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

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. 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. Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. 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 United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is James White.

Frank Page, Trouble with the Tulip, and Misreading Galatians 4:5

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.

But, and the bushes out front, 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 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. I was just sitting here reading Frank Page's book, Trouble with the Tulip, finishing marking stuff.

I'm going through with a bright orange pen marking the things that I want to make sure 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.

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, 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 Southern Baptist Convention.

And under who is to be redeemed, he says predestination is God making certain of the ultimate redemption of his children. According to Galatians 4, 5, Jesus Christ came to redeem all those who were under the law.

Who was under the law? 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? 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. 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. And I read that and I went, uh, that doesn't quite sound right.

And so we looked to the scriptures. And the scriptures don't say that. The scriptures say so that he might redeem those who were under the law that he might receive the adoption of sons. Now, that's different.

But when it says that he might redeem all those who were under the law, that's something completely different. To say that it was his purpose to redeem all those who were under the law. That's not what Paul said.

He's contrasting those who were under the law and now grace, follow the discussion in Romans 3 and 4. And it doesn't mean what Dr. Page says it meant. And so it's interesting that in one of the clips that I have here today, we have something very similar to that.

Let me play for you just for when we were yet without strength.

In due time Christ died for the elect, for scarcely for a right. Well, it doesn't say that. I know Calvin wants it to. It just doesn't say that. Let's not add or change the words of the Bible. Jesus Christ died for the ungodly, not the elect.

Now, that, of course, is one of our new favorite folks here, Brother John Modine from Ohio. And Brother Modine, did you catch that? The exact same type of error that was just made by John Modine in a sermon that he delivered this past Sunday.

Did you catch the twist there? It's a very common one. We've caught Dave Hunt doing it. We've got a lot of people doing it. It's a very, very common thing. And that is he died for the ungodly, not the elect.

Well, the elect, before they experience regeneration, are what? Aren't they sinners? Doesn't Ephesians chapter 2 say that we were all enemies of God? Children of wrath prior to that changing of our heart that is called regeneration.

So, the ungodly are those who are justified, according to Romans chapter 4. 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 actually a completely meaningless statement, isn't it?

Because it's based upon complete ignorance on the part of Mr. Modine in regards to the nature of the elect to begin with, isn't it? Yeah, that seems to be the case. But that shouldn't surprise us too much because someone sent me this clip also this week, and I found it quite interesting.

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. Where's the promise of his coming? That's not what God is.

He is long-suffering to us for it. Why? Not willing that any should perish. Now I have a challenge for Calvinists. I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ.

I have a problem with them. They're following men instead of the word of God. Let me just stop there for a second.

It's really difficult for me not to chuckle, just a little bit. I know these are serious things, but when we start off with this just outrageous review of R .C. Sproul's service, remember the same guy.

It's really hard to take this seriously. I don't like Calvinists. Okay, all right, well, whatever you say. But then where did we hear this, 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. This is in somebody's front room someplace.

All right, this is, so we've got a much bigger context. We recently heard the accusation that Calvinists, that J .C. means for Calvinists, John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ. And, yeah, I'm talking about Tom's Road Baptist Church and Ergon Kanner and his sermon on the subject.

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

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

Now, and they say, they say sovereign grace truth in their churches. Sovereign grace is a term never found in the Bible. Here's God's sovereign will right here. God is not willing that any should perish.

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

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. 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. That's his will. But that all should come to repentance.

So there you have a very standard man-centered Arminian assertion that God's eternal salvific will is constantly frustrated by the sinner man. And of course, he's basing that on a misapprehension of 2 Peter 3 .9.

We've discussed this many, many times before. And no, you will not find these folks ever responding to the exegesis of the text. They just won't do it. 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 Peter 3 .9, 1 Timothy 2 .4, 1 Timothy 4 .10. Is there any exegesis? 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.

Six words. This should sound familiar because this is basically exactly what Norman Geisler did. Six words. Can these verses be any clearer? That's it. That's it. Just quote them. They must mean what we think they mean.

I haven't taken the time to look at what anybody else has said. I'm not going to deal with the pronouns. I'm not going to provide exegesis. I'm just not going to look at this. These are just so clear.

Just believe me. And that's how it works. And that's what we just heard. But I just, I got to.

Now, I have a challenge for Calvinists. I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ.

I don't like Calvinists. And that's why I ain't never preached this church. Well, you know, since we've got this one going, let's get this out of our system. And I only have one other clip from John Modine to play.

So let's get it out of the system. Then we'll go to, let's do a complete shift here. Let's see if we have the heartiest audience on the planet. In fact, 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. Now, that in some ways is huge. But in other ways is not as huge as it should be. That's the scary part. So let's get Modine out of the way here.

Here is a section. Let's see if we can figure this one out, folks. This is where I think John Modine is saying that evil is an alien.

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.

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

The Word of God is against them. In this chapter, this verse, verse 12 of Romans 5 is against Calvinists and the Reformed faith. It kills it, in my opinion. The Bible says here exactly how evil exists.

And look at what the Word of God says. It says that sin did what? Entered into the world. Amazingly precise. Where did sin come from? Outside the world. God created the world. He created mankind. He created everything that was here, the animals, the children of men.

Everything here was created how? Without sin, in perfection. There was no sin here. And sin came into this flawless world, according to Romans 5. Evil entered into the world. From where? Through who? Well, from out there is the answer, isn't it?

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. Evil and sin did not originate in mankind.

Do you understand the implications of that? That means we can be saved. We didn't invent sin. Adam didn't invent sin. We can have a savior. Demons? Not going to be saved if they've fallen. Lucifer? No redeemer for him.

Evil and sin did not originate in mankind. We were created perfect on this perfect earth with its perfect creatures and perfect lands and perfect environment. Look in the sky, here comes a guided missile full of sin and evil from outside our planet.

Okay. A guided missile full of sin. There you go. I don't know where it came from. I'm just playing it, folks. What can I say? I just downloaded the sermon. I started looking for some stuff. Somebody in channel had been sort of, I don't know, quoting stuff from it.

And I thought, well, all right. Let's see if there is something there. And I hit that part and it's like, wow. Okay. All right. That's some, okay, whatever. All right. So as I said, let's see if we can completely shift gears here.

How many topics can we discuss in one dividing line? That's not how you spell 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, speaking of Katyusha rockets, let's see if we can switch on over here to Ahmed Didat.

And he is discussing the issue of the Bible. And it's interesting, he is going to contrast translations of the Koran with translations of the 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.

So once again, Ahmed Didat had a very strong accent. The recording techniques utilized for much of his material were not the best. This was a number of years ago. I'm sure it would have been better had it been more recent.

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

There's too much involved in this discussion at the moment. The very first question I asked was to identify the witness, if you remember. In any case, any court case, if you fail to do that, the judge will stop you in your stride.

He says, stop it, identify your witnesses. And that's the first question I asked. Here are the witnesses. They exhibit the Roman Catholic Bible. We accept this as the word of God. These twins I showed you, we accept them as the 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. The National Council of Churches, I think it was RSV, something like that.

He just said, these two twins. So far he's said the Roman Catholic Bible, these two twins, which would probably be RSV.

He's about to go for the Schofield here. This Schofield Bible, do you accept this as the word of God? Baptist says, no, I will answer in my time.

This is from a debate. He's talking about this pastor. He was debating who said, answer in my time, etc.

This time he had full time, 60 and more minutes, that you know. And the questions still not answered. Let me tell you the reason why he couldn't answer. He knew, he knows. Any learned man knows. That this is not simply a question of translations.

You see, when he spoke about the Quran, there are different translations of the Quran by different people. Different people have a different choice of words. For the same thing, use different terminology to express the same thing.

This is, every translator has a right. But a version is quite a different thing from a translation. Now, hold on just one second there.

Notice what was said. The translator has the right to utilize different terms. Well, as long as they accurately reflect the original syntax, grammar, the meaning of the terms as they're originally used, yes, you can make that argument, and it's a good argument.

But he's talking about the difference between translations and versions. 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.

Maybe it was. But still, even that would not formally be a translation in and of itself. So I'm not certain that he's really recognizing the concept here properly. 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 Bible versions and the translations of the Quran.

I explained to you simple. You see, this Roman Catholic Bible has got 73 books inside. Two of course, Professor. Two. 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.

This is the seventh. The Roman Catholic Bible preceded yours, the Protestant Bible. It has seven extra books. You threw it out. The Protestant world threw it out.

Now, I think hopefully we all recognize the lack of validity of that argumentation. We have addressed the issue of the Apocrypha many times before on the program. It is just simply bogus to make this accusation.

There were many, many, many, over the course of history, who had rejected the canonicity of the Apocryphal books. There was the conflict between Augustine and Jerome. You've got Meletus Sardis. You've got Origen.

You've got all these things, all the way to the time of the Reformation. And so, that's not even a relevant argument. But you'll find... Are you noticing... Who uses these kinds of arguments? You're accustomed to hearing that from Roman Catholics, right?

Of course. But who else do you hear using it? Here you hear Muslims picking that up. And who else have we heard using it? We've heard Mormons utilizing Apocryphal canonical arguments to undercut the issue of the nature of the certainty of the canon without these external authorities.

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 I did the debate with the Oneness Pentecostal.

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

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

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 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.

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, try to make some kind of connection to that,.

But he does not attempt to do so. This is what you're supposed to have explained to the people. Why don't you accept this book of short words? Are you serious? That's the pastor talking.

That was the pastor talking, of course. There was some of this give and take, a little bit of discussions going back and forth. My Bible, I'm just reading my Bible.

These twins are not twins. You see, these twins here, they look alike, identical. Page for page is the same, but they are not the same. I mentioned this is the 1962 version and this is the 1971 version of the RSV, revised standard version.

Both say revised standard version, but this was done in 1952 and this was done in 1971.

Okay, so you have different updates of this particular text, just as you have the 1977 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 New King James and all those things.

There's nothing unusual about that at all.

And these are not different translations, these are versions, because in this book here, the first one, revised version, this goes back to the most ancient manuscripts.

Your scholar says that. In other words, in the introduction to the 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 TR is not going to basically say the same thing.

Your book that you are holding there, the King James version, it goes to the ancient manuscripts, ancient. Ancient means four, five, six hundred years after Jesus. This goes back to the most ancient, meaning still closer to Jesus.

Closer to Jesus, naturally more authentic. If we can get something written in the time of Jesus or by Jesus himself, no question at all. So the closer to this person, history, the more authentic the book.

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

Now, what's he talking about? The ascension of Jesus is thrown out as a fabrication. Didot loved to focus upon various textual variants. 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 in, 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 Olin, going back a couple of editions before that, because I think even the 77 NASB likewise had the same textual reading.

And then the 26th edition, it was restored to the main text. Now again, and this is the thing to remember, when a Muslim hears Didot say throw out, they're assuming that means no one knows it's there.

They're not looking at a Koran that has textual footnotes. They're not accustomed to what we see in our English text where we have textual footnotes that will give you information concerning what ancient manuscripts say and things like that.

They've never looked at a critical Greek text and see that well, 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.

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

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. 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 East and with Islam, it is no longer an option for Christians to be ignorant of the textual history of the New Testament and the Bible as a whole.

I'm sorry, we've been distributing a little cassette tape. We first started doing it and 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. We've been saying this for a long, long time. And now we're saying it I think with much more urgency. 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.

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

So, in this book here, printed by your Christian printers, backed by 32 scholars of the highest eminence, backed by 50 cooperating denominations, they went and took out the verse, Luke chapter 24, verse 51, where it says, When Jesus ascended into heaven.

And Mark chapter 16, verse 19, where it says, When Jesus ascended into heaven. It's thrown out as a publication.

Now, stop immediately before all the little inane applause. 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.

In other words, the textual data behind the two is completely different. Mark 16, 9 -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.

And again, if you have a critical edition of the Greek New Testament, and I would recommend it to you, I would recommend to the person who cannot read Greek to obtain one. For what reason? Because even if you cannot read Greek, you can learn to read the textual marks at the bottom of the page.

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 an introduction to the textual critical signs, the sigla is what they're called, that are found in the, I'd probably go with the Nestle-Aland 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.

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 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, 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 Nestle-Aland text is a library in your hand.

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.

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

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. There will be ten people listening to that one.

But, hey, that's okay. But the important thing is for you to be able to examine these things. 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.

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

He's spinning the facts to his own benefit. And so that's the way that works. Hey, let's go ahead and take our phone call. We're going to go ahead and skip the break today and take our phone call. And then we've got other things.

Like I said, we want to have an eclectic program today on the Dividing Line, lots of different topics. So let's run on down to Florida and say hi to Mike. Hi, Mike. Hey, Dr. White. Greetings. How are you today?

I'm doing good. Most excellent. Hey, listen, just on a preliminary note, I'd like to be one of those guys, whether it be somewhere in the 10 that listens to your group. Think on the Nestle-Allen evaluation.

Yes. That's a good idea, actually.

It really is. Well, I think it would be enjoyable, 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 I'm going to get that.

Well, you know, this might encourage that someday to move along a little bit faster. 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. Oh, my. Yes. 1993 in San Diego. Well, what happened was I started listening to it.

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

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. Formal.

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

Yeah, I remember that. He 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. 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.

And, in fact, I bet if you took the time, and I actually have the data where I could do this if I had a staff to assign it to, I bet if you took the time and you went back into Catholic Answers' own publications, because, of course, at the time 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 starting 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.

And I documented on my blog just a few weeks ago the fact that Patrick Madrid raised this issue once again on the Envoy magazine forums. I did catch that. Yeah, within this past couple of weeks. And I pointed out that there's a discussion of the issue in the Roman Catholic controversy and that there are a number of other discussions of it.

And one of the reasons 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. 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. 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 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.

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 so that terminology was taken out. And really Rome has gone away from that perspective, even though at the time of the Reformation that was clearly what her position was.

And people like Patrick Madrid, Jerry Medetich in the past, who knows where Jerry is going now, I have no way of knowing, but they have played fast and loose with this distinction themselves. 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.

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

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-interpretation. 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 Council of Trent, whether you were a partem partem or whether you were in the minority that rejected that, the fact remains you are still making Rome the ultimate determiner of both the canon and meaning of scripture and what is tradition and what tradition means.