6th Canon of Nicea, MBTS’s Triggering Book Display Examined

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Road Trip DL: Report on Progress, Apologia Weighs In, Thoughts on Daniel 7, Mohler on Theonomy

00:32

Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is James White. We're back in the big studio, at least for today.

00:38

And I'm not sure I'll be walking over there and drawing on anything, but we will be using the big board to show a few things.

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In fact, we'll start off with what's up there now, which is what we finished with on the last program.

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And so you can get a fair shot of it there if you missed it when we re -uploaded things. The book display that I was triggered by, and some people said

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I was triggered by reading widely. They know that wasn't true. They know that's not true.

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I was triggered not by reading widely, but by the specific perspectives being promoted by the authors of the books that are being demonstrated there.

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And the question as to whether a meaningful response is being given to that perspective there at the school, which is

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Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. We will get into that, and we will be looking at Dr.

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Levering and Dr. Boersma and Dr. Carter and all sorts of stuff that has happened just today.

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In fact, I would say, honestly, that I have seen Reformed Baptists saying things in social media today that if you had told me 10 years ago would be said by these individuals or just by people in the group as a whole,

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I would have said that's utterly impossible. Could not possibly happen. But it's happening, and there's a reason why it's happening, and I think it's important to understand those reasons.

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But before we jump into those things, I wanted to take a look.

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That keeps shrinking. I'm not— I've got problems over here, too. I don't know why.

05:05

We're not starting from the top. Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line.

06:12

My name is James White. We're going to try to make this work. We're back in the big studio. Just had computer freezes and stuff, and hopefully that's not going to happen again.

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But I never did trust Bill Gates, and I trust him less today than I ever have before, though I know he really doesn't have anything to do with any of that.

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Anyway, yesterday on the program—not yesterday, the day before yesterday on the program—we had an opportunity to talk about the subject of the

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Roman Catholic papacy. And we were covering a lot of different topics.

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And I wanted to start off the program today just noting the amazing responses.

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You've got to understand something. The discussion between non -Roman

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Catholics and Roman Catholics—and non -Roman Catholics would include

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Eastern Orthodox, actually— on the subject of the papacy has been going on for a very, very long time.

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In regards to the East -West split, you're coming up on 1 ,000 years.

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And as far as the Reformation, you're talking 500 years. And it's not overly—I don't think it should be a big shock to anyone that non -Roman

07:43

Catholics do not accept the claims of Roman Catholic papacy. And, of course, we've been doing debates on this.

07:51

I think the first—oh, what was that? 99 -ish, maybe?

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Okay, that's true, that's true. Yeah, yeah, that's true. So, 93, with Jerry Matitix at Denver Seminary and at Presbyterian Church in Denver.

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And then Mitch Pacla and I, somewhere in the 90s, did a debate on the papacy as well back on Long Island.

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But it's not like—the only big development in regards to papacy is the obvious degradation of the modern

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Roman Catholic papacy as far as it being Orthodox, Roman Catholic, anything like that.

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And I'm not talking about Benedict or even

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John Paul II, even though I think you can make strong arguments, especially with John Paul, that there were differences between the things that he was saying and the things that had been said by popes only 50 years earlier.

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But Francis has—I mean, there are Roman Catholics who put out videos about being red -pilled in regards to papacy and Francis, and there's a tremendous amount of discussion of what his amazing pontificate has indicated.

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These are not easy days for Roman Catholic apologists because, obviously, the defense of the papacy today is either, we're just not going to talk about anything that Francis is saying,

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Francis hasn't said anything infallible, and we just don't want to talk about those things, seems to be the way that people are handling things.

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Anyway, the responses were truly amazing because, like I said, nothing much has changed.

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But I was directed first to some comments, and I'm not sure that—let me see here real quickly.

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Yeah, I was directed to this comment by Michael Loftin, who

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I am told has recently in some way joined the

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Catholic Answers. I'm not sure if that means as a contributor, staff person,

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I don't know. I haven't found anything specifically on that. But he's done something called

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Reason and Theology for quite some time. Here's what he wrote. He said, With so much misinformation and softball arguments from James White today in his discussion with Cameron Bertuzzi, I imagine most educated

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Catholics are shaking their heads at this moment. For example, the claim made about Canon 6 from Nicaea.

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With all due respect, Dr. White, an educated Catholic can offer better arguments than this against Catholicism and don't utilize straw men and misinformation.

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Wow. Okay. So bad was

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I that evidently he couldn't sleep, this Michael Loftin, and so ended up putting out an over -an -hour -long video that night on the subject of the 6th

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Canon, the Council of Nicaea. Again, for those of you who didn't catch the discussion, I mentioned it to Cameron as an example—I bet you

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I know exactly what's going on there—as an example of the fact that, yeah,

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I knew that was going to happen. Sorry. That at the time of the

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Council of Nicaea, why was there a Council of Nicaea? Why, if the

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Church believed that the Bishop of Rome was the infallible Vicar of Christ on earth, then why do you need councils at all?

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And especially on a specific doctrinal issue. Because, let's see, less than 200 years later, the

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Bishop of Rome, Honorius, is going to have discussions with, as I recall,

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Sergius, his counterpart in the East, on the subject of whether Christ had one or two wills.

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Now, let's be honest, the vast majority of Christians have never even given it a thought, and wouldn't know how to answer the question with any sense of confidence of getting it right by whoever's standard you're going to be going with, let alone have a discussion of it from a biblical perspective.

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But this was the monothelitism -duothelitism debate, and Honorius was clearly a monothelite, and he communicated that in his letters as the

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Bishop of Rome. Well, for hundreds of years later, after that time period, every man who became—unless you accept the theory of Pope John, but that's a whole different topic, which is not one that I would get into—

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But every person that became—we just live in such a weird—every non -birthing person that became—isn't it sad?

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I mean, that would have never crossed my mind only a few years ago, but here we are.

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Anyway, every person who ascended the papal throne had to, as part of the swearing in, anathematize

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Honorius as a heretic, the Bishop of Rome, as a heretic for his monothelitism.

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So these are facts. This is reality. The point is, there was a minor point, a relatively minor point of theology at a later point in church history, but the

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Bishop of Rome was held accountable for it. Why didn't you just go to the

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Bishop of Rome in 325 and go, hey, there's this big controversy going on, you go over the history, and you tell what

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Alexander, the Bishop of Alexandria has done, and the actions of councils in Egypt, and just have him make a decision?

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Because he knows, right? He's the infallible vicar of Christ. But that's not what happened.

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And in fact, as all even semi -unbiased church history records would tell you, the

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Bishop of Rome had basically nothing to do with the proceedings at the

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Council of Nicaea. And it was the council that made the decision in regards to the creedal statement concerning the nature of Christ, and whether he is homoousius of the same substance, heterousius of a different substance, or homoiousius, the middle -of -the -road position that was presented there, as well as the fact that the council of about 318, mainly eastern bishops, there were two representatives, history says anyways, from Rome, concerning other issues relating to church order, polity, all the councils did that kind of thing.

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There were canons and decrees that all these councils promulgated.

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And in some later situations, especially when it had to do, again, with the growing papal power, some of those canons are disputed, and you know, 28th

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Canon, Calcedon, stuff like that. Anyway, so I just raised the simple historical reality.

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Now, it's funny, because I remember back in the 90s—and by the way, nothing has changed since the 90s, nothing.

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According to Michael Loftin, people in the 90s, whether Catholic or Protestant, didn't have a clue what they were talking about.

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Evidently, it's only his generation that has understood and has had a grasp on the issues related to the papacy and the magisterium of the church and the 6th

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Canon, the Council of Nicaea. Those of us from earlier decades, we just—we didn't have access to the same information.

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Don't know. Don't know. Go listen to his video. The first 10 minutes of the most condescending display of papal arrogance

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I've ever seen. I've ever—it's just astonishing. I mean, it just drips with, we are so superior, and we know so much, and nobody—this is just so simple.

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So, anyway, the whole point in making reference to this is there is so much that when—and remember what the overarching point

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I was making to Cameron was. Rome has a dogmatic position.

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Whether the current pope believes this or not, I don't know. He hasn't commented directly on it.

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I would not be shocked or surprised at all if many of the dogmatic statements of the

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Roman Catholic Church in the past that Roman Catholic apologists at Catholic Answers defended in the 1990s, early 2000s.

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I wouldn't be surprised if Francis does not believe them, but he's probably not going to comment about it.

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But as I had pointed out in the documents that I read, the quotations that I read to Cameron from Vatican I and various other sources, including

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Vatican II, in fact, the—I wanted to read this one, but I didn't, but let me throw this one in just for the fun of it.

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Cardinal Gibbons had, in the faith of our fathers, which is not a dogmatic source, obviously, but at the same time, when people simply dismiss someone like a cardinal, it gives you some idea.

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Anyways, he said in the faith of our fathers, page 78, the Catholic Church teaches that our Lord conferred on St.

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Peter the first place of honor and jurisdiction in the government of his whole church. And that same spiritual authority has always resided—and this was the point, because Cameron was saying, well, you know, you could believe in the papacy, but not necessarily believe in a perfect succession and stuff like that.

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No, it says, and that same spiritual authority has always resided in the popes or bishops of Rome as being the successors of St.

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Peter. Consequently, to be true followers of Christ, all

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Christians, both among the clergy and laity, must be in communion with the See of Rome, where Peter rules in the person of his successor.

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Now, again, modern Catholics don't have the spine that Gibbons had.

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They just don't. Modern Catholics will do the, that was excessive, or that was too much, or that was what was being taught in those days.

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And in 1896, there was a document promulgated called

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Satus Cognitum. Satus Cognitum. Let me read you just this one line from it.

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Wherefore, in the decree of the Vatican Council, as to the nature and authority of the primacy of the

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Roman pontiff—that was Vatican I— no newly conceived opinion is set forth but the venerable and constant belief of every age.

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End quote. Direct quotation. No newly conceived opinion is set forth but the venerable and constant belief of every age.

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Now, for anyone familiar with John Henry Cardinal Newman and what he wrote about the infallibility of the pope before Vatican I and what he did afterwards, you know that this was a massive issue.

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And to be an honest historian is to recognize how fictitious this claim is on the part of the realm of magisterium.

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But here's the problem. If you therefore are going to be faithful to the realm of magisterium, then you have to do history in light of the dogmatic claims of Rome.

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Because Rome is not saying, you must interpret this Bible verse this way.

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We would think by now there would be an entire infallible commentary on the

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New Testament. They've had plenty of time to do it. But there isn't. And in fact, you'll hear

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Roman Catholic apologists today say, well, there's been seven verses that have been infallibly interpreted. And others say none have been infallibly interpreted.

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A true interpretation has been given of a small number of verses. And you have to accept that true interpretation.

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But that may not be the only interpretation. And it's a mess.

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But this is in their model of history. And some of these claims that Rome has made dogmatically, they are historical claims.

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And central to the—and I think it's because the papacy is self -conscious of its own ahistoricity.

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As more and more of the documents that were vital, definitionally vital to the establishment of the papacy, have been shown to have been forgeries.

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It's almost like the papacy is like, well, you need to say, this is what we've always believed.

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And some of you may not remember, back when John Paul II died, his pontificate had been a very long pontificate.

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And so for a week or more, all the

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Roman Catholic apologists were getting their 15 seconds of fame on Fox News, basically. Talking about how wonderful John Paul was.

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And all of them said the same thing. The faith of the church for 2 ,000 years. Now, I can see myself back here.

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And right now, the way Rich has things, it looks like I have never seen the sun. And I live in Phoenix.

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I am not even close to as white and washed out as Rich currently.

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I don't know what he's trying to—I don't know if he's trying to get sympathy for me. Look at the poor old man. We never let him out.

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He's pale and dying. Well, now it's like—now it looks like me trying to read a book up close.

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Because you just lost the focus. You can't see that you lost the focus there? Because I can—well, you just messed the whole thing up good, didn't you?

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Do not—do not—do not throw a curveball at Rich.

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Look, he hasn't been in here for, you know, a month and two weeks or so.

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And I just see him sitting back there looking at all the buttons and stuff like that, going, what is that?

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He's just like, what does it do? Well, OK.

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Yeah. So what were we talking about? Moses was in the bulrushes. And yes, so the point is that—I did lose where I was, but sadis cognitum.

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The point is that Rome tells you what you're supposed to find in history.

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I was talking about when John Paul II died. I looked back at you to see if you remember what it was like when

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John Paul II died. And every Catholic apologist I'd ever debated or had interactions with, they're all on Fox News, talking about how the 2 ,000 -year -old church, continuity, sameness, this had been the argument for the papacy for years, when

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I was debating Catholic answers and doing things like that. I can tell that things have changed.

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I know that you all know that Francis is

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Francis and he's very different. I get it.

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And I think all of you, when the lights are turned off and you lay your head down to sleep each night,

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I think you know in your heart of hearts that things have changed. The point is this.

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I don't know how you all fit together. What Satus Cognitum says with the development hypothesis.

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I really don't. It doesn't make any sense. I highly recommend to everybody.

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How in the world did I just get a bunch of black stuff on my hands from up here?

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I'm just, hmm. We're having lots of fun today. It is always live. How could you record it dead?

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I'm not really sure how that would work. Anyway, I don't know how you all put it together. Because as George Salmon documented, and I highly recommend anyone track down Infallibility of the

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Church by George Salmon. Oh, but that was written so long ago. If it hasn't been since 2015,

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I mean, nobody knew what they were talking about before 2015. OK, anyway. He just argues very cogently that the development hypothesis as posited by John Henry Cardinal Newman and utilized by Roman Catholic apologists constantly in the modern period is a fundamental abandonment of the historical field of battle.

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And it is. It's literally saying, yeah, we're not going to find in the early. At Nicaea?

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Yeah, the papacy is still developing. It's the acorn into the tree. You'd expect that there wouldn't be a recognition of these things and so on and so forth.

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And so you've got that approach. But it does seem to me that there are others that don't want to go the

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Newman direction until they're pushed into a corner. Some of you saw the really funny video last year.

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Just slapped some Newman on it. Which was where the guy had that stuff that you can slap on something and it seals the flex seal.

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Is that what it's called? The flex seal thing? And they changed it to slap some Newman on it. And that's how you fix any

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Roman Catholic argument is you just slap some Newman on it. Obviously, to me, if you accept

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Newman's development hypothesis, you don't even have to worry about arguing about this stuff. You can look at the

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Sixth Canon Council of Nicaea and you can look at it in its context. You can recognize that it's coming out of a council that was not under the single auspices of the

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Bishop of Rome. You can recognize that the people at the council did not dogmatically believe the vast majority of the things you dogmatically believe about Mary and the papacy and purgatory and the canon of scripture and just all sorts of stuff like that.

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And just go, yeah, the acorn is still developing all as well. It's cool. No problem.

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It's only the people who want to go, no. Sotus Cognitum says, this is no newly conceived opinion, but the venerable and constant belief of every age.

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You can't put this and Newman together. It's just not possible. I mean, you can pretend that you're doing it,

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I suppose, if you want to, but it's pounding squares into round circles.

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It ain't going to go in. It doesn't work. So this is what

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I was talking about, was that when you look at the Council of Nicaea and you do not have a dogmatic authority telling you what you need to find.

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So you see, the Roman Catholic apologists looking at the fourth century has already been told, this is the constant belief of every age.

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Therefore, that's the lens through which you look. And therefore, you look at everything through that lens.

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You have to do that to be dogmatically faithful to your own church.

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And that's why I say to you, from a religious dogmatic position, Roman Catholic apologists cannot do church history.

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Because their church history has already been defined for them by the dogmatic statements of the

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Roman Catholic Church. It's not that, hey, you know, if you examine fairly each age of the church, you're going to find that this is the true belief.

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No, it's the exact opposite. This is the true belief, and therefore, you need to find it in every age of the church.

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And that's how you can get these amazing explanations. I'm going longer on this than I want to, but when we look at the

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Council of Nicaea, given its context, we have nothing here about the supremacy of the teaching authority or jurisdictional authority of the

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Bishop of Rome. It wasn't called because he said it should be called. It didn't originate from him. No one was going, well, we're going to come up with a creed, and then we'll submit it to the

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Bishop of Rome to see if it's okay. That comes along a lot later. None of that's true.

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The very fact that the Council is called demonstrates that at this point in time, even though the

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Bishop of Rome has been making big claims for a long time, starting with Victor, certainly

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Cyprian has to tell the Bishop of Rome to cool his jets and succeeds in doing that.

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And North African bishops specifically repudiate the claims of Rome to have some kind of special authority over them, despite wanting to have unity.

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I mean, it's always been the context of trying to maintain some kind of unity. This is the context.

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And so we see the sixth canon, and in that context, it has a plain, really non -controversial meaning.

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Loftin tried to make it look like, this disproves Catholicism. This is simply a fair, honest analysis of a historical fact in regards to the nature of the

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Council of Nicaea that is one of an entire massive cumulative case that demonstrates that the papacy is a modern innovation that developed over time.

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They always want to try to—he thinks he's disproving Catholicism. Look, the only people that are going to be impressed by that video are the people who are desperate to continue believing what they've always believed.

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I get that. It was just embarrassing. He was like, it's just so embarrassing.

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OK, well, I think what you did was embarrassing. But I can sit here and talk about it on a significantly more grounded historical basis than you possibly can, because you've already been told what to find.

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You are not an unbiased person. You're not doing church history. You're doing

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Catholic dogma, which defines your history. So when we read the sixth canon, it simply says that there are spheres of ultimate authority of these major patriarchates—Rome,

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Alexandria. And, you know, church history shows this.

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I mean, the whole difference, for example, in ecclesiology at the highest levels between the

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West and the East—think about it. I've used this illustration many times, but think about the map of the

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Mediterranean. I wish I had one I could throw up, but anyway. Think of the map of the

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Mediterranean. Draw a line right down the middle, and mark the seas that claim to be apostolic.

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Mark the apostolic seas. Doesn't mean they necessarily were, but what's an apostolic sea?

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A bishopric that claims to have been founded by an apostle. They had special—they were given special authority, primarily in the second century, starting in the second century.

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Anyway, to the West, there's one—Rome. To the East, there are many.

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Eventually, you know, you've got Antioch and Alexandria and those ones mentioned, but eventually

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Byzantium gets in on the game, and so on and so forth. And what do you have in East Orthodoxy? You've got collegiality, ostensibly, of equals with one another.

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And it just has a rather obvious historical background to it, why it developed the way that it did.

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And so, what you have at Nicaea is simply a recognition that we will continue these delimitations of the areas of authority of these major bishoprics.

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So, there's nothing about differing levels of authority.

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There's nothing about bishops versus patriarchs versus the pope, the infallible vicar of Christ on earth with universal jurisdiction.

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There's nothing about any of that. These bishops, patriarchs, are mentioned in equality with one another.

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And that's the problem, of course. But at the time, once you look at what the council was doing, why it was called, what it does, that makes perfect sense.

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That's the honest historical way of looking at it. That's the, we're going to let history define what's going on here, way of looking at it.

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But the Roman Catholic can't go there. Can't allow that. So, what you do, and the, oh, it's so obvious, this is so simple,

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I can't believe anybody doesn't know this. Michael Lofton response was, well, this is just talking about a certain kind of authority that the patriarch of Rome had.

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So the bishop of Rome has powers of bishop in Rome, and then powers of patriarch over this area, but then he has the universal jurisdiction over all the church.

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Whereas the bishop of Alexandria, he has bishop powers in Alexandria, and patriarch powers over Egypt, but he is not the universal head of the church.

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And everybody knows that's what they meant. No, that is called anachronism, that's called abusing history, and that's called being a

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Roman Catholic apologist, not a historian. So, this almost,

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I mean, he was talking about how laughable it was to bring it up. And I think going, being a sophist, being a historical sophist, and going, well, it's just talking about the authority of patriarchs, and therefore, it's not even addressing the ultimate jurisdictional authority of the

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Pope. Okay, and prove that from the documents of the

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Council of Nicaea, the existence of the Council of Nicaea, anything like that? You can't, you're just assuming it, because you've been told to assume it.

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I'm sorry, there's no reason for anyone to take you seriously when you do history. Your documents tell you what to find, and when you find them, oh, golly bob, there it is.

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How impressive is that? It's not. It's not impressive at all. There is also some discussion that, again, missed the point, happens a lot.

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But I mentioned in passing that who was the one, the one person who stood for the deity of Christ, for the

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Council of Nicaea, during what's called the Arian Ascendancy? I didn't go into the history of this. I wrote an article years ago that really got an interesting, this was before social media, but it got quite the interesting response out of Catholic Answers about Athanasius and the

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Council of Nicaea. And I discussed in there the reality of the fact that it wasn't the

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Bishop of Rome that stood firm and led the charge in defense of Nicaea.

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No one can make that argument. No one can make that argument. Now, they say, well, there's dispute about whether Liberius signed the

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Arianized Sirmium Creed, and we're not really sure whether it was really Arianized. Oh, please, guys, seriously?

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You have a creed being promulgated after Nicaea, specifically seeking to get rid of Nicaea's authority, that refuses to use that language, and it's not

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Arianized while the Arians are in control? Really? I was like, oh, guys, stop embarrassing yourselves.

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This is really bad. You've got to stop. Just stop. But even if he did, he was under pressure.

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I know that. Duh. Duh. But Athanasius was under pressure, too, and he didn't give in.

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That's the point. That was the whole point, and since you missed that point,

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I understand what you're doing. When you're refuting points that it wasn't what I was making, that makes you sound better to— again, you're trying to keep your audience—you're trying to give them reasons to believe because they heard a lot of stuff that you would rather deal with one at a time, just once at a time.

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It's been a long time since we've discussed this type of stuff, but keep this in mind. When talking about something like the papacy, the facts do not come one fact at a time.

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It's a cumulative case. So theoretically, if you're ever caught in an avalanche, theoretically, you can dodge every rock.

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I mean, you know, if you see that rock coming and you can plot its trajectory, you can dodge every rock in an avalanche.

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There's only one problem. Avalanches do not come one rock at a time. They all come at once.

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It's a cumulative issue, and that's why you can't dodge it. You might dodge the first one, the second one's going to take you out.

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You might dodge the second one, the third one's going to take you out. It doesn't matter. That's the whole point. That's the whole point.

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You've got to take them all together. And the modern doctrine of the papacy was unknown in the early church.

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It's a fact. It's just a fact. I know you can't deal with it. You've got a really good chance right now.

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I mean, just think how many of you could go, you know, I have been led astray, but then Francis shown the light.

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We have now learned to get past all that stuff. So there's just a little bit of a discussion in regards to a discussion of Roman Catholicism that we had on the last program.

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Now, I want to try to, this is not easy to do, but I want to try to transition into a discussion of modern

42:32

Roman Catholic concepts of tradition and scripture that are appearing in resources being recommended within Reformed Baptist and Reformed Protestant Presbyterian circles in reference to so -called classical theism, the great tradition, the ressourcement of Thomas Aquinas, the call for the establishment of Christian Platonism, the need to adopt

43:20

Thomas' metaphysics, and what all this means and why all of this explains why it is that Reformed Baptist professor can now use the phrase sola scriptura as a punchline and a joke and do it repeatedly and in fact double down to make sure that everybody knows

43:44

I'm still going to do this because I think it's okay to mock people who are saying, hey, you seem to be moving away from sola scriptura.

43:58

You are redefining it. You are men that I know personally 15 years ago did not believe the things you believe now.

44:06

You did not speak as you believe now, and you've admitted it. You've said it. Oh, but we've learned.

44:13

Well, what you've learned means that you are redefining the application and meaning of sola scriptura within Reformed community, and there are still a few of us who are going to pay the price of being called cesspools of negativity, as I was today, to say, no, we're not going there.

44:45

When we stood in front of your churches and your schools in the past and defined and defended sola scriptura, we still believe it.

45:02

We have seen absolutely positively nothing. Mockery is not the best form of apologetic argumentation.

45:08

I can assure you of that. But we have seen no reason to embrace the new great tradition understanding.

45:21

And so what I want to try to do is I want to try to explain to everyone else.

45:29

I don't want to lose everybody. I don't want you going, ah, that's just all the

45:34

Reformed folks are having an argument. I really believe this is important to everyone when it comes to, for example, just apologetics as a whole.

45:45

Let me give an example. The people who are embracing the great tradition, Christian Platonism, so -called classical theism,

45:55

I reject that terminology. That's advertising, not description.

46:02

But these positions and promoting them with great zeal today, just really great zeal, many of them are also writing articles, even books in the case of one on the

46:18

Presbyterian side, about how they used to be presuppositionalists and they're apologetic.

46:24

And now they're not. Hmm, that's interesting. It has an impact on doing apologetics.

46:34

Now, I don't see most of these people doing apologetics, to be perfectly honest with you. That's not their focus.

46:43

And I really don't know that they would be doing apologetics in regards to Roman Catholicism. And I'd like you to think about that, how some of you older guys once thought that, yeah, that's an important thing to do and you saw the danger of it and got a different viewpoint now.

47:06

Why? Who changed? What's changed? Oh, we've learned.

47:11

Learned what? How's it impacted you? Those are important things. All of this was prompted by what's up on the screen.

47:22

The picture that I showed at the end of the last program that got sort of bonked on the live feed, and then we uploaded it later, from the bookstore of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

47:38

And I point out that five of the ten books, staff recommendations, sword and trowel,

47:45

I can guarantee you, virgin would never. No, virgin, no.

47:51

Wouldn't have done that. But five of the seven are by Roman Catholic authors. You can see the

47:59

Summa of the Summa, reading Job with St. Thomas Aquinas. And Richard Braselis, in his normal cheeky way, tweeted about how we shouldn't be triggered by reading widely.

48:18

And I had said on the program, that has absolutely nothing to do with being triggered about this display.

48:25

And by the way, numerous people, Scott Swain and others, have come to the defense and said, ah, that's great, that's wonderful.

48:34

Scott Swain is president of RTS Orlando, for the Presbyterian side of these things. That's great, that's wonderful.

48:42

It's great to have this stuff here. One of the authors, and I mentioned this author,

48:49

I think, in December of last year, and there was a lot of pushback that I mentioned him, but the more

48:58

I'm reading these folks, and the more I'm reading the books, which frequently cite each other, the more

49:06

I see the centrality of Dr. Levering to Roman Catholic, brilliant man, writes on a wide range of topics.

49:21

I'll be honest that most of what I've read of his, it's a quote from a person over here, a quote from a person over there, a quote from a person over here, some comments.

49:33

It's not the most compelling form of argumentation, especially when I know that there are really fundamental foundational differences between these various people that should have an impact on how we're reading what they're saying, but anyways.

49:54

I was immediately cognizant upon starting to read anything by Levering of what the real problem with this is.

50:05

You've got a Roman Catholic, and by the way, some of these Roman Catholics are being cited. They are reacting against the liberalization of Roman Catholic biblical scholarship, which continues on without any slowing down, and it continues on with papal approval.

50:33

I don't know why they remain Roman Catholics, to be honest with you. They recognize that ever since Vatican II, the papal biblical commission, even the people

50:44

John Paul II put on it, and certainly the people that Francis has, just two left wings.

50:52

No two ways about it. I agree, and they recognize that liberal biblical interpretation,

51:00

Catholic or Protestant, is pretty worthless. I've said that for a long time.

51:09

There is a deadness to liberalism. Again, these are things that,

51:15

I don't care if you guys don't listen to me, but if you're going to then come out and say that my type of Christianity needs to die, and we'll look at that one here in a moment, then you might want to familiarize yourself with what

51:30

I've been saying over the years. Maybe. Either that or just keep your trap shut.

51:37

There's the other option. How many times have I said in this program,

51:43

I can't understand teaching theology when you don't actually believe it's divinely true.

51:53

I don't understand why liberals do what liberals do. I don't get it. I remember when

51:59

I came back after the Daniel Kirk debate on homosexuality a couple years ago, on a number of different programs

52:07

I was talking about, I just don't know why these people do what they do. Why continue to believe the things you believe? I don't get it. And so there are lots of true things being said, even by these

52:22

Roman Catholics, in recognizing the dead end of...

52:29

I went to Fuller. I remember sitting there in a class where we spent hours and hours and hours on the quest for the historical

52:41

Jesus. And yeah, you've got to understand that to know 20th century stuff, but it was just so painful because the one source that would answer all your questions, you don't believe anymore.

52:59

So when I read Levering, Boersma, and they're talking about Scripture and they're talking about what kind of person needs to be reading

53:14

Scripture, hey, I get it. So let me, very quickly, because I'm going way over time, I'm sorry. We have limited time here.

53:20

We've got stuff going on around here. In Levering's book,

53:27

Engaging the Doctrine of Revelation, we could look at Boersma's book on Scripture as divine presence, as real presence, sorry, real presence.

53:37

And there's a meaning to real presence. I've spent a little time with Roman Catholic theology and theological writings, and it has a meaning.

53:50

And good luck trying to divorce it from that meaning. But Engaging the Doctrine of Revelation by Levering.

53:59

In a recent essay, John Webster, that's another name that comes up a lot because Carter is a student of John Webster.

54:06

John Webster distances his own Reformed ecclesiology, which he roots in a deep sense of the perfection of Christ, that is, the utter uniqueness, integrity, and sufficiency of the word made flesh from, quote, those styles of Christian historiography, which regard the history of the church as simply one long decline from apostolic purity.

54:28

Such a reading of the Christian past is the denial of credo in spiritum sanctum.

54:34

I believe in the Holy Spirit, end quote. Webster is right to bemoan those approaches that read the history of the church as simply one long decline from apostolic purity.

54:42

This is particularly the case when it comes to the mediation of divine revelation. At issue, now, let me just stop for a second.

54:53

What's interesting is you will get amongst fundamentalists this idea of the history of the church as simply one long decline from apostolic purity.

55:09

And then you will get from the liberals the same idea.

55:16

Most of the fundamentalists don't know they're agreeing with the liberals because they don't read liberal theology or go to liberal schools, for obvious reasons.

55:25

That's not what I believe. I believe that there is certainly a marked decline in the purity and centrality of dedication to the ultimate authority of Scripture that begins probably with Nicaea and goes up and down because nothing is added.

56:03

It's not straight lines anywhere. You still find writers in the 5th and 6th centuries that are bright lights, for example, of soundness and a high view of scriptural supremacy and the ontological supremacy of Scripture and things like that.

56:31

But tradition becomes more and more central as time goes by until the great upheaval and the upward rocket rise of the centrality of Scripture called the

56:49

Reformation and the pre -Reformation Reformers. I mean, we can talk about Wycliffe, we can talk about Hus at that point in time.

56:58

And so it's not just... There's... You didn't like the sound effect?

57:14

That's a deep history. There's going to be numerous memes, but the problem is you have to have sound with the meme.

57:25

That would never work without... Dividing the line highlights will do the...

57:33

Wee! How did you know the Reformation was coming? Well, I heard wee, and there it goes.

57:41

Got to have some fun when you're being called a cesspool of negativity and things like that.

57:46

It's great. Anyway, I think any serious reading of church history forces you to see the ups and the downs and things like that.

58:02

And that's how I've presented it when I've taught church history for many, many years. So I continue on with the reading.

58:11

This is particularly the case when it comes to the mediation of divine revelation. The mediation of divine revelation.

58:19

Think about what that means. From a Roman Catholic. Remember that in Roman Catholicism, scripture is a subcategory of sacred tradition.

58:30

Okay? So you have written tradition, you have oral tradition. All of this is defined by the

58:36

Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church. Keep that in mind. In the language. At issue is whether the capital

58:45

C churches, not churches, plural, singular church, capital

58:53

C. For a Roman Catholic, there's only one meaningful definition to that. It's whether the church's mediation of divine revelation has in fact been one long decline from apostolic purity, if indeed from a purely historical perspective, one can speak of a period of apostolic purity at all.

59:13

Against ecclesiastical fall narratives, I have argued in this book. So here is

59:19

Levering's... See the connection here? I have argued in this book that the church, capital

59:28

C, truthfully mediates God's revelation to us due to the efficacious missions of the

59:39

Son and the Holy Spirit. The Great Temptation.

59:46

If you're like me, you try to read with some hope of positivity, even when reading something like this.

01:00:00

But the problem is I also have to go, okay, he's using church singular. He's using the church mediating

01:00:09

God's revelation. I've read Vatican II. Read Vatican II yourself. Read the post -dogmatic commentaries and so on and so forth.

01:00:18

I know what the background of this language is. And so the efficacious missions of the

01:00:25

Son and the Holy Spirit have to be defined within a Roman Catholic context. Our tendency is to read that within a context that would be commensurate with our understanding.

01:00:39

But this is an efficacious... What this means is that the Son and the Holy Spirit have been behind what has happened in the church, which includes the definition of the gospel by the

01:00:51

Roman Catholic Church, which is the issue, which is the issue. Because what's the next line?

01:01:00

The very next words. This mediation of the gospel, but I'm not inserting something here, which takes place in God's missional people.

01:01:13

Ready? Through the liturgy, priesthood, and capital

01:01:19

T tradition does not compete with or undercut scripture's truthful mediation of divine revelation.

01:01:32

Indeed, the one supports as implied by the other. Otherwise, Paul could hardly hope that Timothy would be able to truly guard what had been entrusted to him.

01:01:41

1 Timothy 6 .20. Timothy's care for the church, 1 Timothy 3 .5, by the way, that was a local church, belongs within the

01:01:47

Holy Spirit's work of guiding Israel in the church, capital C, in the writing and transmission of the scriptures.

01:01:54

The Holy Spirit's inspiration of scripture and the Holy Spirit's guidance of the people of God are inextricably bound together.

01:02:00

You see, when you take a sentence like that, the Holy Spirit's inspiration of scripture and the

01:02:06

Holy Spirit's guidance of the people of God are inextricably bound together, no one can argue with that. But you can't take it as a single sentence.

01:02:15

Because the next sentence is, this is the point of John Henry Newman's story of the man who began with so -and -so.

01:02:22

So you see, it's easy for us to try to read these things and we put them in our own context.

01:02:34

Those of us who have been dealing with Roman Catholicism for many, many years, we have the other context to place it in.

01:02:39

And so I want to go back and make sure you heard in this sentence, this mediation of the gospel which takes place in God's missional people through what?

01:02:50

Liturgy has a specific meaning in Roman Catholicism. Priesthood, very specific meaning in Roman Catholicism.

01:03:01

That's why we debated Mitch Pacwa on the priesthood. Need I say to you, you cannot be any confessional

01:03:12

Baptist and believe in the priesthood as Rome believes in the priesthood. Do I need to say that?

01:03:20

Do I need to say to Reformed Baptist professors at Reformed Baptist seminaries that you should be triggered by such language?

01:03:34

He's one of the same authors, just in case I'm pointing at the display. That's what triggers me.

01:03:43

I actually read this stuff. I actually know what the connections are. And I realized that there are smart young men coming to these schools and they're going to make those connections.

01:03:57

When that happens, there's going to be someone who will be able to say,

01:04:04

I was straight up front about all this. The rest of you will have a lot to answer for.

01:04:11

A lot to answer for. So missional people through the liturgy, priesthood and capital

01:04:22

T tradition. What is capital T tradition? Well, it's interesting because a bunch of stuff happened on Twitter today, including statements.

01:04:44

There were some statements made that just truly left me wondering what planet

01:04:53

I had landed on. Let me see if I can find this here. One more.

01:05:04

I've already seen that one. Yes. This morning,

01:05:10

Richard Braselis. It is unfeasible to derive any theological concept from scripture without a secondary means apart from scripture.

01:05:22

This is a quote from Stefaniak in Modern Reformation, May, June 2022, page 39.

01:05:30

It is unfeasible to derive any theological concept from scripture without a secondary means apart from scripture. And later,

01:05:44

Tom Hicks, also a Reformed Baptist, posted, to understand the theology of scripture, we must have knowledge of things outside of scripture, such as language, basic history, basic geography, the basic reliability of sense perception, the law of non -contradiction, cause and effect, et cetera.

01:06:06

To which Braselis responded, letters, alphabets, words, philosophy of words, as signs, grammar, syntax.

01:06:13

To which Hicks responded, are you going to keep denying solo scriptura? And Braselis said, apparently so.

01:06:20

Okay, again, I find the mocking use of solo scriptura sinful and childish on the part of both of you.

01:06:29

And I will stand there and leave that to everybody.

01:06:36

This is not something to be joking about. And 15 years ago, neither one of you, neither one of you would have said what you said here.

01:06:47

Neither one of you would have thought that the fact that there is such a thing as linguistics or grammar was in any way, shape, or form related to the importance and centrality of solo scriptura.

01:07:02

But now all of a sudden, now that you have gotten into resource mode and you're reading your

01:07:10

Platonists and you're reading your Aristotelians and you're getting your philosophy on, now you can joke about solo scriptura.

01:07:17

Disgusting, disgusting. So in the midst of all this, there was a statement and again, far too many windows here on one screen.

01:07:45

Okay, it's not that one, so I'll close it. Maybe if I close enough of them. Oh, I remember where it is.

01:07:53

There it is. Jonah Saller, Jonah Saller, S -A -L -L -E -R.

01:08:03

Jonah Saller, according to his about thing, Jonah belongs to the

01:08:09

Anglican Church of North America as an Anglo -Catholic

01:08:14

Christian. Now, ACNA, they're the conservative Anglicans in North America.

01:08:21

So they have more of a connection to the Sydney Anglicans than to the

01:08:27

Episcopalians by a long shot. In fact, they're embarrassed about the Episcopalians. I think

01:08:32

I can say that very safely. He confesses the Holy Scripture, the seven ecumenical councils, and the three

01:08:38

Catholic creeds, apostles, Nicene, and Athanasian. As the standard for Orthodox Christian belief and practice, Jonah also subscribes to the 39 articles of religion as a reflection of Anglicanism's local expression of the

01:08:49

Catholic faith, which I find a very interesting statement, because I assume he wrote this. Jonah's primary desire is to bring a greater unity to Christ's one holy

01:08:57

Catholic and apostolic church. Keep that in mind. Through promoting what he has labeled mere

01:09:02

Catholicity, he believes that when Christians forsake their tribalism for truth, the church will indeed become one, as our

01:09:10

Lord prayed for. Jonah has been heavily influenced by both Eastern and Western fathers. In particular, however,

01:09:16

St. Thomas Aquinas has had a profound influence on Jonah's theological trajectory. It's interesting that when he talks about people who've had influence on him, he mentions both

01:09:27

Peter Lightheart and Douglas Wilson. I'm sure he will be squirming greatly when the next

01:09:33

Sweater Vest Dialogue comes out that Doug and I recorded last week, week before last, doubting the

01:09:40

Thomists. That will put him in an odd situation.

01:09:46

No two ways about it. So Jonah tweeted the following.

01:09:52

James White and Owen Stratham, which everyone assumes is

01:09:58

Owen Strand. And look, I'm not the only person that said to Owen that, well,

01:10:07

I even saw a video of a guy saying, hey, it was the British that forced you to stop saying

01:10:14

Strachan and spitting on people. So be a good

01:10:19

Scotsman and go back to the way it used to be said. So look,

01:10:29

I mispronounced Owen's name not very long ago. So I'm not overly stunned that Jonah doesn't know what he's talking about.

01:10:38

But anyway, so going with who it's supposed to be, James White and Owen Strand are good representatives of what

01:10:44

Peter Lightheart would call tribalistic Protestants who define themselves as, quote, not

01:10:52

Rome, end quote. So this is the kind of Protestantism that needs to die.

01:11:03

I don't know that I've ever had any communication with this gentleman, but when you think about it, isn't it painfully obvious that in my coming up on 40 years of preaching and teaching, debating, writing,

01:11:33

I have been a consistent Protestant in engaging

01:11:42

Roman Catholicism, engaging in numerous debates with Roman Catholicism, but that's not where we started.

01:11:51

And in dealing with Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, one is

01:11:57

Pentecostalism, in going into mosques around the world globally, presenting the gospel.

01:12:05

The gospel I presented is first and foremost intended to glorify the triune

01:12:14

God who inspired the revelation of those truths in what is called the Holy Bible.

01:12:22

I am well aware as a professor of church history that even my own confessional documents, when discussing issues such as the

01:12:35

Lord's Supper, do so in the context of post -Reformation Europe, but it is simply loathsome of someone to describe myself as simply being not

01:12:54

Rome. It's dishonest and it's loathsome, loathsome.

01:13:02

And he did get ratioed for that in the line, in the comments, properly so.

01:13:10

A lot of people are like, what are you talking about? Some guy, well,

01:13:17

I'm not even gonna read that one. Let's not give him any oxygen. Isaac Mendez said, wow, the sanctimonious pearl clutching and projection is strong in this post and comment thread.

01:13:32

Talk about lack of self -awareness. And Jonah said, from me? Others? James? He says, yes, from you and your camp.

01:13:38

Like I said, no self -awareness. But then

01:13:43

Jonah said this. Someone asked him why.

01:13:49

And he says, because finding your identity of faith in who you oppose is horrific, shallow, and goes against the words of our

01:13:56

Lord who prayed for the oneness of the church. My response, sir, it is a gross misrepresentation of decades of my writing and ministry to say that I do so.

01:14:07

In fact, sir, it is a lie. I pray you will repent of your dishonesty. It will be better for your soul.

01:14:14

I'll give him at least some credit. A lot of these guys will not even respond. They'll just,

01:14:20

I'm just not gonna reply. But he did. He said, but notice how he dodges.

01:14:29

James, the way you interact with Roman Catholics, the main example I will use, has often been uncharitable and at times lacks the rigor

01:14:37

I've appreciated about you in many other areas. Now just stop. How does that have anything to do with what he had actually said?

01:14:43

It doesn't. What did he say? He had said that I find my identity of faith in who you oppose, and that that's horrific, shallow, and goes against the words of the

01:14:54

Lord Jesus. And I say that's a lie, and his response is to deflect. His response is to go, well, the way you interact with Roman Catholics, you want to be specific?

01:15:08

I mean, the way I interact with Gerry Madetich, Robertson Jenis, Patrick Madrid, Mitch Pacwa, which one?

01:15:17

What are you talking about? What's the specific issue? And how is that even slightly relevant to the assertion that my definition of my faith is simply to be the negative mirror image of Roman Catholicism?

01:15:34

That's just simply not true. No one who's read any of my books would ever come to that conclusion. It's a lie. It's dishonest, sir.

01:15:40

I called you out on it, and you deflected. So I said,

01:15:47

I will more fully engage your false claims of dividing line for a global audience this evening. That's what we're doing right now.

01:15:53

As long as the Windows machine in the other room is not still plugging away. Then he says,

01:16:02

I look forward to listening. But again, the invitation for a face -to -face interaction is still an open invitation.

01:16:08

I didn't know what he was talking about. I didn't see anything about an invitation. I'm literally moving to Maricopa on Monday.

01:16:17

I was really tempted to go, well, you're going to be believing in purgatory fairly quickly.

01:16:25

You don't move to Maricopa, Arizona at the beginning of the summer. Whatever.

01:16:33

We'll be happy to meet up for either a private or public conversation, your call. And then later on, he says this quote in response to Brooks Robinson.

01:16:50

Right, the point is, having your identity rooted in that which you oppose is pretty terrible.

01:16:56

James White is a cesspool of negativity and seems to thrive in claiming the moral high ground against nearly everyone.

01:17:04

Ha ha. If that isn't tribalism, I don't know what is. And I did respond to that.

01:17:10

Quote, James White is a cesspool of negativity. End quote. Quote, want to get coffee? End quote.

01:17:16

Yeah, not really. Yes, indeed.

01:17:23

So Jonah, to take what

01:17:31

I have written and done over all these years, and to call it rooting your identity in that which you oppose, and that's pretty terrible.

01:17:42

By the way, you're right. That would be pretty terrible. If you actually believe that, then sir, you shouldn't be doing anything because you can't read.

01:17:51

You have no reading comprehension, no listening comprehension, or you're simply dishonest. One of the two. I'll leave it to you to figure out which one's which.

01:17:59

Maybe someone in your life can take you aside and go, dude, you missed it. You face planted.

01:18:05

You got caught. There you go. But all of this is all coming from the same push, the reformed

01:18:17

Thomists, the classical theism, the this is how we will have our ecumenical moment stuff.

01:18:28

And so what I'm hearing as I'm reading more of Craig Carter, as I'm seeing the same sources being cited, what

01:18:40

I'm seeing, when we go back to what Levering is saying, we go back to what

01:18:47

Boersma is saying. Boersma is deeply influencing Craig Carter. Craig Carter is deeply influencing

01:18:52

Barrett. These are the primary people that are influencing IRBS and everything else.

01:19:01

The understanding of sola scriptura that undergirded the

01:19:08

Reformation undergirds John Calvin's discussions of almost everything, that undergirds any meaningful understanding of justification by faith, everything that we believe about election, about the particular atoning work of Christ.

01:19:28

All of that. All of that cannot stand on the foundation that Levering and Boersma are going to be giving to you because of the context in which it's being offered.

01:19:46

And here's my question. Who at Midwestern is warning the students about the context?

01:19:56

Who? Is that worth being, quote unquote, triggered over?

01:20:04

How many of you who came after me have read Levering? How many of you have spent hours in the supplemental volume to Vatican II on the subject of tradition and scripture?

01:20:21

You look in your hearts, you know none of you have. So the only possible responses here are going to be, yeah, we really need to be very careful about this issue.

01:20:40

Or if we get what we've gotten since December of last year for me, so for six months, it will be subtweeting mockery.

01:20:52

It won't deal with the substance. You won't have quotes from Levering.

01:20:59

And see, I'm trying to set you up to actually force you to do something here. Get into that conclusion

01:21:04

I read, and you tell me what he means by the priesthood, by liturgy, and by tradition with a capital

01:21:11

T. You tell me what he means by capital C, church. If you can't do it, then keep your fingers off the keyboard.

01:21:23

Go do something worthwhile, but don't add to your condemnation by mocking.

01:21:29

Do something meaningful. Do something meaningful. Think that's fair?

01:21:36

I think it's fair. I think it's very fair. Was there anything else there?

01:21:41

I think I covered most of everything there. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

01:21:47

Where did that go? Wait a minute. Hold on. Wait, there's more. There was one other quote that I really, yes, yes.

01:22:01

One last thing. This is from,

01:22:07

I think this is from the Modern Reformation article. Man, the way it's displaying,

01:22:12

I can't even scroll with it. It is so, it's a really badly formatted web coding.

01:22:20

Anyway, I want to at least mention this one paragraph that is really important.

01:22:30

So hold on just one second. Quote, second, tradition is what

01:22:38

Scott Swain and Michael Allen call, another quote, the temporally extended socially mediated activity of renewed reason, end quote.

01:22:54

Catch that? Scott Swain, Reformed professor, professor at RTS Orlando, I think, the temporally extended socially mediated activity of renewed reason.

01:23:14

It is the church's abiding in and with apostolic teaching through time.

01:23:26

It is neither static nor infallible in this

01:23:31

Protestant construal. Tradition is properly considered natural theology, given that it is not an infallible supernatural provision from God.

01:23:50

Now, there is so much there that in any semi -Orthodox

01:24:01

Roman Catholic use of tradition, that's not what you've got. But what does it mean that tradition, because you would think that tradition might first be defined as what we found, what we have about tradition in scripture, right?

01:24:20

That's how we used to do things. But now we have it, the temporally extended, that means it goes from generation to generation,

01:24:29

I would assume, socially mediated. There's a different tradition in different societies then?

01:24:40

Activity of renewed reason. So there's some type of assumption, there's some type of anthropological assumption coming in here at the end too.

01:24:56

It is the church, small c, not levering as church, it is the small c churches abiding in and with apostolic teaching through time.

01:25:09

So now you have some type of apostolic teaching that through the activity of renewed reason is passed on.

01:25:19

That's how you can have Craig Carter saying that the doctrine of the Trinity does not reach its final formulation until Aquinas.

01:25:28

But which c church would Aquinas identify with? Much more to come.

01:25:39

Much, much, much more to come. Well, there you go.

01:25:48

We had some issues getting started, but we hopefully got all the way through there without too much of an issue, and we will press on.

01:25:57

Thanks for watching The Dividing Line today. I have a feeling that by next week,

01:26:04

I just have a feeling that by this time next week, something really big will have happened politically in our land.

01:26:11

I bet you we'll be talking about it next week. We'll see. We'll see you next time. God bless.