Great Debate VII - Veneration of Saints and Images - Madrid

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The following presentation is a production of Alpha and Omega Ministries, Inc. and is protected by copyright laws of the

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United States and its international treaties. Copying or distribution of this production without the expressed written permission of Alpha and Omega Ministries, Inc.

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is prohibited. I'm going to introduce my dear friend James White, first of all, before I introduce

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Arnold Pilsner of Americans United for the Pope, who was a great help to me in this debate as he is every year.

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Dr. James White is director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a theologically reformed evangelical

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Christian apologetics organization in Phoenix, Arizona, where he also pastors the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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James is a professor at several seminaries and the author of almost 20 books, including The Roman Catholic Controversy, Mary, Another Redeemer, and Dangerous Airwaves, Harold Camping Refuted, and Christ's Church Defended.

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Due to his scholarship in New Testament Greek, James was appointed critical consultant for the

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New American Standard Bible update version. He is heard frequently as a guest on national radio broadcasts, such as The Bible Answer Man with Hank Hanegraaff and Janet Partial's America.

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Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, Dr. James White. By the way, many of you may have noticed a metamorphosis in Dr.

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White over the last seven years. How many here were at the first debate seven years ago? By the way, how many evangelical

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Protestants do we have here tonight? And how many Roman Catholics do we have here tonight?

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Oh, very good. Looks equal. Looks pretty equal, right? Looks very equal. When I first met

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Dr. White, he was a mere slip of a man. He was quite small, would you say, in stature, and some might even call him frail.

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And when he was first here, he sort of looked like the curator of the

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Cornelius Van Til Library here. Now, he looks like a steroid -crazed serial killer that you'd see on America's Most Wanted.

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You know, it's kind of funny. We've been friends for eight years now, and when

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I first met him, he was a humorless man, dry as a bone, quite dull, actually.

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Always brilliant. I always granted him that. But over the years, he's bulked up to a rather impressive and frightening stature, and he's actually developed a sense of humor.

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So I recognize that in this friendship, I've been able to share with him some things that he's absorbed, and I'm wondering, where's the give in this give -and -take relationship?

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I mean, why am I still a moron? I don't understand that.

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Well, greedy soul that he is, I still love him, and I am excited about this debate.

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And before I introduce Arnold Pilsner of Americans United for the Pope, who will introduce Patrick Madrid, I just want to say a word about Patrick.

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Despite the fact that I am a committed Protestant, there's no two ways about it. In fact, as I've said before, it is my hope that every

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Catholic leaves here a Protestant, every Protestant leaves here a Calvinist, and every Calvinist leaves here a Reformed Baptist.

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That is my wish. But despite that fact, I have a little bit of a problem with sympathies here, because Patrick Madrid, this is not a lie, was the first person on September 11th to call me to see if I was okay.

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Very first person. And I must quickly add, though, that James White was the second person who called me on November 11th,

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I believe it was. In fact, the conversation went something like this, hey,

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Chris, you know that stuff I have, the winter clothing that I have for my trips to New York? You got that still? Yeah, you might want to send that back.

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Oh, you're good? That's good. Well, anyway, I gotta go. Bye. Anyway, no, James is a dear friend, and of course, he was also very quick to point out how

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I was doing on that day. But I would like to introduce Arnold Pilsner, who will be introducing to you

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Patrick Madrid. Arnold Pilsner is Director of Americans United for the Pope. He's been a very valuable friend in these debates every year, helping organize the

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Catholic side of this. And Arnold Pilsner, where are you? I'd like you to come up and introduce Patrick Madrid. After that wonderful introduction that you gave to Dr.

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White and Patrick, thank you for not introducing me. Oh, okay.

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Thank you, Chris, for your introduction and for all the work that you do every year to make this debate a great success.

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I also extend my greetings to Dr. White and to his staff. It is a distinct honor and pleasure to introduce to you

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Mr. Patrick Madrid. Patrick Madrid is the publisher of Envoy Magazine, an award -winning

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Catholic journal of apologetics and evangelization. Patrick is the best -selling author of several books, including

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Surprise by Truth, Surprise by Truth 2, Pope Fiction, Any Friend of God's is a

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Friend of Mine, Where is That in the Bible, Search and Rescue, Why is

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That in Tradition? and the forthcoming book, Friends in High Places. He is also a co -author of Not by Scripture Alone and is a contributor to the forthcoming

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Ignatius Press Encyclopedia of Catholic Apologetics. Active in apologetics for the past 15 years, he was the vice president of Catholic Answers from 1988 to 1995 and co -founder of that apostolous flagship magazine,

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This Rock, in January of 1990. Patrick is not a convert. He was raised in the

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Catholic faith. He earned a bachelor of science degree in business management from the

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University of Phoenix and has done graduate studies in theology at the

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University of Dallas. In addition to his work as an author, Patrick is also the host of two

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EWTN television and radio series, Pope Fiction and The Truth About Scripture and Tradition, and he is the executive producer of the

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Envoy Communications radio program, Right Here, Right Now, which is aired on Catholic stations across the country.

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He has conducted hundreds of apologetics and evangelization conferences in English and Spanish at parishes and universities across the

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United States, throughout Europe and Asia and in Latin America. He is a veteran of several formal public debates with Protestant ministers,

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Mormon leaders, and other non -Catholic spokesmen. Patrick and his wife, Nancy, have been blessed with 11 healthy and happy children.

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Their most important goal as a couple is to one day hear the Lord Jesus say to them and their children, well done, good and faithful servants.

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You have been faithful over a little. Now enter into the joy of your master, Matthew 25, 21.

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Please join me in giving Patrick Madrid a warm welcome. One thing

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I want to make clear tonight also is that both sides are usually very spirited and committed to their respective sides of this debate, but we ask you please not to call out, not to make noises, groans and moans,

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I mean you can do that after I say something, but not during these guys while they're debating because that just detracts from the whole spirit of the debate and it distracts from the content of the debate.

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So we just ask of you to please keep, oh thank you, we ask of you to please keep your outbursts out of the room.

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We don't need them. I mean you can obviously applaud after a debater has finished speaking and so forth, but while there is actually speaking going on during the debate, please no outbursts from the audience in any way.

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I also want to draw your attention, in fact I'm going to call Arnold up here real quick in a second so he can point you to some of Patrick's books.

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I think he forgot to do that. But I want to call your attention to two books by James White that are available for sale out in the lobby out there that both sides of this debate may find interesting.

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The first one is Dangerous Airwaves, Harold Camping Refuted and Christ's Church Defended. It's a book that James White wrote obviously refuting the recent heresies of Harold Camping who was saying that the church no longer exists.

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And another book that he wrote with Jeffrey Neal called The Same Sex Controversy, which is a book refuting the liberal theologian's attempts to defend homosexuality biblically.

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And please this book is not to be confused with the book that I wrote about my tragic struggle with color blindness called

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The Same Socks Controversy. It's a totally, totally different, totally different book, completely different.

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There's also a three -volume set, a three -volume set by a dear friend of both

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Dr. White's and mine, actually two dear friends of mine and Dr. White's, Bill Webster and David Chang have a three -volume set on the historicity of the doctrine of sola scriptura.

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It is probably the most exhaustive collection of writings on this subject in perspective of the early church fathers and so forth.

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And it's worth selling them cheaper than you're going to get them anywhere else, including his website. $15 a volume.

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$15 a volume here. Very dirt cheap. I mean you can attest to that, can't you? Very dirt cheap.

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I stand before you folks a liar and a man who is going back on his word, but I apologize

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I just can't help myself tonight. I hope that all here forgive me for doing this, especially our orthodox

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Presbyterian moderator, but I just can't control myself. Excuse me, but let's get ready to rumble.

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Sorry, I had to get that out of my system. I apologize. I apologize. Now I'm going to introduce to you our esteemed moderator who

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I'm sure does not want to know me anymore. When I was trying to find a moderator for this debate, in order to be fair,

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I had to think a minute and say, I have to find somebody who despises Catholics just about as much as he despises

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Baptists. So who better than a Presbyterian moderator? Bill Shishko is one of the most brilliant men that I have ever met and I say that in total sincerity and honesty.

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He is a dear friend. He is the pastor of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, Long Island, and I'd like to introduce him to you,

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Pastor Bill Shishko, our moderator, ladies and gentlemen. Now Arnold, I just want to quick at Arnold, do you have any books that you wanted to highlight about Patrick or do you want

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Patrick to do it? Patrick, do you want to just quick highlight any of your books? Okay, that's fine.

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All right, now we're just going to, before Bill comes up and takes over the evening, which I'm sure you'll all be thankful for, we're going to bow for a word of silent prayer.

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Amen. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, and here again is Pastor Bill Shishko. Chris picked a

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Presbyterian because we're known for doing everything decently and in order, and we're going to start that right now.

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The thesis for the debate this evening is prayer to and veneration of the saints, as well as the veneration of sacred images that represent them, is compatible with Scripture and Christian tradition.

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Mr. Patrick Madrid will defend the thesis. Mr. James White will deny the thesis.

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Here is the order for the speeches for the evening. The opening speech will be led by Mr.

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Madrid and then followed by Mr. White. Each opening speech will be 27 minutes long.

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This will be followed by a second speech by each person. Mr. Madrid and Mr.

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White will speak each for 14 minutes in that order. Following that, there will be a 15 -minute break.

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Now, my experience has been in past debates that 10 or 15 minutes has become 30 minutes.

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I am moderating this this evening. It will be a 15 -minute break. At the 13 -minute mark, you'll be given a two -minute warning, and you will be in your seats if you want to hear the next part of the debate.

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And we're doing that so that you will have time for questions following. After the break, there will be a cross -examination period of 12 minutes led first by Mr.

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Madrid and then by Mr. White, and that will be followed by two rebuttals, each of eight minutes, again,

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Mr. Madrid leading and Mr. White following. Closing remarks will be for 10 minutes each with the same succession of speakers.

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That, including the 15 -minute debate, should be approximately two hours and 40 minutes or two hours and 45 minutes, which should leave about 30 minutes for questions.

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And it will be a question time, not a time for preaching from the gathered people, so that we must be out of here by 1145.

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I want to reiterate what Mr. Aronson said. We are strictly going to observe the time limits.

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I ask that you do not applaud in the middle of the speeches of the people. If you're applauding the man that you favor, you're only taking up his time.

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You're not going to help him at all. You may applaud at the end and certainly at the end of the entire debate. Both men will be deserving of our applause.

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I am insisting on decorum. This is a debate. It is not a baseball game. Thankfully, neither of our men is involved in a union, so I don't think they'll be going on strike.

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But you are not to boo. You are not to hiss. You are not to make cat calls or loud sighs. Again, I will call for order.

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And one other thing that I ask, if you have a cell phone, either turn it off or turn your ring mechanism to vibrate only.

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We don't want any interruptions by cell phones at all this evening. If you have to make a call, do not make it from your seat.

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Go out to the back. But please turn off your cell phones or only use the vibrator.

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We'll begin this evening with Mr. Madrid. Thank you all.

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Well, greetings to all of you and my thanks to the organizers of this debate, to Jim White, to Arnold Pilsner and his group, to all the people who have helped put this on.

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I didn't realize this was the seventh of these debates in a row, but I can tell you that after all the things that I've heard about this debate and how fierce

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New Yorkers are and how strenuous these events sometimes get, I feel as though I'm sort of the main course at a banquet here.

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But I hope I taste good this evening. At least I hope the information that we present to you is palatable.

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I'm also aware that the Great Debate Series has a well -deserved reputation for bringing in only the finest and the best debaters to this venue.

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And since none of those people were available this year, I'm also grateful that they were willing to call on me as a backup.

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Now, as our moderator pointed out a few minutes ago, the thesis topic tonight is, and I'll just repeat it, prayer to and veneration of the saints as well as the veneration of sacred images that represent them is compatible with Scripture and Christian tradition.

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And my job tonight is to present the Catholic case, and not just the Catholic case but the Orthodox case as well, to the extent that the

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Orthodox will tolerate me presuming to make the same case for them. But Catholics and Orthodox share the same views on this subject.

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So I'm going to be doing my best to present the information that will help you see whether or not this is not a reasonable proposition.

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I believe it is a reasonable proposition that the evidence in Scripture and the evidence in sacred tradition, in fact, tell us that the veneration of the saints, veneration of their images, and asking for their intercession is compatible with Scripture and with Christian tradition.

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And in order to do my job properly, one of the things that both I and Jim have to do is we have to stay on topic, as we were told earlier.

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And so that means that we're not going to be able to veer into tangential related issues such as Mary's perpetual virginity.

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We won't have time to talk about purgatory or whether or not we should call Mary the mother of God. We won't have time to talk about her immaculate conception.

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And those are all other debates for future forums. But tonight we have to concentrate on this very strict sense, the very strict theme of whether or not it is proper for Christians to honor the saints and to invoke their intercession and to venerate icons of the saints.

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And so we're going to do our best to stay on that topic and really take a look at the evidence that serves to verify the hypothesis.

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That's my job. And then Jim is going to present his information, his evidence that he sees as denying or falsifying this hypothesis.

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And, you know, when I was coming out here, we drove all the way out from Columbus, Ohio. My son and his friend and I came out.

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And as I was coming out here, it dawned on me that today is

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July the 11th. And here I am standing in front of you in the greater

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New York area. And the more I thought about it, the more I think

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God is being very poetic in having this date fixed through his providence for a debate on the question of the communion of saints because consider what was happening just a few miles from here at the

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Twin Towers on September the 11th. There were many thousands of people who were losing their lives.

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You and I all watched it on television in horror. Some of you perhaps were even in the city at the time.

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You may have seen the devastation up close. And one of the things that has come to my mind as I've thought and prayed and prepared for this debate is what we all did,

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I'm certain, as normal human beings when we turned on the television and found out about the hijackings and the buildings falling down, we prayed.

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And I won't ask for a show of hands, but I think if we were honest and looked into our hearts, we did pray for other people.

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We prayed for the victims of the planes, hoping that maybe somebody would survive. We prayed for those that were trapped in the buildings.

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We prayed for the brave firefighters and the rescue workers who went into the buildings to protect them and to save them.

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But the point is we prayed. We prayed for the people who lived in the area. We didn't know if they were hurt or not hurt, killed or alive.

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And really that is a very sad, very tragic, but also I think a very helpful backdrop for us this evening because it typifies very well, very vividly for us, what the communion of saints means.

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Now, I realize that there are many things that divide us theologically here, Catholics and Protestants, but one thing

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I think it's safe to say is that we are all striving to love and serve Jesus Christ. And part of that desire to know, love, and serve him involves doing what he told us to do, and that is to love our neighbor.

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And in the Catholic Church, that commandment to love your neighbor includes such things as clothing the naked, giving drink to the thirsty, et cetera, but also, and perhaps even more importantly, it involves praying for your neighbor, seeking after his spiritual well -being, building him up in Christ.

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That is even more important than feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, et cetera, as important as those things are.

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And so what I'd like to do is to present some biblical information. We won't have time to cover a mountain of information, but let me begin with a definition or two just to help us get situated.

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First of all, the Council of Trent, in its 25th session in 1563, it declared that the saints who reign together with Christ offer up their own prayers for men, and it is good and useful suppliantly to invoke them and to have recourse to their prayers, aid and help for obtaining the benefits from God through his

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Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who alone is Redeemer and Savior. That was the Council of Trent. At Vatican II, we see something a little bit more expansive.

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Vatican II says in the document Sacra Sanctum Concilium, By the hidden and kindly mystery of God's will, a supernatural solidarity reigns among men.

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A consequence of this is that the sin of one person harms other people, just as one person's holiness helps others.

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In this way, Christian believers help each other reach their supernatural destiny.

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The great intimacy of the union of those in heaven with Christ gives extra steadiness and holiness to the whole church and makes a manifold contribution to the extension of her building.

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Now that they are welcomed in their own country and are at home with the Lord, through him, with him, and in him, they intercede unremittingly with the

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Father on our behalf. That would be a very concise statement with regard to what the communion of saints is all about.

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So now let me go through some particular evidence that I think will help us see at least what the Catholic Church is saying and teaching on this subject.

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And I'd like to present to you seven points for your consideration with regard to this thesis tonight about the communion of saints.

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First of the seven points is that the church is Christ's body. And I believe we could all agree on that.

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The church is the body of Christ. We read about that in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12,

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Ephesians 2, 3, and 4. We're told such things in Romans 12, verses 4 through 5, for as in one body we have many parts and all the parts do not have the same function.

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So we, though many, are one body in Christ and, now listen to this last phrase, and individually parts of one another.

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So there's this cohesive unity between all the members of the body of Christ. We are in Christ, but we are also, as St.

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Paul says here, individually parts of one another. We have a share in each other's welfare. We read about this also in John 17, verses 22 through 23.

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Jesus says essentially the same thing when he says, may they be one as we are one, speaking to the

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Father. I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one.

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And in John 15, verses 1 through 5, the Lord amplifies this through his use of the metaphor of the vine and the branches.

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You and I are branches, part of the body of Christ. He is the vine. And interestingly, although you and I as branches have communion and fellowship with the vine itself,

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Christ, we also have communion and fellowship with one another. So keep this in mind. The church is

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Christ's body. Point number two, Christ has only one body. He doesn't have a body on earth and another body in heaven.

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There's just one body of Christ. And it's an eternal, perpetual, united body.

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And Christ so identifies with us that, for example, when Saul, who was persecuting the

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Christians in Acts 9, gets knocked off his horse, Jesus confronts him. He doesn't say,

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Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting my followers? He says, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Meaning that there is this intense and mysterious connection between Christ and his body.

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So if we keep that second point in mind, that Christ has only one body, not one body in heaven and one body on earth.

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We realize that when St. Paul says in Ephesians 2, verses 13 through 16, that Christ has made peace for us.

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He has made us one. He has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two.

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This is unity. Galatians 3, verses 27 through 28, St. Paul says, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ and put on Christ, there is neither

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Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.

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Now, we can enumerate many different examples of these passages that tell us the same thing.

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But what this is getting us to is the question between Catholics and evangelical Protestants and others, for that matter.

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And that is, we may be able to agree that there is one body of Christ. We may be able to agree that the church is the body of Christ, as we're told in those passages.

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But the real question is, as members of the body of Christ, is there some type of connection between those of us who are saints here on earth and the saints who are in heaven?

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That's the real question that's set before us tonight. And what we have to look at now is point number three, which will help us address that question, because that's one of those big dividing issues.

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Point number three is that death does not separate the members of the body of Christ.

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So just as St. Paul said, those of us who were baptized into Christ are one body, as he also says in Romans 8, verses 35 -39, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.

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And he lists many different things, not nakedness, famine, the sword, peril, etc. He says none of these things can divide us from Christ and from his love.

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He says, in fact, we conquer overwhelmingly through these things. But it's not just the love of Christ that he is referring to here.

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He's also referring to Christ himself. So those of us who are in the body of Christ can't be separated from either

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Christ himself or from any other member of the body. Otherwise, Christ would not have conquered death.

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And if you believe, as I do, that Jesus Christ conquered death once and for all and destroyed death in its sting and took away any power that it has over his followers, then that's the real question.

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If Christ conquered death, then the body of Christ is not separated by death. We have to consider that since death has no power to sever the bond of Christian unity, the relationship between Christians remains.

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And as we go a little bit further tonight, we're going to see how Scripture intensifies this relationship for us when it speaks about the different duties that Christians have toward one another.

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In 1 Corinthians 12, St. Paul says, God placed the parts, each one of them in the body, as he intended.

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If they were all one part, where would the body be? But as it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

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The eye cannot say to the hand, I do not need you, nor again can the head say to the feet, I do not need you. And this is very important for us to remember that those who say that we should ignore or even deny that the saints in heaven, the members of that one body of Christ, can and do pray for us and that we can invoke their intercession, they are actually violating 1

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Corinthians 12. St. Paul says very clearly, no member of the body can say to any other member,

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I do not need you. And tonight, as the evidence is being presented by Jim for the opposing side,

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I want you to keep 1 Corinthians 12 in mind, if you would, and ask yourself if that argument is consistent with St.

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Paul's admonition that we need one another. Point number four, Christians are united in charity. This is, you might say, the point where the rubber meets the road in the

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Christian life. We are called to love and serve one another. Romans 15, verses 30 through 32.

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I urge you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in this struggle by your prayers to God on my behalf.

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2 Corinthians 1, 10. In Him we have put our hope that He will also rescue us again as you help us with prayer.

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Colossians 1, 4 and 9 through 10. We always give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. When we pray for you, we do not cease praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding to live in a manner worthy of the

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Lord. Another question we should ask is, if St. Paul says that he always prays for us, he yearns to see us, and so on, does it make any sense at all, given what we know from the earlier points, to imagine that once St.

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Paul died, that those thoughts and that intention to pray for and supplicate on our behalf would go out the window and that suddenly now he wouldn't be doing those things.

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We could quote many other verses. Galatians 6, 2, 1 Corinthians 10, 24, 1 Thessalonians 4, 9 through 10, 2

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Thessalonians 5, excuse me, 1 Thessalonians 5, 11 and 1 Thessalonians 5, 14 through 15.

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All of these are good examples of what is called in theological circles a standing command.

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This is a command that Scripture gives us to pray for, to help one another, to seek the spiritual welfare of our fellow members of the body of Christ, and nowhere in Scripture is this command to the members of the body of Christ rescinded.

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The next point, point number five, is that we are able to imitate the saints, and part of what we as Catholics and our

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Orthodox brothers do when we have icons, is to have pictures of them to remind us of their virtues, to remind us of the sufferings that the martyrs underwent on behalf of Christ, to remind us of purity and truthfulness, etc.

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And as St. Paul says in Philippians 3, 17 and in Philippians 4, 8 through 9, he tells us to imitate him, and he says, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

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Now ask yourself, among all the people that you know, who do you think is the most gracious, the most pure, the most honorable, etc.,

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if not the saints who are in heaven and glory? Hebrews 12 tells us that they are the spirits of the just, made perfect in righteousness.

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So if anything is presented to us by Scripture for us to meditate upon, not to the exclusion, of course, but in addition to meditating upon Jesus Christ, that would be the friends of Jesus Christ, the saints.

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If we go a little bit further, we get to some of the statements that we get from the early church fathers, but before we get to those, we're just going to talk about one final, two final points, point number six, that we are able to invoke the intercession of the saints.

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This is another area that divides Catholics and Protestants. I'm here to say, I'm here as a friend, I'm not your enemy, but I'm here to represent the

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Catholic teaching, which is simply that those of us on earth can pray for one another. As St.

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Paul said in 1 Timothy 2, verses one through four, first of all, brothers, I ask that prayers, supplications, petitions and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life, for this is good and pleasing to God, our

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Savior. St. Paul says that when we pray for each other, supplicate for one another, intercede for one another and offer thanksgivings,

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God is pleased by that. And one question that I hope Jim will be able to answer for us tonight is how is it that suddenly when the saints who can pray, supplicate and intercede for us here on earth and that pleases

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God, how is it that when they get to heaven and they stand before God face to face, they are perfected in righteousness, that suddenly now that is no longer pleasing to God or that it is no longer pleasing to God for us to ask them to pray, supplicate and intercede for us.

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And notice it's just right before 1 Timothy 2, 5 that we read those words and in 1

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Timothy 2, 5, we see St. Paul reminding us for there is one mediator between God and man, the man

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Christ Jesus. So these saints in heaven are not somehow doing something that Jesus is only supposed to do or they're not trying to take away or rob something from Christ who is our one mediator.

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He is the only one that could affect a union between where we are stranded in sin and where God is in all holiness.

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He is the one mediator. But now because we have that access through Christ, we are able to pray for, supplicate, intercede for one another.

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Another interesting point, Matthew 25, 21, Jesus in that passage tells us that the saints are put in charge of many things.

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In heaven they are put in charge of many things. That means there must be some activity in addition to praising the

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Lord, which is of course the primary activity, but I'm going to tell you that they are put in charge of many things, and one of those many things that they're in charge of is to continue that effort to pray for and supplicate for us.

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There are many passages in the Old Testament, but because of time I don't have the ability to go into those passages where we see supplication and we see intercession on the part of Old Testament figures such as Abraham or Job.

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Perhaps in the Q &A period we can cover those. But I'd like you to listen to the church fathers and what they say on the subject of the value and the importance of the intercession of the saints.

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For example, listen to St. Jerome writing around the year 406. He says, You say in your book that while we live we are able to pray for each other, but afterwards when we have died the prayer of no person for another can be heard.

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And this is especially clear since the martyrs, though they cry for vengeance for their own blood, have never been able to obtain their request.

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But if the apostles and martyrs were still alive in the body, while still alive in the body, can pray for others, a time when they ought to still be solicitous about themselves, how much more will they do so after their crowns and victories and triumphs?

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He writes that in his work against Vigilantius. Augustine of Hippo says in his Sermon 159,

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There is an ecclesiastical discipline, as the faithful know, when the names of the martyrs are read aloud in the place at the altar of God, where the prayer is not offered for them.

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Prayer, however, is offered for other dead who are remembered, for it is wrong to pray for a martyr to whose prayers we ourselves ought to be commended.

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He also says in Sermon 172, For the whole church observes this practice, which was handed down by the fathers, that it prays for those who have died in the communion of the body and the blood of Christ, when they are commemorated in their own place and sacrifice itself, and the sacrifice is offered also in the memory of them and on their behalf.

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So we see there again, not only does St. Augustine tell us that the saints in heaven can pray for us, but also that we pray for the souls of the faithfully departed.

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Catholics would refer to that as purgatory, people who are there. Unfortunately, purgatory is not our debate theme tonight, as tantalizing as that might be for both of us, but perhaps a future opportunity will present itself.

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St. John Damascene mentions the same thing. We could go repeatedly through these different points, but I want to just finish up with point seven and then we'll turn briefly to icons.

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The last point is that we can praise and honor the saints. And when we have icons in the

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Catholic Church, that is for the benefit of praising and honoring the saints. They're there to remind us of these holy men and women, and they're also there to serve as memorials to their honor.

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Romans 8 .18, St. Paul says, For the sufferings of this time are not fit to be compared with the future glory that will be revealed in us.

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Notice he doesn't say that this is future glory that will be revealed to us, but in us.

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In other words, God is going to infuse us with his own glory. And when we have icons and sacred images of the saints, the

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Blessed Virgin Mary, that's a way to remind ourselves of that. Romans 13, verses one through seven, we read that classic passage where we're told to give honor to whom it is due.

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St. Paul says that we are to, let me just flip here to it, that we are told to pay taxes to the people that we owe taxes to.

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We're to give respect to the authorities here on earth. In verse six, he says, This is why you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, devoting themselves to this very thing.

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Pay all their dues. Pay taxes to whom taxes are due. Tolls to whom toll is due. Respect to whom respect is due.

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And honor to whom honor is due. And I ask you, my friends, to whom is more honor due than the friends of Jesus Christ?

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Those who love him, those who obey him, those who are with him in heaven and glory. If anyone deserves honor, it's not the justice of the peace down the road.

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It's not the people you see on C -SPAN passing laws. And they do receive a certain amount of honor, but the honor that we are justly to give to the saints is told to us here by St.

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Paul. So in point number seven, we see that we can indeed honor the saints.

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Now we see examples in the New Testament, for example, 1 Corinthians 11, verses one through two, where St.

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Paul praises and gives honor to the Christian community that he was writing to. He says, Be imitators of me as I am of Christ.

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I praise you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions just as I have handed them on to you.

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So there are just an innumerable wealth of examples of how we can give honor and praise in a proper sense, not detracting from the honor and glory that we give to God alone.

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But I'd like to close this section with just a few quotes from some people that you might recognize. For example, Martin Luther, in 1534, he wrote these words.

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She, referring to Mary, is the lady above heaven and earth. She must have a heart so humble that she might have no shame in washing the swaddling clothes or preparing a bath for St.

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John the Baptist like a servant girl. What humility. It would surely have been more to have arranged for a golden coach pulled by 4 ,000 horses and to cry and proclaim as the carriage proceeded.

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Here passes the woman who raised above the whole human race. She was not filled with pride by this praise, this immense praise.

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No woman is like unto thee. Thou art more than an empress or a queen, blessed above all nobility and wisdom and saintliness.

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Now, you Lutherans in the audience may feel your skin crawl, as I'm quoting Martin Luther at that. But just remember, in the times that Luther wrote, there was a certain extravagant way of speaking about the saints.

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And he still had that very Catholic sense of offering proper veneration to Mary and the saints.

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John Calvin said, It cannot be denied that God in choosing and destining Mary to be the mother of his son granted her the highest honor.

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And he goes on, but the point of his section there, and this is taken out of his writings on the question of the saints, we see that he is not saying that we can't give any honor to the saints, but it has to be proper honor.

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And that is exactly what we as Catholics believe. Martin Luther, in his sermon at Christmas in 1531, he said, referring to Mary again,

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She is the highest woman and the noblest gem in Christianity after Christ. She is nobility, wisdom and holiness personified.

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We can never honor her enough. Now we ask ourselves, how do we honor

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Mary and the saints? And I have to switch now to the question of icons and the question of what the early church says for us.

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Now we see in the in the early 200s, the early 200s, there's a prayer that was discovered.

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And this is the oldest known version of it. But the prayer is called which means we fly to your patronage.

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And this was found in Egypt. It dates. It's a Christian document dating from the mid 200s. And here's what the Christians were writing about Mary.

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And by extension, the saints at that time, we fly to your patronage, a holy mother of God, despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers.

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Oh, glorious and blessed virgin. That type of praise is something that many

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Protestants are unaccustomed to hearing. But the early Christians were quite accustomed to honoring and venerating

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Mary and the saints. Now listen to this. And the remaining moment that we have, we have many quotes from the early church.

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Some of them I'm going to have to save for the next section. But I want to read to you a couple of them from St.

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Augustine in his sermon 313. He says, what after all are the praises of such a great martyr?

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But the praises of God. Or to whose credit is it that Serbian was converted to God with his whole heart, but to whom the one but the one to whom it was said,

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God of powers convert us. So we don't move away from praising God when we praise the works of God, referring to the saints or the battles of God in the soldier's heart.

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He says, so let blessed Cyprian be praised in the Lord because he has overcome these things.

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He too certainly rejoices. He rejoices for us, not for himself when he is praised in the

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Lord. In the Lord shall my soul be praised. Let the general here and be glad. He was gentle.

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He wishes his soul to be praised in the Lord. Let his soul be praised in the Lord. Now the time is against me, so I'll have to stop now.

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But in the remaining sections this evening, we're going to talk more about what the early fathers had to say on that subject.

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And I thank you for your patience. Good evening and welcome.

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It is very good to see all of you here this evening. A wonderful crowd here tonight. It was interesting listening to all the debating taking place before we got started.

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Even before the debaters were here to start doing the debating. This evening's debate, however, is really rather simple in its fundamental thesis.

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That is, is the holy, inerrant, preserved, living word of God sufficient to define what is and, this is the important part, what is not proper worship so that we can avoid in any way, shape, or form displeasing

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God in the matter of worship? Is the Bible able, in of itself, to tell us how

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God would be worshipped and what is pleasing before God? Or is that pretty much an issue that man has to decide for himself?

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Is man left up to the task of determining what is right and proper worship before God?

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Now I'm going to ask you this evening to focus in upon those two elements of the thesis. First, are these practices, prayers to, invocation of saints and angels, these things, are they consistent with what the

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Scripture teaches? And are they consistent with what is called Christian tradition? Which, of course, opens up the whole hornet's nest of exactly how you define what in the world that is in the first place.

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But most importantly, I would like to ask you, if you have your Bibles, to look at some passages.

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We've both, we're both going to be throwing out some passages this evening to you. Obviously, that's why we're videotaping and audiotaping so that you can go back over these things.

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But I hope you will take the time to look at what the Scriptures say. Turn with me to Exodus chapter 20.

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This, of course, the place where God gives us the 10 words, the 10 commandments. And it's not an issue, really, the enumeration of these things.

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Every word of God is binding upon us. And how you divide it up really isn't the issue this evening.

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What I would like to address this evening, especially, is what I believe the heart of the matter is in regards to prayers to and veneration of saints, angels, and images, so on and so forth.

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And that is the fact that the Roman Catholic Church says we are not giving to creatures what is due only to God.

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When you see the Roman Catholic bowing down before the statue of Mary, when you see the lighting of candles, when you hear the offering of prayers, we are told that this does not violate any commands of Scripture because we only give to God, and they would also say to the

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Eucharist and to images of Christ, so on and so forth, but we only give to God what is due to God.

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And the term that is used there is latria, adoration, true worship of God.

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What we give to saints is different. It is called dulia, and that is service.

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That is a different term, and when the person is bowing before the statue or praying to Mary, Mary, in fact, receives hyperdulia, the highest form of dulia, and only she receives that.

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But this distinction between latria and dulia is at the very heart of what we are talking about tonight.

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Because if that distinction is unbiblical, if that distinction does not exist, then everything else becomes irrelevant.

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All the other argumentation becomes irrelevant because if latria and dulia are, in fact, biblically the same thing, then the excuse that is offered for offering, for example, prayer.

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Prayer is an act of worship. How do you pray to a saint without worshiping?

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Well, not all prayer is worship, we are told. In fact, we are just giving dulia to that particular saint, or if it is to Mary, hyperdulia.

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It is not latria. We don't give that to anything but God. If that distinction is not biblical, then in reality, everything else is pretty much irrelevant because even if you wanted to establish that this is consistent with the entirety of Christian tradition, what is more important?

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What God has said in His inspired word, or what is found in what is allegedly defined as a tradition, we will discover that the historical sources are not united on these issues at all.

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So how do we determine whether this distinction between latria, given to God alone, and dulia, given to saints, and hyperdulia, given to Mary, as the mother of God, is, in fact, biblical?

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Well, we can look at what the scriptures say. Now, of course, latria and dulia aren't words that existed when the

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Bible was first written. The Bible was written in Hebrew in the Old Testament, with a little bit of Aramaic, Greek in the

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New Testament, but latria and dulia are Latin terms that come from two Greek words. Latruo, to worship, but it's the verbal form, and duluo, to serve, that is the verbal form of that as well.

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And we are very blessed to have in our possession not only the

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Hebrew originals in the sense of the Hebrew language of the Old Testament, but we also have the translation of the

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Old Testament that the New Testament writers themselves used, called the Greek Septuagint. And when we look at how that translation and how the

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Old Testament uses words, we discover that the attempt to make a distinction and say latria is worship, you give that only to God, dulia is not worship, it's reverence, it's veneration, you give that only to the saints, that distinction is unbiblical and contradicted by the regular usage of those words in both the

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Old and New Testaments. And therefore, I submit to you, that on the issue of worship, when you go to where God has defined

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His own worship in His own word, that word tells us that you are not to engage in any type of activity.

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It would be based upon that distinction that in fact to offer prayers to any creature other than God, to offer veneration in the form of bowing down and worship to anyone other than God is the grievous sin of idolatry.

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That is the biblical teaching. Well, where does it teach this? Well, let's look. Exodus chapter 20, verse 5.

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You shall not worship them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous

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God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children on the third and fourth generations of those who hate me.

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Those are not really kind or politically correct words. God talks about His wrath here.

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He talks about visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children of the third and fourth generations.

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For what? For violating His proper worship. But the key is to look at those two terms.

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You shall not worship them or serve them. Well, what are those words?

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Well, in the Hebrew language, shatach means to bow down, and it's the first word translated there, worship.

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And then, very importantly this evening, avad means to serve them in this passage.

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Now, that term avad is key. Why? Because in the

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Greek translation of the Old Testament, which comes into the New Testament in its citation, in that translation, that one term avad is translated both, by both the

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Greek terms that come into the Latin, latria and dulia. The Greek Septuagint does not differentiate between those two terms in translating this one

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Hebrew word, and we are forbidden from avad -ing, to sort of mess up the

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Hebrew language there, we are forbidden to avad anyone other than God.

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That includes latria and dulia, both. Now, in this particular passage, the term avad is translated by latrua, which becomes latria.

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This very passage, right in the Ten Commandments, says, you will not give latria.

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And Roman Catholics would say, yep, see, we don't. And yet, look at, for example,

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Exodus 23 -33. And if you don't have a Bible with you, I'm going to read the passages. Exodus 23 -33, they shall not live in your land, because they will make you sin against me, for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.

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That's avad as well, but guess what the Greek translation is. Duluo, dulia. Same thing in Deuteronomy 28 -64.

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Moreover, the Lord will scatter you among all peoples from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth, and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, which you or your fathers have not known.

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Is that not worship? Is this not describing what idolatry is all about?

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And yet, in the translation of the Bible that was used by the early church, that's dulia.

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The very distinction that the entire practice of the Roman Catholic Church in offering veneration to saints and angels is based upon, here contradicted in that very translation the early church used.

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Judges 10 -10. Then the sons of Israel cried out to the Lord, saying, We have sinned against you, for indeed we have forsaken our

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God and served the Baals. That's dulia. Would anyone argue that's not idolatry they're talking about?

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In reality, if we were to accept the Roman Catholic distinction between latria and dulia, this would be an excuse.

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Lord, we didn't give latria to the Baals. We only gave dulia to the Baals. So we didn't really sin.

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No, that distinction doesn't exist biblically. Because you see, folks, in the

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Hebrew mindset, you cannot worship him that you do not serve.

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You see, it's only in Western thinking that we can come up with the idea that, well, you can honor someone in the sense of worshiping them and adoring them without serving them.

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No, you can't. Not biblically. You see, true biblical worship involves both concepts together.

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That's why the Greek septuagint doesn't translate it by one particular word, because the

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Hebrew word is richer than that. And what God said in the Ten Commandments, you shall not do this, is the whole concept of adoring and serving.

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First Samuel 7 .3, then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, if you return to the Lord with all your heart, remove the foreign gods and the ashtoreth from among you and direct your hearts to the

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Lord, and serve him alone. Dulia. Serve him alone.

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Well, how does that fit when the Roman Catholic prays those prayers to Mary and gives her hyper -Dulia, hyper -veneration, and says, into your hands

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I commit my spirit. Deliver me from my sins, the devils, and from the wrath of Jesus.

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You know which prayer I'm referring to. How is that consistent with what is found here? 1

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Kings 9 .6, but if you or your sons indeed turn away from following me and do not keep my commandments and my statutes which

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I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them. Folks, when we get into the historical section, we're going to discover that there were writers half a millennium after the time of Jesus Christ, 500 years removed from the apostles, who said, it's okay to worship saints.

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And they used the term proscuneo, proscuneo, which means to bow down before.

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And their arguments became the foundation of the Second Nicene Council, considered the seventh ecumenical council, that dogmatically defined that it's okay to have statues and images and to venerate them.

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And that council based its decision very clearly on what it called unwritten traditions.

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Well, folks, what someone said 500 years after Christ, who probably couldn't read either

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Hebrew or Greek, did not deal with the biblical text, and in fact, violates the biblical text.

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If that becomes the foundation of a dogmatic decree, then we are left with the choice of choosing between what

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God has said in His word and what men say in their decrees. That term, latruos, used of Avad, just to give you a few more passages in like in Exodus 4 .23,

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Exodus 12 .31. Just listen to some of these, how they're put together. Exodus 23 .24, you shall not worship their gods, nor serve them.

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See how they're together? They are put together to explain to us that you cannot make the very distinction that is at the heart of the

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Roman Catholic dogmatic definition of these issues. Deuteronomy 4 .19,

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and beware not to lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the hosts of heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them.

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Is anyone going to suggest as long as you don't do the first, it's okay to do the second? Of course not.

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These are not two separate things that refer to two separate concepts. They go together to express one attitude.

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Now, there is simply no way to say that any of these passages hold to or teach the

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Latria -Dulia distinction. And of course, from my perspective, I want to believe what God's Word tells me.

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And if the God's Word does not teach it, then I'm not going to believe it. And it does not present this distinction.

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But some might say, well, that's just your Sola Scriptura part speaking, but where does the

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Bible contradict it? Well, I think we've seen that as well. Because by putting these two terms together and then using them interchangeably, these passages obliterate any such anachronistic distinction.

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The New Testament, likewise, shows no hint of the Latria -Dulia distinction that is created by Rome.

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Let me look at a few passages in the New Testament. Romans 14, 18, for he who in this way serves

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Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. Would anyone suggest that service to Christ does not involve worship?

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That it's somehow a lesser thing that you can also give to Mary or give to saints? That's the term, dulia, in the verbal form.

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Listen, this is especially important because John Calvin was brought up. John Calvin hammered in the

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Institutes upon this very issue of the lack of distinction between Latria and Julia.

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And here's one of the passages he used. Galatians 4, 8. However, at that time when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods.

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That phrase, you were slaves, translates dulio, you served them.

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You were enslaved to them. Now, is anyone going to suggest that what

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Paul was saying here is that these people in the churches in Galatia were not involved in idolatrous worship?

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That it was somehow better that they at least just served idols rather than worship them?

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Of course not. What he's saying is you were engaged in idolatry.

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And he uses dulio. Colossians 3, 24. Knowing that from the

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Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve. Is that less than Lotria?

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It is not. Finally, 1 Thessalonians 1, 9. For they themselves report about us what kind of reception we had with you and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true

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God. You turned to God from idols to do what? To give dulio to a living and true

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God. Is he not saying you turned from idolatry to true and proper worship?

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Of course. And so the first point that I would like to make is that it's very heart the concept of praying to saints, venerating saints, honoring saints, building statues of saints, icons of saints, bowing before them, lighting candles to say well

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I'm not, I'm not violating the command of scripture because I'm only giving dulio not

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Lotria. That distinction does not stand up to biblical examination.

01:02:24

And in Mark chapter 7 and Matthew chapter 15, the Lord Jesus gave every one of his followers and hence everyone here this evening who claims to be his follower needs to hear this, gave every one of his followers a clear and abiding example of how we determine the difference between what is true and false in matters of tradition.

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Because in that passage he's dealing with individuals who claim to have a tradition that comes directly from Moses.

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God gave it to Moses and it was passed down orally in an unwritten form outside the writings of the

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Old Testament called the Corban rule. Now these

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Pharisees had first come to Jesus and say you're disciples, they don't wash their hands properly and Jesus says well look at you.

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You've got this Corban rule and you nullify, you make void the very word of God for the sake of your traditions through your

01:03:27

Corban rule. Now they claim that came from Moses. They claimed it was divine in origin.

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And Jesus rebuked them because they made the word of God of no effect for the sake of their traditions passed down to them.

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And Jesus said many other things like this you do. We need to test whatever is handed on to us no matter what it is.

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The way Jesus taught us to. And when we test the very heart of the distinction that is offered by Rome in regards to what the difference between worship and veneration is we find that it is unbiblical.

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Isaiah 820 tells us to the law and to the testimony if they do not speak in harmony with this word there is no light in them.

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And so I unashamedly direct you to what the word of God says on these issues.

01:04:31

Now before moving to the issue of the concept of Christian tradition and maybe it will work out best this way because it will sort of stay on the same topic as we are going back and forth probably a little bit easier for the audience.

01:04:42

Before moving to that issue allow me a moment to address a common fallacy regarding 1

01:04:47

Timothy 2 .5 which did come up but I was going to address it anyways. Jesus' work of mediation.

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The Roman Catholic Church tells us that having Mary as an mediatrix as Vatican II referred to her the movement in the world today centered at the

01:05:09

University of Steubenville Franciscan University of Steubenville Dr. Mark Miravalli and those people who are pushing to have the 5th

01:05:15

Marian dogma defined for example Mary as co -redemptrix and mediatrix and so on and so forth.

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That this in no way violates the teaching of 1 Timothy 2 .5 that Jesus Christ is the only mediator between God and men.

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Very frequently the idea is well Jesus is sharing his mediation with us.

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He asks us to intercede and pray for one another. That obviously is not a violation.

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In fact in this very context he's saying prayers should be offered for kings and those in authority.

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What that should tell us is that the work of Jesus Christ in mediation is significantly different than our privilege of by prayer interceding for our brothers and sisters.

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Because you see when the son as mediator intercedes as high priest before the father on behalf of his people he does so on the basis of his finished work in their behalf on the cross of Calvary.

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No one else has that foundation.

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His is a unique work of mediation because of his unique character his unique work upon the cross and his unique role as high priest.

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That is why Paul says there is one mediator and he has just said there is one

01:06:51

God. He uses the exact same Greek term. Many Roman Catholic apologists today will say actually the term heis it's used there it doesn't necessarily mean unique it just means first or primary.

01:07:04

That's actually found by such Mariologists as O 'Carroll and Miravalli uses the same argumentation.

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Think of what that results in. There is one God that means first or primary God and one mediator first or primary mediator.

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I'm sure I know a bunch of folks up in Salt Lake City that would like it if that were the case. But that's not what it means does it?

01:07:29

Context defines the meanings of words and just as there is only one unique God there is only one unique mediator and that is

01:07:36

Jesus Christ. The New Testament does not present to us any examples of the

01:07:47

Apostles it would be Paul or Peter or anyone else saying to us pray to the saints that there were already individuals who had gone on at the time of the writing of the

01:07:57

New Testament. Were there not? Stephen had gone on. No one ever prays to Stephen.

01:08:04

No one ever seeks Stephen's intercession. Of course the very distinction between the idea of saints who have excess merit and who end up directly in the presence of God and others who go into purgatory is unknown in the

01:08:18

New Testament. It's an unbiblical concept. That was our debate topic last year. But there is nothing in the

01:08:25

New Testament that would begin to suggest to us that the Apostles as they taught the church what it means to sojourn here upon the earth that they taught believers that the communion of saints meant that when saints die you can still communicate with them.

01:08:43

How would they know? If it's the Holy Spirit who searches the hearts of men and communicates the intents of our heart to God the

01:08:51

Father is the Holy Spirit also involved in communicating the intentions of our heart to saints? You say well 1

01:08:59

Corinthians 12 says that no one can say I have no need of you or I have no need of you. That's quite true but notice

01:09:05

Paul does not apply that to those who have left this world. He never makes an application to saying now that means that we believe in the communion of saints and that includes those who have gone into heaven.

01:09:15

He never says that. He's talking about the people have different gifts within the functioning of the local body of the church.

01:09:22

That's the context 1 Corinthians 12. But isn't it fascinating?

01:09:29

We all recognize that something's changed when someone passes away. Do we pray?

01:09:35

If I pray for someone, if I pray for Brother Arnzen and boy do I need to pray for Brother Arnzen.

01:09:41

If I pray for Brother Arnzen that God would help him to strive against sin.

01:09:50

Let me ask you something. Once Chris is in the presence of Christ do I keep praying that for him?

01:09:57

Of course not. Why? Because his status has changed.

01:10:05

Death does not divide the body of Christ up but it does divide us from those who are described as being asleep in Christ.

01:10:13

I wonder why they use that term asleep in Christ. Maybe it's because they're resting. The New Testament does not give us any hint.

01:10:22

Even Revelation 5 .8 the 24 elders have the bowls of the prayers of the saints. There's nothing there that says they were the objects of those prayers.

01:10:30

There is nothing in the New Testament that leads us to believe this and there's much to lead us away from it and that is of course the fact that prayer is an act of worship.

01:10:42

When I pray I am acknowledging God's sovereignty over me.

01:10:48

As a creature I am acknowledging he's my creator. I cannot do that with anyone but the one who gave me life and breath.

01:10:59

Thank you very much. There will now be two 14 minute addresses what will be formally known as the second constructive address.

01:11:19

Mr. Madrid first and then Mr. White. There is far too much ground to cover even though we have all this time tonight.

01:11:36

It's frustrating I think for all of us that we can't get deeper if we had more time we would.

01:11:42

But let me try to cover a few points that were left undone in my last remarks and also try to talk about a few of the things that Jim mentioned a few minutes ago.

01:11:52

First of all we have to set the record straight on the question of equivocation. Jim is equivocating on the term pray and I realize that as a

01:12:01

Protestant he is entitled to using terms that apply to Protestant theology in that vein.

01:12:09

But the Catholic Church has always distinguished between prayer which is the worship and glory and honor that's due to God alone and the word prayer with a small p if we can say it that way that refers to communication not worship.

01:12:24

Now you can accept that or not accept it but that is the official way in which the Catholic Church has always used the word pray.

01:12:31

Now we're using the word in English of course but the fact is that when a Catholic prays to a saint for example

01:12:38

Mary or one of the saints Jim mentioned Stephen earlier we'll talk a little bit about what St. Augustine had to say about praying to St.

01:12:44

Stephen in particular. St. Augustine was not referring to worshiping or adoring

01:12:50

St. Stephen. When the early church celebrated the feast day of St. Stephen it was invoking the prayers from St.

01:12:57

Stephen who reigns in glory with God. So for a Protestant okay sure I agree

01:13:02

Jim that when you pray you are worshiping God but for a Catholic there is prayer that is worship but we also use the word pray in a different way.

01:13:10

The second thing we have to remember too is that this is not about Sola Scriptura tonight this is not a debate on whether or not the

01:13:18

Bible is sufficient to teach us these things. Jim and I had that debate nine years ago and if anybody would like to see just how definitively we settled the issue that the

01:13:27

Bible does not teach Sola Scriptura I refer you to the debate tapes that are out on the table. We're not talking about whether or not the debate is sufficient tonight or whether Scripture is sufficient we're talking about whether or not the early

01:13:39

Christians understood Scripture to mean that we can venerate and ask the intercession of the saints in heaven.

01:13:48

That is going to be the key tonight because James can stand here all night and tell us his interpretation of Scripture and he will.

01:13:56

I of course can tell you mine but I think it's very beneficial if we consider what the original

01:14:01

Christians themselves had to say on the subject and I want to watch my time so I don't have I don't leave them out.

01:14:07

Another thing that we have to remember is that the question of a distinction between Dulia and Latria this is certainly a very interesting point but one of the things that we have to keep in mind is that the words

01:14:20

Dulia and Latria are used in Scripture sometimes to refer to human beings other times to refer in the case of Latria to God and of course

01:14:29

Dulia is used with regard to God as well and I picked out a couple of actually

01:14:34

I picked out quite a few passages to look at this but we see for example that in Acts chapter 7 verse 7 which is the only passage in Scripture in the

01:14:43

New Testament at least that I'm aware of we see that the verbal forms of Latria and Dulia are used here in the same phrase in the same sentence here we see

01:14:55

St. Luke saying and the nation to whom they shall be in bondage I will judge says

01:15:00

God and after that shall they they shall come forth and serve me in this place so here we have referring to the

01:15:08

Egyptians we have Dulia being referenced to their Egyptian overlords to human beings and of course that was a very bad situation that they were in but there they were referring to human beings and then of course

01:15:21

God is saying you are going to serve me Catholics agree as Jim pointed out

01:15:26

Latria is always and only service that is due to God alone it is never rendered to human beings

01:15:33

Dulia is also a service that we render to God but at times it can be rendered to human beings listen to what

01:15:40

St. Augustine said in the city of God he said for this is the worship which is due to the divinity or to speak more accurately to the deity and to express this worship in a single word as there does not occur to me any

01:15:53

Latin term sufficiently exact I shall avail myself whenever necessary of a Greek word

01:15:58

Latria whenever it occurs in Scripture it is rendered the word service but that service which is due to men and in reference to which the apostle writes that the servants must be subject to their own masters is usually designated by another word he is referring to Dulia in Greek whereas the service which is paid to God alone by worship is always

01:16:19

Latria in the usage of those who wrote from the divine oracles and then he goes on a little bit further to describe how this this term is often misunderstood but he really gets to the heart of the matter in his letter against excuse me against Faustus the

01:16:34

Manichaean he says it is true that Christians pay religious honor to the memory of the martyrs both to excite us to imitate them and to obtain a share in their merits and the assistance of their prayers but we build altars not to any martyr but to the

01:16:49

God of the martyrs although it is to the memory of the martyrs it is to the God of the martyrs no one officiating at the altar of the saints burying place ever says we bring an offering to thee

01:16:59

O Peter or O Paul or O Cyprian the offering is made to God who gave them the crown of martyrdom while it is in memory of those thus crowned the emotion is increased by the associations of the place love is excited both toward those who are our examples referring to the saints and the martyrs with the same affection intimacy that we feel towards holy men of God in this life so what he's saying there is we revere great

01:17:26

Christians in this world so much more so do we revere the great Christians when they are finally in heaven perfected in righteousness he says what is properly called divine worship which the

01:17:38

Greeks call Latria and for which there is no word in Latin both in doctrine and in practice we give only to God to this worship belongs the offering of sacrifices as we see the word idolatry which means the giving of the worship to idols accordingly we never offer or require anyone to offer sacrifice to a martyr or to a holy soul or to any angel anyone falling into this error is instructed by doctrine either in the way of correction or caution for holy beings themselves whether saints or angels refuse to accept what they know to be due to God alone now he goes on and on and on I want you to to listen to a couple of points here with regard to this issue of honoring the saints if we if we take a look at the writings of the early church

01:18:30

I know that a minute ago Jim was he was disparaging the writings of the the church fathers in let's say the fifth century but we can go much earlier than that but more importantly

01:18:43

I want you to listen to what Jim has also said himself on the subject on his website in the section dealing with the pre -existence of Christ he says the body of writing of the

01:18:52

Nicene and post -Nicene fathers is large indeed the series edited by Schaff takes up 28 large volumes alone hence to overview all the literature would be far beyond the scope of this paper therefore the three main exegetes of the century after Nicaea Chrysostom Athanasius and Augustine will be examined briefly to determine how they understood the focal passages listed above now this is in his section dealing with scripture and he's appealing to these men

01:19:24

Chrysostom Athanasius and Augustine to support his contention that his understanding of scripture is consistent with theirs you see what's going on here now look at what some of these men say

01:19:36

Saint John Chrysostom and he lived around the year three he was writing between the year 347 and 407 he says calling to remembrance all our holy immaculate and most blessed and glorious lady

01:19:47

Theotokos and ever virgin Mary with all the saints let us commend ourselves in each other and all our life under Christ our

01:19:54

God we give thanks unto thee O Lord who lovest mankind benefactor of our souls and bodies for that thou has vouchsafed this day to feed us with thy heavenly and immortal mysteries make straight our path establish all in thy fear guard our life make firm our footsteps through the prayers and intercessions of the glorious Theotokos and ever virgin

01:20:13

Mary and of all thy saints we read in Athanasius homily on the papyrus of Turin he says

01:20:21

O noble virgin truly you are greater than any other greatness for who is your equal in greatness so dwelling place of God the word to whom among all the creatures shall

01:20:30

I compare you O virgin you are greater than them all O covenant clothed with purity instead of gold you are the

01:20:36

Ark in which is found the golden vessels containing the true manna that is the flesh in which divinity resides so Athanasius is honoring

01:20:45

Mary not improperly but he's honoring her and the saints by extension are no bias he writes we by no means adore the martyrs but we honor them as the true adorers of God he also says in a in an earlier statement he says we keep through every age their bodies decently enshrined as most precious pledges vessels and benedictions of benediction the martyrs defend the church as soldiers guard a citadel the people flock in crowds from all quarters and keep great festivals to honor their tombs he goes on and on describing how the early church understood the scriptures that's that that Jim was referring to later st.

01:21:25

Cyril of Alexandria st. Ambrose st. Gregory of Nyssa all of these different saints say the same thing to us and we see st.

01:21:34

Augustine saying in his in his letter sermon 313 referring to the martyr

01:21:39

Cyprian what after all other praises of such a great martyr but the praises of God or to whose credit is it that Cyprian was converted to God with his whole heart but the one whom it was said

01:21:49

God of powers convert us so st. Augustine is telling us that the early Christians did in fact praise the martyrs he says the justice of the martyrs is perfect because they have been perfected by their spirit and by their sufferings that's why they aren't prayed for in the church the other faithful departed are prayed for not the martyrs they have left the world so you see they have perfected themselves that they are not our dependents but our advocates and this is and this too not in themselves but in the one to who the one whom as their head they have stuck as close as his members you see indeed he is the one advocate who intercedes for us seated at the right hand of the father we go on and we read many different passages from Augustine but keep in mind what what

01:22:34

Jim has written he's saying that these men chrysostom Athanasius and Augustine should be examined to see how they understood scripture and if you go through and read chrysostom

01:22:46

Athanasius Augustine not to mention the host of other early church fathers you'll find that universally the early

01:22:53

Christian church understood scripture to contain a prohibition against idolatry which is the worship of any false

01:23:01

God and yet it included the fact that we are able to honor venerate and seek the intercession of those blessed in heaven who are members of the one body of Christ now earlier

01:23:12

Jim said that the members of the body of Christ are separated from us that is not true

01:23:17

Romans 8 says that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ and that includes all the members of the body of Christ we're not separated by death

01:23:24

Jim we're not separated by the fact that we can't see them they are in heaven united with Christ they love us still as they always have they're praying for us still as they were on earth another section here in in on James's website he has an article referring to what he calls whitewash and he says it does not seem that any discussion of ancient theology can be pursued without invoking the great name of Augustine but surely by now

01:23:56

Roman controversialists should be aware that Augustine is no friend of their cause well a moment ago we were told that we should look to Augustine and Chrysostom and Athanasius to see how they understood

01:24:05

Scripture and we see repeatedly that they invoke the intercession they honor the

01:24:10

Saints that is how they interpreted Scripture we see some other passages from Saint Augustine that tell us the same thing but the key to all of this is to remember that the early

01:24:22

Christians made a distinction between Julia and Latria in Scripture Julia and Latria appear

01:24:29

Latria appears only with regard to worship of God never to human beings Julia appear appears all over the place in its verbal forms and in its noun forms over 200 times in fact by my count and some of those instances refer to service to human beings some refer to service to God but the early church understood that we should never cross the line into idolatry by giving worship and honor to a saint a mere creature that we would be rendering only to God our

01:25:02

Creator and so all of the emphasis upon those two words as interesting as it is it really doesn't solve the problem for Jim tonight because he has to explain to us how the thesis statement in the debate tonight goes against me and for him how is it that the early

01:25:18

Christians believed in and taught universally the veneration of the Saints if in fact they were the true followers of Christ thank you

01:25:28

I would like to correct very quickly the misapprehension that anywhere on the

01:25:44

Alpha and Omega Ministries website did I in any way shape or form set up Augustine Athanasius and John Chrysostom as extra biblical authorities if you'll actually read the reference that is given what

01:25:56

I was saying is let's look at what they taught about Scripture and see if it's consistent with what Rome teaches that is a very different thing to saying oh we should look at them and then give them a special status to where we should believe what they have to say

01:26:09

I don't do that with anyone today I don't do that with reformers in fact I don't do that with any uninspired person it doesn't matter who's writing about Christian truth

01:26:18

I hold them to the standard of God's Word and that's what all of us should in fact be doing now

01:26:24

Mr. Madrid speaks about the early church let me give you just a couple quotations while I'm at it because we were just told there is this universal perspective well why did why did these words appear as early as the middle of the fourth century here we have someone traveling

01:26:46

Epiphanius he's the bishop of Salamis in Cyprus and he says asking what place it was and learning it to be a church

01:26:53

I went in to pray and found there a certain hanging on the doors of the said church died and embroidered it bore an image either of Christ or of one of the saints

01:27:02

I do not rightly remember whose the image was seeing this and being loath that an image of a man should be hung up in Christ's church contrary to the teaching of the scriptures

01:27:10

I tore it asunder and advised the custodians the place to use it as a winding sheet for some poor person

01:27:17

I don't think he appreciated its presence there like tantia said these the demons are they who taught men to make images and statues who in order that they might turn away the minds of men from the worship of the true

01:27:31

God cause the countenances of dead kings fashioned and adorned with exquisite beauty to be erected and consecrated and assumed themselves their names as though they were assuming some characters why aren't these the containers of the alleged

01:27:45

Christian tradition indeed let me point out that the Council of Elvira in the year 300 in Spain specifically for bad the use of pictures and churches saying so that that which is worshipped and adored shall not be painted on the walls and quote that's before the

01:28:06

Council of Nicaea that's almost five centuries prior to the second Nicene Council where the veneration of images was defined as being proper why isn't that definitional of Christian tradition the historical picture is clear in history as we look at the surviving writings first comes prayer to martyrs then

01:28:29

Saints in general then angels and finally veneration of images there is of course no universally agreed upon belief in the first centuries the church many fathers passed without ever making mention of such things it is just assumed that they believed such things scholarly

01:28:45

Catholic sources clearly recognize that various early fathers spoke against for example the use of images in worship that is not something that is denied in fact at the second

01:28:59

Nicene Council where the veneration of images was defined on the basis of tradition in the fourth session the bishops read passages that allegedly promoted from the

01:29:12

Bible the veneration of images and then quotations from early fathers that supported this they then presented the dogmatic decree two sessions later no reading of the

01:29:26

Bible a list of early church fathers who opposed this began to be read but they didn't even finish reading the list they just rejected it and then placed an anathema upon anyone who would write against the veneration of images which

01:29:44

I guess would include the early church fathers whose list they didn't finish reading now that is the the thinking and the activity that went into the providing of the dogmatic teaching in an allegedly infallible council

01:29:57

I'd like to point out that I'm not aware of anyone I'd like to ask Patrick if he knows was there anyone at the second

01:30:06

Nicene Council seven hundred and eighty seven years after the birth of Christ eight centuries removed from the

01:30:14

Apostles who could even read the Hebrew language who could even read the

01:30:21

New Testament Greek with proficiency and compare it with the Greek Septuagint of the

01:30:27

Old Testament so that they could know whether this was consistent with what the Bible said which we've already seen in so many passages what about that now we have been told well

01:30:42

Augustine who by the way knew no Hebrew could not read the

01:30:49

Hebrew language would have been completely unaware of the fact that avad the very word used in the

01:30:58

Ten Commandments is translated by both Latria and Julia he quotes

01:31:05

Augustine whose Greek wasn't very good either it's interesting he had an argument with Jerome on the subject of the canon of Scripture Jerome who was cited earlier who if he is a container of tradition why wasn't his rejection of the

01:31:22

Apocrypha tradition I mean once we start asking this issue of tradition going to the early church fathers like going to the

01:31:30

Christian bookstore today are you going to find one single thing one single teaching at your

01:31:37

Christian bookstore today I sure hope none of you walk in there and think these are all equally good books there's a few good books in there but there's a whole lot of bad books in there and there's books written by people who are very ignorant in there and if you actually read the fathers not just selections but actually read the fathers you'll find all sorts of statements that quite simply are very ignorant are we supposed to just simply bow down to that as if that's somehow a binding authority upon us even in the citation quoted from Augustine Augustine was wrong in regards to Galatians 4 8 where there

01:32:20

Paul clearly utilizes the term Julia in regards to what can only be understood as a word that would have been translated

01:32:29

Latria in the Septuagint it's clearly worship Augustine or Athanasius or anyone else me reformers

01:32:41

Fitzmyer Brown it doesn't matter who they are men stand corrected by the word of God now as I said

01:32:50

I did not establish Athanasius Augustine and Chrysostom as some sort of standard in the citation that was provided I do cite from them to demonstrate that the assertion of a universal tradition on the part of Roman Catholics is fallacious there are the three volumes that were shown to you earlier eleven hundred plus pages by Bill Webster and David King demonstrating without any question that a fair and full reading and those books are fully documented frequently giving you both the

01:33:21

Greek and Latin and the references where you can look them up for yourself a full reading of those patristic sources will not give you the universal perspective of the

01:33:32

Roman Catholic Church in regards to the authority of Scripture and its sufficiency instead when

01:33:39

I cite from the early church fathers I can see them just like I see men whose writings I respect today you accept what is in harmony with the word of God and that which is not simply comes from the heart of man that is the nature of what we experience in this life as believers so when we look at what

01:34:03

Christian tradition is why is why are the citations Mr. Madrid has read tradition and the citations that I read are not tradition fundamentally because Rome says so fundamental because Rome says so sola ecclesia

01:34:25

Rome defines what the Bible is Rome defines what the Bible says Rome defines what tradition is

01:34:31

Rome defines what tradition says that makes the Roman Catholic Church the ultimate authority in all things and so fundamentally the second assertion in this particular thesis for the

01:34:41

Roman Catholic is a given it must be believed by definition because if Rome has said this is the tradition then it is the problem is a person who wants to believe truth and understand truth would have to come to the conclusion that the only way to do that is first and foremost as your first act to accept the ultimate authority of the

01:35:05

Roman Catholic Church and there's all sorts of reasons not to do that first and foremost being that the

01:35:11

Lord Jesus and the apostles never told us to do it when Paul told

01:35:18

Timothy you turn to that which is they are new stars as your source he did not in the next breath say oh and once the

01:35:25

Bishop of Rome has been established then you can go there to determine what is right and what is wrong that is not a biblical teaching and so when we ask well

01:35:32

Rome has said this is tradition well why why aren't these other citations tradition why isn't the Council of Elvira 500 years earlier why doesn't that represent apostolic tradition there is only one answer for the

01:35:45

Roman Catholic and that is because Rome says so very similar to the debate that I had with fell by name of Jerry matics at Boston College in 1993 same year that that Patrick and I last debated in San Diego and at least it's cooler in here than it was then a lot cooler that was on the

01:36:10

Apocrypha and the fundamental argument there was the Old Testament Canada Roman Catholic Church is right because the

01:36:16

Catholic Church says so well that's an argument from authority and that's a circular argument once you start diagramming it out it really does not hold any rational weight the same thing is true here when we talk about the use for example the word prayer

01:36:34

Mr. Madrid got up and he said you're equivocating on the word prayer I would actually say the equivocation is going the other direction

01:36:41

I'm very consistent my use of the word prayer my use of the word prayer is the biblical use prayer is communication it's communication between the creature and his creator it is communication that is brought about because God's Spirit communicates to the father the thoughts and intentions of my heart

01:37:05

I can simply bow my head right here I don't have to say a word and I can pray how does a saint know what we're praying here on earth and if I pray to a saint see if I walk up to a person say

01:37:18

I'd like you to pray for me I'm using normal human communication but you see to pray to a saint who's going to communicate that to them do they somehow gain some special ability to be able to read the hearts of my and minds of men which by the way is only a divine capacity or does the

01:37:39

Holy Spirit somehow not only become the comforter who intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be uttered in his in his work of communicating that deepest desires of our heart does that somehow he now somehow becomes the one who communicates these two saints as well you see

01:37:59

Saints in the New Testament described as those who've entered into rest in Jesus Christ oh what a tragedy it would be if any of those saints had any idea of the woes that are constantly laid upon their doorstep by so many people today how could they be at rest how could they be at peace when constantly the diseases and sicknesses of the life from which they have been delivered are laid upon their doorstep

01:38:39

I'm very thankful my Lord Jesus hears those prayers we have seen the assertion that we are equivocating we talk about prayer no

01:38:54

I'm being very consistent it's the Roman Catholic that equivocates by saying when I pray to pray to God that's one thing but I pray to a saint something else

01:39:00

I'm just communicating the same but I'm communicating adoring God if you are acknowledging that that saint has some means of in some way aiding you and you well know the prayers that are out there

01:39:15

I even mentioned them to you I commit my spirit prayed to Mary that is not just communication that is worship and biblically as we have seen that is wrong thank you

01:39:33

I want to thank both of the speakers for abiding by the time limit and now we're going to ask that you do exactly the same thing you have 15 minutes from the time

01:39:57

I'm done speaking so you can get coffee or water or make use of the restrooms at the back or there

01:40:02

I'll give you a warning at 13 minutes I want to remind all of you and our debaters of what the topic is the topic is prayer to and veneration of the

01:40:15

Saints as well as the veneration of sacred images that represent them is compatible with scripture and Christian tradition that is our topic for the evening we will have now one further hour of the debate it will be broken down in this way we will have cross examinations led by Mr.

01:40:35

Madrid those cross examinations will be of 12 minutes each purpose of a cross examination is to ask questions and to receive further information from the other speaker following that there will be two eight minute there will be a rebuttal with each person speaking for eight minutes and then following that there will be closing statements of 10 minutes each following that there should be approximately 50 minutes for your questions your time to ask questions will be limited to 30 seconds and that will be rigidly enforced

01:41:11

I would suggest that if you have questions you write them down so that when you get the microphone you can read the question and sit down and let

01:41:20

Mr. Madrid and Mr. White respond we will now begin with the first cross examination led by Mr.

01:41:26

Madrid Jim Jim oh here yes yes

01:41:40

Patrick alright there you are could you name for us a single ecclesiastical document from any era

01:41:52

Catholic document in which the Catholic Church says that the terms Julia and Latria are supposed to indicate the same reverence of attitude the same reverential attitude toward the

01:42:02

Saints that would be proper to God alone in other words is there any church document where the

01:42:09

Catholic Church says that the reverence that we are that we owe to the Saints is somehow the same as that which we owe to God I don't understand that question if it sounds like you're asking me where the

01:42:22

Catholic Church has said Latria and Julia are what the Bible reveals them to be and that is interchangeable is that what you're asking no in other words the church uses the terms in particular ways now

01:42:35

I recognize that it's not the way that you use them and in fact the church recognizes that Scripture uses the terms in different ways that Julia can be used for humans as well as for God but I'm wondering if you can point to any place where the

01:42:48

Catholic Church says that the veneration that Catholics and Orthodox give to the

01:42:54

Saints in heaven is somehow the same as the veneration that is given to God alone well first of all

01:43:01

I would say that in the context of what you just said that do you owe is in a religious context only given to God not in any other context but if you're asking me where that has been addressed prior to for example the second

01:43:15

Nicene Council or something like that I don't believe that it was I believe at least the first dogmatic distinction that is drawn is drawn there even though I don't know that was actually included in the dogmatic decrees but at least in the deliberations of the council and so I am unaware of any discussion of this in a conciliar setting outside of Elvira and I don't know what the original terminology of Elvira was when it spoke of worship and service

01:43:47

I have not been able to find an original source it would tell me what those original terms were so no the read just the follow -up and I'll this will lead into my question here the reason that I'm asking that question is because the assertion that I'm making here tonight is that the

01:44:03

Catholic Church has drawn a distinction between the way in which we offer

01:44:08

Julia and Latria to God and the Julia that would be offered to the saints so that's the context of this next question coming up and that is can you name for us any early

01:44:18

Christian liturgies and we know they abounded from the end of the first century forward can you name any of the early

01:44:24

Christian liturgies dating from the end of the apostolic era that did not contain elements of veneration of Mary and the saints and references to their intercession on our behalf well actually the early liturgies you're assuming both in the assertion that you just made you continue to assume the identity of the modern

01:44:43

Roman Catholic Church with the ancient Catholic Church and that is an issue that has not been established that is a presupposition on your part that I would reject for many reasons and we can go into that if you wish to do so secondly as far as what you define as a liturgy and will be accepted as liturgies there in the most primitive liturgies you would not find whole elements of these kinds of concepts of veneration it's not until the martyrs begin to appear in the roles of the liturgies that you begin to see requests being made of them it is a development over time but obviously

01:45:24

I believe the most important source of liturgy is the inspired scriptures and I would say that every single example of worship of God in the inspired scriptures lacks all of the elements that you just mentioned well as a follow -up question the cross exam the early liturgies abound actually every single one of them that's extant contains elements of requesting the veneration requesting the intercession of the

01:45:49

Saints and also commemoration that is venerating of them and the the real question behind that question is how do you account for the fact that universally in the early church from the earliest days the liturgies and that's the term that the church herself used contain these elements of veneration honor and asking for the intercession of the

01:46:14

Saints how do you account for that a couple things I would reject the assumption that every single one of them that means that there is no liturgy in Ignatius that there's no example of worship and there is

01:46:24

I mean his letter to the Ephesians is filled with liturgical phrases and would be identified as an ancient form of liturgy and there's nothing about any of that in Ignatius there's nothing about in Polycarp Clement of Rome there's all sorts of sections in Clement of Rome that would be identified as early liturgical statements and so evidently you're functioning with a meaning of the term liturgy that is significantly different than what

01:46:49

I would use in that way because it would in essence dismiss all the earliest patristic sources we have but as to finding elements of these things no one questions that I said in my presentation that you will find this development over time what

01:47:03

I asserted was that you have to test any development and in fact any activity by anyone especially when it's in regards to the worship of God by what

01:47:12

God has revealed is pleasing to him moving on first Timothy 2 1 through 4 tells us as we talked about earlier that we are told to pray for supplicate offer petitions for everyone because this sort of charity in prayer is good and pleasing to God our

01:47:28

Savior it's good and pleasing to God our Savior when we do this could you explain to us how it is that our praying supplicating and offering petitions to God on behalf of our fellow

01:47:38

Christians on earth while we are on earth if that is good and pleasing to God how is it that it somehow is forbidden and not pleasing to God when the saints in heaven do those very things on our behalf as Scripture commands from all

01:47:51

Christians well it's interesting when you cite first Timothy 2 that Paul makes no mention here anywhere of prayers and petitions to saints or that they are prayer praying and petitioning for us secondly when you ask what is prayer praying and petitioning for for example it says here kings and all those in authority that we may live you know godly and peaceful lives so on so forth so this is talking about for example petitioning

01:48:16

God that those who are persecuting the Christians would stop persecuting them you're not persecuted any longer in heaven therefore that's not gonna be something you're gonna need to do so there are many things that are good that we do here on earth as I mentioned it is good to pray for your brothers and sisters they will strive against sin that is not something you're gonna be doing in heaven because you're in the presence of God excuse me can you give us a passage in Scripture that tells us that the saints in heaven cannot or will not pray for us there is no reference to what the saints in heaven are doing in regards to prayers here on earth because there is no reference to their being involved with having knowledge of the sinful actions of human beings here upon the planet the only references that I'm familiar with that anyone would put forward to that in the book of Revelation in reality or apocalyptic passages that require all sorts of assumptions rather than those clear passages in the patristics

01:49:08

I'm sorry the pastoral epistles or or passages where Paul's talking about living the Christian life in Romans 12 or things like that where you'd expect such things to appear they do not appear instead passages as I said in Revelation have to be brought into play to try to bring those things up I think you're referring to Revelation chapter 5 verses 6 and 4 and also

01:49:27

Revelation chapter 8 in which we see the elders standing before the throne of God offering to God the saints of the the prayers of the

01:49:36

Holy Ones here on earth now there's nothing unclear about that and there's nothing that we should take in those passages to impugn these clear readings of Scripture I mean the plain meaning of Scripture is that these men and these elders are standing before the throne of God offering like incense the prayers of the

01:49:56

Holy Ones here on earth so how is it that we should disregard those passages as somehow being not consonant with our discussion tonight

01:50:05

I've never said that they are in any way shape or form to be disregarded I've said that they have nothing to do with the idea that there are saints in heaven who are receiving prayers from people on earth and they are then interceding before God on the behalf of people on earth who have prayed to them there's if you'd like to show me where in Revelation chapter 5 it is said that for example these elders are saints themselves or that they are the ones who receive these prayers or these prayers were prayed to them that is not the clear reading of the text at all at least

01:50:34

I would not assert that it is I would assert that it is the plain reading of the text Rome or Revelation 5 8 when he took it the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb each of the elders held a harp and gold bowls filled with incense which are the prayers of the holy ones now this is repeated in Revelation chapter 8 so clearly the plain reading of the text is that they did receive these prayers of the holy ones and they are now presenting them before the throne of God so that is the plain reading well

01:51:01

I completely and totally disagree that it's plain reading because that would mean that for example when the angels who have seals and bowls that are filled with the wrath of God that means the angels receive the wrath of God obviously not these are individuals who have a special place before God nothing identifies them as being glorified saints in the first place in fact in Revelation chapter 4 they are seen as being with the living creatures and they are constantly bowing down before God there is no identification of them as being glorified sent saints a which destroys the parallelism begin with and secondly there is nothing saying that it says each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense which are the prayers of the saints means that they received those prayers directed to them there's nothing in the text even begins to suggest that oh it does begin to suggest it as a matter of fact the only way that they have those bowls of prayers is because they did receive them otherwise they would have no way to have those prayers the prayers came from the earth they came from the

01:51:56

Holy Ones and it came to them next question Jim if you died tonight how do you like the start of that one if you died tonight would you still be a fully functioning member of the body of Christ according to first Corinthians chapter 12 and if you would be could you show us where the

01:52:11

Bible places any restriction on your participation in the body of Christ after death with regard to prayers intercessions supplications and thanksgivings that are that are proper to the body of Christ and were commanded in first Timothy to one through four can you show us where the

01:52:25

Bible two questions would you still be a fully functioning member of the body of Christ and where does the

01:52:30

Bible place a restriction on your ability to do the things described in first Timothy to one through four a yes not only would

01:52:37

I be a fully functioning I'd be a more fully functioning member of the body of Christ because I would be in the presence of the father and be the second question begs the issue because it assumes what has already been refuted and that is that the position that one is in has nothing to do with the activities that one takes place for example you just use first Timothy chapter two as I already pointed out that defines as prayers for those in leadership and things like that which would not be relevant that passage says can

01:53:04

I finish my point place which would not be relevant to a person who is in heaven therefore there is a distinction that is drawn in the text itself that same distinction is found in first Corinthians 12 the other passage you brought up where Paul is talking about the different gifts given to people in their functioning in the local body

01:53:22

I will no longer function as one of the elders of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church if I were to meet my end this evening

01:53:31

I was paying attention to him actually

01:53:39

I think we should ask if you don't make it through the evening after this why'd you put him on my side he volunteered thank you and if I were

01:53:52

I will warn you when we get close to 12 minutes you can turn around before that happens again I will

01:53:58

I'll stand back there Mr. Madrid is it your position that the distinction between lottery and duly it would have been a valid excuse had a

01:54:06

Jewish man been found in his tent bowing before a statue of an ancestor and when brought before Moses had claimed that he was not giving the statue or the ancestor

01:54:14

Latria but only the lesser concept of Julia no it would not be my position okay if that is not a valid concept in the case of someone before Moses what has changed that it would be a valid concept today well a lot has changed

01:54:30

Jim see at the time of Moses if we go back to the book of Exodus we see that the Israelites had a particular problem with worshipping idols and so the revelation from God in Exodus 20 was a prohibition not simply of worshipping graven images but worshipping anything that would be a false

01:54:48

God in place of God himself so in that particular context it would be especially problematic given what had just happened with the golden calf and all of the the dangers and inclinations towards towards idolatry but what we have to recognize

01:55:03

Jim is that since that time not only has God revealed himself more and more fully but the church in the in the church age has contemplated and understood the meaning of these passages and also the meaning of what the incarnation is all about so that although it would be problematic for somebody in the time of Moses as st.

01:55:24

the great Eastern Father st. John Damascene said Christ is the icon the image of the invisible

01:55:30

God so he showed us through the incarnation that the ability now to depict heavenly realities is no longer something that would be dangerous in the way that it would have been at the time of Moses so is it your position that we don't have the same problems and propensities with idolatry today that the

01:55:47

Jews had so long ago no quite the contrary Jim I would say that we have all the same propensities and and tendencies toward idolatry but ours tend to be somewhat different let me ask any

01:55:58

Catholics in the audience here worshipping statues no I don't worship statues

01:56:03

I don't know any Catholic who worship statues but I do know people who have a lot of different false gods there are people perhaps in the room tonight perhaps some of you your false

01:56:13

God is internet pornography maybe the false God is Nasdaq worshipped every day on the big board there are people who place all sorts of things alcohol new cars it could be there's so many different ways in which we can worship a false

01:56:28

God so today yes Jim we have all the same inclinations and all the same temptations that they did at that time it just so happens that at the time that Exodus 20 was written the particular propensity that the

01:56:41

Israelites had dealt with graven images that is no longer propensity for anyone that I know or anyone that I've ever heard of living in the modern era so the commands of God in the ten sayings and the ten commandments are are contextually determined as to whether we are to be applying them today or how we're to apply them today not exactly contextually condition but rather we have to understand the way in which a passage applies to any person at any given time okay

01:57:07

I'm not done so in the case of Exodus 20 the application there is specifically with regard to bowing down to and serving idols false gods but the general context of the passage

01:57:19

Exodus 20 that you cited deals with idolatry in any form he just gave it a particular form as an example of what the

01:57:26

Israelites had to avoid Pat do you know of any references to Christians invoking the names of angels in prayer in the inspired scriptures in the inspired scriptures none comes to mind right off hand our angels members the body of Christ angels are members of the body of Christ in the sense that they are part of the communion in heaven but they are not members of the body of Christ in the way in which you and I are because we have been baptized into the body of Christ so the mystical body of Christ in the sense that we're speaking of in the

01:57:54

New Testament does not extend to angels so how can any of the arguments you've used this evening concerning the communion of saints and communion between Christians be relevant to a prayer where you seek the invocation of Michael the

01:58:06

Archangel yes well it's relevant in the sense that the angels are the ministering servants of God and just as we recognize the power and the ability of the saints in heaven to intercede on our behalf we also recognize that God's ministering servants the angels also have power and they also have duties to perform such as in Luke chapter 2 when the angel

01:58:28

Gabriel comes to the Virgin Mary God could have done that act directly but yet he sent an angel to do it and similarly

01:58:38

Mary who was a woman of God could have responded to God directly but yet her yes to the incarnation was carried back to God through the offices of an angel so the angels are very important and they do fulfill offices of guarding protecting praying for guiding human beings here on earth the second

01:58:56

Nicene Council convoked nearly half a millennium after the first after promulgating its dogmatic decree on the veneration of images provide the following cannon if anyone rejects all ecclesiastical tradition either written or not written let him be anathema that's denzinger 308 if you'd like to look at it

01:59:13

I've got all those cannons right here okay now if I could ask you how could anyone in that day or hours know if they are rejecting an unwritten tradition of the

01:59:23

Roman Church so as to avoid anathema they would simply have to listen to the church that told them what the traditions were and you were you were disparaging the idea of Catholics assenting to the authority of the church well

01:59:36

I am proud to ascend to the authority of the Catholic Church the reason is the Catholic Church is the church that Christ established and in passages such as Luke 1016 where he said he who listens to you listens to me

01:59:47

I recognize that the church has an authority to speak with Christ's own authority so when the church says we must do this we must not do that then

01:59:56

I believe that this is Christ speaking through the church you may call it sola ecclesia but I recognize that this is

02:00:01

Jesus Christ acting authoritatively through his church so if at the time let me ask you let's let's look at another thing that since we're talking about tradition here and an unwritten tradition was at the time of the second

02:00:16

Nicene Council the bodily assumption of Mary for example an unwritten tradition and would not not believing this unwritten tradition amount to a rejection of it at that time you may be having difficulty with the phrase unwritten tradition unwritten tradition doesn't mean that it's not something that is not written down for example the church fathers write about various things that we would assign to tradition rather tradition in its proper sense means the lived understanding of the church of the deposit of faith that had been once for all handed on to the

02:00:48

Saints so a doctrine such as the the doctrine of Mary's assumption which which

02:00:55

I think is the one you're raising if the church said as it did that this is worthy of belief and this is something that is part of the the deposit of faith and a

02:01:04

Christian were to deny that and say I will not believe in that then that person would be as you say refusing to assent to one of those traditions so was it a part of the deposit of faith at that time it's always been a part of the deposit of faith did anyone at that time believe it at the time of the second

02:01:21

Nicene Council definitely who why this is not a debate on the assumption of Mary otherwise

02:01:26

I would have brought I know I might give you some examples the point that I'm making is that the council anathematizes anyone who would reject unwritten traditions the problem is when you try to find out what those unwritten traditions are you cannot find a a constant answer through church history instead and I and I'm contrasting that with the fact that when the

02:01:48

Bible anathematizes someone it does so on the basis of a very clear knowledge of what it is that they're rejecting yes

02:01:55

I agree with that but I just wrote a book on tradition I'd be happy to send you a copy it's called why is that in tradition and I address that very issue a signed copy by the way

02:02:04

Jim I am in the book I point out the fact that many non

02:02:11

Catholics have a misunderstanding of what tradition actually is it's not this amorphous cloud of you know this guy over here said this and that fellow said that and you know what seems good to us now rather it is a consistent and persistent handing down of what the church understands the original deposit of faith to be including inferences drawn from the explicit evidence that we find in scripture so for example when

02:02:38

Jesus says in John chapter 6 if we can use this as an example my flesh is real food my blood is real drink the question is not so much are those words in the

02:02:46

Bible but rather what do those words mean and so with regard to Marian issues or the

02:02:51

Saints a community of Saints I just laid out a rather specific and concise seven point explanation of why the

02:02:59

Catholic Church recognizes the Saints being able to be venerated and it is the lived understanding that the church has always had so I could furnish for you if there were time copious examples from the early centuries of the very church fathers that you yourself turn to in your book on to defend the

02:03:17

Trinity showing them as being authoritative and the main exegetes as you said

02:03:23

I could show you from all these fathers and many more that they did indeed hold the Catholic view not the view that you are representing here tonight that we should not venerate and that we should not seek the intercession of the saints in heaven the

02:03:36

Council of Elvira meeting even before the first Council of Nicea said it is ordained that pictures are not to be in churches so that which is worshipped and adored shall not be painted on walls given that the statement is nearly 500 years earlier than the statements of the second

02:03:48

Nicene Council why is this not a part of Christian tradition actually the

02:03:53

Council of Elvira is part of Christian tradition and it's invoked with some frequency the particular canon that you're referring to well let's remember for one thing that the

02:04:03

Council of Elvira took place in Spain and at that time Spain was predominantly pagan and so the scholars who have studied this issue have have pointed out that there are different ways in which we can understand that particular canon we don't have any ancillary material from the council itself that tells us with more exactitude what they were referring to but the pagans in the area worshipped images they worshipped false gods so it's very possible that this canon was there to discourage

02:04:33

Christians from aping the pagans it was a pastoral move designed to prevent them from falling down the path of the pagans there's another way to look at it too and that is that it was possible that the pagans themselves would wind up giving false worship and thinking that Christians were doing the same thing so as a way not to cause the pagans to be scandalized it was a pastoral move designed to make sure that this problem didn't arise but interestingly if I could just put this final touch this is the only example in the early church where you will find a regional synod of this nature saying that Christians were not to have icons or not to paint them on the walls in the church

02:05:17

I find that very interesting but is that not then an illustration there is no universal tradition to which you have appealed before in light of that not at all because if you look at the different regional councils that existed here and there before and after the different ecumenical councils like Hippo and Carthage yes for example you'll find variations in opinion on things that were not later accepted by the ecumenical councils what was stated at the

02:05:45

Council of Elvira was not I'll end it there thank you

02:05:54

I didn't think you could handle that twice in one night thank you for the warning

02:05:59

I'll have the rebuttal speeches beginning with Mr.

02:06:08

Madrid these speeches are eight minutes each I'm starting now well first I want to thank all of you for your patience this has been a

02:06:42

I think a very interesting and I want to bring us back to the points that were made at the very beginning because perhaps we've gotten a little astray on some things that are not necessarily germane to the subject tonight

02:06:56

I laid out for you the Catholic model for why we venerate why we ask the veneration ask the intercession of the saints and why we venerate images of them

02:07:08

I'd like to pause for just a minute on the question of images because I think a lot of times people especially people in this room perhaps have the misconception that when

02:07:17

Catholics reverence an icon whether it's a crucifix I have one here I thought it would be wise to bring an icon so that we could see what we're talking about here tonight this is a crucifix of our crucified

02:07:31

Lord in 1st Corinthians chapter 1 st. Paul says he wants to know nothing except for Christ crucified he doesn't want the cross to be emptied of its power he wants to preach

02:07:41

Christ crucified and in the early years of the church after the persecution of the Romans ended it became very common for the plain crosses to have affixed to them the corpus the body of our

02:07:53

Lord Jesus Christ not to be an idol not to be worshipped as a piece of wood or a piece of marble but to remind us of the power of the cross and what

02:08:03

Jesus did for us on the cross now I think it's safe to say that this icon here is something that at the very least is deserving of respect how many of you

02:08:15

Protestants would care to see this icon just thrown around the room how many of you

02:08:21

Protestants would want to see an image of Jesus shown some sort of disrespect I'll go a little further which of you

02:08:27

Protestants would be willing to come forward and stomp on this if it doesn't have some connection with the heavenly realities that we can't see with our eyes then you should have no trouble coming up and stomping on it but the fact is you know in your hearts and I know you know in your hearts that this depiction of the

02:08:47

Lord Jesus Christ is not something for us to worship but to remind us of the power of what he did for us on the cross and when you see

02:08:56

Catholics reverencing an icon such as this or an icon of the Virgin Mary we are not worshipping those icons that is idolatry you also in your homes

02:09:06

Catholics and Protestants alike have pictures of your family members pictures of people you love here

02:09:13

I am far away from my home I live outside of Columbus Ohio I'm 600 miles from my home and I have a picture of my wife and my children with me now if you were to happen to see me standing out in the hallway during an intermission and because I miss my wife and family you might see me kiss the picture of my family would you recoil in horror and disbelief and say my gosh he loves

02:09:35

Kodak paper look at the guy how sad no you wouldn't say that at all you would instinctively know that the love the the honor in a sense that I'm showing to this piece of Kodak paper has nothing to do with the paper or the ink it is directed to the people that the picture represents this is true of crucifixes this is true of statues this is true of any icon and the key to our debate tonight my friends is the word intention if you intend to fall down and bow before anything and worship it in place of God you are committing the sin of idolatry if you fall down before a great person as we read about in 1st

02:10:23

Chronicles chapter 29 when the people bowed down and did obeisance and reverence to God and the king we are told the people were not worshipping the king but they did a good thing in bowing down and worshipping

02:10:38

God and in the same act giving homage to the king and it was religious homage when

02:10:46

Catholics do this my friends we are not worshipping idols we are venerating the memory of real people in heaven who are indeed at rest but as we pointed out earlier

02:10:58

Jesus tells us that they are put in charge of many things one of those many things is to pray for us and I think if you were to ask the saints in heaven if there were a way that we could ask them

02:11:10

I think what you would find is that for them that is not work they love us far more than they could have loved us when they were here on earth because as Hebrews 12 says they are perfected in righteousness

02:11:23

James 5 says that the prayer of a righteous person is very powerful now you may pray for me and I may pray for you and to whatever extent we have certain righteousness and we are not talking about justification right now to the extent that we have that standing before God our prayers can be powerful but those in heaven are perfected in righteousness and their prayers

02:11:45

James 5 says are powerful because that statement is not restricted only to those here on earth the prayers of any

02:11:53

Christian are pleasing to God and they are powerful now we talked earlier about this issue of idolatry and I want to bring out a few other points this word intention is very important because Catholics who intend to worship anything other than the one true

02:12:13

God should be rebuked and I would praise Jim if he rebuked a Catholic for worshipping a statue because Jim would be right the

02:12:21

Catholic would be wrong but similarly we have icons that even

02:12:26

Protestants themselves would recognize as worthy of respect it's not it's an irony that actually

02:12:33

I picked this book up because I wanted to read it but now I realize it was sitting in my briefcase it has a perfect bearing on tonight's discussion the book she said yes have any of you read this book it's about a young lady named

02:12:46

Cassie Bernal she was one of the high school students in Columbine and she was shot in the act of saying that she believed in God she was a martyr so here we have these these animals standing there shooting kids and they come up to this young girl and they say do you believe in God and she says yes

02:13:07

I believe in God BAM now her face is depicted on the cover of this book which of you would show this image of this young girl disrespect and isn't it not more human isn't it not more natural for us to show a martyr the respect for the victory that she is one or an image of the

02:13:33

Virgin Mary or the image of st. Stephen st. Augustine tells us in his passages that we didn't have time to read tonight about how not only was the practice of venerating and asking for the intercession of st.

02:13:44

Stephen very common in his time but he also tells us that st. Stephen would never want to be worshipped in place of God never want to be shown the kind of honor and worship that is proper to God alone this is what we have to remember that the

02:13:59

Catholic Church whether Jim likes it or not makes a distinction in the

02:14:06

Catholic Church we recognize that there is reverence due to the friends of God the martyrs the

02:14:13

Saints that is proper that is biblical there is idolatry on the other side and the

02:14:21

Catholic Church has always forbidden idolatry so whether Jim likes it or not there is a distinction there is a development in the understanding of these terms and I can assure you that neither

02:14:33

I nor any Catholic I know any Catholic in this room worships statues thank you of course what

02:14:50

I like or don't like is irrelevant this evening I don't matter it's what

02:14:55

God's Word says and what he has said about his worship that does matter Rome makes the distinction the whole point is the distinction is contrary to what

02:15:06

God has said in his word this icon was shown to us and no one would want to come up here and smash it we were told all right we were told it's because you know in your hearts what it represents what is most offensive to me about this representation is not the wood not necessarily what it looks like I'll be perfectly honest with you you know what offends me about that it's because in Roman Catholicism that's not a finished act it is a repeated act oh

02:15:51

I know we've debated the one time we you know representation all the rest that stuff if it doesn't perfect you it's not the cross of Christ that's what offends me and I know that in my heart and if you're a

02:16:07

Roman Catholic you need to understand that's why it offends me you may not agree but I can give you a very biblical basis and reason for it we were told that the key tonight is intention

02:16:21

I want you to listen very carefully especially in the closing statements I'd like to raise some scriptural passages about that but the context of Latria and Dulia is what determines whether it's idolatry or not when a soldier bows before when a

02:16:39

Roman soldier bows for a centurion that would not be in a religious context folks if I took out of my wallet pictures of my family

02:16:51

I don't need it tonight because most of them are here for the first time in seven years and I'm glad to have them here if I took those pictures out of my wallet and I showed them to you or I kissed them not a religious context when you are in the church in that quiet place lighting those candles on your knees praying for grace and merit it doesn't get any more religious than that and that is the context that determines the meaning of the word when we build a statue of Lee or Grant or someone else like that everyone recognizes that there's a different context but the whole problem is that's a religious context right there and that is the very use of the words that I have shown you and no effort has been made to refute this showed you from passage after passage after passage worship and serve worship and serve

02:18:02

Latria and Julia Latria and Julia every single one is religious and that is the issue this evening we were told in the seven points

02:18:13

Christ Church is Christ's body it is second that Christ has only one body he does the death does not divide us in the sense of splitting us under the body of Christ that's true but it does put us in a different place and it changes our relationship with others

02:18:31

I wanted to get to this across examination but do you pray to people in purgatory why not aren't they in the body of Christ if they're in purgatory that means they are part of the body of Christ aren't they you see they're in some different place and don't you treat them differently than saints in heaven well of course you do so you recognize there's a distinction so when you say well death does not divide us the relationship remains but it's of a different type that's why they're described as being asleep that doesn't mean they're unconscious but to us there is a distinction that's made that's why the

02:19:12

Bible recognizes that yes those who've died Moses was alive to God but he's dead to us don't try to use

02:19:20

Moses's credit card a change has taken place and therefore the rest of the argumentation

02:19:31

Christians are united in charity we imitate the Saints well biblically every single believer in Jesus Christ is a saint this whole idea that there's you know supererogation and merits and all the rest the

02:19:44

Treasury of Merit all the rest of stuff completely and utterly unbiblical concepts and therefore to say we are able to invoke the intercession of the

02:19:52

Saints does not follow from what came before and as we saw in the cross examination we do not see that kind of activity being promoted by the

02:20:05

Apostles at all so the seven points have been presented to us do not give us a foundation for ignoring the fact that the lottery a duly distinction upon which this entire argument is based collapses when examined on the basis scripture may point something out to my knowledge there is no one the second

02:20:29

Nicene Council who ever addressed the meaning of Hebrew terms translation of them what the

02:20:37

Bible says in fact as I mentioned before the excellent records as far as I can tell do not even mention the presentation of any biblical counter argumentation and so fundamentally folks what do we have this evening

02:20:54

I think we've already seen it why is veneration of Saints angels and images consistent with the

02:21:02

Bible because Rome says so if Rome says so well that's it the assertion is made well

02:21:10

Matthew 18 that means Rome's infallible no it doesn't there's nothing about Rome in Matthew 18 he who hears you hears me has nothing to do with the bishop of the church in Rome at all that's an assumption that has all sorts of historical problems with it and if you'd like to see the various debates have been done on that we did the papacy against Father Mitchell Pacwa go look at the videotapes

02:21:31

I do a gerrymantic 7 hours up in Denver in 1993 go look at the videotapes there's all sorts of reason to question all of that but that's the fundamental reason it's been given the church says so we assume that the church that existed in the time of the second

02:21:49

Nicene Council is the same as the church at the time the first Nicene Council and before that the assumption is that modern

02:21:59

Roman Catholicism is the faith of the ancient church problem is there wasn't anyone the

02:22:05

Nicene Council that believed what you believe today dogmatically about many issues from purgatory and indulgences to the

02:22:14

Marian dogmas and the papacy and everything else so why should we grant the assumption that this is the same church this is an argument fundamentally in the final analysis from authority we're right believe us

02:22:31

Jesus taught us whenever someone comes to us and says we're right he says go to what

02:22:39

God has said and find out we are following Christ's example to do so thank you you are being excellent tonight we have closing statements first by Mr.

02:23:04

Madrid and then by Mr. White those will be 10 minutes each following that we'll have just a brief break not for you to get up and move around but to get our microphones set

02:23:12

I want to remind you again if you have questions please write them down a question time is not for you to give your own viewpoints or preach or teach it's to ask a question so write it down so we might make best use of time our 10 minute closing speeches beginning now with Mr.

02:23:33

Madrid well it's been a long night it's been a good night though I think because it's done a think first of all it's given me a chance to present the case for the

02:24:02

Catholic Church even though it was an abbreviated case I recognize that the constraints of time work against us

02:24:09

Jim probably has a lot more that he'd like to say I certainly have a lot more I'd like to say a lot more evidence to bring out but the fact is

02:24:15

I think we've been able to at least show the general parameters of what divides us on this subject and I'd like to recap those in just a moment but first I want to point out what we have here tonight we have a problem we have no more more pointedly we have a controversy and I think the controversy really stems from the question of who is really able to determine what the church believed in the early centuries now

02:24:45

I would argue that not only were the councils those mechanisms that were able to do that we read about the first council that did that in Acts chapter 15 when the the council was able to deliberate on the subject of Gentile believers being permitted into the church without undergoing all the circumcision laws and kosher food laws we see the in the in the

02:25:04

New Testament itself the church operating in council to make these determinations and my brothers and sisters those determinations were binding on the

02:25:15

Christians who received them so the thing I'd like to point out here is that the early church had the authority to be able to interpret the biblical data and apply it to the way in which it lived out its life including the liturgies including the prayers including the way in which the church expressed her belief in the importance of the

02:25:38

Saints now I know that Jim says that that is not appropriate or that is not true that is not to be believed or accepted tonight but I am standing here tonight to say that when

02:25:50

Jesus said in Luke 10 15 10 16 he who listens to you listens to me he who rejects you rejects me he was imparting authority to somebody to speak in his name now

02:26:05

I've heard this claim so many times before that the early church was not the Catholic Church I defy anybody including

02:26:14

Jim to really examine what the early

02:26:19

Christians believed and taught just read their their words for themselves and you will find that far from what he asserted a moment ago that the

02:26:28

Nicene Council Christians didn't believe all these different things that the Catholic Church teaches they did believe them they wrote about them and not only then but for centuries and centuries prior to the

02:26:40

Second Council of Nicea in the year 787 this is amply documented this is what we just heard a moment ago this is a claim that will not stand up to the scrutiny of history and I don't ask you to take my word for it

02:26:55

I ask any of you all of you I believe are fair minded people I ask you to examine it for yourselves go down to the local

02:27:01

Barnes and Noble and start reading the writings of the early church and you you'll see what

02:27:06

I'm talking about there are many many other issues that we want to try to cover but let's at least deal with the issue of the one mediator argument that was raised a little earlier first Timothy 2 5

02:27:18

I believe that Jesus is the one mediator he is the one and the only one who can bridge the gap of sin between where we are stranded in alienation and where God is in all holiness only

02:27:31

Christ can do that why because only Christ is God Mary is not

02:27:37

God st. Stephen is not God st. Michael the Archangel is not God none of them have the ability to be the one mediator but notice that Jesus shares the different unique roles that he has in subordinate ways with his friends for example

02:27:54

Jesus is the king of kings isn't he he's the king I believe and yet Jesus says that the apostles that all

02:28:03

Christians are going to reign as kings in heaven wearing crowns sitting on thrones

02:28:08

Jesus is the creator the book of Hebrews tells us but he shares that procreative role with us with human mothers and fathers we have a subordinate share in the way in which

02:28:23

God ultimately creates he creates through men and women Jesus is the supreme judge isn't he do you believe that I do but Jesus says that Christians are going to judge in heaven we will judge the angels there is a subordinate share that believers have in the ministry of Christ never taking away from what

02:28:48

Jesus has done never taking away the uniqueness of his role but we see over and over and over again that Jesus shares these roles with his followers that's why my friends in 1st

02:28:59

Timothy 2 verses 1 through 4 that's why st. Paul can say not what Jim was implying a few minutes ago pray for people on earth pray only when you're on earth pray for kings pray for the people who are persecuting

02:29:12

Christians that's not what the passage says the passage says pray for everyone everyone and this command to pray is not restricted just to those of us here on earth nothing in the context would imply that this is a standing command in scripture that Christians are called upon to pray for and assist as st.

02:29:38

Paul says to bear one another's burdens and by so doing we will fulfill the law of Christ you and I have burdens here on earth don't we we struggle with sin we struggle with all kinds of adversity here on earth and we rely on one another's prayers don't we

02:29:55

I asked a whole lot of people to pray for me tonight in the days and weeks leading up to this debate why because I need prayer this is a challenging setting you need prayer and the thing that separates so sadly this is this is a tragedy really the thing that separates us is that every

02:30:17

Sunday millions of Christians around the world recite the words of the Apostles Creed and the

02:30:23

Nicene Creed and those words include the words we believe in the communion of saints now as a

02:30:32

Catholic I believe that that communion transcends time and space and as I pointed out to you in my opening remarks through those seven points there is nothing in scripture that would indicate that the unity that you and I have in and through Jesus Christ is somehow severed or somehow restricted or in some other way diminished if you and I have the capability even

02:30:55

I would add the admonition the exhortation from Holy Scripture to pray for one another and to assist one another here on earth we have all the more reason to do that when we're in heaven perfected in righteousness and I'm afraid to say that Jim has not offered us a single example from scripture or the early church and remember that was the that was the thesis for tonight's debate that this act of asking for the intercession of the saints venerating them etc is not consistent with scripture in Christian tradition it is in the seven points that I laid out remember showed it was like it like links in a chain there's one body not one in heaven and one on earth all members of the body are united in Christ death does not separate us etc that's the real issue here tonight if the

02:31:48

Bible is to be understood according to its plain reading then all Christians including those in heaven are part of that organic body of Christ and contribute to the to the lifting up to the improvement of the spiritual well -being of everyone else remember what st.

02:32:04

Paul said in 1st Corinthians chapter 12 this is really a forceful passage and it pains me when

02:32:11

I hear my friend Jim here saying well that that just refers to the local assembly no it refers to the whole church st.

02:32:21

Paul said I'll read it again verse 12 as a body is one though it has many parts and all the parts of the body though many are one body so also

02:32:29

Christ for in one spirit we were all baptized into the one body whether Jews or Greeks slaves or free persons and we were all given to drink of one spirit now the body is not a single part but many if a foot should say because I am not a hand

02:32:46

I do not belong to the body it does not for this reason belong any less to the body or if an ear should say because I am not an eye

02:32:54

I do not belong to the body it does not for this reason belong any less to the body if the whole body were an eye where would the hearing be if the whole body were hearing where would the sense of smell be but as it is

02:33:03

God has placed the parts each one of them in the body as he intended if they were all one part they were where would the body be but as it is there are many parts yet one body the eye cannot say to the hand

02:33:14

I do not need you nor again can the head say to the feet I do not need you tonight what we have witnessed here is one of the members of the body of Christ saying to all those members of the body of Christ in heaven

02:33:25

I do not need you I am here to say tonight that we do need our brothers and sisters in heaven we do need their prayers and they are there praying for us and I thank you for your patience good night and God bless you of course it is sadly a very obvious misrepresentation that that is what

02:33:54

I have said I pointed out the first Corinthians chapter 12 is about the use of the gifts the

02:33:59

Holy Spirit within service in the ministry the body of Christ and obviously as I have pointed out in no reference no reputation has been offered that changes when a person enters into the presence of God when the passage in 1st

02:34:12

Timothy 2 speaks of praying for everyone it is pure is a Jesus to me and that means for saints in heaven because as I have pointed out if I pray for someone that they would strive against sin that is irrelevant to a person who is in heaven that shows the change that takes place when a person enters into rest and peace in Christ.

02:34:33

I have been defied to show Mr. Madrid anyone who denied the thing he said

02:34:38

I would like to challenge instead of defy Mr. Madrid to find me one counsel father at the

02:34:44

Council of Nicaea and I was talking about 325 one counsel father at Nicaea who believed what

02:34:49

Mr. Madrid dogmatically believes today about the papacy purgatory indulgences the priesthood and all the

02:34:55

Marian dogmas not a one did and Roman Catholic historians admitted we were told the issue tonight is about what the early church believe it's not the thesis was about Christian tradition as I pointed out that is a very selective thing

02:35:11

Rome just says that's tradition that isn't I showed you councils I showed you statements and Roman Catholic sources admit that these were a part of the patristic sources how about we allow

02:35:21

Peter to interpret things in Acts 1025 to 26 when Cornelius bowed before him he was showing him honor right

02:35:28

I mean Peter is worthy of honor isn't he was on the monitor amount of transfiguration Apostle when

02:35:34

Cornelius bows before him what does Peter do don't do that I'm just a man when in Revelation chapter 19 their angel has shown

02:35:43

John all these tremendous things and that angel deserves honor and so John bows down before the angel the angels don't do that worship

02:35:51

God alone let's let those early church fathers interpret for us because we know what they believed because it's been provided for us in scripture true worship is determined in its nature solely by what

02:36:07

God says is pleasing to him man has no place determining what is right and proper worship only

02:36:13

God can and has revealed what is proper and true worship so seriously does

02:36:19

God take the matter of our acknowledging him as our creator and him alone that he identifies idolatry is one of the most heinous and grievous sins in his sight to very very unpopular passages unpopular in the sense that they do not fit with today's man -centered religions solemnly testify to the importance of offering pure and proper worship to God both these passages speak to the importance of obeying what

02:36:42

God has revealed concerning how he is to be worshipped first Leviticus chapter 10 Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron having been fully instructed in the proper form of worship took liberties going beyond what

02:36:54

God had ordained we read in verses 1 through 3 now David Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron took their respective firepans and after putting fire in them placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the

02:37:05

Lord which he had not commanded them and fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consume them and they died before the

02:37:13

Lord then Moses said to Aaron it is what the Lord spoke saying by those who come near me

02:37:19

I will be treated as holy and before all the people I will be honored so Aaron therefore kept silent modern man might make many excuses for Nadab and Abihu man might say that they were new to the job that they were simply expressing freedom in worship such things may impress postmodern

02:37:39

Americans but obviously did not impress the Almighty by those who come near to God he will be treated as holy to violate

02:37:47

God's own revealed will concerning how he is to be worshipped is to treat him as unholy there is no neutrality here violate

02:37:55

God's commands and you engage in idolatry the punishment may not come as quickly as it did for Nadab and Abihu but it will be just as certain anyway

02:38:04

Nadab and Abihu went beyond what God commanded as we seen this evening

02:38:10

Rome has had to deal with their own personal problems as well the second passage is even more striking when David is taking the ark back to Jerusalem after God strikes the

02:38:18

Philistines for keeping possession of it an incident takes place that illustrates our point this evening with great force in 2nd

02:38:24

Samuel 6 beginning of verse 3 we read they place the Ark of God on a new cart that they might bring it from the house of Abinadab which was on the hill and Uzzah and Ahio the sons of Abinadab were leading the new cart.

02:38:36

So they brought it with the ark of God from the house of Abinadab which was on the hill and Ahio was walking ahead of the ark.

02:38:44

Meanwhile, David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the Lord with all kinds of instruments made of fir wood and with lyres, harps, tambourines, castanets and cymbals.

02:38:54

And when they came to the threshing floor of Nakan, Uzzah reached out toward the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen nearly upset it.

02:39:01

And the anger of the Lord burned against Uzzah and God struck him down there for his irreverence and he died there by the ark of God.

02:39:12

David became angry because of the Lord's outburst against Uzzah and that place is called Perez Uzzah to this day.

02:39:20

You see, God had told Israel to carry the ark on poles, not on a cart. David and the people were in violation of God's revealed will.

02:39:28

Oh, surely, they were having a grand time. David and the people were dancing and having a wonderful worship experience, at least from the human standpoint.

02:39:38

But the human standpoint is irrelevant. Remember, we were told the key of this debate tonight is intention, not from God's perspective.

02:39:49

Modern men want to excuse Uzzah for what he did. Wasn't he just trying to help?

02:39:57

Wasn't his intention to do something good? How could God hold him accountable for what he did?

02:40:03

Didn't someone else tell him to walk where he was walking? Wasn't it really David's fault or the priest's fault?

02:40:09

Maybe this was how Uzzah had been taught. Maybe he was following a tradition of the elders or the infallible

02:40:15

Jewish magisterium. It didn't matter. He touched the ark of God, which represented his holy presence with the people of Israel and despite the fact that it ruined

02:40:25

David's party. God struck Uzzah dead. There is no biblical difference between worshiping someone and serving someone in the religious context.

02:40:38

Lottery and dually are both terms that go back to a single concept in the Bible as we have seen. To worship is both to bow down and to serve.

02:40:45

You cannot separate them. There is no biblical distinction between lottery and dually, either in usage or in logical meaning.

02:40:52

In the context of our religious attitude and posture, which is surely what prayer and veneration of saints, angels, or images involves, the lotteria dually distinction is without substance or meaning.

02:41:06

Pleading the lotteria dually distinction would not have saved a Jew caught bowing before a statue of an ancestor and pleading it before a holy

02:41:13

God today will have no more benefit. God's holiness has not changed with our cultural change.

02:41:21

The Bible knows nothing of offering prayer to anyone but God, for prayer is an act of worship acknowledging the authority and power of the one being prayed to.

02:41:30

This is why, though the New Testament is still being written well after Christian martyrs are entering into the presence of God, there is no unambiguous reference to any communication with them.

02:41:40

Misused apocalyptic passages in the book of Revelation do not provide a sound foundation for the violation of God's command against idolatry.

02:41:48

The 24 elders were not the objects of prayer or veneration by people on earth. You may well be able to honestly say that you were ignorant of the biblical facts concerning lotteria, dually, proscuneo, avod, whatever.

02:42:03

God has been merciful to you, allowing you to know the truth this evening. It is quite possible that the men who met at the

02:42:10

Second Nicene Council were likewise ignorant of the biblical facts. Their error may have led to the tradition that you have held that has nullified the word of God on this vital issue.

02:42:19

They will bear their burden before God, but you will bear yours as well. Jesus warned us about following allegedly divine traditions that nullify the scriptures.

02:42:30

It will be no excuse, my friends, to say, but I thought the church was infallible. Jesus did not accept that idea when the

02:42:38

Jews pressed the traditions of the elders upon him, which they thought came from Moses, nor should you.

02:42:46

What will you do now? Will you acknowledge God's absolute right to determine what is and what is not pleasing worship before him?

02:42:55

My friends, I believe very firmly only God's spirit can make us willing and desirous of worshiping him aright.

02:43:01

I pray he will grant to all here this evening that gift of grace that leads to just such obedience.

02:43:08

Thank you very much. I need my microphone holder,

02:43:28

James. All ready? We've gotten the nearest we have to a bouncer here, so if you get out of line,

02:43:35

James will deal with you. What we're going to do, James, you've got the microphone.

02:43:41

I'm going to ask that those who have questions line up in back of James. Your questions are to be 30 seconds.

02:43:49

Again, if you still have them, write them down. When you are done asking your question, please sit down so the next person can get in line.

02:44:00

Please direct your question to one or both speakers. If you have a question for Mr.

02:44:07

Madrid, address it to him through me or to Mr. White, address it to him through me. If you're addressing both, we'll begin with Mr.

02:44:15

Madrid and then be followed by Mr. White. If you are addressing only one person, we will give the other speaker an opportunity to respond.

02:44:28

I'm asking that both Mr. Madrid and Mr. White be concise so that in the 45 minutes that we have, we can do as many questions as possible.

02:44:38

James, you ready? The first questioner. Please, the microphone is not on.

02:44:47

Would the... One, two. One, two. There we go. We hear you. Mr. Madrid, suppose your version of Mary or One of the

02:44:57

Saints is wrong in terms of its actual picture, what consequence would there be?

02:45:04

For example, let's say Jesus is black or Hispanic in his physical appearance.

02:45:09

Let's say One of the Saints is likewise. In your theology, what would be the consequence of venerating the wrong image?

02:45:22

Mr. Madrid? No consequence whatsoever because the veneration is not for the image itself.

02:45:30

The veneration goes to the person that the image represents. And when we get to heaven, we'll find out what

02:45:36

Jesus looked like and what a given saint looked like. The fact that we have representations of them is for our benefit to remind us of those people.

02:45:46

But there is no problem whatsoever if we depict St. Luke with dark hair and it turns out he had blonde hair, for example.

02:45:55

Mr. White, you're here to make a comment. Just very briefly, my whole concern about this whole issue is the fact that all believers are saints and hence the idea of even worrying about what they look like is problematic.

02:46:11

Every believer in Jesus Christ has the righteousness of Christ, which is perfect, and therefore goes directly into the presence of Christ when he dies.

02:46:18

This distinction doesn't exist. Our next question. Hi. An answer from both, if you could.

02:46:25

My question is, how can Mary hear the prayers of multitude millions at the same time?

02:46:30

Is this not an attribute that only belongs to God? Mr. Madrid? It is not an attribute that belongs only to God.

02:46:38

I think you're referring to the two characteristics of omnipotence and omnipresence.

02:46:43

Omnipotence meaning that God is all -powerful. There's nothing he cannot do. Omnipresence means that he's everywhere.

02:46:49

And we have to remember that because God is infinite, those attributes themselves are infinite. So that means there's no end to what

02:46:56

God can do. There's no end or there's no limit, let's say, to what God knows. Now, in the case of, let's say, people are praying to Mary as an example, you may have untold millions of people at any given moment in the world praying to Mary, all sorts of different languages,

02:47:17

English, Spanish, etc. No matter how many of those prayers ascend at any given time, they're still finite.

02:47:25

There is no need for omnipresence or omniscience or omnipotence. I mentioned omniscience, that's knowing everything.

02:47:32

And so because these are finite numbers of prayers, there is simply no question of that intruding upon those characteristics that are property of God alone.

02:47:43

The problem is not at that end of the spectrum. The problem is with us because we can't understand how that happens.

02:47:51

And really, for us to argue that it can't happen just because we don't understand how it can happen would be,

02:47:58

I think, a futile line of argumentation. For example, Jesus himself tells us in the Gospel of Luke that there is great rejoicing in heaven, and he makes a distinction here.

02:48:08

There's great rejoicing in heaven, he says that, and then he says there's great rejoicing before the angels over the repentance of evil, even a single sinner.

02:48:19

Now, how it is that we could take the same example and apply it here.

02:48:24

Let's say that at any given moment there are millions of people repenting of their sins. So, Jesus himself says that those individual repentances are known by those in heaven, angels and saints.

02:48:38

And so, we don't know how that's done, but we do know that it is done.

02:48:44

That somehow, through God letting them know, they are aware of individual repentances.

02:48:52

Mr. White? There are a number of problems with what was just said. I think it's a misuse of the Lukean passage. The point there is not to attempt to provide some discussion of how many times rejoicing takes place in heaven, but the fact that it is

02:49:05

God's desire to see sinful people come to him rather than righteous people. That's the whole point of Jesus' context there.

02:49:11

If we read it in context, read anything else into it is to misuse the passage. But the key issue here is very clear.

02:49:17

I guess we're being asked to believe that once you become glorified, 50 ,000 people can talk to you at once in 20 different languages and you'll understand all of them.

02:49:25

And that this is what saints are doing in heaven. And I've raised the issue a number of times, never gotten an answer to it.

02:49:30

If it is the Holy Spirit of God who has the divine attribute of being able to read our hearts and minds and bring our prayers before the

02:49:38

Father, then who's doing this for the saints? It is a divine attribute to be able to understand the heart and mind of an individual.

02:49:45

And so if a saint can understand my heart and mind, that is a divine attribute. And that's one of the main problems here. To say, well, we just don't know, given the absolute lack of any biblical evidence on this whatsoever, shows,

02:49:58

I think, the issue of sola ecclesia here over against sola scriptura. Next question. This is for Dr.

02:50:04

White. If Mary and the other saints supposedly can't handle those prayers from us on earth because they're not

02:50:11

God, how is it then possible for Satan to be tempting all of us as constantly and consistently as he does?

02:50:18

Do you believe Satan to be omniscient? No, it's through his demons. Mr. Madrid, do you have a response?

02:50:27

He asked me to be succinct. Well, I think that what we just saw here is a clear example of dodging a bullet because that question was right on target.

02:50:36

In other words, the devil is a creature. And St. Peter tells us in his second epistle that Satan is like a roaring lion prowling around.

02:50:46

He doesn't say Satan and his crew, Satan himself, the devil. So there is a unique and personal quality to the temptation that Satan, the individual being himself, carries out.

02:50:57

And the questioner was absolutely right. This is something that's going on on a global scale affecting billions of people.

02:51:07

And Jim simply just dodged the bullet by saying, oh, well, it's his demons doing it. Everyone in the room, I think, understands the force of the question, that it's a creature performing an unbelievable action that we can't understand how it can be done, but the fact is this creature is capable of doing it.

02:51:24

And the extension of that thought is that the saints in heaven, even more so because they are in Christ and through his grace, are capable of doing astounding things.

02:51:35

Next question. Mr. Madrid, mine is a two -part question. Please hold the microphone close to your mouth.

02:51:41

Mine is a two -part question, Mr. Madrid. Looking clearly at the Bible, you are the ones that justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your heart.

02:51:48

All throughout the Bible we know that only God knows our heart. You're speaking too fast. I can't follow you. The Bible tells us that only God knows a man's heart.

02:51:55

Yes. Now, this pope that we know in this office has canonized more saints, to my understanding, than the history of the whole entire church.

02:52:02

Who are we as men to determine the heart of a man that he should become a saint? And if the pope and past popes were right, then what of St.

02:52:09

Christopher, who millions went to their grave venerating? Okay. That's an excellent question, by the way, and I thank you for it.

02:52:15

The issue is not so much that the church decides to make them saints. Actually, that's not the issue at all.

02:52:20

Anyone who is in heaven is a saint in the particular sense that we're using the term now, in the Catholic sense.

02:52:26

But as Jim pointed out, all Christians are saints. Those on earth are saints. Those in heaven are saints. But according to this particular usage, what the church does at a canonization is declare that this person definitely is in heaven.

02:52:40

We're not having follow -ups to this. That wasn't my question, though. My question was how are we to determine who is to make it to heaven?

02:52:47

How do we know a man's heart? How does the church determine how that man gets to heaven? The church determines that by looking at the heroic qualities of that person's life.

02:52:57

So one of the first things that the church would examine would be virtue. Was this person a follower of Jesus Christ?

02:53:03

Did he live in conformity with what Jesus asks of us? And then there are certain tests that are applied.

02:53:08

For example, in order for somebody to be reckoned as a saint in heaven with certitude, then the church requests that certain miracles, not particular miracles, but that there be miracles.

02:53:19

For example, when you have somebody who is dying of cancer in the hospice, riddled with cancer, maybe only a few days to live, and when that person, through the intercession of a saint, for example,

02:53:32

St. Padre Pio, who was recently canonized, is completely cured, where there's no trace of the cancer, the doctors are baffled, there's no way to explain it in any medical or scientific way, the church will recognize that that is evidence of the intercessory power of that person, and the church declares that that person is heaven.

02:53:52

Now I'm giving you a truncated version of what the process of canonization is, but it's based upon did that person exhibit those qualities that we know must be there for him or her to be in heaven.

02:54:04

Mr. White. Well, if I were to take the same approach as the last question, I would have to say, well, that's dodging a bullet.

02:54:11

We didn't hear anything about St. Christopher at all, because it does illustrate the fact that the whole process is a fallible one, that it's based upon an unbiblical teaching, that this concept of excess merit is thoroughly and completely unbiblical.

02:54:29

There is no treasury of merit or anything of the kind. So the problem is that when we talk about, well,

02:54:35

I will pray to this person, but this pope may be still in purgatory or something like that. Everything we're discussing here is so far beyond what you...

02:54:44

Read the New Testament. Read the prayers. Find every prayer in the New Testament. You won't find anything even remotely like this in any of the prayers of the

02:54:53

New Testament. That's why we just heard about Padre Pio. I had a

02:54:58

Sikh drive me in a car from the airport. He was healed at 10 years of age by a religious leader.

02:55:06

Does that mean that that person is some... What does that mean? Well, it means that Satan masquerades as an angel of light is what it means.

02:55:14

We have to have an objective standard by which to test things. That standard is the Word of God. I think that is clearly being illustrated this evening.

02:55:22

Next questioner. This question is for Mr. White. Mr. White, you clarified tonight that the early church used a

02:55:31

Septuagint. The Septuagint... I said the apostles used a

02:55:36

Septuagint. Okay, that's even better. Thank you. Septuagint is the Old Testament. It's identical to the

02:55:44

Catholic Bible, listing all the books that are in it. Now that your sister has converted to the

02:55:49

Catholic Church, does she use that Bible? Two problems, two errors. I don't know that she would know anything about this particular issue.

02:55:56

You'd have to ask her. But the first error that you've made is that you assume that the canon of the

02:56:02

Septuagint is identical to yours. That's your first error. You're about 120 years behind in your scholarship on that point.

02:56:08

If you would look, for example, at modern studies, you would discover that the distinction between an alleged Palestinian and Alexandrian canon does not exist.

02:56:17

Philo the Jew, for example, did not hold the apocryphal books. Then again, neither did Athanasius, Jerome, or Gregory the

02:56:23

Great, Pope of Rome. But we did a debate on that, if you'd like to hear that, between myself and Jerry Matitix at one point.

02:56:30

But as to what my sister knows, all I know is she never talked to me about her conversion, and that right now all

02:56:38

I'm hearing is just what she would read in This Rock magazine or something like that. I don't think she has any idea what the canon of the

02:56:44

Septuagint was, so I'm not sure why you'd ask me that question. Mr. Madrid. That's a very interesting question to ask.

02:56:51

I certainly don't know what version of Scripture Patti Bonds used. Patti Bonds, by the way, is

02:56:57

James' sister. She came to the Catholic Church a year and a half ago, and I don't know what version of Scripture she uses.

02:57:04

Next time I talk to her, I will ask her that. But I can tell you she does use the Catholic Bible that contains the canon of Scripture that the

02:57:12

Catholic Church teaches includes the seven deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament as well as sections of Esther and Daniel that were omitted from the

02:57:21

King James Bible. The other thing I can mention is, given the point that James made about not knowing – forgive me for not being able to rephrase it exactly, but not knowing what her thought is on the matter, it's a point of interest,

02:57:36

I think, that her conversion story in which she is explaining what her reasons were for becoming

02:57:44

Catholic and how she was raised in a Protestant home, and I think in a very thorough and also charitable way, she lays out her reasons for converting to the

02:57:55

Catholic Church in the sequel to Surprised by Truth. It's Surprised by Truth 3, which is coming out this fall.

02:58:01

So anybody who has the least bit of interest in reading in her own words her reasons for that, you'll be able to do that in a few months.

02:58:08

I want to remind you that the topic for the debate this evening is Prayer 2. That was a pretty cheap shot.

02:58:16

Now, we're answering the question that they posed to us.

02:58:22

The topic is Prayer 2 and veneration of the saints as well as the veneration of sacred images that represent them is compatible with Scripture and Christian tradition, and your questions should reflect that topic of the evening.

02:58:35

The next questioner. First, I'd like to thank both you gentlemen. I direct my question to Mr.

02:58:42

Madrid. In the Roman Catholic Church, aren't relics, that is, pieces of bone or clothing of martyrs or popes, etc.,

02:58:51

worshipped as icons in the sense that special healing powers are attributed to them?

02:58:57

No, they're not worshipped as icons. They're not worshipped at all. The relics of the saints are precious in the eyes of the

02:59:04

Lord. Scripture tells us that the death of His holy ones is precious in His eyes. And so the

02:59:09

Church from the earliest days has reverenced the remains of the saints not as some object of worship or anything like that, but rather because we realize that these men and women were temples of the

02:59:20

Holy Spirit indwelled by the Spirit of God Himself. And therefore, that in addition to the fact that they died very often as martyrs caused their relics to be worthy of respect.

02:59:36

And so no Catholic worships the relic of any saint. I've never met a Catholic who does. I don't.

02:59:41

I've never heard of the Catholic Church ever proposing that we should, but rather we hold them in a sacred memory and we reverence them.

02:59:49

That's why you sometimes will see reliquaries that are ornate. They have perhaps precious stones.

02:59:57

They're in some way trying to show the importance of this martyr not as an object of worship, but to show forth the glory of God through the death of His holy ones.

03:00:08

Mr. White. Well, this again illustrates the difference between sola ecclesia and sola scriptura. There is nothing in the

03:00:14

New Testament that even begins to hint at such a practice or a propriety of such a practice. We recognize at the time of the

03:00:20

Reformation the veneration of relics gave you all sorts of indulgences. So here by going and, for example, looking at a feather that allegedly came from the angel

03:00:30

Gabriel, you can receive time out of purgatory and receive grace from God from the treasury of merit.

03:00:36

I think something like this, it's just simply impossible to say, well, you know, that's just honor.

03:00:43

It's very, very clear. This is in a religious context. This is in a context of seeking grace and merit.

03:00:49

And as we have seen this evening, therefore it violates the biblical prohibition against idolatry and to seek to gain indulgence and grace from God and freedom from punishment by looking at some femur of someone who died 500 years ago is not a part of the

03:01:07

Christian faith in any way, shape, or form. Next questioner. My question is for Mr.

03:01:14

Madrid, and bear with me if I'm not reading this too well. In light of the Old Testament teaching against communicating with the dead found in Deuteronomy 18, 10, 11, and Isaiah 8, 19, why is that different than the

03:01:30

Roman Catholic teaching of saints on earth praying to saints in heaven?

03:01:37

If I understand the question correctly, what you're asking is how does necromancy, which is forbidden in the

03:01:42

Old Testament, compare or contrast with the Christian tradition, which goes back to the very earliest days of the church, of invoking the intercession of the saints?

03:01:52

The difference would be this. In the Old Testament, the prohibitions against necromancy are precisely because it involved diabolical powers to conjure spirits, to raise the dead, as we saw with the witch of Endor raising the spirit of the prophet

03:02:08

Samuel so that Saul could find out what was going on. Every place where these things are forbidden, it is precisely because it is trying to tap into a power other than God.

03:02:20

In other words, it's a way of falling prey to the wiles of the devil because this is diabolical activity.

03:02:29

The Catholic Church has always forbidden necromancy. Open the catechism and you'll see examples of where the church says this.

03:02:36

The church fathers speak about the prohibition against necromancy. The difference, however, is that those who are alive in Christ, in heaven, if God permits it, they are able to hear our prayers, answer our prayers.

03:02:48

They're even at times permitted to come into direct contact with human beings here on earth. For example, on the

03:02:54

Mount of Transfiguration, God himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, brought into direct contact three living saints here on earth,

03:03:02

Peter, James, and John, with three living saints in heaven, Moses and Elijah.

03:03:08

And the Lord himself, for his own inscrutable purposes, arranged for this contact between the two of them.

03:03:14

That was not necromancy. Now, I grant the fact that Peter, James, and John didn't request anything from Moses and Elijah.

03:03:21

There was no intercession. There was no petition. There was none of that stuff, and nobody claims there is. But the fact is, in and through Christ, there is a connection that we have with those who are alive in heaven that has nothing whatsoever to do with necromancy.

03:03:35

Mr. White. The very fact that you have to parallel the absolutely unique experience of Moses and Elijah representing the law and the prophets appearing upon the

03:03:43

Mount of Transfiguration to the three chief apostles as evidence of the testimony of the law upon the prophets, the messiahship, and deity of Jesus Christ, the concept of the intercession to saints,

03:03:54

I think demonstrates just how far one must go to come up with anything that even remotely looks biblical in regards to this concept.

03:04:01

Read Isaiah 8, 19 -20. When they say to you, consult the mediums and the spiritists who whisper and mutter, should not a people consult their

03:04:08

God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living? The answers to those questions are obvious, and notice what comes in verse 20.

03:04:16

To the law and to the testimony, if they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.

03:04:25

Go to the law and the testimony. That is the exhortation of this passage.

03:04:31

It uses the very same distinction that Protestants use between living and dead. Aren't all those who are dead alive in God?

03:04:38

Well, of course they are, but it's proper to refer to them as the dead, and they are not to be consulted on behalf of the living.

03:04:45

No applause, please. Next questioner. Good evening, gentlemen.

03:04:52

This is for Mr. Madrid. Since you both were in agreement that the saints are truly believers, which is attested in how

03:05:01

Paul addressed the saints, can you please explain to me why it is that you automatically, when you're conveying scripture about praying to the saints, that you're automatically describing saints that are already passed away and not that he's asking for the saints.

03:05:20

I'm sorry, I'm nervous. The saints that are living to pray for each other and not necessarily the saints that are already in heaven to pray for us.

03:05:31

Mr. Madrid. Thank you. If I understand your question, and I will try to state it as I understood it, what you're asking is the scriptural passages that were brought up tonight deal with the intercession, the prayer, showing honor, and so forth, to saints on earth.

03:05:51

And is it appropriate to apply those to the saints in heaven? Does that do justice to your question?

03:05:57

In other words, do those verses apply also to the saints in heaven? Yes, are they automatically applied?

03:06:04

Okay. Well, just in a succinct way, the best way I could answer that is yes. And that was the thesis of my opening statement, and that is that all of these commandments to honor, to assist, to pray for, to all of these things that we talked about earlier, those are incumbent upon all members of the body of Christ.

03:06:24

And the point that I was making earlier is that those in heaven, even though we can't see them with our physical eyes, as Hebrews 12 -1 tells us, they are a cloud of witnesses.

03:06:35

And the word witness means they are watching, they are seeing us. Even the word martyr comes from that word witness, meaning that they are testifying to the truth of God.

03:06:47

So these passages that we spoke about earlier definitely include, by extension, those saints in heaven.

03:06:56

And my earlier comment, I think, has still gone unanswered, that these are a standing command in Scripture.

03:07:03

There is no evidence in Scripture that tells us that when the saints depart from this earth and enter into glory, that these things that they were commanded to do here on earth, such as pray for us, have somehow been rescinded.

03:07:15

Dr. Boyd? Two errors. I have responded to that, of course, a number of times, and I have pointed out that there are many things that are part of the commands that are rescinded when we enter into the presence of God.

03:07:23

We are no longer, for example, to be engaged in the striving against sin because we have been relieved from it, etc.,

03:07:30

etc. The second error is that Hebrews 12 is not saying that the saints in heaven are sitting there like they're sitting in a stadium watching what's going on here, because Hebrews 12, 1 comes at the end of Hebrews chapter 11, which talks about the heroes of the faith.

03:07:44

And the testimony that they bore was their testimony of their life, not that they are observing what is going on here.

03:07:51

So it says, Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every encumbrance in the sin which so easily entangles us.

03:07:57

That doesn't mean that they're here on earth observing what we're doing. They have given their testimony, and that's why the writer to the

03:08:04

Hebrews, not Paul, whoever it was, can say in verse 2, fixing our eyes on Jesus, not on anyone else, including a saint,

03:08:11

Mary, or anything else. Next questioner. First, let me commend you both for a very invigorating, agitating, and informative debate.

03:08:23

Thank you. Knowing that when Jesus was on the cross, and the thief said to him...

03:08:30

May I ask to whom are you directing the question? Both, gentlemen.

03:08:37

Knowing that when Jesus was on the cross, and the thief said to him, Remember me when you come into my kingdom.

03:08:44

And Mary was there. And Jesus also said... What does he say now?

03:08:55

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Mary was there.

03:09:03

He did not ask Mary to pray for him. And I'd like to ask you both, what are your comments on that?

03:09:11

And my second part of the question, instead of praying through saints, could we look at saints as our mentors?

03:09:18

Mr. Madrid. I'll answer the second part first.

03:09:24

We certainly can look at the saints as our mentors. We should look at them as our mentors. St. Paul reminds us that we are urged to imitate the saints, to reflect upon their lives and recognize

03:09:35

God's grace working in them. And in that way, certainly, they're our mentors.

03:09:40

That's the purpose behind icons and images, because the icons and images instruct the ignorant.

03:09:46

They show forth the beauty of Christian life as we see it in St. Paul or St.

03:09:51

Peter or the Blessed Virgin Mary. So, yes, they can. Now, at the foot of the cross, we have to remember what was taking place.

03:09:58

This is the supreme act of sacrifice, Christ redeeming the world through his blood on the cross.

03:10:06

And so what's taking place there is the repentant thief seeking his salvation.

03:10:13

He's not going to find salvation through Mary. He's not going to find it through anyone else, only through Christ. So the only appropriate thing for us to expect there, which is what we see, is that he turns to Christ alone.

03:10:23

He is not looking to anyone else. And I'm not sure if there was another element to your question, but at the foot of the cross, all eyes are on Christ because everything that is taking place there is

03:10:37

Christ -centered. It has nothing to do with Mary or anyone else. It has to do with what

03:10:42

Christ is doing on the cross. Mr. White. In answer to the second part of the question, if we use that term in a biblical sense, obviously all of our mentors in the faith are saints because we're all saints in Christ.

03:10:54

There is no distinction as Rome makes. And therefore, that's the answer to the second part.

03:10:59

As far as the first part, it was very interesting that Mr. Madrid just said that no one looks to Mary for salvation.

03:11:06

It strikes me as very strange that the Roman Catholic Church has sainted and made a doctor of the church,

03:11:13

Alphonsus de Liguri, who in his book, The Glories of Mary, repeats over and over and over and over again, prayer after prayer after prayer after prayer, where people do exactly that.

03:11:25

I entrust my soul to you, addressed to Mary. If anyone looks to Mary, they will not be released.

03:11:32

They will not be lost. I ask any of you. That book has gone through 800 editions in many languages.

03:11:38

And the Roman Catholic Church has not only sainted and made the man a doctor of the church, it has never once said that this book contains the simple heresy that it does.

03:11:51

And so I would just ask you to take the things you hear tonight and go find that book. I would actually recommend it to you.

03:11:59

It is absolutely positively amazing. It truly shows the danger of this whole issue this evening and what happens when you abandon sola scriptura in favor of sola ecclesia.

03:12:09

Next question. Good evening.

03:12:18

I'm a Christian coming from Romania. I discovered the love of God under persecution and problems.

03:12:27

I worship only God and Jesus Christ, and he helped me in a thousand of situations.

03:12:33

My question to my Catholic brothers is, will I not go in heaven because I didn't worship

03:12:39

Holy Mary and saints? Or what do you have more than me worshiping them?

03:12:45

Thank you. Mr. Madrid. I can say that if you did worship

03:12:52

Mary and the saints, you would not go to heaven because you are commanded not to worship anyone but God.

03:12:59

So please let's lay this bugaboo to rest that somehow Catholics worship Mary and the saints.

03:13:04

We don't, and nobody here is proposing that you should or that we do. I ask that you please hold your applause.

03:13:11

You'll have opportunity for that at the end. To continue with my thought, you will not go to hell for being in a situation in which you did not know something was true.

03:13:26

And you are in Christ. You love Jesus. You're a member of his mystical body, certainly by virtue of your baptism.

03:13:33

And so there's no question in my mind that if by the time you end your life, if God's grace has not illuminated your soul in such a way that you can see the truth of certain aspects of Christianity that maybe you don't see right now, that no, you will not be damned to hell for that.

03:13:51

Mr. White. Simply repeating over and over again, we do not worship Mary in light of the destruction of the

03:13:56

Latria -Dulia distinction for which no answer has been given biblically on the part of my opponent this evening is not going to answer to the issue.

03:14:04

The fact has been very clearly laid out. And I would remind everyone of the infallible words of the

03:14:10

Council of Florence which said it firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that those not living within the

03:14:15

Catholic Church, not only pagans but also Jews and heretics and schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life, will depart into everlasting fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels unless before the end of life the same have been added to the flock and that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is so strong that only to those remaining in it are the sacraments of the church of benefit for salvation and do fastings, almsgiving, and other functions of piety and exercises of Christian service produce eternal reward and that no one, whatever almsgiving he has practiced, even if he has shed blood for the name of Christ can be saved unless he has remained in the bosom and unity of the

03:14:50

Catholic Church. End quote. Denzinger 714. Next questioner.

03:14:56

First of all, thank you both for a great debate. This is like a two -part question addressable in reference to the conversation with the dead.

03:15:04

To whom are you directing your question? Both of them. I would like to see how their traditions interpret these two passages that are in reference to the conversations with dead people.

03:15:12

In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Jesus tells us a story of a conversation between Abraham and the rich man taking place in the afterworld.

03:15:21

Both of these men are dead. If only God could hear what's in our heart, how is it that Abraham is able to hear the prayer of the rich man?

03:15:32

The second part to that is, back to the amount of transfiguration, Jesus is seen speaking with Moses and Elijah.

03:15:39

Since Moses passed away in the Old Testament, and he's a prophet, what type of conversation is taken between Moses, who's dead, and Jesus, who is still alive and has yet to be crucified and resurrected?

03:15:51

Is Jesus preaching to Moses, or is he asking for a prayer? Mr. Madrid? I'm going to concentrate on the first question, the issue of Luke 16,

03:16:01

Lazarus and the rich man. We just go back to the point I was making earlier, that certainly the rich man in Luke 16 was asking

03:16:10

Abraham for his intercession, that he would have the poor man,

03:16:17

Lazarus, go back to warn his brothers. Abraham himself says that in that place, the abode of the dead,

03:16:25

Sheol, there was a great gulf between where the rich man was and where Abraham and Lazarus were.

03:16:31

So there was certainly a distance, however we want to reckon that distance. They weren't near each other.

03:16:37

So there was some way in which the rich man communicated his intention to Abraham. I don't know really how much we can lean on that passage to show what we've been talking about here tonight, but it does show us certainly that there is a communication that can take place in ways that we don't understand.

03:16:56

You mentioned briefly that only God knows our thoughts. Well, it's true that God knows our thoughts, but God permits us to know the secret thoughts of other people at certain times.

03:17:05

For example, in Acts 5, when Ananias and Sapphira were withholding property and pretending as if they were donating all of it to the church,

03:17:14

Peter, through the grace of God, knew their secret thoughts. And so it's really entirely biblical for us to recognize that if God chooses to permit it,

03:17:26

His saints in heaven can be aware of those things that are happening here on earth.

03:17:31

It's not because the saints are doing it. God is doing it through them. And I want to put to rest one other thing that pertains to this.

03:17:38

There is no argument that the saints in heaven and the saints on earth are saints. We recognize that the

03:17:45

Bible says that all Christians are saints. So there seems to be this odd repetition of an argument that's a non -issue, really, because there's no question that we are saints on earth just as those in heaven are.

03:17:57

Mr. White. Well, the reason I've said that is because we have the concept of purgatory. A person is a saint in a technical sense because he doesn't have to go to purgatory because he has excess merit.

03:18:07

I don't think that's an issue at all. Hence, we have the specific canonization of saints, which is even another category.

03:18:14

But as to Luke 16, it specifically says the man cried out. It does not say that he prayed to Abraham. So how

03:18:20

Abraham would know the intentions of his prayer isn't relevant because the man is actually crying out.

03:18:25

It's not a matter of prayer. But again, this whole issue goes back to we're talking about this passage or that passage.

03:18:35

I'm not hearing anything in response to looking at this and going, well, there's no worship going on in Luke 16 or in any of these other passages.

03:18:44

And I don't remember the second half. Do you remember the second half of the question? I think we're avoiding the second half of the question. Okay, well, that will be the end of the first half.

03:18:51

If you have two -part questions, only ask the first part. I don't even remember what the next question is.

03:19:03

And please try to make your question in 30 seconds. All right. This is directed towards Mr.

03:19:09

Madrid. I'm going to make this quick. This is in regard to the fifth point that you made. Speak into the mic, please. I'm sorry. This is in regard to your fifth point you made during your dissertation about images that you used to remind you of the saints' men and their virtue.

03:19:22

But I wanted to ask you, what about Romans 7, 14 through 27 when St. Paul talks about being a slave to sin and that sin lives inside him and the evil that he doesn't want to do, he keeps doing?

03:19:34

I don't think that we should. Please don't present your—is that a question? Okay, no problem. Yeah. Okay, Mr.

03:19:40

Madrid, I'll take a stab at that. I'll just continue. Another point in Scripture, second one, in Matthew 19, 17, when the rich person asks

03:19:46

Jesus what should he do that is good or what is good, and Jesus tells him that no one is good but God, and if you want eternal life, that you should obey his commandments.

03:19:56

And one of the commandments, the very first commandment, I don't know, maybe we could read it for the benefit of everybody that's not familiar with it.

03:20:02

Mr. Madrid. Okay, I honestly totally lost track of what the first part of the question was.

03:20:07

Romans 7, 14 through 27. Okay, the fifth point of my talk actually had nothing to do with images.

03:20:15

The fifth point had to do with imitating the saints. And my emphasis on images with regard to imitating the saints was only that when we see the saints portrayed in art, let's say an icon or a statue or something like that, it recalls to our mind that that person's holiness, and we are told by Scripture to imitate them.

03:20:39

Now, if anything, including a statue or an image of a saint were to become an idol, then we'd be falling into grievous sin, and that's forbidden by Scripture by the church.

03:20:47

So we have to make this distinction between being educated and edified by these icons versus becoming superstitious and falling into that kind of idolatry.

03:20:59

You mentioned no one is good except God. Well, that's true, certainly in the ultimate sense.

03:21:07

No one is good except God. But we are told in Luke 1, verse 6, that Zechariah and Elizabeth, the mother and father of John the

03:21:18

Baptist, it says, both were righteous in the eyes of God, observing all the commandments and ordinances of the

03:21:24

Lord blamelessly. So the saints have a share in the goodness of God, not through their own merits, but because they are participating in the life of God himself.

03:21:36

That's where their goodness comes from. And so when we honor them, we are really, as St. Augustine said over and over again, we are honoring

03:21:43

God through his creatures. Mr. White. Well, the only comment

03:21:48

I would make is that the Bible actually says that we are to imitate Christ, and Paul says, imitate me as he imitates

03:21:55

Christ. I think what the question was asking was, well, since there is this abiding sin, then how can that, you know, would that imitation not lead us astray?

03:22:05

Again, the primary issue is that we imitate that which the word of God directs us to, not which the words of men direct us to.

03:22:14

And when we do so, we will have a safe guide in everything that we do. There are so many incidences in church history when the pope, for example, gave indulgences to people who visited the house at Loreto that was believed to have been carried there from Nazareth by angels in the 13th century.

03:22:33

That kind of thing. Imitate that? No, because it is so far removed from the

03:22:39

Bible. We need to have that objective standard, and thank God we do in the Bible. I remind you that a question is a reasonably brief statement asking for information.

03:22:50

The next question, please. All right, this is one coherent question. I have a couple scriptures because he mentioned that there was no scripture in the

03:22:58

Bible saying that there's no difference between me on earth and in heaven, or a saint.

03:23:06

What is your question, please? I'm getting to my question. You have a few seconds to do it.

03:23:12

It says in the Bible to be absent from the body is to be present with Christ in 2

03:23:19

Corinthians 5. And also, going right along with that, it says in Philippians...

03:23:24

What is your question, please? My question is this. He says that there are no scriptures.

03:23:32

Now, there are scriptures in the Bible. Is that the question? Would you like me to answer that? I would like to mention a couple scriptures.

03:23:39

No, sir, you have the opportunity to ask a question. I've got a question then. Philippians 1.

03:23:45

Paul says it's more needful to abide with you. If I die and go to be in heaven, then

03:23:53

I'm going to be with the Lord. But it's more needful to abide and stay with you. That's not a question. I'm sorry. The next questioner, please.

03:23:59

That is a question now. Mr. Madrid, do you care to make a comment? I'll just make a brief comment on that, and I appreciate your effort to ask the question.

03:24:07

Neither 2 Corinthians 5 nor Philippians 1 .21 -23 says that to be absent from the body is to be present with the

03:24:14

Lord. St. Paul in both passages says, I would rather be absent from the body and present with the

03:24:20

Lord. So it's an entirely different context here. He's yearning for union with God.

03:24:25

He's not saying that by the very fact that we are absent from the body, that we are therefore present with the

03:24:31

Lord. And honestly, I just sort of I lost track of what the theme of the question was. Mr.

03:24:36

White, you have a comment. I'm not sure if what was just being said is maybe an attempt to defend something in regards to purgatory.

03:24:45

I don't know. But I think what was being asked is if the passage is talking about the fact that Paul was saying it is better for him to remain here.

03:24:57

The argument has been made earlier in this debate. Won't we do much more as perfected saints in heaven?

03:25:04

And that evidently is not what the Apostle Paul understood when he said it would be more needful for me to remain with you.

03:25:13

That he recognized that there was a need of ministry. And I think if we were to follow the argumentation that has been used this evening out to its logical conclusion, that wouldn't be the case for any of us.

03:25:23

All of us could do better if we got to heaven immediately than we're doing now because we'd be perfected. And our prayers would be more powerful and everything else.

03:25:31

That's obviously not the intention of the apostle. We have time for one more brief question.

03:25:39

This is aimed mainly at Mr. Madrid. I'd like to hear perhaps Dr. White's comment. Somebody mentioned necromancy before.

03:25:44

I'd like to follow up on that with a practical question about that. Is there any possibility with somebody praying to the departed and maybe even sometimes receiving a vision apparition that they could fall into an occultic practice?

03:25:56

Or do you believe if they follow Roman Catholic endorsement that that could not happen? Or should we take that prohibition against idolatry and against necromancy seriously as they did today in the

03:26:06

Old Testament days? And we should today, shouldn't we? The answer to the question is yes. There is always a danger of human beings falling prey to the temptation to idolatry.

03:26:17

It's true of us as it was true of the Israelites in Exodus 20. So any

03:26:23

Catholic who is tending in the direction of either superstition or viewing images or icons as talismans or anything like that, they are falling into a sin and should be rebuked and brought back out of that sinful way.

03:26:37

There is no question about that. The thing that you mentioned at the end, though,

03:26:42

I think is the key to it. And that is if people follow the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, will they fall into idolatry?

03:26:49

And I would give a hearty no. And I would refer you to the catechism in which the Church sets out the guidelines that if you are engaged in this, that, or the other, this is idolatry, if you are recognizing the appropriate place in Christian life for images of the saints and you reverence them not in the sense that Jim was talking about earlier, offering service or worship to, that's not what we're talking about here at all, that no, if you follow those guidelines, then you will not fall into idolatry.

03:27:22

Mr. White? I think that a brief look at Brazil, Mexico, Spain, is

03:27:30

Santeria, is a very good indication that since the

03:27:35

Latria -Dulia distinction does not exist and since no one can live with it because it doesn't exist, since we know in our heart of hearts that when you see a person bowing before a statue with beads in their hands, lighting candles, rocking back and forth, that that is a religious context and that is worship.

03:27:53

Give all the intention words you want. Remember Uzzah. Since that distinction that has found the

03:27:59

Bible has been overthrown through the rejection of Sola Scriptura and the embracing of the authority of Rome, you cannot avoid but fall into those very practices.

03:28:09

We are to be done the entire question and answer time by 11 .45. According to my watch, we have about 40 seconds left.

03:28:18

That gives me time to commend you. You've been an excellent audience tonight, and it's also an opportunity for you to give a commendation to two very gracious and fair debaters.