DAY 137

CHALLENGE

“Jesus is not God. He only claimed to be the Son of God.”

DEFENSE

By claiming to be God’s Son, Jesus claims to be God. His divinity is also indicated by other passages in Scripture.

By nature, Sons are equal to their fathers. When Jesus asserts that he is God’s Son, he indicates his equality to God the Father. The son of a man is a man, and the Son of God is God.

The New Testament explicitly acknowledges this. Jesus opponents tried to kill him “because he not only broke the Sabbath but also called God his Father, making himself equal with God” (John 5:18). Note that…

DAY 136

CHALLENGE

“Catholicism rejects justification by faith alone and thus the biblical truth about salvation.”

DEFENSE

While the “faith alone” formula is not commonly used in Catholic circles, it can be given an acceptable meaning.

The Catholic Church agrees that you do not have to do good works to enter a state of justification. It teaches that “none of those things that precede justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace of justification” (Council of Trent, Decree on Justification 8).

When we repent and are justified, God puts the virtue of charity (supernatural love of…

DAY 135

CHALLENGE

“Scripture mentions that Jesus had at least four brothers: James, Joses, Judas, and Simon (Mark 6:3). Therefore, there’s no way Mary could have remained a virgin after the birth of Christ.“

DEFENSE

Just because someone is described as a brother does not mean he had the same mother. The word is used more than one way.

The most common use of “brother” is for a male sibling who has the same mother and father (i.e., a full brother). However, Jesus had no full brothers, for Joseph was not his biological father (Matt. 1:18; Luke 1:26–35). This means that, when Scripture r…

DAY 134

CHALLENGE

“Catholics shouldn’t ask Mary and the saints for intercession. Scripture says, ‘For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus’ (1 Tim. 2:5).”

DEFENSE

Christ has a unique role as mediator, but this does not mean that he alone intercedes with God.

The term “mediator” (Greek, mesitēs) began as a business term refer- ring to an intermediary who helped two parties do business. In Judaism and other ancient religions, it came to refer to one who served a similar role securing good relations between God and man, reconciling them.

I…

DAY 133

CHALLENGE

“A perfect God could create a world he didn’t have to keep fixing. It would be able to run without periodic miracles.”

DEFENSE

This misunderstands the natures of the universe, of miracles, and of God.

The only reason the universe exists at a particular moment in time is that God sustains it. “What comes forth from nothing would return to nothing if it were left to itself and not conserved in being by the Creator. Having created the cosmos, God continues to create it, by maintaining it in existence. Conservation is a continuous creation” (John Paul II, General Audien…

DAY 132

CHALLENGE

“The Catholic Church is too uptight about divorce. People ought to be able to freely divorce and remarry if they choose.”

DEFENSE

The Church’s teaching on divorce is humane, just, and rooted in the teaching of Jesus.

The Church’s teaching is humane, for it recognizes that there can be legitimate reasons to obtain a divorce under civil (secular) law: “If civil divorce remains the only possible way of ensuring certain legal rights, the care of the children, or the protection of inheritance, it can be tolerated and does not constitute a moral offense” (CCC 2383). Thus no…

DAY 131

CHALLENGE

“Peter wasn’t the first pope because James the Just (aka “the Lord’s brother”) was the leader; he was the one who decided the results of the Acts 15 council, referring to ‘my judgment’ (Acts 15:19).”

DEFENSE

Jesus appointed Peter as leader of the Church (Matt. 16:18). Although James did come to have a leadership role, Jesus never made him superior to Peter.

Initially, the brethren of the Lord (see Day 135) did not have leadership roles, as they did not believe in him during his earthly ministry (John 7:5). They only later believed (cf. 1 Cor. 15:7) and became leader…

DAY 130

CHALLENGE

“The Catholic Church shouldn’t refer just to people in heaven as saints. All believers are saints.”

DEFENSE

The term “saint” is used in multiple senses, even in Scripture.

The term “saint” (Hebrew, qadosh; Aramaic, qaddish; Greek, hagios; Latin, sanctus) means “holy one.” Anyone who is in some sense holy or sanctified is in that sense a saint. This leads to many uses of the term in Scripture, though this is partially masked because English translators sometimes render the word as “saint” and sometimes as “holy one.”

The Israelites were a people holy to God (Lev. 20:26…

DAY 129

CHALLENGE

“Catholics shouldn’t say Mary is the mother of God. God is eternal and so can’t have a mother. Mary merely gave birth to Jesus’ human nature.”

DEFENSE

This misunderstands the title “mother of God.” You can’t have a correct view of Christ and still deny this title.

A person’s mother contributes genetic matter to him, carries him in her womb, or both.

Normally, a mother is older than her child, but Mary is an exceptional case, as the Virgin Birth shows.

Mary did not exist before the Second Person of the Trinity, who has always existed in the eternal now outside of tim…

DAY 128

CHALLENGE

“The resurrection of the dead is absurd. An ancient might believe that God could reanimate dead bodies, but after death our bodies are broken down into their constituent elements. Further, particles from one person’s body can end up in another person’s body.”

DEFENSE

Belief in the afterlife is a human universal. This is a sign that it exists. The question is what form it takes. God has revealed that the afterlife includes an eventual bodily resurrection. He has demonstrated this by raising Jesus from the dead (on the connection between Jesus’ Resurrection and ours, se…