Reformed Thomists?

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:33

And greetings and welcome to the dividing line we have some important stuff to get to today

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I do think it would be appropriate to mention that technology and war allowing

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This afternoon 4 p .m. Eastern Standard Time. I'm supposed to be

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Co -hosting with Chris Arnzahn on Iron Sharpens Iron and we're going to be interviewing my dear friend and Nick Mikulej Lejewski He is a professor over there in European which is a suburb.

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Thankfully, I think somewhat south Eastern part I think of Kiev and We'll be talking with him again if everything hooks up and everything works, right and most of you know that Nick has served as my translator every time

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I've gone to Ukraine of First translated for me when I was teaching sexual criticism in Berlin And I have all the respect in the world for Nick and for Greg White and the work going on there in Ukraine and so there you go.

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Hopefully that will happen this afternoon be watching the Iron Sharpens Iron website for more information on that and tune in this afternoon

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Hopefully that will all work out it might not You could imagine numerous scenarios where that was that would not end up working real well

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But we'll see and we'll do the best we can To do that. So I hope you'll be watching for that two major topics on the program today

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In the latter half of the program we will be looking at the pseudo review and it is a pseudo review.

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It's a Paulman and Mr. Hess This is

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This is not in very clearly. It's not intended to actually be a book review If so, they would fail it completely.

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They don't know how to do a book review. Evidently. I've never done a book review This is a we don't

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Want our people to be reading this book and so we're gonna slaughter it

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Knowing that those who then read it, this is a funny thing because Will Hess should know this the

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IFB warns people against reading the King James only controversy Because they know they can't actually respond to it

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And when they do read it, they realize that what they were told about it was just a bunch of lies That's exactly what's going on here.

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Don't read this book. It's really bad. It's bad scholarship I mean just look at all the misrepresentations, etc, etc

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And then if you start reading it and you pick it up and you check the references you're like What are you guys doing?

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So we'll the the quote -unquote review finally got into some biblical texts and that's what

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I'm looking forward to is let's deal with the with the scriptures and so we'll be looking at that toward the latter half of the program if you

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Looked at the last edition of the Master Seminary Journal You will notice that it was on the subject of the

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Trinity but with a very obvious and clear emphasis Toward the current push toward a

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Thomistic Quote -unquote classical theism bent and of course that My understanding is that that very phrase classical theism

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Was actually originally coined last century by open theists in opposition to The positions that they see as being problematic

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Anyway, that's the term that has been applied to it. I think it's prejudicial and and inaccurate but be it as it may

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It's very clear that the Master Seminary Journal Chose its authors with an emphasis in a particular perspective not seeking other perspectives but from a particular direction and on page 192

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Well, actually it starts scroll back here. It starts on page 189 Interview with Matthew Barrett and I want to read some portions of this and then

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I also want to note that Matthew Barrett Just tweeted a thread

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That is relevant to this may be because I mentioned I was gonna be talking about this don't know doesn't say that is interesting as well and actually

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I think will be helpful in in looking at what's being said here and The response we want to give

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The question was asked of dr. Barrett he Some people might say well, you know, why why are you even

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Dealing with all this stuff and and things like that. Dr. Barrett is associate professor of Christian theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and so He has written a book simply

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Trinity which of course I've read and I I Just recently saw a review of it

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That came to a lot of same conclusions that I had when I had listened to it initially especially given the fact that I I would naturally go into reading someone's book on the

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Trinity with a very Positive I want to track with this. I want to agree perspective but had

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Come to conclusions toward the end going there's a there's an overemphasis and hence a lack of emphasis on things here, at least from my perspective and The review did that but the point is this is a major voice in in Baptist circles, so He was asked who do you believe is the most useful scholar of the

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Middle Ages on the Trinity? Thomas Aquinas at the start of his

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Summa Theologica He says he is writing to help the student of theology understand not only what to believe but why?

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writing with profound clarity and explanatory power Thomas demonstrates the cohesion of the

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Christian faith and within the Augustinian and Anselmian spirit of faith seeking understanding That's an interesting description there there would be

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Be many who would find that an interesting and somewhat biased description

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I Think most people who read Thomas would Wonder at the term profound clarity may be simply due to the passage of time

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Translational issues, but especially the technical amount of language, but for me personally explanatory power

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Assumes for a for a Christian anyways Assumes a deep

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Biblical element that I simply do not find in Thomas at all And many others have said similar things.

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I continue on by posing theological questions. He first identifies the erroneous answer But with a robust seriousness considering with amicable fairness whether the opposing position is legitimate

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Even anticipating what scriptures and patristic sources could be appealed to for support when he replies he does so with unprecedented precision weaving a synthesis of scriptural historical theological and Philosophical sources until he arrives at a conclusion that exhibits the legitimacy and coherence of Christianity now this is called the scholastic method of course and so you raise objections and then you answer those objections and There is obviously

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Tremendous value to that in certain context in many contexts it can become somewhat boring after a while and difficult to follow and keep the attention but Certainly, I think we could agree with most of that description of that scholastic methodology that Thomas utilized

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It is a tragedy I continue it is a tragedy that evangelicals have cut themselves off From this theologian whom

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R .C. Sproul once said is the greatest theologian the church has ever known Now I just have to stop there for a moment

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I Am well aware of R .C.'s Thomistic fascination and I'm personally getting tired of the repetition of the fact that R .C.

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had a tremendous love for Aquinas as did Norm Geisler for that matter

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Evangelicals have cut themselves off from this theologian. I just want to remind everybody that according to Thomas's own writings he believed that heretics should be cut off from the earth and And Much of his discussion of the power of the keys and the nature of the church lies behind the counter -reformation and As I've mentioned before Geneva sent a long line of missionaries into Italy almost all of whom died as Martyrs and That was in part due to Not them cutting off Thomas But the church that Thomas provided the very soul to Cutting them off from life

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So I find I find the language here from a historical perspective

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Somewhat difficult to to grasp Our separation from Thomas has occurred for no fault, but our own

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Again I wonder how many Jesuit inquisitors would have agreed we have believed caricatures that paint the

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Reformers as if they were Antitomistic when in truth the real target of their disdain were later medieval's such as Gabriel Beale William of Ockham Who departed from Thomas in significant ways?

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well, what were those significant ways that made them the actual only targets of the

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Reformers Or it depends on what subject we're addressing doesn't it by neglecting half of church history

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The Middle Ages spanning an entire millennium we leave ourselves vulnerable to the inculcation of Trinitarian foibles

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Otherwise avoided by medieval scholastics like Thomas who outlined the mature consequences of Nicene Trinitarianism I want you to hear what was just said there

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What lies behind this assertion is a doctrine of theological development

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Not Directly identical with a

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Theory as that produced by John Henry Cardinal Newman but still a concept of doctrinal development

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To where well, let me lay it out for you here if we if we have the apostolic period here and then time is going this direction and so you have

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Nicaea here and you have the the period of post

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Nicene Primarily Christological development comes after that and Then you're pretty much looking at the the medieval period being being here

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Okay, and so, you know Aquinas is at the high point if we put the

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Reformation here then Aquinas is the high point here. So the idea is you have a Development that's going on to where you have key

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Christological and theological Developments that are going this direction

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But the development continues all the way through the medieval period and so you really don't get to a mature

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Trinitarian understanding until all the way down here now, I think I think the

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Cappadocian fathers and a few others would have struggled a little bit with this idea, but the idea is you've got this development and Therefore that continues on into the

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Reformation All right, and is absolutely central therefore that that this development which includes

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Thomas's metaphysics Which is not? Definitional back here, but it becomes definite here.

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This becomes definitional here This is this becomes the great tradition. You have to read everything like the great tradition

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And so if you really want to be truly reformational then you need all this stuff that came here see That's the assertion.

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Now. Let me mention one other thing while I've got this up here If we look at this,

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I want to I want to I want to remind us of One other key issue

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What was what was the the saying That A lot of people use today

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Post -Tenebrous Looks And R .C.

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Sproul liked that one too, so I guess we can use that as well, right? Post -Tenebrous looks after darkness light.

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When was the darkness? This idea of Continuing growth and and in a positive sense

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Where's where's the darkness the whole reason for this saying?

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was that there was a darkness in the sense of an encroachment of tradition and human philosophy and The only way that could happen is if what?

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Think with me. I'm not just going to answer quickly. But what is the necessary? truth

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That became less and less central within the experience of what called itself the

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Christian Church and I think it's fairly obvious That when we look at that We are looking at sola

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Scriptura, okay, so la scriptura Wow if that's what's going out

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Didn't look anything like what? The colors I'm seeing in the colors you're seeing are different things, but anyway solo scriptura, so I Can show you early fathers

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Who are Speaking of the uniqueness of the authority of Scripture the ultimacy of the authority of Scripture Scripture is sufficient above all things

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Athanasius tells us Athanasius stands on the authority of Scripture over against councils of the church and And and helps to overturn the

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Arian Ascendancy after the Council of Nicaea You can you can go to full

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Gentia full Gentius of Rusp Who's in the 6th century and you you will still see?

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people functioning Now they're they're having to struggle in light of the so if if solo scriptura

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Let me let me move this out of the way here If solo scriptura is

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Declining during this time then tradition and We'll make tradition a different color tradition is increasing at this time all right, and so In this time period and certainly as you look at at Aquinas This is not a period where he is limited by solo scriptura is he

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Better in that area than someone else again. Okay, so what? Yes But the point is he is not limited

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By solo scriptura he believes in the power of the keys he believes in traditions We're gonna look at a quotation from here here in a moment well

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Since I'm doing it. I don't want to forget it. I posted I posted this quotation

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On Twitter last night and a lot of people just had no earthly idea what in the world I was talking about.

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I'm sorry It seemed obvious but this is from the

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Summa and Here's here's the statement the Apostles Led by the inward instinct of the

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Holy Ghost Handed down to the churches certain instructions, which they did not put in writing

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But which have been ordained in accordance with the observance of the church as practiced by the faithful as time went on Wherefore the

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Apostle says and here's Thomas interpreting 2nd Thessalonians 2 14 Stand fast and hold the traditions which you have learned whether by word and then that's the end of the quotation of The scripture and then there's a parenthetical statement from Thomas that is by word of mouth parentheses closed or by our epistle

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Parentheses that is by word put into writing parentheses Among these traditions is the worship of Christ's image

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Wherefore it is said that blessed Luke painted the image of Christ which is in Rome Well, there are a lot of things in Rome that We all recognize today we're completely fallacious and Thomas believed in many of them but bit as it may please note what we have here from the

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Summa We have this okay, here's here's here's tradition

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If you have listened to any of the debates I did decades ago with Jerry Matta ticks or Any of the other

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Roman Catholics who I debated on solo scriptura? You've heard this before that is the idea that the

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Apostles so what this is apostolic in origin The Apostles led by the inward instinct of the

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Holy Ghost This is or is not revelation hard to say

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Handed down to the churches certain instructions, which they did not put in writing.

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Here is the oral tradition This is why Rome to this day Has sacred tradition

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Okay Sacred Tradition capital s capital

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T Sacred tradition which is made up of The written tradition scripture and the oral tradition passed down from Jesus to the

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Apostles from the Apostles to the churches and maintained in unwritten form

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Until it needs to be written down Which is why Rome can then define as dogmas things that there is no evidence that anyone

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In the first centuries of the Christian Church actually believed but hey, we've got this source of information and so Wherefore the

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Apostle says then we have this citation and Thomas simply blows the interpretation

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I would hope That everyone including all the new newly minted

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Reformed Baptist Thomas Would agree That Thomas blew

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This exegesis at least I hope you would stand fast hold the traditions which you have been learned whether by word of mouth or by our epistle

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It's one body of tradition Communicated in two ways and when you look at it in context what he's referring to is the gospel which he preached

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Orally to the Thessalonians and which was included in his first epistle that he wrote to the church at Thessalonica so this doesn't

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Bifurcate The traditions into two different kinds

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So that you can always have what's in the oral tradition. It's in your old tradition No one knows what's in the oral tradition until Rome decides to define something from the oral tradition

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This is a fundamental mechanism for denying sola scriptura, and it was rejected as part of the looks the light of the

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Reformation It was rejected So the point is

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We are not with Thomas at a high mark of the practice of sola scriptura

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We are not at a high mark in the practice of in -depth exegesis there are things that happen in the

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Reformation that were good and Wonderful things which included for example the recovery of a recognition of the text of the

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Old Testament as inspired scripture Which I know they continued to say but thanks to the influence of origin and the allegorical methodology

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The interpretation of those things became highly problematic All of a sudden now you've got the reformers saying we need to dig in ad fontas into the sources and Yes, it was originally those scary proto -reformers

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It started relearning Hebrew and and all the stuff that went along with that But it was the

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Reformation that brought these things about not the Roman Catholic Church So there was tenebrous there was darkness but What what did that involve and it involved the sources not just the mechanism of argumentation?

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but the sources and the fundamental overlaying of the scriptures with a traditional lens

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Which you see right here in Thomas It's almost like only one side gets to quote from Thomas and One thing is awfully sure

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One thing I've learned there. There is really very little profit

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Attempting to argue from Thomistic sources because first of all unless you

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View Thomas in the highest way. You will simply be dismissed as someone who's proof texting

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Only the other side gets to actually understand Thomas, even though they have all sorts of disagreements, but they don't really admit it but And there's just no there's no end to it

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It doesn't matter How accurate the citation is every time I've quoted

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Thomas I've taken heat for that doesn't mean X Y &

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Z and it's like well, but did he say what he said? Did he mean what he's meant there?

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Okay so These are some of the things. I think we need to keep in mind historically as we think about You know, how can you say?

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That Thomas Aquinas was the greatest theologian church has ever known when Thomas Aquinas does not function on the basis of solo scriptura

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R .C. Sproul was wrong Period and and I believe that when

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R .C. Sproul was alive he was wrong in his estimation of Thomas Aquinas brilliant man, sure

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But what makes a person a great theologian is their consistent

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Faithfulness and submission to the authority of Scripture and when it comes to Thomas Thomas is deeply influenced by extra biblical metaphysical concepts

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That have a far greater impact upon his final theological conclusions than a consistent

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Exegesis of the inspired text itself. I thought that was not even a debatable issue only ten years ago amongst all of us and now it is a debatable issue

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Astonishing what has happened. So All right, so back to the the have you gotten to the main point yet Our separation of Thomas has occurred for no fault of our own

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We have believed characters caricatures that paint the Reformers as if they were anti Thomistic when in truth

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I already read this book by neglecting half of church history the Middle Ages spanning an entire millennium We leave ourselves vulnerable to the inculcation of Trinitarian foibles

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Otherwise avoided by medieval scholastics like Thomas who outlined the mature consequences of Nicene Trinitarianism So I have to ask the question

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What is this? What is the guiding? principle of the development of Trinitarian of Nicene Trinitarianism that continues all the way into the medieval period.

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What's the guiding principle? It can't be Scripture anymore. Not during that time period. So what is it?

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And so how can you? consistently Hold to a biblically defined doctrine of solo scriptura, which

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I have been seeking to defend for decades How can you hold to a biblically defined doctrine of solo scriptura and at the same time say but to be a true

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Trinitarian? You need to embrace the development that takes place

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During centuries where solo scriptura is no longer being practiced By men who plainly submit themselves to the ultimate authority the

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Bishop of Rome and in the case of Thomas whose metaphysical categories are

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Absolutely necessary and foundational the Roman doctrine of the mass

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Which is the greatest blasphemy against the finished work of Jesus Christ that I know of what was the what was the driving principle?

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That's the question So we finally get to the quote which

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Was the relevant part Also, we have not treated Thomas with the same historical fairness and sobriety as other fallible theologians across the church's history

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Of course the evangelical will disagree with Thomas on a doctrine like the sacraments

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But we have failed to recognize that less than 12 % of his summa

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Is content the evangelical with will it disagree with at all that there is the quote

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There is the quote We have failed to recognize that less than 12 % of his summa is

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Content the evangelical will disagree with at all Now the summa is huge.

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I should have brought my copy in so you can see it again. I showed it Last week a week before It's massive.

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It is a huge tome, but if an evangelical

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Agrees with 88 % of a system and a work that is

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Written in Subjection to the authority of the

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Bishop of Rome In defense of The Church of Rome Defends the punishment of heretics and the execution of heritage the extermination of heritage and Does not derive its fundamental conclusions from an ultimate commitment to the consistency of that Which is the

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Anustos in Scripture alone Then you're not reading it very clearly and you are not

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Recognizing that Thomas is consistent with Thomas and so we dare not

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Try to turn Thomas into something. He wasn't I Primarily normally say it's about the early church fathers because I'm debating with Roman Catholics But my goodness what has happened that I'm now having to say this to my fellow

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Baptists don't turn Thomas into something he wasn't and Don't say that Thomas and us agree on 88 %

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Of the doctrinal content of the Summa that the

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Twitter thread will go into a little more detail on this Evangelicals might also be surprised to discover that they have an

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Augustinian ally in Thomas With doctrines as widespread as predestination

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Providence inspiration atonement and Christian virtues. Well, what is what does that mean?

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You mean that Evangelicals will agree with what Thomas said on these things.

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Well, there there have to be areas of agreement I mean What what percentage of the

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Journal of Discourses? Could we find some type of surface -level agreement on?

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General Discourse is a 26 volume set of works Early sermons of the LDS leaders in Utah Brigham Young and Orson Pratt and Orson Hyde and all the rest

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But those are surface -level agreements What is the source of Christian virtues?

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atonement atonement Can we can we literally consider

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Thomas's doctrine of atonement apart from the mass as a perpetuatory sacrifice really

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Inspiration Uniqueness of Scripture that means it cannot be subjugated to the sacred tradition of the church

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That starling statistic leaves evangelicals open to interrogation

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Starling or startling. Is that a typo? It says starling but anyway, that's darling statistic leaves evangelicals open to interrogation are evangelicals actually reading

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Thomas or Relying on easy caricatures that depend on serious inaccuracies

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But more to the point, I wonder if there's that's I wonder if that is a Interview version of a subtweet.

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I get the feeling that it is But more to the point what other theologian in history would we abandon like this especially when this same theologian was so responsible listen to this for the full development of the most foundational loci in Orthodoxy the

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Trinity and Christology Let me repeat that.

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I think I think people need to hear this Because see once people start going down this to mystic road

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There don't seem to be a whole lot of stopping places along the way So he's saying that Thomas Was responsible for the full development of the most foundational loci in Orthodoxy the

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Trinity and Christology so That that was left undone

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Even in the post -Nicene period because there are clearly differences between Thomas and some of the post -Nicene fathers and when we see these differences

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I go Little naive me

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Who years ago wrote a book that for years people really enjoyed and now all of a sudden? Oh, it's got a cancel that guy and I said something at the beginning that just Caught a lot of people by surprise.

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I called myself a biblical Trinitarian I'm wondering if that's possible to be from this perspective

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Could you be a biblical Trinitarian or is there a?

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Process of doctrinal development and What guides it? What its authority is what sources are brought to bear upon it is absolutely central so?

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It's it's almost seems like what I'm hearing here is that to truly have a

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Fundamentally Orthodox view of the Trinity in Christology requires the application of Aristotelian philosophical category

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They may be mediated they may be baptized But still you still I have it. There is no such thing as a biblical

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Trinitarian Roman Catholics recognized

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Thomas's indispensability to theology But we have allowed them to take

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Thomas without a fight think about that that does seem to be saying that Thomas is indispensable to theology

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I Again my age is betraying me

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I Have lectured on the Trinity in Reformed Baptist churches for decades and nobody nobody

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Got up and said well That's fine as far as it goes, but if you really want to be

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Orthodox You need to get Thomas in here, and he'll give you the finishing touches now

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Here it is in the Master's Seminary Journal All that to say if we have any hope of recovering

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Nicene Trinitarianism Then we can no longer afford to ignore the angelic doctor

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And then he even makes reference to reformed Thomists in the same paragraph now

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I said that There is a Twitter thread That May indicate that dr.

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Barrett Heard that I was going to be addressing this subject Because this was posted at 1051 a .m.

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Today So I'm not sure not sure exactly how the

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Twitter timing stuff works anyway I Enjoyed being interviewed by dr.

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Danger 1689 evidently was interviewing in the to in the new

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TMSJ here's a thread explaining why our Protestant fathers love to critically retrieve

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Thomas Aquinas on so many subjects from his Summa Okay In total

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Thomas wrote 512 questions and assume a theologian Some say theologic a some of the

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C theologi one of those 512 out of those 512 only 16 treat faith and Only 34 treat the

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Saints Mary and the sacraments ie 7 sacraments That means only 10 % to round up now

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This is I I question this because this is not bulk

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Analysis a number words or anything like that. It's just simply number of questions. Some questions are answered far faster than other questions are answered

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So anyway, that means only 10 % to round up of the entire

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Suma listen to this Addresses those major doctrines considered controversial during the 16th century you hear that Are you tracking with me?

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Have I lost everybody? So the only things considered controversial

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Were faith the Saints and sacraments Really? Plesiology wasn't considered a condom the formal principle of the

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Reformation sola scriptura Was not considered a controversial interesting approach to Thomas, isn't it?

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Ah Even if one is generous and includes ancillary doctrines like original sin or mysticism

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Okay, I don't Care too much about those because the real issue is why aren't we recognizing that Thomas is?

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functioning on a different authority level with a different ultimate authority

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The Percentage only rises by one and that addition is generous since it is complicated by Thomas's Augustinian soteriology

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If nuance is considered that is the reformers took issue with specific aspects of medieval soteriology and ecclesiology the 10 % drops when the scope of the suma is taken into consideration it dwarfs discontinuity between reformers and scholastics purely from a quantitative perspective well,

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I Would like to suggest that the quantitative perspective is utterly worthless historically utterly worth and this brings us back to again

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What is our authority For theology proper for the

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Trinity What is our theology authority is it a developmental process is it

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Nicaea? Constantinople Chalcedon Ephesus And were those just the beginning steps that this still had literally 800 years to go

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Until Aristotelian categories of metaphysics could be brought to bear to give us what we really need to believe is that what we are being told?

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Because you will defend that perspective very differently Then you will defend the perspective that I have presented for all these years

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That's why I'm looking at this going Guys what happened? What happened?

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Hmm He goes he gives some examples, okay

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Example in prima parsi treats knowledge of God divine perfections the Trinity creation ex nihilo angels the imago dei divine providence and more in prima secundae and Secunda secundae which together make up the majority of the summa innumerable

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Christian virtues By and large the Reformers did not need to address these basic loci of orthodoxy

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Okay, here's an important I wasn't gonna spend this much time And I'm That's the way things are going

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I'm not even sure how I'm gonna get to anything else because I only have a certain amount of time because like I said I'm supposed To be doing hopefully be doing the interview from Ukraine here in a little while But I can't rush this this is not really rushable stuff

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And it's far far far more important than two men who can't do a book review so we'll focus on this

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By and large the Reformers did not need to address these basic loci of orthodoxy well

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They didn't address Primarily Issues along those lines when they dealt with Theological issues regards to Trinity and things like that they were dealing with people who are rejecting the deity of Christ Rejecting the

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Doctrine of Trinity obviously someone like Miguel Cervantes and things like that, but there were others who had issues along those lines but Let's remember something

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Just because the first generation of Reformers did not address something

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Does not mean it did not need to be addressed. Let me give you a real obvious Example of this no

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I wonder No I guess not I'm sure there is a way to do this faster than this

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But And this is I've got my Bible thing up here that I can pull down later on which is really neat I'm not sure

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I'm gonna get to it today, but there you go Go back to yellow because it looks like yellow chalk on a green chalkboard and all we need is is is for The computer to come up with that wonderful sound of chalk on the chalkboard and we'll go from there

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When we talk about Okay, here's Let's just call this beginning of Reformation.

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Let's that's that's a 1517 just for the fun of it all sorts of questions about that but let's not let's not go there and Let's go to Middle let's go to 1648 let's go to 1689 and What do you have?

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Developing during this time period what is What is growing and becoming more and more distinct during this time period?

45:47

but What we would call Reformed Scholasticism, okay, you're getting the

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Reformed Academy developing all right and the tendency

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With any movement is That after this

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Initial Period of time say in here

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You get What I'd call Solidification so the categories become solidified and And In here there can still be a lot of discussion there can be a lot of looking at things but then the tendency is once you start building schools and publishing stuff

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There's less and less of a tendency to think through issues. So when we look in This early period here.

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What did reformers believe about Mary? well

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We have to remember that a number of the Marian dogmas that have been defined since that time period

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Weren't a big issue Things like the

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Immaculate Conception which by the way Thomas rejected but others had

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Immaculate Conception bodily assumption hadn't been defined dogmatically yet and I think if they had been

47:49

Then there would have been more attention from the Reformers because these would be dogmatic teaching

47:55

But there is one that was accepted by many the perpetual virginity of Mary now as Defined Today I can make a very strong case that the perpetual virginity of Mary aside from Aside from It's strange when you're in the middle of a lecture and you're what a day we live in I don't know that Spurgeon would have survived this

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I'm in the middle of a lecture talking about the perpetual virginity of Mary and its view amongst the

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Reformers and my Watch vibrates on my hand and I look down and There's someone inside my

48:52

RV unit. There's supposed to be someone inside my RV unit right now. Rich is looking at me going

48:59

Get the guns here we go we just took the RV unit in for maintenance and repairs and so there's there they're doing their work and Now everybody in the world knows if you try to break into my

49:11

RV I will know and I will know quickly and okay, let's turn the laser guns off and Back to Mary.

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Yeah, so we're talking about yes back to Mary. Okay, I Can make a strong case that the perpetual virginity of Mary is a fundamental denial of the incarnation of Jesus Christ if Jesus beamed out of Mary's womb if There was no natural birth

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There was no incarnation and therefore no atonement Okay Now the early church fell into this because of the rise of what?

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Desert Fathers monasticism pillar saints all sorts of neat Wonderful fun stuff like that.

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I'm hoping hoping to get to teach early church history later in the year and man the pillar

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Saints What is it like to build up a pillar over time and live on the top of it rains no

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Sun Have your disciples take your doo -doo down and bring your food and what a life anyway there are unbiblical reasons why this doctrine developed it is directly directly 1 ,000 %

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Contrary to the plain teaching of Scripture Just just clear as a bell

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But Luther had no desire to analyze it or to dispute it and why because it had been accepted for so long and it was considered to be

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Unholy to question such a thing even though this if you applied the same hermeneutics and methodology of exegesis that Luther used to defend so much of the

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Reformation To this subject he would have rejected this but he didn't Calvin made sort of a vague statement about it

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Later later After this time period it's like and especially as Rome Continued its

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Marian development all of a sudden. Yeah. I know we need to start talking about this and yeah

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Let's take a look at it and we go from there, but they didn't do this during the period of Reformation So when people say yeah, well

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Luther didn't reject it so what So what There are only so many things

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Luther especially was extremely concerned about being accused of creating anarchy of destroying the church and so He's just does that mean that this is this is biblical or that even his testimony is relevant?

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Not really not really and So here's here's the application when we in centuries later

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Look at something like and let's just all be honest. What is this all about? It's all about the extended assertion of divine simplicity not divine simplicity not the idea

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That God is no one's defending the idea that God's made up of all sorts of different parts and those little parts you put them

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Together and he whoo God no one's saying that This is all about Thomas's insistence that ad intra in God There is no distinction to be made between his attributes

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Because in his worldview in his metaphysics if the human mind can make the distinction then it exists in reality

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Look at the ontological argument. It's it's a bit. It's a part of the way people think in that time period

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And so you have to have your view of simplicity add extra outside of God and add intra and You have to use

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Thomas's metaphysics to get to this point and there are people saying if you don't go here You don't really believe that and you're gonna end up as some type of tritheist or polytheist or something like that Now there are other reformed people in history who have pointed out that if you aren't careful over here you could end up in Some type of pantheism and I don't think any of the people over here are gonna end up as pantheist and it's absurd

53:47

For the people over here to think that us over here are getting up as tritheist But that's what this is all about Well, that's what this is all about right now.

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I guarantee you if we don't reign this horse in and Recognize the centrality of sola scriptura it ain't gonna end here and Eventually, this won't be an argument amongst reformed

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Baptist anymore because there'll be a whole bunch of people who were once reformed Baptist who ain't no more and They're gonna be off in other things.

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But the point is What is? when we look at the reformers and someone says well, but they imbibed this they

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Retrieved this they borrowed this Why is this the period where we have to go, okay

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Sola scriptura then but after that we're just stuck with whatever they said There's the problem and I've honestly said to certain individuals.

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I said, okay Let's say They got this from Thomas Are you saying that I cannot biblically shed light on the presuppositions

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That Thomas brought to these things and questioned their validity Demand in -depth biblical exegesis as the foundation of these things and there was hesitation in the response

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There was hesitation in the response. I'm sorry guys I've been telling people outside the faith for decades now that we subsume our

55:40

Statements of faith under the ultimate authority of Scripture. I Didn't know

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I had missed the boat well, I didn't and That's a boat.

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I ain't getting up because I think it's got too many holes in the bottom to get all the way across the lake so By and large the

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Reformers did not need to address these basic loci of Orthodoxy to do so in front of Rome Could have thrown into question their own

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Orthodoxy. Well, that was a debate that was going on That was central in how

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Geneva and Zurich and Bern Responded to Cervetus that Rome had already

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He escaped from the Inquisition the night before he was to be burned at the stake This is relevant to that.

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That's true By contrast Rome and Reformers alike agreed on these tenets of classic

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Christianity But why dr. Berry? There are agreements that are surface level and there are agreements that derive from a consistent application of our ultimate authorities

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Why don't why have I had areas of agreement? With Roman Catholic apologists that I've debated all over the

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United States and in Europe It wasn't because we are deriving our religious authorities from the same sources in the same way

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And I've mentioned this many many times I listen to my Roman Catholic friends talking about stuff going on in the world current events

57:36

And I'm listening going. Yep. Mm -hmm. Yep. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you're right on boom. Boom. Boom, and then all of a sudden

57:42

Boom they hang a left Why? Because the agreements had not been grounded in the consistency of the foundations we stand on And so yes, you're right about that.

57:56

Yes, you're right about that. And so let's pray to the Queen of Peace Whoops, how did that happen?

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It's because the agreements have been surface level. They had not been foundation They had not been foundation

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Even Tertia pars, which does include questions on Mary and the sacraments consists of large sections devoted to Chalcedonian Christology Again, the same conclusion follows or the same objection follow

58:28

The point deserves emphasis medievals like Thomas constructed a massive foundation grounded in what?

58:37

Classical Christian Orthodoxy And the

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Reformers never felt the need to address a majority of its loci Because they never felt the need to disagree on the whole.

58:49

What is this ignoring? What is the issue here foundation? Origin source what you go back to and here's what's going to happen folk

59:03

I've not seen any of these folks doing debates with Roman Catholics I have if they have I've missed them and that doesn't mean anything because I Don't know how you could get keep up with everything that's flowing around on on the net today

59:17

No one possibly could but I don't see them out there debating these folks and what's going to happen is when they do

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They're going to find out that Just a little bit of poison in the water is deadly and We will we're gonna have to defend our positions in different ways.

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That should not be the case But we will we will their silence should not be taken as divergence but conformity

59:51

How about their silence? So so Their their silence on the

59:57

Marian stuff or even their agreement. So it's conformity, right? Or is it not appropriate to go?

01:00:06

Well, there were issues here that hadn't been You can only address so many issues there's only only so many controversies that can be covered in a certain period of time right a quiet testimony to their reformed

01:00:20

Catholicity That should change current perspectives which so major on discontinuity that the massive amount of continuity is either neglected or denied and I am simply saying the only meaningful

01:00:37

Metric of Continuity and discontinuity is found in the inspired

01:00:42

Word of God You're a biblicist when it comes to the recognition of The ultimate authority of that which is the

01:00:54

Anastos over against everything that is not. Yes, I am Yes, I am and that's why

01:01:02

I believe the Chalcedonian formula is correct Because of the biblical evidence

01:01:08

Not necessarily because of the arguments used by the people at Chalcedon and if you don't go that direction then you've got no reason to reject

01:01:19

Nicaea 2 either and The vast majority of you do not believe almost anything else found in the canons and decrees of from Nicaea 1 onward

01:01:30

You got to be consistent You got to be consistent

01:01:41

Then He Gives some recommendations, but I thought that the thread and thank you to the individual who sent me the thread about five minutes before the program started helped to expand upon what was found in the

01:01:53

Westminster Journal and what was what was found there and so Like I said,

01:02:00

I was all queued up here. I Had my audio note -taker program ready to rock and roll and I had 1st

01:02:10

Corinthians 1 ready to go we were gonna get into Paulman's attempted means get around 1st

01:02:17

Corinthians 2 14 and and We'll do that in the future. We will get to it.

01:02:22

Maybe as early as Thursday. Well, we'll see There's lots of stuff to be talking about Lots of stuff going on in the world

01:02:29

But we'll we'll try to get to it I thought this was important enough to address in a meaningful fashion in a fuller fashion

01:02:39

Because it just seems like there's a lot of Lot of talk going on a lot of time. I hear music

01:02:45

That means we're done. I think I Mean, I could have gone on for another half hour, but no rich says we've got it.