interested in the account and expected their readers to be interested in it. Yet, nothing of the sort is said about Mary by any source of the earliest centuries or by any mainstream source after the claim of an assumption of Mary began appearing in apocryphal literature several generations into church history. Given how significant groups like Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy claim Mary is and how significant they claim her assumption is, you'd think there would be far more interest shown in her disappearance than that of a little-known bishop like Chaeremon.

Even if you put forward a scenario in which Mary was alone when her assumption occurred, her going missing and never being found should have gotten a significant amount of attention. It didn't. Instead, the belief that she died seems to be the view held by the large majority of sources throughout church history, including in the earliest centuries.

- She died, then was resurrected and assumed. Notice that the addition of a resurrection makes Mary's alleged experience even more unusual. There are two miracles to account for rather than just one, which affects things like the prior probability and the number and variety of contexts in which the events could have been discussed by the early sources (e.g., people writing about resurrection, as many did, could include Mary in the discussion).

If there was a resurrection, we'd expect the grave to be disturbed ("the tombs were opened" in Matthew 27:52; "the stone had been rolled away" in Mark 16:4; "remove the stone" in John 11:39). And Catholics and other advocates of Mary's assumption frequently tell us that the early Christians thought highly of Mary, would have had a lot of interest in her gravesite, would have sought relics of her, etc. So, shouldn't the disturbance of her gravesite and the fact that the grave was empty have been discovered early on?

Somebody might try to get around this problem by speculating that the gravesite wasn't disturbed.

- She died, was resurrected, was assumed, and teleported through the grave in the process, which left the grave undisturbed. Notice, first, that we now have three miracles (resurrection, assumption, and teleportation) rather than one or two. See my earlier comments about the implications of increasing the number and variety of miracles involved.

And we should ask why God would assume Mary in such a manner. It's suspicious to try to explain a lack of evidence for an assumption by positing that Mary was teleported through the grave. Was God trying to avoid having the sort of evidence that would usually accompany such an event? That's unlikely.

It's also contrary to precedent. See my citations of Matthew 27, Mark 16, and John 11 above. God didn't avoid leaving behind evidence on those other occasions.

It would also be problematic in that it would go against the popular argument that Mary was sharing in Jesus' experiences (dying as he did, being resurrected as he was, going up to heaven as he did). Jesus left a disturbed gravesite, so wouldn't the typical paralleling of Jesus and Mary suggest that Mary would likewise leave her gravesite disturbed?

And even under a teleportation scenario, aren't we supposed to think Christians would be highly interested in going to Mary's grave, venerating her, seeking her relics, etc.? So, shouldn't they have discovered early on that the grave was empty, even if it wasn't disturbed?

It could be argued that such interests (visiting Mary's grave, getting relics of her, etc.) didn't develop until later in church history. But then you're having to revise the claims that have usually been made about those other subjects in order to accommodate the lack of early belief in an assumption of Mary. And that concession would only explain a portion of the evidence against her assumption, not all of it. You'd still have to demonstrate that her assumption is implied by the apostolic faith, which it isn't, you'd still have to argue for an unlikely scenario in which God does something like teleport Mary's body through her grave, etc.

Any scenario an advocate of Mary's assumption proposes would face multiple problems. Addressing one of those problems doesn't address all of them. You have to examine the situation as a whole and ask how well the entirety of the evidence is being addressed. Mary's not being assumed best explains the evidence as a whole. If she died and remained in her grave, that best explains the lack of early discussions about the end of her life (because of the ordinary manner in which her life ended) and her absence in early discussions of subjects like people who never died, resurrections, assumptions, and people who are in a bodily state in the afterlife. Topics like those are frequently discussed in the early sources, and Mary's absence in those discussions, while such a large number and variety of other individuals are mentioned and mentioned multiple times by multiple sources, is conspicuous.

Difficulties With The Papacy

2026-08-04T05:17:04.044-04:00

One of my posts last week responded to a video by Cameron Bertuzzi about how Protestants view Hebrews, including its canonicity. Catholics often bring up the subject as an example of one or more problems with Protestantism, such as how difficult it is to justify the canonicity of Hebrews from a Protestant perspective. As my earlier post mentioned, there are similar issues in Catholicism, like Catholic disagreements over which papal teachings are infallible. See here for Trent Horn's comments on the subject in a debate he had with Gavin Ortlund, for example. When something like that Catholic disagreement over papal infallibility occurs in a Protestant context, it's often suggested that the disagreement over the subject is an unacceptable form of disunity, it proves that we need an infallible source to settle things for us, it's evidence that Protestantism is a blueprint for anarchy, and so forth. One of the things we're told is that the papacy is the solution. It brings about the clarity, unity, etc. that we need. But what if the papacy is what people are having difficulty with, are disagreeing about, and so on?

Another example was unintentionally alluded to in Cameron's video that I responded to in my earlier post. He refers to how some people have thought that Hebrews was written by the third Pope.

At this point, you might be consulting a list of Popes to see who the second Pope was after Stephen became the first Roman bishop we know of to claim something like papal authority in the middle of the third century. But Cameron wasn't referring to the actual history of the papacy. He was referring to the Roman Catholic history of the office. He had Clement of Rome in mind.

Catholics have disagreed among themselves about who the Popes have been. Even if Cameron misspoke, his misspeaking reflects longstanding disagreements over the identity of the Popes, including the earliest ones. See here and here for lists that place Clement fourth.

Some other examples:

"Clement, of whom the apostle Paul writing to the Philippians says 'With Clement and others of my fellow-workers whose names are written in the book of life,' [Philippians 4:3] the fourth bishop of Rome after Peter, if indeed the second was Linus and the third Anacletus, although most of the Latins think that Clement was second after the apostle." (Jerome, Lives Of Illustrious Men 15)

"As he [Stephen II, an alleged Pope] was never consecrated, and consecration was deemed essential by the canon law of the time, he was not reckoned a pope by LP [Liber Pontificalis] or any medieval document; only since the 16th cent. did the practice of considering him one, on the ground that valid election is all that is required for a man to be pope, become general in Catholic circles. Thus the Annuario Pontificio included him as 'Stefano II' in its official list until 1960, but editions since 1961 have suppressed his name and given subsequent popes called Stephen a dual numbering....The legitimacy of [Leo VIII's] pontificate, at least until John XII's death, has been contested; it depends on the validity, debated among canonists, of John's deposition....[Silvester III's] right to be considered an authentic pope is open to question....Usually classified as an antipope, [Alexander V's] claim to be an authentic pope is still debated, and some historians give him the compromise description of 'council pope'." (J.N.D. Kelly, Oxford Dictionary Of Popes [New York: Oxford University Press, 1996], 90-91, 127, 144, 237)

Did a Protestant pastor's daughter have a supernatural dream confirming the assumption of Mary?

2026-08-02T14:04:11.770-04:00

A Protestant pastor, named Daniel, recently posted a video about a potentially supernatural experience he had with his daughter related to Mary's assumption. He was researching the assumption of Mary, asked God to reveal to him whether the assumption is historical, and was told by his daughter afterward that she'd had a dream in which she saw Mary going up to heaven.

The incident seems to have a lot of potential to be supernatural on its face. Before I get to possible explanations of the episode if it is supernatural, I want to address some reasons to be hesitant about concluding that there is anything supernatural that needs to be explained.

He referred to how he hadn't talked to his daughter about Mary since Christmastime. He places her dream around the middle of this year, so the implication is that he hadn't talked to her about Mary for around half a year. But wouldn't Mary sometimes come up in other contexts, like when reading or discussing the Bible (including Old Testament passages that refer to the Messiah's mother and relatives more broadly in some way, like Isaiah 7 and the Servant Songs)? And he refers to some research he'd been doing on the assumption of Mary. It seems to have involved a lot of material: the Bible, the apostolic fathers, and the early church in general. I don't know how long he spent on that research. Maybe it was just a few hours, a day, or some other shorter period of time. But it seems more likely that it was longer. And if it was longer, and to a lesser extent if it was shorter, there's a large amount of potential for his daughter to have found out about his research in some normal manner. She may have heard him talking about it with somebody else, her mother may have told her about it, she may have seen an article on the assumption that was on a computer screen in their house (perhaps with accompanying artwork of Mary being taken up, which left a lasting impression in the mind of Daniel's daughter), she may have seen a book he was reading related to the topic, and so on. I don't know if Daniel has asked his daughter, his wife, and other relevant people about issues like these. I would think he did that before producing the video he put out, but maybe not. If his daughter learned about his research on the assumption by some normal means, then that diminishes the significance of the episode in question. It could still be supernatural, but it would be less significant if his daughter knew about his work on the assumption by some natural means before the dream. If we don't have enough evidence to determine whether she did, it's significant that there's so much potential for her to have heard about her father's research in a normal way. One hypothetical scenario is that he was reading an article about the assumption on his computer, got a phone call, and got up to handle the call. While he was away, his daughter saw the article on the computer screen. On the other end of the spectrum, another potential scenario is that all of his research was done in a church office, one his daughter hadn't been to in the relevant timeframe, and he didn't discuss his research with his wife or anybody else of relevance. I don't know if either of those scenarios or anything like them happened. But it would be good to have that sort of information.

Then there's the nature of his prayer. He says he asked God to "reveal" the truth to him. That seems unusual for a Reformed pastor to do, though it's a reasonable possibility. Years ago, when I heard that some Christians have believed in an assumption of the apostle John, I did some research on the subject and rejected his assumption based on my understanding of the evidence involved. The thought of asking God to reveal to me whether it's true never even crossed my mind, as far as I recall. It's possible that Daniel is reinterpreting his prayer in light of what happened later, in a misleading way. (I'm suggesting something sincere, not something dishonest. I don't think he's being dishonest.) A term like "reveal" can include something like a supernatural sign, but it can also include more common prayer requests, like seeking guidance, wisdom, or information. Did something like a supernatural sign, like his daughter's dream, even enter his mind before he was told about the dream? If not, is "reveal" the best term to use to describe his prayer request? If he was just making the common sort of request for guidance, information, etc. that people often bring up in prayer, then some significant implications follow. He probably should use a better term than "reveal". And isn't it likely that he made such prayer requests more than once, especially if his research process was a lengthy one? If he did pray like that on multiple occasions, then the occurrence of his daughter's dream shortly after one of those prayers is less evidentially significant.

And though he thinks his daughter mentioned the dream the day after his prayer, he expresses some hesitation about it. Go here to listen to him use the qualifier "I'm pretty sure". It would be good to get some clarification from him about why he added that qualifier. If he could get confirmation about the timing from his daughter, his wife, or others involved, that would help.

Another issue is the daughter's behavior in the surrounding context. How often does she talk about her dreams? How much had she done so on the day in question and the days surrounding it? Did she bring up other types of dreams around that time?

Let's assume the episode did occur as Daniel reports it and was supernatural. Like I said above, it does seem on its face to have substantial potential to be supernatural, even though it ought to be examined further in the ways I've outlined above. Granting the genuine paranormality of the episode, what should we make of it?

Paranormal events sometimes happen in affiliation with false claims, including false claims about Mary. Rival groups that make contradictory claims, including contradictory claims about Mary, have experienced Marian apparitions, for example. See my discussion here. There's a lot of reason to think the Zeitoun Marian apparitions are genuinely paranormal, but there's also a lot of reason to think the apparitions aren't Divine. See my article on the subject here especially, as well as my collection of Zeitoun articles here. Philip Schaff wrote:

"Henceforward the Immaculate Conception became an apple of discord between rival schools of Thomists and Scotists, and the rival orders of the Dominicans and Franciscans. They charged each other with heresy, and even with mortal sin for holding the one view or the other. Visions, marvelous fictions, weeping pictures of Mary, and letters from heaven were called in to help the argument for or against a fact which no human being, not even Mary herself, can know without a divine revelation. Four Dominicans, who were discovered in a pious fraud against the Franciscan doctrine, were burned, by order of a papal court, in Berne, on the eve of the Reformation. The Swedish prophetess, St. Birgitte, was assured in a vision by the Mother of God that she was conceived without original sin; while St. Catherine of Siena prophesied for the Dominicans that Mary was sanctified in the third hour after her conception." (The Creeds Of Christendom, Vol. I [Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1998], 123-124)

There's a broad variety of potential scenarios to take into account. I don't think Daniel's experience is fraudulent. He dismisses the demonic hypothesis. I take the possibility of demonic activity seriously, but I don't think there's adequate reason to conclude that what Daniel is reporting is demonic.

If Daniel's experience isn't fraudulent or demonic, it could involve human paranormal activity, such as telepathy or clairvoyance. It could be an ability somebody involved in the experience has, whether knowingly or unknowingly, or it could be something brought on by some kind of outside factor. It could occur as a singular incident or something that's rare in somebody's life, or it could happen frequently. I don't have access to the relevant information about Daniel, his daughter, and others involved.

There have been many reports of telepathy between twins. It was a subject Guy Playfair, a paranormal researcher I've often cited, studied in depth. In an article he and Nemo Mörck wrote for the Psi Encyclopedia, we read, "John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, mentions in his Journal for 7 April 1781 a pair of twin sisters 'between whom there is so strange a sympathy that if either of them is ill, or particularly affected at any time, the other is so likewise'. The women also had simultaneous identical dreams although they were living far apart, Wesley noted." And we read later in the article, "Telepathy is of course not restricted to twins. The other two pairings most likely to experience it are parents and children, especially mothers and newborn babies, and dogs and their owners." I don't know if Daniel has a biological relationship with his daughter or an adoptive one. If it's biological, which is more common, then there's more potential for some kind of telepathy, it seems, judging by the research done on these issues so far.

And there's evidence for dreams involving telepathy, as the Psi Encyclopedia article mentions, which could explain the dream Daniel's daughter had. Playfair, the paranormal researcher I mentioned above, was also one of the primary researchers of a significant poltergeist case I've studied in depth, the Enfield Poltergeist. That case involved telepathy, and some of it occurred in the context of dreams (between two or more people dreaming and potentially between a dreaming person and one who was awake at the time). For an example of the evidence for genuine telepathy in the case, see this clip from a documentary. (It involves vulgar language.) Do a Ctrl F search for "telepathy" here for a discussion of some of the other evidence. My article on dream phenomena in the case discusses some instances of telepathy in the context of dreams. For example, from Playfair's book on Enfield:

"During one of the girls' shared dreams, [Margaret Hodgson] kept saying 'I want to speak to Peggy next door' over and over. On an impulse, I went down to the kitchen, where Mrs. [Hodgson] was tidying up, and asked her to try some automatic writing. I showed her how to do it, and the very first words she wrote, in the characteristic form of [this] type of writing which I am sure she could not have faked, were: 'I want to speak to Peggy next door.' This seemed a remarkable coincidence. She could not hear [Margaret] from the kitchen" (This House Is Haunted [United States: White Crow Books, 2011], 103)

That could be an instance of telepathy between an individual dreaming and one who was awake at the time. Daniel's experience didn't happen in a poltergeist case, in the context of automatic writing, or anything like that. I'm addressing a broad range of potential explanations, with details like a poltergeist context or the involvement of automatic writing being incidental.

I doubt that Daniel's experience is Divine in the sense of God's showing approval for the conclusion that Mary was assumed to heaven. The problems with the assumption of Mary go far beyond the silence of the historical sources Daniel refers to. I'll probably be posting more on that subject later this month, but you can access some of my previous posts on the assumption here and an archive of many of our posts on the subject here. In a video responding to Daniel, Cameron Bertuzzi repeated his appeal to silence in the historical record about Marian relics as an argument for the assumption. Go here and do a Ctrl F search for "relics" to see my response to that argument when it was used in another of Cameron's videos earlier this year. Some people during the first several centuries of church history said that nobody knows what happened to Mary at the end of her life, referred to Mary's body as buried somewhere, etc. And even if they hadn't made such comments, an assumption of Mary wouldn't be the best explanation for the lack of claims to know where her body was. In a post in 2006, I cited John Chrysostom's comments, "Tell me, are not the bones of Moses himself laid in a strange land? And those of Aaron, of Daniel, of Jeremiah? And as to those of the Apostles we do not know where those of most of them are laid. For of Peter indeed, and Paul, and John, and Thomas, the sepulchers are well known; but those of the rest, being so many, have nowhere become known. Let us not therefore lament at all about this, nor be so little-minded. For where-ever we may be buried, 'the earth is the Lord's and all that therein is.' [Psalm 24:1]" (Homilies On Hebrews 26:2, v. 22) If you go to that 2006 article linked above, you can also read some material from Dionysius of Alexandria that's relevant in this context.

Keep in mind that if Mary was resurrected before being assumed, which is a common belief among advocates of her assumption, then that involves two highly unusual miracles, not just one. That makes the silence and other relevant characteristics of the sources more significant. It also heightens the initial unlikelihood of the series of events Catholics and others are claiming occurred. And while I agree with Catholics and others that Mary is an unusually strong candidate for an assumption, that isn't much of a factor. When people like Enoch and the two witnesses of Revelation 11 are taken up to heaven, but individuals like Abraham, David, Jesus' father Joseph, and Peter aren't, there doesn't seem to be much evidential value in the general significance of the person in question. God can have a variety of reasons for not assuming somebody to heaven, even if the person is highly significant in general. To paraphrase Tertullian, God could have given Mary the ability to fly, but we don't conclude that he therefore did:

"Well, but 'with God nothing is impossible.' True enough; who can be ignorant of it?...For a barren woman to have a child against nature was no difficulty with God; nor was it for a virgin to conceive. Of course nothing is 'too hard for the Lord.' But if we choose to apply this principle so extravagantly and harshly in our capricious imaginations, we may then make out God to have done anything we please, on the ground that it was not impossible for Him to do it. We must not, however, because He is able to do all things suppose that He has actually done what He has not done. But we must inquire whether He has really done it. God could, if He had liked, have furnished man with wings to fly with, just as He gave wings to kites. We must not, however, run to the conclusion that He did this because He was able to do it." (Against Praxeas 10)

Daniel mentions the high Mariology of the Protestant reformers. But the reformers had a lower Mariology in some contexts, alongside their higher Mariology in others. See my discussion here. On the diversity of views of the perpetual virginity of Mary in the late medieval and Reformation eras, see here. The evidence from the New Testament authors, Josephus (who knew the man who put Jesus' brother to death), Hegesippus, Irenaeus, and other early sources is against Mary's perpetual virginity. The earliest Christians were likewise opposed to Mary's sinlessness, praying to her, and venerating images of her. See the relevant articles linked here for further details. That evidence from those early sources is much more significant than the agreement of some early Protestants with some portions of Catholic Mariology. Daniel would agree with at least some of what I just said, but it should be said for the sake of the broader audience.

It would take something with a lot of evidential weight to tip the scales in favor of an assumption of Mary. Daniel's experience doesn't meet that standard, given how easily it could be non-paranormal or paranormal without being Divine.

Why think Hebrews is canonical?

2026-07-30T05:39:06.116-04:00

Cameron Bertuzzi recently posted a video asking Protestants a few questions about Hebrews. I've addressed the questions before, but I'll summarize my answers here and provide links to some of my older material on the issues involved and more recent updates.

I think Barnabas is the most likely candidate for authorship of the book, for reasons discussed here. But that's a lesser issue than canonicity. You could be agnostic or wrong about the book's authorship, but still have sufficient reason to accept the book as canonical.

We have good evidence that the apostles were given the ability to produce scripture. See my response to Trent Horn here for an outline of the case for that conclusion. I've written more about the relevant evidence elsewhere, like this post on 1 Timothy 5:18. More significantly, see my recent work here on John 14-17 and John's likely belief that his gospel was a fulfillment of what Jesus anticipated in those chapters.

The New Testament gives us reason to think the apostles could produce scripture and identifies some of the books of scripture they produced, but it doesn't identify all of them. That's similar to the Roman Catholic situation with papal infallibility. The First Vatican Council tells us about it and gives us some principles to go by, but doesn't tell us what every infallible papal teaching is, a subject Catholics continue to disagree with each other about.

A post I linked earlier, here, discusses some of the internal and external evidence that Hebrews was one of the books of scripture produced by the apostles (through apostolic authorship or apostolic approval). Another post, here, discusses the insignificance of later disputes about Hebrews' canonicity. One of the lines of evidence most often cited is what Eusebius tells us about how widely the New Testament books were accepted up to his day. He includes Hebrews among the "undisputed" books at one point, but then goes on to say, "It is not indeed right to overlook the fact that some have rejected the Epistle to the Hebrews, saying that it is disputed by the church of Rome, on the ground that it was not written by Paul." (Church History 3:3:5) As my posts above explain, there's evidence for Hebrews' widespread use and acceptance as scripture early on, including in Rome. The objections to Hebrews that we know of were late, probably just coming from a minority of Christians, likely a somewhat small minority, and the reasoning behind the rejection mentioned by Eusebius ("not written by Paul") is inadequate grounds for rejecting the book's canonicity. The best explanation for the book's early and widespread use and acceptance as scripture, despite the disputes over its authorship, is that it's one of the books written or approved as scripture by the apostles.

That judgment is based on a combination of internal and external evidence and requires no belief in something like papal or conciliar infallibility. It does involve the acceptance of various claims made by ancient Christian sources, but there's no reason to think those sources as a whole should be affiliated with a group like Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, or Copticism or all of those groups combined, as I've argued elsewhere. And even if somebody thought a particular church father was Roman Catholic, for example, you could trust that church father on an issue for whatever reasons without being obligated to become Roman Catholic. Similarly, we trust Josephus on some issues without having to convert to Judaism, Catholics trust the patristic work of Protestant scholars like Philip Schaff without being obligated to become a Protestant, etc.

And there are other reasons for accepting Hebrews' canonicity. Jesus and the apostles seem to have accepted the Old Testament canonical consensus of the Jewish people of their day (e.g., Luke 11:51, Romans 3:2). That gives us some precedent for accepting a New Testament canonical consensus if there were to be one, which there is. The Old Testament situation doesn't require that a New Testament canonical consensus be accurate, but the Old Testament precedent does have some evidential significance. Part of the reason why is that Jesus, the apostles, and other relevant Biblical figures referred to how the people of God can recognize the word of God without the sort of methods advocated by groups like Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy (John 10:4, 1 Corinthians 14:37, 1 Thessalonians 2:13, etc.). The church fathers and other extrabiblical Christians before the Reformation often appealed to that sort of ability to recognize the Divine inspiration of scripture without anything like a papal decree or council ruling. Some of the means of recognizing scripture are of a more objective nature, and some are of a less objective nature. It would be absurd to deny that God can use a variety of means to lead people to a recognition of his communication with us, including means that are of a less objective and less verifiable nature. That sort of less objective, less verifiable means of recognizing scripture doesn't require that the people involved are infallible. It also doesn't involve a denial that there are more objective, more verifiable means of recognizing scripture, like what I discussed earlier in this post. The two coexist.

Accepting Hebrews' canonicity on the basis of Roman Catholicism's authority claims is a bad alternative. See the evidence here that the early church wasn't Roman Catholic. The foundation of Roman Catholicism is the papacy, and that office doesn't follow from anything Jesus and the apostles taught and is absent and contradicted early on. See here for an overview, here regarding the anti-papal view of the church held by Ignatius of Antioch, and so on.

Setting His Face To Go To Jerusalem

2026-07-28T05:21:30.253-04:00

There's a prominent theme in the gospel of Luke about Jesus' determination to go to Jerusalem to complete what he came to earth to do. There's a verse that highlights what's referred to in other places in Luke as well:

"When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem." (9:51)

The third Servant Song in Isaiah uses similar language, about the setting of the face, when discussing the suffering Jesus was to undergo in Jerusalem:

"I have set my face like flint" (50:7)

Some of Jesus' fulfillments of the Servant Songs in the gospels are more explicit (e.g., Luke 22:37). There are some that are more subtle, though. Noticing the more subtle ones and the cumulative effect of all of the evidence is important.

Isaiah's Greater Servant

2026-07-26T07:07:04.483-04:00

I've written a lot over the years about Isaiah's Messianic prophecies. See here on Isaiah 9:1-7 and here on the Servant Songs, for example.

One of the most common objections to a traditional Christian view of the latter, the Servant Songs, is that Israel or a remnant in Israel could be the Servant or is referred to as the Servant elsewhere in Isaiah. Why not interpret the Servant Songs that way? Why think they're about Jesus or have any kind of significant secondary application to him?

One answer is to highlight something in the objection that's being raised. Why refer to Israel or a remnant within Israel? Partly because different Servant passages seem to be referring to different entities. So, the idea that there's one entity the other Servant passages are consistently referring to, and we therefore should assume the passages Christians apply to Jesus are also about that one other entity, is false. A good way of illustrating that fact is to cite the reference to Isaiah as "my [God's] servant" in 20:3 (or the reference to David in that manner in 37:35, etc.). The Servant theme is prominent in Isaiah (which is more evidence for the unity of the book), and it's undeniably applied to at least a few different entities.

I've argued for Jesus' fulfillment of the passages often referred to as the Servant Songs elsewhere, like in the posts linked above. I won't repeat all of the details here, but something I want to highlight is how stark the differences are between the Servant Songs, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the Servant passages immediately surrounding the Servant Songs. Notice the plural "men" in 41:14, the plural "people" in 42:22 and "we" in 42:24, the references to the sinfulness of the Servant in 42:18-25, the same characteristics in 43:8-28, 44:21-23, 45:4-5, etc. In fact, the Servant Songs refer to some other Servant who will redeem the Servant referred to earlier (e.g., 49:5-7), as I've argued in posts like the ones linked earlier.

The title of this post is meant to allude to the concept of the Messiah as David's greater son. Isaiah has a concept of a Servant who's greater than the others.