The Matthew 16 Controversy?

Alpha & Omega Ministries

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

Comments are disabled.

00:00

And welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is James White, and I am very excited today to be joined on the phone by my good friend

00:07

Bill Webster. Bill is the author of a number of books, and we're going to be talking specifically about some books that are very relevant to topics we've discussed in the past here on The Dividing Line, specifically looking at the subject of Roman Catholicism.

00:23

I think one of the greatest compliments that has been paid to me in the past is that I am merely somewhat of a toady of Bill Webster.

00:35

Stop laughing at me, Bill. That's not nice out there. I'm a toady of Bill Webster.

00:42

I can't do any original research on my own. Bill does all the research for all us nasty folks, and then we just repeat everything he has to say.

00:51

But we're going to be talking this week with Bill Webster about his books, and then I'm very happy to announce that Bill can join us again,

00:57

Lord willing—that's always a good thing to say—next week, and at that time we will be looking at having phone calls.

01:05

So if you have questions, you have some comments that you would like to make, please make sure that next week,

01:13

February the 6th, you can join us and talk with Bill Webster and myself on this very important subject.

01:19

Now we're looking at the subject of the Matthew 16 controversy.

01:25

We are also looking at the subject of the Church of Rome at the bar of history.

01:31

Bill Webster, thanks for joining me today. Thank you, James. It's great to be with you. Well, you know, we met,

01:37

I believe, for the first time at the CURE debates in Los Angeles, if I'm recalling that correctly, and at that time stood around and talked about stuff that, you know,

01:48

I think if most people had listened to our conversation, they would have thought that we were speaking in tongues or something like that.

01:55

We're talking about people like Ignatius and Irenaeus, and we're talking about papal primacy and all the rest of this stuff.

02:04

What in the world got you into a situation where you would be writing on the subject of Roman Catholicism?

02:11

For example, your book, The Church of Rome at the Bar of History, is with Banner of Truth.

02:17

It's a hardback, which means you've arrived. I have no hardback books. Well, they sort of brought me down in humility because now it's in paperback.

02:27

Well, that's the way it's supposed to work. It starts as a hardback and it goes to a paperback. I just start with the paperback.

02:33

So you're the real author. I'm just the wannabe author. That's right. But how did you get into all this?

02:39

I was raised Roman Catholic, born cradle Catholic. I went to parochial schools all through grade school.

02:46

I went to a Benedictine monastery in high school. Actually, it was a prep school in Rhode Island that was run by a

02:56

Benedictine monastery. After that experience, I basically opted to become an agnostic.

03:05

It was when I was 24 years old that the Lord graciously and sovereignly brought me into the kingdom.

03:12

When the Lord saved you, you have an instinctive desire to want to share the gospel with others.

03:20

Because of my upbringing and my background, I had a very keen interest in Roman Catholicism. I was pretty quickly brought to the awareness of the fact that there was not much out there in terms of writing and literature with respect to trying to understand what

03:42

Roman Catholicism really means, what does it stand for. You hear the claims of Rome constantly, but from an evangelical perspective, how do you understand

03:52

Roman Catholicism? And out of that desire, I began to do some research. I wrote a book, the first book

03:58

Banner ever did that I had written, called Salvation in the Bible and Roman Catholicism. That is basically looking at the salvation teachings of the

04:09

Roman Catholic Church in comparison to the scriptures. When did that come out? That came out in 1990.

04:17

Subsequent to that book, I was challenged by Karl Keating's Catholicism and Fundamentalism, because I did not deal with any real historical issues in the first book.

04:29

It became very apparent that if you're going to have a clear understanding of Roman Catholicism and you're going to be able to effectively share with, let's say, a

04:40

Roman Catholic who is at least literate with respect to what Catholicism stands for, you're going to have to deal with issues of history, because this enters into the whole question of authority.

04:51

And there are two basic issues within the whole Roman Catholic situation.

04:57

One is salvation, what is salvation, and the other is authority. And authority is the key to everything.

05:03

Of course, Roman Catholicism's claims are based upon authority claims, and all of these relate in one degree or another to historical claims.

05:14

So I was driven out of a desire, first of all, for my own benefit to understand Church history, because I have to admit, at the time,

05:21

I was relatively ignorant of Church history. Roman Catholics would make claims which, you know, they would sound good, but they would also have a ring to,

05:33

I wonder if that's really true. And if you're not familiar with the Church Fathers, if you've never read them, the

05:40

Roman Catholic arguments can sound very convincing. And as I began to immerse myself in the writings of the

05:46

Church Fathers and began to do research and to read historians to try to get some context, it became very apparent to me that the

05:52

Roman Catholic claims simply were not true historically. It hasn't been your experience, it's been mine anyways, that there's almost, on the part of Roman Catholic apologists such as a

06:04

Karl Keating, a Patrick Madrid, a Robert St. Genes, there's almost, on their part, a knee -jerk reaction to anyone who would dare even address the early

06:15

Church Fathers and what they taught. It's almost like, look, this is our domain, these are our guys, and you are automatically disqualified from addressing these issues simply because you're not a

06:28

Catholic. Yeah, that definitely is true. They think that, you know, this is clearly their domain that you would not have any full understanding of the

06:38

Church Fathers to begin with. But the interesting thing there is that an Eastern Orthodox would say exactly the same thing about a

06:44

Roman Catholic, a Roman Catholic would say exactly the same thing about an Eastern Orthodox on certain issues of history.

06:50

So, you know, to say that we don't have a right to challenge the book that I did, the

06:57

Matthew 16 Controversy, I was very careful to try to bring together a group of Orthodox, Protestant, and Roman Catholic historians to give a consensus of opinion to what

07:10

I was trying to say in the book. So I'm not sitting out here as a Protestant saying,

07:16

I have this point of view and I'm the only one who has it. My point of view is actually in agreement in many ways with the

07:23

Eastern Orthodox point of view, at least from the papacy, and with that of many well -known and recognized, world -renowned historians.

07:32

And that, of course, is what ends up bringing a lot of the controversy in here. I mean, the book is titled the

07:38

Matthew 16 Controversy, which, of course, for those who aren't familiar with it, the Matthew 16, 18 through 19 is the key papal passage in the

07:48

New Testament. It is the foundational verse upon which Roman Catholic claims for the papacy are based.

07:55

And there have been claims made by the Roman Catholic Church concerning the interpretation of that passage by the early

08:02

Church Fathers that give us the opportunity, really, I think, of examining the whole claim of infallibility on the part of the

08:09

Church. The claims are so broad and so great that they beg for refutation, they beg for examination.

08:17

And that is what you have done in this book. Describe briefly what your thesis is in the book and what you're trying to accomplish and where you're trying to go with the

08:28

Matthew 16 Controversy. Well, if you read the Council of Vatican I, Vatican I is the council in 1869, 1870, which decreed papal infallibility and papal rule as dogmas of the faith.

08:44

As a Roman Catholic, not even as a Roman Catholic, Vatican I has decreed that it is necessary for salvation if you're going to have faith that justifies that you embrace these teachings, which are that the

08:57

Pope has the divine right to rule the Church Universal, and that when he teaches ex cathedra, that is, in his official capacity as the

09:07

Bishop of Rome, that he teaches infallibly. And the claim is made that this has been the universal view of the

09:15

Church from the very beginning. This was not a development. Vatican I is very clear about that. And it takes its claim on an exegesis of scripture, which is

09:27

Matthew 16 and John 21, and an allusion to Luke 22, those three basic passages.

09:35

And then also from the standpoint of history, it makes certain claims about history, obviously saying that this has been the universal practice of the

09:41

Church from the very beginning. So because it is exegeting scripture, and it's saying that these scriptures and the way they exegete them are in line with what the

09:51

Church has universally held to, and because it says historically that the Church has always practiced this and believed this,

09:59

I took those two points of view in this book and I divided the book into two sections. One has to do with the overall patristic exegesis of Matthew 16.

10:09

How did the early church fathers interpret the rock of Matthew 16? How did they interpret

10:15

Luke 22? How did they interpret John 21, where Jesus talks about Peter being a shepherd?

10:23

And then in the second section of the book, I deal with historical issues in terms of the practice of the early church, looking at the church councils and its specific church fathers and their relationship to the bishops of Rome, asking the question, if these circumstances which

10:41

I am delineating here are true, how could Vatican I say that this has been the universal practice of the

10:47

Church from the very beginning? You know, it's interesting, Bill, I obviously have taken the time to look at your material and have benefited greatly from it myself.

10:57

It is some of the only stuff that's being published right now that's relevant to this issue, even though we both know that back in the 1800s, there were a number of fine works published by Protestants on these issues.

11:09

They did not give up the realm of church history as a battlefield. Protestants didn't anyways back then, but trying to get something like this published today is next to impossible because of the fact that this whole subject is somewhat politically incorrect to address at all.

11:25

And it's interesting to me, let me throw out the response that I have gotten, interestingly enough, when

11:31

I present this type of information and present the fact that the early church fathers did not understand this passage in a, first of all, in any unanimous fashion whatsoever, and that in fact, their majority view was opposite that of modern

11:46

Catholicism, the response, interestingly enough, that I have gotten that's becoming more prevalent is, look, you're not in the position to interpret history.

11:56

You're not infallible. What is your right to interpret the writings of the early church fathers?

12:02

Since this is a part of the history of the church, then only the church can interpret this. And I've actually been told by one rather well -known

12:10

Roman Catholic apologist that I cannot raise these issues because I do not submit myself to the church.

12:18

That is the argument that's being presented. How do you respond to someone who makes a statement like that? Well, you know, they come from a certain pre -supposition which

12:28

I don't accept, that is that the church is infallible and it cannot err. You are to blindly accept everything the church teaches.

12:38

To question, to doubt, is to put yourself in the place of anathema.

12:45

The theologian John Hardin, who's written a catechism on the church and its doctrines, makes that statement that to deny or to just explicitly deny any teaching that the

12:59

Roman Catholic church has dogmatically decreed automatically puts you under anathema as far as the church is concerned.

13:07

And what does anathema mean? Anathema means that you are excommunicated from the church and that unless you repent, you will be in hell.

13:18

It does not, that does not mean that you are going to hell automatically.

13:24

There is room for repentance. But it does mean, and if you read church history and look at the councils of Trent, for example, in Vatican I, they are full of anathemas.

13:33

And those anathemas are very strong in the sense of what it means. They mean that you are out of the church, you're out of the means of grace, you are separated from the means of salvation.

13:46

And therefore, unless you repent, you will not be saved. So I have,

13:52

I look at what Jesus, the situation with Jesus and the Jews, when he was on the earth, you know, a lot of the same arguments could have been made for the

14:03

Jews that are made by Roman Catholics today for their authority. Jesus stood his ground before false teaching.

14:15

The things that I have brought up in the book are supported by conservative Roman Catholic historians as well as by good conservative

14:25

Orthodox historians, Eastern Orthodox. There's a consensus of opinion.

14:31

It's a small group of Roman Catholic apologists who fly in the face of scholarly opinion, who manipulate the facts of history, who do not deal fairly and honestly with the facts, who try to present a picture that is unhistorical, and therefore it is untrue.

14:53

You know, Bill, you know my propensity for engaging in debates on subjects like this.

15:00

And I just recently, a group in Illinois contacted a former

15:07

Protestant who has converted to Roman Catholicism and is now publishing books in support of Roman Catholic claims,

15:14

Mr. Ray, Steve Ray. And he has a book coming out in April with Ignatius Press that he has informed me, responds to both you and I directly, on the papacy in the early church.

15:28

And so here was a group in Illinois. They offered to fly him in, give him an honorarium, provide a place for a debate, fly me in and have us debate the papacy, which

15:40

I figure, you know, if you're writing books on a subject, this is a good thing to do. He's traveling around to apologetic seminars.

15:47

He's doing speaking in Roman Catholic context, so why not? And the offer was rejected within about two hours of its being offered, actually.

15:56

And it strikes me that when you deal with historical issues, when you deal with the writings of early church fathers, having the two sides come together head to head, for example, like I did with Mitch Pacwa on Long Island this past spring, is something that allows us to avoid this snippet citation.

16:17

It's real easy to manipulate the early church fathers. If you don't leave them in their own context, if you don't allow everything they said on the subject to be brought into play, it's very easy to proof text them and make it sound like they're on your side.

16:31

But when you bring both sides together, or when you're fair and allow them to say everything that they need to say, the presentation ends up being very, very different than what this group of Roman Catholic apologists, and we both know some of the names we could associate with that, are presenting not only to prospective converts, but to Roman Catholics who are considering examining the faith that has been given to them and examining the historical foundations.

17:02

And I don't know about you, but it's very frustrating to see the misrepresentation of these early fathers.

17:09

It's very frustrating to see it done in such a cavalier manner, as was done recently in the

17:14

Envoy magazine article that attacked my article on the Council of Nicaea, but never really seriously dealt with anything that I actually said.

17:22

That truly concerns anyone, I think, who has a love for history. But before I forget, how does someone get hold of the

17:30

Matthew 16 Controversy, or the Church of Rome, or the Bar of History? How do folks get hold of you?

17:38

You can email me at www .ebs84862aol .com,

17:49

and you can order these books through me. I have a ministry that is a publishing ministry.

17:56

Banner of Truth has published the Church of Rome at the Bar of History, my ministry has published the Matthew 16 Controversy.

18:03

My address is 1505 Northwest 4th Avenue, Battleground, Washington, 98604, and the name of the ministry is

18:16

Christian Resources. Let me check that email again, that was www .ebs84862aol

18:29

.com, and address is 1505 Northwest 4th Avenue, Battleground, Washington, 98604.

18:37

Is there a webpage in the future? I should have a webpage within the next week.

18:44

Good. And the address to that will be www .christiantruth .com.

18:52

Hey, you got a good domain name there. And we'll put a link on our webpage at www .aomin

19:00

.org once you let us know that that webpage is up and functioning so people can get hold of this information.

19:08

It has been my experience that the more solid the information, the more difficult it is to get hold of, and especially on issues like this where I get emails all the time, people asking questions about these topics, these issues, and it is extremely important.

19:26

In the Roman Catholic Controversy, I focused on the doctrine of justification as the fundamental issue that we need to look at when we ask about the differences between biblical

19:35

Christianity and Roman Catholicism. But, as you mentioned, before you can ever talk about justification, before you can talk about what it means to be made right before God, anyone who has dialogued with good believing

19:50

Roman Catholics know that the issue of authority comes up. It does. And by addressing these particular subjects, by addressing

19:57

Matthew chapter 16, by addressing Vatican I, by addressing saddus cognitum, the papal encyclical after Vatican I that really laid these things out and really paints

20:09

Rome into a corner as far as her claims are concerned, we are, in point of fact, undercutting the very authority upon which all the

20:18

Roman Catholic apologists are basing their presentation. And my experience has been individuals who end up embracing

20:25

Roman Catholic theology and claims of authority normally do so because of attacks on sola scriptura, because of attacks on the sufficiency of Scripture.

20:34

And, in essence, what you're doing is you're recognizing, and this is what a lot of Protestants don't recognize, that the papacy and infallibility is the flip side of our belief in the sufficiency of Scripture.

20:47

It's the soft underbelly, you might say, that they don't want to have examined. They just want to accept it on the basis of having attacked the

20:55

Scriptures as being insufficient. And as a result, there's a lot of tremendous animosity toward any

21:04

Protestant who would address these issues, a real attempt to marginalize us, to put us off on the side.

21:12

But the simple fact of the matter is, it's obvious to me that the research that you have been doing, the materials that you have been producing, are challenging the

21:21

Roman Catholic apologists, and the response has not been to go head -to -head in a fair manner, in a scholarly manner, but the response has been to attack on a personal level and not deal with these issues in the way that they need to be dealt with.

21:37

Has that been, am I being too feisty, or is that pretty much how you would see it as well?

21:43

Yeah, I think, you know, Newman made a statement, he says, to know history is to be a

21:48

Roman Catholic. Well, I take great issue with that. I think to know history is to be a biblical

21:55

Christian. It is to become a believer in the

22:01

Lord Jesus Christ in a biblical sense. It is to reject these claims of Roman Catholicism historically, which allows you, and by rejecting them historically,

22:14

I don't mean just to outright reject them, but on the basis of truth, on the basis of the fact of history, it allows you then to look objectively at what

22:22

Rome teaches from a scriptural standpoint. And what they teach from a scriptural standpoint, obviously, is what's of ultimate importance.

22:29

You know, the papacy is of secondary importance. What's of ultimate importance is the Gospel. And there you find that Rome has significantly distorted the meaning of Scripture and the

22:45

Gospel. It consistently misrepresents the teaching of the

22:50

Protestant Reformers, and it obviously consistently misrepresents the facts of history.

22:57

Roman Catholicism can only stand on the basis of misrepresentation.

23:04

And I do find, as you have mentioned, that when you begin to try to deal with these issues in a very honest, forthright manner, you don't have an honest, forthright response, generally speaking, from many who are in the

23:17

Roman camp. They are quite surprised, often, by the quotations that you are able to put forward of the

23:26

Church Fathers. I find that most Roman Catholic apologists have seldom really read the

23:33

Church Fathers. Generally, what they've done is gone to a work like William Jurgens and have sorted through, through an index, notations that they think will support their position.

23:46

They've not taken the time to read the context, the entire work of a

23:51

Church Father like Irenaeus or Cyril of Jerusalem, so that they understand the flow of thought, they understand the words that are being used, they understand the context historically.

24:00

They don't take time to read, at least it appears this way, to read historians that can give insight and some sense of context to the writings of these men.

24:14

And folks, let me tell you something. I do know Bill Webster, and I can speak for myself, that the reasons that we focus upon such issues as this, the reasons that we take the time to read the early

24:26

Church Fathers, produce works that address the early Church Fathers, even do debates that address these things, is not because we want to show ourselves off.

24:35

It's not because we want to promote ourselves. These are issues that we must address so that the

24:41

Gospel can be presented, so that the Gospel of peace can be presented to Roman Catholics.

24:47

I do not believe that a Gospel that includes purgatory and indulgences and merit and things like that can ever bring true and lasting peace to someone's soul.

24:56

And so the reasons we address these things are very, very important, and they are focused upon the

25:02

Gospel itself. You were mentioning William Juergens and using the index.

25:10

I think I may have shared with you at one point, Bill, what happened in Denver during the papal visit when

25:16

I debated Jerry Matitick on the papacy. We did one three and a half hour debate the first night at Denver Seminary, and the next night was another three and a half, four hours at Faith Presbyterian Church.

25:28

And during the section on the early fathers, Mr. Matitick actually stood before the crowd with a copy of William Juergens' work in his hand, one of the volumes, turned to the index and was standing there before the crowd saying, this is how many early fathers believed in papal primacy.

25:49

And then he actually sat there and read through the index that Juergens had produced as his evidence for how many fathers believed this.

25:59

And of course, how many people on either side of the aisle, on either side of the argument, could even begin to respond to an assertion that he's making like that?

26:12

Most people don't even have access to something like Juergens. That's correct. You know, it's interesting, you take a church father such as Cyprian.

26:21

Cyprian makes the statement that Peter is the rock, and of course the Roman Catholic immediately jumps on a statement like that, and he says, you see, he's pro -papal.

26:33

He believes in papal primacy. And what is happening there is that you have certain presuppositions which are held today, which are a development of a much later time, and because you view the term rock in a certain way theologically, you immediately impose that upon a father who is much earlier.

27:00

And had no thought like that in his mind. It had no thought like that in mind at all. In fact, let me just quote.

27:06

Let me ask you to hold that quote. We need to take a quick break, and on the other side we will talk about Cyprian.

27:13

And yes, I believe talking about Cyprian is important, even if you've never heard of him before. You need to hear about him.

27:20

Stay tuned, we'll be right back. James White and we today are very blessed to have on the phone my friend

27:30

Bill Webster. We are talking about some important things in regards to the claims of the

27:35

Roman Catholic papacy. As you probably know, during this past week the Pope was in Mexico and in the

27:42

United States. I found it very interesting in passing that while in Mexico the

27:47

Pope made a statement about the fallacious ideologies of Protestant evangelicals.

27:55

And I sometimes wonder, I'll be perfectly honest with you, exactly where we are to go to find infallible revelation from Rome anymore, because back in September he was saying in an audience in Rome that all you got to do is be honest in the tenets of your religion and you'll get eternal life.

28:11

But when you go to Mexico you say avoid the fallacious ideologies of Protestant evangelicals.

28:16

I don't know, but, you know, conflicting signals, what can I say. But anyways, we are joined today by Bill Webster, and I don't want to take any more of his time than I have to.

28:26

You all get to hear from me all the time, but you don't get to hear from somebody who really knows what they're doing, and that's

28:32

Bill Webster. He's the author of a number of books, The Matthew 16 Controversy and The Church of Rome at the

28:39

Bar of History. And I am very happy to have Bill on the phone today. Bill, thanks for us.

28:45

I really appreciate it. Thank you, James. Before the break we're talking about, I think, one of the classic examples of what happens so much.

28:54

You know, sometimes people listen to a show like this and say, boy, you get into some real detail here. Folks, I subscribe in various and sundry ways to a number of Roman Catholic apologetics publications.

29:07

I have to, because sometimes I'll find myself on the cover of one didn't even know it was coming or was warned or something like that.

29:13

So it's good to know when things like this are happening. And all of these publications will have a little section like the fathers know best or the early church fathers, or there is a constant drumbeat in these publications that say, hey, we are consistent with the early church.

29:30

And most of the Roman Catholics that I know of who are concerned about their faith, they're engaged in apologetic activity.

29:35

They really do believe that the early church fathers are in support of them. And probably the single most common citation that I encounter outside of one a contextual citation of Augustine is saying, hey, look at Cyprian.

29:50

He was a martyr bishop. He's early on. He was the bishop of Carthage in North Africa. He's beheaded in the middle of the third century.

29:59

And he was pro -papal. He was pro -papacy. He has all these quotes where he talks about the rock is

30:07

Peter and you need to be in union with Rome and all the rest of this stuff. And I've had it quoted to me over and over and over again.

30:15

And I don't know about you, Bill, but I've gotten to the point where I basically just have all the quotes lined up and I can just simply quote them to folks.

30:22

But it's frustrating to hear it. And here's an excellent example. And right before the break, you were going to read to us

30:28

Cyprian actually had to say as an excellent example of why we need to do some homework and not just simply take things at face value.

30:37

Well, Cyprian does say that Peter is the rock, but he does not mean that in the way

30:42

Roman Catholics interpret it to mean that. Origen, who preceded Cyprian, was a father in the

30:49

Alexandrian church. He says that Peter is the rock. He likewise did not mean that in a pro -papal way.

30:55

Tertullian says that Peter is the rock. He was the forerunner to Cyprian in North Africa.

31:02

They don't mean this in a pro -Roman sense at all. Cyprian goes on to say that all of the apostles, as well as Peter, have equal authority.

31:13

And it's interesting that two Roman Catholic historians, both of them conservative, Robert Eno makes this statement.

31:22

He says, it is clear that in Cyprian's mind, one theological conclusion he does not draw is that the Bishop of Rome has authority which is superior to that of the

31:29

African bishops. Michael Witter is another Roman Catholic historian. He's done a very good work on,

31:37

I don't agree with all of his conclusions obviously, but he's a very careful historian. And he says this about Cyprian.

31:43

He says, Cyprian used the patron text of Matthew to defend Episcopal authority, but many later theologians influenced by the papal connections of the text have interpreted

31:52

Cyprian in a pro -papal sense, which was alien to his thought. Cyprian would have used

31:58

Matthew 16 to defend the authority of any bishop, but since he happened to employ it for the sake of the

32:03

Bishop of Rome, it created the impression that he understood it as referring to papal authority.

32:09

Catholics as well as Protestants are now generally agreed that Cyprian did not attribute a superior authority to Peter.

32:16

You see, this is careful historical research. Well, it's historical conclusions that one is forced to by simply reading

32:24

Cyprian originally. I remember the first time I read Cyprian's epistle to Vermillion, where he absolutely rips

32:32

Stephen, the Bishop of Rome, apart. He talks about how Stephen, the Bishop of Rome, has embraced traditions that are not biblical and that have not been passed down.

32:42

And it's just incredible what he has to say in that particular epistle, but you'll never hear that cited.

32:50

You won't hear the citation where he says that every bishop sits upon the chair of Peter because that was his defense of Episcopal authority.

32:59

Those, if we are to be honest with the early church, and see, this is how

33:05

I've put it, Bill. The reason that you and I can be honest with the early church fathers is that we don't have to believe they were infallible.

33:13

We can examine them just like we would examine any Christian living today. We can appreciate the good, we can reject the bad, but we don't have any investment in trying to turn them into something other than what they were.

33:26

The Roman Catholic, however, must have the early church fathers as Roman Catholics.

33:31

That's what they've been forced into by Vatican I, by satis cognitum, and other statements from the

33:36

Roman Catholic hierarchy. And so it seems to me that the lack of proper exegesis of the early church fathers is because they can't allow them to be who they really were.

33:49

I remember talking a long time ago with a fellow who eventually left the Roman Catholic Communion, and I asked him once,

33:55

I said, should I be able to go toe to toe with you inciting the early church fathers? And the reason he eventually left is because he was honest enough to say, no, you shouldn't be able to, not if what my church teaches is true.

34:08

And so when I did, that is what caused him to begin examining all these things and come to the conclusion, you know, this isn't right.

34:16

This isn't what they were teaching. And so this allowing the early church fathers to say what they said, that's the most important thing.

34:24

And I'm so thankful for your works that bring these citations to people because the simple fact of the matter is, most

34:32

Protestant apologists that I know of, and I could name some names that people would automatically recognize, who have ventured into dealing with Roman Catholicism are not people who themselves either invest much stock in the early church fathers or have much knowledge about what they taught or believed.

34:49

And that just represents evangelicalism today where, hey, church history started 50 years ago for most folks, so who cares about Ignatius anyhow, right?

34:59

You know, and it's not just the Roman Catholics that are using it this way. There's crossover here.

35:05

In my book, Is the Mormon My Brother?, there's an entire chapter on the fact that the early church fathers were not polytheists.

35:12

They did not believe that God was the only man to live on another planet. But that's what Mormon apologists are now trying to present.

35:18

And again, the evangelical finds himself utterly indefensible at that point because we don't know anything about church history.

35:26

That is a sad reality. And as a result of that, many evangelicals can be duped by historical arguments from Roman Catholicism, but if you take the time to actually read the writings of the church fathers and try to find out the context in which a particular father is speaking, you will find that quite often the assertion made by the

35:50

Roman Catholic apologists is just completely false, that this church father really did not hold to that view at all.

35:58

You know, one of the greatest church fathers in all of history is Augustine. Augustine, it is asserted, held to the fact that Peter is the rock.

36:09

This is completely false. Early in his ministry, Augustine taught that Peter was the rock.

36:16

He very quickly changed his mind, and through the majority of his ministry, he held to the view that the rock was

36:23

Peter's confession, or that the rock was actually Jesus Christ himself, it was not Peter. At the end of his life, he wrote a work called the

36:32

Retractations, in which he went back and corrected many of his earlier views that he considered to be false or mistaken.

36:41

And in that work, he actually corrects his view, which he held early on about Matthew 16 and the rock.

36:49

He makes this statement, which you will never see in any Roman Catholic work, at least that I have previewed to date.

36:57

I've never seen this ever referenced. In exegeting Matthew 16, and this is in the prime of his ministry,

37:06

Augustine makes this statement. He says, you are Peter, and on this rock I shall build my church. That's the quote from Jesus.

37:13

And he says, in Peter, we see our attention drawn to the rock. Now, the Apostle Paul says about the former people, they drank from the spiritual rock that was following them, but the rock was

37:22

Christ. So this disciple is called Rocky from the rock, like Christian from Christ.

37:28

Why have I wanted to make this little introduction? In order to suggest to you that in Peter, the church is to be recognized.

37:34

Christ, you see, built his church, not on a man, but on Peter's confession.

37:40

What is Peter's confession? You are the Christ, the son of the living God. There's the rock for you.

37:46

There's the foundation. There's where the church has been built, which the gates of the underworld cannot conquer.

37:52

Now, he explicitly says Christ did not build his church on a man.

37:58

Chris has said the exact same thing. He sure did. Yes, he did. And so did Ambrose. And the fact that those citations are there should cause a person who's honestly evaluating the early church fathers to go, wait a minute, anyone who says there is a unanimous consent, and, you know, it's almost, it's ironic, isn't it, that now the term unanimous consent is being parsed and, well, we need to know what unanimous means.

38:23

You know, it's like, what does is mean? It's the exact same thing happening all over again.

38:29

Now it's happening in theology, is we're saying, well, it doesn't mean that everyone believed that, but maybe a majority on this issue, it was not even the majority.

38:38

In fact, the issues that Rome has so dogmatically forced upon us as dogma in regards to the papacy and the biggest dogmas over the past 150 years in regards to Mary, both of them, you and I would recognize, were issues that were either utterly unknown to the early church fathers, or when they were known, the early church fathers took a different view.

39:03

Exactly. Talk about giving the lie to the idea that what you have in Roman Catholic theology is the scripture plus tradition.

39:11

You don't have tradition here, you don't have scripture here, but you still have dogma coming from Rome. And what

39:17

I think everyone needs to see is, I coined a phrase, and I'm sure you've heard it,

39:22

Bill, it's called the Peter syndrome. And Roman Catholic apologists fall into the

39:29

Peter syndrome, where basically they sit there with an index, they look up the word Peter, they find any nice thing or any exalted language that is used of Peter, and automatically apply that to the

39:42

Bishop of Rome, even though they seemingly fail to recognize that they then have to prove that that particular early church father believed that everything he said about Peter applied to the

39:53

Bishop of Rome and to the Bishop of Rome alone, and that is what they cannot demonstrate, or at least do not attempt to demonstrate, but instead just simply take as a given.

40:04

Well, there's more we need to talk about, but we need to take a brief break, and we'll be right back with Bill Webster here on The Dividing Line.

40:13

And we're back on The Dividing Line. My name is James White and I'm joined today by my good friend Bill Webster, and I appreciate his taking time out of his busy schedule to join with us.

40:22

We are talking about his books, The Matthew 16 Controversy, The Church of Rome at the

40:28

Bar of History, and you know, this is the second half hour, Bill, sometimes our program gets chopped up into two segments, and I want to make sure that the folks that hear the second half hour can figure out how to get hold of your books and look at some of this data for themselves.

40:42

So how could folks get hold of you and get The Matthew 16 Controversy and the other things that you've produced?

40:49

The mailing address is Christian Resources, 1505

40:54

Northwest 4th Avenue, Battle Ground, Washington, 98604.

41:03

The email address is www .eds84862 .aol

41:13

.com. And I will soon have a webpage within the next week where you can preview some of the materials and resources that I have available and order through that website if you like.

41:29

The website address will be www .christiantruth .com.

41:36

And when that website's up and running, let us know. We will make sure to place a link on our website at www .aomin

41:44

.org to your own so that folks can track down that information and avail themselves of these important issues.

41:54

Fundamentally, Bill, I have placed the authority argument in the following terms.

41:59

I have said that we believe in sola scriptura, that the Scripture is the sole infallible rule of faith of the

42:06

Church, and that Roman Catholics believe in sola ecclesia, that the Church is the ultimate and final authority in all things.

42:16

And as such, you, by your writings, are addressing the positive claim being made by Roman Catholicism in regards to the magisterium, in regards to the papacy.

42:29

You've done this primarily by addressing the early Church. But you're also a contributor to the

42:36

Moody publication entitled Roman Catholicism. And I found some of the comments that you made in there in regards to such issues as some of the things the popes believed, how they believed things different than have been defined by the

42:50

Church today, things in regards to Mary. I gladly admit I borrowed your stuff.

42:57

I'm guilty! Someone take me out and hang me for being guilty and going, wow, this is good stuff.

43:07

This guy has done his homework. Those things that you produced there in the

43:13

Roman Catholic—what was the full title, Roman Catholicism, with the Moody Press? It's Roman Catholicism, Evangelicals.

43:22

Oh, how can I remember? Let me think here. I've forgotten the subtitle. It's blue. It's blue, that's correct.

43:28

It says— And it's a hardback. You've got two hardbacks. I mean, you're so far ahead of me on that.

43:33

It's the blue book called Roman Catholicism, put out by Moody Press. That's right. That's the best way to describe it. And in there, you not only gave your testimony, but you also specifically addressed some of these issues.

43:45

For example, real quickly, since we've got about six minutes left or so, one of the things that you addressed in there that I have found so useful was

43:55

Pope Gregory's view on the Apocrypha, the deuterocanonicals. Tell the folks in the audience a little bit about what you had to say about that.

44:05

Well, one of the authority claims of Roman Catholicism is that because they have supposedly determined the extent of the canon, that therefore we are to buy into their authority.

44:18

And the claim is made that in the councils of Hippo and Carthage at the end of the fourth century, that the church authoritatively decreed what the actual canon would be for the church universal.

44:30

Problem with that is that it's not true. Those councils were provincial councils.

44:36

They were not ecumenical. They had no authority to decree what the canon would be for the church as a whole.

44:44

The church as a whole, from the time of those councils and previous to those councils with certain fathers like Athanasius and Cyril of Jerusalem and Origen and Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus and a number of other church fathers, held to the view of Jerome, which is that there are 22 books in the