Response to Ben Douglass #3

I continue with my responses to Ben Douglas.

He has posted some videos over on GodTube. I gotta admit, seeing the number of Roman Catholics posting on GodTube truly makes me wonder, and maybe this makes me a mean, mean man, but I remember everything

I had on GodTube just disappeared one day. No email, no nothing, just everything deleted, gone, and it took quite some time to reconstitute all that over on YouTube.

And so it does make one wonder a little bit, but who knows? I'm not blaming Ben Douglas, just maybe there's a bit of a theological paradigm amongst those who run the place.

I don't know. I'm probably just a terrible person for even pondering the possibility, but I never have figured out how you can just delete an entire account, and then when they write, oh, well, you can always sign up again, given how fast

GodTube processes videos. I'd be an old man by the time I got caught up. Anyway, I've been looking at Ben Douglas' responses, and now we're finally getting into some of the information in regards to Ignatius, and I think it's important, though first I just noted that Ben was wrong.

He said I uploaded material arguing that Ignatius had a certain view of the Eucharist.

I didn't. I had done a dividing line back in 2004, and then when

Steve Ray appeared on Catholic Answers and started popping off all this stuff about Ignatius, totally ignoring the context, then

I took that audio and I synced it up with the text from Ignatius himself and posted this in response to Steve Ray as part of a number of things

I posted in response to Steve Ray. Keep that in mind as we listen to what Ben Douglas has to say.

So in response to this, Steve Ray, a Catholic apologist, posted a blog article with the title

Was the Anti -Catholic Right on YouTube? Was St. Ignatius of Antioch a Reformed Baptist?

Now this doesn't quite accurately reflect Dr. White's position. He does not in fact assert that St.

Ignatius was a Baptist, because this would imply that White and Ignatius hold to theologies which are identical in most or all particulars, which is obviously false.

What Dr. White actually asserts is that while there are significant differences between his and Ignatius' theology,

Ignatius is fundamentally on his side and against modern Rome when it comes to those issues which

Dr. White regards as the heart of the Gospel. Dr. White can correct me if this in any way mischaracterizes his position.

Well, here again is the problem. First of all, I appreciate Ben at this point accurately pointing out that what

Steve Ray said was wrong. It was an error. I would point out to Ben that this is a continued effort on Steve Ray's part to be wrong and to use the anti -Catholic moniker and to misrepresent things.

He knows he's doing this. It's purposeful on his part. So if I've missed your videos correcting

Steve Ray, I'd like to see where they are. I really would. I would be very happy to see them.

But I'm not presenting Ignatius as a Reformed Baptist. All I'm asking people to do is allow

Ignatius to be Ignatius. Ignatius did not address every issue that I would like him to have addressed.

He does not address many of the issues relevant to the subject of justification, for example.

That's not part of his concern, his apologetic. He's primarily concerned about Docetism and Gnosticism.

And so he's going to emphasize those things that are important to there. So I don't know that we can create a systematic theology of Ignatius.

I mean, he's very clear on monotheism. He's clear on the deity of Christ. There's Trinitarian references in it.

He's an early witness to the issue of the cross and the resurrection. There's a number of things we can look to him as a witness to.

But you can read all of his letters in a matter of moments. So I'm not trying to say he is significantly closer to me than Rome on this issue, this issue, this issue.

The whole reason I brought him up is real simple. Roman Catholic apologists abuse his statements and read back into him anachronistically modern

Roman Catholic definitions that simply aren't there. There is no way to honestly and forthrightly say this is what the man meant in regards to transubstantiation.

He was not an Aristotelian. And many are the Roman Catholic scholars who agree with this and recognize this is the case.

And so I was simply trying to say, look, this, just to go on national radio and say, this converted me to Catholicism, see it's so clear right here in the first generation, transubstantiation of the mass is a gross misuse of the early church fathers.

That's what I was trying to do. And I think any fair reading or listening to the videos that I posted, which are still right on this

YouTube account, will verify that that's exactly what my argumentation was.

So why did Steve Ray misrepresent Dr. White's position? What he told me is that he was just using a humorous rabbinic exaggeration.

It was never his intent to convey the idea that James White literally believes that St. Ignatius was a

Reformed Baptist. Unfortunately, a lot of people, myself included, didn't get the joke. But hey, we all fall flat every once in a while.

Oh, but according to James White, Steve Ray's motivations were much more sinister. He was being deliberately deceptive.

See, Steve Ray wants to construct a ridiculous persona of James White in the minds of Catholics. That way,

Catholics can just laugh him off as some silly ignorant Baptist, and never bother to read what he actually says.

Ooh, the deception. This also explains why Steve Ray doesn't like to mention

James White's name. See, he'll stoop to any level to prevent and obstruct Catholics from finding and reading what

James White actually has to say. Yet further, this explains why Steve Ray eventually changed the title of his blog article to Was St.

Ignatius a Protestant? See, now that it doesn't mention Reformed Baptists anymore, it's difficult for Catholics to figure out so much as who

Steve Ray is talking about. Man, Steve Ray really doesn't want anyone to read

James White. Wow! This is, of course, a load of nonsense. No, Ben, it is not a load of nonsense.

Not when this man is willing to post on his blog slanderous, libelous accusations against people in my family.

When he is willing, go back, Ben. Read, if he's even left them there,

I suppose he could pull them, he's edited other things before, but if the stuff's still there, or go to my blog, search on Steve Ray, and I will have quoted what he actually originally said.

The kinds of invective, and I also have the private correspondents too, that you are not aware of.

And the fact of the matter is, anyone can read Steve Ray. And I can tell you why he behaves the way he does, why he will not even mention me by name, because the man knows in his heart of hearts that he is dishonest.

He knows that his very story that he tells about Baptists, and how he represents them without distinction as utterly ignorant and stupid, would crumble like a paper house in a debate with yours truly.

He knows that. And yes, he did change the title, after I pointed it out.

But as you point out, it was misrepresentative. You want to believe it was just meant to be humorous.

Well, you know, sorry, I don't find it very funny, especially when it happens over and over and over again.

The language he uses, Ben, is not that of a person who is trying to be funny. The language he uses is the language of a person who is trying to be as disrespectful as he possibly can be, to cover the fact that every time

I challenge him on factual issues, he runs for the hills.

He ran and hid behind Gary Machuda on the Jerome and Athanasius issues.

He just blew up on the 33 ,000 denominations issues, and he is a man who knows he could never stand in public and survive a meaningful debate.

He knows it. And I imagine that probably makes him a little uncomfortable. And so that creates all sorts of less than appropriate behavior.

So no, sir, you can mock it all you want, but I think a lot of folks agree with me. When they watch

Steve Ray and they watch the way he behaves and they watch his dismissiveness, it's a very nervous dismissiveness.