Continued Beckwith/George Dialogue

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I managed to get a good bit of ground covered in the Beckwith/George dialogue today, but once again, over and over again, the centrality of the Gospel, and the shallowness of ecumenism, were illustrated. Important interaction that, sadly, isn’t taking place nearly as often as it should in our truth-starved culture.

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line
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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence
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Our host is dr. James white director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix reformed
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Baptist Church This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with dr.
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White call now at 602 973 460 to or toll -free across the
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United States. It's 1 877 7 5 3 3 3 4 1 And now with today's topic here is
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James white And good afternoon. Welcome to the dividing line We continue our review of the ecumenical discussion that took place up in the
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Wheaton area Just recently between Timothy George and Frank Beckwith We've spent the entire hour on it on Tuesday, and I am pretty certain
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Given that we have far more than an hour of it to listen to that. We will spend the entire hour on it again
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So that's what we'll be doing today. I think it's very important to review this information mainly because Well, most everybody else won't touch with a 10 -foot pole political correctness or and or combined not normally combined with Rabid anti -catholicism, that is those people who?
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Know they're not Catholics would never would never even think about being one, but don't really have any particularly good historical or biblical reasons why?
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It seems to rule the day and there needs to be meaningful analysis from a biblical perspective any reformed historical perspective
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What is going on today, so we continue exactly where we left off in listening to the dialogue between Frank Beckwith and Timothy George and on the question of justification we were able to agree
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Catholics and evangelicals that justification we saw as itself the unearned unmerited work of God entirely
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God's gift Conferred through the father's sheer graciousness out of the love that he bears us in his son who suffered on our behalf and rose again for our justification and we said that we also affirm that this understanding of justification is
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What we understand to be in agreement with what the reformers of the 16th century meant by justification by faith alone
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Did that solve all the problems it did not there are still significant serious differences that remain on Justification on sola scriptura no now at this point you would have to I would think explicate
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What the differences are I mean if these? modern
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Roman Catholic theologians are saying they agree with what the reformers said then was
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Trent wrong or Are they saying that there is a way of reading Trent? That would keep them infallible even though they were wrong in what they were condemning at the time
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What what kind of mental gymnastics? has to Be undertaken to keep
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Rome infallible in the midst of all this Because that really You know if you want to admit that Rome's fallible great fine wonderful break the news to the folks at Catholic answers
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I think that'd be sort of important to do, but you'd have to explain, okay, if you mean everything you just said and that This is a gift of God.
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Okay. Well Rome says the sacramental system of Justification is a gift of God as well a
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God didn't have to do this and that's why it's gracious That's why it's all of grace because God gives us this opportunity freely, but that's not what we're talking about Again, it's not necessity of grace.
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It is the sufficiency of grace This is where it would have to be explicated have to be explained and laid out here, but unfortunately, we really don't get that doubt
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We'll talk about some more of those, but I think I want to challenge the fallacy of binary delineation
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I want to say that Evangelical and Catholic should not necessarily be understood as polar opposites but they should be understood as in some sense within a spectrum of Christian faith and commitment
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Which is what we started with on the last program the fact that Timothy George began with the assertion that Frank Beckwith is his brother in Christ therefore
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The gospel is not definitional of the Christian faith. You can have a definition of the gospel.
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That is so broad so wide as to keep in it sola fide a meaningful sola fide as well as a doctrine of baptismal regeneration a doctrine of the
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Mass is a perpetuatory sacrifice purgatory indulgences prayers to Mary in a session of Saints and although it's big enough or Shall we say vague enough to allow for all of that under the one?
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Rubric of the gospel could ask it this way When did Martin Luther become an evangelical?
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Well Luther scholars debate endlessly the date of his famous breakthrough his conversion
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Did he become an evangelical when he was pouring over the text of Romans 1 17? Was it when he was in the monastery praying for salvation or was it when he posted his 95 theses on the castle church door?
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well, it was a progression of study insight and the wakening of grace in his life that led him to embrace the doctrine of Justification by faith alone, and I would like to suggest that what is happening in our
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Christian traditions the Catholic tradition the evangelicalism is Something not unsimilar to what happened to Martin Luther.
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It was an awakening and it took a while It did I'd say I'm sorry. I do not see this kind of spectrum at all
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Certainly Luther had to go through things to come to understand what justification by faith was coming out of Catholicism That's not the same as saying.
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Oh, well, this is all you know, we can fit this all into this once There's there's this one spectrum. There's there's no parallel there.
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Where is there a parallel in an individual working through these issues and yet? there's this existence of This this spectrum that allows for this this massively wide variety of opinions.
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I That's a really bad Analogy as far as I can see to happen in one fell swoop
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And so I want to grant charitably to my friend Frank that he can call himself
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An evangelical Catholic and that's okay with me. We're still going to have to talk about some areas where we have some real differences but our real differences aren't on the evangelical because you're an evangelical
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Catholic and So you've given away the store and you've made all your other differences on Non -definitional issues issues that oh, you know, they sadly keep us from going to the same church
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But hey, you know, we're all we're all walking the same road because just saying that doesn't make it So we have to think about what are those words mean to you and what they mean to me?
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But I do think it's better to see this not as polar opposites But as a common quest for the truth of God's Word and the truth of God's grace
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So what I hear you saying is that Catholics and evangelical Protestants Agree on the objective claims of the faith the death resurrection of Jesus the gracious nature of the good news
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But where we differ is on the subjective application of the faith whether it's the sacraments and in the
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Catholic understanding or faith alone and you're content with our definition of Evangelical being based strictly upon Those objective truths
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Without there having to necessarily be agreement on the personal application of the gospel
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No, I wouldn't quite put it that way because I think an evangelical is a person who knows Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior Who has come from the darkness into the light and so I don't want to leave out what you're calling subjective
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That's a bad word in my vocabulary, but you're I would say personal there is there must be a personal
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Appropriation of the objective gospel of Jesus Christ no matter what objective gospel of Jesus Christ.
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What what is it? if it can include what you see in Romanism if it can include purgatory if it can include a
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Representation of the sacrifice of the mass if it can include the sacramental priesthood and and To mortal and venial sins and the temporal and eternal punishments and and all these other things
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That Rome has added to the gospel. What is the objective gospel? And what would it take?
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To violate it. What would it take? I would love to find out from Timothy George. What would it take?
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For someone today, what would it take for Timothy George? To speak to someone to describe someone's beliefs in the way that Paul did in Galatians chapter 1
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What would it take? That's what I don't understand because it seems to me and maybe
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I'm wrong, but maybe someone can explain to me how any of These ecumenists could ever speak as Paul spoke and if they can't
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What does that mean That's that's what I would like to find out what we are if we were to come into a saving relationship with God Has that happened to some
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Catholics? I believe in my heart that it has Has it happened to some Baptists? Maybe so but not all of them
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It's not anything that comes with the label It's not anything that comes with a kind of automatic affiliation and the gospel, you know
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The great definition of evangelicalism that's kind of carried the last 20 years is David Bebbington's And David Bebbington is a famous Scottish Baptist historian
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I might say and and David Bebbington says evangelical is marked by these four things. It's marked by Conversionism that's your point.
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You know, they're this can being converted coming to know the new birth is also marked by biblicism we have okay if it is
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Involving the new birth then if Rome's gospel includes that then you can be born again through the
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Roman Catholic methodology of what of baptism of the baby at the font of sacramental forgiveness
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Is that it? These are the questions that inquiring minds would like to have heard
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Actually discussed in this type of situation. Oh the Bible smart back
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He what he calls cruci -centrism the cross the atonement the death of Jesus and it's also marked by activism
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These are the four marks of Bebbington's definition. I like them that doesn't say everything but it's helpful when it gets to your point
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Yeah, thank you Timothy Frank I wonder if you could speak to that issue of personal application particularly as one who who was an evangelical
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Protestant and now a Catholic where do you see the lines of continuity and discontinuity in terms of the way in which the gospel is applied and Appropriated by you as a believer
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Well, you know, I can only speak from from from my own experience Why?
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Yeah, I'd love to be able to call some of my Roman Catholic detractors and opponents and Say have you listened to this?
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What's what's your opinion? Because how often have we heard? Well, you know all those Protestants however their personal experiences.
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They don't have anything objective They don't have an infallible Church. How many times we heard the broken record of the converts?
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Oh, I'm so glad that I no longer believe in sola scriptura I'm so glad that I now have an infallible
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Church Well, then why can't we get an infallible definition of something as central as the gospel? I Mean you could you used to be able to get that from Rome.
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You can't anymore So what good is this infallible
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Church and freedom from sola scriptura and all the confusion it brings When it can't tell you anything
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It's just you know, my own personal experience Why can't we go to dogmatic definitions
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Interesting as a I mean one of the I Think one of the one of the difficulties that I faced when going through this sort of person personal journey from Catholicism to evangelicalism and back is is
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I was a I was a young Catholic and I didn't nearly know Catholicism In fact when
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I I really only studied Catholicism when I became an evangelical Protestant and there I read a lot of things by evangelical
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Protestants that turned out not to be quite accurate He won't mention what those were I'd be interested in knowing on the other hand now as a
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Catholic I read things about Catholicism by Catholics or about evangelical Protestantism by Catholics that isn't very accurate about that So one of the things that I've had to face is is that sometimes?
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When you read other people's literature you have to understand that literature the way they read it so for instance recently
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There I think it was a domino's Jesus Jesus Jesus Which is a document that was issued by Cardinal Ratzinger before he was
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Pope Benedict 16th, and he talked about That Protestant churches aren't really churches
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You know that now a lot of people were offended by that But if you understand I'm not offended by that that's
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Roman Catholic teaching What's interesting is if I say Rome isn't a true
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Christian church everybody gets offended because what's the difference? How do they determine what a true church is well?
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I have this thing called the gospel which has been objectively revealed in divine scripture and preserved down through the ages and Rome doesn't teach that gospel therefore
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Rome is a false Church and Everybody gets all thought you're just so harsh and hard and mean and nasty and ah you know
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And so I was not offended by Dominus Jesus by their definition of church there are very easily defined groups that are and We're not
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I'm not offended I Demonstrate that it's false by scripture. It's it's un -christian.
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It's heresy, but but I'm not offended by that And if you are just offended without knowing why well
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Yeah, you know then I guess he's speaking to you and that the term churches is a kind of term of art within Within Catholicism no, it's not it's a very clearly defined dogmatic theological belief
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Just that simple Once you buy into the idea of apostolic succession once you see the importance of the sacraments you can see why he thinks that way
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Just like a Baptist doesn't consider infant baptism a real baptism
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That is once you understand the way in which terms are used you can see how people in fact
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Express and believe them one of the issues that and I Almost called you father
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George my lord I Timothy made a point about binary thinking that's something that that as a
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Catholic When I hear and I think some Catholics now having been an evangelical for so many years
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I know what evangelicals mean by faith alone and scripture alone, but when Catholics hear that they think you know
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I have to challenge that You know just having been a in numerous self contradictory
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Evangelical churches, and if you read again, dr. Beck with his own book you will see that he really ran the gamut of churches
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Many of which would make most of us go hmm. How can you go from that to that so easily?
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It's that's that's strange, but he's a philosopher. He's not a theologian I've seen no evidence of any deep commitment to or study of in -depth
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Christian theology especially in regards to the gospel because I've if you if there was evidence of that there would be some kind of discussion of The contrast between that gospel and that of Roman Catholicism, and it just it just isn't there
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He's a philosopher. They think like this. They think wait a second if I read the Bible stuff isn't alone
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God to Trinity there's three Jesus is God and man Paul talks about faith and works in other words when they hear that they they don't understand it the way
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Protestants understand it They understand it the way Catholics understand it so when a Protestant.
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Let's say reads a Catholic book about About doing good works. They go see their work in their way to heaven.
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How about reading a Catholic book about? sacramentalism How about how about reading indulge
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NTRM doctrina the apostolic constitution or vision of indulgence as a post -vatican to document how about we read that and Sit in wonder at its utter
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Separation from biblical Christianity the air that it breathes Is is so completely different than that of Romans or Galatians that you there's no way to connect the two together
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How about we read that I think that would be a better thing rather than seeing it in the way the Catholics see it as An opportunity for us to express
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God's grace in the way in the ways in which we express his love to others and works of Charity and so forth oh that sounds great, but that's not sacramentalism oh
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This is my my doing my doing these penances is
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My way of showing my love for God, but if I don't do them, I'll end up suffering in purgatory
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Oh, well unless you're Carter Ratzinger current Pope or that sort of becomes just a state of mind type thing again
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Which Catholicism are we gonna be dealing with here? It's so so hard to find out once we start to see
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How they people use how different groups use words it helps us better understand now doesn't mean we're gonna agree with each other
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But it does mean that we're gonna get a lot of the disagreements Or some of the disagreements at least are going to be in Really have to do with differences, and how we look at words, and how they're applied
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Thank you Yeah, we don't want to say that we have a fundamentally different gospel here No, that's that's never going to come out and and if you're looking forward to a discussion of that well
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I wonder if you could say a word Timothy about this notion of continuous incarnation and and how that shapes the respective beliefs of Catholics and Protestants, I think that sheds help helpful light on what we're discussing yeah
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Yeah, I know what you mean. Do you want to say what you mean by continuous incarnation? Yeah, I've heard it said that The fundamental difference between Catholics and Protestants is how they answer the question
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Where does Jesus reveal his authority in the world and for the Protestant is a correlation between Jesus the living word and Jesus?
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The written word for the Catholic there there is the embodiment of Jesus in the institution of the church
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Have you found that helpful, and if so what way I think you're touching on what I think is maybe the the greatest difference between Catholics and evangelicals today
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There are three big issues One is the question of Scripture and tradition the other is the question of salvation grace
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Justification all those issues, I think personally we've made some progress on those two fronts
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We're not all the way home yet, but we're at least maybe a second base I don't know now on the issue you're talking about I think there has been the least amount of progress
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And that really is the question of the church of ecclesiology how it's related to everything else
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There is a sense as I understand it in Catholic theology where the church is in a way in fact this language is used by Pope Pius the twelfth and others in the extension of the
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Incarnation and I think this is tied very directly into a Catholic understanding of priesthood and of sacraments the priest is
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Another Christ that term is also used and So I would have an extremely hard time even mentioning, and I read last on last program
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I read a portion of the Utilization of that phraseology and altar Christos, I would have a very difficult time even saying that without stopping and saying and Think about what this means
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I mean No possible there it is not possible to twist anything in the
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New Testament Into that shape there are no Sacramental priests in the
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New Testament Every attempt that Rome has tried to Rome has to use the development
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Hypothesis every attempt to find something new testament has failed so they've had as well You know it's something developed later because there simply isn't anything in the
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New Testament About this concept of priests as Rome has them today, so therefore it sort of follows by necessity that There can be no such thing as a viewpoint of the priest as an altar
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Christos another Christ and all of the gross
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Heresy that flows from this concept of a sacramental priesthood I Just I couldn't just simply mention that as a thing in passing
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Especially there had to have been some people sitting the audience going another who what? This is language.
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It's very difficult. I think for Protestants in general and for evangelicals in particular We want to talk about the incarnation of Jesus as being in a sense something that has happened once and for all
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Something that has a kind of historical limitation on it Jesus was born he lived on earth he died on the cross he rose again from the dead he
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Ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God and from thence he shall come again
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We all confess that in the Creed well this sense of Jesus Ascending into heaven and we wait for him.
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I think qualifies the way in which the incarnation is present to us today
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Jesus is present with us today by the power of the Holy Spirit But to understand the incarnation in a way that not only the
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I think a Roman Catholic Church But also to some extent the Orthodox Church also sees Is one that presents a great difficulty that seems to challenge to us to Protestants the historical
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Particularity of the incarnation and it goes in lots of different directions, but that's a quick answer to what you ask yeah
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Yeah, thank you Frank How have you encountered and responded to this challenge moving from a
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Protestant tradition to the Catholic Church? in liturgy in Worship and vocation what does this look like?
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Well What do you mean by vocation? Yeah Just some of these ideas of Christ's presence in the world and the way in which you experience it and express it has that Changed in significant ways since you returned to the
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Catholic Church for me much of Catholic Spiritual discipline and worship has
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I mean has changed me Personally in terms of the way in which I look at everything. I do not in a burdensome way
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But the whole understanding that God's grace is meant to not only
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Not only save me but to transform me from the inside out I understand Protestants hold a similar view about the nature of sanctification, but the whole idea that God became man so that man can ultimately be conformed to the image of the
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Son of God Has had a profound impact in the way in which I I conduct my life
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It's not I'm not saying that that as a as a Protestant, I didn't think about being a good person, but I can just speak as for my own experience
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But I have found the disciplines the understanding of the presence of Christ in the
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Eucharist all these things Have had a transforming effect upon the way in which I I do church
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Okay, now there someone actually mentioned Something really important That the presence of Christ in the
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Eucharist Let's unpack that Let's let's talk about what Rome actually has taught historically on that find out whether dr.
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Beckwith actually believes what Rome has historically taught about that or does he sort of hold to a more modernized less literal view of Transubstantiation does he really believe that the priest reaches up in heaven brings
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Christ down and renders him as the offering upon the altar What does that mean?
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Maybe Timothy George could stand up and say you know that is important that doesn't sound like the gospel to me something along those lines as folks say
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I have found I Do things like liturgy of the of the hours
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I I do the Rosary I mean things that I had would did as a child as a
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Catholic I'm doing now with a much better understanding of their importance in the formation of the person that I am so I don't know if that's what you're you're asking now in terms of my
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My vocation as a as as a philosopher. I don't know if I have found much of what
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I had I had taught prior to Prior to my conversion to Catholicism is largely unchanged.
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I think the difference Catch that I'm gonna be quoting that one I'm gonna be quoting that one.
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It's unchanged That's what I've been saying from the start It's unchanged
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The foundational Fundamental way of viewing the world scripture revelation
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Frank Beckwith never held a consistently non Catholic view of those things that's why
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When you read his book You will see him say I did this this solo scripture stuff.
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I you know, I Never really found it to be You know, I could never find a definition.
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It really made much sense to me Well, that should tell you something that there was a fundamental
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Foundational problem and that's what happens when you launch off into a boat in the
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Tiber River because Nobody's talking to you about Jesus in Rome And so you start looking for something else and you just start start
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You know Paddling around out there and you find other people paddling around out there and you all get together and you do your thing and you?
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Might call it church stuff like that, but you never left Because you were committed to fundamental foundational truths
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So much so that you can look back and say what was back there is wrong What was back there is an error?
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So much so that you want to help other people find what you have found. I Could be found over there if you found over there, you know, wherever no big deal.
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That's different. That's not what we're talking about we will continue with our
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Examination of the Timothy George Frank Beckwith dialogue on the other side of the break.
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Rich Pierce In a day and age where the gospel is being twisted into a man -centered self -help program
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Thank you And we continue with our examination of the ecumenical dialogue that took place up in Wheaton between Timothy George and Frank Beckwith and because most of my work as a
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Christian philosopher dealt in the area of apologetics and giving reasons for faith and arguments and so forth
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I I'm just not as uptight about winning every argument as I was Prior to becoming a
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Catholic. I'm willing to live with a lot more mystery than I was before that is
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I'm not not to say the life of the mind is unimportant but I see in the great minds in the history of the church whether it's
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Augustine or Aquinas or Anselm a Appreciation for the role of the intellect in the formation of Christian doctrine
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But at the same time an understanding that the intellect is limited that there's a role for one Communing with God and one's personal life.
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So for me, it's it's as a philosopher It's it's helped me to sort of not feel as if I have to be the smartest guy in the room
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I mean one of the things about becoming a Catholic and I think Chesterton may have said something like this When you're when you're inside it's larger than it was outside And so if I drop dead tomorrow the church would go on well without me.
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I Have absolutely no idea Why being a Roman Catholic has anything to do with any of that?
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I? Don't I don't know how many times I've said that forget run over by a truck tomorrow on my ride
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Kingdom's gonna go on you're gonna have to find a new job, but the the kingdom is is gonna go on and I was
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I I Have pointed out many times that back in the 80s.
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He used to listen to a fellow by name Bob Larson and When I first started listening to him, he was you know, pretty straightforward normal dealing with normal subjects then all of a sudden something happened and Bob Larson decided that the world the kingdom could not survive without his program and from then on it was a straight spiral into the ground and This isn't ain't gonna happen
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God's kingdom is not based upon a particular individuals I don't see how Roman Catholicism has anything to do with that particular inside at all
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Am I reaching here to understand that this is a little bit of a slap back?
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Well when I was over there I thought like everybody else did and therefore
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I was irreplaceable and I was the smartest guy in the room Maybe maybe I was trying to be as generous as possible people.
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Don't know you'd never be generous, right? I don't I don't have to worry Yeah, thank you
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Well switching gears slightly from the issue of authority to that of salvation
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Timothy How do you defend the doctrine of forensic justification?
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The notion that Christ's perfect righteousness is credited to sinners in response to Catholics who argue that it is a mere legal fiction an invention of the
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Protestant Reformation Non -existent in Augustan and medieval theologians excellent question
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Softball question here is a absolute setup for any biblically based
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Roman Catholic to present the gospel Talk about the finished work of Christ Talk about the perfection of the atonement talk about union with Christ Talk go to Romans 4
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Sit there and look across at Frank Beckwith and say dr. Beckwith are You the blessed man of Romans chapter 4?
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The man whose sins the Lord will never take into account
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He will not impute to him because of the great exchange Here is the
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Word of God. Here is the gospel. Here's the opportunity to preach it Now he gave us this question before in advance
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So, you know, I've been thinking about how to answer it shouldn't have said that but I did anyway It's a hard question
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Here I have several answers to it. The first answer is if it is true if it were true
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Which is not so this is a contrary to fact kind of hypothetical state, but if it were true
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That the doctrine of the imputation of Christ's alien righteousness as Luther taught it
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Lutherans have taught it Was only brought to light in the 16th century and had never been heard of from the time of Paul to Luther That wouldn't particularly bother me
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Now, you know, I've already confessed one of my faults. I'm a Southern Baptist and we know that Baptism by believers was not the majority view in the church by any means during that period of time at least from the 3rd
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Or 4th century up to the 16th and even now today continuing in both Catholic and so this was something that People came to see as they read the
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Bible and a new light dawned upon them and wow This is how they baptized in the early church
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It seems like in the book of Acts and so the fact that a doctrine may you might say sort of exists like a geyser
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You know under the ground and then it suddenly explodes, you know, like old faithful in Yellowstone You can see it, but it's always there under the ground bubbling along That's the way
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I sort of think the history of doctrine is sometimes best read So it wouldn't particularly bother me if it were the case
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That nobody ever found out about imputation until Martin Luther in the 16th as a matter of fact
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I don't think that is the most accurate way to read the history of that particular doctrine and we won't
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I won't take all the time here, but if you look at Augustine in particular and his commentary on Psalm 51 and You see these statements about the imputation of Christ often in very
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You might say different ways of putting it not exactly in the lingo of the 16th century
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But the substance of the teaching was there Not and not admittedly Universally not admittedly ever pronounced on by a council in fact that doctrine had was never pronounced on by a council justification until the
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Council of Trent and And yet it seems to me the Protestants Luther Melanchthon Calvin all of them understood that they were recovering a true
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New Testament teaching that was also found at surprising moments in the tradition of the church and So I guess
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I kind of agree with them about that Well, there you go
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There you go Just just gave you a contrast of how
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I would answer that question and how Timothy George answered that question and You tell me
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Which one actually? addresses the subject in such a way that it brings the
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Word of God to bear and focuses upon the gospel and Which one is based upon this attitude of well, you know
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There's there's people who think this and then there's people who think that and you know We don't want to make anybody feel really uncomfortable.
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I mean, we don't want to ask a specific question. Like well, how about you? Dr. Beckwith are you?
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Satisfied With the imputation of the righteous of Christ you abandoned that that wasn't enough for you
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You need this infusion concept Well, how about Romans chapter 4? Let's look at it.
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Let's go to the Word of God. No, no No, no, we we just sort of you know, we don't want to make anybody feel bad.
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That's no, we don't Frank you describe this teaching of imputation in your book in terms of Methodological Protestantism and I wonder if you might explain that and and also
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Say a few words about how you understand this teaching To compare with the teaching of the
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Catholic Church Well, I don't actually entirely disagree with what Timothy said Also anticipating this question having received them ahead of time
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I have jotted down a few notes as well One thing that's
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I mean, I actually before this a couple of days ago actually reread portions of the Council of Trent to sort of Sort of beef up on on this
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On this topic and one of the things that I actually agree with Timothy in this sense that the the idea of forensic
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Justification or imputation is clearly not absent Or it's clearly present in pre -reformation theology
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But I think that the difference is that as I understand the Reformation view that imputation at justification or at the initial conversion
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X is X is Entire is exclusive of infused righteousness in fact
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I'm going to quote here from the Council of Trent which says this if anyone says that men are justified either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ or By the sole remission of sins to the exclusion of the grace and the charity
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Which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Spirit and remains in them Or also that the grace by which we are justified is only the goodwill of God let him be anathema
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Unquote now if you read it carefully Trent it is not denying The justification of all its imputation of righteousness what it is claiming is that it is wrong to think of justification is imputation alone
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And it seems let's look at that again. I read that to you in the previous program
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If anyone says that men are justified either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ or by the sole remission of sins to the exclusion of the grace and the charity which is poured forth in their hearts by the
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Holy Ghost and Remains in them or also the grace by which we are justified is only the goodwill of God let him be anathema that doesn't seem to leave any room for the definition of justification as The imputation of the righteousness of Christ apart from the kind of works of charity that Rome has always used as the horseshoe the
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The means by which they smuggle in the entirety of the sacramental system
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So it's another one of situations. Well. You can have imputation well if you've got imputation.
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Why do you need anything else? That's the great scandal if You possess the righteousness of Christ.
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Why do you need anything else? Why do I need?
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the righteousness of Mary and the righteousness of the saints through the thesaurus meritorium and Indulgences and purgatory why do
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I need the sacramental priest if? If I have the righteousness of Christ What do those things add?
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Must be the question that well should be asked to me that the unique contribution the Reformation brought to this discussion wasn't that the whole idea of imputation, but that imputation at initial justification or justification is something that is is
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Is different from the inward change that occurs during sanctification or what is sometimes called regeneration
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Although they are not inseparable and how many times have we said? It's all the work of God It's all the work of God Regeneration is divine act of God it is not something that's accomplished through some sacramental process and Justification is
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The divine act of God whereby he declares a person to be right with him based upon what
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Christ has done his behalf alone and Sanctification is the making holy of that individual the conforming that person to the image of Christ Rome conflates and Confounds the two puts them together so that you can grow in righteousness in the sense of adding to That initial righteous state you have with God That's where the problem lies that's where the contradictions the scripture come up and Then of course that's where the issue of authority comes in because when you raise those contradictions
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Well, you know the church has said X Y or Z and you don't have to worry about the exegesis of the text anymore one of the difficulties of reading this literature
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Especially Calvin and Luther in and I think Timothy's already allude to this a lot of these guys are sort of thinking this through and so If you if you pick them at one particular point in the in the evolution of their thought you're gonna miss maybe something else
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So I say inseparable now in that sense I don't think the division between Catholics and Protestants is that great when it comes to the relationship between the life -after conversion
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In terms of the relation between works and grace if you now listen to this because sadly there's an element of truth to what he's saying, but it only illustrates the inconsistency of Well non -reformed
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Protestantism Non -reformed Protestantism that ties in so closely to fundamental
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Roman Catholic concepts What once you see? Salvation as a synergistic
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Concept and Beck was a certainly no was certainly no Calvinist and his heroes in the faith were not
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Calvinists. They were all synergists They that's why they're Paddling around the middle of the
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Tiber the whole time and many of them still are once you go that direction, then yeah, there's lots of connections and It's not
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God's sovereignly Conforming his people to the image of Christ to his own glory.
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It's not that Theocentric concept it changes read many reformed thinkers
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Including Calvin they argue that a life of good works a life of sanctification naturally follows or ought to follow from One's conversion
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Catholics argue that the grace one receives through the sacraments As a consequence of the spiritual disciplines and so forth and as well as the initial grace of one's conversion
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Allow one to to in fact engage in acts of charity works of mercy and so forth that change you from the inside out and Which merit eternal life?
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Let's throw that one in there which merit eternal life That grace
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Works to produce the things which make us objectively pleasing to God, which is why we go to heaven
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Not the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ You Can't bring these things out
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You've got to emphasize these things and talk about these things if you don't talk about these things and just want to emphasize your
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Commonalities, what is being accomplished? Absolutely positively nothing but a waste of oxygen
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So in both traditions you do have a relation between faith and works I think the distinction ultimately is whether initial grace is imputed or infused
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I mean think that that's the real rub and I and I say this in the book that I give the illustration of Of the of the the
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Protestant who always goes to the altar call, you know They you know, you ever see there's always people know listen to this
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This is the Protestant who always goes to the altar call why you just left a bunch of us out didn't you there?
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Yeah He's gonna parallel this to and notice how he describes
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Roman Catholic here. Listen, listen to terminology He uses here of the Roman and maybe you're one of them who you know They all there's an altar call and every couple of weeks say they go down and I call that Protestant confession
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Because essentially what it is. It's a way to sort of renew your spirit and and do this again
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That person who's sort of the you know, the obsessive compulsive Protestant who's not sure whether he saved is similar to the obsessive compulsive
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Catholic who does a hundred novenas in order to To get enough grace. I mean this is so you
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You hear what I'm hearing. I hope you're hearing what I'm hearing. How many times have I said it theology matters and so You've got a bunch of all this discussion here is just a bunch of synergists
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You know, they're there they're all in this they're all over in the same area and they've got some differences one other but they're all synergists
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And you see how it impacts everything It determines what all of the area of discussion is
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That's why The Reformed folks when Arminianism came on the scene said hey, this is just a popeless return to Rome Because at its heart it is and You're hearing it right there.
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Yeah, you know, you're obsessive compulsive person. It goes to you know, the altar all the time You can obsessive compulsive person.
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It's a you know Goes the priest all the time same thing Well, I think a
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Catholic might be able to argue. It's not Especially in light of what is allegedly going on when you go to the priest and what confession is supposed to be all about and Stuff like that, but you you see the fundamental similarity
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I think within both traditions a kind of a kind of personality that lends itself to both sorts of extremes
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But I think at the end of the day if you look at the theology both of them In fact have a place for for both sorts of activities or understandings ultimately, though I think that the distinction has to do with imputation verse infusion.
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I think that's that's where the world work is That is a vitally important difference, but it goes to much more fundamental issues that he may not even be aware of I don't mean that in a
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Insulting sense, but I have no reason given the churches that he was a part of as a non -catholic
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To believe that he would have been exposed with any regularity including the educational institutions He went to his
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PhDs from a Jesuit school for crying out loud. They're not gonna be talking about this stuff His theological education is extremely lacking.
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He was never a theologian He may have been a part of the evangelical theological society, but he was a philosopher not a theologian and So the issues relating to that relate
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The necessity of Imputation to the perfection of atonement.
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It's just not a part of that spectrum. It was a part of synergists That's just not it's not their thing
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Theology matters. Yeah for the sake of Some some of us who may not be entirely clear on what those terms mean imputation and infusion
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I wonder if Timothy you might offer a brief definition and and then responding to Frank's comment
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Maybe say something about where the ground of one's justification is
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Whether it's in the past or the future and and how that influences the issue second softball
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Okay, the first one was a swing and he misses all right here comes the second softball
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I mean, here's chance number two to do what we should have done in the first one What's the ground of justification?
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the finished Unrepeatable perfect work of Christ on the cross of Calvary, which is so Fundamentally denied by Rome.
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Oh But wait a minute. This is an ecumenical Yeah, well in imputation is really based on the text several texts in the
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New Testament But one in particular where Paul is referring to Abraham This is in Romans chapter 4 and he talks about his faith being counted to him as righteousness
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Or being imputed to him as righteousness and it has to do with the fact that This imputation is not based on what
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Abraham did his good works But rather upon God's gracious favor to him and the counting to him of the grace of God He's talking about an
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Old Testament figure there Abraham, but it becomes a kind of paradigm for the Christian understanding of conversion and the way of faith
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Infusion is a term. It really comes from the Middle Ages and going back to Augustine Grazia infusa
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Infused grace was understood to be something that was imparted to the individual sinner
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Through primarily the sacraments of the church It was the grace of God which enabled that person to become a
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Christlike individual over a long period of time Extending beyond this life perhaps even into purgatory in the next life
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And so infusion versus imputation is as Frank has said, I think rightly one of the key paradigm differences between Catholic and evangelical ways of thinking about it
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But one of the one of the most helpful documents that really looked at this issue in historical Context was a document published in 1999 by the
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Lutheran World Federation and the Pontifical Council for promoting Christian unity called the
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Joint Declaration on Justification and in there they look back at the 16th century and particularly the statements from Trent some of which
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Frank read and also the Condemning statements from the Protestants that were aimed at at the Catholics and they asked this question
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Against what were they addressed in the 16th century? What what was the target of their criticism?
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was it really something that the Reformers taught or that the Catholics believed and on the basis of that kind of very fine historical investigation, they were able to say as faithful Catholics who still affirm
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Trent as all faithful Catholics must and as Evangelical Protestants who stood in the tradition of the
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Augsburg confession and the Calvinist confessions That these mutually condemning confessions of the 16th century
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Need not lead us today to mutually condemn one another because our and understanding of grace and works
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Do not match that against which the condemnations of the 16th century were aimed
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I'm not I'm not defending that I'm saying that is a very interesting way of Reframing the question today that I think we have to take into consideration
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Even at the end of that though The 1999 statement was not sufficient to do to say we have no church dividing differences over this
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There was still added to this statement what's called an annex a little appendix about the question of seymour
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Eustace at Picard the same time just and sinful this is a famous slogan of Luther and the
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Reformers and Catholics have a very difficult time of affirming that in fact can't According to this statement and they expressed a reservation for Protestants it expresses a very important thing about this question of imputation and infusion and the way in which is
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Calvin said in his commentary on Galatians 2 we are justified by faith alone, but the faith that justifies is never alone
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It is Accompanied by works it works flow out of it. And so we differ to put it in Protestant language on The way we distinguish justification and sanctification
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So there you go that this is the nature of Ecumenical dialogue
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This is the nature of the Academy Those of you who've been in seminary know that that was a a good seminary answer it again was a
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Complete waste of a wonderful opportunity to really communicate some important stuff about the grounds of justification and what what really needs to be communicated about the complete difference of the grounds because see the grounds of Justification is not a discussion of just imputation infusion issues like that the ground of justification is the finished work of Christ and the
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Union of the elect with him but that Didn't get mentioned we got a historical lesson and we learned something about the
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Lutherans and the Catholics and they got together and added talk and stuff like that, but we didn't go to the scripture and understand why
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Paul could say that the reason no charge can be brought against God's elect is because Christ has died for them.
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He appears in the presence of God You know Romans 8
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Hebrews 7 Hebrews 9 There was great opportunity there to proclaim the gospel
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But we don't want to do that in an ecumenical dialogue because an ecumenical dialogue will
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Well, we don't want to offend anyone you see and that's why yours truly Doesn't get invited to ecumenical dialogues
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Well, we are now 43 minutes into about an hour and 45 minutes, so We're making progress
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I managed to restrain myself Enough today to get a whole lot more done this time than we did the first time around But we still have more work to do and I think it's important Somebody has got to talk about this stuff.
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That's what we do here. Thanks for listening We'll see you next week on the dividing line The dividing line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega ministries
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