Dave Armstrong's meltdown is nearly complete

It's now common knowledge that Dave Armstrong cannot exegete Scripture; but it may still be unclear to some why he can't be trusted to exegete the statements of his contemporaries either. Here is a prime example. In an earlier blog entry, I wrote the following:

It appears that direct and substantive critiques of his work have proved too much for Dave Armstrong. He has pulled the plug on his little blog experiment gone bad (Read). It seems Dr. White, in his critiques of Armstrong's arguments that supposedly "confound Protestants," ended up "confounding" Armstrong himself, who is clearly in over his head on Greek exegesis--and he knows it. Wasn't it Dave Armstrong who criticized me for closing the comments section of my blog after he posted a barrage of ad hominem remarks? Wasn't it Armstrong who criticized James White for not opening a comments section on his blog? Wasn't it Armstrong who criticized Tim Enloe for closing the comments section of his blog. And now, as poetic justice would have it, Dave Armstrong is not merely closing the comments section of his apologetic blog--he's getting out of the apologetic blog business entirely!

In a recent blog entry, Dave Armstrong commented on the italicized phrase above:

Not to be outdone, Eric Svendsen . . . has also chimed in, claiming that I was "pulling" the exchange with White off my blog. With obvious gloating glee, he informed his eager readers that I was shutting down my comments too (like he did, so that he would have no comments on his blog). Somehow (I have no idea how he came to this conclusion), he even claimed that I stated such a resolve in my farewell

Here is a perfect example of why Dave Armstrong cannot be trusted with rightly representing the statements of those he opposes. My meaning here--as the context makes clear--was that DA'a decision did not involve merely shutting down the comments section of his blog (as did my decision, and James White's decision not to start a comments section, and Tim Enloe's decision); instead, his decision involved closing the blog to discussing "anti-catholic" apologetic issues (that, in context, is the meaning of "he's getting out of the apologetic blog business entirely!"). This is on what he wrote in his linked article:

Having endured (solely by the grace of God) now (on the Internet) eight-and-a-half years of maddening, exasperating, utterly futile, ludicrous attempted "dialogues" and "debates" with anti-Catholics (i.e., those who maintain that Catholic theology is a non-Christian system, and that the Catholic Church cannot be classed as a Christian institution), I have decided it is time to cease interacting with them altogether, for the purpose of my own peace of mind, lack of patience with suffering folly, and for the sake of the nature of what good, constructive dialogue truly is in the first place. . . . They will attempt to say that I am a "coward" now, since I am withdrawing from discussion with anti-Catholics. . . . I've paid my dues, and exhausted my reserves of patience. Now I am entitled to choose to do other things and interact with people who don't approach discussion with some huge ax to grind and tangible hostility, both personally and theologically.

Yes, and the day DA stops deluding himself into believing his decision simply had nothing to do with the fact that he was so easily outmatched, perhaps then he'll also stop deluding himself into thinking he's actually ceased addressing those "anti-catholics" he vowed to ignore. He continues to post blog entries against us "anti-catholics" to this very day! And that just days after he resolved to cease. That's no surprise, though. He's made these kinds of vows before and violated them shortly thereafter. Oh well, it was certainly nice while it lasted. : )