Patrick Madrid, Bart Ehrman, and the Infidel Guy

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. It's 602 nine seven three four six zero two or toll-free across the United States. It's one eight seven seven seven five. Three three three four one and now with today's topic.

Here is James white.

And good afternoon. Welcome to the dividing line. I'm pretty pretty certain that we will be able to work out having a Tuesday dividing line next week. I Should be available. It'll be a Skype dividing line, but that's okay.

They've worked in the past Skype line. Yes the Skype line. That's probably that's probably copyright or we have to pay money for it or something. I don't know, but we will try to do that. And then of course, I don't think we'll be able to work out a Thursday one.

Maybe Friday. Hard to say given what Internet costs on on a ship I'm not sure we're gonna want to do that. But then again, we might maybe we could. You know people don't want to know what happened want to hear what happened and.

A fact I've been told that on these ships now your cell phone will work. Of course, you'll get hit with roaming charges, but your cell phone will actually work on the ships now, which is really interesting.

But anyway, that's coming up next week. Be seeing some of you. I noted on the blog Instructions you could link on the Grace Paps Church website get instructions as to how to go there. Should you desire to be there Sunday morning when I'll be preaching there.

That's a Tom Askel's Church in Sunny, Florida where it's a little bit like it is here. I was just noticing the poor Mutato in our channel is at 13 degrees below zero right now was at 44 degrees below zero last night.

And what's this? What's it? What's what is it here? 78. Wow, I thought it was fairly warm today. Yeah, 70 78 degrees. I rode my motorcycle in with wearing a cotton shirt with my sleeves rolled up and That's that's a major difference in temperature about a hundred degrees there just over those that period between here and North Dakota anyway before I get back to the infidel guy and Bart Ehrman.

Patrick Madrid on the Early Church Fathers and Sola Scriptura

I Wanted to play a clip. James Swan has been always kind enough to send me these clips. It is a labor of love. To listen to Catholic answers as often as he does. There's no twits about it. I'm very thankful that that I don't have to do that because I don't think it would anyways, but Patrick Madrid was on some program.

It sounds like Catholic answers live and. And Again, it's interesting. It reminded me a little bit of the the nameless hit piece that envoy did years ago. They they don't like to talk about us. They don't like to mention our names.

They don't it's it's almost like they're scared that someone's gonna go, you know look us up and maybe actually see what we have to say and so a caller calls in and he's talking about the early church fathers and How there are people these Protestants how dare they actually try to Argue about the early church fathers.

I mean your church fathers are a bunch of Roman Catholics. They carried around the Universal Catholic Catechism. Didn't they? Well, if you listen to most Roman Catholic apologists, that's what you would think anyway, and So it's very interesting to listen to Patrick Madrid's response.

And so let's take let's take a listen to what he what he had to say.

After I get the kids to bed at nighttime, I like to battle well educate anti-catholics charitably on YouTube about our faith and I put a lot of the church fathers and Many of them deny the writings of the church fathers and back some of them come back and say actually the church fathers are Contrary to the Holy Eucharist, which clearly is not Implied in their writings.

Are there books out there that some some of these Protestants have that might Offer inaccurate quotations as far as church fathers because they seem to be pretty confident in some of their writings and.

And.

Documentations and I'm just trying to refute all that now notice if this caller actually was reading the early church fathers Themselves rather than the quote books that he gets from open Catholics. He'd be able to find that out for himself, wouldn't he?

It's it's you know, I know there are lots of Roman Catholics who just think That that all the early church fathers just believed exactly what they do. I know they think that they're wrong. They're as wrong as they possibly can be.

But they really do believe it and it's just unthinkable for them That the early church writings are considerably more diverse than they actually have have been told. Well my my.

General sense of things is that I want to give Protestants the benefit of the doubt. And my experience over the last 22 years I guess that I've been doing this work is that generally speaking the Protestants I've encountered their sincere well-meaning people.

They don't set out to try to distort anything. They don't. They don't have a desire to misrepresent. They really sincerely believe what they're saying. And I think we should always take that approach with these folks and not assume badwill on their part.

Nonetheless, there are some Protestants turn to. I see them do this quite frequently, especially the pop Protestant apologists that are Busy engaged in writing books and doing debates and things to attack the Catholic Church.

Now now.

Let's.

Stop that there. What is a pop Protestant apologist? What does that mean is is Patrick Madrid a pop Roman Catholic apologists. I? Would think looking at envoy that's uh that he probably would be identified in that way you know but when you start talking about writing books and Doing debates to attack the Catholic Church.

Not to defend their faith no no no no see if I'm defending my faith. It's just because I'm attacking Catholic Church, it's just again. You just when you when you've known these guys as long as you've known these guys and I've known Patrick Madrid.

I met Patrick Madrid first in August of 1990 so. That was that was a while back now coming up heading for two decades here. You know so. As long as you know them well you you hear the spin and It's it's purposeful.

It's there. You know they they're there. They don't have a positive ministry of their own no no no no. They're not they're not defending their own faith. They're just hacking the Catholic faith. I imagine for some they really think that even when I debate Muslims or or debate Bart Ehrman.

I'm somehow attacking Catholicism. You know it does make me wonder because Rich was telling me he had gotten a note from someone who generally is rather nasty in Defense of Rome, but definitely wants to get the Bart Ehrman debate none of their guys are taken on Bart Ehrman.

No, no no no no no they're not they're not in London taking on Muslims, and they're not debating Bart Ehrman new there. They're so compromised in the Magisterium of Rome. How could they anyways. I mean they need to be debating a lot of their own liberal scholars who still call themselves Catholics, but anyway.

But as soon as I mentioned debates how many people do debates with Roman Catholics. The list is rather small. At least on any type of regular basis. So I have a feeling that what you're going to be hearing here is about me.

And then clearly a reference to Bill Webster and David King's three volumes set on on the early church fathers and subject to Sola Scriptura.

One of the things I've noticed is a tendency to try to portray the fathers of the early churches if they were Protestant now they won't say that these early church fathers were Protestant. But for all intents and purposes they try to co-opt them and make them appear to be For all intents and purposes.

Protestant and of course Patrick is wrong, and we have explained many times why he's wrong. Our listeners know that he's wrong, but I guess they just live on the hope that their listeners will never listen to us.

It is not a matter of trying to turn the early church fathers into Protestants and It's going to be interesting here. He's going to he's going to make reference to Sir O Jerusalem. And he doesn't quote the text.

But I'm assuming he's referring to these words. Where? We have from the catechetical lectures for 17 in regard to the divine and holy mysteries the faith not the least part may be handed on without the holy scriptures.

Do not be led astray by winning words and clever arguments. Even to me who tell you these things do not give ready belief. Unless you receive from the holy scriptures the proof the things which I announce.

The salvation which we believe is not proved from clever reasoning, but from the holy scriptures now. Many people have cited that. Mainly because it's so consistent with other things we find in the early church.

For example Basil said the hearers taught in the scriptures ought to test what is said by teachers and Accept that which agrees the scriptures, but reject that which is foreign. He also said if custom is to be taken and proof of what is right.

Then it is certainly competent for me to put forward on my side the custom which obtains here. If they reject this we are clearly not bound to follow them. Therefore let God inspired scripture decide between us and on whichever side be found doctrine harmony with the Word of God in favor of that side will be cast the vote of truth.

Or Gregory of Nyssa who said we make the holy scriptures the canon the rule of every dogma. We have necessity to look upon that and receive alone that which may be made conformable to the intention of those writings.

These are not just isolated statements. These people were not modern Roman Catholics neither were they Protestants and You could look at each one of those people. I just cited and find things and what they believe that I don't believe and I fully accept that I've always said that I've said that from the start.

I am NOT trying to turn these people into mirror images of me. That's Rome's gig not mine. Rome is the one that has dogmatically declared that the Unanimous consent of the fathers is in support of this teaching or that teaching.

They're the ones that have to do this. They're the ones that cannot allow the early church writers to be the early church writers not me. I Don't get my authority from them and So I can quote them and say look.

This is what was being said. This person believed this they did not believe what you believe and you Are the one claiming that your church has not changed in 2 ,000 years now your scholars know that's not the case.

That's why Newman had to develop the development hypothesis. Anyways, he knew that wasn't the case but the pop apologists. With the radio programs and the magazines and the very carefully selected quotations from the early church that's what they want people to believe and So this this whole idea that well You know You can find stuff in each one of these people where they agree with me.

Well, I can find stuff where they agree with me. So whose position does that support? It doesn't support the Roman Catholic. It supports mine. Well, you can't use them if they disagree with you. And that's gonna that's gonna be the primary argument that Patrick Madrid is about to enunciate.

Well, there's all stuff there's all sorts of stuff that Cyril said that that is Directly Roman Catholic teaching. Well, we could argue about some of the things they just they read the early church fathers very anachronistically.

But even if that's the case, that's not relevant. The issue is what did they say about the authority of Scripture? They could be wrong about something else. That's fine. The point is if you're saying that sola scriptura and this view of Scripture is a later innovation.

Why were they saying these things? It doesn't matter what they believed about anything else. I mean I could very clearly demonstrate. They also did not hold the Roman Catholic view of The papacy is an infallible institution at the individual who sits upon the chair of Peter in Rome that he's the only one who sits In the chair of Peter and that he personally is infallible in matters of faith and morals when he's speaking in in Excathedra and all the rest is later development stuff but the point is What Roman Catholics try to do here and this is only an argument that they're gonna present to other Roman Catholics because it's not gonna Work for us.

It's we're gonna we're gonna blow the lid off this as soon as it tries well, how can you quote them when you disagree with them on other things and the point is That's only relevant to you because you're the one who's saying that they were exactly like the modern groups.

You're the ones trying to put them in your camp. I'm not trying to put them in my camp. I Examine anything they say in the same way that I examine what people say today on the basis of the revealed Word of God I I'm consistent there.

They're not that's the point and I think that's that's important to understand and they try to.

Portray them as rejecting Catholic teaching on such things as the Importance of sacred tradition or a veneration of marrying the Saints or the Eucharist or the sacraments? What have you? I'm very fond of one example.

That's used by That's used by a number of different pop Protestant apologists one in particular who seems to have a penchant for this. He likes to quote some of the church fathers with regard to the issue of importance of Scripture and One in particular is the st. Cyril of Jerusalem now st. Cyril of Jerusalem For all of his various writings.

He's perhaps most famous for a book that he wrote called Catechetical lectures, it's actually a series of lectures that st. Cyril wrote for catechumens. These are people who are going to be baptized and One of his verses I don't have the lectures in front of me.

But he refers to the fact that scripture is very important and we must decide doctrinal matters based upon scripture and So forth and I see that passage from st. Cyril's catechetical lectures Used a lot as if he was trying to say what modern-day Protestants would like that.

He would have said in other words extolling the Protestant notion of solus catora, which he did not. But when you isolate a passage like that, you could make it appear that way.

So what what is what else Did Cyril say in this context that would mitigate or change these words? Let me read him again so you can hear what it is. Because I have a feeling that I'm the one he's talking about.

I just have a feeling maybe it's Bill Webster but I just have a feeling that the he there the unnamed he was me in Regard to the divine and holy mysteries of the faith not the least part may be handed on without the Holy Scriptures not the least part.

Now there's all sorts of things that Rome teaches and believes has nothing to do with the scriptures at all and found nowhere in the Scriptures at all. I guess that's not a part of the Divine and holy mysteries the faith in if it can't be passed on without the scriptures.

Hmm do not be led astray by winning words and clever arguments. Even to me who tell you these things this man is a bishop by the way. Even to me who tell you these things do not give ready belief unless you receive from the Holy Scriptures the proof of the things which I announce.

Hmm, where's where's the Pope in that. And and the magisterium and the living tradition? Hmm the salvation in which we believe is not proved from clever reasoning, but from the Holy Scriptures.

So.

It seems like what he's insinuating is. Well, if you just read what came before and after it Then he didn't mean that it's. Is that what he's saying. Wouldn't it be wise to maybe back that up? Can he.

That's you know inquiring minds want to know one of the articles I wrote years ago.

On this issue of the problem of sola scriptura. I brought up this very issue and I said now if we take st Cyril in his totality The Protestants who tried to use him for their own purposes to prop up this tradition of men known as sola scriptura They wind up on the horns of a dilemma because this very same Catholic bishops and Cyril of Jerusalem in the same Catechism excuse me catechetical lectures at the tongue twister.

He talks about the seven sacraments. He talks about baptismal regeneration the mass as a sacrifice Confession to a priest. He talks about the the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and on and on all of these distinctively Catholic doctrines.

So they're left with a dilemma either. St. Cyril of Jerusalem was incorrect on those matters and he he was Badly exegeting scripture and coming up with that with those teachings.

Or he might have been Inconsistent with his own stated principles and There are lots of people in fact every person I can think of in the early church Would have fallen into that category because obviously I would find them to be inconsistent on points.

And that means you'd have to go to where they argued these issues and look at their biblical argumentation find out if they were ignorant of something so for example Augustine not knowing Greek well enough to know the Dickey Oh Dickey assume a word group and going on the Latin Misunderstanding something as a result etc. Etc.

Yes, maybe. Is that a possibility. Can we let the early church fathers be there? The church was no everything's black and white. Either it's take all they had to say or throw out all they had to say. Which side can actually allow the early church to be the early church?

It is not the Roman Catholic side or.

He did find those teachings in Scripture and Neither option. I think is very palatable for them because in the first case that would completely Impugn his ability as an exegete it would completely undercut any authority He might have.

So they shouldn't be quoting him at all on anything. Now see they shouldn't be quoting him at all anything unless you have.

Absolute agreement. Well, okay. Where did Cyril Jerusalem present the concept of papal infallibility Patrick? Where did where did he present the bodily assumption of Mary Patrick? You're not gonna find those beliefs back then because they're not apostolic and.

So maybe you shouldn't be quoting the early church. Again I listened to this kind of stuff and and I realized this is what passes as you know. Compelling apologetics. On Catholic answers live, but you listen to it.

You just shake your head and go wow. If he is so badly mistaken about all these other aspects of sacred scripture the second Alternative is not any better. And that is if they admit that he found them in Scripture then that undercuts their position that these Catholic teachings are not Supportable from sacred scripture, so there would be one example.

I know there's a book. That's very popular among Protestant pop apologists that it's actually a multi-volume book that seeks to Try to prove that the early church fathers taught the Protestant understanding of sola scriptura.

That of course would be holy scripture the pillar and foundation of our faith and It is amazing how many Roman Catholics attack the name of that set. Without reading it enough to find out that they're quoting.

They're actually quoting that from Irenaeus as I recall and You know you know they've been out long enough now. That if these works were just full of holes there would be an entire counter citation set available and in print.

But they don't do it. You know we've heard how many of these Catholic apologists. We're talking about how they're gonna refute all this stuff. And they're gonna tear all this stuff apart and blah blah blah, and then you never hear anything.

They don't follow through. For some odd reason and instead. It's just this type of ah well You know everybody knows that stuff's just wrong.

Pay no attention to the man behind the three volume set and they amass all these different quotes. I've gone through these volumes and What I have to chuckle about when I read them is that They simply affirm what the Catholic Church itself affirms, and that is that scripture is this High authority is the highest authority in the churches of the Vatican to document women.

I'm sorry Dave air bum points out and I've I often think that the Protestants who try to Even in their sincerity and their well-meaning Effort to try to educate Catholics I I tend to think based upon what I read from them that they really are not reading the church fathers.

They're cherry-picking looking for little snatches of phraseology or words or things that they can anachronistically.

Read back in their own Protestant beliefs now is that not the exact picture of Roman Catholicism is. That not the very essence of the dogmatic decrees the Roman Catholic Church is. Anachronistically reading concepts back into the early church that never would have been a part of their experience.

Is that not we've documented over and over and over again. I Mean when we went through the the debates that that Patrick and I did painstakingly here on the program over the course of months literally.

Who did we find doing that all the time? Was it the Protestants the Catholics? Well, it was Patrick and the Catholics. That's what that's what was the case. So, you know here you have this. Well, they're just cherry-picking stuff.

They're not not not paying attention to context or reading stuff an acronym and anachronistically into this stuff. And yet that's the very thing they are themselves doing and somehow make that.

Support their case, which in fact it doesn't last thing I'll say then I'll shut up and that is that I wrote a book some years ago called Why is that in tradition in which I take the standard arguments that Protestant apologists tend to use against the Catholic Church?

On issues such as Mary and the Pope and the Eucharist and baptismal regeneration and so forth and I I assemble pertinent statements from the major church fathers going as far back as we have Statements available to us and those are all collected together in this book called. Why is that in tradition?

So if you're interested in a Compendium a handy compendium that will give you at a glance the different hurting quotes that will help you in these discussions I would recommend my own book if I could be forgiven for doing that and again, the title is called.

Why is that in tradition? Good, I'll get I'll get that. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Long answer to a short question. Sorry, right.

Thanks for being with us on the program.

So there you have Patrick Madrid and you know We have I think been very very fair and very very thorough in Responding to Patrick over the past year and a half or so. Especially on The debates the debate reviews that we did and so I would say get Patrick's books and compare them with what we produce.

Compare them with the Webster King set compare his Books, they tend to be very short and no offense here, but very shallow. They're written for I mean seriously. It seemed to be written for a very very Unread audience that just isn't going to dig deep at all.

That's been my experience and looking at them. I just got another one of his books recently and it's just it's just. But then again, it's not as bad as Dave Armstrong. What did he come up with recent fives?

Recently 500 arguments against solo scriptura 498 of which are all straw man. You know at least at least he's not in that category, all right, so Having said that we move back to the infidel guy and Bart Ehrman and if you were not with us in the last episode The the interview I hit a chuckle.

It was so big that the wheels fell right off of the interviewee and the interviewer and We had a little debate going on between the infidel guy and Bart Ehrman and if you didn't hear that I would suggest to go back and listen to it because You get to hear what happens when Bart Ehrman encounters someone who's more liberal than he is more skeptical than he is and obviously the infidel guy pushes the Bob Price group idea that Jesus didn't even exist which Bart Ehrman recognizes that kind of argumentation mean nobody existed.

That's sure how we got here, but we have no knowledge whatsoever. Hyper skepticism of historical sources and materials like that and that is very common and so We left off where you could just tell it was oozing out of The infidel guy's voice.

There's like yeah, well sure yeah, you know and It's just about over that part's just about over there you get back to the normal stuff. There's only about ten minutes left in the actual interview. And then you get a couple minutes of the infidel guy without Ehrman and the real feelings come out at that point which I find.

Bart Ehrman, the Infidel Guy, and Historical Skepticism

Okay.

So they're talking about Bob Price here, I think here that is the other guy Hector Avalos. I think it's Hector Avalos one of the two and The infidel guy is trying to read stuff out of the chat channel.

And you got to realize even when I read stuff out of the chat channel It's there's a delay there. It takes time for people to type and there's a delay between what I'm speaking and when they're hearing it on the on the web.

And stuff like that so it got a little bit Slow here for a moment, okay.

Right, but what's so interesting about this though? I guess it depends on what circles you're in because You know as you know some people would say who who who are men never heard of this guy. So I guess it kind of really depends on what circles you're in what type of you know new type of criticism.

Maybe one is participating in what you know what type of profession they talk to. I'm not. I'm not trying to. I'm not. I don't mean by I'm grasping head straws. I'm not trying to argue for any particular position.

I'm simply saying that I could see. You know I mean, I'm trying to see why because you're saying you ever heard of these people, and I'm simply saying well.

This is about the only point in time where I was almost feeling sorry, but not quite. There is a short temptation. To feel sorry because the infidel guy is just Stuttering and stammering and and running all over the place.

You know what he's actually thinking. You know where he's actually coming from. And He just does not want to try to go toe-to-toe with with Bart Ehrman. That's it's not really what he was expecting.

This he is expecting of. You know to get another scholar in there to just rip and store it on Christianity, and and yeah I get some of that, but he doesn't get what he wanted. Sure. Well.

Surely some of these people haven't heard of you either, so it can work both ways. I don't think that's grabbing at straws. That's just kind of commonsensical. You just if you're saying cricket cricket cricket.

People who doubt that. Paul. For example. Example. We've been talking about. I would just ask you who doubts that. Oh.

I don't know. I'm a biblical scholar, so right. Yeah.

Anybody who doubts it so. Somebody doubt them and you can doubt anything if you want to right right right. Well.

Whatever that's a claim you're making I have no tools to Debunk that because I'm not a biblical historian or scholar, so I wouldn't know I mean, but at the same time I'm still gonna raise skeptical. I'm gonna take your word for everything wholesale if it doesn't quite.

Archaeological evidence that you're saying or. You keep saying. You keep saying historical evidence, but then you keep going back to Paul. Which is the subject of the debate in the first place, so I was trying to figure out.

What do you mean by that. And I would want to throw in here archaeological evidence of what. Of Paul. Again if if you demand Archaeological evidence of the existence of someone before you believe they existed you'd have to believe there.

There were a very small number of human beings That ever existed in the ancient world. This kind of historiography is idiotic. It is is so Ridiculous that that that airmen doesn't even know how to say it any more bluntly than that.

That what you know. Where in the world are you coming from?

Welcome to the world of radical atheism. We're going to circles. I said it's already I said how do we how do how do we know that the stories? It's got I think I think what's happening here seven letters somehow somehow.

Bart I think what happened is you grabbed on to a really a non-issue. My main issue was I wouldn't even disagreeing you Made you said multiple times I wasn't really disagreeing that Paul might have written Galatians for instance or something in the book.

But I was simply saying but how do we know the way you're saying was true, and then you say oh wait well I agree this. Okay, then fine. We should have moved on from there. I thought we're going to agree with that that you know but.

Everybody knows that he does not believe that Paul wrote Galatians, and he doesn't believe there's anything true in it. So now you're saying well. He might have written something that book. Yeah, there might be a word.

He said once you know that's what he's wanting to say, but he knows he can't back it up. Especially when she's now been shocked to discover that this guy who you thought would be a good fellow infidel guy is going from there.

Hey, are we supposed to be taking a break sometime today? You're you're busy doing other things over there I can tell and that's why we can just go flying by these things so let's let's take a quick break.

And then we'll continue on with the program.

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Get your copy in the bookstore at al min org and welcome back to the dividing line.

Try to wrap this up today, there's still 20 minutes. Worth of stuff and we don't have time for all that. So I'm gonna skip some of it, but I do want to get to the comments at the end. So let's continue on.

That was it. I mean, I was really it. I thought that was all we're trying to get with that and then I was gonna just move on to the next thing. Okay? All right. So back to these embellishments said they are indeed some embellishments and Paul's works.

Now are you talking about? What the poem self-embellished things or that scribes change things that he. I guess both.

Yeah, I love to hear. How would you know the difference. Yes.

I think that Paul says that are anything's change things that Paul wrote because they did. Manuscripts. Now, please make sure that you catch that notice that for Ermin.

He makes no careful distinction between scribes changing purposefully or without purpose and that unfortunately creates and communicates a tremendous amount of confusion. Because obviously when the infidel guy hears this he hears scribes Purposely amending things.

Now airmen has made his career on this as Peter Williams put it this use of Intelligent design arguments. In other words that every variation that you encounter Had a purpose behind it in the sense that the scribe did it intentionally Whereas the common wisdom in the field up until the last 15 -20 years Was that the vast majority that your default?

Assumption is that it's a scribal error not that the scribe was intentionally changing something, but that they did so for other reasons errors of sight whatever else it might be and so you you need to Recognize that when he says scribes changed things That communicates something that is not in self fully true.