The Dividing Line, September 9, 2008

The Upcoming Debates, Conferences, and Travel Schedule

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.

Hey, good morning. Welcome to The Dividing Line. Tuesday morning, going to continue with our review of the 1993 Sol Scriptura debate today. Just a quick note, those of you in the New Mexico area, one of the more heavily populated areas of the United States, well, Santa Fe's got a few folks there, and we will be in Santa Fe this weekend.

I will be speaking at least three times. I will be doing a presentation on Sunday morning on the reliability of the New Testament. I spent all day yesterday, from morning till night, on a brand new presentation on that, using the ever-advanced technology of the Mac.

I've got to admit, Keynote is a tremendous program, and I had a lot of fun putting together a presentation on the reliability of the text of the New Testament that I'll be using for the very first time there in Santa Fe.

And we'll also be speaking of Islam and the Marian dogmas. So I am currently updating those presentations, as well as what I was doing before I came in here. So that'll be this Saturday. And then, of course, please note, you in the Southern California area, always get California people going, when are you coming back to California?

Man, I'm over there all the time. I think they're going to start charging me taxes. I'm over there so often. But we will be in the L .A. area the following Saturday, and then down in San Diego the following Sunday, three debates against Farhan Qureshi and Osama Abdullah are the two gentlemen that I'll be debating.

And we will be discussing the crucifixion and the reliability of the New Testament and the deity of Christ, all those key issues that you deal with when you deal with the subject of Islam. And so we would highly encourage you to be there.

It's one thing to listen to those debates. It's something else to be there and get to hear, for example, some of the audience comments that do not make it onto the videotape. So you definitely will want to be there, especially my friends out at Westminster Seminary in Escondido.

I hope some of you can come out as well for the Sunday afternoon encounter at that particular point in time. So that's what's coming up. And then the week after that is the Ligonier Conference here in Phoenix.

And yeah, this year is just flying by, isn't it? And then only got October and six days into November. I'm headed off for London. I'm very, very appreciative of those of you who have given sacrificially and specially to make that trip work.

I continue to pray for that. And we certainly could continue to use your support for that effort. Need to get hold of the folks in the television channel. They aren't responding to my emails. And I'm a little bit concerned, especially this time of year, people go on holiday in England.

And we call them vacations. They call them holidays. And I'm a little concerned that the person whose email address I have is on holiday. And so I just sent an email to somebody else. Could we try another way to get through here?

Because I want to have all this stuff lined up. And I will be putting up. I know some of you have asked. Didn't you get a call from London? Someone asking, I want to know exactly where he's going to be and when and so on and so forth.

I'll be trying to put that together as best I can. It's not always easy to do. And some people know how well I did before the new format of the website in keeping up on the calendar page. And it was more of a historical thing.

But it's a bit of a joke. But anyhow, so we'll try to let you know about that. And of course, still need to let everybody know we're doing a cruise and a conference at the end of January. Sometimes I think because it's in January, it just seems like it's forever away.

Because for us, there's like this wall between December and January. And then you get January and you start thinking about the rest of the year. Well, it doesn't work that way. And I really encourage you to be looking forward to the conference that we'll be having, the debate that I'll be having with Bart Ehrman.

I honestly think that'll be one of the most important debates we've ever done. Bart Ehrman is undoubtedly considered the leading critic of the New Testament, critic in a negative sense of the New Testament today.

His materials are utilized by every community college philosophy professor out there to attempt to convert our young people away from faith in Christ. And so the subject, the topic, everything is exactly what we would want it to be.

And so I'm very much looking forward to that debate. And so I would encourage you to be making plans to be there. Register for the conference. There'll be some great speakers as well as the debate itself.

And then of course, a wonderful time of fellowship on the cruise that follows thereafter. It's only a four-day, so it's not one of those big, huge things where you have to burn every bit of vacation that you have ever built up.

And so I would encourage you to look at the website and to join us on that. It's also exceptionally cost-friendly. I dare you to look at our costs and compare them to pretty much anybody else. And when you do, you'll go, oh, okay, all right, that's me.

Yeah, all right. We do this really as a perspective of ministry, and so I would encourage you to take a look at that. So with that having been said, before I start listening to Patrick Madrid again, I want to read a portion from my response to Patrick Madrid's hit article called The White Man's Burden.

The Straw Man Definition of Sola Scriptura

And in essence, I'm addressing here some conversations that took place between myself and Carl Keating and Patrick Madrid after the debate. And in essence, I pointed out that the definition that Patrick Madrid attempted to force me to defend is not the definition of Sola Scriptura found in historical documents.

In the Westminster Confession of Faith, in the London Baptist Confession of Faith, it is a straw man. And his response was fascinating, and I reproduced it in the material. Notice what he says, quote, Assume this is an accurate statement that Pat used a definition different from yours.

So what? He wasn't debating James White's definition. He was debating what he and I and many others consider to be the real world definition of Sola Scriptura as found among Bible Christians. Please note that the resolution of the debate didn't define Sola Scriptura.

That was up to the debaters. If they wanted to use slightly different definitions, they had a right to do so. Whether or not your definition agreed with Pat's, I don't think they were far apart at all.

The debate wasn't about fixing a definition. It was mainly about arguing whether particular verses supported Sola Scriptura. That argument can be carried out even if the debaters differ a bit on their definitions.

By the way, Pat wasn't supposed to deal with your affirmative proposition. Both the affirmative proposition found in the resolution. That's what he did. Debate propositions are framed in the resolution itself, not in the first speaker's opening statement, to which I responded at the time, try to imagine how Mr. Keating would respond if the roles were reversed.

Let's say that I debated Mr. Keating on the Immaculate Conception. And by the way, I'd be more than happy to do so, but Mr. Keating doesn't debate anymore. And after his opening statements, decide to present my own definition of that doctrine.

Or let's say we were debating papal infallibility and I said to Mr. Keating, now I believe this doctrine means that popes are supposed to be sinless, so how do you explain Alexander VI or John XII? Would Mr. Keating feel it was okay for me to redefine his doctrines and then insist that he defend my redefinitions?

Well, of course not. He would rightly protest that to be fair, I must accurately and honestly portray the Roman doctrines as they are defined by Rome. Yet, seemingly, the men of Catholic Answers do not extend this treatment to others.

Here, the president of Catholic Answers seemingly says, hey, sure, Patrick used a different definition, but so what? Who said he had to debate your definition? A fascinating admission, indeed. And so I do find that quite interesting and quite representative of the fact that, in essence, Catholic Answers feel they can determine what our doctrines are, use their definitions, and even when we say, that's a straw man, well, it doesn't matter.

I've met people that believe that. Well, I've met Roman Catholics that believe almost anything. I've met Roman Catholics who present all sorts of things that the men of Catholic Answers would say, oh, no, no, no, no, that's not Catholic.

No, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, okay, I see a little bit of a double standard here and, well, indeed. All right, let's go back and pick up right where we left off on the subject of Sola Scriptura. Patrick Madrid is just beginning his opening statement.

Formal and Material Sufficiency

So my task is to demonstrate that Sola Scriptura is unbiblical. I don't have to prove the case for tradition. Mr. White claims that I must be able to prove every point from Scripture alone. So Sola Scriptura itself must be proved from Scripture alone.

Now, once again, I just want to mention, I have many times challenged these individuals to positively defend their claims to ultimate authority. That's not what they like to do. They like to attack Sola Scriptura.

That's their thing. And they don't want to have to apply the same standards to their own claims that they apply to the claims of others. But if you are going to use, if you are going to assume the correctness of the Roman Catholic concept of tradition as part of your argument against Sola Scriptura, then I insist that you do need to prove it.

If you're not going to prove it, if you are going to just let it stand on its own assertion, but use it as a part of your argument, which I assert is exactly what they do, then you do have to defend it.

But that's exactly what they don't want to do.

And if it can't be done, Sola Scriptura is a self-refuting proposition, and therefore it is false. Tonight's debate is about truth, the truth Jesus wants for you and for me to stand firm and hold fast to.

But what is the truth about Sola Scriptura? Does the Bible really teach it? Did the apostles teach it? Did Jesus teach it? Many approach Scripture with the predetermined conviction that the Catholic Church must be wrong.

So they search to find verses which they can cobble together in an attempt to refute a given Catholic teaching. Their hostility to the Catholic Church often makes it very difficult for them to view the Catholic case objectively.

I would ask you to please, tonight, put aside any predetermined ideas you may have about Sola Scriptura, pro or con. Let the Lord speak to you tonight through Scripture. You will see, I believe, that the Bible does not teach Sola Scriptura.

The apostles did not teach Sola Scriptura. Jesus did not teach Sola Scriptura. And I believe that if you want to be faithful to the teachings of Jesus, you must reject Sola Scriptura as a tradition of men.

If you don't reject it, God will hold you accountable. Protestant apologists commonly make several mistakes in their zeal to vindicate Sola Scriptura. My opponent tonight may not make all of these mistakes, but you need to know about them so that you can know how to handle them when you encounter them.

Mistake number one. If you have your notepads out, I'd ask you to write these down. Mistake number one. Confusing formal and material sufficiency. This is a crucial point in tonight's debate.

By the way, this, I believe, was the first time that Mr. Madrid ever raised this distinction. In fact, I haven't taken the time to do it, but I scanned through it once, and I'd be happy to be shown my error.

But I do not believe that this distinction appears in Carl Keating's book, at least as it existed in 1993. It may have been added at a point after that. But this was the first time that they attempted to use this kind of discussion.

Unfortunately, they do so seemingly without recognizing the evolutionary nature of the Roman Catholic position in regards to this issue. And since it doesn't get a whole lot of definition during the debate, let me mention it to you now.

And that is, you have those who say the Scriptures are materially sufficient, but not formally sufficient. They're materially sufficient in that all of divine revelation is at least implicitly found in the written Scriptures.

Now, realize that for Rome, implicitly means that you can look at Revelation 12 and the woman, and that's Mary. And you can look at Luke 1, 28 and build a colossus of theology out of an angelic greeting.

So, saying something is implicitly found in Scripture, from the Roman Catholic perspective, basically means that there are enough words in Scripture that we can crowbar anything into what the Bible says.

And anybody could use that. The Mormon could say, oh, I believe it's materially sufficient. Yeah, we don't have clear statements of the exaltation of godhood, but you look over here at what Jesus said to your gods.

Anybody can make the implicit claim where, well, okay, the grammar doesn't say it, and the syntax doesn't mean it, and in the original context that wouldn't necessarily. But, you see, the Church's tradition allows us to see this blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

That was not the perspective of the majority of people to counsel Trent. The majority of people to counsel Trent, when they first wrote their first definition of the issue of the relationship of Scripture and Tradition, used phraseology called partum partum, Latin for partly and partly.

That is, God's revelation is given partly in the written tradition, Scripture, and partly in the oral tradition. Now, anybody who adopts the material sufficiency thing, the material sufficiency position, you should not hear them quoting 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 15.

Why? Because 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 15, which speaks of the traditions which were passed on to us, whether by word of mouth or by letter, shouldn't be relevant to them, because everything that's in the written is what's revelation, at least implicitly.

But, you see, everybody knows that everything that Rome has defined solely on the basis of Tradition is not actually found in Scripture. You cannot find papal infallibility in Scripture. Just listen to these people try to come up with a means of defending papal infallibility from Scripture.

It is ridiculous. It's so easy to demonstrate that they are grossly misusing the text that it's ridiculous. The Marian dogmas, again, going off to Solomon and his mother and trying to build some type of queenly coronation silliness out of this.

I love when they do that kind of stuff, because only the most starry-eyed Romanist is sitting there going, wow, that's great. And everybody else who has any sense whatsoever of reading something in context, historical context of Scripture, blah, blah, blah, blah, they're sitting there going, you're seriously suggesting this is a meaningful use of the text?

So I love when they go that direction. It's amazing as to how that works. So, anyway, what you'll hear is you'll hear them, and this is what Madrid's going to do in this debate, he's going to talk about material sufficiency, material sufficiency, so he does not have to defend the idea that in the oral tradition you find Paul actually teaching the stuff Rome teaches.

Because that's what 2 Thessalonians 2 .15 would mean. If you're going to cite that passage, then what it means is that Paul had already delivered to the Thessalonians in his first epistle and in his preaching all these doctrines and dogmas.

See, he had already taught the Thessalonians about papal infallibility, even though there wasn't a pope yet. And he had already taught them about the Marian dogmas, even though history is silent, has absolutely no evidence whatsoever that anybody back then believed what Rome teaches today is dogma about Mary.

And so they don't want to have to defend that because they can't. It's not possible. It's impossible. But they still need to find a way of defending themselves. So what they do is they'll assert material sufficiency, but then they'll quote these texts about tradition in their attacks on Sola Scriptura, and when you start to refute them, then they back off to the material sufficiency.

I believe in material sufficiency. You're just confusing people. I believe in material sufficiency. Then why are you quoting 2 Thessalonians 2? Why are you talking about this tradition? Well, it's just an interpretive tradition.

Oh, so what you're telling us is that what Paul taught the Thessalonians to do was to interpret Scripture, not all of which actually had been written yet, in such a way that they would see in Luke 1 -28 all the Marian dogmas, and they would understand papal infallibility through the interpretive methodology delivered to the Thessalonians.

Is that what you're saying? And they don't want to go there. Their people don't force them to go there. Only we do. And so they don't want to go there. So they'll take two different positions. And at one point they'll push the part and part of an idea, but then as soon as you challenge them to demonstrate, hey, show me that what you have in those oral traditions substantiates the dogmas that you have defined on the basis of that.

Oh, no, no, no, no. We don't have to do that because I believe in material sufficiency. And so you'll hear him do this back and forth, back and forth a number of times, use one argument, and then back off to a position that doesn't make as much of a claim, but then go back out to it later on and say, oh, you're just misunderstanding me.

You don't understand what's going on here, etc. So you're making errors. That's exactly how Roman Catholic controversialists are functioning in our modern context.

It may surprise you to learn that the Catholic position allows for what we call the material sufficiency of Scripture. This means that Scripture contains everything necessary for Christian teaching.

Now, did you notice he said allows for. Later on he's going to say something else. He's going to say the Catholic position is, and it isn't. Where has Rome dogmatically defined material sufficiency as the dogmatic position of the Church?

It's just, you know, all you've got to do, I would love to see, I personally think, Carl Keating and Patrick Madrid and Jimmy Akin absolutely have a moral responsibility to debate gerrymantics. I really do.

I think they put him out there. They put his pictures in this rock. They're the ones that gave this guy his start. And I think they've got a moral responsibility to debate that guy. I would love to listen to them crossing Roman swords, swinging at each other with swords all forged out of the dogmatic documents of the Roman Catholic Church.

And that's exactly why they won't do it. Because they know that would be the greatest refutation of their own arguments that's ever been put on video. And they know it. And that's why they stay away from him assiduously.

I would love to see that happen. I really, really would. But it ain't going to be happening anytime soon.

All doctrines can be found there, implicitly or explicitly, but they're all there. Formal sufficiency, on the other hand, is the position that Mr. White is attempting to prove. Formal sufficiency means that Scripture contains all necessary Christian truth and, and this is a very important and, that Scripture's meaning is so clear that the Church and tradition are not necessary to arrive at an accurate interpretation of the meaning of Scripture.

That's not true.

Let's try to correct that. What he's going to try to do later on is he is going to go directly against the actual statements of the Westminster Confession of Faith that specifically says not all portions of Scripture are alike clear.

And he's going to try to do the divide and conquer thing. This review is going to be really helpful in going through all the different errors that Roman Catholics make in trying to attack Sola Scriptura.

I really think that it will be. He's going to go through all that stuff. The idea of material sufficiency is that the Scriptures are meant to function as the sole infallible rule of faith of the Church without the addition of any kind of likewise infallible teaching authority.

That they contain within themselves the ability, upon due application, upon due application of effort, of study, to function as the sole infallible rule of faith of the Church. It is not. And you're going to hear him do this.

It's cheap shot. He's wrong. Demonstrates he can't win this argument against the actual doctrine of Sola Scriptura. But he's going to later on say, look, the fact there's all these different perspectives.

The fact that the surface meaning of the text is not enough. No one's saying the surface meaning of the text is enough. No one is saying that someone who is completely ignorant of the Bible, completely ignorant of the people of Israel, can just pick the thing up and read a few pages and go, oh, I've got the whole thing.

No one is saying that. But that's what they want us to try to defend, is that, well, this is exactly what we are saying. It is not. And this goes back to what I read to you at the beginning. Hey, we don't need to use your definition.

We don't need to go after what you actually are saying. That's where, again, when I debate the Marian dogmas, what source do I use to define them? Rome's infallible dogmatic definitions. Why can't Patrick Madrid and Carl Keating and these guys do the same thing in reverse?

Well, they just can't. In the course of this debate, Mr. White may make the mistake of assuming that the Catholic Church rejects the material sufficiency of Scripture. It doesn't. What it does reject is the error of the formal sufficiency of Scripture.

As a Catholic, I contend that all Christian doctrines are at least implicitly present in Scripture. But that doesn't mean Scripture is always sufficiently clear so that every Christian doctrine is explicitly and conclusively evident.

For example, the Bible does not say that Christians should baptize infants. Nor does it say that only adults must be baptized.

Now, notice what he's doing. We're in an Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and he is beginning to divide and conquer. And you know they sat down in the offices of Catholic answers and said, Oh, let's do this, let's do this.

You know what the difference is? And this has come up a number of times. You know what the difference between Roman Catholics and Protestants at this point is? That I can get together, and I did in 1995, about two years after this, had the first debate we had on this subject.

One of the people I was debating was Dr. Robert Strimble, a very well-known Presbyterian professor and scholar. And most of you know that I debated Bill Shishko on this subject a couple of years ago, right around this time, two years ago now.

And that was followed by a Skype debate with Greg Strawbridge. Every single one of them, by the way, just to mention it again in passing, every single one of them, I was responding to the challenge to debate those issues.

I did not issue those challenges to debate. And what did each one of them demonstrate? That we, as brothers in Christ, who share the same Gospel, who share a commitment to Sola Scriptura, can go to the inspired text of Scripture to debate that very issue.

We don't have to go to the Code of Canon Law. And we don't have to go to this Council, and to that Council, because the fact of the matter is, folks, you can't go to those Councils because they don't speak with one voice on so many issues.

They don't clarify, they confuse. They don't clarify the biblical text in any way, shape, or form. And so we can confess that we, together, as brothers, can go to the biblical text to address these issues.

That's where the difference lies. And that's where we have demonstrated the consistency of our position in approaching it in exactly that way.

Paul and the other writers of the New Testament assumed their readers already knew the answer to this question from observing the practice of the Church, so they didn't see the need to address this issue explicitly.

Some people, such as Lutherans, Methodists, and Presbyterians, say the biblical evidence that babies were baptized in the New Testament is good, so therefore we should baptize babies. Others, such as Baptists, Pentecostals, and Jehovah's Witnesses, say the biblical evidence shows that babies were not and should not be baptized.

Scholars on both sides of the debate admit that the biblical evidence is simply inconclusive. But if the evidence is inconclusive on this or any other doctrine, then Scripture is manifestly not sufficient to give us a conclusive interpretation of everything that it teaches.

In fact, Scripture itself denies that its doctrines are always clear to all readers.

Now, here is one of the key texts. Now listen and see if Mr. Madrid will give you a meaningful exegesis of this text or whether he will simply use it and then avoid its actual meaning. Now, can Roman Catholic doctrines be unclear, misunderstood, and distorted?

Of course. Anything can be. Anything can be. The most simple truths are all liable to distortion by those who desire to distort truth. Big deal. But does the text teach what Roman Catholic controversialists would have us teach?

Have us to believe it teaches? No. Of course it doesn't. Notice what it says. Notice he says in his letter there are some things. If it's some things, that means that there are other things that are what?

Patently clear and obvious. Right? And then it says that certain untaught and unstable individuals distort their own destruction. If there are untaught and unstable individuals, what does that mean? That means that there are taught and stable individuals who do not distort God's truth to their own destruction.

Instead, they handle the word of God aright to the benefit of the people of God. And so, it amazes me. It shouldn't, because Roman Catholics don't do exegesis. I mean, let's be honest with ourselves. Roman Catholic apologists don't do exegesis.

That's not their forte. They need to be exegeting a whole big body of stuff called the Dogmatic Teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. You've got to feel sorry for these folks. They're conservatives in a very liberal, modern Roman Catholic Church.

They've got to be trying to make Rome look like something that really isn't anymore. They know that the majority of their bishops and their cardinals and their prelates are way to their left in their theological perspectives.

It must be a really weird thing to be trying to defend a church like that. But hey, that's their road to ho in essence. Their row to ho. I know what row to ho means. Anyway, but they're not doing exegesis.

And they're not going to look at this text. Now, I realize that by quoting this, I'm actually saying that there are certain taught and stable men who can handle the Word of God aright. And that there are things in Scripture that are self-evidently clear.

But instead, they want to turn around and say, See? Be afraid of Scripture. It can be misused. Well, that's again why they won't debate Jerry Matiticks. Because then you can turn around and say, From your perspective, isn't Jerry doing exactly what you say your magisterium keeps from happening?

I mean, if you have this happening in your own fellowship, in your own communion, he's using the same sources you say are sufficient to answer all these questions. Hmm, sounds like your argument is somewhat self-refuting, isn't it?

Yeah, that's exactly right. Speaking of Jerry Matiticks, just in passing, How'd you like that segway, Rich? Is it pretty good? We have a new debate format available to you. And a couple of you have found out about it.

But we need to put a big advertising banner up. We are starting to make the move into making our stuff available in downloadable form and video format. Obviously, the fact that I do so much on YouTube, and we've got over 720 ,000 video views now on the YouTube account, coming up on a million.

It's pretty good, pretty great. The fact that we're doing all that stuff starts making me go, Well, you know, it sure would be nice to be able to put this debate on my iPod. Because that's how people watch a lot of stuff anymore.

Watch on the computer, watch on the iPod. Well, we have the first one done. And it is the Marion Dogmas debate. I think that was one of the best debates. It was the very first one on Long Island. And I thought it went very, very well.

So it's available. I think it's number 572 on the website. And you download that baby and stick her in iTunes. And there you go. It looks really, really sharp and nice. It's playable under QuickTime.

And also, you can import it into iTunes and put it on your iPod. And the video on iPod looks fantastic. Yes, it does. It really does.

I won't mention the specific program. But a couple of years ago, I was following a particular weekly program. And I was traveling, so I couldn't see it. And so it was really cool to be able to download that and watch it on my iPod.

And I've got to admit, it's not difficult to follow along. You know, even that tiny little screen, the resolution is quite high. So, speaking of Gerry Matitix, back when Gerry Matitix was still considered Orthodox Roman Catholic.

And he, of course, was still considering himself that. Just, hey, that's an argument for their side to take care of. We'll let them do that kind of thing. But that is available on the website now. So you might want to be looking for that.

And, of course, we are going to be continuing to offer more and more of that material, putting the great debates and the others that we're doing on that format and making them available to you. So avail yourself of the opportunities.

Okay, so we come back to we don't have this one on video, unfortunately. It wasn't videotaped. But it would have been interesting. So, hey, you know, maybe Patrick would like to do it again. Since he's 2 -0, maybe we could do it again and put it on video this time.

And then he could make it available to people on iPod. Because if he's 2 -0, I mean, he's going to win again, right? There's no way that I can win a debate on Sola Scriptura. Well, wait a minute. Actually, Patrick told me that I beat Gerry Matitix in a debate on Sola Scriptura.

Isn't that odd?

But, anyway, we continue on. Mistake number two, using a hermeneutic of anachronism. Protestant apologists read back into Scripture in the writings of the Church Fathers the particular doctrines they wish to find, and they ignore or explain away what they don't wish to see.

That is one of the best descriptions I've ever heard of exactly what Roman Catholicism does to the Church Fathers. My goodness, how many times have we demonstrated the anachronistic reading of Early Church Fathers by Roman Catholic controversialists?

I mean, it's constant. It's all the time. And they have to do it, because their ultimate authority says, this has been the constant teaching of the Church. We are infallible. Therefore, if you put those glasses on and start reading the Early Church Fathers, what are you going to find?

You're going to find that kind of stuff all through the text. And what are you going to do? Listen, it'll be the... Which one will it be? Actually, it should be the next one that Rich will be digitizing and making available is my debate on Sola Scriptura with Jerry Manatex.

And every time that I throw out something that is from an Early Church Father that disagrees with his position, well, that's just his personal opinion, Mr. White. That was just him speaking as a private theologian.

The magical circularity of Romanism is so amazing to watch. You know, we were having a conversation with a Catholic convert in Channel recently, and we were talking about papal infallibility. And we brought up the issue of Honorius again.

And if you want to see circularity, if you want to see how tightly a person can spin in a circle, then get a Roman Catholic talking about papal infallibility, because what they'll do is say, Well, everything the Pope says isn't infallible.

Well, that's true. So how do you know what is infallible and what is not infallible? And the only way they can do it is by looking back over succeeding generations. Because we point out, look, in the days when Honorius writes his letter, and in the centuries after Honorius, where Honorius himself is anathematized by a general counsel, and every bishop of Rome that takes the chair of Peter, anathematizes Honorius in taking the chair of Peter.

In all those centuries, where they hadn't developed this idea of papal infallibility yet, where they hadn't come up with these wonderful definitions that makes everything go away, how could you have known at that time, how could you have known in the days of Honorius, that what Honorius was writing as the bishop of Rome was not in fact infallible truth?

And they have no way of answering that. They can't answer that. It's not possible. And so the definition is just so wonderful in that you can't disprove it. It's impossible to disprove it. It is not subject to being disproven.

Because basically it boils down to this. The Pope's infallible, and when he makes a mistake, he wasn't speaking infallibly. That's great. I love it. What a wonderful definition. And you can bring that out and show that to people and show them, did you realize that what you're saying is the Pope's infallible, except when he's not?

Do you realize that's what you're saying? And they'll just sit there and go, oh, isn't it wonderful? I just love the liturgy. It's so beautiful. And you're like, wow! You don't see that? Oh yeah, the blinds go down.

I was like, nope, didn't notice that one. So it is amazing.

Scripture as the Word of God and the Problem of Tradition

Mormons do this in their attempt to prove, so-called, that the Bible and the early church believed in many gods. Since the time the devil used scripture to tempt Jesus in the desert, doctrinal error has always been advanced under the guise of Bible verses.

Jesus said in Matthew 7, verse 15, Beware of false prophets who will come to you in sheep's clothing, but underneath they are ravenous wolves. Error comes packaged under the wrapping paper of Bible verses.

Yeah, including Patrick Madrid's attempts to defend the papacy, and the Marian dogmas. No one's going to disagree with that. But does that mean that those Bible verses are being rightly used? That they are being rightly exegeted?

Well, of course not.