Cameron,
I briefly glimpsed over the arguments made; I'm not a stranger to Catholic Forums, so most of what was said was familiar.
I almost had to smile at how Justification by Grace Alone is manipulated by the Catholic apologist.
Straight away they "affirmed" the position of Justification by Grace Alone; LEADING UP TO BAPTISM.
and then they stop there as if to say "YOU SEE"
Ummmmmm..... actually no.
Paul in his epistle to the Romans isn't referring to "works of the law" as merely the Levitical Law. He is referring to the Moral Law also as he explicitly uses the Moral Law or the Mosaic Law as an example more then once. All through Romans, Paul is referring to the Moral Law.
The whole Epistle to the Romans and the Galatians is refuting justification on anything other then faith in Christ.
As far as baptismal regeneration; I believe that it would be pretty hard to appeal to the Church Fathers.
Baptism was, is and always should be a necessary, established holy sacrament of the Church. In other words, even if Reformed Protestants only consider it a sign and seal it should still be maintained in strict reverence as being a means of grace that God, through physical worldly means, through us, uses to bring the elect to saving faith.
But of course, it's hard enough to show even a reformed protestant the basics of covenant theology, let alone a closed minded Catholic.
The honest truth concerning baptismal regeneration in my opinion is that most people in some way, shape, form or fashion lean more too and or wholly embrace baptismal regeneration.
So this is an extremely hard subject to apologize too. In my opinion.
Dave
