June 10, 2004

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 afternoon. Welcome to The Dividing Line. Good to have you along this afternoon, no matter what you think of me.

Oh, I tell you, the world has gone absolutely positively nuts. It's gone crazy. Just, I guess all

I can say is I'm still saying what I said ten years ago. At least I am. I don't just, all a bunch of folks just jumping off of bridges, theologically speaking, these days.

Last time we were together, we were discussing, well, we were playing a bunch of stuff. We were playing clips from various Sunday people.

And we started listening to some Tim Staples interesting stuff about Mary.

And we didn't get them done. We didn't get them finished. And since I had mentioned some stuff coming up later, I thought, well, let's at least finish that off.

Might be able to get that done in the first half hour and then take your calls at 877 -753 -3341 and see what you think about that.

But I believe we were somewhere in the midst of this particular call with Tim Staples on Catholic Answers Live, talking about Mary.

Remember, he's come up with a nine CD series on the subject of Mary.

And we had mentioned the fact that his statements concerning Luke's usage of Septuagint language and stuff stolen straight out of Gerrimatics.

I assume Gerri may have gotten that from someplace, too. I don't know. But I don't know where he got it first place.

I heard it. Anyway, it was the Gerrimatics. And so we had already looked at that.

And then another caller is talking about Kekaritamene, the greeting of the angel, when he said, highly favored one.

And Luke 128 really does become the cornerstone of Marian dogma in the

Roman Catholic system. The edifice of theology built upon this one verse is absolutely incredible.

And to build the kind of beliefs into one word,

I mean, there is so little foundation for these non -apostolic, non -traditional, non -biblical teachings.

They really have to pack it into whatever they can find. And so this guy calls up concerning this issue, and we start listening to this.

We'll go ahead and play the whole call so we can have a context for it. Hi there. How are you? Good. How are you?

Good. What's your question for Tim Staples? Well, Tim, I was reading, I don't have the article right in front of me, the article you wrote about Mary, Mary Sainter -Sinner,

I believe it was called. Yes. And it was kind of a fictitious dialogue between an apologist and a guy named

Homer. Yes. And you referred to the original language word that meant full of grace.

Right. And how it was, I think it was past a perfect tense. It was a perfect passive participle, yes.

Yes. And I just wanted some clarification, if you could, on specifically more what that is about.

And when Homer responded with another Bible passage that had the same tense, I didn't fully understand why

Mary's perpetual virginity, why it only applied to her and not the passage

Homer referred to. That's a great question. Thank you. There are other verses of Scripture that you'll find, you know,

St. Stephen is referred to as full of grace, but you don't find the perfect passive participle used there, keikaritomene.

And I guess the most important thing to remember here is this perfect tense in Greek has a sense of, it's a, there is a completed past action that results in a present state of being.

So in other words, the angel names are, as St. Jerome translates it, full of grace or completed in grace.

Okay. Let's stop right there for just a moment. First of all, folks, this is a greeting.

Okay. It's a greeting. It's not a name. It's a vocative.

It's in the vocative form. It is what you use when you address someone. And all the angel is saying is greetings, highly favored one.

Why is she highly favored? Because she's been chosen to be the mother of the Messiah, keikaritomene, that it's, it's evocative.

It's a greeting. It's not a renaming. It's to read this kind of stuff into a, well, it's a perfect tense.

Well, perfect tenses have meanings within contexts. And sometimes a perfect tense will emphasize the, the completed action in the past.

Sometimes it'll emphasize the continuing state. Some you can have, you can have, you can have those that emphasize various elements of those things when they're joined with other verbs and within particular context.

I mean, this kind of teaching just, I know a lot of folks sit there and go, wow, okay.

Well, that must be true. I mean, I have to trust whatever Tim Staple says, but this guy doesn't teach

Greek anywhere. I mean, you could not take this kind of thought pattern, this kind of teaching and translate the rest of New Testament in a meaningful fashion.

Couldn't do it. But, hey, this is Mary and Rome has spoken, sola ecclesia.

Now that word alone is, is very, very powerful for us. But I think that the thing that really takes the cake is when you understand that the angel is actually giving

Mary a name. When he greets her, he says, Kyrie keikaritomine, or greetings, she who has been completed in grace.

He actually names her. And that's why Mary is so shocked in verse 29. This is not a common greeting here.

Well, you could argue that Kyrie is a common greeting, but to call her, she who has been perfected in grace.

This is why Mary is, in verse 29, greatly troubled at what manner of salutation this may be.

Wow, man, I'll tell you, you know, it's hard to, what can you say?

I mean, if this is not just one of the most glaring examples of, let's take our modern theology, some of which has only been defined dogmatically 1800, 1950 years after the fact, and let's read it back into the text.

It's just, wow, ultimate anachronism right here from, from Mr.

Staples. Because see, names in Hebrew culture are very significant. Names reveal something about the character, about the ontology of the one who is named.

And so when the angel names her, she who has been perfected in grace, there's a couple of things we conclude.

Number one, that is, Mary is completed in grace, hence she has no sin.

You and I are not completed or perfected in grace, Mary is. But secondly, because this is a name, we understand that it has a permanence about it.

When Abram's name was changed to Abraham in the Old Testament, he becomes father, he goes from Abram in Hebrew, which means father, to Abraham, which means father of the multitude.

Sariah goes from Sariah, which means princess, or my princess, to Sarah, which means princess.

No longer just Abraham's princess, but now she becomes princess of the new people of God.

So the name indicates two things. She's completed in grace, hence free from sin, and this has a permanent aspect to it.

Isn't it odd that no one ever used that as a name in the New Testament?

None of the apostles ever glommed on to that. In fact, isn't it odd that there were so many early church fathers who believed that Mary had sinned and thought, indeed,

I guess they didn't see this. It's very clear, evidently, sola ecclesia.

Now, the second part of your question, many will bring up the fact that Ephesians 2, 8, and 9 uses the same perfect tense when it refers to us being saved.

For by grace, you have been saved. And they will say, well, doesn't that mean, then, the person who has been saved is saved perfectly for all time?

And the answer is no. If you look at the context of Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, Ephesians 2 is talking about the initial grace of salvation that we receive in baptism.

Okay, let's, uh, wow. If Mr. Staples had any idea what he was talking about here at all, then he would note that, in fact,

Ephesians 2, 8, the participle there is a periphrastic construction.

Now, I would love if somebody would show up at one of Mr. Staples' talks and ask him to explain the periphrastic construction and give some examples of different tense meanings resulting from the use of the finite verb and the participle and what those tense meanings were.

I would imagine the response would be one for the ages, to be perfectly honest with you.

But then what we really get is, well, actually, Paul's talking here about baptism.

I seem to have missed that in the context. Here, folks, is what happens when you have an external system determining what you see in the text.

It's called eisegesis, and Mr. Staples is practicing it to the nth degree here.

And how do we know that? Well, just read the first seven verses. St. Paul is talking about how we were dead in trespasses and sin, and then, by grace, you have been saved.

Perfect tense. Now, when we are saved in baptism, absolutely, we are perfected in grace.

My little baby boy here, Timmy Jr., is perfected in grace. He was baptized a couple of months ago.

He's four months old. He's perfected in grace. Can't find that in Ephesians 2. However, Ephesians 2 .8

.9 is not a name. There is no guarantee in that text that you're going to remain that way.

And that's the key difference between Ephesians 2 .8 .9 and Luke 1 .28.

Mary is named full of grace. That indicates permanence. Ephesians 2 .8

.9 indicates that when we are baptized, when we are incorporated into Christ, we are saved in a completed sense.

However, that doesn't guarantee we're going to stay that way. Well, not only do you have wonderful, human -centered salvation there, but you have, really,

I don't get any sense whatsoever that Mr. Staples has seriously interacted with almost any kind of refutation of that perspective.

I discussed, not Staples, but Carl Keating, who makes similar wild claims for Cacare Temene in the

Roman Catholic controversy, beginning on page 201. And I pointed out, at that point in time,

Keating had alleged that the Greek indicates a perfection of grace. And yet, that is, as I've pointed out, a simplistic and untrue summary of the situation.

And I point out a number of other places where perfect passive participles appear. For example, in Matthew 25 .34,

"...come you who are blessed by my Father." Now upon what basis could

Tim Staples argue that I would be wrong to say, well, here you've got this particular text.

Let me give it to you again. Matthew 25 .34. I'm going to bring it up here in BibleWorks 6 .0,

which you can purchase at alphanomegaminister .com. 25 .34, thank you. And so here you have eulogio being used in a perfect passive participle.

And why can I not argue that this indicates a perfection of blessing?

"...come you who have been completed in blessing by the

Father." Inherit the kingdom. It's even in the context of inheriting the kingdom.

So why can't we do that? Well, because Rome hasn't said so.

Because, see, that's what determines Tim Staples' interpretation. We have 1

Thessalonians 1 .4, "...knowing, brethren, beloved by God." There's another excellent one. "...completed

in love." 2 Thessalonians 2 .13, "...but we shall always give thanks to God for you, brethren, beloved by the

Lord." And that's in the context of eternal election. So there has been a completion in love.

And these are all names now. Why not? I mean, we weren't given any reason why we should view these as names.

It's just, well, if it's about Mary, then everything is fair when it comes to Mary.

Well, obviously, that's not the case. But that's what we have going on. And, you know, people look at that and go,

Wow, that's just, wow, I never thought of that. That's awesome. That's incredible. It's not really any of those things.

It's not awesome or incredible or any of that stuff. Ah, we continue on with another call. Yeah, I did.

I was... Oh, by the way, I have no idea. It sounds like... What is that? It sounds like a cop car started up right next to this guy.

There's some odd noise in the background here. Try to ignore them. It's not all that important. Yeah, I did. I was visiting a

Christian store. Maybe it's a heresy alert. The guy who was running the store, I noticed, had a bunch of his

Catholic books in the cult section. So I engaged him in some conversation, and one of the things he kept going back to was,

You can't pray to Mary and the saint. They're dead. And so I tried talking to him about, you know,

Moses and Elijah coming back and showing some scriptural references that way. But it is... Moses and Elijah coming back.

I don't remember Peter praying to them. I must have missed it. Is there anything in the

Bible that helps us to establish that relationship to where we can interact between the saints?

What about the book of Revelation, which is so clear in terms of the bowls of incense being filled with the prayers of the saints?

Oh, absolutely. I... Absolutely. Remember this one, folks? If you remember both the debate with Patrick Madrid, and then this also came up during the debate with Mitchell Pacwa on the subject of the priesthood.

We've gone over these in some of the debates, but keep that in mind. I would recommend several texts. Revelation chapter 6, verse 9, the scripture says the martyrs who had...

Obviously, they are martyrs, they're dead, are praying for us. They're praying for what's going on in the earth there in Revelation 6, 9.

Let's look, you know, at some of these passages. Revelation 6, 9.

When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, because of the testimony which they had maintained.

And they cried out with a loud voice saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, will you refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?

Hmm. Now, that doesn't sound like what

Mr. Staples just said. Let me replay that and see if that makes any sense. All right.

The scripture says the martyrs who had... Obviously, they are martyrs, they're dead, are praying for us.

They're praying for what's going on in the earth there in Revelation 6, 9. Really? 6, 9 doesn't say that.

And 6, 10 says they cried out in a loud voice saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, will you refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?

That doesn't sound the same thing as what Tim Staples is saying. That's why you always need to look them up.

6, 9. Uh, Revelation chapter 8, verse 5, is the verse that our host mentioned.

There we see that the 24 elders... And what are they doing?

These are human beings. They're in heaven. And the scripture says they're taking... Each one of them have golden harps, vials filled with incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

And they're taking them to God. And there's... Whoa, isn't it interesting that Mitchell Pacwa agreed with me in our debate that these elders are actually heavenly beings.

Where does he get that these are human beings? He doesn't bother to say. It's just his ipsedixit.

And all I can see is not Revelation 8, 5, Revelation 8, 3. Another angel came and stood at the altar holding a golden censer and much incense was given to him so that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar, which was before the throne.

It seems like the saints' prayers have gone to the presence of God, not to anybody else.

And the smoke of the incense, which with the prayer of the saints, went up before God out of the angel's hand. Then an angel took the censer and filled it with fire of the altar and threw it onto the earth.

And there followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake. And there's nothing here.

I guess he got the wrong reference again. That's a shame. But even

I know it does appear that there is one place where the elders have these censers.

But what does that have to do with assuming that therefore somehow these prayers went to them?

Upon what basis would you make that? I don't know. There's no reason to.

So far, we're not doing too well with the book of Revelation. For many others. Luke 20, 38, Jesus says, remember, very important.

Jesus says, referring to those who have gone before us, he says, God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

For all live unto him. And one of my favorites is Romans 8, 35 -39.

We need to understand this. What month was this?

About a week or so ago. We had a Roman Catholic in channel.

Actually, we had a couple at one time. We had one that we call martyr. And we call him martyr because that's what he wants to be.

He wants to be a martyr. He just loves eventually getting kicked out of channel for misbehaving. And that's,

I don't know. I think he gets indulgences for that or something. I don't know. And very, very emotional. Once you start pushing on any type of logical point, it just explodes.

And it's really ugly. So anyway, he was in channel. And we had an attorney in channel who remained nameless because attorneys, you know.

So the attorney, however, asked a perfect question. What's going on is the Roman Catholics are saying, well, they're not dead.

They were saying exactly what Tim Staples and the host of the program here are saying. Is that, well, all that stuff about not communicating with the dead is irrelevant here because saints are alive in God.

Well, of course, to God, aren't they all? I mean, so that means that the prohibition of speaking to the dead is only for certain of the dead.

Or was it the prohibition of speaking to the dead in reference to us on earth, not making any comment about whether they are alive in heaven?

Isn't it dead within the context of us communicating with someone who's no longer here on earth?

That seems to be the obvious meaning of the text. And so we were going around and around and our attorney friend came up with a perfect question.

He said, what specifically makes the dead that you're not supposed to talk to different from the dead that you are allowed to talk to?

He couldn't get an answer to that for nothing because it would expose the entire double standards being used.

See, they'll look at the passages and in the context of the dead, that is from our perspective here on earth, let's say, well, that's not relevant to us because yeah, we know that the saints are dead to us.

We don't have contact with them, but we can still pray to them because they're alive in God's sight.

So in other words, as long as someone's alive in God's sight, then it's okay. It's okay to talk to them.

You can no longer define what dead means, can you? And he couldn't, the guy couldn't eventually left channel because the question was just, it was just too clear.

So here you're going to hear on a national program people using this double meaning, which basically means dead doesn't have any meaning at all.

And all the prohibitions against contacting the dead are irrelevant because everybody's alive to God, right?

I mean, was Lazarus not alive to God? Couldn't God, didn't God know that Lazarus still existed down there in Hades?

And you could come up with any way around anything using this kind of reasoning, but we're going to hear it on Catholic Answers Live.

Saint Paul says, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress, beautiful passage has nothing to do with praying.

Nay, in all these things, I'm skipping a couple of verses. We are more than conquerors through him who has loved us.

I'm persuaded that neither death, nor light, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

If you can get that point across that, look, we are members of the body of Christ.

Wow, what a complete misuse of Romans. Can you believe that? Can you believe that? How far can you twist a passage?

We cannot be separated from the love of Christ. Therefore you can pray to dead people. And as such, we need one another.

I need your prayers. I need the other members of the body, just as I need my hand.

I need my feet. I need my legs. And as members of the body of Christ, we don't somehow get cut off from each other when we die.

No, in fact, if we die and go to heaven, we are more radically joined to Christ, and therefore we're more radically joined to one another.

So of course the saints in heaven, what are they going to be doing when Christ, according to Hebrews 7 verses 24 and 25, the scripture says, he ever liveth to make intercession for us.

What do you think the saints are going to do? Gee, you know, Jesus is sitting over there praying.

I wish we could pray. I guess we can't. No, they're going to be doing what Jesus is doing.

Did you hear that? Again, it's just like, wow.

You know, remember last time we played the clip where Tim Staples was talking about how he could quote half the

New Testament as a Protestant, but it was only once he became

Roman Catholic that it was a whole new world that opened up. No kidding. Yeah, a whole new world of no longer having to be concerned at all about the issue of context or original meaning or anything else.

It's just absolutely, oh, there's Jesus over there. He's praying. I wish we could do that.

Wow. One thing I never understood, being a cradle

Catholic and when I really started to study the faith, I never had a problem with that because we believe in everlasting life. If you believe in Jesus, if you believe in everlasting life, my response to some of my

Protestant friends have been if you say they're dead and you don't believe in everlasting life, because if we believe in God and we accept him, then we're going to have life everlasting.

So are you dead or are you alive in Christ Jesus? So there it is. That's what we talked about before. So, well, if they've got eternal life, then there's no such thing as death.

Context, context, context. The difference between dead to us.

They're no longer. I can't talk to President Reagan. He's gone. There's a context issue here, but it's just completely, whatever.

Absolutely. I think one of the biggest problems is they will take, you know, text of scripture from Ecclesiastes chapter nine and I haven't taken any talk about the dead, you know, not having anything to do with us.

They don't know. And they're taking Old Testament passages because, as we know, as Catholics in the

Old Testament, they didn't have, they could not have the beatific vision. That's odd. I wonder why they then use second

Maccabees about purgatory. So they did not have the illumination that the saints have now.

The only way the saints in the Old Testament could be involved with us is by a particular revelation given to them by God.

And we see examples of that in Maccabees, Jeremiah and Onias, the high priest and so forth.

But now, given the incarnation, Christ, first Peter three 19 says, went down into Sheol or, you know,

Fulake in Greek, the holding place, and he liberated those saints. Now they have the beatific vision and they are able to do more than you and I could ever imagine.

You know, have you noticed we haven't seen any New Testament examples of actually anybody praying to these folks?

All the revelation stuff fell apart and all any other passages were completely irrelevant, but that has not slowed down the steamroller train.

Don't let, those of you listening, don't let some of those texts from the Old Testament that talk about the limited abilities of Old Testament saints before the advent of Christ deter you from seeing the new covenant revelation that we have, where the saints are clearly depicted in Revelation 5 .8

as having the power to receive prayers from the earth and take them to God.

Now we have the dyslexia cleared up and we have Revelation 5 .8, when he had taken the book, the four living creatures and 24 elders fell down before the

Lamb, each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. Now, where does that say that the prayers of the saints were directed to them?

Because in Revelation 8, they're at the altar and they're directed to God. Well, again, the whole thing obviously is a wonderful example of why, despite all the times people say, oh, you're wrong about that, sola ecclesia, sola ecclesia, that is what drives this kind of interpretation.

Now the next person called up and it was very interesting what they had to say. I'd like to ask a question related to the last question.

If death is the separation of the body from the soul, as one Protestant said to me, then how do we answer that?

She said, you know, the definition of death here is separation of body and soul. So that's why you can't pray to saints. Yeah, they're alive in Christ, but they're dead on earth.

Right. Well, there's no reason to believe that because their souls are separated from their body, then they would not have cognitive abilities.

Well, yo, Tim, Tim, bro, you just fell off the bus again. He's not going to answer a question.

She asked a perfectly good question, and that is, if we define death properly, the saints are dead from our perspective, and therefore we're not to communicate with them.

Well, there's nothing about that that says they can't communicate. That wasn't her question, now was it?

In fact, our cognitive abilities reside in our souls, our intellect, and our will.

We're creating the image and likeness of God. We have a spiritual nature, and therefore that spiritual nature, which includes our intellect and our will, will live on after we die.

So there's absolutely no reason, philosophically speaking, metaphysically speaking, to say that separation from soul and body means you can't think anymore.

Wow. Talk about answering a question that nobody ever thought of asking. Absolutely not.

So when contacting the dead is prohibited, that means contacting those who are dead in Christ.

Yep. Now see, I interpreted her correctly. I suppose someone could argue that Mr.

Staples didn't, but the fact remains, she's asking, how do we respond to the biblical definition of death?

And his response had nothing to do with it at all. They're talking about witchcraft and sorcery, which and our faith also prohibits that.

Talking about asking for the intercession. Absolutely. That's a great point that you brought up.

Deuteronomy 18 .10 is that reference there, and it clearly references sorcerers and witches and so forth.

Fortune tellers. So in other words, what we've got going on here is we can't contact the bad dead, but we can contact the good dead, who aren't really dead.

The only dead dead are the bad dead, but they're not really dead because they can still communicate.

See, and yeah. Wonderful examples of what happens when the

Bible isn't your source. The Bible is not the source of Roman Catholic theology. It's this tradition that has developed over time.

One more 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341, if you would like to comment on anything we've played over the past hour and a half now of the program, because we started back on Tuesday morning with a little bit of Bill Maher and his hatred of religion.

And then we continued on with the discussion of John chapter 8. And it was interesting.

We had at least one Roman Catholic in channel who agreed with the synergistic reading of Romans, I say

Romans 8, John chapter 8, verses 40 through 47. It bopped back to John 6 for a while.

And then we've been dealing with Mr. Staples ever since that particular point in time.

If you'd like to get in touch with us, 877, it is toll free for those of you pinching pennies these days.

You can fill up your gas tank, 877 -753 -3341. I don't mind if the gas prices just go completely to the ceiling, at least

I have a motorcycle. And I figure there's going to be a lot more motorcycles on the road before long. Of course, mine's a fairly large motorcycle.

And when I was down in Brazil, I discovered that all the motorcycles down there, biggest one I ever saw was like a 175. And mine's a little bit larger than that, like about 10 times larger.

But anyway, there'll be more motorcycles on the road. And we tend to, I've never had a close call with a motorcycle when

I've been on a motorcycle, because we see each other. We look for each other. It's all you other folks who ain't looking for us that we have to dodge out of the way.

Anyway, this next call was very, very interesting. It was right toward the end of the hour. And this is the one

I hadn't come up with last time around. So it's sort of work that we did this particular dividing line.

And here, a caller is talking about Hank Hanegraaff and the Bible Answer Man broadcast, which is ironic.

And he's basically saying, can't we get somebody on there to debate Hank Hanegraaff on Roman Catholicism?

And so Tim starts talking about the five hours that he and I have been on, on Bible Answer Man.

And he makes some very interesting comments in the process. So let's go ahead and listen to this and take your phone calls.

We already have one person online at 877 -753 -3341.

Let's listen to the last clip here. I listen to Hank Hanegraaff. Yeah, you're Catholics, ex -Catholics,

Protestants, always asking the same question. Did Mary have kids? And is she a sinner? And his line is always, yes, she was a sinner.

And yes, she had kids. So my suggestion was, is there any apologist? Would he be willing, or any other apologist,

Catholic be willing to sit with him and at least give their biblical perspective and historical perspective?

Because it hits me to the core of my being when I hear him say that, especially when Catholics listen to him and say, oh, good.

Yeah, you know, he confirms this and they accept that as gospel. Oh, yeah. Well, I tell you,

I've been on his broadcast. We did five hours. I've done, back in 1996,

I did two broadcasts with him. We actually taped them both at once. And they were run two days in a row.

And then back in 2000, I was on for three hours. And it was a blast.

It was great. It was kind of a two against one deal. It was James White and Hank Hanegraaff. You had both of them?

James White? Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. It was a blast. I've got to play that one again.

I've got to check out. You can tell that the host is sort of sitting back.

She isn't up to her microphone. Check this out. You had both of them? James White? Oh, my goodness.

I've got to turn that into a WAV file for the channel. Oh, my goodness. Well, you know, you all probably, those of you who've listened might want to remember that what

Tim kept trying to do was he kept trying to make it. He kept trying to divide

Hank and I up. He kept throwing out the free will stuff. And this is in 2000. And Hank had not yet grabbed onto libertarianism with the zeal that he now has grabbed onto it with.

And so Hank wouldn't go there. And he just kept trying, trying, trying. Couldn't get there. Just couldn't get that to work.

So it was sort of funny. You had both of them? James White? Oh, my goodness. But it was a blast.

And boy, any time, if he ever gives me a call, I'll be there in a heartbeat. I think it's wonderful.

Any time anybody wants me to come on any broadcast, I am always ready to go.

I think Hank, having sat down with him just a couple of times, I think he's a good man. Not real learned theologically.

I don't think he has the background. But I appreciate him. I found him to be a likable person.

And I hope that I will be invited back sometime to be on that broadcast again. Let me tell you something.

When Tim Staples says you don't have the theological background, that is a shot. That is a shot and a half.

Let me tell you something. I've got a quote. In fact,

I'll play it in channel right now so I can read it for you. I have a quote. I copied this down when

Tim Staple, I was studying for the last debate with Tim Staples and this is from one of his tapes which

St. Joseph puts out. This is actually put out there. We had to pay money for this.

And he says in the tape series

Infallibility vs Impeccability, this is tape one, second side, quote, this is

Tim Staples speaking, we'll get there eventually. You do have some Protestants who tend toward that sort of schizophrenic understanding of the human person, you know, it's not me that sins, it's my body.

If you've ever heard of the Hyper -Calvinist movement, the room's scrolling too fast for me to read my own stuff. If you've ever heard of the

Hyper -Calvinist movement or the once saved, always saved people that will say, oh, I'm saved, my body over there just messes up, but I'm fine.

Then he laughs and says, you know, that's not biblical, folks. There's no biblical thing for that.

It's a misinterpretation of Romans chapter seven, but that's another story. Wow, I'm schizophrenic, yeah, that's not me sinning, it's my body over there.

This is this is Hyper -Calvinist, so Hyper -Calvinist believes in the perseverance of the saints.

Whoa, all right, that's okay. That gives us some idea of the background there. Tim Staples, beginning of this program, said he grew up Southern Baptist and became

Assemblies of God youth pastor. So there you go that there you go. Well, the reason why

I was suggesting that, and I mentioned this to the person who took my call, there's Hannity and Combs, and now

Hannity's conservative and he's liberal, but they both give their perspective. Right. You know, and that way the listeners, whether Catholic, non -Catholic,

Protestant or ex -Catholic, they can say, well, hmm, they could weigh, you know. Absolutely.

And you know, on our broadcast, we only are on once a week. But when we go to a daily format, which we've been hoping and hoping and praying for.

Now, listen carefully here. Listen carefully here. I would like to do more of that.

Have people from other world religions, as well as other Christian sects on so that, you know, we can kind of hear both sides.

And we have, as Catholics, the wonderful thing is we don't have anything to fear. We have the fullness of the truth.

Now, remember, this is the same Tim Staples who did so poorly in our last debate that St.

Joseph's, not only did they suppress the videotape, having agreed in writing, and we've documented this, having agreed in writing to supply any videotape that was made, not only did they suppress it and no one has it to this day, it's probably been destroyed, burned.

It got Nixoned a long time ago. But they don't even, last

I checked, they don't even sell the tapes, the audio tapes of the debate that we had in 2000.

But we've got nothing to hide. It's just, I heard that and just went, wow.

So I say, come on, come on, come on, my dad. He's talking about my mom, you know, that's right.

And so that's kind of my suggestion. Hopefully something like that can happen. But yeah, well, like I said,

I've already been on that broadcast and it went really well for our side. Of course, maybe

I'm a little bit biased there. But I think the key for us is not just on the

Hank Hanegraaff show, the Bible Answer Man, whatever, but in our lives, we have to keep the dialogue going.

There are so many, you know, just false suppositions and false ideas.

I'm, you know, reading some of these guys' books and there's so many misunderstandings about what Catholicism really teaches.

And in reverse, man, let me tell you, as long as we keep the dialogue going, we're going to continue to see thousands of converts like we are right now coming into the church.

Coming into the church. Rah, rah, rah. I was preparing these cuts a couple of nights ago and I said in channel at the time,

I said, I just figured out what Tim Staples is. Tim Staples is a cheerleader.

That's what he is. Listen to everything he said there. When we actually took the time to look up the passages and we took the time to examine the facts, they weren't there.

There's no substance to it, but he's a cheerleader. And you see the average Catholic listening, this driving down the road, average

Protestant driving down the road, not really listening. What sounds really good, doesn't it?

He sounds like he really believes this. And if I'm a Catholic, then wow, you know, there's somebody and he's a convert and wow, this is so cool.

I'm excited. And that's exactly what they want. That's exactly what they want.

877 -753 -3341. We have a couple lines left open on the dividing line today.

Let's pop back to a place of many of our phone calls for some odd reason, New Jersey and talk with Mike.

Hi, Mike. Hey, how's it going? Doing good. All right. I have a theory regarding the dead people and the not dead people and the not not dead people and so forth.

And the good dead people and the bad dead people and the good not dead live people?

Right. Okay. All right. I just want to make sure everyone was clear on that. Okay. You look at Envoy Magazine. This is the issue that they gave out during the debate.

Ah, yes. Mm hmm. Volume 73, it says on the cover. I think that had the advertisement in there that refers to me and my family as anti -Catholic bigots.

Oh, all right. Well, I'm looking at a different advertisement. This is on page 11 for Amazing Grace for the

Catholic Heart. It has 101 stories of faith, hope, inspiration and humor. In the ad, it says that you can read about, among other things, a soldier who received last rites from a priest on a

Vietnam battlefield, yet records show that the priest actually died two weeks before the soldier's death. Oh.

So there you go. If you become Catholic, you can meet the ghost. Wait a minute. You can't get proper...

There would be an example of ex -opera operato sacramentalism if a ghost can give last rites.

I don't know. I mean, that's what it says. Wow. I'm, you know, taking it at its word.

So there you go. There are dead people apparently roaming the earth if you're

Catholic waiting to give you sacraments. I mean... There you go. I wonder if anybody's been married by a dead person.

Well, I'm sort of wondering if the dead priests meet up with the three Nephites, because that would be a very interesting dialogue, don't you think?

Yeah, I heard the same, too. I was actually pondering the correlation there when I was talking to Mormons.

I was told by one person that, like a couple generations back in her family, they were converted by John and the

Nephites, and that as they walked away, there were no footprints left in the snow or something like that, and it was just like these are urban legends reinterpreted to just, you know, have

Christian people inside their emails and this kind of stuff. Absolutely stupid.

So John... No, wait a minute. But Joseph Smith taught that John and the Lost Tribes were frozen in a glacier in the north someplace.

So as the glacier melted because of global warming, and that's how he'd come down and join the three Nephites in converting the family, but not leaving any footprints in the snow?

Yeah, it didn't make any sense to me, because these guys, if they were around, they had some 1 ,500 years of failure during the

Great Apostasy, but there wasn't a single convert, and they didn't even help out with Joseph Smith. So their usefulness is sort of lost on me, except for this one family.

For people who have no idea what we're talking about, the Mormons actually do believe that three of the

Nephite apostles, basically when Jesus, instead of ascending back to his Father in Heaven, he came over here, established the church in Mesoamerica someplace, that's the

He chose 12 apostles, and basically what he did with the 12 apostles is he sort of did the magic genie -in -a -bottle type routine and gave them a wish.

And nine of the 12 wished to be faithful apostles until their death, but three of them asked to remain until he returned.

And so the Mormons actually believe that there are three guys running around this continent who are 2 ,000 years old now, or close to 2 ,000 years old, and they will tell stories like this family did.

The one I've heard the most often was some BYU group. I don't hear this much in the University of Utah, because I don't think the three

Nephites like the U of U, but the BYU guys are down in Mesoamerica someplace. They lose their tickets and their documents for coming back, and all of a sudden they're found on the bus, and their three old guys are seen sneaking off into the woods someplace.

And those are the three Nephites, and that's sort of how it works. We are the Utes, though, so if there's some correlation between the

Nephites or the Lamanites or something having some responsibility for bringing about the

Utes, maybe they're of warring tribes or whatever. You can come up with a lot there, but we're not going to let you do that today.

So thank you for your call, Mike. Okay. God bless. Talk to you later. Let's talk with Nathan in Oklahoma.

Hi, Nathan. Hello, Dr. White. How are you? All right. I had a question about compatibilism.

I know it's not what you've been talking about, but I've been trying to think about just maybe defining compatibilism, if maybe you could give me a brief definition or if this one would work.

Something like, God decrees all things, but yet men still make choices.

I mean, I know Genesis 20, Genesis 58, Exodus 4, Isaiah 10, Acts 1, and the

Chaos of Judas. Is that a good definition of compatibilism, that God decrees events, yet man also chooses to do what his nature, what he chooses to do?

Is that a proper definition of compatibilism? Fairly close. The point being that God's sovereign decree determines all events in time, and yet man freely chooses on the basis of his desires and his nature to do what he does, and is therefore held by God responsible for acting upon the desires of his heart.

The foundation is found in the fact that the Scriptures teach, without contradiction, the fact that there is an eternal decree of God, and that it extends to the most mundane elements of life, and also that God then holds men accountable for specific actions that he himself has decreed, and says that he has decreed.

And so, the two are compatible with one another, especially when you recognize the difference, for example, between primary sources, primary and secondary sources in regards to activities, and the fact that God is judging man within a different realm than the eternal decree of God, because man is a temporal creature, and he is in fact a creature, and hence the judgment of man must be on a different basis than God's eternal decree, because man does not have access to that.

So there's a discussion of this in Robert Raymond's New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, the basis upon which

God holds men accountable, and of course a libertarian, even though he can't find that phraseology in Scripture, a libertarian is taking a theological construct, and is in essence saying, alright, you can't have true love, and you can't have true culpability, unless we can somehow get rid of the sovereign decree of God.

We cannot have a decree of God, we will grant to God knowledge of the future, at least most well, even though an open theist would say they're being inconsistent, but that knowledge has to be analogous to human knowledge, it has to be passive, not active, and it cannot be based upon God actually decreeing the content of the future.

Okay, and so my question in the second one, dealing with salvation, is just that, trying to explain this to my wife and others, this doctrine of compatibilism, is, the other night

I have a book that I found in my library from, I think it's the Breen Call, or someone, that was talking about divine sovereignty, human responsibility, and obviously

I've listened to a lot of what you've had to say about Calvinism, and in fact

I now believe I'm a five -point Calvinist, because I understand limited atonement, and particular redemption, so I see the

Scriptures teaching God's sovereignty in salvation, but when I was in Bible college, they always used the example of the railroad tracks, and I don't know if it's a merit to have, but God's sovereignty, and human responsibility, well what if they used that argument, and this is where a part of my question is, if they used that argument to say, well if compatibilism is

God's decree, and yet man's making choices, and we can't put those two together, then how can you say,

Mr. Calvinist, that God is sovereign, and yet, and just totally wipe out human responsibility, in that sense, like it should be a railroad track there too,

I mean, it's a chance to be well -deserved. Again, we're not wiping out human responsibility, we're placing it in the realm in which

God himself places it, in those passages of Scripture, where he clearly says, I have decreed that this is going to happen, and then

I'm going to hold accountable for acting on the basis of their desires, those that I use to accomplish my plan.

The libertarian at that point has to jump ship from exegesis, he has to run off to middle knowledge, or some other philosophical construct that he can never derive from the text of Scripture itself.

So basically then, what the issue then would be is your understanding of human responsibility, right?

The Calvinist understands that yes, they're responsible, God holds them accountable for in their sin nature rejecting the gospel, whereas the libertarian would say, well human responsibility means that man has a part in that, that railroad track, is that?

Well, obviously I reject the railroad tracks, because if railroad tracks ever meet, the train crashes, but the point is that from the

Reformed perspective, really the two perspectives end up putting one aspect in control of the other.

And I believe it's a biblical thing to say, God's creative decree, and the nature of God as sovereign over his creation, is what must come first in defining human responsibility and human judgment.

If you go from the other direction, and make man the judge of what God does, well then you can see why completely aberrant viewpoints such as open theism end up becoming derived from libertarianism.

Libertarianism is the glue that holds the religions of men together. And it is the only true libertarianism from a biblical perspective is the libertarianism of God, not of the creature man.

Well, thank you so much. Thank you very much, Nathan. God bless. That's it.

Very quickly, I go across the pond and talk to Jason in the United Kingdom. I was with Brother John Sampson last evening, a now expatriated

British man, who's now a Yank, and so I was practicing my English accent as I spoke at his church last night on the

King James Only controversy, so it's very good of you to call today, Jason. I'm sure you're calling to extend the condolences to all us

Yanks, the death of President Reagan, yes? Oh, I certainly do. Oh, thank you very much. And you know,

I sort of liked your Prime Minister there, Thatcher. She was quite the lady. Oh, right.

I'm not sure if many people in Brimsby would agree with you there, because we're pretty much a Labour area.

Yes, oh well, but we sort of liked her over here. You have a question for me, or did

I just blow it right out of your brain? Well, it's really regarding Arminianism and Roman Catholicism, really, and how similar they are in many ways.

You mean, so, theologically? Theologically, yes, and I've really begun to see that, perhaps, you know, over the last year or so, in talking to Roman Catholics and Arminians, and listening to the arguments that they use, and how, and sometimes, you know, it's almost the same argument.

Well, very frequently, it is the exact same argument. The very same terminology, the very same passages used.

Like 1 John chapter 5, for instance, you know, to do with the sin that leads to death, and Arminian would say that, you know, that's talking about sins that, you know, that cause you to lose your salvation, and less serious sins that don't, which is just like saying, talking about venial sins, and mortal sins, without the

Catholic terminology. Well, yeah, I haven't had quite as many of the conversations, specifically in regard to the concept of loss of salvation, or serious sins destroying the grace of salvation, which is the more historic

Arminian perspective. Most of them, though, have been focused upon the concept of synergism, and the libertarianism that is absolutely necessary within the

Roman Catholic concept of sacraments, and yeah, very, very frequently. In fact, on our website, if you'll look at the dialogue with Robert St.

Genes on John 6, if you didn't know what his background was, and you filtered out any specific references to Rome, you wouldn't know.

There's one thing that did occur to me recently, regarding the Roman Catholic Mass, and how we would argue that that makes

Jesus' sacrifice into a sacrifice that doesn't perfect anyone. But could it also be said that the

Arminian position that says that you can fall from grace does the same thing to Jesus' sacrifice, because you can be saved by Christ, and then have to fall away, and then have to go back to Christ, and it almost seems as though you're not perfected at all until death, or until Christ returns.

Well, that would be the case, Jason, with any synergistic system. Any system that views the doctrine of salvation from a synergistic perspective, from an anthropocentric viewpoint, where the acts of man, the work of man, is that which determines the ultimate fruition of that particular work of salvation.

If man is the one who controls that, then in point of fact, yes, that is exactly what's going to be the result, and whether that's

Arminianism, or Catholicism, or Mormonism, or whatever else, they're all going to share that together.

You can't have a perfect savior in a synergistic system, no matter what that system might be.

You're always going to have to put limitations on his abilities. I was thinking the next time I speak to my

Arminian friend about these issues, I could point that out to him, and perhaps take him to Hebrews, where it talks about Christ perfecting all those who draw near.

Oh, yes. Well, that is obviously the focus of my chapter on the atonement in the

Potter's Freedom. That's what I have found to be the best way to get over some of the bias that people have against those truths, is to say, look, you in essence are saying that Christ is not a perfect savior, that he is a hypothetical savior.

You're sharing that kind of a concept with groups that you otherwise would not want to be associated with.

Have you ever really considered that? And many times they won't. It's perhaps less true, though, of the inconsistent

Arminian who believes in eternal security because... Well, because he's inconsistent. Well, he's inconsistent, but you can say that he still holds that once you're in Christ then you've been perfected and you can't ever revert back to an unsafe state.

But Jason, what you have to do at that point is then point out that if he actually believes that about the result, the sacrifice of Christ, the result then is he can't hold to a truly substitutionary atonement for all men, because that means all men would be perfected.

And that's where you can go with that in your conversation. Thank you for your phone call today. Thanks for everybody for listening. We'll be back again,

Lord willing, next Tuesday morning, 11 a .m. Mountain Standard Time, 2 p .m.

Eastern Daylight Time here on The Dividing Line. See you then. I believe we're standing at the crossroads

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