Review of Tim Staples Debate on Papal Infallibility

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Who does not need to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth? Alpha and Omega ministries presents the dividing line radio broadcast

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The Apostle Peter commanded all Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us

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Yet to give this answer with gentleness and reverence Your host is dr. James White director of Alpha and Omega ministries and an elder at the

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Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church If you'd like to talk with dr. White, you can call now by dialing 602 2 7 4 13 60.

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That's 602 2 7 4 1360 or if you're out of the Metro Phoenix dialing area, it's 1 8 8 8 5 5 0 13 60

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That's 1 triple 8 5 5 0 13 60 and now with today's topic.

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Here's James White And good afternoon. Welcome to the dividing line. My name is James White and if I sound like I'm Six seven hundred miles away maybe a little more than that.

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That's because I am calling in today San Francisco actually

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Mill Valley, California Right along the coast for those of you sweltering in the humid heat of Phoenix It is all

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I'd say about 62 degrees here with a breeze blowing in off of the ocean

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And it is Quite a break from the Phoenix weather. I can assure you of that, but I'm currently teaching a intensive summer course here as I have the past three years now at the

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Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary's main campus and We'll be here for the rest of the coming week and then

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I get a chance to come home and Getting really lonely up here looking forward to getting a chance to get back home and seeing everybody back then but it has been a very

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Very eventful week since last Saturday or actually last Thursday you may recall last

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Saturday we had a program where we provided the sermons on abortion that I delivered at the

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Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church a few weeks ago and That was because Saturday was a bit of a travel day

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Because Friday night last Friday night was the debate against Timothy Staple from the subject of papal infallibility in Fullerton, California and some of you had the opportunity of listening to a

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Sort of a warm -up, I guess you might say for those debates on the Bible Answer Man broadcast on Thursday and Friday of the week of the debate itself and then

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I want to let everybody know there is a third hour You may have heard at the end of the second hour a discussion of going on for a third hour

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A third hour was recorded. I do not yet know when it's going to air I called the

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CRI on Monday of this past week and they had not yet plotted it for a particular Time to be played in the future

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But that was the most interesting of the three hours I can assure you at one point during the third hour on the

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Bible Answer Man broadcast Hank just basically sat back and Let mr. Staples and I go at it and We were facing each other across the studio, basically

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Not even looking toward Hank any longer, but just looking at each other Sort of leaning into the microphones and going back and forth through the space about 10 to 12 minutes and that was quite the interesting experience

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So I'm hoping that that program will air fairly soon so that we can link to all three of them

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You can you didn't get a chance to hear those programs. They are available in archived format at equip .org

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www .equip .org for July 6th and 7th and Then we'll figure out when they air again and we'll be able to link to all three of those

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So that if you have access to the internet, anyway, if you can listen to those particular programs but as I said, those three hours were a warm -up for what took place

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Friday evening and I had sort of forgotten I guess time dulled these things or age does or the combination of both

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But I had somewhat forgotten how raucous the 1996 debate with mr.

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Staples had been there were certain aspects of that debate that Stuck in my mind fairly clearly

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Which had included the fact that mr. Staples likes to use a fair amount of ad hominem

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Argumentation that he likes to make the accusation that his opponents are engaging in purposeful misrepresentation out of context citations, so on and so forth and I also remembered the one that the fact that mr

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Staples had many of his students in the audience as he called them and as such would often break into a sort of a professorial mode and saying now remember guys and remember this and we need to understand this as If you were talking to a group of his students in a small setting and that they responded by Becoming more and more loud and at one point one of the students

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Yeah, yelling out the Eucharist to which everyone started plotting wildly is that that somehow proved something?

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I suppose I could go So let's go and expect everybody to jump up and down and applaud that too

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But that's not exactly what a debate is supposed to be on. Anyway, well, I Wasn't sure really what was going to happen in this debate until we had the experience at CRI and Especially in the third hour.

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Mr. Staples became shall we say rather animated and so Those who traveled with me as we talked about this particular subject

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All recognized that we were probably going to be in for a very interesting evening

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Friday evening with the debate and that's exactly what did take place.

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I Should note that on the Bible answer and broadcast we talked about a lot of subjects and that's what happens when you have those

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Wonderful little blinking lights that you press and people from all over the United States and Canada get to ask questions

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But it was very interesting many of the callers had questions about Marius Especially as we got into the second hour than in the third hour many of the callers had to do with Mary and one of the things that you won't hear as you listen to the

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Archived radio broadcast is what took place between calls

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During breaks or between the various the three hours that we did the conversation that took place then obviously very interesting and During the break between the second and third hour.

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I was sitting there. I Turned my chair around basically was looking toward the control room and as I recall was munching on an apple cinnamon power bar and drinking some water and At one point mr.

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Staples amused. I wonder why more people aren't calling about justification

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Instead they're calling about Mary and I looked at him. I said sir as you've admitted

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Rome has added Mary to the gospel. So why wouldn't we be talking about Mary and I felt it was very useful that During one of the final two hours.

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I'm not sure which of the two it was as I read the famous Marian prayer the prayer that I have

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Mentioned numerous times. I've mentioned a couple of my books now and mentioned various debates where the person prays and Commits themselves to Mary and For salvation commit their soul into Mary's hands for salvation and asks for her protection

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From their sins from the devil's and from Jesus Because Jesus is their wrathful judge as I read that prayer

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Mr. Staples made it made a huge mistake. It was a huge mistake because he just seemingly could not

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Comprehend why it is that Christian people find these words so utterly and completely offensive

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While I'm reading the prayer and this is something he did often While he was speaking I would allow him to speak while I was speaking

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He'd always want to make extraneous comments over top of me like that's a lie or no way or things like that But he was going amen amen in a rather flippant fashion as I'm reading this prayer that would make the vast majority of people just stand back and go you you've got to be kidding and Then when

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I got to the end of the prayer in a rather incredulous voice with not a small amount of mockery involved in it

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He goes what's your problem with that? And of course anyone who is

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Thinking about how an audience is going to react to what one is saying that I have to be dumbfounded that Mr.

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Staples cannot seem to understand the offensiveness of the Marian dogmas and prayers like that And it was it was truly an amazing thing.

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We're going to be posting eventually here my report on all of this and I typed up a fair amount of information in regards to some of the things that took place during The Bible internet broadcast that particular point in time.

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Oh, by the way, I'm not certain how we're going to handle this today as I sit here staring at my laptop computer and my little phone sitting next to me digitally connected to you all back there in Phoenix and via that through to the internet, but I'm going to assume we will make the attempt to take calls and Hence if I recall correctly for those of you outside the

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Phoenix dialing area Maybe you listen to the Bible answer man broadcast and you would like to make some comments

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Maybe have some questions or considering what happened. Maybe you attended the debate one triple eight five five zero thirteen sixty and I Think it's six.

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Oh two, but I'm gonna have to let rich tell you what the local number is My head I'm not recalling at the moment

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James that number is 602 274 1360 here in the metro

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Phoenix dialing area. I love that radio voice. I did just so good I you know

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Did I never ever told you you don't sound like that when when we talk with you in the office?

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Well, everybody always says I sound like you so when I get on the radio, I try to sound different Actually, I found well anyways, don't worry about that Anyways, so we will we will attempt to put some some callers on the air.

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Absolutely. Yes, and I'll be getting callers today I will kind of have to interrupt you. I'm sure you'll be you know,

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I'm getting ahead of steam going or something But yeah, I was what your sonorous tone Let me know that there's someone there who would like to speak with us and we'll go from there

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But and I want to let you know that I have a little bit of a surprise for you during the second break today

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I think you'll you'll find my Advertisement for the website very interesting.

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I see well We've we've been saying how long we've been saying boy. We need to get some new commercial

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You need to get some new commercials. Well, I decided to do a couple of things on the fly today So I've got my radio voice ready to go

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Okay. Well, that's good. That's that's excellent. I'll be I'll be listening with bated breath but anyways join us today if you have some comments after after we got to the

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Location Fullerton, and by the way, this is a perfect place for a debate. I mean aside from the fact that for Twice now both in 96 and this last time we've basically gotten the bums rush out the door

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As soon as the debate was over. I guess they just don't purchase the building long enough and We're always being rushed out at the last second

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We hardly have any time afterwards to stand around talk with anybody or do anything I mean there turn the lights out on us and I'm barely packed up after the day to go

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But aside from that it's a perfect place for a debate. The the stage is is the right size

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I don't know how many people this plumber auditorium can seat. It's very very old Made back in the early 1900s.

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It's been refurbished My understanding is 1200 is a capacity. Yes. Yeah, and and very comfortable seating to it sort of the theater style type seating and High ceilings and it's just a really really nice place to have a debate and I'm not sure if you notice the rich But this year there was something that I thought was really nice We had a

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CEO what one of these things cost but there was a very large red digital countdown timer right down front so that both debaters could

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Clearly see without having to fumble with a little stopwatch or with my little timer or whatever

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Exactly how much time they had left and it's all you had to do is look up and there it was And I kind of wished that they would have put it up on the stage and turned it around Well, I had two of them so the people in the audience could see and the and the

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Debaters can see as well. That would be an excellent way to To do it. But Anyways, it's a nice setup.

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And as we got there I walk up the stairs toward plumber for him and the folks in st

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Joseph communication are already there setting up and they had already pasted some of the flyers for the debates up on some of the announcement boards outside and They're in very prominent large letters.

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You have the phrase the topic of the debate papal Infallibility now you would think that what the topic of the debate is supposed to be would not be an issue of disagreement

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And it really wasn't an issue of disagreement. It was just something that one of the two debaters and it wasn't me

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Seemingly forgot until about an hour into the debate But if you walked in right up there are the right before everybody can see it papal infallibility and in fact st.

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Joseph was prepared to Reproduce the tapes of the debate right there and make them available and they already had the little

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Tape folders ready. They had already printed the covers and the covers say Papal infallibility

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So here's the topic of the debate. Well, that'll that'll become important as we get into it. I got set up.

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Mr Staples didn't get there until about 20 or 15 minutes before the debate was to begin and So before he arrived

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I took Jerry Usher aside Jerry Usher was the moderator Jerry Usher works with st.

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Joseph communications He is a Roman Catholic and he also is the one who started a program

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Some of you may have heard of called Catholic answers live So mr. Usher was very gracious to me, but mr.

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Usher also was not exactly in a position to control. Mr Staples because they are they work together in the same organization and That turned out to be not the wisest direction to go and something that I think in the future would have to be addressed you need to have a moderator who can control both debaters and Doesn't have a vested interest to where if he steps in it's going to cause problems at the office on Monday morning and so I took mr.

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Usher aside and Given how often mr. Staples had Demanded extra time had spoken over top of me

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There are times in the third hour, which again on the Bible answerment has not aired yet There was one time but that very clear in my memory where?

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Hank Hanegraaff Attempted to go to the next caller and mr. Staples would not stop talking and Hank is introducing the person

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Telling where they're from what station up? He's still talking He will not stop talking even as the caller starts to speak

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He simply would not control himself and so with that in mind

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I went to mr. Usher and I said look I'm a little concerned about Two things this evening.

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I'm concerned about whether Mr. Staples is going to stay within the time limits because in 1996 he did not he would frequently go past the time limit and I'm also very concerned about the cross -examination.

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I am learning that the cross -examination period is most important period in a debate and In fact,

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I haven't even told rich yet, but I spoke via electronic means with Robertson Jenna earlier this week and Mr.

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St. Jennifer and I were scheduled to debate the papacy basically the same subject that we did with Mitch Pack one in Clearwater, Florida in October prior to the apologetics cruise and I informed him of what happened.

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He informed me. He had spoken with mr Staples immediately before the debate and attempted to explain to mr.

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Staples the content of the joint statement that Robertson Jennifer and I had put together about how debate should be run and I explained to mr.

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Jennifer that mr. Staples had done a very poor job in the debate and Had not in point of fact even defended papal infallibility until after his opening statement and I said

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I asked him would you be willing? to undertake this topic in that debate in Clearwater and it is self -evident that mr.

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Staples lost this debate so badly in Fullerton and he agreed to do so and so round two comes up in October, but I think it's going to be very

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Different because though we don't yet have them Once we do have them anyone who listens to the tapes of the justification debate the mr.

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St. Denis and I did on Long Island And then compares that with the behavior of mr. Staples and Fullerton will see a huge difference between the two and So we are going to I think break the debate in October up into shorter sections

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So that we can focus upon the biblical evidence and then probably two or three examples of papal error especially on aureus have opening statements on each section have

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Short rebuttals in each section and have cross -examination on each topic so that the audience can very clearly

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Follow exactly what's being discussed at that particular time and I want to really emphasize the cross -examination

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Period because that's when I think you can really get to the truth And so I had asked st.

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Joseph's communication the week before That we have a free -flowing Cross -examination period that is do it as you would do it in a in a debate format where the person asking the questions is in control during his period of time, but The person asking the question has certain rules you ask concise questions

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Everything you say it's it's sort of like Jeopardy must be in the form of a question You do not respond to what the other person says you don't argue with them

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You're asking questions You're asking questions only on the subject of the debate and in point of fact

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You should only be asking questions on the data or information or facts that have already been introduced

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You don't use the cross -examination period as a period to introduce new data that has not been presented before Now these are simple basic rules of debate and anyone who's who's looked at a textbook taking a class

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Whatever is supposed to be aware of these things. Well, I told mr. Usher very clearly.

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I said, I don't think mr Staples can do that. I do not believe that he can ask concise questions I do not believe he can limit himself to only asking questions and I do not believe he can refrain from arguing

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Once I've given an answer instead of asking for the question So we may have to impose a time limit

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We may have to say okay You have 30 seconds to ask a question and then one minute to answer so at least

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I can get in 10 or 11 questions during my 12 minutes Or at least 10 questions, maybe a little less than that Well, he said we'll talk with him when he gets there.

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Well, mr. Staples got there We huddled up behind the curtain and I spoke

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I sat there looking directly at mr Staples and I spoke with mr. Usher and mr.

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Staples. No, those are the only people there were the three of us and I expressed my concerns and I said you two have both observed the cost examination period that Mitchell Packer and I had on the papacy

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They said yes We have and you saw how it was handled that you ask concise questions you give concise answers

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Yes, we saw how it's handled. Can we do that? And mr. Staples looked at me and promised

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That that's exactly what he would do Now anyone who was at the debate anyone who listens to the tapes will know exactly what happened

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I went ahead and agreed Because when someone looks me in the eye and says

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I promised to do X Y or Z for some stupid reason I believe them well the debate starts

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Mr. Staples gets to go first because what's the topic of the debate? Papal infallibility.

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Well at the top of the debate papal infallibility. What does the Roman Catholic person have to do? well a he has to go first because he has to define the belief and Then defend the belief

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I Can't go first because then I'd have to define a position. It isn't mine.

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So mr. Staples goes first as was necessary and He spends 30 minutes discussing

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Evidence that he sees of Peter's primacy in the Gospels He doesn't talk about papal infallibility

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He never mentioned honorius or Liberius or Zosimus or John the 22nd or 6th sister faith

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Doesn't mention any of the subjects that even in the tape series that I purchased from st

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Joseph's on papal infallibility. He spent so much time on and We had even mentioned in the

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Bible answer man broadcast the day before The issues of papal infallibility and we had said on the air this is exactly what we're going to be debating and yet for some reason

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He forgot or just chose not to go there or chose to let me open the issue of papal infallibility

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I don't know All I know is he presented Matthew 16 and Luke 22 and John 21

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Issues that I've debated against Robertson Janice and Mitchell Jerry Matta ticks all told for almost 15 hours of debates

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That we have available through the ministry between Denver and the

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Boston College and Long Island and with dr. Kristi G and so on and so forth.

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We have debated these issues over and over again But we haven't debated papal infallibility except for once and I was only a 90 -minute debate with Robert for CG in Austin So this this was going to be a little bit of a different approach

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Well, it didn't turn out to be that way and I thought they're amazed absolutely utterly amazed here the man has the opportunity of Responding to the most common examples of papal error and he doesn't do it

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So I get up and in my 30 minutes I present a Number of issues primarily the fact that papal infallibility doesn't guarantee you anything that it's an unworkable theory

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I quoted from John Henry Cardinal Newman and in regards to his opposition to the

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Definition of papal infallibility so on and so forth and then I presented three examples I spent most of my time on honorius

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Honorius the Bishop of Rome was condemned by the Sixth Ecumenical Council as a heretic and I knew what mr

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Staples excuses were going to be for honorius and so in essence I shot them all down before he even had a chance to make them

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I had assumed of course that he would have already made them So I would have been responding to them but he chose not to do that and then

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I presented the issue of dosimus and his Command of the North African churches to rehabilitate and accept back into their communion

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Pelagius and Pelaschius and how dosimus had had to do a 180 and reverse himself and then briefly as my for some reason the clock moved faster

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While I was presenting material than it did while sitting in my computer timing it Very briefly had to cut out a good bit of material that I had on Sixtus the fifth and his allegedly infallible vulgate

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So when mr. Staples gets up in his first rebuttal period The amazing statement is made that well at least

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I stuck with scripture And then he said we can see clearly what mr.

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White's tactic tonight is his tactic is to focus on papal infallibility And I couldn't help when

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I got up in my rebuttal period to say what a tactic that is Look out in the foyer and all the things that are plastered up on the wall.

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What's the topic of the debate? Papal infallibility When did it become a tactic to actually debate the subject that you've been asked to come to debate?

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It was truly an amazing amazing thing. And so here in it He has 15 minutes to attempt to now play catch -up in his rebuttal period and there's no way to do it

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I had a half an hour to present it and when you're responding to someone It takes more time to respond than it does to make the initial presentation

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So if he had been smart, he would have had a 30 -minute opening statement and then a 15 -minute rebuttal to deal with all this

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He would have had 45 minutes Instead he has 15 minutes and is trying to play catch -up the whole time and never can most people recognize

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That he didn't come close to being able to respond to the various issues that I raised

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He never even hardly touched on six different or those from us either one here You have these presentations and the

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Roman Catholic debater doesn't even really provide a response to them. It was truly an amazing thing, but The most amazing thing takes place when we get the question and answer period or I'm actually should be called the cross

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Examination period after the 15 minutes we took a break and what happened? I'm just briefly mentioned this and we'll take our break and take your phone calls.

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Hopefully if you'd like to participate today But right at the end of my 15 -minute rebuttal

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I pointed out a decree from Alexander the fourth That said that laymen are not to engage in theological debates with heretics and I gave the quotations.

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I quoted from mr Staples I made a pretty full case That mr. Staples was in point of fact going against What a

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Pope had said in engaging in that debate that evening and I said it's going to be interesting to see what mr Staples does and James I'm gonna head you off right there for the break because I don't want you to spoil my surprise at the second break either

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So we're gonna go ahead and take a break right now and we should be right back

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And welcome back to dividing line

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I'm not certain if what happened there is is meant to to tell me that I should stop my report at that point or Or do

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I get to go on there than the spirit? Well, I I don't want you to give the ending away

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That's that's the only thing I don't want you to give away ending the ending Let's just say what happened at the beginning of the after the break was over.

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Oh Did he come? Okay, so I can't talk about the fact that Mr.

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Staples decided that you don't have to ask questions. I Okay You go ahead

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You go ahead and talk about what you need to talk about and I'm gonna go ahead and do it the way I planned anyway

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Okay, well make a long story short in mr. Staples 12 minutes cross -examination

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By the way, I do want to let you know that we do have a gentleman on the line that wants to ask you question About Mary, but you go go right ahead and then let me know when you're ready for him.

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Okay? Alrighty, well, let me let me just sort of sort of finish the report that the cross -examination period was

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Let's put this way. Mr. Staples demonstrated how not to do cross -examination and that is You stand there and you preach and you whip up your followers and you ask three or four questions grand total

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But those questions really aren't relevant to all this time that you spend Trying to catch up on saying all the things you didn't get to say at the beginning of the debate

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And I would say of the 12 minutes that mr. Staples had to ask me questions.

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He spoke for nine of them Eight to nine minutes of that time was spent with him talking sometimes had nothing to do with the question

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It was all basically he'd go on for three minutes at the end to attack on a little question That was pretty much irrelevant everything he'd said before Egregiously violated what he had looked at me and said he would do it was simply

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Unbelievable, but then in my cross -examination period As I put it in the article, we're going to put on the web page.

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I think that was the longest 12 minutes of Tim Staples life Because not only did he never look at me

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But I did cross -examination the way you're supposed to do cross -examination and that is I asked questions and I asked questions on the topic of the debate and I asked direct and pointed questions not questions that Allow you to you know, lazily

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Meander along giving your opinions. They were factual questions They were questions that were frequently yes or no questions and there were questions that exposed very clearly

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The fact that the excuses that he offered for on Aureus and for his optimist Simply could not stand up to even the most basic Examination it was a very clear contrast between His breaking of the rules of debate and in fact, the first question he asked was how do

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I know? Hebrews is in the canon of scripture. He was still back in 1996 of the solo scriptura debate instead of in the year 2000 at the papal infallibility debate a

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Moderator in control of the debate would have disallowed not only the meandering comments that were being made

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But would have disallowed the the very topics of the questions that were being offered in the first place and So the cross -examination was on any meaningful basis of debate

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Mr. Staples would have lost on every count both in his inability to answer the question as well as his inability to ask

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And then we had the closing statements. Mr. Staples did his 10 -minute closing statement and as soon as he was done

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I would estimate that I'm not sure how many you think were there rich, but I've been thinking about 700 people

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Around that area pretty much filled up the bottom floor and if I can hold 1200 people Actually, we'd we should probably think more like eight or nine hundred people were there

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I'm really not certain but in any in any case if there were 700 people there

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I'd say 80 % were Roman Catholic and so you've got about five hundred and sixty of the seven hundred people

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Who are Roman Catholic and as soon as he's done, especially his supporters who have been yelling things out during the debate

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My wife informed me as she was sitting down toward the front of the Catholic City behind her we're saying

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That's heresy. That's a lie and things like that and not under their breath either

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Out in the open and I could hear it there many times during the debate. We literally had to stop Because they got so loud and we could not go on we had to wait for them to be quiet and Again, mr.

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Staples only once that way wait, wait, wait, wait, and he'd only do that while it was his time It was his time being taken up by the rocket behavior

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But as soon as he finished his his closing statement there on their feet cheering and screaming and I looked down And I saw my daughter summer and my son

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Joshua who were there Joshua sitting next to Eddie Delcourt my friend from the power team and Simon Escobedo was down there and his girls were there and and The whole

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Escobedo clan was down there and and they're still looking up at me like good grief. What's going on?

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well, then I had an opportunity to give my closing statement and When I got done the the brave hardy

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Protestants who were there Led by the children in the front row with the first ones on their feet and some of the people there

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I think we should we should acknowledge. There is a whole group of folks Chris Jenkins got a bunch of folks from a master's seminary to come over Dr.

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Gomez from Biola was there and students from Biola were there Some wonderful folks from the orthodox

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Presbyterian Church in San Diego made the two and a half hour drive up there So we had some wonderful folks there.

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We were just in the vast minority. That's all and So it's it ended as quite the experience as I said

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We were sort of given the bums rush out the door Hardly had time to even talk to people but the one thing I will mention then we'll take our call

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Rich was while I was packing up my materials on the stage and talking to people who were staying down below the stage a little

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Roman Catholic lady made her way up the stage and came up to me and shaking a little bit looked at me and said

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I think you need to Apologize you. Oh, this is I think you owe

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Jesus an apology for calling him a liar and she turned around and stopped off and How any person could think that I had done that only demonstrates the blindness of those who did not realize

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That their position had been thoroughly refuted that evening And that of all the debates we had we have done

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This debate we won with the greatest clarity I felt up to that point that the

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Mary debate with Jerry Mattafix was probably the clearest of Victory that we had had on a subject with Roman Catholics, but now it would definitely be this particular debate

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So while we go ahead and go to our phone callers rich, okay We've got bill calling from Phoenix bill.

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Are you there? Okay, if I push the button properly bill, are you there now?

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Yeah. Okay. You're talking with dr. White. Go ahead Hello Yeah, go ahead bill.

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I can hear you. Okay, if we pray the Mary to protect us from Jesus Doesn't that take away from the reason he came in the first place?

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Well, most definitely and in fact, here's Here's the specific section from that prayer that I was mentioning

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And this is what I read to mr. Staples on the air Listen, listen, come then to my help dearest mother for I recommend myself to thee in thy hands

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I place my eternal salvation into thee do I entrust my soul? Count me among thy most devoted servants take me under thy protection and is enough for me for if thou protect me dear mother

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I fear nothing not from my sins because that will contain to me the pardon of them

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Nor from the devil because thou art more powerful than all hell together nor even from Jesus my judge himself because by one prayer from thee he will be appeased and You're exactly right.

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That's the point that I was making to mr Staples is that this kind of a prayer that he agreed with so wholeheartedly

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Illustrates that in Roman Catholic piety regarding Mary you have her as the

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Queen of Mercy while Jesus is the King of Justice and People ask me why do

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Roman Catholics so focused upon Mary? What is this fascination with Mary? Well in essence when you present

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Jesus as the King of Justice So that there is to be fear of him.

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You need someone who is going to be merciful and gracious And so this is the function that Mary has she becomes the maternal figure that becomes the mediator between the sinner and Jesus so you end up with a mediator with the mediator and that's actually a direct quote

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I discussed a lot of this in my book Mary another Redeemer But that is to undercut and to deny the very

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Reason that Jesus came because he shed his blood on Calvary We are invited to boldly approach the throne of grace in his name and I have

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I have very clearly said that any person that can pray that prayer knowingly pray that prayer has never come to know

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Christ and Those are strong words, but I would back them up from from the

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New Testament scriptures themselves And so what mr. Staples didn't seemingly and doesn't seemingly understand is that those kinds of words

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Say to the Bible believer the person who reads the text of Scripture and doesn't read papal encyclicals that a the

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Roman system has so completely lost touch with divine revelation that has become a completely different kind of religion and He just didn't seem to understand that Okay, no, thank you, thank you for calling god bless

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You know James now might be a good time for me to go ahead and do that second spot And I want to set it up for you here a little bit

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Folks that James was telling a little bit of the story of the shall we say challenge that he made to mr.

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Staples regarding the the papal encyclical or Was that an encyclical

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James or there's a papal decree from Alexander the fourth that was included in the collection called the sexist

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Decrease the allium. Okay. Well, what we got here is a little spot and you can pick this tape the tape series up on Aomin .org

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Or you can call me where our new office hours are 10 a .m. To 5 p .m Monday through Friday at 602 nine seven three zero three one eight and you can pick this tape series up And here's a little segment for you from it where James is in the middle of a quote where he is quoting from Tim Staples tape series on this subject in Responding to a priest who said that to him.

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Mr Staples replied with great zeal and you can pick these tapes up in the back by the way little advertising bear quote

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You know and I almost fell over. I'm like have you read anything from the documents the church? Have you read anything?

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How about unum sanctum which was written in the 14th century? It says we are bound not by just what the

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Pope teaches about faith and morals, but juridically Whatever the Pope says you and I are bound to if he says tomorrow we are going to say mass in Swahili in the

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United States he has the authority to do that and we are bound to obey Have you ever heard this?

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I love the papacy. I love the Pope But only when he speaks ex cathedra if he's not speaking ex cathedra, then

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I don't have to obey him I can do whatever I want. That is a heresy folks.

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That is a heresy from way back and quote Now I can truly appreciate mr.

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Staples position However, it seems to place him in a difficult position Given what we read in the

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Catholic Encyclopedia of 1917 under the topic religious discussions Here is what we read quote

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It is not then surprising that the question of disputations with heretics has been made the subject of ecclesiastical legislation by a decree of Alexander the fourth

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Inserted in Sextus de Cratialum book 5 chapter 2 and still in force all

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Laymen are forbidden under threat of excommunicate Excommunication to dispute publicly or privately with heretics on the

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Catholic faith The text specifically reads we furthermore forbid any lay person to engage in dispute either

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Private or public concerning the Catholic faith whosoever shall act contrary to this decree. Let him be bound in the fetters of excommunication

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This law like all penal laws must be very narrowly construed and I'm still quoting the Catholic Encyclopedia The terms

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Catholic faith and dispute have a technical Signification the former term refers to questions purely theological like ours this evening

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The latter to disputations more or less formal and engrossing the attention of the public

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There are numerous questions somewhat connected with theology Which many laymen who have received no scientific theological training can treat more intelligently the priest

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But when there is a question of dogmatic or moral theology, and that's what we're talking about this evening

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Every intelligent layman will concede the propriety of leaving the exposition and defense of it to the clergy end quote

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Now the article goes on to lay out the limitations in Which even clergy must function and documents that this decree is fully relevant to our debate this evening as Rome had likewise forbidden even priests from Well, and he somehow brought

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Peter walking on the water and Jesus pulling him up. Do you remember that that statement? At the very end and we didn't hear your comments or your reaction at all to that I was just wondering if you got a chance to Reply No, I I don't think as I recall not now

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Maybe it just got cut off there and on the station But as I recall I was very rushed to basically say this illustrates

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What has been said for example by Ludwig Ott when he was commenting on?

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The use of Genesis 3 15 by the Pope in defining the Immaculate Conception Ott mentioned there that even though the

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Pope quotes Genesis 3 15 as being relevant The quotation of the scripture does not give you an infallible interpretation of the scripture

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The only thing that's infallible is the actual teaching that's being given not the reasoning that leads up to it

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So the reason it leads up to it, even the interpretation of Bible passages can be completely fallible in fact wrong but somehow the result of all this is infallible and I don't know that that I got much of that on but but it is

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I think a clear Indication and and something that sadly

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So many of those who are embracing the Roman Catholic faith because of attacks and full of scripture

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I don't seem to understand that you can only come up with a small handful of Scriptural passages that have been quote -unquote infallibly defined and even when you go to them like Matthew 16 18

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Mr. Staples will will go to this polyvalent understanding and say that well what you need to understand is yes the church has given an infallible interpretation, but the passage may have other meanings to Fuck you.

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You just you know, it's it's smoke and mirrors at the shell game when when Rome says to you well

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We can give you infallible certainty all these Protestant denominations mean that you have all this confusion as to what you believe

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But when you actually get into it, you discover you're not given infallible interpretations of Scripture But in point of fact in ninety nine point nine nine percent of Scripture is left up in the air and that the vast majority of your priests are totally biblically illiterate that you would be going to to allegedly get your your interpretation in the first place and So it was very telling.

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I noticed that the friend of mine that were with me Warren Smith and Eddie Delcourt who were in the studio just sort of looked at me like did

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I did we just hear what we thought we just heard and Yes, so mr. Staples made a number of statements.

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I think even many of his co Roman Catholic apologists really wish he probably hadn't made

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During the course of that program and especially the third hour and that's why I'm looking forward to when it finally

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Finally does there absolutely it just was very telling to me what your point all along So Ecclesia rather than full of Scripture because he completely

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Didn't deal with that I mean to bring in that passage of Peter walking on the water the most Irrelevant thing he could possibly do just really opened my eyes and showed me how

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Really tragic his whole line of thinking was well during the debate Once you get hold of the debate

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He in attempting to prove that Peter was somehow better or greater than the other

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Apostles pointed out that Jesus told Peter to drag the The fish in and since there were so many fish it had to have been a superhuman

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Action and as he put in the debate, we know Peter wasn't on steroids And I you know, how are you supposed to respond to that kind of argumentation?

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It's amazing. All right Thanks a lot. All right. Thanks for listening God bless we got anybody out there rich.

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No, it looks like we've cleaned the calls up So we've got a couple more minutes left in the show Do I have been here looking at the yield clock?

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So hopefully I won't won't run you run you too ragged here I'm looking at two minutes. I'm looking at two more minutes in the show more minutes.

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Well, that's when the applause starts. Anyway It was an incredible experience and I do want to thank everyone who did go over there

47:15

Yes, could be those who brought my family over for you Of course, we had to pick you up at the airport and that wasn't easy and Warren and everybody who came over It was great to have folks that I knew there but I really hope that You know

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I closed the article that were put on the website and what I was going to say before we took the call is that My wife's writing something up even summer is writing something up on her experiences that we'll be putting on the website but the the clear evidence

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That we won this debate without question is is just simply this Hesitate for a moment to give the tapes of this debate to any person who is considering the claims of Roman Catholicism But while Tim Staples might give the tapes of this debate to such a person

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I don't think any other Roman Catholic apologist would and That is the proof of the pudding.

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Shall we say that's what demonstrates that a person who? doesn't have the emotional investment recognizes what really took place in that particular debate and Therefore if you do know of anyone who is considering the claims of Roman Catholicism considering the claims of the papacy

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Giving in to a tax upon sola scriptura Get them the tapes get them this debate give it to them.

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Let them listen to it get them in touch with us This is just the tip of the iceberg there is so much information

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That demonstrates the claims of Rome are invalid It's just a matter of getting that information people's hands and that's what we're doing we're doing it as best we can and so I am very thankful to the

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Lord for that opportunity and Looking forward to the next debate. We'll be having and that will be with Robertson Dennis coming up in October in Clearwater So if you're praying for us pray for us in regards to those projects are coming up as well

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All right, we're getting close to I thought I started to hear something and I instead of it may just be static in the back

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Of my no, we're right there and we're gonna close out the dividing line today James. Hope to see you next week

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I'll be back. Okay. Bye. Bye The dividing line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega ministries

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