How Biblical and Ancient is the Papacy?

Alpha and Omega Ministries presents the Great Debate 3. How Biblical and Ancient is the

Papacy? When Roman Catholics and Protestants debate, the issue always ends up coming to the matter of authority.

Both sides hold to an ultimate authority. The Protestant believes in sola scriptura, the biblical truth that the

Bible is the sole infallible rule of faith for the Church. The Roman Catholic, however, rejects sola scriptura.

They hold to what they call a tripartite form of authority, made up of Scripture, Tradition, and Church.

Yet, in reality, Rome holds to its own version of sola scriptura, that being sola ecclesia, that is, that the

Church is the ultimate infallible authority for Rome. And Roman authority is nowhere seen more clearly than in the office of the

Pope, the Roman Papacy. The Great Debate 3 focuses upon the question, the

Papacy, how biblical and how ancient? We invite you to listen carefully to the following exchange between two scholars coming from two very different positions.

You are the judge of the debate. It was presented so that you and others like you can benefit, learn, and most importantly, decide for yourself concerning the claims of the

Roman Church. If you'd like to contact

Alpha and Omega Ministries, you may do so by writing us at P .O. Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069.

Or you can find us on the Internet at www .aomin .org, that's www .aomin

.org. And now, The Great Debate 3. Thank you all very much for your warm welcome.

The basis of the Catholic faith is in Jesus Christ. What we profess every

Sunday except Easter Sunday is our creed, which is belief in the one

God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the salvation that Jesus Christ has won for us by being

God incarnate, who died on the cross and was raised in glory, ascended to the right hand, and will come again to judge the living and the dead.

The only reason that we don't profess this faith on Easter Sunday is because we renew our baptismal vows, which most of us

Catholics took as babies, but each year we renew them because we want to make that commitment, not just a statement, but we want to say,

I do to each part of our creed. And that we want to affirm that as most important in the

Christian faith. But along with our faith in God the

Father and Jesus Christ and his saving work, and in the Holy Spirit who proceeds from them, we also profess faith in the one holy

Catholic and apostolic church. And tonight, it's not so much a debate on the work of Christ to redeem the human race, but rather some aspects of the church in particular dealing with the papacy.

To understand this, we must start off with the foundation of the church itself.

In 1 Timothy 3, verse 15, St.

Paul tells Holy Timothy that even if he has to delay, he wants him to know how necessary, how it is necessary to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living

God, the pillar and the bulwark of the truth. And then he continues in verse 16 with that marvelous proclamation of faith about Christ who appeared in the flesh, was justified in the spirit, was seen by the angels, was preached among the

Gentiles, was believed in the world, and was taken up in glory. And while the church is proclaimed here in Scripture as the pillar and the bulwark of the truth, it is that truth of Jesus Christ which we proclaim.

But we also see that the church, as is its structure, in a variety of ways, in 1

Corinthians certainly, Jesus Christ is called the foundation of the church, which

St. Paul laid and then Apollos built upon it. But in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 19, we see that therefore you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens of the saints and householders of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.

Jesus Christ is its keystone. I believe that he has in mind the western wall of the

Temple Mount, which Herod the Great had built to protect the mountain and make square it off.

And in the center of that big wall, we can't see it, it's kind of blocked off now by buildings, but if you go inside the tunnel, you can see two large 500 -ton stones, which

Herod put there so that in earthquakes they would absorb the pressure. And I often think that St.

Paul had that in mind. Jesus Christ is that keystone. He takes all the pressure of the church.

But just like that stone is on the foundation of other stones, Jesus, the keystone here, is presented in this new temple of God, this holy temple to the

Lord, as being built on the foundation of the prophets and the apostles.

And he says that you are also being built together into a dwelling place of God in the spirit, that we are built on top of that foundation of the apostles.

And we see the same thing put in more of an image in Revelation chapter 21, verses 12 -14.

That marvelous description of that new and heavenly Jerusalem for which every single one of us Christians longs.

So that the 12 foundation courses of stone have the names of the 12 apostles on them, another image of the same thing that St.

Paul says in Ephesians 2. And we also proclaim as Catholics, along with blessed

Paul, in Ephesians chapter 4, when he says that we must be eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace.

There is one body and one spirit, and you are called in one hope of your call.

You have one faith, one God, one baptism, one

God and Father of all. And that unity, all that faith of that one body of Christ, which is the church, that is all built on the foundation of the holy apostles.

And yet, while it is that our Lord has founded the church as he came to do, according to scriptures, and that he's made the church the bulwark and pillar of truth, built on these 12 apostles, not on 12 ideas, on these 12 men.

One of whom, of course, fell away but was replaced by Matthias. And as a result, this is the basis of Christian belief.

The Christian church has to be based on what these men gave us. We know nothing else of Christ except from them.

Now this does not exclude knowing, believing and teaching the fundamental truth about Jesus Christ.

He is the truth. And all truth has its reality in him. And we must proclaim those truths of the gospel.

We must call all people to have salvation in him because there is no other name by which men can be saved.

No one can come to the Father except through Jesus, as he himself says in John 14. And that we believe these apostles and we accept them as the foundations of the church because they are witnesses to all that Jesus did, from the baptism by John to the resurrection and the ascension, as Blessed Peter says in Acts chapter 1, verses 21 and 22.

And not only is their testimony confirmed in their words, but in their actions and in their blood.

They preferred death rather than change their commitment and their love of Jesus Christ, not dead and in a tomb, but raised up in glory and ascended to the right hand of the

Father. No matter where they went, they preached the same gospel, they taught the same truth, the same

Jesus Christ, and they died for his sake. And they left this testimony as we see in 2

Thessalonians 2, verse 15, in word and letter. Not only St. Paul left it in word and in letter, but so did they.

St. John himself mentions in the gospel, as he concludes it, that there are many other things that Jesus said that could not be written in the book.

And yet we know of many of these, we know everything that we needed to know because of what

Jesus gave to them. And because scripture says it, we accept the tradition, whether it be written, whether it be oral.

So that the scriptures that they have left us are in the inerrant, spirit -inspired word of God, but also so is the oral tradition by which we know those scriptures and everything else which they taught us.

Now, it is Jesus Christ himself who has chosen St. Peter to be the chief of those apostles upon whom he built his church as its foundation, with himself as the cornerstone.

And he especially designates blessed Peter as the rock, as his name itself means rock, on whom he would build the church.

In John chapter 1, verse 42, after holy

Andrew led his brother Simon Peter to Jesus, Jesus said, you,

Simon, son of John, you will be called Kephas, which is translated as Petros.

Jesus made a promise. Jesus does not lie about his promises. And he keeps that promise, that he will be called

Kephas. We see that fulfilled, not mentioned again in the gospel of John, but because we believe that every word of God is inspired by the

Holy Spirit and is therefore the inerrant truth. In Matthew 16, verses 13 to 19, we see how it is that our

Lord fulfills the promise mentioned in John 1, 42. And I love to notice this with a former

New Yorker, not a resident of New York, not a native, of course. He's a native of my own home,

Illinois. But Archbishop Sheen used to love this text in Matthew 16, verse 13.

Jesus came to the district of Caesarea Philippi. He asked his disciples, saying, who do men say the

Son of Man is? Archbishop Sheen used to say that was the democratic approach to theology.

And all their answers are wrong. Some say John the Baptist, some say

Elijah, some say Jeremiah, one of the prophets. They're always wrong. You can't do democracy to come to the truth in theology any more than you can vote on mathematics.

It's true or not. Then he said to them, sort of a committee approach, who do you say

I am? But it's Simon Peter who answers, you are the

Christ, the Son of the living God. Now, we have to stop there as this being crucial.

Because this is the faith that all Christians must proclaim, that Jesus Christ is just that.

Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the Christ. He's the Son of the living God. He's not just a man.

He is God made man. And I don't know, as a matter of fact, I suspect that Simon Peter hardly understood what he said.

But he said it and it was true. And this is still the gospel we must proclaim about Jesus Christ and nothing less.

And it is precisely this content of who Jesus is that is determinative for the church. This is where the church has its meaning because the church is the bride of Christ.

And without her groom, she's a widow or worse. We have to have

Christ as the center, the Son of God. But secondly, we notice from what

Jesus says here, a most basic truth. Where Jesus responds, blessed are you

Simon, son of John. Because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in the heavens.

We have to have the grace of faith to believe this. As blessed Paul says in 1

Corinthians chapter 12 verse 3. No one can say Jesus is Lord unless the

Holy Spirit gives it to him. We need the grace of God. We need God inspiring us to understand even to say these with faith.

So also did Peter. And this too is the basis of our Catholic faith and of the faith of all the

Christians. We need God to make it possible to give us the grace to be able to have faith.

But along with that we see that next, that it's precisely

Jesus Christ's recognition. Of the divine origin of Peter's statement of faith.

That he says this most important word for us in the point tonight. And as for me,

I say to you, this is an emphatic I say to you, you singular. That you are

Petros, you are Peter. And on this rock, this Petra, I will build my church.

That this becomes the key of our Lord's teaching about Saint Peter.

This is why we Catholics look to him and his successors as having this importance.

Not only as Peter's prominence among the apostles who are the very foundation of the church.

But even to this day. Peter and his successors, the bishops of Rome, have this tremendous authority.

Peter is called Petros. Again, as Saint John's explained, that's the translation of Kepha, rock.

Aramaic word. There's only one other person known from about 400

BC who had this name. A man who lived in Elephantine in Egypt.

It's mentioned on a marriage contract. Other than that we don't know anybody else had this name. And this 400 years later is something quite distinctive.

To be called Kepha, rock. And, of course, we know the arguments, we may hear more about it tonight.

That it says you are Petros, and on this Petra I will build my church. It's, you know, calling

Peter a Petra would have been something of a faux pas. It would be like calling somebody Rockette instead of Rocky.

New Yorkers would understand that difference. But in Aramaic, though the gospel of course is written in Greek.

Scholars, Catholic and Protestant alike, recognize that behind it is an

Aramaic forelog. An Aramaic saying of our Lord, the language of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And that it works out much better in the pun there. So that you are

Kepha, and on this Kepha I will build my church. So this is a start.

But it's not all that our Lord says. He says that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

I go frequently to Caesarea Philippi in the Holy Land. And in the cliff behind, about 500 feet long, a couple hundred feet high.

You see the city is built right against this cliff. But our Lord has this visual image of this huge cliff of rock, solid rock.

And there aren't many others around it. The rest of the hills from Mount Hermon slope down.

But there at Caesarea is this cliff. And at the base of the cliff is a spring, one of the three springs of the

Jordan. And in ancient times it was called the Sha 'arei Sha 'ol.

The gates of Hades, the gates of hell. And just as the gates of hell, the name of that spring could not prevail against that cliff.

Just as hell cannot prevail against the church. Not because we're great.

As a matter of fact, we can certainly go through the history of Catholicism. And the history of the papacy.

The history of Saint Peter himself. And see that there's anything but immaculately conceived people who hold those offices.

Sinners hold them. It's the only kind God can find anymore. They don't make the other kind. So there's sinners.

And there are lots of them. Despite that, the gates of hell will not prevail against his church.

As it continues to grow through all ages. Again, never ever is it because we're great.

It's because of Christ's promise. That's the basis. And he also goes on to say, as is known to anybody who tells any jokes about heaven.

I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Saint Peter usually is the one in the joke. And the sense of being able to have keys is a sign of authority doubling.

If you have keys, it means you can open or you can shut. But also in light of Isaiah chapter 22.

That giving keys was a sign of being prime minister in the ancient kingdom of Judah. And as a result, a similar symbol is here where Saint Peter is not the king.

He is not the invisible head of the church and the authority of the church at its root.

That's Jesus Christ. He's the king. But as prime minister, he stands in his place. And furthermore, besides having the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

He says, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in the heavens. And whatever you loose on the earth will be loosed in the heavens.

So that our Lord promises to back up his decision. And we'll get to that with some points on that in a bit.

But it's important for us to understand this at the outset biblically. We Catholics may not have chosen

Saint Peter. There's even another joke that goes around that analyzes each one of the disciples.

Thomas is not to be trusted. He doubts a lot. Peter denies and all these other things. The most promising disciple by the standards of business management would probably have been

Judas Iscariot. I'm glad that we weren't in charge. We have enough problems.

And it is this man that Jesus makes the rock upon which he builds his church.

When I hear that, I cannot help but think back on Matthew chapter 7.

Where our Lord says that anyone who listens to his words and does them is like the wise man who built his house on the rock.

And that when the rain and the storm came, it would not fall. How much more

Jesus Christ would build on a rock to make sure that his house, the church, would not fall.

Is he less clever than we? I don't think so. And for us to obey his word gives us a solid rock, which by the way is the word

Petra. Then how much more will he build on solid rock? Luke chapter 22 verses 31 to 32 shows us that our

Lord Jesus Christ prays. He is the mediator between us and God. And he prays for us.

And his task to this day is to pray perpetually, forever. As he stands at the right hand of the

Father interceding for us. But we see it here at the Last Supper. Not only in Luke's gospel, but in John 17.

A long prayer of our Savior. And in many other times our Lord has prayed. But here he prays, not for the unity of the church as he does later in the

Last Supper in John 17. But here Jesus prays that Peter's faith might not fail.

And then when he turns back, he tells Peter, strengthen your brethren.

Here we see that our Lord knows that Peter's faith might fail.

As a matter of fact, he's well aware that he'll have to repent. But he knows that when he does repent, when he does turn around, that he can command him, and it's used singular, to take care and to strengthen his brothers.

And I find it interesting, as a matter of fact, most salutary, that when he prays, it is right after our

Lord has told him that the apostles, along with blessed Peter, will sit on thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel.

The tremendous authority he's giving to them. But he also knows that they need one to serve them as a leader, to strengthen them in their faith.

Finally, John chapter 21, verses 15 to 19. Here we see that Jesus Christ, our

Lord, has called his disciples to haul in the net that was filled with 153 fish.

Not necessarily because it's a symbol of anything, but any good fisherman remembers a catch like that.

I know my biggest fish. And he has already bread and fish cooking on the fire.

And at that charcoal fire, three times he reconciles Peter, who had denied him at the charcoal fire in the house of Caiaphas.

And he reconciles the one who said, I don't know the man. I don't know the man.

I tell you I don't know the man. He reconciles that same Saint Peter. Saint Peter, do you love me?

Feed my lambs. Peter, do you love me? Shepherd my sheep.

Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep. And singles him out for this ministry of leading.

And again, just as our Lord who told us to build on solid rock our faith by listening and doing his words in Matthew 7.

Here we see Jesus Christ, who is the good shepherd, who knows his sheep and his sheep know him, saying to Peter, feed my lambs, my sheep, and shepherd them.

The good shepherd would not leave us in the hands of a hireling, but put us in the hands of another good shepherd.

Now, there are some things I want to make clear about what I am not about to defend.

I will not stand here to explain or to approve of. A, I will not support the idea that the popes are impeccable.

That is, that they are without sin. One of the great joys for me is doing a lot of reading to prepare for this debate over the last few months.

And I spend a lot of time reading church history. And there are a lot of scoundrels and sinners. All of them.

All of them. It's the only kind our Lord can find. So, we know that popes sin, beginning with Saint Peter.

And, as a matter of fact, as I once said to my deceased but very good friend, much beloved friend,

Dr. Walter Martin, even Dante put some popes in his inferno. He had them in heaven, too.

Secondly, I will not defend the idea that every papal statement is infallible. It's not. As a matter of fact,

Wilfred Ward and Louis Vuillot both wanted to have this defined.

That was what they were searching for. That's one of the reasons that the Vatican Council defined papal infallibility.

There were some people, the neo -Ultramontanists, this new

Ultramontane attitude that wanted to have everything the pope said be infallible. That's not what we believe.

That's not what we teach. And this was rejected by Vatican I. Thirdly, I will not defend the idea that the popes are oracular.

That they are inspired to give new doctrines. The Vatican Council I explicitly said that that is not what they do.

They don't have new inspirations for new revelations. Infallibility does not mean that they can define new revelations, but rather that they are there to defend what

Christ has left the apostles who are the foundation of the church. Fourthly, that since the popes are infallible, that they don't need to convene councils or synods.

I'm not going to defend that. Of course they need to convene councils and synods.

Every husband is the head of his family. But every husband who refuses to listen to his wife is a fool.

Is that not right, ladies? Of course you can be the leader, but you need to consult and learn what the problem is and what the issues are.

And this is related to another point that I will not defend, that the popes know everything.

Archbishop Sheen used to tell the story of the Jewish boy and the Catholic boy who argued, my rabbi is smarter than your priest.

No, my priest is smarter than your rabbi. And they went back and forth. Finally the Jewish kid said, okay, maybe your priest is smarter, but it's because you tell him everything.

They made a confession. Whereas we don't say that the pope knows it all.

And that's some of the problems that we'll come up with, I'm sure. In the papacy, because they don't know it all, they are not omniscient.

God is omniscient, not the pope. That is not what we teach, that is not what we believe.

I will not defend the idea that the pope knows everything. That's why he needs to have councils and synods.

And that when he does teach officially, that he likes to do it. The history shows that the popes prefer to teach with the councils.

Popes, as a matter of fact, on this point of not being omniscient, popes like all of us are born ignorant.

Popes have to study and learn, which they do more or less. And popes can be and have been deceived and lied to.

Seventh, I will not defend the idea that papal infallity precludes freedom of speech at ecumenical councils.

That's not true. Even when popes like Pope Leo the Great, Pope Leo I, Pope Leo I sent his tome to the

Council of Chalcedon. Or Pope Agathos sent his letter to the

Third Council of Constantinople. Those letters don't mean that all discussion has to stop.

Pope speak is here, that is not it at all. That conversation and discussion can take place and need to take place.

Because the bishops themselves are also successors of the apostles. The same apostles whom our

Lord said in Matthew chapter 18, that they have the authority to bind and to loose.

And that they who are the successors of those apostles who are the foundation stones of the church, those bishops also have much to say and wisdom to give.

My heartbreak over the separation of the Eastern Orthodox from the Catholics is that we miss them.

The way someone who's had surgery would miss a left lung. I hate to see that they're not with us.

Because we have so much wisdom to learn with them and of course share with them. Finally I will not defend the idea that the

Pope's infallibility is personal, in the sense that it refers to his personal private opinions.

That's not what infallibility means. It has nothing to do with the Pope's private thoughts or ideas.

It is not anything to do about his knowledge on topics or subjects not related to faith and morals.

And it's not something that he might write to a friend or say to an individual in conversation. Those are not part of infallibility.

So those are things I will not defend because that's not what Catholics believe. What I will defend is two things.

First of all, the primacy of the papacy. This I will defend.

That this means that the Roman Pontiff is a successor of St. Peter. Who ministered and was martyred in Rome.

And that his sea has its successors. We don't see the New Testament tell us about who succeeded

St. Peter. As a matter of fact, you don't see any event in the

New Testament as far as I know, past the mid -60s. The last thing to be written

I know would be St. John, but he only talks up to the resurrection of our

Lord. And we don't see Acts of the Apostles going past 62.

St. Peter didn't die until maybe 65 or 67 even. So it just doesn't record it.

But we do see that St. Paul establishes people like Timothy to continue the ministry of Bishop.

And that other seas are given bishops by St. Paul in Acts of the Apostles. And he gives instructions on establishing bishops and priests and deacons.

And presbyter is of course the Greek word that is the basis of our English word priest through the

German word priester. And so that these ministries are continued. And there's no reason to expect that the ministry and the primacy of St.

Peter would stop with him. Because the gates of hell have not stopped trying to attack the church of Christ.

And as long as the gates of hell oppose his church and oppose his truth,

Christ will not let them prevail. And that that ministry of Peter will continue and will do so in his successors, the bishops of Rome.

So of course the New Testament doesn't describe it. They stopped writing before he passed on. And then

Linus became the next bishop. But we do see that in the histories of the church, like Eusebius or in Irenaeus of Lyon, that the succession of the sea of Peter is described as part of the tradition of the church.

And that his power of jurisdiction is truly episcopal. It is immediate. It's over all of the other rites,

R -I -T -E -S. In the Catholic Church, we're not all Roman Catholic, in the sense of being

Latin Catholic. We also have Greek Catholics, Byzantine Catholics, and Chaldean Catholics, and Melkite Rite, and Maronite Rite.

I'm privileged to be able to celebrate Holy Mass with the Maronites because I know some Arabic. And so there are many other rites, but he has authority over all the rites of the

Eastern churches and Western. And he has immediate power over all the pastors, the faithful, both individually and collectively.

And so this is a key part of his ministry. But I also will defend his infallibility.

A, because Jesus Christ has promised to the church, the Holy Spirit, the

Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth, that he will be beside and inside the members of the church according to John 14, verses 16 and 17.

The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, whom the Father will give in the name of Jesus, will teach you all things, remind you of all things that Jesus said in John 14, 25 and 26.

That the Paraclete whom Jesus will send from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, is given to the disciples to be able to be witnesses.

And he gives that same Holy Spirit in a special way because of the special promise to Peter, so that he can strengthen his brethren, so he can have the keys of the kingdom of heaven, so that he can bind and he can loose.

And by infallibility, we have to keep in mind specifically what we

Catholics mean. First, on the basis not of his great personal characteristics or because the choice of the church, but because Jesus Christ singled him out in recognizing that the

Father gave the revelation to Peter. Jesus chose Peter for these gifts, to have the keys, the binding and loosing, and to be the rock.

Secondly, that this gift of infallibility is only in operation when he speaks ex cathedra, which means when he speaks in the discharge of his office of pastor and doctor of all

Christians, by virtue of his apostolic authority. Then, he must teach it to the whole church, not to an individual, not to a part of the church, but it's only infallible when he teaches it to the whole church.

Then, he has to be defining a doctrine of faith and morals and nothing else to be held by the universal church.

And that it is God's divine assistance by the Holy Spirit that makes this gift possible and effective in our church.

For this, I give great thanks to God. Applause Please turn your tape to side two.

It is truly a pleasure to be with you this evening. I must admit it seems somewhat unfair, however,

I must apologize to Father Pacwa. I was looking out the window there and someone, I don't know who would have done this,

Father Pacwa, planted thousands of tulips right outside the window. It really seems very unfair and the non -reformed amongst you are going, what is he talking about?

I am very honored to have the opportunity of engaging in this debate this evening. Father Pacwa and I debated twice in January of 1991 on the mass non -justification in San Diego.

I've done many debates since then, but in all of those times, I must admit that of all those debates, the ones

I enjoyed the most, the ones I feel where the audience was most blessed because of the clarity of the presentations were the two that I did with Mitch Pacwa.

We are not up here this evening for a fashion show or a talent show, though I bet you he actually likes my tie and wishes he could wear one.

Laughter We're not here to impress you with our oratory skills.

In fact, I have mentioned as I've been speaking around Long Island for the past week, I truly hope that it is not

Mitch Pacwa and James White that you hear this evening, but that you hear the issues, and when you leave this room, you'll have the most information upon which to understand this extremely important topic.

I'm going to try to focus our attention this evening. There's a great danger of information overload on this topic.

There is a great danger of confusion. There are two areas in our debate. Is the papacy biblical?

That is, does the Bible lead us to believe that the Lord Jesus established a papacy by making

Peter the head of the apostles, giving to him alone the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and establishing in him an office replete with successors in the bishops of Rome?

And the second area is, is it ancient? That is, when we examine the history of the ancient church, do we find that what modern

Rome claims has always been the case? That the pope in Rome is the vicar of Christ, the head of the universal church.

Now, Father Pacwa has mentioned the issue of infallibility. That was never mentioned to me. I consider that a separate issue.

I'd be glad to debate that sometime. But I think you first have to debate whether the papacy actually exists before you can debate whether it's infallible or not.

And so I'm not going to be focusing on issues of infallibility, or on Aureus, or Liberius, or any of that stuff.

I'm going to be focusing upon these two areas. Is the papacy biblical, and is it ancient?

Now, first we need to focus upon Rome's claims for herself. Rome's claims for herself.

Listen to the words of the great Vatican council from 1870. We therefore, for the preservation, safekeeping, and increase of the

Catholic flock, with the approval of the sacred council, do judge it to be necessary to propose to the belief and acceptance of all the faithful, in accordance with the ancient and constant faith of the universal church, the doctrine touching the institution, perpetuity, and nature of the sacred apostolic primacy.

Please note that the council claims that the teaching that it presents is in full accord with the ancient and constant faith of the universal church.

I continue. We therefore teach and declare that, according to the testimony of the gospel, the primacy of jurisdiction over the universal church of God was immediately and directly promised and given to the blessed

Peter the apostle by Christ the Lord. For it was to Simon alone, to whom he had already said,

Thou shalt be called Cephas, that the Lord, after the confession made by him saying, Thou art the Christ, the

Son of the living God, addressed these solemn words. Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood have not revealed it to thee, but my

Father who is in heaven. And I say to thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever thou shalt bind on earth, it shall be bound also in heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.

It was upon Simon alone that Jesus, after his resurrection, bestowed the jurisdiction of chief pastor and ruler over all his fold in these words,

Feed my lambs, feed my sheep. At open variance, please listen to this, at open variance with this clear doctrine of Holy Scripture as it has been ever understood by the

Catholic Church are the perverse opinions of those who while they distort the form of government established by Christ the

Lord in his church deny that Peter in his single person preferably to all the other apostles whether taken separately or together was endowed by Christ with a true and proper primacy of jurisdiction or of those who assert that the same primacy was not bestowed immediately and directly upon Blessed Peter himself but upon the church and through the church on Peter as her minister.

If anyone, therefore, shall say that Blessed Peter the apostle was not appointed the prince of all the apostles and the visible head of the whole church militant or that the same directly and immediately received from the same our

Lord Jesus Christ a primacy of honor only and not of true and proper jurisdiction let him be anathema, accursed.

This position remains valid to this day. The Second Vatican Council borrowed directly from the language of the first in saying in order that the episcopate itself might be one and undivided he placed

Blessed Peter over the other apostles and instituted in him a permanent and visible source and foundation of unity of faith and fellowship.

And all this teaching about the institution, the perpetuity the force and reason for the sacred primacy of the

Roman pontiff and his infallible teaching authority this sacred synod again proposes to be firmly believed by all the faithful.

What does all this mean? Let me try to summarize it. The Roman Catholic Church claims that Peter is placed in a position of primacy by the

Lord Jesus himself. This primacy is one of honor, jurisdiction, and rulership.

This primacy given to Peter is presented according to dogmatic teachings of the Church of Rome in Matthew 16, verses 18 -19 and John 21, verses 15 -17.

According to Roman teaching, Peter is the rock of Matthew 16. That Christ in conferring a primacy upon Peter intends this to be understood to apply to Peter's successors as well and that hence

Christ is, in this passage, instituting the office of the Pope for the Christian Church. Rome further teaches that when

Christ spoke to Peter and said feed my sheep, he was by so doing setting Peter apart as the pastor of all

Christians in a way different from all the other apostles. Peter is then said to have been the

Bishop of Rome. Because of this, his supposed primacy is passed on to his successors the bishops of Rome.

The form of the Church that includes the papacy is said to have been instituted by Christ himself.

That is, it is not merely the result of long centuries of evolution but is instead the form of government actually instituted by the

Lord Jesus. And finally, this viewpoint has supposedly been the ancient and constant faith of the

Christian Church. Supposedly the Church has always believed this to be true and anyone who would express a different perspective is holding to perverse opinions and are, in fact, anathema.

So what does Fr. Pacwa have to do to win the debate this evening since he is bearing the affirmative position?

First, he must prove that Jesus is without question speaking to Peter in Matthew 16 and in so doing identifying him as the rock upon which the

Church is built. Secondly, that the words the Lord Jesus speaks establish Peter as the Prince of the

Apostles, the very first Pope, the head of the Christian Church. Thirdly, that these words of Jesus necessarily indicate the creation of an office of Pope replete with successors and associated powers.

Fourth, that these successors are only the bishops of Rome, not the bishops of any other city.

And finally, that the Christian Church has always held this to be her constant and unchanging faith.

Now I believe that Fr. Pacwa has a tall hill to climb this evening. He cannot merely say that the

Roman position is probably true, but that it is infallibly true. Rome claims absolute spiritual authority over all

Christians. She claims that the Pope can define Christian dogma and bind every single follower of Christ to that belief.

For example, the Pope has defined as a dogmatic belief of the Christian faith the idea that Mary was bodily assumed into heaven.

He also has the power of dogmatically defining, if he chooses to do so, that Mary is co -redemptrix, mediatrix, and advocate for the people of God.

The current Pope has that ability if he chooses to do so. He hasn't done so yet. Now that's a tremendous power.

Hence, the papacy is not an issue upon which one can be neutral. Nor can it be proven by a string of arguments that are only possibly true, but not convincingly so.

Pope Boniface made this quite clear in the papal bull Unum Sanctum, promulgated November 18, 1302.

He said, quote, Consequently, we declare, state, define, and pronounce that it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the

Roman pontiff. End quote. Very important, we must note the words of Satis Cognitum.

The words of Leo XIII from June of 1896, an encyclical meant to define and defend and delineate the

Vatican I Council's statements, quote, Wherefore, in the decree of the Vatican Council, as to the nature and authority of the primacy of the

Roman pontiff, no newly conceived opinion is set forth, but the venerable and constant belief of every age.

End quote. Rome's dogmatic statements do not allow for a mere development of the papacy over time.

They insist that this is the teaching of Christ and the apostles, and it is the primitive form of the government and the church.

And so here, if you'd like to know how I'm going to approach this, here's my outline. Examining the biblical evidence is relatively easy.

There are only a few passages that Rome has dogmatically defined as infallibly teaching the papacy. Modern apologists have tremendously expanded these numbers, but without Matthew 16 and John 21, no case can possibly be made.

All Roman Catholic arguments are based upon seeing, in these two passages, the establishment of patrine primacy.

For the historical information, I will focus primarily upon two things. The fact that the early church did not interpret these key passages the way

Rome does, thereby disproving her own claim that this is the constant faith of the church, and upon the

Council of Nicaea as an illustration of how the concept of the Roman papacy was not in existence in the year 325

A .D. But the first thing we must do and the thing we must spend most of our time on is Matthew 16, the foundation of the papacy, or is it the identity of Jesus Christ?

It's already been read in your hearing. You'll probably have it memorized by the end of the evening. He said to them, But who do you say that I am?

Simon Peter answered, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus said to him, Blessed are you,

Sion Bar -Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

I will give you, the pronoun is singular, the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.

All of us agree that this is a singularly important passage. It is being used tonight, however, to teach us that the impetuous

Peter, who here speaks in behalf of the rest of the apostles, is in fact hereby made the foundation of the church, the prime minister of the kingdom of God, the first pope with full jurisdictional authority over every person who names the name of Christ.

We are likewise told that here we have the establishment of an office of pope, involving successors who will sit on the seat of a bishop in a church 1 ,500 miles distant, and not at the time of the speaking of these words even in existence.

Now anyone familiar with the comments of scholars on this passage is aware of the multitude of different positions taken about it.

I would first like to provide a straightforward interpretation of the passage and then discuss some of the areas of dispute.

The central theme of this passage is the messiahship of Jesus Christ. Any interpretation that takes the focus off of Jesus as the

Messiah is missing the point. Jesus' questions to the disciples about the opinions of the multitudes and then their own viewpoints are all directed toward his own person, his own identity.

When Peter speaks up and confesses that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, he is confessing the faith of all of the disciples, not merely himself.

He is speaking for them all as he so often does. Jesus' pronouncement of blessing upon Peter is not due to any inherent goodness in Peter, but is due to Peter's being the recipient of a great blessing from the

Father. The Father has revealed to Peter the true identity of Jesus Christ, and of course this revelation was given to the other apostles as well.

We can hardly think they're all sitting around going, I had never thought of that. I had never thought that Jesus was the Christ. The point of Jesus' words is that it requires the work of the

Father to accurately reveal the Son. The subject of the passage remains the identity of Christ found in the confession of Peter.

When the Lord says, I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it, the focus does not change.

This is seen, I believe, in the fact that the Lord is addressing Peter directly. When he says it does not change,

Jesus is not here speaking of the identity of Peter, he is still talking about himself and his church.

This is plainly seen by continuing on through verse 20, where we read, Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the

Christ. The focus never shifts from Christ to anyone else, including Peter.

Now the rock of which the Lord speaks is that common confession made by all who are part of the church.

Jesus is the Christ, the Son, living God. I believe this is seen by focusing upon the fact that while the

Lord is addressing Peter directly, he changes from direct address to referring to something else, this rock, when speaking of Peter's confession.

He does not say upon you, Peter, I will build my church. Instead you have a clear distinction between Peter, the

Petros, and the use of the demonstrative pronoun, this Petra, this rock, the confession of faith upon which the church is built.

Now this statement is followed by the promise to, at some time in the future, give the keys of the kingdom of heaven to Peter.

I emphasize this is a promise, for the verb is future intense. Jesus gives nothing to Peter in this passage.

Jesus does not here in this passage give anything to Peter in the way of keys. Yet when we see this authority given in Matthew 18, 18, it is given not to Peter alone, or even primarily, but to all the apostles and that using the exact same language, word for word, regarding binding and loosing.

If someone wishes to say that Peter receives the keys in distinction from the other apostles, as they're superior, they are forced to admit that the giving of these keys is never recorded for us anywhere in scripture, a strange thing indeed for something supposedly so fundamental to the constitution of the church itself.

I also point out that according to Von Derlinger, the early fathers, quote, held the symbol of the keys as meaning just the same as the figurative expression of binding and loosing, end quote.

I mention only briefly another point that is often ignored when looking at this passage. Did the apostles interpret these words as setting

Peter apart as their leader? The answer is obviously no. Not only did they continue to argue amongst themselves as to who would be the greatest, something that is rather silly, if in fact they already knew

Peter was their leader, but over and over again in the New Testament, we find evidence that the other apostles viewed themselves as Peter's equal, not his inferior.

This can be seen in Paul's treatment of Peter as the apostle to the Jews and Galatians. His rebuke of Peter in the same book, the role

Peter takes in the book of Acts of the Jerusalem council as a participant, not the pope, and the fact that in his own letters, he describes himself as a fellow elder, not as the vicar of Christ on earth and supreme leader of the

Christian faith. When we look at the patristic information regarding this passage, we find just as wide a variety of interpretations as we find in scholarly literature.

It is easy to understand why many Roman Catholic scholars felt it necessary to leave communion with Rome following Vatican I for any person slightly familiar with patristic interpretation knows and would never say that the church has always interpreted this passage as it is interpreted by the council.

But before documenting this, I wish to quote a passage from Dr. Salmon that is very important. After going through the various interpretations found in the patristic sources, he writes, quote, but none of these can be reconciled with the interpretation which regards this text as containing the charter of the church's organization.

A charter would be worthless if it were left uncertain as to whom it was addressed or what powers it conferred. So that the mere fact that fathers differed in opinion as to what was meant by this rock and that occasion of the same father wavered in his opinion on the subject proves that none of them regard this text as one establishing a perpetual constitution for the

Christian church. End quote. It is very important to note then that when the Roman Catholic advocate makes

Matthew 16 the very charter of the papacy, he is by so doing, in reality, separating himself from the early church who saw no such thing in this passage but instead allowed for a multiplicity of interpretations.

Now the French Roman Catholic, Lanoi and Father Pacwa has this material with him, surveyed the patristic evidence and found 17 citations supporting the concept that Peter is the rock of Matthew 16.

Please note that this does not mean that all 17 of these fathers also felt that this meant that the bishop of Rome was a pope but only that they saw

Matthew 16 in the phrase this rock is referring to Peter. However, he also found 16 citations that identified the rock as Christ himself.

He found 8 that identified all the apostles together as forming the rock of Matthew 16. And he found 44 citations indicating that the rock of Matthew 16 was the confession of faith made by Peter in Jesus Christ.

If we add these numbers together, we find that the Roman position which claims to have always been the faith of the

Catholic Church actually represents in this survey 20 % of the fathers. 80 % of the time then the early fathers expressed in Vatican I's words perverse opinions at the very best.

I might note in passing that even as late as the Council of Trent one can find even that council referring to this passage as mentioning the faith that Peter expressed.

You can find pretty much the exact same data in Edward Denny's response to Satus Cognitum. He points out, however, that a number of fathers end up in more than one category since they interpreted the passage in more than one way.

Now, the Jesuit Maldonatus whose testimony should be even more welcome this evening, I would hope, says the following.

There are among ancient authors some who interpret on this rock, that is, on this faith, or on this confession of faith in which thou hast called me the son of the living

God, as Hillary, Gregory Nissen, Chrysostom, and Cyril of Alexandria. St. Augustine, going still further away from the true sense, interprets on this rock, that is, on myself

Christ, because Christ was the rock. But origin on this rock, that is to say, on all men who have the same faith.

Was Maldonatus correct? Most definitely so. Let's look, for example, at Hillary's statement regarding Matthew 16 .18

as found in his work De Trinitate, book 6, chapter 37. Quote, This faith it is which is the foundation of the church.

Through this faith the gates of hell cannot prevail against her. This is the faith which has the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

End quote. Indeed, as one reads all of chapter 37, one finds Hillary referring to each of the prime texts upon which the papacy is built, including

John 21 and Luke 22, and yet not once mentioning the papacy. Can you imagine a modern

Roman Catholic apologist citing all three of these passages and not mentioning the papacy in passing? From whence come this perverse notion that the passage here refers to the faith of Peter's confession and not to Peter himself?

Well, was it not the common belief of Christians for centuries that this passage referred to Peter, thus establishing the papacy?

Did not Leo XIII insist that this has been the, quote, constant belief of every age?

End quote. Did not Vatican I insist that the Catholic Church had always understood these passages to teach patrine primacy and the papacy?

How could Hillary be ignorant of such a basic truth? And how could he be joined by the likes of John Chrysostom or Gregory Nazianzus?

How? Juggle? No, I've never really tried that.

Thank you very much. I was referring to the number of fathers who viewed these passages in another way.

How could these great men and preachers be ignorant of such a basic truth unless, of course, it wasn't a basic truth at all?

One of the great Augustines, surely many are aware of his statement in his retractionis regarding this passage and its meaning.

I shall not take the time to read it yet once again. I would point out, however, that Augustine left his readers to decide how they would interpret the passage.

May I ask all of us to think seriously about what it means that the great bishop of Hippo, Augustine, could think that how one views this passage is a matter of freedom when

Vatican I tells us it is a matter upon which the anathema can and should be used. Can we not see in this the tremendously huge amount of evolution that has taken place between the early part of the 5th century and the latter part of the 19th?

In fact, I might note in passing that Dr. Froehlich said, quote, the most astonishing fact is that in the entire

Middle Ages, in contrast with the polemical literature of the period, specifically exegetical literature universally made the equation rock equals

Christ not rock equals Peter. And I agree with William Cathcart who wrote with reference to the patristic interpretation of the rock, quote, and outside of Rome for the first five centuries of our era, no

Christian father of any note dreamt that this saying gave Peter the sovereignty of the church, end quote.

So the interpretation I have put forward was given by 44 of the early fathers, more than twice as many as any other view.

Some include St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, St.

Hilary, St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, many individuals to quote just one, John Chrysostom, one of the greatest biblical exegetes of the ancient church, he said, quote, having said to Peter, blessed art thou,

Simon Barjona, and of having promised to lay the foundation of the church upon his confession, not long after, he says, get thee behind me,

Satan, end quote. And elsewhere he said, and listen carefully to this one, quote, upon this rock he did not say upon Peter, for it is not upon the man, but upon his own faith that the church is built and what is this faith?

You are the Christ, the son of the living God, end quote. Now, the

Roman Catholic may disagree with my interpretation. That's fine. The problem is that my interpretation makes perfect sense.

It does not require giant leaps of illogic to see how I came to my conclusions. And it is obvious that my position has been held by Christians from the earliest days of the

Christian faith until now, and in point of fact carries the most weight of the early fathers behind it. In fact,

I would challenge Father Pacwa to show me one person outside the Bishop of Rome in the first five centuries of the

Christian church who taught that this passage establishes everything the Vatican Council said was in fact the constant faith of the universal church, or as Pope Leo XIII put it, the constant belief of every age.

Now, let's say Rome can present an equally likely interpretation, though obviously without the historical support, my own position carries.

In such a case, the Roman position fails. Why? Because, as we have seen, Matthew 16 is the foundation of the entire concept of the papacy.

Rome has infallibly declared this verse to so teach. If it is not here, it is nowhere.

Every other passage cited must assume this passage as its foundation.

Yet, the very existence of a viable, logical, rational, reasonable alternative to the

Roman interpretation makes the Roman interpretation just one of many, and as such, it is not supportive of the structure built upon the passage by Rome.

Rome cannot simply provide us with a possible alternative, but must be able to prove, beyond all question, the impossibility of all other interpretations.

Yet, this cannot be done. Now, as mentioned in passing, the idea of Isaiah chapter 22 being relevant to Matthew 16, so I want to comment briefly on this attempt by Roman Catholic apologists to apply

Isaiah chapter 22 and the key of the house of David to Peter himself in Matthew chapter 16.

Such an attempted connection is logically necessary for the Roman position, for there must be some effort made to establish succession in this passage, for Matthew's words make no mention of any successors to Peter.

Yet, upon what basis do we identify the keys, plural, of the kingdom of heaven, which are associated plainly with the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, with the key, singular, of the house of David, which is

Messianic in nature? And should we not accept the interpretation given by the Lord Jesus Christ himself when he cites

Isaiah 22 -22 of himself in Revelation 3 -7, quote, and to the angel of the church of Philadelphia write,

He who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, and who shuts and no one opens, says this, end quote.

Jesus has, present tense, the key of David. He does not say that he gives this key to anyone else.

Indeed, when we look at how the Lord introduces himself in each of these letters, the description set him apart from all creatures.

Should we not then reject such an obvious attempt at eisegesis and instead stay with the plain meaning of scripture and let

Jesus interpret Isaiah 22 -22 for us? Now, the other passage that is used is

John chapter 21. You heard it read, so when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?

He said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, tend my lambs. He said to him again a second time,

Simon, son of John, do you love me? And he said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, shepherd my sheep.

He said to him the third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, do you love me?

And he said to him, Lord, you know all things. You know that I love you. And Jesus said to him, tend my sheep.

In commenting on this passage, Cyril of Alexandria said the following, if anyone asks for what cause, he asks

Simon only. Though the other disciples were present. And what he means by feed my lambs and the like, we answer that St.

Peter with the other disciples had already been chosen to the apostleship, but because meanwhile

Peter had fallen for under great fear he had thrice denied the Lord, he now heals him that was sick and exacts a threefold confession in place of his triple denial, contrasting the former with the latter and compensating the fault with the correction.

Here we have the gracious Lord restoring the apostles who in his brash impetuosity had promised to follow him even to death and yet had denied him three times.

The threefold question of Peter followed by the command to feed or shepherd Christ's sheep is restorative in nature.

Nothing in the passage would even begin to suggest to us that this means that the other apostles were not likewise commissioned to feed and pastor

Christ's flock on an equal basis with Simon Peter. There is no indication that only

Peter is told to shepherd God's flock nor that all others who shepherd the flock do so derivatively from Peter's supremacy.

Indeed, if such were the case, Paul seems to have been ignorant of this for he instructed the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 -28 to keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the

Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God which he bought with his own blood.

Paul does not say as Peter is the chief shepherd you act as under -shepherds for the flock of God.

No, again, the only way that such an understanding can be found is if we take a much later development and read it back into the text as our

Roman Catholic friends are forced to do. This passage in no way sets Peter apart as the prince of the apostles.

Indeed, it shows that he was in need of special pastoral care on the part of Christ. And so we see that in the case of the two primary passages used by Rome dogmatically to present papal primacy, both the text as they stand in scripture and the history of the interpretation of these texts stand inalterably opposed to the modern claims of Roman Catholicism in regards to the papacy.

Given that this is the very foundation of the claims of the papacy, we are forced by the simple weight of this information alone to reject the

Roman position. In the few moments I have left, I want to address one other issue of history, and that is the

Council of Nicaea. The Council of Nicaea provides us with yet another fact that is contrary to papal claims.

It is found in Canon 6 of that council and it reads as follows, Let the ancient customs in Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis prevail, that the bishop of Alexandria have jurisdiction in all these, since the like is customary for the bishop of Rome also.

Likewise, in Antioch and the other provinces, let the churches retain their privileges. Notice that the bishop of Rome is not here given universal sovereignty, but is instead seen as an equal, one with jurisdiction in a particular geographical area, and that geographical area was limited, not worldwide.

Yoland noted regarding the Council of Nicaea that, the first ecumenical council knew nothing of the doctrine of papal supremacy, end quote.

And with reference specifically to the language of Canon 6, it, quote, is not what would be natural on the part of any assembly of Christian bishops who believe that Christ had given to the

Roman Sea a plenitude of jurisdiction which differed not only in degree, but in kind from that of any other sea whatsoever, end quote.

In Canon 6, nothing is mentioned about Peter or the Vicar of Christ. Indeed, I note in passing that the first man audacious enough to allow himself to be called the

Vicar of Christ seemingly was Galatius I in 495, half a millennia after Christ came to earth, and 450 years after the true

Vicar of Christ came to minister in the church, that being the Holy Spirit of God. But as Kelly notes, the use of the title

Vicar of Christ did not become current for popes until the reign of Hadrian IV in the middle of the 12th century.

But returning to the topic of the Council of Nicaea, I wish to point out that here at probably the most important council in all of church history, we not only do not find any papal supremacy, we find quite a bit of evidence that is contrary to such claims.

First, why did no one inform Constantine that all he had to do was send word to the Bishop of Rome and obtain an infallible ruling from the

Vicar of Christ and the person of the Pope so that all Christians everywhere would obey? Obviously because no one had thought of such an idea.

Constantine called the council together, again seemingly ignorant that he should have had the Bishop of Rome do that. And again, no one else seemed to mind because they had never thought of it either.

The current Bishop of Rome at the time, Sylvester, did not attend, pleading old age, but sent two presbyters in his place.

History records that the Bishop of Rome had little or nothing to do with the events at Nicaea. It was not the Bishop of Rome who undertook the defense of the

Nicene faith during the years of the Arian ascendancy that followed Nicaea, but the Bishop of Alexandria, the great

Athanasius. Indeed, one might note in passing that while Athanasius was forced from his sea five times, yet remained unbowed,

Liberius, Bishop of Rome from 352 to 366, yielded and signed the Arianized Sirmium Creed.

Be that as it may, the very fact that the council of Nicaea was convoked is a strange thing indeed if in fact

Roman claims are true. It would not have been much easier to simply ask the Pope for a ruling on such a central doctrine as the deity of Christ, but history will not allow for such simplicities.

Even when Nicaea had concluded its proceedings, its creed had to fight for survival for sixty years thereafter, despite the fact that Roman bishops, excluding Liberius' lapse, defended it.

Again, it is claimed that just because the Bishop of Rome took a particular position was no guarantee that all other

Christians would follow suit. Why is this? Because all other Christians did not look to the

Roman Bishop as the final authority in matters of faith and morals. Why are we here this evening?

This year's debate is the completion of last year's debate. Last year I defended my ultimate authority, sola scriptura, the

God -breathed scriptures. This year we are looking at the ultimate authority in the position that denied sola scriptura, and that is the person of the

Pope, who can speak infallibly for God. Certainly none of the things that Father Pacwa mentioned

I would even attempt to present, and the things he would not defend, and have not presented in my written works and debates on this subject.

But what we do have to focus on is this, my friends. If the papacy is true, then it is a terrible sin for any one of us not to bow to the

God -ordained structure of the Church. And if the Pope in Rome is God's ordained leader of the

Church, then those of us who do not follow him are in sin and in danger of our very souls. But, if he is not, if the papacy is not biblical, if the papacy is not ancient, then the

Pope is a usurper of authority that has never been given to him, and the dogmas that he defines as being definitional of the

Christian faith cannot be bound upon the Christian faith. And the person who follows such an individual who takes authority that is not in actuality his is in tremendous spiritual danger.

It is important what we discuss this evening. Let's focus our attention upon it. Thank you. Please proceed to tape number two.

By the way, I like your tie. But I like better the fact that I don't have to choose a collar to fit my shirt.

They all match. When we take a look at the

Pope's evidence of history, again, as a Catholic, I'm so delighted to be a

Catholic. And not only delighted because it's a lot of fun, but it is, but also precisely because of what

Mr. White did say, that if this is the way that God has established the

Church, then yes, I want to be with it. And the question that I'm going to the question that I'm going to ask you is, how do we deal with the question of the

Council of Nicaea? How do we deal with the question of the

Council of Nicaea? How do we deal with How do we deal with What was the context of that canon? And how does it continue? It continues on that in general, the following principle is evident.

If anyone is made bishop without the consent of the metropolitan, this great sinner determines that such a one shall not be a bishop.

It went on. Why did it bring that up? Because this canon came about when a certain bishop,

Miletios of Lycopolis, who lived in that area, was consecrating bishops without permission without permission of the

Patriarch of Alexandria. The issue wasn't one of Alexandria over against Rome or Antioch or Jerusalem, the other patriarchates, and then the new patriarchate, which was declared to be second to old

Rome, Constantinople. But rather, it was an issue that someone had infringed on the rights of the

Patriarch of Alexandria in ordaining bishops, and this council was correcting that error with no reference to Roman problems at all.

And it's just simply using Rome as a model that the bishop of Rome is the metropolitan of Italy, and that bishops have to be approved by him, as well as the

Patriarch of Antioch and Jerusalem, et cetera. So, that really has nothing to do with papal infallibility.

And secondly, the issue that you bring up, because you brought it up in other debates about why didn't

Constantine just go to the Pope if he's infallible? That's exactly one of the things that I said we wouldn't have to defend.

Infallibility of the Pope doesn't mean that nobody can't talk about issues.

No, these things can be brought up. Councils can be called. And as a matter of fact, following the model of the

Council of Jerusalem, it's much more typical for the Pope, including Pius IX during the first Vatican Council, and John XXIII and Paul VI during the first Vatican Council, to not participate.

They said, oh, and let the bishops discuss freely. That's one of the things they love to do and they allow.

I think they love it because they do it. Even at Trent, the Pope wasn't there. He sent legates.

Members, in fact, of my own order were his theologians. He had legates there. He let the bishops discuss freely the issues.

So, this is something that's very important and that's not a conscious contrary to the papal ministry, that others can initiate the issues of councils, et cetera.

So, that's fine with us. Now, in regard to history, I can't go into every single point of history.

They're having available a book called Jesus, Peter, and the Keys. There will be a lot of points of disagreement, to be sure.

But I'll tell you at least this much. If you get this book, you'll be able to find citations.

And even if you don't like the citations, it will let you at least know where you can go to start finding them yourself.

So, it's a good... It'll save you a lot of initial legwork about seeing different statements on the papacy.

And I highly recommend it, at least as a starting source, for knowing where to look among the fathers of the church, who are themselves, for the most part,

Catholic bishops and priests. Not Protestant ministers, but Protestant ministers. Even though many of them were married.

But they were Catholic bishops and priests. And, you know, you can find out what they said in the early church.

And again, even if you disagree with the way these authors have organized it, go and look it up yourself. Do the legwork.

Do the research. Now, in terms of some other issues, was this a concept that they named it the primacy or the papacy?

Is it something in history? And I think it's I was reminded of a story that a priest recently told me.

He said, I had mentioned I had been in Borneo and Singapore. And one of the highlights of the trip was holding an orangutan on my lap.

And he said, you know, I just baptized a baby that kind of looked like an orangutan. It was the ugliest baby

I ever saw. And you know what? The mother came up to me and said, isn't he beautiful?

And the priest said, you know, but that's in some ways something like the situation you're

A baby has all kinds of potential. That child did not see ugliness.

She saw what her baby could be and that it's hers. And she saw the potential for a genius, the potential for a great scientist, or musician, or who knows what.

But it's the potential and her dreams for that child are what she's looking at. And she's not being objective and she shouldn't be.

So also the church. Do we see that everything is full -blown in the church at its beginning?

No, we don't. Full -blown. But do we see that it's there in potential? Yes. And do we see that potential developing through the church's history?

I believe so. So that I do believe that this is the God -established found way for the church to exist with the pope at its head.

Let me give some examples. First of all, most of us Catholics will look to Holy Clement.

Clement was the first pope of that name. He was the first successor after Linus and then

Cletus and then Clement. And in 95, he sent an epistle to the church at Corinth because of a problem they had with schism.

They had kicked their priests out and they wanted other priests who were more charismatic. And so he writes to them about unity.

And as a matter of fact, he apologizes that he delayed so long, even though St. John was certainly alive, still at that time in Ephesus, closer to Corinth.

They sent to St. Clement. Then we see lots of fathers talking about the role of the papacy as being the successor of Peter and of having various kinds of authority.

For instance, Tertullian in his day, prescrizione heresis, speaks of Peter as distinct from Paul and apart from Paul as ordaining

Clement. We see at the beginning Clement of Alexandria in Eusebius' History of the

Church is mentioned as speaking of Peter as proclaiming the word publicly at Rome.

We see in a poem against Marcion. Marcion was a heretic, the son of a bishop.

You've got to watch how fast you say that. His own father excommunicated him for heresy.

And this poem against Marcion says how Peter bade his father, bade Linus to take his place and sit on the chair whereon he himself had sat.

And that this chair is the cathedral. We see that Gaius calls Pope, in the year 214, calls

Pope Victor the 13th Bishop of Rome after Peter, according to Eusebius' History of the

Church. Hippolytus, who himself tried to make himself Pope, and he was the first of the anti -popes, but he and the

Pope who was true settled the differences when they were both in power. They were both in prison and were dying as martyrs, and they abdicated mutually, and another man took their place.

But he counts Peter as the first Bishop of Rome, according to the Dictionary of Christian Biography, Volume 1, page 577.

Saint Cyprian, in his letter to Antoninus, speaks of the place of Peter and the chair of Peter in his epistle to Cornelius.

Now, even though Saint Cyprian did have his disagreements with the papacy, he did have And later on, argued with them, to be sure.

But as it turns out, Saint Cyprian was considered wrong by the Councils, because Cyprian's position was that heretics needed to be re -baptized.

And later on, not only Popes, but also Councils rejected that. Heretics do not need to be re -baptized.

So, in his disagreement with the papacy, Saint Cyprian was wrong. And furthermore, he never separated himself from union with the

Roman Church. So, in his disagreement Also, in his epistle to Cyprian, written in 257, speaks of the succession of Peter and the chair of Peter.

Eusebius, in his chronicles, written in 314, says that Peter was 25 years the

Bishop of Rome. And he calls Linus the first, after Peter, to attain the Episcopate. Victor the 13th,

Bishop of Rome, after Peter. Saint Athanasius, whom also calls

Rome the Apostolic Throne in its history of the Arians. That, again and again and again,

I can pile these up. And this book, Jesus, Peter, and the Keys, has hundreds of similar statements.

Hundreds. And if you disagree with them, that is absolutely fine. You know, but look at them. And again, don't trust even just that they're here.

But this is the place to start, so you can know where to start looking. So that, we

Catholics look to this system of history. We look to, for instance, the first schism between the

East and the West, the Acacian Schism, was healed.

When Pope Hormizus, in 517, wrote a formula that was used not only by him to reconcile the

Eastern Bishop and was signed, which recognized the fullness of this authority that the

Catholic Church recognizes, but also the same principle, the same document was also used by Pope Agapitus in 536, when he was in Constantinople, and that there was a patriarch there named

Anthemus, who was himself a monopholite. That is, he believed that Christ only had one will, not two.

And Pope Agapitus would not confirm him. He had the authority to confirm the patriarch of Constantinople.

The man ran away, and instead, Pope Agapitus made Menas, the next patriarch.

They had that authority, they exercised it early on. Thank you. These rebuttal periods are always far, far, far too short to get to everything you would like to get to.

Now, Fr. Pacwa again brought up the issue of papal infallibility at the Council of Nicaea. I am not addressing the issue of papal infallibility.

I cannot speak to the issue of papal infallibility tonight. I would be glad to do so at some other point. I raise the issue of the

Council of Nicaea because if, as Rome has dogmatically stated, this is the constant belief of every age, that this is the way that these passages have always been understood, and that this is the form of church government established by Christ himself, not the idea of an ugly baby growing up to be someone beautiful, but according to Rome's dogmatic teachings, that this is the way it has always been then what

Nicaea did made no sense in that canon because it limits the Roman jurisdiction to its own area and gives equal authority to other of the metropolitan seas.

The simple fact of the matter is, Rome says today that they have ultimate authority over everybody else.

Nicaea had no concept that that was, in fact, the case. Now, you were directed to a book

I happen to own as well called Jesus, Peter, and the Keys. This book is the single book that you could ever find of what's called the

Peter Syndrome. The Peter Syndrome is a deadly disease rampant amongst modern

Roman Catholic apologists. And it is the disease that makes you see every reference to Peter anywhere in an early father as somehow relevant to the bishop in Rome.

Even if that father never makes that connection himself, never shows that he believes the bishop of Rome is the

Vicar of Christ on earth, never says that Peter's successors sit only on the seat in Rome, it doesn't matter as long as an early father says something nice about Peter, therefore, he is in support of the bishop of Rome.

I am serious. I have read the book. I had this material before it was published.

And it was said that this saves you some legwork only if you want to see only those passages from the father, not if you want to see everything the father has to say on an issue.

And, in fact, I would suggest if you actually look into the early fathers and read them as a whole, if you want some other works,

I would suggest Denny's work on papalism, Salmon's book on the infallibility of the church. Yeah, they are hard to get hold of these days, but they can provide you with far more extensive and fair citations that do not misrepresent the issue.

And, of course, in the back, someone is holding up Jesus, Peter, and the keys by a friend, Bill Webster, which would also help you in that way.

Now, I must emphasize to you, we cannot deal with this issue tonight on the level of, well, it was just a development.

It was just a matter of potential. Do Roman Catholics believe Vatican I, believe

Leo XIII, or not? I have a tremendous amount of respect for Mitch Pacwa, and so I'm not going to believe that he doesn't believe those sources.

Those sources are what lay the foundation for the debate tonight. Last year, I agree with my ultimate authority.

My ultimate authority is the scripture, so I'll be held accountable for what it says. Well, if the ultimate authority for the

Roman Catholic is the infallible magisterium of the church, the infallible magisterium says it's always been understood this way, this has been the faith of every generation, then

I would submit to you that the development hypothesis made so popular by John Henry Cardinal Newman is an abandonment of the field of historical battle.

And it is a tacit recognition that if you actually look at the early church, you will not find the early fathers believing everything that Vatican I said.

And I reiterate my challenge. Show me one early father that believed that Jesus in Matthew 16 says that Peter's the rock, that by doing so he's setting

Peter apart from all the other apostles, that he gives to Peter alone the keys that these are separate from the power of binding and loosing, that Peter then becomes the bishop of Rome, and that the only successors to which these words are relevant are the successors of Peter in Rome, not any place else, and that this establishes the bishops of Rome as the universal head of the church.

Show me one man outside of the bishop of Rome himself that ever claimed that for himself in the first five centuries. You can't do it because nobody did.

They did not believe that. Now, some examples. Father Pacwa talked about Clement.

I suggest you read the epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. You'll find all through there.

In fact, I failed badly and I will admit this in front of you all. I failed badly when I debated Father Pacwa on a question he asked me once about justification by faith.

There's a great passage on justification by faith alone in Clement. I just wanted to make up for that error. In fact, someone here this evening pointed that out to me years ago electronically and now

I'm correcting that. Read it. It talks about all sorts of wonderful things but you know what you find out when you read

Clement? There's a multiplicity of elders in Rome at this time. Clement doesn't say

I is the Bishop of Rome. There's a multiplicity of elders. This is extremely important. Patristic scholar

J. N. D. Kelly has written a fascinating work entitled The Oxford Dictionary of Popes. One of the striking features that many seem to miss in working through this reference source is to be found as an example in his entry on Anacletus who

Kelly notes is second in the earliest succession list which did not include Peter as Bishop of Rome reflecting

Irenaeus' statement that Peter and Paul made Linus the first Bishop and third on the later list that introduced the novelty of Peter as the first Bishop.

The words seem so innocuous that one might well miss their impact. Listen, quote, his actual functions and responsibilities can only be surmised for the monarchial or one man episcopate had not yet emerged in Rome.

End quote. Did you catch that? Kelly notes in the days of Anacletus, in fact, all the way into the middle of the second century there was no one monarchial episcopate in Rome.

This truth is reflected in Clement's epistle to the Corinthians where a plurality of elders is seen. Ignatius as well makes no mention of a

Bishop when he writes to Rome and this fact has been generally acknowledged to be the case. But think about what this means.

We are told that Peter's supposed authority is invested in his successors as Bishop singular of the

Church of Rome, yet the historical fact is that the Church of Rome didn't think she needed a single Bishop until a century after Peter had died.

Indeed, the confusion of later succession lists may well be due to the fact that later men, assuming that there had always been just one

Bishop at Rome, attempted to trace such a succession through the early period when in fact there had been multiple

Bishops or elders at Rome. Are we to believe that Peter did not give proper instructions to the

Church so as to have one Bishop elected to whom could be given the keys of Heaven itself? Can we imagine what the conciliarists of the 15th century would have done with this information?

Obviously, we see that the Church of Rome felt no need to have a single Bishop, a single supposed successor to Peter, or Paul, or anyone else, and that is highly, highly significant.

Fr. Pacwa also mentioned Tertullian, making a statement about what Tertullian stated, but I would again suggest you read what

Tertullian actually said. He absolutely, rapaciously regales the

Bishop of Rome, insulting the Bishop of Rome, calling him a Pontifex Maximus, which in those days was the chief priest of the pagan cults, and calling him

Bishop of Bishops, and every word that he used was meant to be the worst insult it could be, and the amazing thing about Church history is, a thousand years later, those are titles that the

Bishop of Rome actually wears. Yet, when they were first used by Tertullian, he was insulting the

Bishop of Rome, and saying that he was teaching falsehood. Cyprian, very shortly before his martyrdom,

Cyprian presided over the 7th Council of Carthage, which gives us the following information, for neither does any of us set himself up as a

Bishop of Bishops, nor by tyrannical terror does any compel his colleague to the necessity of obedience, since every

Bishop, according to the allowance of his liberty and power, has his own proper right of judgment, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another."

Sound like they believed in the Roman primacy? It is easy to recognize a reference to Stephen, the Bishop of Rome, with whom

Cyprian had clashed in previous years, in the rebuke of the title, Bishop of Bishops. Why is this important?

Because Cyprian is truly one of the greatest obstacles to any serious acceptance of Roman claims regarding papal primacy.

While he is often cited by Roman apologists, it is only at the expense of the fullness of his teaching that this is done, and that's what you get in a book like this.

You see, Cyprian was one of the minority of the early fathers who saw Peter as the rock of Matthew 16.

Indeed, he saw Peter as the symbol of ecclesiastical unity, and because of this, some of his words if relieved of their context, lend support to Roman contentions.

However, a full examination of Cyprian's words and actions is the death knell for Roman pretensions in regards to Cyprian.

First, we note Cyprian's rejection of Stephen's claims to authority over the North African seas in his own words.

Quote, Neither can it rescind an ordination rightly perfected that Basilides, after the detection of his crimes, and the bearing of his conscience, even by his own confession, went to Rome and deceived

Stephen, our colleague, placed at a distance, and ignorant of what had been done, and of the truth, to canvass that he might be replaced unjustly in the episcopate for which he had been righteously deposed.

Cyprian rejected Stephen's meddling in the affairs of the North African church. Now, how can this be if Cyprian saw

Peter as the rock? The answer is devastating to the Roman Catholic position. Cyprian believed that every bishop, himself included, was fulfilling the role of Peter as the rock.

In Epistle 26 of Cyprian, he makes this very clear. Citing Matthew 16 -18 with reference to all bishops, nowhere mentioning the bishop of Rome alone.

Such passages led John Meyendorff to note, quote, In fact, however, Cyprian's view of Peter's chair, which

Fr. Pacwa mentioned, was that it belonged not only to the bishop of Rome, but to every bishop within each community.

Thus, Cyprian used not the argument of Roman primacy, but that of his own authority as successor of Peter in Carthage.

We can only wholeheartedly agree with the words of Dr. Cox, who, commenting on Cyprian's treatise on the unity of the Church, said the following,

Thus, in few words, says the confession of Pius IV, quote,

This is the voice of Italy in the ninth century, but Cyprian speaks for ecumenical Christendom in the third, and the two systems are as contrary as darkness and light, end quote.

It is no wonder that the familiar bishop of Caesarea could write to Cyprian, joining in his condemnation of Pope Stephen, speaking of those who were at Rome, quote, and making schism from the peace and unity of the

Church, and could go on to say, quote, that he who boasts of the place of his episcopate, and contends that he holds the succession from Peter, on whom the foundation of the

Church was laid, should introduce many other rocks, and establish new buildings of many churches, end quote.

My friends, we cannot, in this short period of time, even begin to scratch the surface, but you have a responsibility, and please do this for me, whatever you do.

Whatever sources you read, whether it's mine or anybody else's, go to the early fathers themselves, and read the whole context.

You will find that those early fathers did not believe what Vatican I has said has been the constant faith of the universal

Church in every age. Thank you. All right.

First of all, you mentioned, Mr. White, the issue of Saint Augustine, saying that there's freedom to interpret the rock as Peter or Peter's faith.

Actually, he says interpreting it as the rock as Christ is one of the options.

But also as Peter. Yes. And is not the fact that the issue at stake for him is that he is talking about interpreting it not any way you want, but rather, given the context of the rock, the way he uses it, interpreting it as Christ when he's dealing with the

Aryan inheritance, and dealing with it as Peter when he's dealing with the papacy, and that you can interpret it as you wish, given that you have to understand the context, because he interprets it both ways, does he not?

He interprets it both ways, but however, he says, in olden days, I interpreted it one way. Now, I've changed my mind on that, but I can't answer the question because I don't believe he dealt with the quote -unquote papacy.

I believe he dealt with the Bishop of Rome, but I do not believe that he had a concept that the

Bishop of Rome was the universal head of the church. So, I'm not sure how to answer the question when you say he interpreted it in light of the papacy, because I don't believe he did.

So that, in relationship to that last response in particular, in his dealings with, you know,

Pope Innocent I, of course, as he says, does he not mention that the

Pope had answered, as was the right and the duty of the Bishop of the Apostolic See?

In fact, he uses the term Apostolic See not only of Rome, but of all the quote -unquote Apostolic Sees.

There was only one Apostolic See in the West, as you know. That was Rome. There were multiple Apostolic Sees in the

East, and he addresses all of them in that way of recognizing their very exalted status.

There's no two ways about it. And the same when he deals with the canon of Scripture at the

Senate of Carthage. How does he conclude that? Well, in his view of Scripture, he disagreed strongly with Jerome in regards to the

Deuterocanonicals. They argued about that. They argued about that, and the answer that he came up with was?

Oh, he accepted the Deuterocanonicals. Yes. And who did? St. Jerome. I'm sorry? So it is St. Jerome.

Once there was a decision. No, St. Jerome translated them. So he never viewed them as canonical. Yes, he did.

He viewed them as canonical once a decision was made, and when St. Augustine presided at the

Senate of Carthage, which gave the list of the canon, he said, we will send this to the bishop across the sea, referring to SMA.

Referring to... Damasus. I'm not sure. Damasus was dead already. Damasus had presided at the

Senate of Rome, convening with the Scripture, and he said, And by 393,

Damasus had already died. I don't want to lose everybody, but there are a number of scholars who don't feel that the council, that what came out of the

Council of Rome actually came from Galatias long afterwards. There was a problem there. Sure. But as it may, still

Augustine recognized that this would be submitted to the bishop across the sea. Yes. So that...

It was a provincial council. And that it's a provincial council which he submits to the Sea of Rome. The other...

Another point that I had over here, too, in regard to St. Athanasius, the

Bishop of Alexandria. And, you know, when Pope Julius, you know, wrote to them, you know, he said,

Are you not ignorant that this is customary for word to be written to us first, and then for a just sentence to be passed from this place?

And they see maybe they were ignorant, but, you know, they... He certainly sees seems quite willing to correct them in terms of the issue of their treatment of Athanasius.

There's no doubt that the bishops of Rome made great claims to their seats, so did Stephen. But Cyprian rejected that, and I just point out that when

Liberius signs the Arianized Sermium Creed, that does not cause Athanasius to then do the same thing. No, and again,

Liberius, everybody even in those days knew why Liberius signed. And why

Athanasius, though kicked out of his seat five times, didn't sign. Right. Liberius was caught, and he was imprisoned, and that he was put under such torment that he had a breakdown.

Whereas Athanasius, God be praised, because I love St. Athanasius, led off to live with the monks who protected him, and he then, when fleeing, brought monasticism to the

West, for which were, you know, my orders, certainly partly of the descendants, all that monasticism he brought, and that, you know, a delight in the great

Athanasius. But the issue about Pope Liberius, that all his contemporaries recognized, is that...

As did Athanasius. As did Athanasius. That the man had a breakdown, and you couldn't count what he had, after what had happened to him with torture, that that was any kind of a free decision.

So it's not that Liberius agreed with it, he was a broken man. So that's...

It's hard to use him, you know, as any other way. And another thing, too, that I wanted to mention...

Wasn't there a question there? Oh, well, I was just... I guess not. Sorry. Let me bring up a question, though.

That wasn't... I was trying to formulate a question. There was one of those rhetorical questions. Yes, it was.

I'm sorry. It's all right. One of the things... You mentioned, in the list of people, some of the 44 different fathers who see that Peter's faith is a confession of Jesus Christ, according to Lenoi.

Well, that the rock of which Jesus speaks, this rock, Epitate Petra, in the

Greek, that that is in reference to the confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the God. The content of the confession, yes.

And you mentioned a number of people in that list, right? In fact,

I'm finding it for you right now. Yes, I did. And do you know the other people on the list? Actually...

Other than the 44? Actually, I have a fairly extensive list in Denny, but I only listed a certain number. Okay, because it includes

Pope Leo. Oh, yeah. You know, that he also recognized that the...

Thank you for bringing that up. Yeah. Pope Leo the Great. As a matter of fact, there are four texts from Pope Leo, correct?

Pope Felix in 43. Pope Ormistus in 519. Pope Gregory the

Great. I did a list. Pope Adrian I. I did a list. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Pope John VII.

He even has John Eck, who is hardly a father of the church. Yeah, no kidding. John Eck would be going a little beyond what

I would consider patristics of that. But that's one of the 44. So, my question is, do you think that these people like Pope Felix, Pope Gregory, Pope Leo the

Great, Pope Ormistus, Pope Adrian I, Pope Stephen V, Pope John VIII, do you think that in stating that they recognize that this is a confession of Jesus as the

Christ, that they are in any way denying the primacy of the papacy in so saying? If you ask if they're denying the primacy of the papacy, the issue that I raised was how they understood the passage, because Rome claims that it has always been understood in that way, and it's a perverse opinion to see it otherwise.

Their foundation stones for the papacy, their belief in their own supremacy, came from a number of different issues, even as early as Stephen citing this passage of himself.

But, and I'm trying to keep my responses short and concise, but my focus is upon this.

Vatican I dogmatically states that the interpretation of Matthew 16 includes that Peter is the rock, that this sets him apart from the other apostles, he's given the keys to the kingdom of heaven, his successors are solely the

Bishop of Rome, not the Bishop of Antioch or the Bishop of Constantinople, etc., etc., etc., and that therefore this primacy is given to the successors of the

Bishop of Rome only. And I'm trying to point out that if you're saying that that is the universal faith of the church, believed in every age, that that is not what any of these people believed, and even the popes themselves, who saw a tremendous position of authority in the west of their sea, it was still a matter of evolution before that became an established belief on their own.

Well, here's the problem, is that a number of these same people also wrote that Peter is the rock, so that it's not that, you know, you seem to indicate that because they believe that the rock is the confession that Jesus is the

Christ, Son of the Living God, therefore they did not believe that Jesus is the rock.

Well, if you say to them that Peter is the rock, in his soul person. Yeah, and so, and that's one of the things that, see, about Catholicism, you know, we can see that it's both.

We have no problem with that. And that fathers like Augustine, and like these popes, can see both.

And we don't, that doesn't contradict what Vatican I said, because these people, you know, many of these same people teach exactly that Peter is the rock, and that the rock is the confession, as I myself said, and as a matter of fact, as the present pope has said.

He has said that in his book. The problem is that Vatican I then used this little thing called the anathema upon anyone who would present as a, wait a minute, as a perverse opinion, any viewpoint that would not include as a necessary element of its interpretation, this idea that Peter is hereby being set apart, and that he has to be the rock.

You're saying, well, someone could say he is the rock, and the confession is rock, and so on and so forth. That's nice, but this is why

I struggle with this. Exactly. Now let me just ask this. How do you understand the anathema? How do I understand the anathema?

What does the anathema mean? Well, the anathema, at least originally, well, biblically, the anathema is a rather important thing.

Paul uses it in Galatians 1, 6 -9, and it is the curse of God. Right, but how does the

Catholic Church understand that? Well, if there is a difference, that might result in a whole new debate. Yeah. Which, I mean, if there is a different usage, that's probably not a good thing to bring up.

Let me put it this way. I believe that if you look at how anathema was used in the Middle Ages and up to the time of the

Reformation, that it had the same biblical use that it has today. I recognize the biblical use that we just discussed.

I have had many Roman Catholic apologists tell me, Father Pacwa, that anathema does not mean that I'm a curse. It doesn't mean that I'm separated from the body of Christ.

However, I've had other Roman Catholics call me up after radio programs to make sure that I knew that I am anathema, and I will go to hell if I die in that state.

So, let me just make a clarification and then cite another question to follow upon it.

You know, the anathema does not mean that you go to hell. It did in Galatians. It meant that you were cursed.

But one of the things that, you know, we have to be careful, remembering our Lord's words, that we may not judge others, not that we can't judge behaviors wrong and right.

Many of us would agree with that. But we may not judge that somebody is in hell or in heaven.

That's because Paul was judging their gospel. Right, right. And they said that as they preach in their gospel, they are anathema.

Now, but to say that that person who is accursed ends up in hell, that's something that Paul never said.

Well, being an anathema, though, isn't a good thing. No, no, no. No, no, no. It sucks. But we don't, but we don't, but it's important for you to understand that the

Catholic Church in this anathemas don't mean that you go to hell. We don't know that. But we do know that there has to be a ban on such a person and exclude him from communion.

It certainly is excommunication because you can't share the sacraments. And this is where my follow -up question is.

Do you believe that we Catholics are Christians? What is that? Well, I have exactly two minutes to answer that question.

But I have said many, many times, I've said in the Roman Catholic controversy, we've discussed this in the previous debates, which, of course, you may not,

I'm not sure if you listened to the previous debates, you wouldn't know what has been discussed. But very, very briefly, I do not believe that Catholicism preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Okay? And that is what I focus upon. Individual, and I've said in my books that I believe that there are individuals within the

Roman Catholic communion that are heirs of eternal life. But I immediately say, insofar as they are inconsistent in believing in the system of salvation as presented in the sacraments, the mass, and I said this very clearly in our debate in regards to the mass a number of years ago.

And hence, it requires, basically, that they be inconsistent Roman Catholics. But the person who is consistently

Catholic, I would consider myself, I believe, know what the Catholic Church teaches about the sacraments, have a strong devotion to the

Eucharist. I do not believe there is salvation in that gospel. Right. So that is, you know, you keep, because this is one of the things you do in other debates, that it's this anathema that's put on this, but you've anathematized us as well.

I would never deny that. Effectively. By saying that we are not

Christian, and if we believe this gospel, we cannot be saved.

That's actually stronger than our canonical understanding of the anathema.

The question is, which is biblical? I'm just trying to make a point that while you worry about our anathemas, believe me, as a

Catholic, your disregard of my Christianity has little effect on me. And why you worry about our anathemas boggles my mind.

Can I answer why? Sure. Because in this context, the whole reason is that if the dogmatic documents of the church are going to say that, therefore, if anyone shall say,

Blessed be the apostle who has not appointed the prince of all the apostles, and the visible head of the whole church militant, or at the same directly and immediately received in the same way our

Lord Jesus Christ, a primacy of honor only and not of true and proper jurisdiction, let him be anathema, that tells me that the church is serious about that doctrine and that teaching.

And that's all it's revealing to me. But we don't deny your Christianity. But I didn't bring that up. I'm bringing up the importance of what this is saying.

No, I'm just saying that there's an imbalance in the seriousness of the accusation. I have a concern. Okay. Please turn your tape to side two.

Okay. My turn. And I too will make the same confession of trying to avoid the rhetorical questions as I go on and give you some rhetorical questions.

Go ahead. All right. That's all right. Now, Father Pacwa, if your interpretation of Matthew 16 is correct, why do disciples continue to argue over who would be the greatest?

Does that, their arguing, show that they did not understand this passage as setting Peter apart the way you do?

As a matter of fact, I would see it as no different a situation from your own family,

Christian family, where you are the head of the house, designated by God as such, and yet I bet from age two, probably till death, your children might disagree with you, and that this is normal in most councils.

Disagree or disobey? Well, I'll confess. From my side, I did both with my father.

And this is something that is part of humanity. Sure, people disobey and disagree.

As a matter of fact, as I've heard you before, I've often sensed that it's because of your own very strong sense of conscience.

Had you been one of the disciples, and you believe this, you would not do that. However, not all of us are quite that consistent and upstanding.

There are plenty of us who would be disobedient. But Father Pacwa, if they are being disobedient, why doesn't

Jesus then correct them and say, stop arguing, I've already decided the issue, Peter's going to be your head. Instead, his illustration is, serve one another.

As a matter of fact, he brilliantly defines that leadership of the apostles as one of service.

And that's one of the reasons why the popes have taken as their first title, the servants of the servants of God.

And hopefully they'll live up to that. They take that very much to heart.

Why do we not find any mention of the papacy, nor the power of the keys as understood by Roman Catholicism, in books like the pastoral epistles, or in fact any part of the

New Testament that is written directly to the churches of Christ? It's impossible to answer an argument about silence.

You don't know that the issue doesn't come up. You don't know what it is that evokes certain issues.

Why was Paul writing to Timothy and Titus and talking to them about elders and deacons and the qualifications and how the church is to function, how you're to deal with widows, and yet the key element of how you're to have the unity of the faith doesn't show up?

First of all, having the deaconate, the presbyters, the priests, and the bishops, the overseers, is a key element of the church.

As a matter of fact, in your point about Peter, assuming about Clement, and being part of a group of elders, of course he was part of a group of elders.

Having the presbyters, the priests, there, was part of being with the bishop. We see that with Ignatius of Antioch.

And so what Paul is doing is having St. Timothy make sure that he sets up the correct order, the

Episcopal order and the priestly order, and have this in different places, wherever he goes to establish them, and make sure he does it according to good principles.

But it's not that you can't have both, having the presbyters and the deacons and the bishops is essential in every place.

That's what Ignatius of Antioch says. Without them, you don't have the church. Let me give you an example. In Acts chapter 20,

Paul meets with the Ephesian elders. He's on his way to Jerusalem. He knows he's going to be going into bondage. He warns them that many false men are going to rise among some teaching perverse things.

And as he's leaving, why in that situation, when he's talking about apostasy coming in the church, do we not find him saying, now you stick close to Peter and the bishops of Rome as a source of unity.

Instead he says, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace. Again, as a Catholic, I find nothing inconsistent with that.

Of course you would commend him to God. Of course you would commend him to the gospel he gave. And then also keep in mind that Paul had not yet gone to Rome as far as we know.

That Paul doesn't get to Rome for another two years plus. And that, does he even know where Peter is?

So again, why doesn't he direct people to Peter then? If this was the ancient faith of the church, do you believe that Paul understood that Peter was the vicar of Christ?

That he had an authority that Paul did not have? I would believe he had an authority that Paul did not have.

But I also believe that Paul had authority. As do all the apostles. That's what I asked though. Did Paul believe that Peter had an authority that Paul didn't have?

And if so, can you find me one place in the New Testament where he indicates this? I would have to say I don't know because Paul doesn't say that or answer that question.

And one of the things, again, it's argument from silence. I can't guess what

Paul doesn't speak about. And so I can't make a principle on the silence.

Why do you call it an argument of silence when the dogmatic teachings of the Roman Catholic Church say that this is what

Jesus meant. This is what he was doing. He set Peter apart at that time. And that he gave these authorities to him.

Why is that an argument of silence when it's Rome making the positive claim that these things did exist? Again, they exist when we see them come up.

For instance, the issue with Clement. Along with the elders of Rome, not apart from them.

I would hate to see the Bishop of Rome acting apart from his elders. Just as today the cardinals who take the place of those elders and are considered his elders.

When he acts, we would love to see that he acts. In union with the cardinals and the other bishops.

In Clement's letter, does he ever call himself Bishop? Does he ever actually identify himself? No, he doesn't do that either. Again, this is something that a lot of times you'll see that people don't say all that they are and what they do.

The pronouns all the way through Clement's letter. Are they not all plurals? We, we, we? And Clement is never actually identified in the letter, is he?

No. So if you only read the letter, this is simply the elders at Rome writing to Corinth, isn't it? Yeah, perhaps, but it's also perhaps possible that as the successors of Peter have done up until the present

Pope, use the we because they know that they don't speak for themselves personally.

But they sign their name. They know that they sign their name, but they use the first person plural for themselves and for the things they say and do.

We have decided, we have done this. But if we just looked at the letter of Clement alone without having a papacy and reading that in, all we'd be able to say is, all through it, it is we, we, we, never

I. And no citations of Matthew 16, 18? No claims of a papacy? No.

Assume that he didn't need to. Was Cyprian, when he taught that all bishops sit upon the seat of Peter, was he rebelling against truth?

Yes. As a matter of fact, not only on that, but on the issue at stake. That rebaptism of heretics was wrong.

So when the 7th Council of Carthage met and rebuked and said that there is no bishop of bishops and rebuked

Stephen's interaction in North African churches, there was an entire council that was in error. Well, first of all, the church, especially under Pope Gregory the

Great, accepted that. Accepted what? That there is no bishop of bishops.

That title is rejected. That's not, that's not. And also they made sure that the

Patriarch of Constantinople rejected that title, who kept on trying to usurp it. So that was rejected.

And so they agreed with that. But, as a matter of fact, this is part of papal primacy.

Yes, they can be over any synod. And all the early fathers who interpreted the seat of Peter as referring to all bishops, they were all rebellious bishops.

Is that what you're actually saying? They would be certainly in, you know, rebellion.

One of the things about rebellion is that you have to make sure, you have to make sure that it's clearly stated in a way that a person is rebelling against something.

That you can't just say that you're rebelling against a vagary. You know, sometimes folks will do things and it's not clearly defined.

Okay, then where in the early church had it ever been clearly defined to these bishops that the bishop of Rome was the sole successor of Peter?

This is something that you see, again, in the list that I mentioned earlier, that, and I'll bind it again, that the, you have a long list.

For instance, Tertullian. One of the points that you had made with Tertullian, that he mocked the pope.

He did. After he became a heretic. No, yes. Well, he became a montanist heretic.

And then, of course, we expect the heretics to do that kind of ridicule. But, while he was still a catholic, he speaks well of the pope, of Peter, as having that authority in ordaining

Clement. Does Tertullian say that the bishop of Rome is the sole successor of Peter?

No, I don't think that Tertullian says that. Does Cyprian say that? Cyprian, now see, this is where I'm not as familiar with Cyprian stuff.

But, I can say that you certainly have, I mentioned

Gaius certainly counts Victor as the successor of Peter. And that, your question was...

I understand what you're saying. Cyprian would have no problem accepting... Yes, Cyprian does say that it's the place of Peter and the chair of Peter.

That he does say. Exactly. But, Cyprian also says that every bishop sits in the chair of Peter.

Most of the North Africans did, all the way into the days of Augustine. Read my endorsed discussion of this in regards to Orthodox theology.

The point is that you can't have someone simply saying that the bishop of Rome sits in the chair of Peter.

Because Cyprian would have said that. He also said, so do I. And that was his rebellious part. The clarification is, he does sit on the chair of the apostles.

He's the successor of the apostles. That we would say. But, he was incorrect in his formulation.

That's one reason he wasn't Pope. If he was guilty of rebellion. Actually, he was called Pope Cyprian by the deacons of Rome.

If he was guilty of rebellion and you have to have a clear statement against which to rebel, what council, what father,

Ignatius, Polycarp, who was it that taught that the chair of Peter resides only in Rome and that only the bishops of Rome are the successors of Peter?

Who said that in the early church? I'll be honest with you. I don't know anybody who did.

In terms of putting it exactly that way. First of all, that they do recognize that the bishop of Rome succeeds

St. Peter. There's no doubt. As did all the bishops. Again, not all the bishops.

Well, that's the whole point. Again, that's what Cyprian says. But not all the bishops said that they all sit on the throne of Peter.

That was Cyprian's formulation and it's not used anywhere else. Yes, it is. Can you name me just one early father who believed that the only successor to Peter was the bishop of Rome on the basis of Matthew 16?

Certainly Irenaeus. As a matter of fact, it says that the pure doctrine of the faith is found at Rome.

In the church at Rome, not in the bishop of Rome. Where does he say that the bishop alone, see

Bishop Lightfoot pointed this out. In the early fathers, the prerogatives of Rome were the church and only over ages did it become the bishop.

At first, the royalty of the bishop was due to the royalty of the church. Then it became reversed to where Rome's position was because of the bishop.

Irenaeus never says in fact, how do you respond I should put this in a question format.

How do you respond to Irenaeus' rebuke of Victor in regards to the quarter decimal controversy and his threat to excommunicate the eastern churches?

The same way that I respond to St. Catherine of Siena's rebuke of the popes of her day during the

Avignon papacy that she told them off. For what? For not being in Rome.

That's fine. Was that doctrinal in the way that this was with Victor and Irenaeus? I'm not sure that I, see neither one is doctrinal.

Both of them are issues of behavior. Whether you excommunicate the entire eastern churches isn't doctrinal?

Yes, it is. Exactly. It was the issue not of a doctrine but it was the issue of when you celebrate

Easter. Yes. It had nothing to do with doctrine. They didn't deny

Easter. Is he willing to split the unity of the church over when you celebrate Easter? Unfortunately, it still does.

We wish they celebrated Easter. One last question. I'm almost out of time. I've got about a minute and a half. The council of Chalcedon passed what's known as the 28th canon in which they said that the reason that old

Rome had had such a prerogative in the church was because it was the seat of the empire.

Now that the emperor was in Constantinople then the new Rome, Constantinople, would rank second after Rome.

Pope Leo rejected that canon but it was still passed by the council and was reiterated by later councils and in fact the

Eastern Orthodox would still hold on to it. How could they pass a canon like that in an ecumenical council that we believe is very important in regards to defying the doctrine of Christ if it was the universal and constant faith of the church to believe in Petrine Primacy as Rome defines it?

Much the same way that the apostles could still argue amongst themselves about who was first. That this is the kind of argument that you see in the apostolic days and the same kind of argument that continues unfortunately to this day as well.

Why is their doctrine of Christ infallible to their doctrine of the 28th canon? This is one of the things about any human being that you see the apostles were themselves right about Christ in so many ways but they were often arguing amongst themselves over themselves so that this is the way that people are.

Before we go to the final summations, there's a Honda Accord K408DX in New York that is blocking a lot of people from getting out.

I also wanted to announce that the ushers are going to begin during the final summations and before our question and answer session the ushers are going to begin passing around baskets.

There's two reasons for that. One, if you want to be invited to these debates every year please put your name, address and phone number on the back of your ticket.

If you still have it, hopefully you do. If you don't have it, ask someone for a piece of paper. The second thing is that we are going to have a raffle and you could win the first place winner could win last year's debate and this year's debate on videotape.

Okay? Lastly, we're going to be asking, now this is entirely voluntarily.

You folks have already paid good money for your tickets, so we're not trying to coerce you on this.

But if you felt led to, put a little extra money in the plate because we're going to divide it evenly amongst our debaters to give them an extra gift at the end of this debate because of the fact that the money's coming in through the tickets weren't quite as large as we were hoping.

So just remember that. Only about a third of you wrote down your name, address and phone number last year on the cards.

So if you really want to continue to be invited every year, please write down your name and address, phone number. If you want to put a

C next to your name if you're Catholic, then make sure that you don't get any Protestant material. And if you want to put a

P next to your name if you're Protestant and you don't want to get any Catholic material, we'll completely ignore that.

But please, we will honor that request, so if you please do that as the baskets, if the ushers could please begin passing the baskets.

I'm just a little nervous that the existence of a raffle might mean that Catholics are winning culturally.

laughter Now you know you have

One of the delights, as I mentioned earlier, is that in doing this debate it motivated me to study more the history of the papacy.

Now what I do for a living is teach Scripture and I love teaching Scripture, but it's good to get into some areas that sometimes you miss when you're just working on exegesis and teaching the texts.

And this has been one of those cases. I know that I need to learn much, much more.

As far as I'm concerned, the modern world begins in the year 200 A .D. I consider people like Aristotle and Plato modernists.

I like old books like Genesis, or the Epic of Gilgamesh, or Exodus and so on.

But this is good to get into modern history by studying the fathers. And a few things

I would still want to hold to. As it became more clear to me,

I appreciated the discussion that we had with our questions, because in a lot of ways it helped me clarify that some of the things that Mr.

White is talking about really are concerns about the silences. And I guess they just don't bother me, the silences.

One of those things that I say, well, as I see that the papacy does start to speak up, and as we see the issues develop, that there is greater clarity.

As a matter of fact, I feel the same way about other silences in the history of early

Christianity. For instance, silences about the history of the canon.

You know, the canon of Scripture becomes something that is clarified in the 4th century, the late 4th century at that.

The 380s and the 390s. And not only the canon of Scripture, but also we see that the first council doesn't take place until the 4th century, 325 with Nicaea, and then they go on all the way to the present.

Now, does that mean that, you know, because the only prior council was the council at Jerusalem, and then we don't see

St. Clement say, let's have a council, or the church at Corinth, let's have a council, or somebody else say, let's have a council.

Does that mean it doesn't exist? There are synods, but ecumenical councils come in the 4th century.

And it is also late that we see some of the issues of the papacy coming to their maturity in the 4th century and later.

But it's also important to point out that this is the age of Constantine's legalization of Christianity.

Not the beginning of Catholicism. As a matter of fact, a certain Protestant practice started during that reign.

Prior to the year 327, there's not a single case of baptism of infants being postponed.

You know, the first time we see Christian parents postpone baptism of their children is somebody born in 327.

We don't have evidence earlier. But the point is that it's during the age of Constantine and later, when the persecutions stop, that the issues of authority in the church do become more clear and more clarified regarding the canon of Scripture, the role of ecumenical councils, and the papacy.

Again, that doesn't deny that they exist earlier. They do.

And the issues and points about papal authority and primacy exist earlier, in small ways, to be sure.

But these were difficult times for other reasons. And I still maintain and believe very, very strongly that the church was established on the rock of St.

Peter, and Christ did so quite firmly. In no way do I see that that contradicts the foundation of the church on the truth that Jesus is

God, the Son of God, and that he's himself the Messiah. No way.

Nor does my church. That's why we allow both. One of the joys of being Catholic that sometimes drives

Protestants crazy, is that we don't go for either or. It's not faith or works.

It's not the Bible or tradition. And it's not the primacy of Peter as the rock, or belief in Jesus as the rock.

It's both of those and. It's a richness that is inclusive, not denying.

And that we don't deny these other points of the primacy of Scripture.

They complete inerrancy. We teach that. We encourage the reading of Scripture. Absolutely. We want all of our people to read

Scripture, to be sure. That's in papal statements. And it's printed in every Catholic Bible. And we also want people to submit to the primacy of Saint Peter.

Not because we make more money off it or anything like that. Not because we like bingo and silly things.

But because it's established by Christ. Because obedience to him and obedience in this issue is part of his plan for the church.

And that, in fact, as our church continues to grow and grow, not only is it the largest church, but it's also the largest

Pentecostal church with more charismatics than all the different Pentecostal denominations combined.

And we're a church that's evangelical, a church that's missionary, a church that's on the move. We've got our problems to be sure.

But I looked at Peter and his successors in their primacy as a focus of unity and a source of unity that has given us an impetus to be a church not of one or other nation, but of all nations.

And it's because of that glory and because of that gift, despite the problems that go along with that and every other gift, that I myself am strongly committed to it.

And I so believe that it's from Christ that by the grace that Christ gives me, I hope that if it should happen,

I'd rather be dead than deny that faith. Applause I would like to begin by thanking all of you who have worked so hard to make this available to everyone here tonight.

Thank you for being here. A special thanks to Chris Arnzen and Michael Tolo for all the work that they do.

I think it's a wonderful opportunity to address these issues and I hope that you have been blessed by being here this evening.

I also wish to thank Mitch Pacwa for traveling all the way out here and for engaging in this debate.

I have a tremendous respect for him in that point and we obviously disagree very very deeply, but I'm thankful that I think we succeeded in what

I said we wanted to do and that was, we've debated the issues tonight not who Mitch Pacwa is or who

I am. And I think that's very important. Gregory Natsianzen, Gregory wrote this.

Having gone through the whole set of sacred offices to Passover intervening events, he is entrusted with the presidency over the people which is the same as saying the rule of the whole world.

And I cannot say whether he received the priesthood as the reward of his virtue or to be the source and life of the church.

For she fainting through thirst of the truth was like Ishmael to be refreshed or like Elijah to be revived when the earth and the drought was cooled in the stream and from her exhaustion to be brought back to life.

Those are high words of praise. And I believe if they had been spoken of a bishop of Rome a

Roman Catholic apologist would cite them as evidence of the papacy because he talks about having the presidency and the rule over the whole world.

But Gregory Natsianzen didn't say that about the Pope he said that about Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria. Why is it then that a

Roman Catholic when hearing this type of language used of the bishop of Rome automatically assumes that it means that that person believed that the bishop of Rome has the sole and prime jurisdiction over the whole church?

Why when we see all these issues in the New Testament is it that individuals can say well but that's just an argument for silence and yes when the pastoral epistles are written yes they talk all about how the church is to be formed and offices in the church but the issue of the papacy didn't come up it was assumed.

Why is that? It's because of what I said last year there are two positions in this debate.

I believe in sola scriptura that the scripture is the sole and infallible rule of faith of the church. The only other position when debating this issue with Roman Catholicism is sola ecclesia.

The church as the final and absolute authority in matters of faith. And I believe the reason that individuals can look back at the history of the church and not see it for what it was not see it the papacy as a gradual development that it is contradicted by numerous things all the way through the history of the church is because they've been told what to see by their ultimate authority and who is the ultimate authority?

It's the Pope himself. I do not believe that if you take seriously the authority of the

Roman see that you can then in a dispassionate manner examine the evidence because Rome has already told you this is what we've always believed and this is what you are to believe.

But my friends we cannot allow that kind of circular argument to be the foundation of our religious faith.

Every six months I go to Salt Lake City and I witness to a whole mess of folks who have a very strong belief that the man who gathers with them up there in Salt Lake City who they call a prophet is a prophet from God.

And there is nobody in this room unless you happen to be LDS who would accept the argument that the prophet is the prophet because the prophet says he's the prophet.

That's not going to carry the day. In the same way just because Rome says well this has been the universal faith of the church you cannot then look at all of the fathers like John Chrysostom who says

Jesus did not establish his church upon Peter the man but in opposition to that.

See he wasn't one of those that you could say well he sort of fits into both categories. He didn't. He specifically denied it was upon Peter.

It was upon his confession of faith and yet what happens when we ask questions about that?

What happens when we've asked the question can you show me anybody in the early church that understood

Matthew 16 in exactly the way Vatican I says has always been believed and so far I haven't heard anyone.

I've heard someone say well he said something nice about Peter. That's fine. That doesn't make it relevant to the bishop of Rome.

He said something nice about the bishop of Rome. Okay that's fine. It doesn't mean that only the bishop of Rome is the successor of Peter. My friends we're talking about final and absolute authorities here and this is irrelevant to every single person sitting in this room.

Because the claim of Rome is here you have the very vicar of Christ on earth infallible in his pronouncements and he may well

I don't know whether he's going to or not to but he may well define as a dogma of the Christian faith to be accepted de fide by faith that Mary is a co -redemptrix, mediatrix and advocate for the people of God.

And bind that upon your conscience. That's vital. That's important because when someone comes to me and asks me what is the

Christian faith? I have a finished book I can point them to. I don't have to say well right now it's this but next week there may be another element de fide a belief that no one in the early church believed.

Go back and look at the debate on Mary that we did. But if we invest in a particular human person in a church that did not even have a singular bishop until the middle of the second century absolute authority and jurisdiction over the

Christian people then the walls have come down. There is no way to guard against any type of teaching whatsoever.

And I would submit to you that doctrines like the Immaculate Conception, the Bodily Assumption of Mary which have been defined on the basis of this alleged authority illustrate for us what happens when you both deny

Sola Scriptura and embrace Sola Ecclesia. The issues are vital.

And they have been laid before you tonight I think very clearly. Someone asked does anyone know who wins the debate?

You are the judges. That's your responsibility. I know we live in a society today that says oh no don't tell anybody they've got responsibilities.

I'm telling you right now you have a responsibility to work through this issue. But I'm a busy person.

Well, eternity is a long time. So work through the issues.

Thank you for being here this evening. God bless. Thank you.