Frank Page, Jon Modene and More on Today's DL

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from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded

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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 Baptist Church.

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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

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James White. Good afternoon, welcome to The Dividing Line on a Thursday afternoon watching the radar feed here and a very wide swath of thunderstorms slowly moving our direction up through Maricopa County and we got socked this morning and last night and it's been, my tree's doing well and that's a good thing.

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And the bushes out front, oh man, they've got a lot of little flowers on it. They've just been soaking it up and enjoying it a whole lot more than they like that fluoridated water that they get every once in a while when

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I remember to do it. But anyway, so it's hopefully they've still got long enough distance before they get up here to allow us to get a dividing line in before the lights flicker and all of a sudden it gets very quiet.

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I was just sitting here reading Frank Page's book, Trouble with Tulip, finishing marking stuff and going through with a bright orange pen marking the things that I want to make sure

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I get covered in the Sunday school lessons that I'm doing right now. And I just ran across a section, just made my eyes roll.

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So since some of the other things we're going to be playing today also make my eyes roll, I thought I would mention it to you on page 57 of this booklet,

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Trouble with Tulip, a closer examination of the five points of Calvinism by Frank S. Page, Ph .D., who, in case you're not aware of this, is the new president of the

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Southern Baptist Convention. And under who is to be redeemed, he says, predestination is

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God making certain of the ultimate redemption of his children. According to Galatians 4 -5,

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Jesus Christ came to redeem all those who were under the law. Who was under the law?

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Would not any serious Bible student agree that everyone was under the demand of the law as well as under the penalty of the law?

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The scripture says that Jesus Christ came that we might receive the adoption of sons. God's desire is that this be accomplished for all.

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As we have already seen, the reality is that all will not receive this gift. This does not negate God's purpose nor his heartfelt desire.

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And I read that and I went, uh, that doesn't quite sound right.

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And so we looked to the scriptures and the scriptures don't say that.

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The scriptures say, so that he might redeem those who were under the law, that he might receive the adoption of sons.

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Now, that's different. When it says that he might redeem all those who were under the law, that's something completely different.

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To say that it was his purpose to redeem all those who were under the law, that's not what

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Paul said. He said that he's contrasting those who were under the law and now grace, follow the discussion

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Romans three and four, and it doesn't mean what, uh, what Dr. Page says it meant.

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And so it's interesting that, uh, in one of the clips that I have here today, we have something very similar to that.

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Let me, uh, let me play for you just, uh, for when we were yet without strength in due time.

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Christ died for the elect for scarcely for a right, but it doesn't say that I know

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Calvin wants it to. It just doesn't say that. Now let's not add or change the words of the Bible. Jesus Christ died for the ungodly, not the elect.

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Now that of course is one of our new favorite folks here. Brother John Modine, uh, from Ohio and, uh, brother

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Modine, um, did you catch that exact same type of error that was just made by, uh, by John Modine and in a sermon that he, uh, delivered this past Sunday?

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Uh, did you catch the, the, the, the twist there? It's a very common one. We've caught Dave hunt doing it and we've caught, we've got a lot of people doing it.

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It's a very, very common thing. And that is he died for the ungodly, not the elect.

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Well, the elect before they experience regeneration are what, um, aren't they sinners?

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Doesn't Ephesians chapter two say that we were all enemies of God, children of wrath prior to that changing of our heart that is called regeneration.

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So the ungodly are those who are justified according to Romans chapter four,

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God justifies the ungodly. And if that act of justification happens to be in the golden chain of redemption, where it's foreknown, predestined, called, justified, glorified, then to say he didn't die for the elect, died for the ungodly is, is actually a completely meaningless statement, isn't it?

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Because it's based upon a complete ignorance on the part of Mr. Modine in regards to the nature of the elect to begin with, isn't it?

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Yeah, that seems to be the case, but that shouldn't surprise us too much because, um, someone sent me this clip also this week and I found it, uh, uh, quite, uh, quite interesting.

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2 Peter 3, 9, the Bible says the Lord's not slack concerning his promises. As some men count slackness, some people look at God and say, he's not coming.

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Where's the promise of his coming? That's not what God is. He is long suffering to us for it.

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Why? Not willing that any should perish. Now, I have a challenge for Calvinists.

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I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ. I have a problem with them.

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They're following men instead of the word of God. Now, let me just stop it just there for a second. It's really difficult for me not to chuckle just a little bit.

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I know these are serious things, but, but we've, you know, when we start off with this just outrageous review of R .C.

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Sproul's service, remember the same guy? Uh, it's really hard to take this seriously. I don't like Calvinists.

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Okay. All right. Well, whatever you say. But then where did we hear this?

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They've chosen to follow John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ recently ourselves. Sadly, in a much bigger context, because I get the feeling listening to these sermons, people are sitting within like three feet of him and are able to talk to him and interact with him.

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This is in somebody's front room someplace. All right. This is so where we've got a much bigger context.

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We recently heard the accusation that Calvinists, that J .C. means for Calvinists, John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ.

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And yeah, I'm talking about Tom's Road Baptist Church and Ergon Kanner and his sermon on the subject. And that's,

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I'm sure, you know, I, who knows who started it? But these types of quotes get picked up and people think they're cute.

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They're cute little quips. Of course, they're meaningless. Could you be just as easily turned around and we could come up with something in regards to Arminius or Trent's anthropology, which is what these folks are promoting.

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We could do all sorts of stuff like that, but it's pretty much irrelevant. That's how these things get around.

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And and they just they help you to fill in space while you're turning through your notes, trying to find the next thing you're trying to remember to say.

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Now, and they say they say sovereign grace truth in their churches. Sovereign grace is a term never found in the

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Bible. Here's God's sovereign will right here. God is not willing that any should perish.

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The Calvinist says that grace is irresistible. And if you're going to get saved, you can't stop it.

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That's a lie. That's not found in the Bible. Here's what's found in the Bible. God is not willing that any should perish.

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But here's what I see. I see people perishing. Jesus said there's a broad road that leads to destruction and many there be that are on it.

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And a narrow road that leads to life and few there be that are upon it. God's will is thwarted all the time by sinful men, because God's will is that no one perishes.

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That's his will. But that all should come to repentance. So there you have, you know, a very standard man centered

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Armenian assertion that God's eternal salvific will is constantly frustrated by the sinner man.

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And of course, he's basing that on a misapprehension of 2 Peter 3 .9. We've discussed this many, many times before.

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And no, you will not find these folks ever responding to the exegesis of the text. They just won't do it.

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I was looking through Frank Page's book. And when he gives, you know, the big page 56, when he gives the big one, 2

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Peter 3 .9, 1 Timothy 2 .4, 1 Timothy 4 .10, is there any exegesis?

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Is there any even recognition that there are questions to be asked about this? No. This you are given one, two, three, four, six words.

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Six words. This should sound familiar because this is basically exactly what Norman Geisler did. Six words.

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Can these verses be any clearer? Question mark. That's it. That's it. Just quote them.

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They must mean what we think they mean. I haven't taken the time to look what anybody else has said. I'm not going to deal with the pronouns.

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I'm not going to provide exegesis. I'm not going to, I'm just not going to look at this. These are just so clear. Just believe me.

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And that's, that's how it works. And that's what we just, we just heard. But I just,

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I just, I gotta. Now, I have a challenge for Calvinists. I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow

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John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ. I don't like Calvinists.

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And that's why I ain't never preached this church. So just, ah, well, you know, since we've got this, this one going, let's get this out of our system.

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And I only have one other clip from, from John Modine to play. Let's get out of the system. Then we'll go to, let's, let's do a complete shift here.

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This, let's see if, if we have the heartiest audience on the planet. In fact,

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I'm not sure, Rich, if our equipments could be able to handle this. Because I'm going to go from John Modine to Ahmad Didat.

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Now that in some ways is huge, but in other ways is not as huge as it should be.

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That's the scary part. So let's, let's, let's get

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Modine out of the, out of the way here. Here is a section. Let's see if we can figure this one out, folks.

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This is where I think John Modine is saying that evil is an alien.

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Evil is an alien. You listen to yourself. Here, here it is. I agree, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's true. The whole group of Calvinists may agree that God has authored sin and God has caused man to fall and that God is somehow sovereignly responsible for our predicament in sin right now.

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But that's not really of any importance to God. And it doesn't make it true. The Bible says exactly, you say, how can you,

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Brother Modine, you preach against Calvinists. I'm going to, I'm going to tell you, I preach against them because the Bible is against them. The word of God is against them.

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In this chapter, this verse, verse 12 of Romans 5 is against Calvinists and the reformed faith.

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It kills it, in my opinion. The Bible says here exactly how evil exists. And look at, look at what the word of God says.

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It says that sin did what? Entered into the world.

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Amazingly precise. Where did sin come from? Outside the world.

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God created the world. He created mankind. He created everything that was here. The animals, the children of men, we're all, everything here was created how?

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Without sin, in perfection. There was no sin here. And sin came into this flawless world, according to Romans 5.

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Evil entered into the world. From where? Through who? Well, from out there is the answer, isn't it?

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From out in the heavenly realms, evil came into our world. And I think we can safely say that evil and sin and wickedness came here by the actions and plans and efforts of one person.

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Evil and sin did not originate in mankind. You understand the implications of that?

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That means we can be saved. We didn't invent sin. Adam didn't invent sin.

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We can have a savior. Demons, not going to be saved if they've fallen. Lucifer, no redeemer for him.

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Evil and sin did not originate in mankind. We were created perfect on this perfect earth with his perfect creatures. And perfect lands and perfect environment.

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Look in the sky, here comes a guided missile full of sin and evil from outside our planet. And that was not

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God's plan, even though he allowed it to happen. Okay.

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A guided missile full of sin. There you go. I don't know where it came from.

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I'm just playing it, folks. What can I say? I just downloaded the sermon.

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I started looking for some stuff. Somebody in channel had been sort of,

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I don't know, quoting stuff from it. And I thought, well, all right. Let's see if there is something there.

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And I hit that part and it's like, wow. Okay. All right.

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That's some job. Okay, whatever. All right. So as I said, let's see if we can completely shift gears here.

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How many topics can we discuss in one dividing line? That's not how you spell

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Katyusha, actually. It's C -A -T -Y -U -S -H. I just wanted you to know that. Anyway, let's see if we can.

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Speaking of Katyusha rockets, let's see if we can switch on over here to Ahmed Didat.

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And he is discussing the issue of the Bible. And it's interesting.

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He is going to contrast translations of the Koran with translations of the

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Bible and say that versions of the Bible are different than translations of the Bible and focus upon the relatively minor issue, when you really think about it as far as actual theology goes, the relatively minor issue of the difference in canon in regards to Protestants and Catholics.

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So once again, Ahmed Didat had a very strong accent. The recording techniques utilized for much of his material were not the best.

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This was a number of years ago. I'm sure it would have been better had it been, you know, more recent.

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But you have to listen carefully. You have to actually concentrate to listen. But let's listen to what he has to say.

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There's too much involved in this discussion at the moment. The very first question

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I asked was to identify the witness. If you remember, in any case, any court case, if you fail to do that, the judge would stop you in your stride.

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He says, stop it. Identify your witnesses. And that's the first question I asked.

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Here are the witnesses, the exhibits, the Roman Catholic Bible.

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Do we accept this as the Word of God? These twins I showed you, do we accept them as the

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Word of God? He just said these twins. You may have to go back like six months and we played where he was talking about these two versions and they had changed over time.

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The National Council of Churches, I think it was RSV, something like that. He just said these two twins. So far, he said the Roman Catholic Bible, these two twins, which would probably be

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RSV. He's about to go for the Schofield here. This Schofield Bible, do we accept them as the

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Word of God? But this is no, I will answer in my time.

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He's this is from a debate. He's talking about this pastor. He was debating. He said, answer my time, etc. This time he had full time, 60 and more minutes.

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But, you know, the questions do not answer. And let me tell you the reason why he couldn't answer.

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He knew, he knows. Any learned man knows that this is not simply a question of translations.

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You see, when he spoke about the Quran, there are different translations of the

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Quran by different people. Different people have a different choice of words. For the same thing, you use different terminology to express the same thing.

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This is, every translator has a right. But a version is quite a different thing from a translation.

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Now, hold on just one second there. Now, notice what was said. The translator has the right to utilize different terms.

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Well, as long as they accurately reflect the original syntax grammar, the meaning of the terms as they're originally used.

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Yes, you can make that argument. And it's a good argument. But he's talking about the difference between translations and versions.

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Now, for example, Schofield is not a version, unless you're talking about the new Schofield, I suppose. And I don't know if that was necessarily out at that time.

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Maybe it was. But still, even that would not formally be a translation in and of itself.

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So I'm not certain that he's really recognizing the concept here properly.

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But at least we know where he's now saying there's a difference between version and translation and that there's a difference in the

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Bible versions and the translations of the Koran. I explained to you simple.

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You see, this Roman Catholic Bible has got 73 books inside. Two of course,

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Professor. Seventy three. The book that you are using, the authorizing version of the basis of that book that you have there, has got 66 books.

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This book, the Roman Catholic Bible, preceded yours, the Protestant Bible.

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It had seven extra books. You threw it out. The Protestant world threw it out.

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Now, I think hopefully we all recognize the lack of validity of that argumentation.

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We have addressed the issue of the Apocrypha many times before on the program.

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It is just simply bogus to make this accusation.

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There were many, many, many over the course of history who had rejected the canonicity of the

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Apocryphal books. There is the conflict between Augustus and Jerome. You've got Miletus Sardis. You've got Origen.

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You've got all these things, all the way to the time of the Reformation. And so that's not even a relevant argument.

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But you'll find, are you noticing, who uses these kind of arguments?

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You're accustomed to hearing that from Roman Catholics, right? Of course. But who else do you hear using it?

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Here you hear Muslims picking that up. And who else have we heard using it? We've heard Mormons utilizing

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Apocryphal canonical arguments to undercut the issue of the nature of the certainty of the canon without these external authorities.

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These groups will borrow from one another, even if they're trying to prove completely different things. I remember that being driven home to me very strongly when

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I did the debate with the Oneness Pentecostal. Within, I think it was three days of the debate with Hamza Abdel Malik, both of them made the exact same statements about Unitarianism, but to prove completely different things.

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One to deny the deity of Christ, one to assert the deity of Christ. And so, there is crossover in the apologetic study that you do.

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And once you develop a good response to one, as long as you don't just hinge it exactly to that one group, but you've done a full orbed research of it in history and scripture, you'll discover that you can then provide a response to a number of other groups when they raise the same issue.

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The book of Maccabees, the book of Judas, the book of Tobias, seven books you threw out from what's your canon as the word of God.

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In other words, you do not accept the Roman Catholic Bible per se as the word of God.

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There's seven more books in here than what you have in your Bible. Now, of course, those who are familiar with the early history of the compilation of the

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Quran over time knows that not only can you find lists of the various surahs that are in different orders, but you will also find lists of the surahs that include or exclude certain elements.

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Now, it's not a huge amount of material one way or the other, but the fact is that is a historical reality that if you're going to be consistent, you would have to at this point, you know, try to make some kind of connection to that.

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But he does not attempt to do so. That was the pastor talking.

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Of course, there was, you know, some of this give and take a little bit of discussions going back and forth.

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OK, so you have different updates of this particular text, just as you have the 1977

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New American Standard, you have the 1995 updated New American Standard. And even when there aren't entire updates, revisions, you've got corrections and printings in the

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New King James and all those things. That's nothing, nothing unusual about that at all. In other words, in the introduction to the

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RSV, it says that they have utilized the most ancient manuscripts in their revision, as if almost any translation other than one based upon the

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TR is not going to basically say the same thing. Ancient means four, five, six hundred years after Jesus.

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This goes back to the most ancient, meaning staying closer to Jesus. Closer to Jesus, naturally more authentic.

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If we can get something written in the time of Jesus or by Jesus himself, no question at all.

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So the closer to this person, history, the more authentic the book.

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So when you open this book here, you will find that the ascension of Jesus is thrown out as a fabrication.

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Now, what's he talking about? The ascension of Jesus is thrown out as a fabrication. DDOT loved to focus upon various textual variants.

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And even if the variant was noted in the footnotes or something like that, if the committee made a decision concerning a text, this would be at the end of Luke, which was excluded from the main text.

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And as I recall, and I'm not looking right now, but if I recall off the top of my head in the 25th edition of Nessie Allen, going back a couple of editions before that, because I think even the 77

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NASB likewise had the same textual reading. And then the 26th edition, it was restored to the main text.

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Now, again, and this is the thing to remember, when a Muslim hears DDOT say throw out, they're assuming that means no one knows it's there.

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They're not looking at a Quran that has textual footnotes. They're not accustomed to what we see in our

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English text, where we have textual footnotes that will give you information concerning what ancient manuscripts say and things like that.

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They've never looked at a critical Greek text and see that, well, when what he meant by thrown out was simply the difference between having it in brackets in the text or having it only in the footnote, one of the two.

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It sounds like the text of the Bible is something you just simply pick and choose.

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It's made up of all sorts of different pieces, and you can throw parts out and add parts in willy -nilly as you choose.

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And that's very effective for your audience if your audience, obviously, is ignorant of the actual facts of the matter, and he can count on the fact that the vast majority of his audience would be.

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And that's why I've said many times, as we live in an evermore post -Christian society in the West and an evermore situation where we are in conflict with the

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East and with Islam, it is no longer an option for Christians to be ignorant of the textual history of the

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New Testament and the Bible as a whole. I'm sorry. We've been distributing a little cassette tape.

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We first started doing it. Now it's a CD. It's on MP3 on the history and text of the New Testament. We discuss these things on the blog and on the program all the time, and we're not late to this game.

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We've been saying this for a long, long time, and now we're saying it, I think, with much more urgency.

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We cannot remain ignorant of these things if we want to be able to be ready to fulfill the command to give a reason for the hopes within us.

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And here's just an illustration. It's an illustration from decades ago now. This is probably some time in the late 70s, early 80s.

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But the fact remains that this is becoming more and more prevalent, because what this man said is being reproduced over and over again on Internet websites and the people who followed in his footsteps in the years since then.

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No, sir, in this book here, printed by your

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Christian printers, backed by 32 scholars of the highest eminence, backed by 50 cooperating denominations, they went and took out the verse,

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Luke, chapter 34, verse 51, where it says, When Jesus ascended into heaven.

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And Mark, chapter 16, verse 19, where it says, When Jesus ascended into heaven.

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It's thrown out of the publication. Now, stop immediately before, you know, all the little inane applause.

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The relationship between Luke 24 and Mark 16, to anyone who is serious about the study of the text of Scripture, would be a tenuous one at best.

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In other words, the textual data behind the two is completely different.

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Mark 16, 9 through 20, the largest textual variant in the New Testament, the textual data and basis for its exclusion from the main reading of the text is different than what you would find for Luke, chapter 24.

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And again, if you have a critical edition, the Greek New Testament, and I would recommend it to you,

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I would recommend to the person who cannot read Greek to obtain one. For what reason? Because even if you cannot read

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Greek, you can learn to read the textual marks at the bottom of the page.

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In fact, that's what we ought to do someday. What we ought to do on the dividing line someday is say, on such and such a day, a month ahead, we are going to do a introduction to the textual critical signs, the sigla is what they're called, that are found in the,

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I'd probably go with the Nessie Olland 27th edition of the Greek New Testament. And when everybody's got it, then we could, on the dividing line, say, okay, we're going to be looking at this particular variant, and we're going to go through and we're going to explain every single item on the bottom of the page, show you where to learn these things.

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It's in the introduction up front. You just got to go past. Some people miss it because it starts in German, and most people don't read

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German, but the English follows after that. And all the stuff's defined for you there. And back in the back, this is where you find what this manuscript is.

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And here's where it's housed. And here's the dating that's given to it. And here's what it contains. And the Nessie Olland text is a library in your hand.

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It truly is. And so you could look this up. And if you did look up Luke chapter 24, and you could look at it, and you would be able to look down at the footnotes, and you'd be able to see the sign for something that's been omitted.

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You wouldn't have to read Greek to know that. You'll see a little cross next to that, which means this is changed from the last edition of the

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Nessie Olland text. And then you'd be able to read the witnesses for or against either the inclusion or the exclusion of the phrase, and he was taken up into heaven.

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All right. And so we'll just have to do that sometime. We'll just have to remember to do that. And we will have probably, unfortunately, the smallest audience for that particular one.

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No one will. There'd be 10 people listening to that one. But, hey, that's okay. But the important thing is for you to be able to examine these things.

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Because remember, how many times a few months ago when we were listening to Bart Ehrman did we not have to go into the text and say, hey, he's making a mountain out of molehill here.

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He's doing something here that he's blowing this up in a way that doesn't need to be blown up.

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And he's being inconsistent. He's spinning stuff here. He may be right about his facts, but if you don't have a background in these issues, you won't catch that he's spinning them.

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He's spinning the facts to his own benefit. And so that's the way that works.

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Hey, let's go ahead and take our phone call. We'll go ahead and skip the break today and take our phone call.

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And then we've got other things. Like I said, we want to have an eclectic program today on The Dividing Line.

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Lots of different topics. So let's run on down to Florida and say hi to Mike.

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Hi, Mike. Hey, Dr. White. Greetings. How are you today? I'm doing good. Most excellent. Hey, listen, just on a preliminary note,

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I'd like to be one of those guys where there'd be somewhere in the 10 that listens to your group think on the

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Nestle -Allen evaluation. Yes. That's a good idea, actually. It really is. Well, I think it'd be enjoyable.

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And I think people who listen to the program have heard me utilize that information so many times that I think a lot of folks are going, man, someday

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I'm going to get that. Well, you know, this might encourage that someday to move along a little bit faster.

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It's a good move. I agree. Absolutely. Hey, listen, the thrust of my question here and some of my thoughts are based around the debate you had many years ago with Patrick Madrid.

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Oh, my. Yeah. Yes. 1993 in San Diego. Well, what happened was

33:25

I was listening to the debate a few days ago in preparation with a

33:31

Catholic fellow that I've been going back and forth on for some time just to get some pointers and some good information and so on.

33:39

And one of the things that Patrick had mentioned to you in his opening argument, he brought up the error of the formal sufficiency of Scripture.

33:48

Formal. Actually, what he accused me of was not properly handling the distinction between formal and material sufficiency.

33:58

Yeah, I remember that. Went on the Jag for quite some time about that. Yeah. And the irony is, and I haven't had time to double check this, but I'm willing to go out on a limb here.

34:09

I have a feeling that that is a distinction that is never once even mentioned by Carl Keating in any of his work on this subject.

34:18

And in fact, I bet if you took the time and I actually had the data where I could do this if I had a staff to assign it to,

34:24

I bet if you took the time and you went back into Catholic Answers' own publications, because of course at the time

34:30

Patrick Madrid was vice president of Catholic Answers before he went off on his own to start Envoy Magazine, I bet you would not find any discussion of it whatsoever prior to maybe 92 or 93, somewhere around in that area, when there was finally started to be enough interaction with these guys to where they had to start digging into Yves Congar and some of these other folks to start digging up some of these issues.

34:54

And I documented on my blog just a few weeks ago the fact that Patrick Madrid raised this issue once again on the

35:04

Envoy Magazine forums. I didn't catch that. Yeah, within this past couple weeks. And I pointed out that there's a discussion of the issue in the

35:11

Roman Catholic Controversy and that there are a number of other discussions of it. And one of the reasons

35:17

I didn't get into it in that context is if you're going to get into a discussion of material and formal sufficiency, you're going to have to go back in history.

35:26

You're going to have to discuss the development of these things. It's not overly exciting. It takes a lot of time and effort.

35:31

And you have to be able to describe what partum means, the utilization of that terminology in the original draft of the first decree of the

35:41

Council of Trent in 1546, where they initially said that God's revelation is communicated partly in the written and partly in the unwritten traditions.

35:52

And that would really, if that had been the final viewpoint, and it was the viewpoint of the majority of the people of Trent, but a minority objected.

36:01

So that terminology was taken out. And really, Rome has gone away from that perspective, even though at the time of the

36:09

Reformation, that was clearly what her position was. And people like Patrick Madrid, Jerry Medetich in the past, who knows where Jerry's going now,

36:18

I have no way of knowing, but they have played fast and loose with this distinction themselves.

36:25

They will back away and say, well, look, the scriptures are materially sufficient because all revelation is found at least implicitly, all revelatory truths are found at least implicitly in scripture.

36:40

But then they'll turn around and say, and then use passages like 2

36:46

Thessalonians 2, which would only be relevant if there was, in fact, some kind of revelatory truth necessary for us to know that is not found in scripture, but is only found in the oral traditions passed down through the

37:00

Episcopal Church. So they'll switch back and forth depending on whether they want to make a positive argument or whether they want to take the smaller position that's easier to defend.

37:12

And you would think they'd want to be consistent, but it sort of depends on what context they're speaking in, what audience they're speaking to, and things like that.

37:19

And so they'll say, oh, well, I can affirm materials, which is just formal sufficiency, whereas the Bible actually provides the means of self -interpretations.

37:29

That's what we reject, and it's real easy for them to come up with all sorts of quotes to try to argue with that, when in point of fact, when you really start digging down to it, either position, either direction you go, whoever you were at the

37:42

Council of Trent, whether you were a partum partum, or whether you were the minority that rejected that, the fact remains you are still making

37:50

Rome the ultimate determiner of both the canon and meaning of scripture and what is tradition and what tradition means.

37:58

And so no matter how hard you fight, you're still brought back to that primary issue. And in that debate in 93, the reason

38:05

I didn't go down that primrose path was the context that I provided a few weeks ago here on the program.

38:11

And that was that there had been a debate just a few, well, let's see, this September, we were up in Denver.

38:17

When was the Pope? There was that July, August. It was warm. I remember that. So it had been within a few months, there had been a debate up in Denver that Patrick Madrid had participated in with Carl Keating.

38:29

And ironically, I'd have to try to drag up the tape, but I don't think they brought up material or formal sufficiency in this debate, because they didn't need to.

38:38

They were debating two fundamentalist Baptists who hadn't a clue what they were doing. They should never have debated these guys.

38:43

And they wiped them out. And the whole reason of having this debate was because I had challenged them to debate in Denver.

38:50

They had ducked the challenge and they had just gotten away with murder in debating these two folks.

38:56

Yeah, I think I recall you saying that at one time. Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. They had gotten away with murder. And the main thing was they had just kept pounding these guys.

39:04

Where does the Bible say sufficiency? Where does the Bible say just pounding it into them?

39:10

And so what happens if anyone would go and listen to that? It's a painful debate to listen to. They were debating

39:16

Bill Jackson and Ron Nemec. If someone wants to track it down, they probably make the tapes available. The totally different kind of presentation that he makes against me than was made against those guys demonstrates once again, at least with me,

39:32

I'm pretty much WYSIWYG. What you see is what you get. And in private, in the chat channel, in debates,

39:38

I am who I am. And I'm going to debate issues in a certain way. And you know that these guys take different tacks depending on what the context is and stuff like that.

39:47

And that's what they did in this context. And so I was attempting to answer that challenge they had made over and over again.

39:53

They decided to change the challenge and go someplace else. And so I wanted to stay on the biblical issues.

39:59

And they wanted to go off after other things. And I think if you listen to that one, you listen to the previous one in 92 with Jerry Matic, which

40:08

Patrick Madrid told me I won. Let's keep that one in mind and then listen to the 97 version with Jerry and then the 99 version with Pacwa.

40:20

You're going to get a whole there's four different runs at the same topic.

40:26

And you're going to get more, for example, in the Pacwa discussion on those very, very distinctions. But at least

40:32

Mitch never pulls these what I call cheap debating tricks, like pulling out the canon during the cross -examination period.

40:41

I mean, technically, you're not supposed to. The cross -examination is only supposed to be on material that was presented in the opening statements.

40:46

But they ignore that one. And they want to throw the canon stuff out there, knowing that if you are actually trying to follow the rules of debate and be concise in your responses, you're never going to have time to even begin to outline their view of candidacy, let alone your own, and then answer the question.

41:01

And so at least Pacwa never does that. And so we're able to go into those issues much more fruitfully with him, and I think in a much more honest fashion, too.

41:11

Yeah, I've noticed that. He definitely, like I said, I know you've said time and again that you have a great deal of respect for him over and against the other various and sundry

41:19

Roman apologists that you've contended with in the past. Well, and in fact, I really wish a lot of people are not aware of this.

41:25

All of the debates that Mitch Pacwa and I have done are on video. Unfortunately, we can only offer three of them on DVD.

41:35

And I'm not even sure if all those are on DVD yet, because they need to be. I'm looking through the window and pouring guilt and condemnation upon the poor guy behind the soundboard.

41:47

But the first two that we did were recorded at the largest Roman Catholic church in El Cajon, San Diego.

41:54

Right before the high altar of that church. And you would see a young Mitch Pacwa and a young me, and they were on justification and the mass.

42:05

And I wish you could you can listen to them, but I wish you could actually see them. They were videotaped, but the

42:10

Roman Catholics who videotaped them have never allowed us to have the tapes. No kidding. No, this was in fact, you could actually see my first debate was videotaped.

42:20

But again, we've never been able to make it available because the Roman Catholics won't let the tape out. And the fellow who has him is named

42:27

Scott Butler. He's the fellow from the Boston College debate. And we hadn't yet had the

42:36

Barry Lynn experience, so we didn't have the legal documentation that we needed.

42:42

And so basically, they've just buried those videotapes in an archive someplace, and no one will ever get to see them.

42:49

And it just makes me wonder why that might be, you know, in that odd.

42:55

Yeah, so there have been five debates with Mitch, and I would like to do some more.

43:01

I'd like to do some of the Marian dogmas with Mitch Pacwa, because again, while he affirms them, he would also,

43:07

I think, be one of the few people that would have to very clearly admit what their real nature is.

43:12

And he might not be willing to do that for that reason, because let's face it, the only reason that someone believes in Marian dogmas is because the

43:20

Roman Catholic Church says to believe those Marian dogmas. You have to accept the authority of the church before you get to that point. So yeah.

43:27

Hey, a quick follow -up on the thing with the error of formal sufficiency that, of course, Madrid was trying to bring up.

43:32

He mentioned one of the things that he had pulled was, you know, he called it mistake number two, dealing with a hermeneutic of anachronism, where Protestant apologists, which, of course, he didn't name any, read back into scripture and the writings of the early church fathers, the particular, quote, doctrines they wish to find, and they ignore or explain away what they don't wish to see.

43:55

Any idea who he's alluding to, what doctrines in particular he's... Well, you know, obviously from their perspective, they're going to look at John 6 and see the

44:05

Eucharist and transubstantiation, and they're going to look at Maccabees and see Purgatory. But the reality is, they're the ones that are doing that.

44:12

If anyone engages in the consistent hermeneutic of anachronism, it's Rome itself, and it's

44:18

Patrick Madrid, and it's these individuals who read back into the original context concepts that could not have possibly been in the minds of those who are writing these texts and would never have been communicated to their audiences.

44:30

And so when you look at 1 Corinthians 3 and Paul's discussion there of testing, so as by fire, there's something about Purgatory there.

44:38

The whole context is completely different. The Maccabees passage collapses upon examination.

44:44

John 6, you follow the context. Any one of these, the hermeneutic of anachronism is in fact that which is found in Rome.

44:52

But it is very, very useful to accuse the other side of what you yourself are doing. Yeah, I noticed that.

44:57

Oh yeah, if you want to shut down any meaningful communication or demonstration, just go there and throw that kind of stuff out.

45:03

And at least for those who want to believe what you're saying, you're going to give them a reason for so doing, whether it's accurate or not is another issue.

45:11

But that's a common element of, I would say, obfuscation is to make that kind of assertion.

45:18

So I don't know specifically who he might be making reference to, because this was early on enough that Eric Svensson hadn't written yet.

45:27

Bill Webster wasn't doing too much yet as far as publications went. And so I'm not sure who he'd be referring to.

45:34

I was curious on that one. I was clueless. Yeah, I'm not sure what he's referring to either. It almost sounded like there was a sort of a pre -written portion of it that didn't necessarily connect with anything

45:44

I had said. Hey, and lastly, you had brought up a very good question, a very good question to him dealing with how the issue of tradition.

45:52

And your challenge to him that you threw out was for him to show any bit of evidence that any time the term tradition is used in scripture, where the

46:02

Christian church is passing it on, that it means that what it is in that tradition differs from what is in the

46:13

New Testament. And you went on to quote Tertullian. Right. And that was a good reference. Would you know off the top of your head what reference that might be?

46:21

I want to use that. It was in reference to 2

46:28

Timothy 2, as I recall. It's his interpretation of that particular passage. And it might be.

46:39

Do you have the Roman Catholic controversy? I do. That's true. That could be. It might be in there.

46:45

Unfortunately, mine is about two feet beyond my reach. And so I'm actually getting it handed to me here really quickly.

46:55

We need to do something about that. I'm not sure how we're going to do that. Just looking real quickly here.

47:01

Oh, yeah. Yeah, there it is. It's on page 99. See, I was too lazy to check.

47:07

And I should have thought about that to begin with. Yeah, there's page 99 is the citation from Tertullian.

47:13

And then unfortunately, believe me, I would rather have footnotes and end notes. But that was not mine. And I wouldn't mind.

47:19

I have things highlighted and underlined on this page, too, to boot. There you go.

47:24

Goodness. Yeah. So that actually, let me see here. Is there a reference case? Other people were wondering about that.

47:31

Which chapter? Which chapter number is that? That's also chapter seven. So chapter seven footnote number 19.

47:38

For those that are wondering who don't have the book there. We're talking about. Wait a minute. Oh, there it is. Tertullian prescription against heresies against heretics.

47:47

Oh, I put page 25. That's an odd way of doing it. Should have had the specific reference to it. And in fact,

47:54

OK, it is 16. I was looking for number 19. So it's there. That's not a standard way of citing it.

48:00

And I apologize. I should have had a better citation. I'm just, you know, like I said, I didn't even. It just even, you know, dawned on me right quick to check in your book.

48:08

But here it is. Like I said, I have things underlined and highlighted. Yeah, there you go. All right. Very good, sir. OK, thanks for calling. Take care,

48:13

Dr. White. All right. Let's continue their phone calls. Let's go to Tennessee and John.

48:18

Hi, John. Hi, Dr. White. How are you doing? Doing good. Dr. White, I have a question about early

48:24

Christian writings. I've been having a long discussion with a Church of Christ pastor. Oh, and you have

48:31

Church of Christ people in Tennessee? I imagine that. Yes, sir. And he did something to kind of surprise me on Monday night when we were having our hour long discussion.

48:41

He he brought up early Christian fathers, something that they usually stay away from, like the plague.

48:47

Yeah, you'd think so. And he was trying to make a case. He had brought a book with him and he read the last 15 minutes we were together from that book.

48:55

I can't remember what the author was. The title was something like Down to the

49:00

River to Pray. And it was supposed to be a defense of baptismal regeneration using the testimony of the early church in particular.

49:11

And the case that he was trying to make from that is that in at least the second century, there was a widespread belief among Christians that baptism did remit sins and also that it washed away

49:27

Adamic sin. And I know you've taught church history, and I've listened to your lectures on church history, and that's not something

49:35

I really heard addressed. And I was just wondering if maybe you could point me to any resources or if maybe you had some knowledge in that subject.

49:41

Yeah, well, I would never want to argue that that was not a prevalent viewpoint among writers who are called

49:49

Christian at that point in time. Remember, you have to remember the nature of the writings that have come down to us.

49:56

First of all, it does not represent everything that was being written at the time. Secondly, up through the piece of the church in 313 and even to a period after that, you have a tremendous amount of persecution of the

50:11

Christian church going on. And so you not only have the destruction of what may have been written by others, it could have come down to us, which would have given us a more balanced viewpoint.

50:20

But you also have the fact that, let's put it simply, you couldn't hardly set up a seminary when the

50:28

Roman soldiers are out hunting for you and when it's illegal to possess the Christian scriptures and when they are looking to destroy the

50:35

Christian scriptures. And so not only would you have a position like you have today in the sense that if you go into a

50:41

Christian bookstore today, you're going to find a wide variety of beliefs expressed within the pages of what's found in the books in most of those stores.

50:49

I realize there are some who try to exercise some filtration and some orthodoxy. But you also have the fact that you would have the persecution going on which would result in people not having the opportunity of being as fully taught.

51:06

You likewise have all sorts of other issues like the fact that the canon is still in the stage of being recognized so that certain areas of the

51:16

Roman Empire, certain important books, elements of Paul's writings, are either not yet available or only starting to become recognized and understood in that area.

51:25

And so there's all sorts of factors that go in here. People tend to misrepresent the early church as if, well, if I'm reading someone who's right, if I'm reading

51:35

Justin Martyr and Justin Martyr is writing about 160 and that means he's only 100 years removed from the

51:41

Apostles, then this must be just the best writing in the world. That's not the case at all. Justin Martyr shows a minimal grasp of Pauline theology, for example, and obviously doesn't have a completed canon.

51:56

And sadly, Greek philosophy influences him much more than biblical theology does or even having a biblical worldview derived from the

52:05

Old Testament. And so when someone who's primarily reading through Philo approaches a less than full canon

52:13

New Testament, well, you know what? Their resultant writings, God bless them for what they wrote, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be overly edifying as far as being balanced since theology at all points.

52:26

And so if people don't understand the context of the writings themselves and they just want to invest some massive amount of authority in them, the result is you're not going to be able to come up with any kind of consistent theology.

52:41

Because on baptism, I've just been recently reading a work,

52:47

I don't have it in here right now, but it's by Stander and Low, L -O -U -W. They're South African scholars and it's called

52:56

Baptism in the Early Church, I believe is what it's called. And they go through and they're primarily more concerned about looking at the issue of infant baptism and the development of infant baptism over time.

53:14

Yeah, it's H .S. Stander, J .P. Low, Baptism in the Early Church. It's a 2004, yeah,

53:22

September 2004 from Evangelical Press. You might find that to be useful. But what they are going to pretty much demonstrate is that as far as adults were considered, the idea of baptism and forgiveness of sins were intimately connected with one another.

53:38

No question about it. No question about it. Now, does that mean that reflects apostolic teaching?

53:44

A big question about that. But they also baptized three times and they baptized in the nude and they baptized face forward, some of them did.

53:54

And what do you do with all that? You know, do you examine those things in the same basis that you examine their understanding of what that is?

54:03

You know, it's interesting to me, the Apostle Paul had to write in correction of the

54:09

Judaizers in Galatia and their emphasis upon a man -centered gospel during the time when the apostles were around.

54:16

Why should we be shocked that that was the exact same fight that continued on for a long, long time?

54:22

We shouldn't be surprised by that at all. And unless we think that somehow once the apostles left, the heretics ran themselves, you know, it doesn't surprise me at all that when you look at much of this early writing, you have to dig through some not so good stuff to find some good stuff.

54:44

And I try to be one of those who looks at an early writer and I can look at Justin Marger and I find his identification of Jesus as Jehovah in trying to fight with the

54:55

Philo the Jew, Trifo the Jew, I find that useful.

55:01

That's interesting to me. But I can also look at his views of other things and go, well, OK, there is someone who wasn't taught and stable in that area.

55:10

Do I just check him out the window as a result? Do I just completely dismiss him? No, I look at him as a historical figure.

55:16

I can't judge the man's heart from this distance because I don't know what he knew. I don't know what light he was rejecting or just how little light he had.

55:23

I don't know. I try to be a little bit more gracious and forgiving on that ground.

55:29

But at the same time, you have to recognize what the context of the church was and how much weight you can or cannot put into what they had to say.

55:37

And so I would not ever argue against the assertion that as far as we can tell, the vast majority of those who addressed the issue of baptism, remember, not everybody did, but the vast majority of those who did address the issue of baptism closely connected it to the forgiveness of sins.

55:56

Now, were they doing that in the same way that Peter does when he says that it's that outward symbol of that cry of a conscience, not the removal of the dirt of the flesh, but the cry of the good conscience toward God?

56:12

Are they making that statement? You know, I suppose you could try to be nice and say they are, but I also would point out that it's much more common for mankind to emphasize sacramentalism and to emphasize things we can do to control

56:27

God, that is to bow before God's sovereignty and say, there's nothing that I can do in of myself.

56:32

I must cast myself completely and totally upon the mercy and grace of God and have no ground of boasting. And so, you know, that's how

56:39

I see that working out as far as that goes. So yeah, I'm sure it'd be very easy for a

56:44

Church of Christ person to make that argument. Unfortunately, if they're going to go that direction, it really undercuts a lot of the other peculiarities of their system.

56:53

Yeah, I don't, you know, I mean, they may just want to do it to try to convince a few people, but that does seem highly unusual that they would go that direction because the what that viewpoint was connected with in the developing ecclesiastical structures of the day would really go against their no creed but the

57:16

Bible stuff. That just wouldn't seem to be consistent to me. But maybe he's just grabbing this because he finds it to be useful to use it as a particular argument in this context.

57:25

I don't know. Well, we had just finished an exegesis of Acts 238, which didn't seem very favorable to him.

57:32

So that is normally all they ever discuss. So maybe he just felt this is another direction. I almost even said when you said you were discussing,

57:39

I said, what, you weren't discussing Acts 238? Because that that, of course, is the the constant area of discussion.

57:45

But, yeah, I can see on that one issue why they'd go that direction. But the connections that would then make beyond that don't seem to work real well for him.

57:54

Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you for calling. All right. God bless. Well, that's called timing, because right then and there we wrap up the program and Lord willing, we will be back at it again next

58:05

Tuesday morning. Our time. Maybe it's afternoon where you are. But Lord willing, we will get back to I hadn't even

58:13

I had stuff to add more queued up. I had Martin Yoni queued up. I had Lynn and Spong queued up, had lots of stuff queued up.

58:21

But the calls are always more important than all that anyways. And so you did get a very eclectic dividing line.

58:29

I don't know if I'm gonna be able to remember everything we talked about today once I blog it here in a few minutes. But, hey, I'll throw a few things out there and we'll go from there.

58:36

Thanks for listening. God bless. I am for the dividing line.