Reformation Day Special

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. Good morning, good afternoon, welcome to The Dividing Line on the day after Sandy.

Thankful that our channel regulars from back east are back in channel and survived the landfall and now people as far away as Chicago are getting snow and everything else.

Quite the amazing thing, certainly not the first time it's happened and let's all make sure that Al Gore is shackled up for a little while so that we don't have to put up with that.

But anyways, it is the 30th of October 2012, which means tomorrow is the 495th anniversary of an event that, for convenience sake, to be perfectly honest with you, we identify as the beginning of the

Protestant Reformation. October 31st, 1517, Martin Luther took a fairly lengthy little stroll because now

I know exactly how long the stroll was, interestingly enough, since I had the opportunity of visiting

Wittenberg just a matter of weeks ago and I walked from his home through the downtown center of Wittenberg, which is not a large place, to the castle church and the reason he went to the castle church rather than the city church is simple.

The castle church was where you would post notifications and he posted there a list of theses that he wished to debate and this was, in many ways, a sporting event.

What I mean by that is in those days you did not have football teams, whether you consider that American football or European football, and so when universities wished to compete with one another, they did so academically.

The students would get together, go on a road trip, and go listen to a debate in Latin, yes, yes, and they would cheer in Latin and then drink lots of German beer during the night time and that's how that worked.

So what Luther was looking for, and I'm not saying that Luther was not very concerned about these issues, but he was not the only person.

Any meaningful person with a spiritual bone in their body is going to be repulsed by the practice of the selling of indulgences.

But that was the striking of the match. All the things that God had prepared came together at that point in time.

There had been people who had said it more clearly than him, people who had said it in a more organized way than him, there's all sorts of people that before Luther we would think would have been better at it than Luther, but God had his own purposes and as a result you have the beginning of the

Protestant Reformation at that time. Now just a few weeks ago on the

Unbelievable Radio broadcast, and I don't think it had anything to do with Reformation this past Reformation Sunday, I preached on Reformation themes this past Sunday, if you go to the blog you'll see the links to sermon audio for that, but just a few weeks ago on the

Unbelievable Radio broadcast in London, Justin Brierley had a discussion on whether the

Roman Catholic Church is the one true church. And many of us have listened to that and yours truly is someone who has engaged that subject many, many times over the years.

I was writing about the original ECT when it came out and I had already begun debating

Roman Catholics at that point in time. My first debate with a Roman Catholic apologist from Catholic Answers by the name of Jerry Matatix was in August of 1990 in Long Beach, California.

And so I have been doing this for 22 years and in fact because of this particular program we are going to be arranging a debate in London with a

Roman Catholic representative from this that we'll be listening to primarily today. And I'm looking forward to arranging that for hopefully as early as spring of next year if not summer, but I'd rather have spring and hopefully you can pray that we'll work this out to where I can go to Dublin to the debate that I've wanted to do at Trinity College there in Dublin and then fly down to London and we can do the debate with Peter Williams there.

That would be something that would be excellent, it would be very, very good. Anyway, I have asked the redoubtable, the unknown, the mysterious, the,

I guess I should stop there, Turretin fan to join me on the program today.

Right Reverend Dr. Turretin person, sir, are you, are we getting through the static of whatever you're nearby to get to you?

I believe we are. Oh good, thank you for joining me today.

I knew that when I heard this particular program on Unbelievable that if I directed you to it that you would find it to be worth a discussion, shall we say, especially because in some ways it represents sort of the different way in which we look at things here on this side of the pond in many of our more conservative circles in comparison to what takes place in the

United Kingdom. And I believe that the Protestant representative, Pastor Robertson, I believe

I've met him. I know that I spoke at a Reformed pastor's luncheon in Dundee, Scotland, and that's where he is.

And so I think that was a number of years ago and I didn't write down names. I think we may have met.

I'm not, I'm not 100 percent certain, but it was very interesting to listen to.

And I suppose we should start off by saying it was way too short and clearly could not get into as many details as even the participants wanted to get into.

But having said that, there was still a lot that was said that I think is important for us to address.

And so I've asked Turgeon Fan, who often blogs on issues relevant to Roman Catholicism at the

AOMN blog, as well as his own web blog as well, to join me today.

And he was kind enough to go through the entire presentation to make some notes. I have then transported those into my wonderful program,

Audio Notetaker, and we are ready to roll here. I love this thing. What's that? Yes, thank thank

Larry once again. Yes, it's an excellent, excellent program. So let's start off. We have much to cover. Let's start off and make sure if if you have any trouble hearing what we're playing, please make sure to let us know because that's going to that would somewhat limit your participation if you could not hear that,

Turgeon Fan. But let's let's listen. This is four minutes and 30 seconds into the program.

And I think this is something that we need to address. We're not going to spend a lot of time on it, but something we need to address because it is a fundamental difference in the way that we approach this particular issue.

This is Pastor Robertson speaking, which I find it intriguing. Sometimes atheists will attack me saying, what are you doing appearing with Peter D.

Williams? Sometimes Christians, other Christians will attack me for that as well. You know, doesn't your church believe that the pope is the

Antichrist and so on? And no, I don't believe the Antichrist. And I regard

Peter as a Christian brother. I would have to say, though, Justin, if someone comes to me and said I'm Catholic, to me, it doesn't mean they're

Christian just as much as if someone comes to me and says I'm Protestant. It doesn't mean they're Christian. OK, how do you how do you understand that particular distinction that was just made there?

Well, of course, the second part of his comment, the comment about not automatically assuming that someone just because of their denomination is a

Christian in a true sense and actually a believer in Christ Jesus, but just being

Presbyterian or form Baptist, being in that church does not make you a believer in Christ.

But and likewise, actually, I would say being in the Roman Catholic Church doesn't automatically continue to hell in itself.

But it's an evidence of the fact that your heart doesn't hasn't been regenerated yet.

It's not proof. It's just it's just one evidence. And it's something that would prevent me from saying that someone's profession of faith is credible at this time.

I wouldn't want that person to take communion in the church that I'm in because they haven't they haven't shown the evidence of their faith in Christ by turning away from the

Antichrist, someone who claims to be over Christ's church, who sits on a throne, who has a name given to him and so forth.

I tend to agree with the reformers in identifying the bishop of Rome, the office of the bishop of Rome as the

Antichrist. But I know that's not universal, universally held view among even my reformed brethren today.

Actually, I don't know your position. Yeah, well, I have a hard time identifying a single

Antichrist because the plural is used in First John. Many Antichrists have arisen.

But what I have said is that outside of the eschatological speculations as to an office of a singular

Antichrist, for example, it's very interesting to me that Martin Luther had an

Antichrist that had a physical arm and a spiritual arm. The spiritual arm of the Antichrist was the Roman communion headed by the pope.

And the physical arm, interestingly enough, was that of the the Muslims, the

Turks. So he had a had a dual view of of the Antichrist. But my assertion is that a man who allows himself to be called

Holy Father, a man that allows himself to be called the vicar of Christ and, of course, vicar of Christ, the

Holy Spirit, biblically speaking, that that such a such an individual is clearly standing against Christ and as such would fall into that category, as would the prophet of the

Mormon Church or any number of other individuals who either pervert the gospel of Jesus Christ or deny the gospel of Jesus Christ.

But my concern is that when people ask this question and answer in this way, it strikes me that in all probability, the centrality of the gospel is not going to be the focus of what is being said.

In other words, to me, the issue, and I brought this out in my debate with Douglas Wilson, is if you want to identify a

Christian church, then it must possess the Christian gospel. I'm not one of these

C .S. Lewis mere Christianity guys who says as long as you've got the Trinity right and you've got some vague general idea of the crucifixion, deity of Christ, crucifixion, resurrection, but you can't talk about what that means.

You can't make application to what that means. You can't talk about atonement or anything like that. As long as you just got those basic historical stuff, then you're talking about Christianity and then you can just start talking about areas of disagreement.

I do not put the gospel into an area where it is not definitional.

I think it is definitional, and I cannot look at the book of Galatians and come to the conclusion that the many, many, many perversions of the gospel that are part and parcel of the dogma of the

Roman church would not fall into the condemnations of the Apostle Paul. So we would start at a different position there.

That doesn't mean that I wouldn't see Peter Williams as someone who is arguing for many of the same social issues in regards to marriage or whatever else it is, but as I pointed out when

ECT came out and when I could no longer be involved with Operation Rescue years ago, it was due to the fact that I could tell

I was being put under pressure to put myself in a position where I would not be able to present the gospel of grace to someone, that I would have to be silent in the face of the

Roman Catholic perspective and not present the gospel of grace to someone for the sake of an external unity when we didn't have a unity.

The unity that we have is external, but it is not found in the internal.

So just as when I was on the CRI program with Tim Staples many years ago,

I pointed out that if someone walked up to us, we were standing outside an abortion clinic together, and they walked up to us and said, what must

I do to be saved? We would give fundamentally different answers. And that division is not a matter of mere opinion.

It is a division that touches on much more than that. So the flip side of that was what

Peter Williams then said at the 12 .15 mark. Let's listen to that. This sort of rah rah rah,

I'm the fill -in -the -blank Catholic, Protestant, whatever, and I have nothing to learn from anyone else, and I won't engage in discussion, it's just the other person is totally outside the kingdom.

Well, that's not very helpful, that doesn't build relationship, and I don't think it's true either. And certainly as a

Catholic, I'm theologically committed to the idea that my Protestant brothers and sisters in Christ are indeed my

Protestant brothers and sisters in Christ. Separated and wrong about certain things, but nonetheless, there is a fraternal relationship there.

The other extreme, however, I think is more common, and it's known as indifferentism. It's the idea of, well, you know, we disagree on all sorts of different subjects, but none of them really matter, and ne 'er the twain shall meet, and I think anyone who has thought about these subjects seriously for more than five minutes, really, or even five seconds, can say these are really important subjects.

Either, just to take one example very quickly, the Eucharist is indeed the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, or it's not, and if it is, then all my

Protestant brothers and sisters should be with me worshipping the host in Eucharistic adoration. If it's not,

I'm an idolater. That's pretty serious. One way or the other, it's pretty important, so I think we can reject both those approaches, and say that a true ecumenism is saying, look, we disagree, the differences do matter, but the answer to that is genuine dialogue.

So, there you go. In some ways, again, I can agree with what is being said there in the sense of we cannot engage in indifferentism, but at the same time, it does seem that it's really a matter of where we're placing the emphasis as to what is a true difference and a divide between what is

Christianity and what is not Christianity, and it seems to me, wouldn't you agree, that in the past, Rome has drawn that line in a different place than they do today?

Yes, it does seem that. His point is Vatican II and the Vatican II position, but it doesn't seem to mesh very well with the historic view that, generally speaking, there's no salvation outside the

Church, and that heretics and schismatics may have once been in the Church, but aren't in the

Church anymore, and therefore are excluded from salvation. That seems to have been the traditional view, and Vatican II seems to be a significant departure from it, and also, although I agree that we shouldn't be indifferent about important theological topics, and we're not, the

Gospel is not just a theological point, it's not just a theological discussion, it's very important and very central, and when you start calling someone your brother in Christ, you're making a statement about the

Gospel, and you're, in essence, being indifferent to those differences at that level anyway.

Right, and it does cause, I think, a lot of confusion, but I just have to wonder, personally, as I was listening to this, how much of these particular issues are very much culturally relevant over there?

In other words, I've sensed a lot of pressure being placed on people like you and I to pipe down about things like this as we become more and more of a cultural minority.

In other words, the smaller and smaller our individual communities become, doesn't that emphasize the points of agreement that we have over against the points of disagreement?

And I think this is something we need to be thinking about. Almost no one wants to talk about things like this, but the reality is, what is the message that we have for the world, and where are the dividing lines?

And certainly, someone's attempting, I think, to get...

No, actually, someone's trying to get... Is that coming from me? I have no earthly...

Is that coming from me? Yes, it's coming from my... Okay. I have no earthly idea how that's working, to be perfectly honest with you.

It's still there, huh? Well, I'm going to quit Chrome, and maybe...

Yeah, I think someone's trying to call me on Chrome. I didn't even know it could do that.

That's very... Oh, someone says Google Talk. Yeah, someone on Google Talk. Okay, whoever's on Google Talk, it's your fault.

You just did that, all right? I had Gmail up to copy some stuff out from what TurtonFan sent me, and evidently, someone decided to interrupt the...

Oh, I didn't think it was your fault. I had no idea where that was coming. So we apologize. It is a live program. Anyways, what

I was trying to say before that, and maybe... I wonder if it'll tell me who that was, so I can get mad at them after the program. But anyways, what we were trying to address is, it just seems to me, this is something we're going to have to be thinking about in the future.

I think we are... I think what this dialogue gives us is an example of what's going to be more normative on this side of the pond in a very short period of time.

And maybe I sense that more because I go over there so much. I don't know. But that does...

That did strike me. We really want to get to the issue of soloscriptura. There's one other here, unless you wanted to make a further comment on that.

No, no, I think let's get to soloscriptura. Okay. There's one other thing I did want to look at here, and that was this statement by Pastor Robertson regarding the

Bishop of Rome. Where I... Why I don't join the Catholic Church are for these reasons.

The Mass, as Peter mentioned, I do actually think it is idolatrous and blasphemous.

Good. And I know lots of Catholics who don't really believe it as such. And by the way, I can sort of hear

Peter in the background. I can guess what Peter would say if they don't believe that's what it is, they're not really

Catholics. And of course, from my perspective, if you don't really believe the Gospel, it defines the Gospel. You're not really Protestant.

You know, I mean, again, it's one of those dividing line things. That would be a big issue for me.

The Pope. Not because I believe he's the Antichrist, but because I don't believe there's such a thing as a

Pope. Joseph Ratzinger's book on Jesus of Nazareth is one of the best books I've ever read. I happily give it to non -Christians.

I stock it in my church library. I think it's a superb book. But I don't believe in the infallibility of the

Pope, the Pope papal office, all that kind of stuff. I would, I welcomed, I got in trouble in Scotland for welcoming the

Pope as a Christian brother to Scotland. And I would welcome him as that. I wouldn't welcome him as my church leader or as the head of the church.

I don't believe the Queen is the head of the church. I don't believe the Pope is. Now, at that point, I have a real problem.

Again, I just think the claims made in for the

Bishop of Rome in fact, just simply for a priest, to call someone an alter

Christus, another Christ, to view them as having the kind of sacramental authority to render

Christ present upon the altar in a perpetuatory sacrifice, let alone then the exalted titles and positions of the

Bishop of Rome and the fact that here you have a man who by his authority presents a false gospel that cannot give peace.

How do you overlook those things and say, yeah, but he's a Christian brother? How do you do that? Well, it is a little bit shocking to hear that he would, first of all, that he would recommend this book to other people.

Not because the contents of that book are particularly heinous, but because it's associated with and tied into this whole system of theology which fundamentally denies the gospel and fundamentally opposes the true gospel.

So, his stance on that is quite confusing. Yeah, it did leave me just wondering a little bit at times.

By the way, Peter Williams is not listening live right now. I invited him to, but he responded on Twitter and says, ah, thanks for letting me know.

I'm just out in the evening for a pint but will catch the MP3 looking forward to it. To which

I said, a pint of what? And he said, ha ha, in my case, a pint of cider.

What you colonial chaps call hard cider. I understand. A pint equals colloquially, a drink.

So, Peter Williams is not listening right now because he's out having a drink, which I just find somewhat I told him

I was going to tell everybody that. So, it just proves that this is a live program and it is night time over there.

I'm not sure what he's doing up that late. Anyways, now we get into the arguments for the

Roman Catholic Church. At 29 .45 in Peter talks about the first argument that one needs to consider in evaluating the

Roman Catholic Church. I'll leave it to you. I'll do my best. Just go for the ones that you particularly want to.

Well, I'll start just by saying I agree with David on the first point that he made. I think for any system well, certainly for the

Christian belief system, if you like, there are what the Catholic Church calls the motives of credibility, motiva credibilitatis and I think for me one of the great motives of credibility for becoming a

Catholic in the first place was it's absolutely uncompromising consistent stance on moral and social issues.

There was no other church that I had ever seen which had kept the gospel message on ethics so consistently, including on areas where for example contraception and divorce where a lot of evangelical

Protestants not all, but certainly I think most have simply decided to abandon that long -standing teaching which even

Martin Luther, John Calvin would have really not pro -Catholic people but would have affirmed very, very strongly.

Now has Rome actually, I mean as we look at the Roman Catholic communion today and look at how it exists and look at the fact that here in the

United States in the last election 57 % of Roman Catholics voted for Barack Obama a man who has supported partial birth abortion and etc.

etc. Is that really an indicator of the one true church here? Well, and you're right that's not an indicator of that and you look at and some people say well maybe

Biden is not a true Catholic but the Archbishop of New York recently said he was he said we've got

Catholics on both sides, Biden and Ryan so I guess it's fine if someone wants to just say well we're defining

Catholics to mean people who are only convenient for our cause and not the other ones and then of course five minutes later we'll hear that not necessarily in this presentation but in general well there's a billion

Catholics so therefore we're the biggest Christian denomination and that should have some weight but that billion of course counts all the ones who contracept who divorce who have abortions who do things that are contrary to these particular moral issues and as well they like to point out

Calvin's view which I would not fully agree with but Calvin was critical of Rome's stance on marriages and particularly on their stance of forbidding marriage to people that's a moral issue relating to marriage and Rome hasn't been good on it they've taught a number of things like the idea that parents could commit their daughters to nunneries on a permanent basis now of course after Vatican II people in orders can escape that type of life but before then it was once you're in according to the church you're in, you're stuck, you can't get out of it and you know the idea that they've been consistent on moral issues when they're behind the crusades including the crusades not only against Islam but even against what they viewed as heretics in Europe the idea that they've somehow had this strong moral stance also ignores all of the wicked popes we may hear about this a little bit later but at one point he says that all the evil popes actually strengthen his view of Rome, well how does that mesh with them having an uncompromising stance on moral issues when they have there's various popes you could point to but at least one had a homosexual lover who he made a cardinal when he originally picked him up was basically a boy on the street this is not uncompromising moral uprightness and if that's really his reason for adopting

Roman Catholicism then he ought to rethink that probably change his mind

I'm not saying that this proves that Roman Catholicism is wrong, but if that's really his motive for adopting it, the fact that Rome currently only permits the calendar method of preventing children from being born, doesn't mean that they haven't compromised even that approach is not something that Calvin or many of the more ascetic

Roman theologians in the past would have approved so I don't necessarily want to spend a lot of time on that particular aspect this doesn't seem like a very it's not at all persuasive to me knowing the history of Rome and it's not very persuasive when you look at the demographics of the

Roman communion and I would include such things as Rome's use of Malleus Maleficarum the hammer against witches and the entire range of by denying the clear scriptural teaching in regards to marriage and the clear scriptural teaching in regards to the order of the church the fact that you have elders and deacons, you don't have cardinals and you don't have all the rest of this stuff and it's all added to the revelation that the spirit of God gave to the people of God in scripture the many abuses the fact that Erasmus for example was the illegitimate child of a priest and all of the things that have come about from that it's real easy to say oh we've been uncompromising on these things but if those things are not biblical things then to be uncompromising on unbiblical things is not exactly a sign of the true church by any ways but that didn't last very long and pretty soon the meaningful arguments came up and the primary argument that was presented had to do with the papacy and we certainly have heard of late

I've talked to Protestants who are becoming Roman Catholic and have swum the

Tiber River basically one has said you know what, it all comes down to whether the

Pope is the Pope or not because whether I can defend anything else he says if the Pope is the successor of Peter then he has his authority and that's it.

So the history becomes irrelevant the pornocracy, the Babylonian captivity, the anti -popes, the number of times popes were chosen by emperors rather than initially by the people of Rome whether there is any connection between the apostolic proclamation of Peter and the proclamation of the

Pope at all which to me is just so obviously the only meaningful connection that one could have today given the historical situation.

All that stuff is laid aside and if Peter is who we say

Peter is then that's it that's all we need that's the argumentations being used and it all goes back to a fairly small cadre of arguments that Peter Williams presents here

So there's a number of them if I played all of them it would be too long to go back so I'm going to stop and start and we'll address this section starting at 31 minutes and 4 seconds into the presentation

So I believe that the Pope as we call him, the Bishop of Rome, the successor of St. Peter is exactly that, the successor of St.

Peter and has inherited his prerogatives and those prerogatives given by Christ are that he is, and we'll just go into Matthew 16 18 you are

Peter and upon this rock I shall build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it I give you the keys of the kingdom what of you bound on earth shall be bound in heaven now

I need to stop right there because I need to roll this back, there was a miscitation let's listen to it again this rock

I shall build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it I give you the keys of it says

I give you the keys, that's not what it says the Greek is doso I will give its future

Peter was not given the keys in Matthew 16 18 it is a future tense and I believe they did get into a discussion of this later on in the program as to when this took place the only place in Matthew's gospel where this could be fulfilled would be in Matthew 18 but Peter is indistinguishable from the other apostles in receiving the power to bind and loose, the keys and the power to bind and loose are obviously the same thing

Rome has over the years again this is a later development, this is not a primitive early church development it only starts in Rome itself and only when

Rome is arguing with other seas as to authority but clearly, biblically there is no foundation for this division of the authority of binding and loosing from that of the keys and yet Rome has made that type of distinction and here says that Peter is receiving it and Peter even miscites it it does not say,

I give, as in right now it is doso its future, I will give that's

Matthew 18, or Matthew never records it because if you're going to say it was only given to Peter, then you're going to have to say that he either received it with the other apostles on equality in Matthew 18 18 or Matthew doesn't bother to record and nobody bothers to record this for us in any way shape or form so I need to challenge that immediately, even if you take

Peter as the rock, which I do not and many in the early church did not, it is not a position of uniformity in the early exegesis of the church, in any way shape or form it was viewed very differently by major individuals, that is not even a questionable thing, even though I've heard

Roman Catholic apologists claim, I've heard Tim Staples specifically state not recently, but when he first started

I think he's learned his lesson but I've heard him specifically state every single early church father believed that Peter was the rock of Matthew 16 and that is just simply false, on every level and easily refuted but when you only have monologues that's what can happen, did you want to comment on that?

no, no, I fully agree in fact, he's going to say when he gets to the discussion of Matthew 18 he says that it was given to the other apostles in a lesser degree first of all, that's the first time it's mentioned that it's given and second of all, where does it say lesser degree, it treats all of the apostles as the same that is historically anachronistic exegesis to the max there, but we press on I give you the keys of the kingdom whatever you bound on earth shall be bound in heaven whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven now that encompasses two elements those two prerogatives he's been given one is a prerogative of jurisdiction the other is a prerogative of teaching authority which is unique to Peter but is then given in a wider but lesser sense to the rest of the apostles later in Matthew 18, he gives them the ability to bind and loose as well now there's the exact statement and again, nothing in Matthew 18 that in any way shape or form,

I mean how do you bind and loose, you bind and loose with the use of keys this is an anachronistic insertion from later centuries it's not derived from the examination of Matthew's text at all now with regards to the first one, we know that it is a prerogative of jurisdiction because what

Jesus is quoting when he talks about the keys of the kingdom he's referring back to Isaiah 20 verses 22 to 22 and what he's citing is the case of Eliakim Eliakim is given by God the keys of the kingdom of Israel now it's funny to me that when

I first heard this argument being used by Jerry Matatix and Scott Hahn they were using this back in the late 1980s and unfortunately they were debating

Calvary Chapel pastors who had no idea what in the world they were talking about, never heard anything like this before and no one ever challenged them on it, and I remember the first time

I did challenge Jerry on this, and of course the first way I challenged him was to say, well first of all not everyone has agreed that this is just a blatant quotation did he use the term citation there?

I'm not sure if he was saying citing or quoting but at best you can say allusion to Isaiah 22 but even if that's the case wouldn't it be good to look at the actual citation of Isaiah 22 in the

New Testament because it is cited it's cited in Revelation 3 -7 it's cited by Jesus of himself this would have been after the days of Peter and Jesus makes application to himself he has the key of David not the keys and some of you may

I'm not sure if you remember Turgeon Fan, but when I debated Scott Butler and Robert St.

Genes at Boston College in 1993 I believe it was

I remember challenging St. Genes' interpretation of this text and asking him to please explain why it's singular when it speaks of the key of David and it's the key is the kingdom of heaven why is there a difference and I was saying one is messianic and that's why it's fitting for the

Messiah to have this key because he fulfills the messianic office but why does it go from key to keys and you may recall

I don't know if you remember his response was key, keys, it doesn't matter who cares if it's a singular or plural we ain't getting this stuff we're getting this tradition anyhow it was somewhat humorous and what's also humorous is that 20 -22 is part of the discussion about Eliakim and if you read on to 23 -25 still talking about Eliakim it talks about him being the nail that's fastened in the sure place will be removed and be cut down and fall and the burden that was upon it shall be cut off for the

Lord hath spoken it now that has some clear messianic application but doesn't have very much application to the

Apostle Peter no it has none but we have learned over the years in dealing with Roman Catholic quotation of Old Testament texts especially when you're looking for a fulfillment that would prophesy

Mary or a papacy or something like that that the whole story doesn't matter it's only a part that is relevant so you know when the

Queen Mother's throne is brought out this is why we have a Queen Mother in Mary the fact that what she then asks she's denied that's irrelevant that's context we don't need to worry about context because fulfillment only has to worry about a little part of it and that's just sort of how

Roman Catholicism works when it comes to handling the text and then of course the other thing I challenge our

Roman Catholic friends on this point is show me anybody in the first 700 years maybe a thousand

I don't know I've never had anyone even bother but at least for 700 years of church history who interpreted

Isaiah 22 and Matthew 16 this way you would think that that would be an easy thing maybe somebody will come up with something someday but so far

I haven't found I've never heard anyone say and this is always how the early church interpreted because as far as I know it isn't this is the interpretation in a sense goes back even before Christ to the rest of Isaiah you look at this the key of the house of David will

I lay upon his shoulder and it may spring to mind the passage about the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called that passage is much more familiar to most people because of Handel but that's another place within Isaiah that kind of provides some context and helps you recognize who this might be who

Isaiah is constantly talking about over and over again and it isn't

Peter I identified this at Boston College as the

Peter Syndrome the Peter Syndrome has two forms the Peter Syndrome in patristic form is you find any reference to Peter amongst the early church fathers has something to do with the

Bishop of Rome even if in the context it's the exact opposite and the Peter Syndrome in the eisegesis of biblical text is the insertion of patrine primacy in places that the authors never ever ever would have thought of it that is something that we're seeing but we press forward he's like the prime minister if you like the king of Israel was always the king of Israel and incidentally we talk about the head of the church being the

Pope actually we believe the head of the church as Protestants do is Jesus Christ he is our one king he is the one kingdom of the kingdom of God the new kingdom of Israel but if you like the prime minister the executive head of the kingdom of God a bit like, well

I won't use David Cameron as an example but if you can imagine and nobody over here has any idea what they're talking about but if you can imagine the prime minister of the kingdom of Israel the focal point of unity for Christians and I think this has guaranteed unity in the

Catholic church for 2 ,000 years is precisely St. Peter and his successors that keys of the kingdom he's been given, just as Eliakim was the keys of the kingdom of the kingdom of God he's the prime minister of the whole kingdom of God and that is a primacy of jurisdiction now again when we talk about this we just have to sit back and wonder why didn't any of the apostles ever make reference to this this transcendent authority why were they so intent why does

Paul when he writes the churches and he's warning about future apostasy he's warning the

Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20 he's warning Timothy in 2 Timothy there's going to be difficult times there's going to be false teachers if this was their understanding of what

Jesus had done in Matthew chapter 16 then it would be absolutely incumbent upon the

New Testament writers to be repeatedly exhorting the followers of Christ to look to the one source of authority that had been given to them that was certain and unchanging and that is

Peter and his successors in the bishop of Rome and even if you say well they wouldn't have known it was the bishop of Rome yet that's still future then look to Peter because he only has the keys certainly all the apostles then would have communicated to the apostle

Paul upon his coming in fact I would argue that Jesus himself in the calling of Paul would have let him know now

I'm calling you to an apostle but that's a lesser office than that of Peter because while you're going to be given the power of binding and loosing you're not going to be given the keys the keys belong to Peter alone there would be some indication somewhere in the text of scripture and especially in the pastoral epistles that this is the very form of the church that we're to look to and we see absolutely nothing that can even remotely be connected in that way and not only don't we see anything that can be connected that way we see the opposite in Paul asserting that he's not any less than the greatest apostles so he positively claims equality with them and they affirm him as an apostle they send him out as a missionary they don't say this is a rebel who's trying to set himself up as a false apostle there were false apostles he's not one of them he's given the right hand of fellowship by them but he's not an apostle of the apostles he's an apostle of Jesus Christ and he dogmatically states that in Galatians to make an important point but among those points he is equal to Peter and to the other pillars those who had seemed to be pillars of the church he is equal to them and he's not afraid to challenge them directly when they're wrong and then of course you can argue

I think very very successfully we have done so listen to the nearly 7 hour debate that I did with Jerry Manetix on this in Denver during the papal visit that the early church does not give us the picture that one would expect if again this was the universal faith of Christians Roman Catholicism is not the universal faith of the

Bible and it is not the universal faith of history as it records to us the activities of the early

Christians either and that's what Catholics have always confessed the other prerogative is the prerogative of teaching the reason why he uses the term binding and loosing in the first century context a rabbinical ability the ability of the rabbis was to bind and loose their followers if you had a particular rabbi that you followed he could bind you to a particular interpretation of the

Old Testament law or he could loose you if he decided to that is a teaching authority so Jesus is giving

Peter Saint Peter not only a primacy of jurisdiction but a primacy of teaching authority as well which of course is then extended to the apostles would that be the natural understanding of the use of binding and loosing in light of the newness of the gospel and the centrality of the gospel are we really supposed to find our categories for binding and loosing means within the context of Jewish rabbinical interpretation or I have always argued that in light of Jesus making reference to this as he is sending the apostles out as he is speaking of the coming of the

Holy Spirit as he is speaking of the proclamation of the gospel that the far better interpretation of these words has to do with the binding and loosing that the gospel itself proclaims and not some well just some rabbinical binding to a particular interpretation you know interpretation of this or something like that yes it certainly seems strange for them to assert that they have only the authority of rabbis if that even if that were the correct view that would be a strange view for someone who holds the papacy to adopt that the pope has only the power of a rabbi but of course we do want to interpret these words in their historical context we do want to know what the terms would have meant to those people but the context of the literature itself is much more important and when you look at the context like opening the gates of hell the gates of hell will not stand against the church well when you start well what is it that prevents people from being held in by Hades well it's the resurrection unto life and what brings that about well it's these keys you know unlocking the gates to let the people out but what are those keys and the answer is well that's the gospel the gospel message is what frees them and so that context trumps sort of some other possible meanings to terms that may or may not have existed in the first century and it's kind of getting into whether or not they're right about their view of what the rabbis taught in that time is kind of a rabbit trail because it's not not especially significant in this context as Catholics we don't believe it's just the pope on his own he doesn't just wake up one day and say right

I've decided eggs are the best thing in the world you will all believe that it's a matter of he has to redefine what is in fact true doctrine it has to be on faith and morals it can't be on anything he couldn't define for example that evolution is untrue now

I find that fascinating because certainly Rome in the past has claimed that exact authority and I think far more consistently has seen that there is divine revelation on the issue of origins that it seems like our

European friends here are afraid to even suggest is within the realm of the infallibility of the pope did that strike you as odd as well yes it did partly you remember

Galileo was charged not with being a bad science teacher he was charged with heresy that was

I understand that wasn't an official dogmatic definition that they were dealing with according to the way that those things are defined now but he was accused of heresy it wasn't just a we don't like his science we don't want him teaching in a university or something like that it was a theological issue and even the issue of creation is a theological issue it's hard to understand what this type of mindset thinks that they're saying when they say we believe in God the father almighty maker of heaven and earth if they don't think that somehow was originally understood to mean that he created the world the way he said he did in Genesis and in Exodus and in other places yeah and we'll get to the other part this idea that it's just defining theological truths that have already been revealed that's not the extent when you look at the immaculate conception look at the bodily assumption of Mary those are clear examples of definitions of dogmas that were utterly unknown to the biblical writers and utterly unknown to the primitive church and cannot be described as anything but new and novel but we'll look at that in just a few minutes if you wanted to even if you thought it was true you couldn't define that that's not a matter of competence for the church that's scientific the church has competence on faith and morals but that teaching authority is not just given to him but also to the bishops in toto bishops are all successors of the apostles and in so far as that's true when they get together in an ecumenical council they can also define infallibly what is true and what is not true but it's not them this is important to note it's not them who define what is true it's the

Holy Spirit working through them properly speaking I don't believe in papal infallibility any more than David does if by that you mean that the

Pope himself is infallible he's not, he's a fallible human being it's the Holy Spirit who is infallible and it's the

Holy Spirit who works through him so that's the confession of the Catholic church with regards to that and of course the immediate question comes how can we ever test that because no matter what we look at no matter what statement of the

Bishop of Rome we look at we are told that that's not actually a dogmatic binding issue anyways and that becomes one of the biggest problems that we have but I think that's brought out a little bit more clearly a little bit later on so unless you wanted to comment on that we'll press forward until we get a little bit clearer statement on that yes let's press forward yeah because we're running out of time do you have a few minutes after if we want to finish we can extend this we'll try to finish it up at least the things

I've got queued up here so that it's not a half -hearted effort then we went on to sola scriptura and I'll have to admit and you noted this in your notes as well

I was listening to this while rowing and I remember very clearly when

I heard this when Peter Williams you gotta give credit where credit's due it is a vast rarity a vast rarity to hear an accurate definition of sola scriptura from a

Roman Catholic apologist I cannot tell you how many times the leading Roman Catholic apologist the most popular speakers have completely misdefined the doctrine and then proceeded on to pummel the straw man that resulted from their misdefinition of the doctrine well

John tells everybody that of course that John tells everybody that the world could not contain all the books to be written so sola scriptura is not true as if that has something to do with sola scriptura so at least when we got to the definition of sola scriptura

Peter Williams got it right so a round of applause for that but that's about as far as the applause this is gonna go let's listen to what he had to say that we're supposed to listen to when it comes to well

I'll give three very good reasons for that the first is a the scripture doesn't confess that it is the sole infallible rule of faith

I think we should define what sola scriptura is sola scriptura meaning scripture alone for those who aren't Latin speakers is essentially the doctrine that scripture alone is the sole infallible rule of faith because it is sufficient for all the necessary and essential truths of the gospel

I assume that David would be happy with that definition yeah ok well if it's sufficient because that's a huge concept certainly if you read any of the systematic theological theologians that I've read

Wayne Grudem and others then that's certainly something they bring out the sufficiency of scripture is very very important well

I disagree with the sufficiency of scripture for three reasons now the definition was given but I am also glad that people are hearing need to hear this is one of the great dividing lines between what

I would say is biblical faith true Christianity and everything else everything else is going to agree with these disagreements or at least with the idea of disagreement it is whether you believe that God has spoken he has spoken with clarity he's spoken sufficiently there's all sorts of people who believe that God has spoken but then they want to redefine the means by which he has spoken to insert their own authority either it's through traditional authority it's through well he's spoken to the bible but he's also spoken to the

Koran he's spoken to the bible but he's also spoken to the Book of Mormon he's spoken to the bible but he's also spoken through the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses or he's speaking now through this particular leader or whatever else is you have to in some way have some authority that ends up determining what the bible can and cannot say from an external source that is the very nature of false religion false religion cannot just simply come to the scriptures and allow the scriptures to be the scriptures and that's why

I so strenuously object to the misrepresentation of our position by so many

Roman Catholics saying oh 30 ,000 nominations go look at the encyclopedia of religions because the very fact that so very very few of those churches that are listed as quote unquote protestant actually believe in or practice

Sola Scriptura very few of them, I mean Gnostic Christians are included in there the

Jehovah's Witnesses are included these folks do not believe in or practice Sola Scriptura in any way shape or form and so it is just grossly inappropriate to go those directions but this is the dividing line now you're going to be given three reasons now the reasons may be different for other groups but here you're going to be given three reasons why

Peter Williams does not believe in the sufficiency of scripture the first reason

I think is as I said that scripture doesn't confess it is sufficient the second reason it doesn't confess it is sufficient let's start there

I disagree wholeheartedly you have not only the example of Jesus who himself holds scripture in the highest esteem and uses it as the final the final source of authority he holds the

Sadducees accountable for what was written in the scriptures if God spoke it directly to them he holds them accountable to nothing else in that way he identifies as the very speaking of God and he identifies nothing else in that way of course

Peter says that we have a more sure word of prophecy than Peter Peter the alleged first pope's own personal words of experience on the mount of transfiguration we have a more certain word and that is the scriptures and of course

Paul's clear assertion that all scripture is theanoustos and it is

God breathed and therefore it is profitable and when you look at the argument that he's making to Timothy what he's saying to Timothy if you're going to do anything in the church if you're going to teach you're going to reprove you're going to rebuke you're going to exhort you do everything the man of God is called to do every good work the man of God is called to do in his calling as a man of God you look to that which is theanoustos now unless Peter Williams is going to tell us that the church is theanoustos and good luck proving that one then you have exactly one example of what's theanoustos and that's scripture and nothing else and so if that is sufficient for the man of God to do every good work and I'll repeat the question to Peter Williams and I'll repeat it to Patrick Madrid you show me how the scriptures equip you as the man of God thoroughly furnished is how he expresses it how does the scripture thoroughly furnish you to teach the infallibility of the pope and the immaculate conception of Mary it doesn't don't twist the scriptures out of their context to even come close to anything like that don't even try you know that's not what the early church believed that you know that's not what the original context you know that's not what the original languages mean don't even go there what that proves is that's not something that God calls the man of God to do and so the scriptures are sufficient did you want to add something to that yes yes the thoroughly furnished is something is a claim that scripture is making about itself that goes beyond just the sufficiency of scripture scripture is sufficient and more than sufficient so one example you could look at is

John 20 verses 30 and 31 it says the many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the

Christ the son of God and that believing you might have life through his name so in other words what

John the book just the gospel of John even is claiming is that these words these particular things these stories about Christ and and not not false stories truth these things are written these are inscripture rated so that you might believe that the gospel and that you might have eternal life so in other words this is the whole reason why it's written in the first place and it's not claiming that you don't you only need

John and you can ignore the rest of the Bible but it is claiming that the whole purpose behind John's gospel is so that people can read and believe and that implies that there's enough there that they can read and believe and have life and so it even that small claim which is not as big as the thoroughly furnished claim it is enough of a claim to prove the sufficiency of scripture it would even prove that just the sufficiency of the gospel of John for someone to be saved and the scriptures go far beyond just giving us what's necessary to be saved but he didn't expand upon that very much we expanded much more and I'm sure hopefully

I will get the opportunity of doing so in London and not too distant future but that was one of three here is the second argument is actually that it doesn't work it can't possibly be sufficient because it can't give us itself scripture in order to be sufficient has to give us all the necessary and essential truths of the gospel now one of the things that is necessary and essential about the gospel is therefore what is the scripture if the scriptures are truly our sole and valid rule of faith we need to know what they are that is therefore necessary and essential particularly if you believe as it also goes on in these systematic theologies in the necessity of scripture itself scripture itself is necessary because it communicates the necessary and essential truths of the gospel but if you need scripture then you need to know what the scriptures are so the scriptures if they're going to give you all that you need to know must be able to give you the information of what the scriptures are they should define themselves but when we look at the bible we don't find an inspired contents page we don't find an infallible golden index what we find is that there simply isn't any mention of what scripture is or is not in terms of defining itself now

I find it very very interesting Peter Williams has told me that he has all of my debates with Mitchell Packway in his iTunes library and so he's heard the debates we've had and I've used that terminology myself this is the golden index argument this is the argument that says you have to have a golden index you have to have some revelation you need the 28th book of the new testament that itself is revelation for you to have scripture

I also call it the canon argument but here it is and it is a staple of the presentation of Roman Catholics I'll let you take a first shot at it and then

I'll take it from there so we remember that he had given us the correct definition of sola scriptura before and there's at least two ways that we can immediately respond to this kind of argument number one this is not knowing what exactly the canon is is not one of the teachings necessary to be believed for salvation in other words you can believe that Jesus is the

Christ the son of God and have life through his name without knowing whether or not the book of Jude is one of the inspired writings so he's mistaken in applying this principle to the issue of the canon and the second of course is that sola scriptura assumes we have a scriptura and if you have the scriptura of course you then it's just a matter of writing out which titles and grouping if you want to group several books as one book or something like that that's an interest that's a way of creating the index but of course if you had a book creating an index is a trivial thing what he really means is you know coming to the books in the first place but that's sort of a that's a prerequisite in order to have the scriptura in the first place it's not something we claim to get we get from the scriptures in other words we don't claim that the scriptures tell us

Jude is one of the books of the Bible except that of course Jude itself has its own internal testimony to the fact that it's inspired and there's other reasons that persuade us to to treat it as inspired but we don't claim that the scriptures produce that kind of golden index no in fact

I ground the canon in the biblical promise that there is a reason why

God has given to us the scriptures and therefore he's going to make sure that we know what the scriptures are that does not require another revelation the canon itself is an artifact of revelation once God inspired one book then the canon came into existence in God's mind it is infallible in God's which books he did inspire which books he did not and the idea that it requires an external authority and this is the assumption that is being smuggled in that people need to recognize and respond to and be able to respond to fairly quickly and it's not easy to do in light of the fact this normally takes place during a debate where you and frequently during the cross -examination period where you might have 90 seconds and most of your audience has never actually thought of the issue of what the canon is the difference between God's knowledge of the canon and man's knowledge of the canon and development over time or any of these types of things it is it is a very easy to use argument from the

Roman Catholic side but not a truthful argument and this is what I mean the Roman Catholic is smuggling an assumption in here that actually refutes their own position that doesn't make their argument in and of itself false but if their argument is true then their position is false let me explain if you need to have an infallible authority for scripture to function as scripture then according to Roman Catholicism when was the canon of scripture dogmatically and infallibly defined and most

Roman Catholics don't know this I can guarantee you Peter Williams does and hopefully most people in this audience do but the first dogmatic definition of the canon of scripture do you know

Rich? no, ok April 1546 April of 1546 for crying out loud and even then the canon that is defined at that time it can be easily demonstrated was not a representation of apostolic authority and it was not a representation of apostolic tradition and fact that there were people only a few years earlier uh there were influential writers who had specifically disagreed with the conclusions the council of Trent came to and so the whole idea that you have to have an infallible external authority to define what the canon is would mean that the church functioned without scripture in all of the disputations that led to the definition of everything

I mean up till 1546 and then after that, the funny thing is most of the things that Rome has defined since then she didn't worry much about scripture about anyways so please don't tell me that well once we had scripture then we figured out the bodily assumption of Mary yeah right, you were forced to that by the interpretation of scripture, don't think so so it doesn't work and that's why

I asked what has been come to be known as the white question of Jerry on WEZE radio in Boston in 1993 and I asked him

Jerry how did a believing Jew know that Isaiah and 2nd

Chronicles were scripture 50 years before Christ and it got very quiet and over the years

I've finally gotten a few answers from Roman Catholics the one that is just this wonderful circle is well they knew by the infallible

Jewish magisterium the problem of course is that the infallible Jewish magisterium did not define the same canon that the council of Trent did in 1546 so now you have 2 infallible magisteriums who are in disagreement with one another so that ain't gonna work the other is they didn't know which means

Jesus could not hold anyone accountable to the scriptures which means we should have evidence that Jesus said have you not read and they go oh that scripture didn't know

I'll go home and read that and I repent that didn't happen either imagine if when

Jesus said search the scripture they said ok fine now please tell us the canon so we can figure out which ones you want us to read or can

I go to the high priest now and use the Urim and the Thummim to find out if the text you just cited actually is scripture because that was another one that was given to me was well they could have gone to the high priest used the

Urim and the Thummim and that's how they could have figured out that Isaiah and 2 Chronicles were actually scripture that kind of argumentation just leaves us chuckling as well it should but what it points out is that the presupposition that is being smuggled in the argument is an invalid presupposition it just simply does not follow from the facts and follow from the biblical evidence itself did you want to add anything to that no no just the point alright let's press forward the canon of scripture the list of those books which constitute that which is

Theonoustos, God breathed as it says in 2 Timothy 3 .16 isn't found in scripture, it's found as a tradition and that tradition if you want to say well it's scripture and tradition then well no actually scripture and tradition wouldn't work because tradition in and of itself disagrees in the early church the reason why for example in the back of your bibles you have

Hebrews, James 1 Peter 1 2 3 John revelations with the exception of 1

Peter and 1 John all of those books are what's known as the anti -legumina the books that were spoken against they were debated by the early church they weren't always accepted as God breathed as inspired by God I mean to this day we have no idea who wrote

Hebrews I mean we have very little idea, there are lots of theories but we don't know who wrote Hebrews I just stopped that for just a moment just to express my amazement because my

Muslim friends are constantly pointing out the fact we don't know who wrote Hebrews. As if that's somehow an argument against it being inspired.

I'm sorry? And the Council of Trent explicitly says that it's an epistle of Paul. That's part of their definition of the canon.

So, you know, I agree that we don't know, but Trent is wrong. It's not one of Paul's epistles, and Paul said what his sign in all his epistles is, and that sign's not there.

Doesn't mean that Paul's not involved in the composition, and that might explain why his name is there, but it's not one of his epistles.

Trent was wrong about that, and it's kind of nice to see that Williams has come over to our side on that issue of Trent.

Perhaps because he doesn't realize it. I can't see Peter Williams right now, but he's twitching. I guarantee you, as he's listening to the

MP3, he's twitching as you said that. But we rely on the fact that the Church over time recognized and defined that this was in fact

Scripture. So Scripture on its own is utterly insufficient to give us all that we need. Tradition on its own is insufficient to recognize what tradition is.

So we also need one last thing, and that is we need the Church to define for us what is authentic Scripture and authentic tradition, and that gives us the

Scriptures. So I think so. Now, there is sola ecclesia. I mean, I just love how many times my

Roman Catholic opponents will say, we don't believe in sola ecclesia, and yet they cannot help.

All you got to do is let them talk, and they will prove it. Because who defines what is authentic Scripture?

The Magisterium. Who defines what is authentic tradition? The Magisterium. So how can the Magisterium be under the authority of either one when the very definition of what

Scripture is is theirs, and its interpretation? The very definition of what tradition is, and what it means is theirs?

How could they be under the authority of these things when its meaning and existence is defined by the Magisterium?

It just doesn't make any sense. Did you want to add something to that? Yes, I mean, remember that the issues of what is

Scripture or not, the canon is one of those issues. Another issue is this little thing that people never hear about, which is called textual criticism.

And the Trent Council took a textual critical position about the text of Scripture by saying that in case you're wondering which version of those books is right, it's the version in the old

Latin Vulgate, which was a little confusing because that's not really a printed text at the time that they made that decree.

Ultimately that came to be viewed as being the Clementine Vulgate, and that includes parts of Old Testament books which weren't in the original, and it includes even some issues in the

New Testament, like the woman taken in adultery, the Comma Johannium.

Some of these passages are in the Clementine Vulgate, and if you believe that they really get to define what's in Scripture, then you should be pretty happy with the

Clementine Vulgate, but then you wonder why did they come out with a new Vulgate recently, adopting modern textual critical positions, at least on some points, not on every point.

But the fact of what is Scripture is not only about which books are there, like you just list the titles and you're done.

You have to know what the text is. We don't take the position you have to have an infallible canon of Scripture in order to know what

Scripture is, in terms of an infallible list of titles, but then what the contents are is totally unimportant.

We don't care. Of course, we care what the content is, too, and we're persuaded that the content is what it is, by various means, but we don't stop at the canon.

This micro canon is also important. The textual critical issues are important, and they're glossed over by this kind of presentation, especially when the modern

Rome seems to basically say, on a number of points, the Clementine Vulgate was wrong, and they're more willing to accept what the

Greek text was. All they do, there's no question that the hierarchy of the

Roman Catholic Church today... It's funny, Robert St. Genesis told me, and has made this claim in debates, that if the

Roman Catholic Church wanted to answer every single textual critical question, they could today. They could do it right now.

And, of course, the immediate question is, well, then why haven't they? But the reason they haven't done that is because they already did, and it was a disaster.

And, historically, we know it was a disaster. And so, the vast majority... I would be surprised if there is a single person on the papal biblical commission who actually believes that the

Pope really does possess the authority to determine the textual variant in Jude 4.

That if he says it's Kurios, then it's Kurios. If he says it's Yesus, it's Yesus. That's it. That was the original reading.

I doubt there's anybody in that group that would buy that. They would say, no, no, no, you've got to...

He doesn't have that kind of information. And even from Peter Williams' perspective,

I'm not sure how he could affirm that, because is that an apostolic tradition? Did every bishop of Rome have the original language texts memorized so that he recognized every variation they're from?

Undoubtedly not. Most of them didn't even know the original languages themselves, so it wouldn't make any sense.

But you're correct to point out that, on the one hand, they'll talk about the big stuff.

Even though, let's face it, most Roman Catholics, when they talk about deutero canon, what we call the apocryphal books, even then there's a recognition amongst those who know history that there's something about the authority of those books just not quite the same.

Go ahead. And then, you know, that's the Scripture side. He also said that the Church gets to decide what authentic tradition is.

Well, there is no canon of authentic tradition. No kidding. There are sources of Catholic dogma, and sorry, it's not given that kind of official status.

Maybe that's one way people like to look at it, but that is not an official document of the

Church, in the sense that it has any kind of approval that if it's in that sources of Catholic dogma, then it's actually authentic tradition, and if it's not, it's not authentic tradition.

And even if you take just the issue of what are the authentic tradition in terms of the papal statements that are allegedly infallible, even if you consider that Vatican I kind of gave us a formula that it's when he's talking about an issue of faith and morals, intending to bind the whole

Church, and so forth, even if you try to apply that formula to history, people are getting different results.

I've heard as low as only two statements ever are actually infallible papal statements, but there are other views and that the formula seems to apply to quite a lot of other statements by popes and bishops of Rome going back hundreds of years.

So, you know, there's not the idea that they can decide it, what it boils down to, which is what you had originally stated is

Sola Ecclesiae. In other words, it's whatever the Church says right now is right, is right.

Oh yeah, and if the Church evolves and changes in the future, then you just simply redefine the language that was used in the past to mean what you actually mean now.

I remember challenging Robert St. Janis on that very issue, because it's so plain what innocent the third really meant, and the definitions that were given in the past, and how clear they were, and how modern

Roman Catholicism doesn't hold those definitions anymore. And when you present these contradictions, his response to me was, well, who are you to interpret what the

Church says? Only the Church can interpret what the Church says. So the Church gets to interpret what the Church said in the past, and so if the

Church changes its views, then the Church just says, well, that's what we meant back then too, and you don't have any right to say otherwise.

And so it's a vicious circle, and it is Sola Ecclesiae to the max, and it's very difficult to get

Roman Catholic apologists to admit the circularity of their system at this point, and the fact that they really are saying that the

Church is the final arbiter of all things, and there really isn't any way of judging it. It's not under any other authority, and there are discussions of such things as the

Immaculate Conception, the Bodily Assumption of Mary, where it becomes rather clear that those who are involved in defining those things, those things really did know that they were going completely beyond the bounds of Scripture and tradition, and that they rooted those activities in these ideas of this living

Church and its authority and things like that. Well, just a couple more quotes here, and we'll be wrapping up.

Here's the next one. And new scriptures. No, we couldn't have that, because everything that the Catholic Church believes simply grows out of what we already have as a doctrinal basis.

It is like the acorn to the oak tree. I do not believe you get something new, and so therefore I don't think we're going to get new scriptures either.

I think the Holy Spirit has guided the Church to infallibly define what is, recognize what is, theonistos, and that theonistos, that which is

God -breathed, has already been written and done. I hate to move this, but can I just... Okay, but again, in light of, you know, you look at this claim of apostolic authority and infallibility of the

Pope, what has it provided the Roman Catholic Church since its definition? Well, since its definition, what has it provided?

Only one dogma, the bodily Assumption of Mary. How is that not new? I mean, it's one thing to say it's not new

Scripture, but that is not something that grew out of any apostolic tradition, any apostolic teaching.

It is whole cloth. How is that not new? That was something you had noted in your notes.

Did you want to add to that? Well, yes. I mean, we have the

Immaculate Conception and the Bodily Assumption of Mary as two easy examples. Immaculate Conception has somewhat of a longer history and more more support in the ascetic views of some of the

Fathers, but Bodily Assumption, you look at the first 300 years, all the scriptures themselves, of course, but then all the post -apostolic writings up until Epiphanius or somebody like that says, we don't know what the end of Mary was.

And then you find heretical works, which the bishops of Rome apparently condemned as books that Catholics shouldn't read, that are the first time we see something like the

Bodily Assumption of Mary. And eventually it becomes popular, and then eventually it becomes dogma.

But that's a new doctrine. If that's not a new doctrine, then what could be a new doctrine?

Right, yeah. How would you even define, we can't come up with anything new.

If the Bodily Assumption of Mary, historically and biblically speaking, is not something that is new, then what would be?

I suppose something about space travel and space aliens might fit in there somehow, because that's not really something that people in the past have thought much about.

But outside of that, I can't think of very much. There's one thing that I've heard them talk about is new.

It's anything they disagree with that the Reformers held. Yes, yeah. Well, that's gonna come up with this very next statement, which is a little bit hard to hear, but if you listen carefully, listen to what is said right here.

I failed to see, and I've looked at church history, I failed to see where, before the 16th century, anyone at all confessed, no, scripture alone is our sole and unfailed rule of faith.

That didn't happen. So there you have a statement that Peter Williams says he's examined church history, and no one before the 16th century.

So that includes, I guess, Jan Hus, that includes Wycliffe, and I almost feel like we may need to take up a small collection amongst the channel rats today to send

Peter Williams a copy of the Webster King three -volume set on Holy Scripture, or at least one volume of it, so that he can see that that kind of statement really flies in the face of many, many, many statements that one finds in the writings of the early church fathers.

Yes, in fact, that exact expression, sola canonica scriptura est regula fidei, is something that Thomas Aquinas said.

He used that exact expression, that the only canonical scripture is the rule of faith. Now, granted that Aquinas was not a firm adherent to sola scriptura, and he did think that the

Roman bishop could never err in something similar to what we would view as papal infallibility.

Now, you know, his positions, the way that he states them, aren't something we would say, okay, he's a reformer.

But he treated, he expressed himself that way because he's reading the fathers, and seeing that the fathers treated scripture that way.

And they don't have this view of papal infallibility, or inevitable papal infallibility, sort of, you know, providence will prevent the

Pope from ever turning the whole church, because he viewed the Pope as the head of the church. So the whole church won't fall into error.

Okay, well, we understand that Aquinas was wrong about that, and his views are in light of the fact that he viewed the

Eastern churches as all apostate, and only the Roman Church and the churches associated with it as faithful.

But he was immersed in the fathers, and heard them always, in all of their disputes, turning to scripture.

Any theological question of faith or morals, scripture was the authority that resolved those questions, at least initially, and then if, after a while, the council's decisions, which were themselves based on scripture, became some kind of an authority.

At any rate, he always tied the truth back to the, these fathers all tied their rules back to scripture, so that even,

I think we've talked about it before, but Augustine, when he was disputing with what people refer to as an

Arian, he said, we'll set aside Nicaea, we'll set aside the councils that you think are important, let's look at scripture.

Right, yeah, he did, and certainly I have often made reference to Athanasius and his regular reference to the final authority of scripture in his reputation of the

Arians, even in the defense of the council of Nicaea. It is just far removed from anything that I've read in the early church, to take the position that he did there.

One last quote, and we're going to be wrapping things up here, we've gone 23 minutes beyond what

I thought we'd do, but I'm not always surprised by that. Let's listen to one last statement here.

It simply didn't happen, and apart from anything else, Christ did not give us a Bible. He didn't give us a book by which we could then compare ourselves.

What he did is he gave us a church, he gave us apostles, he gave us their successors, and it wasn't until hundreds of years later that the church finally decides, okay, this is what we're going to recognize completely as scripture.

It makes no sense to accept self -scripture apart from anything else, and the third reason I was going to reject self -scripture, you know, it has seen such disunity.

It is no coincidence that the one church which holds, or the few churches, the Oriental Orthodox Church, the Eastern Orthodox and the

Catholic Church, all of whom accept the church as an authority, their church, as an authority of unity.

Now, here, he didn't get to his third point before, but let's first deal with this idea that the church didn't decide until hundreds of years afterwards.

So I guess, given the argument that he used before, for hundreds of years the church couldn't function, and yet it was during those very same years that you have the key

Christological disputes, which evidently would then require what? That the church was always looking to the infallible

Bishop of Rome? Historically, we know that's not the case. The Bishop of Rome was not even relevant to the

Council of Nicaea, so how does that work? And Athanasius writes this festal letter which has a list of the books of the

Bible in it, and makes no reference to this being the Bishop of Rome told him that this is what it is, and it comes before any of these councils, which

I assume Williams is referring to, the North African councils, before they came up with their decision about what's in and what's out of the canon.

Before that, Athanasius is writing to people and saying, so you know, here are the books of the

Bible. Yeah, there's so many things could be said about that, but very quickly, then the third argument is

Patrick Madrid's argument, Sola Scriptura, the blueprint for anarchy. And again, it is a comparison of apples to oranges.

Reformed Baptists, as a group, have significantly more unity than Roman Catholics do, therefore we win.

I mean, that's the easy way to do it. You say, well, that's a small group. What they're doing is not recognizing that the unity amongst people who say

Scripture plus an external tradition, plus an external authority, the unity that exists amongst those groups, is non -existent in comparison to the unity that exists amongst groups that actually seek to practice

Sola Scriptura. And that's what needs to be understood, because it all depends on what groups you're comparing.

What groups say you need to have Scripture plus an external authority? Well, Rome, and Jehovah's Witnesses, and Mormons, and they can't even agree on who

God is. Who believes in Sola Scriptura? Who actually practices

Sola Scriptura? Who even knows what it is? Basically, you could have found out last

Sunday about how many people talked about Reformation Sunday. And I know Sunday night, I preached on Sola Scriptura.

But the reality is, the vast majority of the folks on TBN don't believe in it, because they've got folks saying, thus saith the

Lord, all the time. They've got the 28th, 29th, 30th, and they're up to about the 127th book of the New Testament by now.

It is simply a matter of violating category to make that kind of an argument and mix the categories that are being mixed in that way.

Did you want to add to that? No, no, I agree. You know, there are divisions, and we're not, you know, those divisions are things we would love to see resolved into unity, but God has a purpose in it.

One of the purposes is that, you know, small, one example we saw in Scripture is when

Paul could not agree with his fellow missionary about who to take with them. Instead of having one mission strip that was sent out, two were sent out.

Paul took Silas with him instead, and we now have two mission strips.

We have many churches now, small churches, small denominations, scattered throughout the world, bearing witness to the

Gospel in ways that can't be controlled by a central authority. And they all appeal to a written text which couldn't have been controlled.

And so, in many ways, this is a kind of strength to have, and God has purpose in it which we don't always see.

It's not the eschatological fulfillment of what will be, and heaven will all be one fellowship, one body.

And right now we have many, many divisions, some of which are the result of sin, some of which are the result of language barriers.

You can't easily have communion with people who don't speak the same language as us, because we can't really have, you know, meetings with those people, because we wouldn't understand one another.

So there's those sorts of issues that spring up. But, you know, I fully agree. Well, thank you very much, sir, for joining me today.

We went a little bit longer than expected, but I suppose we probably should have guessed that that would happen. You're trying to address a wide variety of issues, and that's going to happen.

But thank you very much for being on the program today, Turret and Fan, and we look forward to your next contribution to the blog.

My pleasure. Thank you for having me. Thank you, sir. All right, thanks for listening to Dividing Line today. On Thursday, I am speaking here in Phoenix in the evening, so it's probably going to be best for me to move the

Dividing Line up at least by an hour or so. I'll let you know exactly where we'll put it, so that I've got time to get to my speaking event on Thursday evening, and we'll just let you know when there's changes in schedules.

But thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. God bless. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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