Do Protestant Beliefs Stand Up to Logic?
New book exposes foundational flaws in anti-Catholic arguments
SAN DIEGO: For centuries, Catholics have contended against Protestant attacks on the Church. The Church’s defenders will appeal to historical facts, quotations from ancient saints, and other data—and these are all well and good. But for those who wince at memorizing textbooks or poring through primary sources, a new book from Catholic Answers Press provides a simple and elegant tool that anyone can use right now: the straightforward formulas of logic.
In The Protestant Fallacies, Parker Manning exposes the often-subtle logical errors underlying Protestants’ most common accusations against the Catholic faith. These weak points—the red herring, the tu quoque, and other less common but just as dangerous ones—come up constantly in debates on every topic, and the “Catholic vs. Protestant” debate is no exception. Parker proves that thoroughly, with real-world examples from best-in-class Protestant apologists.
“Logical fallacies prey on our ability to reason and leave us vulnerable to the seduction of error—especially when they’re coupled with half-truths,” said Todd Aglialoro, Catholic Answers’ director of publishing. “This is an apt way to describe Protestantism, which distorts gospel truths through flawed rational processes to get non-gospel falsehoods.”
How to overcome these falsehoods? “Many Catholics can tell by instinct when a Protestant argument doesn’t smell right,” Aglialoro continued, “but Parker Manning has done the hard work of sleuthing out the specific errors of logic on which Protestant arguments rely, giving them their proper name, and showing us how to refute them with right reason.”
About the Author:
Parker Manning is a recent graduate of Purdue University Northwest who has written several books on theology and philosophy.