Help for giving answers to a Protestant objections?

[Camillus14]

What you need is a tutorial on apologetics strategies and techniques. Fortunately, there is a free one which you can find here:

biblechristiansociety.com/download

Hope this helps!

It really did help a lot! Thanks for referring it to me.

“I do not think Mary is sinless and should be honored/debatably-worshipped/glorified to the extent that she is in Catholicism”

As a convert I can understand this. I can still have a sense of this. But we have to move beyond some gut feeling and think this through. You can ask your friend the simple question, ‘how much honor should we give Mary and how do you know that’? He probably doesn’t have a good answer for either. Catholic theology has this extremely well thought out with Latria, Dulia and Hyperdulia. For me when I read about this, probably in the Catholic encyclopedia, I realized that we can give tremendous honor to Mary. I realized it doesn’t take away from God but that Mary, and even you and me, can be secondary causes of salvation for others.

I’d ask him what he makes of Luke wherein the Blessed Virgin says all generations will call me blessed. I’d ask him if he calls her blessed. If not why not. Ask him what he makes of the Catholic Church calling her blessed, following Scripture, when he doesn’t.

For me this was important. I’m not sure how I was so ignorant of Orthodoxy, especially since my church youth group had actually visited the local Greek Orthodox Church. I think I just assumed they were another equally valid branch of Christianity. That is after all the typical Protestant concept.

When I finally started to think about it I realized it was the minority Protestant theology versus the larger and more ancient Catholic and Orthodox theology. That didn’t make that side right, but it did make me realize I’d have to give it greater consideration. It also made me realize all the anti-Catholic arguments would have to be applied to the Orthodox. The problem is many of them just didn’t hold up as well when so applied. Reading the correspondence between the early Lutherans and the Orthodox sealed the deal. The Orthodox clearly rejected Lutheranism as an innovation and departure from the Apostolic Faith.

Thank you…! Having a little insight on what he might be looking on things helps for me. I don’t want to seem like I’m not acknowledging him.

I think you might get even more help by posting questions about defending the Catholic faith, Catholic apologetics, over in the Apologetics Forum.

Thank you for your reply! I’ll also keep the things you’ve said in mind. I really grateful for all of you taking the time to help me!

 

[pablope]

It really did help a lot! Thanks for referring it to me.

Thank you…! Having a little insight on what he might be looking on things helps for me. I don’t want to seem like I’m not acknowledging him.

Thank you for your reply! I’ll also keep the things you’ve said in mind. I really grateful for all of you taking the time to help me!

This is from Post 16:

*I prefer to go on the offensive. Ask him what he thinks about the beliefs and practices of the 300 million members of the 2,000 year old Eastern Orthodox Church. Chances are he simply won’t know. Tell him that they are 95-98% identical to Catholic and ask him why he does not attack them and accuse them. Why only the Catholic?

Next, ask him why he believes ideas that are only 100 or so years old (Evangelicalism), and why he believes that the truth was hidden from mankind until a psychologically unstable European man came up with his own ideas. Of course, he cannot answer where the bible teaches sola scriptura, because it does not.
*

Just to relate to you what I had done, is to ask Protestant with the same attidude, I ask them to explain to me, how can they be sure what they believe is teh truth…and to prove to me why Sola Scriptura…or why they believe the Bible contains everything as they believe it to be.

But be prepared with your responses to what they will say.

An example is when a protestant presents this to prove SS:

2Tim3:

16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work

My response would be to ask him/her to read starting at verse 14 and explain it with verse 14:

14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work

Now, it does not sound like Scripture alone, ain’t it.

Now you have planted a seed, and impressed that you may know more Scripture than your friend.