Are the Scriptures the Sole Infallible Rule of Faith? (White vs Pacwa)

Alpha & Omega Ministries iconAlpha & Omega Ministries

9 views

Comments are disabled.

00:00
The resolution you have seen, the resolution being debated this evening, is as follows.
00:07
Be it resolved that the Holy Scriptures are the sole, the only infallible rule for faith for life in the
00:15
Church. This of course was the so -called formal principle of ultimate authority that lay at the root of the
00:24
Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. And this question of where ultimate authority rests in the realm of faith continues to be the foundational question for our lives, as the question of authority is always so crucial in every area, as we see it evidenced in our nation these days in the political arena.
00:50
Speaking for the resolution this evening is the Reverend James R. White, the most experienced debater.
00:59
I myself first met Dr. White four years ago, I believe it was, when he was my opponent in a debate regarding the proper subjects of baptism held in the
01:11
Phoenix area. But thinking exclusively of his debates with representatives of Roman Catholicism, he has had more than two dozen such debates since 1990.
01:26
I'm wondering, is it my mic with all the feedback? We'll try it down lower, see if it is.
01:35
As some are called to be pastors, some to be teachers, some to be evangelists, Dr. White it seems is called primarily to be a debater and an author.
01:48
Among his many books, Answers to Catholic Claims, Justification by Faith, The Roman Catholic Controversy, Mary, Another Redeemer, Letters to a
01:58
Mormon Elder, Is the Mormon My Brother?, The King James Only Controversy, The Forgotten Trinity, and most recently
02:06
The Potter's Freedom. His master's degree is from Fuller Seminary and his doctorate from Columbia Seminary at Longview, Washington.
02:15
Dr. White is the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a Christian apologetics ministry based in Phoenix, and it's a great pleasure to have him with us this evening.
02:26
Now, speaking against the resolution this evening, we have Dr. Mitchell Pacwa. Father Pacwa is a
02:33
Jesuit priest, currently assistant professor of scripture at Dallas University.
02:39
He earned his bachelor's degree summa cum laude at the University of Detroit. His MDiv degree magna cum laude at the
02:49
Jesuit School of Theology of Loyola University. His PhD degree was awarded by Vanderbilt in Old Testament.
02:57
He has taught in many institutions in both Old Testament and New Testament.
03:04
He is the contributing editor of both This Rock and Touchstone.
03:10
He has published two books, Catholics and the New Age, and Father, forgive me for I am frustrated.
03:23
I hope that wasn't after one of these debates. As well as writing many articles and essays, most significant for our topic tonight, his chapter in the 1997 book edited by Robert St.
03:40
Janus, Not by Scripture Alone, A Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura.
03:48
And it's a pleasure to welcome Father Pacwa this evening. Now the format that we're going to be following tonight will be rather formal.
03:57
I don't expect you to remember it. Let's hope I do. But let me just outline it quickly so that you won't be too surprised as we go along tonight.
04:10
Both speakers are going to have four minute introductory statements. Then there will be opening presentations of 12 minutes each.
04:19
Followed by first rebuttal and clarification, five minutes each. And then the first section of the debate will end with the first cross -examination, eight minutes each.
04:32
And there will be time for a break of 15 minutes. We're going to have to abide very strictly by that time limit tonight.
04:43
Okay, it's time to get started with the introductory presentation. And Dr. White will get us started.
04:59
I welcome you all here this evening. I am very thankful that you have taken the time to come out, even when we have important topics taking place in our nation, to consider what, in reality, is a far more important topic.
05:13
For while the situation our land will pass, the topic that we are addressing has eternal ramifications in regards to the gospel itself.
05:22
What is the gospel? The scriptures tell us that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.
05:31
And while we will be discussing sola scriptura and the belief that the scriptures are the sole infallible rule of faith of the church this evening,
05:38
I want you to understand from the beginning that the reason that I discuss this, or really any other issue in the debates that we have done over the years, is because each one of these debates goes back to the issue of the gospel itself.
05:53
I believe that without a sure word from God, we cannot proclaim the gospel with power.
05:59
The gospel is based upon God's revelation to us in scripture. And if that word is uncertain, if God's revelation to us is uncertain, then there is no basis upon which we can proclaim the gospel with certainty.
06:14
It is my conviction that the claims and assertions of the Roman Catholic Church in regard to her own authority have resulted not in a clarification of the gospel, but instead in a diminishment and sadly, in the official teachings of the church,
06:32
I believe a substitution for the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that is why we must address this issue.
06:39
Because I am convinced that without sola scriptura, there is no unchanging gospel that is the same in every age and every nation.
06:50
But because God has given us His word, because it is God -breathed, it has
06:55
His authority, then we can know that the gospel proclaimed by the apostles and the gospel that has been true in every generation remains true in our generation and for our children and our children's children.
07:10
That is the reason that we gather here this evening. Now I am very much looking forward to this particular encounter.
07:18
Father Pacwa and I have debated three times before, twice here in the San Diego area on justification and the mass, and about two or three years ago now on Long Island on the subject of the papacy.
07:32
Many of you have heard me say, many of you have heard me speak in other places, have heard me say that of all the individuals that I have debated,
07:40
I have the most respect for Mitchell Pacwa. The debate this evening, if it goes as our previous three debates have gone, will not be about James White and Mitchell Pacwa.
07:50
It won't be about the fact that I can wear colorful ties and he cannot. It won't be about anything personal concerning he or I.
08:07
Because one of the things that I enjoy about Father Pacwa is that he sticks to the subject. And in point of fact,
08:14
I would say, though this is my fifth or sixth debate on this subject, it may well be the first time
08:19
I've been able to debate the subject and it solely stay on the subject of Sola Scriptura.
08:25
And so my desire in engaging in these debates is to serve you, not myself, not anyone else, the person listening.
08:34
If we present our case clearly and you can leave this place understanding what the differences are and the basics of our positions and how they interact, then we will have done what we need to do here this evening.
08:47
Thank you for being here. God bless. I may not have better ties.
09:07
My computer's bigger. Thank you very much for having me here.
09:15
It's great to be here from the great state of Texas, home of the next president of the United States, I might add.
09:31
A man who I believe is a fine Bible -believing Christian. Now, I also very much agree with James that this is a very important topic for us to deal with.
09:51
Again, not because I like to win or lose debates. The intellectual pursuit is a great delight.
09:59
I love having had the opportunity to go to higher education and especially to become a professor.
10:07
I tell everyone it beats having a real job any day. And I'm quite delighted to do the work, especially to be able to teach
10:15
Scripture as my job. But it's not a job. It's much more than that.
10:21
And the issues at stake are precisely the issues of the gospel.
10:27
We Catholics believe that the teaching of the Scriptures themselves are teachings that call us to the full counsel of God.
10:40
And that the full counsel of God includes everything that Christ has left us.
10:47
He left in his apostles and through them to the church that comes afterwards. That includes the written word of God, which is an inerrant word of God.
10:59
It is guaranteed not by the church, but it's guaranteed by God himself, who is the primary author of Scripture.
11:09
God has deigned to use fellow human beings to write the Scriptures. We humans can understand the words of our brothers and sisters from centuries past.
11:20
But they were God's instruments. He is the primary author. And it's the
11:26
Holy Spirit who gives the guarantee for the word of God. And this is something that we believe most strongly.
11:37
And furthermore, as the Catholic Church teaches in its own conciliar documents, that the church must be subject to the word of God.
11:48
That Scripture has priority over our own ideas and our own personal opinions.
11:56
However, what we also believe is that not only does the
12:03
Scripture tell us to maintain the traditions, as both in the written form and in the oral form, but that they themselves are absolutely dependent on it.
12:17
And our concern as Catholics is that we not lose the oral tradition, because with it we can also lose the written.
12:30
And this is the danger that we want at all costs to prevent. What we want to ensure is our fidelity to whatever
12:40
Christ left us. Now, one of the things too that I can say with absolute confidence, is that throughout this debate,
12:50
James and I, and I assume everybody here, understands is that the primary source of what is true is
13:00
God. Truth is personified in Jesus Christ, as the word of God itself says.
13:06
And that our desire for that truth, and our commitment to that truth, by James and by me, and by all of us here, is that we stay faithful to Jesus Christ our
13:18
Lord. And that that concern might have some different ways of dealing with the issues, and we might highlight some aspects of that, but certainly that is the concern of my church and yours.
13:30
And hopefully our discussion will draw us more close to Jesus Christ our
13:36
Lord, and through him to the Father. Roman Catholic writer
14:03
John O 'Brien wrote these words, and I am going to ask later on, in light of what was just said, what
14:10
Father Pacwa thinks of these words. Great as is our reverence for the
14:16
Bible, reason and experience compel us to say that it alone is not a competent nor a safe guide as to what we are to believe.
14:28
I come here this evening presenting to you the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. And I do so in the firm conviction that I do not present to you some new development since the time of the
14:40
Reformation. In point of fact, I believe it is time for us to point out that the constant refrain that has been heard in our land and in Roman Catholic apologetic writings over the past 20 years, that Sola Scriptura is a theological novum, it's a new thing unheard of before Martin Luther or maybe
14:59
John Wycliffe, is simply and completely untrue. We believe that the
15:05
Scriptures themselves not only teach that they are the very speaking of God, and hence have ultimate authority, but that the
15:12
Scriptures do not point us to any other rule of faith that will exist alongside the sole infallible rule of faith that is provided to us in Scripture.
15:23
In point of fact, I believe, as this ancient writer did, who said, the Lord Jesus himself, when he had risen from the dead, judged that his disciples were to be convinced by the testimonies of the
15:34
Law and the Prophets and the Psalms. These are the proofs, these are the foundations, these the supports of our cause.
15:43
We read in the Acts of the Apostles, of some who believed that they searched the
15:48
Scriptures daily whether these things were so. What Scriptures, but the canonical
15:53
Scriptures of the Law and the Prophets. To these have been added the Gospels, the Apostolical Epistles, the
16:00
Acts of the Apostles, the Apocalypse of John. That was Augustine, in a fascinating book,
16:06
De Unitate Ecclesiae, the Unity of the Church, which is a tremendously important work.
16:11
In the same way, I come in the spirit of the one who said, we make the Holy Scriptures the canon and rule of every dogma.
16:19
We of necessity look upon that and receive alone that which may be made conformable to the intention of these writings.
16:28
Now, why would these individuals, that was Gregory, by the way, Gregory of Nyssa, why would these individuals make these kinds of statements?
16:36
Well, because they believed and understood that the Scriptures are God speaking to us.
16:43
They are not merely the thoughts of men about God. But that they are supernatural in their origin and they are supernatural in their authority.
16:51
I believe that there are two positions being presented this evening. And we need to keep that in mind because in the vast majority of instances, when sola scriptura is discussed, only one position is examined.
17:03
The standards that are used to examine the one should, in all fairness to anyone who wants to know the truth, be applied to both positions because an argument that works against one position as well as your own is not really a good argument.
17:16
There are two positions being presented. I believe in sola scriptura and I believe that as we discuss the issue this evening,
17:25
I will be able to substantiate my assertion that the only way to understand the assertions of the
17:31
Roman Catholic Church regarding Scripture and tradition, her own infallibility, her role in the canon, her role in understanding tradition and interpreting tradition, is the phrase sola ecclesia, that the church alone becomes the ultimate authority.
17:47
And I say that because in the Roman Catholic position, it is the church that defines the extent of Scripture, the canon, and the interpretation of Scripture, as well as the extent of tradition, what is and what is not tradition, and the meaning of tradition.
18:01
And so we can say that the church is under the authority of these two sources all we want, but if it is the church that determines the extent and meaning of both and does so allegedly infallibly, how can we logically say that the church exists under the authority of two sources that exist because she defines them and interprets them?
18:24
The Roman position is a claim to absolute and infallible authority. And that is the same claim that I make for the
18:32
Word of God, the Bible. It is vital to remember this throughout the debate this evening and apply anything that I say to both positions and vice versa.
18:42
That is very, very important. Now, the doctrine of sola scriptura is really rather straightforward.
18:49
But in my experience, it is rarely accurately represented in many writings in our day.
18:55
Sola scriptura, very briefly stated, is simply this. Because the Scriptures are the only example of God -breathed revelation in the possession of the church, they form the only infallible rule of faith for the church.
19:12
In other words, since the Bible is theanustos, the word used at 2
19:18
Timothy 3 .16, God -breathed, it provides to us the very voice of God, or to use the words that the
19:25
Lord Jesus used in Matthew 22 .31, have you not read what was spoken to you by God?
19:33
The Lord Jesus believed that the very words of Scripture were God speaking, the very same doctrine that we have in the
19:41
Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 3. God's voice can admit of no higher or equal authority.
19:50
It is the ultimate authority in all things, for God cannot refer to some higher authority than himself to establish the truthfulness of what he himself says.
20:01
It is, by definition, an absolute authority. Sola scriptura denies that there is another infallible rule of faith for the church.
20:12
Notice the use of the word infallible. There may be other rules, there may be creeds, there may be confessions of faith, but they are not infallible in and of themselves, and they are subject to the correction of the highest authority, and that is
20:29
Scripture. Again, as Augustine put it in these words, what more shall I teach you than what we read in the
20:35
Apostle? For holy Scripture fixes the rule for our doctrine, lest we dare to be wiser than we ought.
20:44
Therefore I should not teach you anything else except to expound to you the words of the teacher.
20:50
And again, elsewhere he put it this way, neither dare one agree with Catholic bishops, if by chance they err in anything, with the result that their opinion is against the canonical scriptures of God.
21:06
Now very quickly, as our time is short this evening, we turn in our scriptures, if you have them, to one of the key passages, and that is 2
21:13
Timothy 3. Most of you know the passage well, but I quickly read it to you, beginning at verse 14.
21:19
But as for you, continue in what you have learned, and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
21:35
All scripture is God -breathed, and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
21:47
Now as soon as this passage is cited, as soon as the very words came from my mouth, there were some of you who were saying something along these lines.
21:57
Oh yes, we know that passage, but that doesn't say only scripture, it just says all of scripture.
22:05
That is quite true, but anyone who is going to say, well, that opens the door for another infallible rule of faith, will then have to prove that whatever you offer as an infallible rule of faith is theanustos, it is
22:20
God -breathed, and that without it, the man of God is insufficient to do every good work in the church.
22:29
The scripture here says that if you want to teach doctrine, Timothy, go to that which is theanustos.
22:35
If you want to correct, if you want to rebuke, if you need to train in righteousness, Timothy, you have the sufficient source only in that which is
22:43
God -breathed. Don't accept a substitute. And so if we are going to say that there is something else beyond this, if we are going to say that there is another infallible rule of faith, then we have to demonstrate that it is theanustos, it is
22:58
God -breathed, and that without it, the man of God will not be able to do what Timothy was able to do.
23:05
And that means I will be challenging the Roman Catholic side this evening to demonstrate that the doctrines and dogmas that have been defined on the basis of this other rule of faith, most of which were totally unknown to the early
23:18
Christians, men of God lived for centuries without knowing any of the dogmas that have been defined just in the past 150 years.
23:26
They had wonderful ministries and served Christ without any knowledge of what a Roman Catholic must believe today to be dogma.
23:34
I will challenge anyone who says that's a rule of faith to demonstrate that that is not in contradiction to Paul's own words to Timothy.
23:42
When he said, Timothy, you as the man of God can be complete, you can be thoroughly furnished to do these things in the church, to teach doctrine in the church.
23:51
I will be making that challenge. Remember what Peter said in 2 Peter chapter 1.
23:57
Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation.
24:04
For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the
24:10
Holy Spirit. Here is a description of an infallible rule of faith. Why is it infallible?
24:16
Because it does not have its origin in the will of man. Here is where we come to the issue of certainty.
24:23
For Peter was convinced that prophecy never had its origin in the will of men.
24:29
Instead, men spoke from God as they are carried along by the
24:34
Holy Spirit. There is the certainty of the Gospel. There is the certainty of the Scriptures as the only infallible rule of faith.
24:41
For the Holy Spirit is not going to carry a person into error. And since that which they are speaking comes from God, not from man, it never has its origin in the will of man, therefore it is absolutely certain.
24:57
Now very briefly, what is sola Scriptura? What isn't it? It is not a denial that God's Word has at times been in oral form during those periods of inscripturation.
25:08
Scripture is not being written today. The debate this evening takes place concerning the situation we experience today, not in the days when apostles walked the earth.
25:17
It is not a denial of the role of the Holy Spirit in leading and guiding the church of Jesus Christ.
25:23
It is not an assertion as well that the Bible contains all knowledge, and therefore I hope we won't hear from John chapter 20 about all the other things that Jesus said and did, unless we are then given an infallible pronouncement defining what all those extra things were.
25:37
The Bible is not an exhaustive compendium of all things, but it is God -breathed, and therefore it is sufficient to us today.
25:46
Thank you very much. I'm sure glad I didn't have
26:04
John 20 in there. My notes. Thank you,
26:19
James. Again, I'd like to start off with a point that we do agree on.
26:27
I've already said it, but James has brought it out again, and it's an extremely important point in the second letter of St.
26:38
Paul to Timothy that Scripture is all God -breathed, Spirit -breathed.
26:43
The Holy Spirit is the one who is the primary author, and we Catholics affirm that.
26:50
We teach it, and we've affirmed it from the beginning of the church, and we still do. So on that we have no difficulty.
26:57
But the issue is correctly stated. Can we have some understanding from the
27:05
Scriptures themselves that the oral tradition is inspired by God?
27:12
That is precisely the issue. You're right. And I think that where I, too, have thought about including
27:20
John's quote there about all the books couldn't be, that still be a negative thing that just says what we don't have written down.
27:26
That's not the point here. No, I'd rather see what the Scriptures themselves say, because my point and the point of the
27:35
Catholic church on this issue is that, yes, the
27:40
Scriptures are inspired, and they give us the material that we need.
27:47
It's materially sufficient. But pulling things together, being able to understand all that God has revealed to us, all that Christ wants us to believe, will require us to accept the tradition that he left.
28:07
Now, first of all, let's take a look at the first letter of St. Paul to the
28:13
Thessalonians. We can take a look at Chapter 2. This is, there's a dispute among good
28:25
Christians on all different camps whether this was the first letter of St. Paul or perhaps
28:31
Galatians was. But it certainly is very early, in the early 50s
28:36
A .D., probably 51. And he says in this very early letter,
28:43
You are witnesses in God also, how holy and righteous and blameless was our behavior to you believers.
28:49
For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.
29:04
First of all, we see that St. Paul had taught and given an example that they could observe for how to lead a holy life.
29:16
And in fact, there are a number of extremely, desperately important issues that the
29:24
Scriptures testify to, but do not teach with absolute clarity and that we need to have the oral tradition to help us with these issues.
29:37
For instance, the issue of abortion is not clearly, explicitly forbidden in Scripture.
29:45
However, the Scripture does give clear testimony to the fact that God gives life in the womb.
29:51
And I need to have that testimony of Scripture as an absolutely true testimony. But as we see even within Judaism, their use of the
30:01
Old Testament does not give them the same clarity we would have. And in fact, not even all
30:08
Christians hold the same clarity. And without the teaching of the tradition and the witness that St.
30:16
Paul and the early apostles left, we might not have the clearest statements which are actually found in the tradition, the
30:25
Didache and a variety of the other early writings of the church, which specifically mention abortion in any form as something forbidden.
30:36
And we inherit that, at least most Christians do. And that's an important thing to notice, that this testimony is something that Paul gave and while not every single point was written in his letters about what that moral behavior included, that was passed on in the writings that continued and the public practice of the church condemning any form of abortion or birth control.
31:04
These things were met early and often condemned. Then he goes on to say, and gives thanks, as he so often does, because his focus is
31:15
God. In verse 13, And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.
31:36
The word which Saint Paul spoke to them is a word which is
31:43
God's word. This is before he wrote them anything. His oral tradition, as well as his example, was
31:54
God's word, not the word of men. And so that we see his example, and even though he does not tell us every single part of the gospel that he explained to the
32:06
Thessalonians in this epistle, that word, an oral word, was very much the word of God.
32:14
And he had that word as a source of joy for him because they accepted it as God's word and not his.
32:24
And so we see in this very important text that Paul's oral tradition is
32:32
God's word, not man's word. And God's word, whether it comes in an oral form or whether it comes in a written form, is still his word and has his authority.
32:47
Furthermore, in verse 14, he continues, For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God and Christ Jesus, which are in Judea, who suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the
33:01
Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove us out and displeased God and opposed all men by hindering us from speaking to the
33:09
Gentiles that they may be saved. Now here, too, there is an example that he commends to the people of Thessaloniki that they who live in Thessaloniki should follow that example of the churches in Judea.
33:28
What we Catholics say and try to live to the best of our ability to accept
33:35
God's grace on these points is that these traditions are passed on. Some of my brothers and sisters from the
33:41
Chaldean church, Chaldean Catholic community, are here, and we celebrate the same mass.
33:47
We don't say it the same way. We have a tradition that we believe goes back to the churches of Judea and their language, just as the language of the
33:57
Maronite church, which is another rite of the Catholic church, goes back to the churches of Judea.
34:03
And we imitate those churches of Judea in our prayers so that to celebrate mass in the
34:10
Chaldean church, the Coptic churches I have, and the Maronite churches I have, and in the
34:16
Byzantine Catholic churches I have, I see some of the Jewish prayers which a
34:23
Jewish convert to Catholicism said to me. He said, you know, I started going to mass with you people, and you're using all
34:29
Jewish prayers. You got these from us. I said, of course I did. All the big names in the
34:35
Catholic church are Jews. Jesus, Mary, Joseph. And we want to imitate the churches of Judea in how they celebrate
34:47
Holy Mass. And we consider that part of the tradition. And then we also see another text where not only is
34:56
St. Paul's oral tradition something that he left behind and says is the word of God, but he writes in his second letter to the same community of Thessaloniki.
35:10
In 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 11, Therefore God sends upon them a strong delusion to make them believe what is false so that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
35:25
And I love that. The issue between truth is that of unrighteousness versus truth.
35:31
And we see that so often in our modern world. The people don't like the truth because they don't want to change their unrighteous ways.
35:38
But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning to be saved through sanctification by the
35:48
Spirit and belief in the truth. That this salvation is a gift of the Holy Spirit making them holy, sanctifying them, and giving them faith in the truth and a commitment to the truth till death.
36:01
Death is preferable to letting go of the truth. And this should be the commitment of every
36:06
Christian to be sure. To this he called you through our gospel so that you may obtain the glory of our
36:12
Lord Jesus Christ. And since this is only his second epistle, maybe his third, but probably just the second epistle, this gospel is still, for the most part, an oral gospel.
36:23
That's what he hasn't written the great treatise of Romans or Galatians yet. So then, brethren, to confirm what
36:30
I just said, that his gospel is oral, he says in verse 15, So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.
36:42
Now, the RSV has word of mouth. Actually, it simply says that hold on to the traditions, whether by word or by letter.
36:51
Some of the translations, I know the NIV doesn't have traditions. They changed it to teachings.
36:58
But the word paradosis is not didaskalia. It's not the word teaching didaskalia.
37:04
It's paradosis. Paradosis means that which is passed on. And, in fact, in St.
37:11
Paul, the passing on of tradition and the use of the term passing on is a very technical term that the rabbis had to pass on and to receive.
37:22
It is an idiom in rabbinic literature to communicate that what I have said is absolutely sure.
37:29
It is a sure tradition that I'm passing on to you. And St. Paul uses that kind of language frequently.
37:35
But here, in scripture, he commands us to hold on to the traditions, whether by word or by letter.
37:46
Nowhere does the scripture say that the traditions have all come to an end and that the oral traditions are done and all the oral traditions have been written down in the scriptures.
37:57
The scripture doesn't say that. That's why the Catholic Church doesn't say that. Stop. You may have noticed that each of our speakers is keeping his own time.
38:23
It's really a breeze for the moderator. I hope we will all be as disciplined at the break.
38:32
It's Catholic literalism here, legalism. Excellent. Having had these opening presentations, each speaker will now have the opportunity for a first rebuttal, five minutes each.
38:46
We're starting with Dr. White. If you still have your
38:59
Bibles open to 2 Thessalonians 2 .15, let's go ahead and continue with that topic. We are trying to be somewhat formal and sticking to only the materials that were presented by the other individual in their opening statement.
39:13
Let's look at 2 Thessalonians 2 .15. Some Roman Catholic apologists do claim that oral tradition is inspired.
39:22
Father Pacwa did use that very terminology in his opening presentation at one point in regards to oral tradition.
39:31
I'll want to have some clarification on that. Is it inspired in the way that scripture is inspired or are we using the word in more than one way?
39:40
Now, I don't believe that there is an infallible answer to that question because I don't believe that the Roman Catholic Church has actually defined that issue and hence there are people who agree or disagree depending on their perspective.
39:54
The passage says, So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us.
40:03
Now, there is one body of truth in view in these words delivered by preaching and by letter.
40:10
The entire church at Thessalonica had already been taught these items, these things.
40:18
These are not then teachings that are limited to the bishops but are generally known truths that every person in the church knew and believed.
40:28
In fact, one of the earliest patristic commentaries on this passage by Tertullian keys upon this.
40:33
There were Gnostics in the church that were using this passage to promote the idea that there were unwritten oral traditions not found in Scripture and that the
40:41
Gnostics had them and Tertullian had to refute that perspective even in his day.
40:47
So any claim that the oral component of this teaching contains anything other than what is found in the written component requires the defender of such a position to prove from the writings of the early church itself that these things were generally known and believed by the
41:03
Christian people. And so if we're going to look at this passage and say, yes, the apostles delivered the doctrine of the bodily assumption of Mary, well, then let's trace it from the church at Thessalonica to the modern day.
41:14
As you may know, historically, that cannot be done. Now, very interestingly enough, when we look at the passage, we discover that Paul is in no way talking about some extra -scriptural revelation in the words.
41:27
Instead, when we read the passage in its own immediate context, we find he is talking about something much more easily defined, and that is the gospel itself.
41:38
Paul taught the Thessalonians the gospel both in person as well as by his first letter to the
41:44
Thessalonians. This can be seen by the fact that the term Paul uses when exhorting us to stand firm in these traditions is used by Paul in 1
41:53
Corinthians 16, 13 when he says to stand firm in the faith. Paul is not giving us a command here to hold to oral traditions.
42:01
He is giving us a command to hold to the gospel. Now, I think there's a very good comment establishing that in a certain book that's on both sides of the table this evening, and specifically we read in this scholarly reference, some passages in the
42:17
New Testament use tradition to refer to the basic teachings of the gospel.
42:24
That would be 1 Corinthians 11, 2, 15, 3, 2 Thessalonians 2, 15, and 3, 6.
42:31
Now, what was I reading from? I was reading from the appendix written by Father Pacwa in Not By Scripture Alone where in his own appendix he identifies the use of the word tradition here as in reference to the basic teachings of the gospel.
42:46
And I agree a thousand percent. That's exactly what we have here. But my friends, here comes the issue.
42:53
If we open the door here and say, okay, there are these other things that have been revealed by the
42:58
Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians, then we need to know what they are. We need to be able to trace these alleged inspired teachings, whether inspired or not, we'll find out through time.
43:10
And are we saying that they are applicable to us today in the sense of being bound upon us?
43:16
Remember that Roman Catholicism binds as dogmas such things as the bodily assumption of Mary, the immaculate conception, papal infallibility, and if this passage is going to be used to substantiate the church's authority to quote -unquote use tradition in this way, then it becomes incumbent on the basis of the text to be able to trace those beliefs from the people of Thessalonica to this very day, and we simply cannot do that.
43:46
Thank you very much. First of all, let me make a response to the quote that you had given from a
44:13
Mr. O 'Brien? Yes, John O 'Brien. I don't know if he was trying to be polemical or highlight a point by being rhetorical in some way, but I myself would not talk about scripture as being incompetent and so on.
44:34
I find that myself, offensive kind of language. You don't talk about the word of God in such a way.
44:41
The word of God is to be treated with respect, and you have to treat it with the dignity that it belongs.
44:47
I don't read the gospel at mass without kissing the page because I love the gospel itself, and so I find that offensive too.
44:56
I think that we can't go about, and certainly on the Catholic side, we cannot go about dealing with certain things like putting down scripture and so on.
45:10
That's just absurd. Now, I won't get into all of the aspects of Catholic doctrine.
45:17
These would take a lot of different debates to deal with the doctrines about the
45:23
Blessed Virgin Mary and so on. I'd like to focus on some of the traditions that we
45:31
Catholics do insist on as authoritative, and which Protestants, of course, also bind upon themselves, usually, but not universally.
45:42
This would include, for instance, the fact that the canon of the scriptures themselves are not something that depend on the church approving of books.
45:55
I think that that would be an incorrect way to say it. Again, the church doesn't say, okay, we think that's inspired, and we think that's not.
46:03
Now, the issue for us in terms of, again, a tradition that we can, for the most part, agree upon, is that the canon of the
46:12
New Testament has 27 books. We agree on it. We bind that. And that's why we're not
46:19
Mormons. We don't add the Pearl of Great Price or some of these other Mormon books. We believe that the canon of scripture is closed.
46:27
But we believe that there is a closed canon, not because the New Testament tells us.
46:34
The Book of Revelation says that you can't add any words to that book.
46:41
But at the time the Book of Revelation was written, there was no collected New Testament yet with 27 books.
46:48
As a matter of fact, in the earliest lists, and I mean earliest, lists that we have from the 180s
46:56
A .D., the Muratorian canon, the canon of St. Irenaeus, then you go on into the canons of the 3rd century, you typically have no more than 22 books listed, not because they necessarily rejected, they didn't have all the tradition available to them, but the concept did arise by the tradition of the church that the canon was closed.
47:24
And by the 4th century, the first attempt at the Council of Laodicea, which has a canon none of us agree with, excluded, for instance,
47:35
Esther. We don't accept that. But then the Synod of Rome in 382,
47:41
Synods of Hippo and Carthage, these councils did give us the 27 books of the
47:48
New Testament, also 46 in the old. Again, another issue we can't get into all that.
47:53
But we believe that we have that tradition of a canon, of a closed canon, and of a canon of 27 books, because this is an inspired tradition.
48:06
We don't believe that it's the accidental choice of the church, picking and choosing, oh, the
48:12
Gospel of Thomas just isn't nice enough. No, that's not it. It doesn't go back to the apostles, and that's what the
48:19
Catholics insist on. And so we take that tradition, and in effect, so do you, at least most of you, that this is a canon that is authoritative,
48:33
God -inspired, and it includes not just the Old Testament, of which St. Paul was speaking, in 2
48:41
Timothy 3, 16. Remember, New Testament wasn't finished yet, was it?
48:46
They didn't have that done. So we want to make sure that not only the
48:52
Old Testament is included as inspired by the Holy Spirit, and we proclaim every Sunday in our churches that we believe in the
48:59
Holy Spirit, it speaks to the prophets, but also to make sure that we accept the canon of the
49:06
New Testament as inspired. We come then to the last section before our break, and this is the time when our speakers get to address each other.
49:27
And we get to sit here as auditors, and I will move my chair as far back as I can to get out of the line of fire here.
49:37
But we have, first of all, Fr. Pacwa questioning Dr. White for eight minutes.
49:45
You want to reverse it? Oh, I'm sorry, you're correct. Forget me, don't worry about me. And then...
49:52
Pardon? Okay, thank you. You don't want to see me.
49:59
Your tie is so nice, though. It's a nice tie. They've seen enough of the tie. They're dizzy now. We start then with you,
50:07
Father. Okay. James, I brought up this issue, and I understand from other debates with you that you have major concerns about some of the
50:21
Catholic doctrines that are believed to be imposed upon us as believers, and are very, very concerned that these have been additions.
50:32
But the issue is still one of how do you account for the canon in the present form that we have?
50:44
How do we deal with, again, a tradition that we do accept, not one that we dispute, apart from the
50:51
Old Testament. But how do we deal with the authority for that existing, and the process by which that came to be present so that we can say yes, even with the
51:04
Jehovah's Witnesses, God save us, that we agree on the canon of the New Testament? Well, I don't know that you want me to take most of your eight minutes of cross -examination, especially since I have an entire presentation on the issue of the canon for the next part of the debate.
51:20
But I will be as brief as I can, and just outline that. And that is, my response will be that the issue of the canon is not an issue that I think that the
51:31
Roman Catholic side has any greater answer to than the Protestant side. That is, simply moving it back one step and saying, well, the
51:38
Church has the infallible authority of defining the canon, really, I think, begs the issue. It begs the issue on a number of reasons.
51:45
I'm going to cite a number of them, but it begs the issue in saying, now we have to ask the question, upon what basis do we give to the
51:51
Roman Catholic communion the authority to infallibly define these things? And then, if a person engages in some historical demonstration of the validity of the
52:00
Catholic Church, I say, well, wait a minute. If I give you a historical argument giving validity to our view of the canon, and that is that God, or to use the words of Augustine, that the
52:11
Holy Spirit gave the canon to the Church, not that the Church defined it, but that the Holy Spirit led his people in recognizing that, and if I use historical stuff, talk about the
52:19
Muratorian canon, talk about Hippo and Carthage, so on and so forth, then we're told, at least I have been told by others, and I don't know if it's your position,
52:26
I can't ask you questions right now, I'll ask them later, but I have been told by others that I have debated that unless you have an infallible canon based upon infallible authority, you have no scripture at all.
52:38
And if that is the position that is being presented, I would say that it is not a coherent position.
52:43
For two reasons. First of all, the Roman Catholic perspective has to use the very same kind of historical arguments to establish its own authority, which, if that somehow means you don't have infallible certainty, now everything is thrown out the window.
52:55
And the second thing is, as I think you would confirm, the first dogmatic infallible definition of the canon, from your perspective, is
53:03
April of 1546 at the Council of Trent, because Carthage and Hippo were provincial councils.
53:10
You have people like Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, who rejects the
53:15
Deuterocanonicals. And even to the time of the Reformation itself, Cardinal Cajetan, who interviewed
53:22
Luther in his commentary on the Old Testament, which you may have looked at, rejects the Deuterocanonicals as being a basis for any type of dogma and things like that.
53:31
So if we cannot have functioning scripture without an infallible definition of what it is, then the
53:38
Roman Catholic Church didn't have functioning scripture until 1546, which I don't think anyone really wants to attempt to say, is in reality.
53:44
So I do not call the canon a tradition. I believe that the canon is an artifact of revelation.
53:50
That is, because God inspired some books and not all books, a canon exists infallibly due to the fact that he has engaged in revelation.
53:59
And the issue is, how do we as human beings come to know what it is? I'm not sure if what you're saying, and this is a question hidden,
54:06
I guess, I'm not sure if what you're saying is the apostles passed on a canon or not. And that would determine how
54:13
I would go farther with my answer, if in point of fact that's what you're saying and I don't know that's what you're saying. No, it's not. One of the things too, thank you, one of the other things too is while you do mention, and I've got plenty of those quotes too in the same book, of many of the places where the fathers of the church will talk about scripture as an authority, and what it sounds like is that it's a sole authority.
54:42
However, the same fathers, Cyril and Augustine, even in some of the places that you mentioned,
54:52
Cyril in his catechesis, will also talk about the role and the importance of tradition.
54:59
How do you see that they're balancing this off? Well, that Augustine, even to Maximilius.
55:07
Exactly. You're familiar with that quotation as well. Maybe we'll have time to bring it up, maybe we won't. The thing that I would assert very strongly is that there is a substantial difference between the terminology used by the vast majority of the fathers when they speak of the scriptures and when they speak of tradition.
55:26
Two things. When they speak of tradition, what are they talking about? Irenaeus, for example, speaks very highly of tradition, but then when he defines it, he defines it as a belief in one
55:36
God who sent Jesus Christ into the world. I think you would have to agree with me, that's a sub -biblical.
55:41
That is, it is derived from scripture tradition. It's not something that exists outside of the Bible. It is something that can be very easily derived from the reading of scripture.
55:51
Simply looking at the word tradition, you have to go, is this father defining this as a separate inspired revelation?
55:58
I'm not sure if you even want to use the term revelation. Some want to, some don't. But that it's somehow something that is necessary for life and godliness that exists outside of scripture.
56:07
And secondly, I do not know of people like Augustine using the kind of exalted language of the sufficiency of tradition that he uses for scripture.
56:19
I don't remember where Gregory of Nyssa says that we by tradition define, tradition is the canon of every dogma and we receive nothing that cannot be made conformable to tradition, et cetera, et cetera.
56:31
So I think there is a fundamental difference in the way that they use that. And I'm not denying that they refer to tradition.
56:38
We're sitting here in an Orthodox Presbyterian church. The Westminster Confession of Faith will be found in the
56:43
Trinity Hymnals underneath all the hymns, all the ephews I mean. That is what is called a subordinate standard.
56:51
I think there is everything valuable in making reference to those things. And as a
56:56
Reformed Baptist myself, if someone comes into a church and starts saying this is what Reformed Baptists believe, we have a standard to say no, this is not what
57:04
Reformed Baptists believe. But there is a difference between that and saying that our confession, our 1689 confession, somehow becomes an infallible rule of faith.
57:14
It is subordinate to Scripture. And so that when somebody like the great Athanasius talks about the issue of the
57:22
Trinity as something that he knows from tradition and also proves from the Scriptures, that that, would you accept that he's talking there about an apostolic tradition?
57:31
I think that's what he means. Well, actually, every instance that I know of where Athanasius uses the phrase apostolic tradition in the context, it is defined as a quotation from Scripture.
57:44
Now, you may be using apostolic tradition when Athanasius wasn't and he's using more of the tradition of the fathers or something like that.
57:51
He certainly asserted that what he demonstrated from Scripture was what had been believed by Christians in previous generations.
57:58
But I would not assert that he in point of fact attempted to say that that proof of his came primarily from a second source or a second mode of revelation in the form of tradition.
58:11
My turn? Alright. I'd like to ask Father Pacwa, has, in your opinion, do you believe that oral tradition is inspired in the same way as the term theanoustos is used in Scripture?
58:30
That's an extremely important question and one of the things that you're absolutely correct, it's something that hasn't been defined by our church and as I look at it, myself,
58:42
I want to say it's the word of God. This is what St. Paul defines, this is how he describes his preaching, his oral tradition, as the word of God.
58:54
And I want to say that. And therefore, I would have to say that it is inspired. And that just as the various sayings of Christ that were passed on even outside the
59:07
New Testament, if indeed that those are the words of Christ, then they're inspired words. Now that's another question, but I do want to say that they are inspired in these traditions.
59:18
I'm just going to make it a qualification. But do they have the kind of public appeal as something fixed, that the scripture has?
59:33
No, they do not. The scriptures, both
59:38
Old Testament and New Testament, have a fixed quality to them, obviously.
59:45
We may not add to them. We may not subtract from them. And so that, and the reason for that is, the kind of fixed form in writing gives them an inspiration that is beyond you know, hopefully beyond doubt.
01:00:04
And we can appeal to them with a kind of authority. But at the same time, there is this, you know, in one sense with tradition, we're not, and I'd say this too, we are not appealing to any kind of secret set of doctrines.
01:00:24
Now that would be, that would be the sin of the Gnostics. We don't have any such thing. Well then let me ask you, but I would say that it's the public experience of what we do and how we, and it's also going to be like a mustard seed.
01:00:39
There's going to be a growth to it. So for instance, as we, we have to be careful that we don't just throw this around a lot, but the growth into the doctrine of Trinity as something, a complex and rich doctrine that has been defined is rooted in that oral tradition that's inspired as God's word and in the written word of Scripture which is the inspired word of God.
01:01:03
And it has a developed sense. It's a complex question. Well, I think this will help get to some of it.
01:01:09
Has the Roman Catholic Church infallibly defined a single word spoken by Jesus or an apostle that is not found in Scripture?
01:01:20
Have they defined? Infallibly defined. You know, infallibly defined a word, a single word spoken by Jesus or an apostle that is not found in Scripture.
01:01:29
See, I don't think, I can't think of any. You know, I haven't put the question down. So, you know, running through the mental computer,
01:01:36
I don't think of anything like that at all because the danger of that would be putting into, again, doing a
01:01:44
Joseph Smith of saying that there are these words of Jesus that were not recorded and therefore were added to the
01:01:50
Scripture. That would be the danger. Now, what we would say is that there are teachings that we have and that they're coming to fruition oftentimes because of new questions and new problems brought up oftentimes by heretics, like Arius or Nestorius, that their new questions and their or their denials in public have forced us to define what we mean by the divinity of the
01:02:19
Holy Spirit so that he is not a God, he is not son of God without being
01:02:25
God the son. That we have clarified and canonized.
01:02:31
It's something that you must believe to be a Catholic. So you would agree that the only source of the actual words of Christ and his apostles is the
01:02:40
Scriptures? Yes. Now, what you just said in regards, for example, to the Trinity and to the deity of Christ.
01:02:48
I wrote a book a few years ago that you saw called The Forgotten Trinity, which is a biblical defense of the doctrine of Trinity.
01:02:55
The teaching that there is one God, the deity of Christ, the son coming forth from the father, incarnation, these are all things that you would agree are directly there in the exegesis of text or Scripture.
01:03:06
We can talk with the Jehovah's Witnesses right there. Now, if you're drawing, and maybe
01:03:11
I sensed you were drawing a parallel just a moment ago between the growth of the mustard seed and the
01:03:19
Trinity, and the dogmas that I have brought up, and the reason I bring up the bodily assumption of Mary is not to debate it, but because it is the most recent example of a, not a doctrine, but a dogma, de fide dogma, defined by the church on the basis of tradition, whatever that means, and I think you would agree.
01:03:42
Would you not agree with me that there are many different understandings in Roman Catholic theologians as to what tradition refers to?
01:03:49
Sure. Okay. I'm sorry? We have some of the same problems among our theologians today that Protestants have.
01:03:57
But Rome has not, as you said, infallibly defined what tradition is. No. All that we've done is defined that the normative traditions of the church are apostolic traditions.
01:04:10
That's an important thing, too, that we don't say that later traditions that have come up are normative
01:04:18
Only the traditions of the apostolic age are what Trent and Vatican II, and Vatican I, too, for that matter, have defined.
01:04:25
Well, here's where I have a problem, and that is, would you say then that the most recent dogma, the bodily assumption, and I think if I'm remembering correctly, are you not supportive of the
01:04:39
Pope defining Mary's co -redemptrix as a dogma as well? No. You're not? No, I'm not.
01:04:44
As a matter of fact, I'm adamantly against that. Okay. The most recent dogma... And I'll tell you why, too. I'm adamantly against it, because I don't want that to be one more problem between us and the
01:04:54
Eastern Orthodox. The ecumenical reason. Okay, I understand. But, going back then to the bodily assumption, is it your position, then, that that is an apostolic tradition, that is, in light of 2
01:05:06
Thessalonians 2 .15, that the Apostle Paul delivered... Well, he couldn't have delivered at this point.
01:05:11
Yeah, exactly. But that some Apostle, somewhere down the line, delivered to some church, somewhere, that teaching, and that that has been believed by Christians since the apostolic age.
01:05:25
Okay. Are you... Can you understand how a person like myself would look at the historical record at Ludwig Ott, who admits that the first appearance of this dogma is in the transitive literature, which was not even
01:05:38
Orthodox literature, 500 years after Christ, and I would go, I don't see any evidence whatsoever that that's apostolic.
01:05:44
Would you see how that would... And I guess, again, without getting into the issue of the assumption of the
01:05:50
Blessed Mother, I would disagree with Professor Ott. Okay.
01:05:56
So that would be my own sense. And I would, you know, again, it's a very rich issue, but I would disagree with Professor Ott.
01:06:05
Okay. Thank you. And we are now ready for our concluding section of this debate.
01:06:22
Just so you'll know again, something of how we are going to proceed. Let me just run through the outline quickly.
01:06:30
We're going to be beginning now with a second presentation of ten minutes each by each of the debaters.
01:06:38
That will be followed by five -minute rebuttals, then another cross -examination time, eight minutes for each, five -minute rebuttals, and last ten -minute closing statements.
01:06:56
Now, that is going to end the formal debate time, but that will then allow a brief time for what perhaps you're already looking forward to and thinking ahead to, and that will be the time for your questions from the audience.
01:07:13
There are these microphones, and I'll say this again, you should come to one of those to ask your question.
01:07:19
But let me say now so that you'll know how to prepare your questions. that these are indeed to be questions.
01:07:32
Do I need to end that sentence? They are not sermons tonight. You see how many we have with us?
01:07:39
And just multiply that times the minutes for a sermon. Following the question time,
01:07:46
I believe I'm right on this, Pastor, refreshments will be served? No, a change.
01:07:55
What a terrible thing not to have checked that ahead of time, and I'm afraid we're going that note.
01:08:02
This is a very Spartan congregation, and there is water available.
01:08:15
Amen. Dr. White will again get us started.
01:08:28
Yes, indeed. Well, so far we have had an excellent opportunity of interacting on some of the major issues, and I mentioned during the cross -examination period that I would in my second presentation address the issue that Father Pacwa asked me about, and that is the canon.
01:08:45
I can be a little bit more brief now because I have addressed some of those issues. I would like, in essence, to take back from the
01:08:53
Roman Catholic side what is, rightfully, I believe, my side, and that is the certainty of the canon.
01:09:01
All other rules of faith, everything else that we might have, we believe, is subservient to description of the we hear is, well, unless you have an infallible teaching authority in the
01:09:15
Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church, you have no canon. Rome says that we cannot know the canon without her own authority, and this has been repeated so many times that it is taken as an obvious truth by,
01:09:29
I believe, far too many. In reality, I believe it is the Protestant who can give the only meaningful defense of the canon of Scripture, not the
01:09:37
Roman Catholic who takes that perspective. The canon is not an extra -biblical revelation.
01:09:43
It is not the 28th book of the New Testament. It is the result of the act of inspiration itself.
01:09:50
It exists necessarily because God inspired only some books. If he'd inspired every book that was ever written, there'd be no canon.
01:09:59
But since he inspired only some books, his act of inspiration is limited to those books, and that canon of books is known infallibly to God, and just as Fr.
01:10:10
Pacwa knows exactly what books he has written and which ones he has not, and I know exactly which books
01:10:15
I have written, the author knows the canon of his own work, and God infallibly knows the canon of his work of inspiration.
01:10:25
The passive recognition of the canon by the church is nothing more than a fulfillment of Jesus' promise to his church to be with her throughout all ages.
01:10:51
Scripture has a purpose. God inspired the word for a purpose, and that is that being to guide and to edify and build up the church, it follows that God would guide his people so as to ensure that they would be in possession of his truth.
01:11:06
Now, this requires infallibility only of God, not of those receiving his gift of grace.
01:11:13
Now, the Roman Catholic claims fall, and they fail to give this kind of basis for an understanding of what the canon is.
01:11:22
And the reason for the failure of the Roman Catholic position, I would assert, is threefold. First, the
01:11:28
Protestant, by focusing upon the nature of Scripture as God breathed revelation, does not end up making the
01:11:34
Bible dependent upon an ecclesiastical body with a divine The Protestant can openly say that the word of God stands independently of church and council and the historical atrocities propagated by men in the name of God.
01:12:09
Secondly, but more importantly, the Roman Catholic claim to certainty regarding the canon does not provide any kind of logical certainty, for as soon as it is made, the question must be asked, well, why is
01:12:23
Rome capable of determining the canon? In reality, the Roman claim only moves the question of the ultimate authority from one place to another.
01:12:33
It is no more than saying, well, the canon is what it is just because we say so.
01:12:39
It is no more than And when it is inevitably asked, why should you be believed? We are faced with a long, highly dubious, easily challenged string of historical arguments meant to prove that Rome is the ultimate and final authority.
01:12:52
And by the way, the current edition of this Rock magazine contains an article on this very issue, and if you want to see the long, dubious, easily challenged, and in fact refutable claims of authority found in that very article,
01:13:04
I would refer you to it. We just posted a rebuttal of that article on our webpage, in fact, just before coming out here to California.
01:13:11
Now, it is the Protestant, but if it is the Protestant who presents a historical argument, and the
01:13:18
Roman Catholic says, well, you can't have certainty of the canon because you make reference to a historical process worked out by God, then it must follow in all fairness that as soon as the
01:13:30
Roman Catholic uses the same kind of arguments to substantiate the claim of Roman authority and Roman infallibility, certainty, then the entire argument saying you must have infallible certainty is thereby disproven.
01:13:44
And thirdly, let us remember that Rome did not infallibly define its own canon of scripture until April of 1546 at the
01:13:52
Council of Trent. Historically, there are many problems with Rome's final decision, including the testimony of many great patristic writers, including
01:14:01
Melito of Sardis, Athanasius, Jerome, Cyril, and even Pope Gregory the Great, who rejected the
01:14:06
Roman form of the canon. Even in the decades before Trent, you will find Roman Catholic prelates such as Cardinal Cayetan following Jerome and rejecting the apocryphal books as inspired and useful for the establishment of dogma.
01:14:20
So if one needs an infallibly decreed canon, how did the church survive until 1546?
01:14:27
That is the question that I would ask. It has been said during the cross -examination period that we need to consider the difference between tradition and scripture.
01:14:42
And I honestly, even though I believe Father Pacwa did the best job that can be done,
01:14:47
I don't still fully understand whether tradition is inspired in the same way scripture is.
01:14:55
I also do not fully understand how the assertions of Tertullian in commenting on 2
01:15:02
Timothy 2 .2 and passages like that, where he says we cannot have some sort of secret dogma, how that does not apply to the very doctrines that separate us most strongly, that separate
01:15:16
Protestants and Roman Catholics most strongly. Think about what they are. Things such as the
01:15:22
Aristotelian understanding of a change in accidents and substance in what's called transubstantiation.
01:15:29
Somethings such as purgatory, indulgences, the treasury of merit. Indulgences are alive and well in Roman Catholic theology.
01:15:37
Most of you know that. There are a few people, I imagine Father Pacwa runs into them too, oh Vatican II changed all that.
01:15:44
No, Vatican II didn't change all of that. That's still a part of the teachings of Rome. We have such issues as the bodily assumption, immaculate conception, papal infallibility.
01:15:53
All these issues that define what separate us go back to these alleged traditions and we need to understand, is it being claimed that these traditions are theanustas and that they have been delivered to the
01:16:07
Christian people, not just to bishops, but to the Christian people. Because my friends, the scriptures tell us in 2
01:16:16
Timothy chapter 3 that what God has given to us is given to us for a purpose. For what?
01:16:22
For teaching, reproving, rebuking, exhorting in sound doctrine, training in righteousness.
01:16:30
Now if these doctrines are unknown, unknown for hundreds of years, if these traditions are unknown to Athanasius, if they're unknown to Augustine, Tertullian, Ignatius, Irenaeus, they never say a word about these things, then where does the fault lie?
01:16:51
Does it lie with them in not having taught these things? Is it not a good deed to teach these things?
01:16:56
Paul says, so a man of God may be equipped for every good work. Is it a good work to teach purgatory and indulgences?
01:17:05
If those things are true, it would be. If those things are false, it wouldn't be. How does the scripture equip the man of God to teach the bodily assumption of Mary?
01:17:16
That's what Paul, the inspired writer, says the scriptures can do. But if there was no one who even made reference to these things for hundreds of years, then how can we simply assume that they were there even though we don't have any historical evidence that they were?
01:17:32
Instead, I think we recognize that what God has given to us in scripture is, as Athanasius said, specifically these words, let this then,
01:17:45
Christ's loving man, be our offering to you just for a rudimentary sketch and outline and a short compass of the faith of Christ and of his divine appearing usward.
01:17:53
But you taking occasion by this, if you light upon the text of scriptures by genuinely applying your mind to them, we'll learn from them more completely and clearly the exact detail of what we have said.
01:18:06
For they were spoken and written by God through men who spoke for God. And that indeed is our faith.
01:18:14
Thank you. Once again, it's very important for us to recognize, but we do agree, that the canon of scripture is a canon of what
01:18:45
God has inspired. He is the author. He does know it. It certainly is something that the church cannot create.
01:18:54
And the kind of language that some Catholic apologists might use would sound like that. They may even mean that.
01:19:00
But that certainly would not be the teaching of my church, would not be my teaching, that we don't invent the canon.
01:19:09
And yes, it is something that God has inspired because it is God who is the author.
01:19:16
What we Catholics would also insist on, though, is that God, our
01:19:22
Lord, has just been absolutely amazing. The line that I love in Psalm 18, verse 36, your humility makes me great.
01:19:37
An batachah tarbeini. God's humility to use sinners as apostles and disciples, as debaters like James and Nod.
01:19:52
He's happy to do that. Well, he's not happy that we're sinners, but he used us.
01:19:58
And so he does use people in the Catholic church who do some terrible things of which we are not proud.
01:20:04
And that's correct. Though I'm sure James also would say that the council fathers who were at Hippo and Rome and others were not the inquisitors.
01:20:16
But this is part of the mystery of the incarnation, where God calls a church not to be a fellowship like the
01:20:26
Moose or some other club. This is not some human organization.
01:20:33
And in this sense, I would hopefully not go to the idea of sola ecclesia that James had mentioned in his first presentation, because I, as a
01:20:43
Catholic, do not like, I don't believe that it's sola ecclesia. As a matter of fact, one of the differences between Catholics and Protestants is that we
01:20:53
Catholics don't like the sola stuff. We don't like sola scriptura, sola gratia, sola fide.
01:20:59
Because we don't see God using the word sola in scripture in regard to these things.
01:21:06
But again, those are a variety of other debates. But certainly not sola ecclesia. That's not at all in scripture.
01:21:11
And again, James and I would agree. Sola ecclesia is not in scripture. But I do know that God has chosen the church to be the body of Christ.
01:21:23
He chose a church to be filled with different gifts in that body.
01:21:29
He calls it to be holy, to be sure. And it is the church that he uses to preach the gospel.
01:21:37
It is members of the church called evangelists who write the gospel. It is members of the church called apostles who write the gospel, like Saint Paul.
01:21:49
And in that sense, we read the word of scripture in 1
01:21:54
Timothy 3 .15, that the church is the pillar and bulwark of the truth.
01:22:02
And it's not because every member of the church always tells the truth. As a matter of fact, some of those very same apostles and disciples were known not to always be that faithful and truthful.
01:22:14
And one of the great things about them is they put their own sins in the Bible following the tradition of the
01:22:21
Jews, an admirable tradition of putting their sins in the Bible for all to read.
01:22:28
And the apostles and disciples did that. And yet God chose them to be the instruments of inspiration.
01:22:37
And as a result, we also say that their successors preserved, not discovered, not gave their approbation to, but preserved what they had received.
01:22:48
And that we know, as Irenaeus says in Book 3 of his book Against the
01:22:53
Heresies, that this tradition was passed on not in secret, but by one apostle to his disciple and his disciples to their successors.
01:23:04
And that they did this through the form of that great gift given to us, the episcopacy, the bishops.
01:23:10
And they were the primary passers -on of that tradition. And they were the ones who sat in council at Laodicea, at Rome, at Hippo.
01:23:19
And so God uses them. Now again, is that unscriptural? I should say not. It is the
01:23:25
Bible itself that gives us this authority. And there are a variety of ways to look at the question in Acts chapter 15 with the great council of Jerusalem.
01:23:36
However, at that council, they were dealing with the problem of sola scriptura versus the
01:23:42
Christian tradition. The sola scriptura Jewish believers insisted that the covenant was given to Abraham to have circumcision on all the males.
01:23:57
And that the covenant with Moses insisted on circumcision, beginning with Moses, who almost died for not circumcising his sons.
01:24:06
And then this was to be continued on in their tradition. And they were appealing to the scriptures to prove this.
01:24:15
However, what did the council fathers, the holy apostles, do? They dealt with a tradition that contradicted that word of scripture.
01:24:27
They gave us a tradition based on a revelation given to Peter when
01:24:34
St. Peter has his vision of the sheet and everything is clean. And they appealed to that.
01:24:41
St. Peter brings that up. He arose in verse 7 of chapter 15 of Acts. Brethren, you know that in the early days
01:24:48
God made choice among you that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.
01:24:54
So he refers to his preaching of the gospel, an oral tradition. And especially at this time,
01:25:00
Acts was not written at this time at all, another 12 years or more. And God, who knows the heart bore witness to them, giving them the
01:25:09
Holy Spirit just as he did to us, he made no distinction. And verse 10, now therefore why do you make trial of God by putting a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?
01:25:21
Now, does this mean that they are contrary to scripture? No, as a matter of fact,
01:25:27
I think St. Paul, and we all accept this, gives a brilliant explanation from scripture, how it is more faithful to the law and to the new covenant not to circumcise and not to require that, to be sure.
01:25:45
And his explanation of that in Galatians is based on scripture. But the decision included first arguments from the
01:25:54
Christian tradition. And of course, now we can say this became canonized in scripture.
01:26:00
And so we don't need any more tradition. But what I still see here as God speaking, so much so, that these are the kind of things that they'll say that the
01:26:13
Holy Spirit says this. This is the word of God in this tradition and scripture -based decision not to enforce circumcision.
01:26:26
And that what we see is their understanding of this important issue that's not merely a moral issue but an issue of the faith itself and the meaning of the new covenant in Jesus Christ's blood.
01:26:40
So that circumcision is not only useless but even causes others, again, serious theological problems.
01:26:47
They do that and they use scripture to testify to what they know. And they do this in a variety of other ways.
01:26:56
They even in the New Testament go so far as to include traditions that are from outside the
01:27:03
Old Testament and they write them into the New Testament, don't they? There are a number of things that we see.
01:27:09
For instance, in the letter to the Hebrews, chapter 11, we see that there are men sawn in half.
01:27:17
There's no passage in the Old Testament that mentions being sawn in half, but there are extra -biblical traditions about Isaiah being sawn in half.
01:27:27
We also know in Jude that Michael the archangel contended over the body of Moses. That's not in the
01:27:33
Old Testament, but it's in the New from a tradition outside. And they were able to include those traditions and they're able to use that as something that we now accept as inspired word of God in the
01:27:46
New Testament, though Jews would not accept it as their canon. I mean, even the stories about Isaiah and so on and Moses.
01:27:55
But we see these a number of things. There's Janis and Jambres being mentioned in 2
01:28:01
Timothy 3 .8, two Egyptian magicians that are from Jewish tradition. They include that.
01:28:08
And they include as authoritative for them the tradition they have from Christ that gives the meaning of our salvation and they let the scriptures testify to that and they hold to that testimony so that they might give us the word that is the word of life and salvation.
01:29:52
Again, it's what we clearly see in the scriptures concerning the need for a means of correction upon the church itself.
01:30:01
It's something the apostles had to do with great regularity. We have heard
01:30:06
Acts 15 presented as if those who lost in that conciliar discussion were sola scriptura
01:30:13
Jewish believers. I think that's a great misapprehension of what's going on there.
01:30:18
The only way that you could parallel Acts 15 with our modern period is if you believe that we are continuing to receive revelation today.
01:30:29
It is my understanding that the Roman Catholic system says, no, we are not receiving revelation today.
01:30:35
Well, obviously at the time of the council, revelation was ongoing. So to attempt to create a parallel when you have a period of inscripturation over against our period today would force a person to believe that revelation is ongoing today and revelation is not from either perspective.
01:30:53
So that is an errant application. Beyond that, I would also say that the
01:30:58
New Testament teaching is that it was the Jews and hence their followers, these quote -unquote
01:31:04
Jewish believers who did not understand that the gospel was to go to the Gentiles in this way.
01:31:09
It was the Jews who held to an inspired oral tradition and claimed that they had this oral tradition that descended down from the time of Moses.
01:31:19
And it was the Lord Jesus who had to correct that in Matthew 15, the parallel passages in Mark as well, and demonstrate that it is our duty to hold any traditional teaching up to the highest authority of Scripture.
01:31:34
In those passages, for example, Matthew 15, 1 -9, you will see that we are commanded to test any tradition by that which
01:31:41
God has spoken in the Scriptures and the Lord Jesus upbraided those who failed to do so.
01:31:48
And so those in the Council in Acts 15 were not properly using the
01:31:54
Scriptures. They were using a traditional understanding that came from their Judaism and forcing it upon those
01:32:00
Scriptures. They were misusing those Scriptures. The misuse of Scripture is not an argument against the sufficiency of Scripture.
01:32:08
Any more than the misuse of the magisterial documents of the Roman Catholic Church is an argument against their sufficiency for Roman Catholics.
01:32:17
And I don't think I need to even get into all the examples I could cite today of Roman Catholics who cite magisterial documents, but do so in such a way that I believe
01:32:26
Fr. Packable would say they are completely missing the boat. They're completely missing the point. But the misuse of those documents does not invalidate them.
01:32:34
The misuse of the Scriptures does not invalidate the Scriptures as being the final and sole authority.
01:32:41
We then just heard about Janus and Ambrose and Isaiah being sawed in two and so on and so forth.
01:32:46
Note that these are historical events known to the Jewish people. These are not somehow dogmatic traditions, revelations from God, that were passed down through the
01:32:56
Jewish hierarchy in some way and somehow infallible in their teachings that then became bound upon people's consciences.
01:33:05
That is not what we find in those sections of Scripture at all. And so I would remind us of the primary issue this evening.
01:33:14
We know that the Scriptures are an infallible rule of faith. The only way to deny sola scriptura is not to ask for the impossibility of a scriptural citation that denies any other proposed rule of faith.
01:33:28
The Bible doesn't talk about the Book of Mormon. And so if a Mormon were to come up here and say, well unless you can find a verse that says that the
01:33:35
Bible is the only rule of faith and the Book of Mormon isn't, well that proves the Book of Mormon is. I think we can all see that that would be a fallacious argument.
01:33:42
The Scriptures are theanustos. And we have already heard that we don't have in Roman tradition any other words of Jesus or the apostles.
01:33:52
So what is this tradition? How did it come to be? If we cannot trace it through history, then is it not highly dubious?
01:34:01
Given the public nature of Scripture, the fact that it is given to all men to know and understand and God holds them accountable, how come
01:34:09
God doesn't hold men accountable for hundreds of years for these alleged traditions and they only appear at a later period of time?
01:34:16
We need to keep our eye on the fact that we are safeguarding the Scriptures and their certainty in our belief in sola scriptura.
01:34:24
Thank you. One of the points
01:34:45
I would add to what I said earlier in response to what James had said is that in Matthew 23 verse 1, our blessed
01:34:55
Lord Jesus himself said to the crowds and to his disciples, the scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat to practice and observe what they tell you but not what they do.
01:35:06
They preach but they do not practice. Now the Moses' seat is not something that is in the
01:35:13
Bible, not in the Old Testament. It's something that's in the Jewish tradition and they had such seats.
01:35:19
I've sat in a Moses' seat, not just for a picture but I don't really proclaim anything for Jewish belief but there's a
01:35:28
Moses' seat in Chorazin. I sat there and, you know, it's a real place. But our
01:35:34
Lord takes that Jewish tradition and says that this does have some authority.
01:35:40
It does that they have to do what they say, at least at this point. So we do see that the
01:35:46
New Testament recognizes tradition as something that's not just an example like with Jannes and Jambres but has authority.
01:35:54
Also, one of the things that, you know, Dr. White does mention about the canons of scripture being not finally made until the
01:36:07
Council of Trent in April of 1546. However, you know, the
01:36:13
Council of Trent, despite Cardinal Cayetano's disagreement or anybody else's disagreement, you know, as individuals, even the great
01:36:23
Jerome, the synods at Hippo were given for authority to the
01:36:30
Pope in Rome. They're accepted as that authority by Pope Innocent. And we also see that at the
01:36:37
Second Council of Nicaea, a list is mentioned. Also, at the Council of Florence in 1437, the list is mentioned and given as that which is able to reconcile the
01:36:49
Greek Orthodox communities that had split from the Catholic Church and were being reconciled to the
01:36:55
Catholic Church, many of whom are still reconciled because the Catholic Church is not the
01:37:00
Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church is part of that. But it's part of many other, 22 other communions who hold our canon as well.
01:37:10
So that this canon is not something that the church invented in 1546, nor is it something that, you know, we added books to the
01:37:20
Bible in 1546. As a matter of fact, we get concerned that on the basis of sola scriptura, you know, even
01:37:31
Martin Luther had problems not only with taking seven books out of the canon that he had from the
01:37:38
Old Testament, but putting in a secondary place behind the rest of the canon books of the
01:37:45
New Testament he didn't like because they didn't agree with his doctrine. So he took
01:37:50
Hebrews and James. He called James, as we all know, a letter of straw.
01:37:56
Hebrews, a letter of wood, hay, and straw. This is sola scriptura.
01:38:02
I don't think so. And again, I know that James and the community here would disagree with one of the greatest proponents of sola scriptura,
01:38:11
Martin Luther. You don't believe that Hebrews is a letter of hay, straw, and wood.
01:38:18
Nor James is a letter of straw. It's the word of God. But the fact that you include that and also the book of Revelation was another book he removed to the back because it also didn't agree with him.
01:38:33
And the Catholic doctrine is that we can't add words to the
01:38:38
Bible. We can't take books out. But rather our doctrine must conform to what is in the scripture because the tradition that was passed on to us is that these books are from the apostles and God inspired them and their disciples to write these books and we must believe them in their entirety and that these are normative for us so that we do see that this great gift of the tradition helps us in preserving what we have in the text.
01:39:12
And just as we see that the tradition of what books we receive as inspired from the apostles is a tradition that was a living tradition and that grew as the books were used in the liturgy especially.
01:39:26
That is the main public place but not the only public place in which the tradition is alive. The books that they read as God's word at Holy Mass, at the
01:39:36
Lord's Supper, in the early church, those are the ones that we look to as inspired of God and still do and still accept.
01:39:54
Before we have our, we have to give our audiovisual team a chance to just change the videotapes.
01:40:05
Actually that's already been done. Perhaps if someone could move the lectern to the side for us here.
01:40:11
We'll proceed with another time of cross -examination and Father Poppel will again get the first opportunity with questions.
01:40:23
Is that right? Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. We're down at the bottom of the page. Ah, there it is.
01:40:29
Okay, good. Breathing too hard.
01:40:39
So, I guess I haven't really formulated my question. In terms of the councils that pre -existed
01:40:48
Trent, do you see them as having this kind of authority?
01:40:55
Well before Trent, as a matter of fact, I don't know that we have ancient copies of the
01:41:04
Bible, copies before Trent that don't have, for instance,
01:41:10
Hebrews and James. So, what would be then the norm for keeping the canon of the
01:41:19
Pharisees, which is what's used in the Protestant Church, as distinct from the canon of the
01:41:24
Alexandrian Jews, which is used in the Catholic and Orthodox Church? Well, I would disagree that there was a differentiation between the
01:41:30
Palestinian and Alexandrian canons and I would refer you to the rather monumental 1985 work of Roger Beckwith called
01:41:36
The Old Testament Canon, The New Testament Church, where he demonstrates from Philo that there was not a separate canon and that, in point of fact, the canon of the
01:41:44
Old Testament had been fixed and was in place in the laying up of the books in the temple and so on and so forth in the 22 books mentioned by Josephus even before the time of Christ.
01:41:54
And as a result, when you ask about the councils, I think that there's very good, incredible evidence that the canon list that is attributed to the
01:42:03
Council of Rome in 382 actually comes from Galatias in 495. And the two councils,
01:42:08
Hippo and Carthage, are both, as you would know, under the direction and the control of Augustine, who disagreed with Jerome.
01:42:18
And I believe, and since I don't have the citation here, I will just put this in, I may be wrong, but my understanding is that Augustine erroneously believed that those books that were found in the
01:42:32
Septuagint were actually a part of the Hebrew canon. He was wrong about that, but he erroneously believed that and that was part of his reasoning.
01:42:39
But in each one of those, and the restatement of those to Council of Florence, we're still talking about a dogmatic definition.
01:42:47
And I'll admit, you certainly would understand that when I make a presentation, I have to respond to what
01:42:53
I am normatively faced with in Roman Catholic apologetics. And it is very interesting to me the fact that your presentation differs somewhat, and it's a very important point, from what is, interestingly enough, presented in the article
01:43:07
I mentioned in This Rock magazine, which I believe is the same issue where you have an article about Jehovah's Witnesses.
01:43:13
Which, again, indicates to me the variety of perspectives that are presented in modern
01:43:19
Roman Catholicism, even within Roman Catholic apologetics itself. And so, while I'm very thankful that you take the position that you do on the canon, and thankful that you take the position on the inerrancy of Scripture, you must realize that I have to deal with a lot of people who would disagree with you on both of those issues, and would, in point of fact, represent themselves as representing the
01:43:40
Roman Catholic perspective on that subject. So, as far as those early councils go,
01:43:47
I would say they're primarily influenced by Augustine, and that Augustine was in error, and in fact,
01:43:54
Melito Sardis, who, as you know, inquired into Palestine to ask about the canon.
01:44:00
Jerome, who discovered these things as he's learning Hebrew. He studied Hebrew for seven years to get rid of the dreams of dancing
01:44:05
Roman girls. Remember, that's why he went to Bethlehem to do that. That's how you do it. Study Hebrew for seven years.
01:44:11
That'll wipe anything else out of your brain. Believe me, as you well know. Those who knew the most about the
01:44:18
Old Testament backgrounds, and you know this as well as I do, that the early church lost connection with much of the knowledge of the
01:44:26
Jewish people, their traditions, and their Old Testament backgrounds, and with origin, the allegorical interpretation of the text, that those who knew the most about the
01:44:35
Old Testament were the ones most likely not to accept those books. I don't know that the people at Trent knew that.
01:44:42
I don't know that they had the fullness. And here's one of my problems is, can that be corrected?
01:44:47
What if they were wrong? Once you have an infallible church, it can't be corrected. Here's one of the questions, though.
01:44:54
For instance, we don't have the question, the beckless issue about whether there's truly a canon in Alexandria.
01:45:05
Again, something that brings up a point of difficulty because we certainly see that we don't have any copies of a canon from Alexandria.
01:45:15
We don't have a Jewish Bible from Alexandria. But what we have are
01:45:20
Christian Old Testaments. And the earliest ones we have have the
01:45:27
Septuagint. And in fact, as you well know, the majority of the 360 quotes of the
01:45:34
Old Testament found in the New Testament are at least an oral form of the
01:45:41
Septuagint, if not a word -for -word quote. I'd say it's documentary. Yeah, so the
01:45:46
Septuagint was certainly considered as normative for the New Testament writers, correct?
01:45:53
No question about it. They utilized the Septuagint. It was the Bible of the early church. Right. And you don't see any variation on that.
01:46:03
You only see variations. Again, people are arguing various points. But in fact, the copies of Bibles we have, including the
01:46:11
Vulgate, as it does get passed on, and the copies of Bibles that exist throughout the church and the printed
01:46:19
Bibles, as soon as, the first thing Catholics did with the printing press is print Bibles and translate them into the common languages, that 120 translations of Bibles into modern languages were done.
01:46:32
So this is something that was important. But they all have these 46 books for the
01:46:38
Old Testament and 27 for the New. So on what kind of authority, is it an authority that is infallible that says only 39 books following the
01:46:50
Pharisees, rather than the Sadducees? Again, the Sadducees had a different canon. They did not agree amongst themselves in the
01:46:57
Jews. And these scenes, we don't know. They could have been different. Well, remember, those very same copies of the
01:47:03
Septuagint do not just contain those books. In other words, when you have something made, when you have a book made, you put a lot of stuff into it.
01:47:11
And so just because something is there, doesn't mean it was necessarily considered canonical. Melito cites from the
01:47:18
Septuagint, but he doesn't believe that the Deuterocanonicals are the basis of defining dogma or something like that.
01:47:24
So does Athanasius. And yet he quotes from the Septuagint as well, and yet he specifically makes a differentiation in the 39th
01:47:31
Vestal Letter of 369 and rejects those things. So the point is that just because it's in those copies doesn't necessarily mean that it was considered to be canon scripture.
01:47:39
And so the question is, how do we determine this? From my perspective, the Lord Jesus and his disciples, though they knew those books, there's allusions to them,
01:47:48
Paul knew of them. They never quote them as the word of God, with the, thus saith the
01:47:53
Lord. And it's not just the Pharisees. It's the people of God all the way up to the time of Christ who had this canon of 22 books.
01:48:01
And given the insight of people like Jerome, and people like Melito of Sardis, and Athanasius, and all these people,
01:48:07
I think there is a very clear patristic weight in favor of the Protestant perspective.
01:48:13
And my whole point is that if we say that Rome has this authority to determine this canon, why don't we see evidence that those things were understood by the council fathers at Trent and dealt with by the council fathers at Trent?
01:48:27
I don't see any evidence that they interacted with that information. Yeah. For my eight minutes,
01:48:37
I'd like to start with your reference to the, and I don't want to get bogged down just in this canon issue because I want to get back to Sola Scriptura very quickly in the sense of,
01:48:47
I recognize that's central to it, but you are, would you agree with me that Gregory the
01:48:52
Great, Bishop of Rome, is admitted by Roman Catholic historians and theologians to have specifically excluded those books from his canon of scripture.
01:49:03
He specifically said they were non -canonical. See, I don't know. Admittedly, for me, modern history begins in 200
01:49:10
A .D. when you're studying the Old Testament. And I just don't know that. I just don't. Alright, then I respect that and move on to another issue.
01:49:18
Matthew chapter 23 you cited about Moses' seat. And I won't ask for the picture of you sitting in Moses' seat, but I happen to have one here.
01:49:31
I was going to make a comment about pictures of grandkids, but that's not going to work out very well. Is it,
01:49:42
I did not fully understand. Again, I have heard this passage cited so many times by so many different apologists.
01:49:49
I need to find out what your specific use of it is. And that is, I have had people go so far as to say that Matthew chapter 23 and the seat of Moses, the seat of Moses becomes a tradition from Moses infallibly passed down through the rabbis from Moses that Jesus then binds upon the consciences of individuals.
01:50:13
Now is that what you're saying is going on here? Or what, please explicate just a little bit what you mean by your application of Matthew 23.
01:50:20
The sense of the rabbinic tradition is that they talk about the great synagogue as passing on a tradition that they'll trace back to Moses.
01:50:32
And that was certainly their faith. That was their faith. And what I think our
01:50:37
Lord is saying is that, okay, at this point, these rabbis, these Pharisees, have this authority.
01:50:44
And that they practice and observe what they tell you. And I think that this, and this is one of the things
01:50:50
I get, not because the New Testament clarifies it, but because we have this as tradition, that they would obey the
01:50:58
Pharisees. And they, in one sense, are accepting their authority rather than, say,
01:51:04
Essene authority or Sadducee authority, accepting so far as Sadducees have control over the temple.
01:51:10
And that this is an option for this, that this is the group that you accept as authoritative in this present period.
01:51:17
However, after the death and resurrection of Christ, then another authority, the giving of the
01:51:25
Holy Spirit, is poured upon them. And this isn't very long before that. But the
01:51:30
Holy Spirit is given to them, and they have a new authority then. And they continue to accept the authority of Sadducees and Pharisees in certain levels.
01:51:42
But then their own authority becomes more and more clear. And so that then the Christian tradition, as it develops and as it gets spread, that supersedes this authority.
01:51:54
And the authority of the apostles, especially Peter, continues on after the resurrection, after Pentecost. Would you say that there is an explicit biblical statement rescinding this, what we have in Matthew 23?
01:52:07
No. At least in this sense. I can't think of any offhand. But certainly, not that there would be anything in scripture against that.
01:52:19
Again, I don't think that the scriptures would say, you've got to keep this up. Of course it doesn't. And you see that they are arguing against the
01:52:27
Pharisees and separating themselves by believing God rather than men in the trial of Peter and John, for instance, in Acts of the
01:52:35
Apostles. So they recognize that that's what they're doing. How would you respond to my statement that what you have in Matthew 23 is that in the synagogue worship, the person sitting upon Moses' seat is reading the scriptures, and that in light of Matthew 23's scathing denunciation of the constant hypocrisy of the
01:52:54
Pharisees, and in light of Matthew 15's statement that you are to take the Corban rule, which would be a part of the very same traditions, tractate of both as you know, passed down allegedly from Moses, and yet Jesus scathingly denounces it and holds men accountable for holding even those traditions in light of scripture.
01:53:12
What would you say if I said it is more consistent to believe, in light of Matthew 15 and the rest of Matthew 23, that what is being said here is the
01:53:20
Pharisees sit in the place where they read the scriptures in Moses' seat. And so do not rebel against the form of synagogue worship, but instead recognize that they are hypocrites, and because they don't do what they say to do, and therefore avoid the love of the
01:53:34
Pharisees. Wouldn't that be, what would you say is wrong with that exegesis? I wouldn't say that it's wrong in the sense that it's untrue, but it's wrong in the sense that it's incomplete, because part of the sitting in the
01:53:48
Moses' seat would include making juridical decisions as rabbis for various things that you are, they're also telling you more than just what's in the scripture.
01:54:01
They're also giving you the halakha, the ways that you're supposed to act, and what the scripture means.
01:54:08
So this would include the reading of scripture, and they should do that. And of course they would listen to that.
01:54:14
But the sitting in the Moses' seat also would include the halakha, the kind of moral expectations and interpretations that come from that seat.
01:54:26
Okay. Really quickly, because we only have two minutes here according to my little stopwatch. You addressed the issue of sola ecclesia.
01:54:35
Is it your position that the Roman Catholic Church has the authority to infallibly define the canon of scripture?
01:54:44
Yes, yes, no? I don't want to force you into something, but if we could be fairly quick on it.
01:54:50
I wouldn't say it that way. What would you say? I would say that the Catholic Church has the infallible authority to receive and recognize what has been given as the tradition from the apostles.
01:55:01
We don't define that. But it's unquestionable once it has been stated. Yes. Okay.
01:55:08
And does the Roman Catholic Church have the authority to infallibly interpret scripture? Yeah, sure.
01:55:14
Just in passing, in your opinion, how many passages of scripture have been infallibly interpreted by the
01:55:20
Roman Catholic Church? It would be very few. It would be the doctrine on the Eucharist, an interpretation of what this is my body means and this is my blood, certainly the
01:55:31
Petrine understanding of what you are Peter and I shall build my church. There aren't too many others.
01:55:39
Certainly the Trinitarian texts, those would be defined in counsel, but it's a very small percentage of the actual text that you can point to an infallible interpretation of that.
01:55:50
And the assumption is that the rest of it is plain enough not to need that definition.
01:55:57
Plain enough to be understood separate from any traditional interpretation? No. As a matter of fact, it would be the traditional interpretation that helps to make it understandable.
01:56:07
That's my experience, certainly. That as I understand the tradition more deeply, it enriches my understanding of the scripture.
01:56:14
So that I see that these two go together and that the magisterium of the church is that third element that is needed therefore the interpretation of that connection between the tradition and the scripture.
01:56:27
But you don't know the tradition separate from the magisterium? It depends. Again, I need that defined.
01:56:33
Okay. Before I answer it. We need the lectern again for the closing rebuttals of five minutes each and then the closing statements of ten minutes each.
01:57:05
My, what a patient group. We're losing a few folks, but we'll press on. We're almost there.
01:57:12
I'd like to read to you a statement from John Cassian, writing at the end of the fourth, beginning of the fifth century.
01:57:22
A question was asked concerning how a man who wanted to acquire a knowledge of the scriptures ought to proceed.
01:57:31
And here is his words. He ought not to spend his labor on the words of commentators, but rather to keep all the efforts of his mind and intentions of his heart set on purifying himself from carnal vices.
01:57:45
For when these are driven out, at once the eyes of the heart, as if the veil of the passions were removed, will begin as it were naturally to gaze on the mysteries of scripture.
01:57:55
Since they were not declared to us by the grace of the Holy Spirit and or that they should remain unknown and obscure, but they are rendered obscure by our fault as the veil of our sins covers the eyes of the heart.
01:58:10
And when these are restored to their natural state of health, the mere reading of Holy Scripture is by itself amply sufficient for beholding the true knowledge.
01:58:24
Nor do they need the aid of commentators, just as these eyes of flesh need no man's teaching how to see, provided that they are free from dimness or the darkness of blindness.
01:58:38
For this reason, there have arisen so great differences and mistakes among commentators because most of them, paying no sort of attention towards purifying the mind, rush into the work of interpreting the scriptures and in proportion to the density or impurity of their heart, form opinions that are at variance with and contrary to each other's and the faith, and so are unable to take in the light of truth.
01:59:05
What is he saying? This ancient writer, how could he say that the scriptures are amply sufficient, amply sufficient for beholding the true knowledge?
01:59:17
That sounds like what I have been saying from the very beginning. And it in fact is.
01:59:24
Remember there is a passage, and I am thankful again that it has not yet been cited this evening.
01:59:30
There is a passage that is frequently cited in reference to this, and that is Peter's statement about Paul's writings of Scripture.
01:59:38
And in that passage, we are told that untaught and unstable men distort the scriptures, including
01:59:46
Paul's own writings, to what? To their own destruction. And this has been cited to me many times as evidence of the need for something beyond the scriptures themselves, because the scriptures are capable of being misused.
01:59:59
I would like to point out that that is a misuse of this passage. If untaught and unstable men can distort the scriptures, then what can, in the words of John Cassian, the pure of heart, the taught, the stable man do?
02:00:17
He can do what Paul exhorted Timothy to do. And that is to feed the flock.
02:00:24
That is to teach the word. To exhort in sound doctrine. And that is why
02:00:30
I believe in Sola Scriptura. And that is why I believe that when we start talking about tradition, and yet we can't define it, and we have to put ourselves back into the
02:00:42
New Testament period, to try to come up with a tradition that is inspired, rather than today where we are not receiving revelation from God.
02:00:51
If we have to do those things, then we are missing the important part today. And here's where you come in, because we don't have a panel of judges up here.
02:00:59
There are no judges sitting anywhere except in the pews of this place. And the subject this evening is vital to you as an individual.
02:01:08
How do you know the gospel? How do you know the way of salvation itself?
02:01:15
And what's more, how can you have certainty that the gospel that you embrace this day will be the gospel that you embrace 10 or 20 years from now?
02:01:29
Where is the certainty of what comes from God? I believe that it must be found in recognizing that in Scripture, God has given us the boundaries of His truth, and when you remove those boundaries, people go every which direction.
02:01:47
And the result is such teachings as we have concerning Mariology, concerning the
02:01:54
Bishop of Rome, concerning treasuries of merit, that are not to be found in the apostolic teaching itself.
02:02:01
Thank you. James White brings up a very important point, that what's at stake is certainly the issue of what is the truth that God gives to us so that we can find salvation, salvation that comes only by reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ.
02:02:45
His blood is that which makes the two of us one, and more importantly, unites us to God.
02:02:52
And this doctrine, Catholics and Protestants agree on. But having a lack of clarity on the truth is going to lead to the result that Dr.
02:03:07
White precisely mentions. Namely, that people will scatter, and they'll be driven like chaff before the wind from one place to another.
02:03:19
And in fact, the doctrine of the treasure of merits in the church and the subsequent doctrine of indulgence hasn't scattered the
02:03:32
Chaldean brothers and sisters from the Latin right brothers and sisters in our church, nor the
02:03:40
Greek, Byzantine, Maronite, and Coptic Christians, nor has the doctrine of purgatory and praying for the dead scattered them.
02:03:50
But rather, the amazing thing about the doctrine that we have from God, who is truth, from Jesus Christ, who is the word of God made flesh, and who communicates this to us in tradition that's written and in tradition that is oral, is that there is a greater diversity within Catholicism's unity.
02:04:21
This has been the exact result. So that we can have this tremendous diversity that exists and come to holy communion in each other's churches, though we are separated by language and small t traditions.
02:04:37
They'll do things differently in the Chaldean church and treasure them. And I, as a
02:04:43
Latin Catholic, treasure them too. I want the Chaldeans to be more Chaldean and not to become
02:04:49
Latin right. And that's a great diversity, but we share that unity of faith.
02:04:55
However, the claim that sola scriptura would be able to sustain the churches has not proven true.
02:05:06
So that within the first 80 years of the Protestant Reformation, there were already 300 churches divided on important issues.
02:05:17
Issues as to whether or not humans have free will. Whether they can once have their salvation and lose it or not lose it.
02:05:26
And these divisions remain. And churches make all kinds of other decisions on moral questions
02:05:32
So that some of the sola scriptura churches allow for abortion as a morally acceptable position.
02:05:39
Others do not. Some say that it's abortion when there's rape or incest. Others stay with the ancient tradition of the apostles that forbids it at any time.
02:05:50
But this diversity has led to splintering within the Christian community that is a splintering not merely of people with a unity and a diverse expression, but with Christians who would say amongst themselves as Bible -believing
02:06:08
Christians that they are not Christians. So that is one minister, a former
02:06:13
Catholic, said that Billy Graham might as well go to hell now or become a Catholic. Same thing for him.
02:06:19
Because he does not believe what I believe in my church. Now I am not in charge of Billy Graham's eternal salvation.
02:06:29
I don't think that minister was either. But this lack of the tradition has as its result this splintering.
02:06:39
While the apostolic tradition has been precisely a gift from God.
02:06:45
Now is it the same kind of gift as scripture? No. In my concluding remarks I'll talk more about that and some of its distinctiveness.
02:06:53
But it is a gift of God. The word made flesh passed on to humans of flesh so that we humans who receive it can find that full counsel of God that brings us the salvation we need in Christ, whether we can read or whether we cannot.
02:07:18
Thank you. I have a few resources here.
02:07:50
It doesn't explode, don't worry. I'd like to present,
02:07:56
I guess in a debate, sort of like a court of law, a few items placed into evidence.
02:08:04
The Code of Canon Law. The Documents of Vatican II.
02:08:13
The Universal Catholic Catechism. The Companion to the
02:08:19
Catechism of the Catholic Church. A companion of text referred to in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
02:08:25
And just for the fun of it, the Dogmatic Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent. That's a big stack of books.
02:08:34
That's a lot of reading. And that just scratches the surface. We read much in there of what the gospel is.
02:08:45
And we read about the treasury of merit. And we read about purgatory. And we read about condine and congruent merit.
02:08:53
And we read about sodus passio. And we read about all these things.
02:08:59
Are we truly to believe that that clarifies Paul's simple statement in Romans 5 .1.
02:09:08
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
02:09:13
Lord Jesus Christ. Do I need that? The early
02:09:19
Christians didn't. If the early Christians did not need all of this.
02:09:25
If they managed to live their lives, defend the faith, become martyrs.
02:09:32
Without all of this, that allegedly clarifies the gospel, but I believe actually ends up perverting the gospel.
02:09:41
Why do I need it today? How could a Roman Catholic determine the difference between a perversion of the gospel over time and simply an alleged clarification on the basis of a tradition that Rome can't show us until she defines a dogma?
02:10:02
I didn't ask the question, but I'd like to ask the question, could we have an infallible list of all the traditions that exist outside Scripture?
02:10:09
I don't think one exists. And if we had asked someone in say 1840 for an infallible list of dogmas that one must believe to be in harmony with the church, it wouldn't have included a dogma that now you must believe to be in harmony with the church.
02:10:35
That suggests to me, my friends, that something has changed. The gospel itself has changed because without sola scriptura, without those firm boundaries, well, you don't have any certainty.
02:10:52
You know, one of the early writers put it this way, in regard to the divine and holy mysteries of the faith, not the least part may be handed on without the holy scriptures.
02:11:04
Do not be led astray by winning words and clever arguments, even to me who tell you these things, do not give ready belief, unless you receive from the holy scriptures the proof of the things which
02:11:17
I announce. The salvation in which we believe is not proved from clever reasoning, but from the holy scriptures.
02:11:27
That's why we have come here this evening. Sola scriptura is not something you just have debates about because you can get a lot of folks to come out and you can get some fireworks going.
02:11:38
Sola scriptura is the fundamental authority issue and all the differences that exist between Father Pacwa and myself on what the gospel is come back to what our ultimate authority is.
02:11:53
The differences in our hermeneutics, the differences in our method of exegesis goes back to the fact that I believe that my faith and my doctrine must be derived solely and only from that which is
02:12:07
God breathed. And I do not believe that you can take the words of the apostles and exegeting them in their context and with any level of fairness come to the dogmas that have been bound upon the consciences of men by Rome regarding such things going backward into history as the bodily assumption, the immaculate conception, papal infallibility, the issues of purgatory, the treasury of merit, and then that gets right to justification itself.
02:12:42
How is it that a man is justified? I believe somewhere out in the back we have tapes of an even longer debate that Father Pacwa and I did on that very subject almost a decade ago now and we both looked a lot better back then.
02:13:02
That's what separates us. It's the fundamental issue of authority and it results in what could rightly be described as a tragic difference in regards to what the gospel itself is.
02:13:20
But you see, in our society it would be a whole lot easier for me if I just sort of hooked up with the ecumenical movement.
02:13:30
It would be a lot easier for me in my ministry if I wasn't one of those hard -nosed people.
02:13:36
If I compromised, if I said, well, you know, it really doesn't matter. You've got your view, I've got my view.
02:13:42
Let's not worry about it. I, out of love for God and love for His word, cannot do that.
02:13:49
I cannot do that. And I am forced to that by the fact that I will not bow in allegiance to anything that is not the anustos, that does not come from God speaking.
02:14:03
Does that mean I don't have a church? No. The authority of the proclamation of the church comes from her fidelity to the very words of Christ.
02:14:16
The authority of the proclamation of the Christian people can only be derived from her fidelity to the
02:14:24
Scriptures. That's true apostolic succession. True apostolic succession is not claiming some genealogical lineage.
02:14:32
True apostolic succession is preaching what the apostles preached.
02:14:39
And the simple fact of the matter is that what we are told by Roman Catholicism today was an apostolic tradition is contradictory to what the apostles themselves preached in Scripture.
02:14:54
I can see Scripture. I know Scripture goes back to the apostles. I do not know, and neither does anyone else know that these alleged apostolic traditions that have no purview in the early church actually go back to the apostles.
02:15:08
That is an assumption and a very dangerous one. There are many today who have embraced
02:15:16
Roman Catholicism because they heard arguments against Sola Scriptura and they couldn't answer them. And they say, see,
02:15:23
I needed certainty about the canon, and so I've embraced Roman Catholicism.
02:15:30
You didn't get certainty. You see, the decision that you made was a fallible decision.
02:15:38
And you can't get any more certainty out of that than what you used when you first embraced it. It's a bit of a shell game.
02:15:47
Something promised, but when you actually end up picking it up, you don't find anything there. And that's why it's so important.
02:15:57
This evening, you have chosen the best thing. You could have gone and seen films and movies.
02:16:06
You could have entertained yourself. You could have maybe earned some more money. There's a lot of things you could have done.
02:16:13
You came here. In our society, you are to be commended. Because our society thinks that all of us, whatever side you're on, are probably pretty nutty.
02:16:24
For having spent an entire evening listening to Father Pacwa and I up here discussing this subject. Some of you
02:16:30
I know have traveled from a long distance. And I thank you for coming. But I truly hope and pray that you will consider well what has been said.
02:16:42
And consider well the impact concerning what the nature of the Gospel is and the great difference that exists between the two sides.
02:16:51
I would like to thank Father Pacwa for coming and being here. I would like to thank him for being the gentleman that I knew he would be in our dialogue and our discussion.
02:17:02
We can disagree in an agreeable fashion. We can disagree and say, you are wrong.
02:17:12
The difference between us is that when we disagree, we both admit that it results in a fundamental separation of the directions that we are going.
02:17:23
It is my prayer that God will honor His truth this evening in the hearts of every person in this place.
02:17:29
And that He will glorify Himself in revealing to His people the glory, the wonder, the power, the authority and the sufficiency of His Word, the
02:17:39
Scriptures. Thank you. As James put it well, we disagree, we go in a very different direction.
02:18:15
But, again, I'm always pleased to disagree with James in an agreeable way.
02:18:23
And it was the same kind of relationship I was privileged to have with Dr. Walter Martin. But, I also want to make it very clear that I think that the issue is just as serious as James does.
02:18:39
We both consider this to be the issue about the salvation of souls, about eternal life and nothing less.
02:18:49
Certainly, the issue of justification lurks in the background. Because, how one is justified before God is clearly at stake.
02:19:03
And, I think that this difference shows up in the tradition as well as in the
02:19:10
Scriptures. And that's why I remain a Catholic. I think the Catholic Church teaches most clearly from the
02:19:18
Scriptures on that issue. But, for tonight's topic, the main point that I would stick with and be firm on is what the
02:19:28
Scriptures themselves say about the tradition. That the people of Thessaloniki who did accept
02:19:37
Christ accepted what they heard as the Word of God.
02:19:44
And, in no place did the Apostles write down in the
02:19:49
Scriptures, nor did they pass on to us any oral tradition saying that the oral tradition ceased to be the
02:19:58
Word of God. I still accept it as the Word of God.
02:20:04
But, with this distinction, it's not like the Scripture where we have the words of the
02:20:11
Gospel, the Ipsissima Verba Christi, the actual words of Christ.
02:20:18
The very words themselves. That's not what we have in the tradition.
02:20:25
Nor do we have the Ipsissima Verba Pauli, or Patri, or Johann.
02:20:33
We don't have the actual Ipsissima words, the very words, the precise texts of Peter, Paul, John, or James in the tradition.
02:20:45
That's not our claim. But rather, in the tradition, what we have is a restatement.
02:20:55
We have the actual voice, the Ipsissima Vox Christi. The actual word, voice of Christ.
02:21:04
What he meant. What the Apostles meant. And that this tradition has sustained us over these 2 ,000 years, 1 ,970 years since Pentecost, by, first of all, giving us that word, both in this written and oral form, a word that has been passed on so that people's lives have been transformed.
02:21:32
And we've also seen in these words, which we believe as Catholics, and we state in the
02:21:39
Council of Trent and in the Council of the Vatican, Vatican II, that Christ, the word of God made flesh, has revealed himself.
02:21:49
And he is the source of revelation. He is the content of revelation. He is the purpose of revelation.
02:21:54
But he has established this oral and written tradition, inspired both, and given us a magisterium, a teaching authority, to interpret it so that it makes sense.
02:22:09
And yes, the books you see here are all kinds of editions, but are there not new problems?
02:22:17
And doesn't the Church have the need to speak about the new problems and new situations of the world?
02:22:27
Is not the situation of slavery that occurred in the late medieval, early renaissance
02:22:35
Europe and continued on into bloody war in our own shores something that the
02:22:41
Church had to say and speak about so that as soon as slavery started, the
02:22:47
Pope could condemn it? And enslavement of the people of Africa was put under an anathema, an excommunication, as it should have been.
02:22:59
And Catholics who disobeyed the magisterium of the Church were the ones who brought this bloodiness upon us.
02:23:08
And is it not also the case that they did not have to deal with genetic engineering?
02:23:15
But we have to. They did not have doctors going around trying to make hydroencephalic children so that they can harvest their organs and put them into other people.
02:23:28
Nor did they have the kind of abortion industry and all the other problems that we have in modern life.
02:23:35
And we need to have the wisdom of the oral tradition found for us in the liturgy and in the writings of the
02:23:43
Father. And the written tradition, the very word of Peter, Paul, James, and John.
02:23:51
The very words of Jesus Christ in the Gospels. And then we have to apply them.
02:23:59
And this gift is a word of God. It's a gift that helps and gives us a life.
02:24:10
And not only a sense of life, but a wisdom. Yeah, this is a lot to read.
02:24:16
You don't have to read it to get saved, though. You don't have to know canon law to go to heaven.
02:24:23
And you don't have to know the catechism to go to heaven. You don't have to read that. But it helps.
02:24:30
And it's a great aid to our salvation. And not only an aid to our salvation, to understand more fully.
02:24:36
Because it is, again, clearly, the teaching of the tradition and the scriptures, that understanding all the mysteries do not give us heaven.
02:24:45
And God does not invite us to heaven so that we can teach him some more. He doesn't need us to do that, but this greater wisdom and this understanding does help us to serve others and to proclaim the
02:24:58
Gospel to the world in various ways. And if it weren't for the tradition, how would you know that polygamy is over?
02:25:08
How would you know that? Is it not something commended to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?
02:25:17
Is it not something that existed? Not exactly commended when Solomon overdoes it, but the multiplicity of wives certainly gave kings to Israel and Judah.
02:25:30
When some sons died, others were there because of polygamy. But, how do we know that Christians may not have more than one wife?
02:25:40
That's not in the New Testament or the Old, stopping it.
02:25:47
We know it from the tradition. And we know that it's an evil thing. And we can't agree with the
02:25:53
Mormons on such a practice. And it goes on with so many other issues where the
02:26:00
New Testament doesn't give us everything in terms of our behavior. And yet, everything that's in the tradition will find that resonance and that testimony and witness in the
02:26:12
Bible. And that we won't have either one alone. We won't have these by themselves.
02:26:20
And I thank God for the gift of the tradition because it gives my church not a freewheeling diversity that destroys us, but rather, with the
02:26:36
Scriptures, we can say, as St. Paul taught us in Ephesians chapter 4, that there is one
02:26:42
God, one faith, and one church. Christ founded the church on Peter.
02:26:51
And he founded the church as the pillar of truth, which does not shake. And it gives us this church as a community that is not just an organization to try and control and give more books to read and buy, but rather, it's the beloved bride of Christ.
02:27:13
A great treasure, clothed in garments which are the good deeds of all the saints, not the ones in heaven, all of us.
02:27:22
And that this community will continue to be sustained and not divide up and not have all of this destruction of that unity, but by its faithfulness to Christ, the
02:27:37
Word made flesh and present in the words of Scripture and the tradition as his voice, will continue on until he comes again for us.
02:28:01
Thank you. Now, don't make this the difficult time for the moderator. We're going to have questions now.
02:28:10
There are microphones, you see, in each of these three aisles, I see, and you're making your way there.
02:28:17
I'll remove this so that you can see the answers, the answers to the questions being given.
02:28:26
I'm going to try to have the questions alternate between our debaters.
02:28:33
And we'll start here to my left. Yes, sir. I have a question for Mr. White.
02:28:40
First of all, I'd like to say thank you very much for a very academic, as an academic, I appreciate a very academic and professional debate, which
02:28:47
I don't see all that often, so thank you very much. And it's very contrary to what we've been seeing in the media a lot.
02:28:53
There was very little rhetoric, and that was great. But my question has to do with epistemology, because it seems to be brought up in a lot in what we were discussing, and that's the issue of how we know.
02:29:04
How do we know the gospel was a question that was asked, and how do we know the proper interpretation of Scripture, and how do we know where the canon is?
02:29:12
I know it was said, how do we know what the canon is, or how do we know there is a canon, but I think the more proper question is, how do we know where it is?
02:29:19
And in relation to these questions, or the question of knowledge, in reference to what
02:29:27
Mr. White had said regarding when a Roman Catholic says that without the infallible or the authoritative church, one cannot know where the canon is, or know what the proper interpretation of the canon is.
02:29:42
Mr. White says, well, the historical arguments given by Catholics don't fare much better. That's more of a tu quoque fallacy, and doesn't get you out of the problem.
02:29:50
And the way I would state the question is this, and also in answer to your question for a non -historical argument, is that this, since the
02:30:00
Protestants cannot, within their own worldview, within their own theology, give a justification for how they know what the proper interpretation of Scripture is, or where the canon is, that aside from a subjective view, for example, the right of private judgment, or the inter -dwelling of the, or inter -testimony of the
02:30:21
Holy Spirit, without those sorts of subjective claims, without the infallible church, the
02:30:27
Protestant cannot know any of these things, and a whole lot more. And so the argument is, a lot of orthodox
02:30:33
Presbyterians will understand this argument, it's the argument by the impossibility of the contrary. Excuse me, I thought you were coming to the question, the precise, sharp question.
02:30:41
Well, there's a lot of background. We don't have time for the background. So the question is, how does the
02:30:50
Protestant know these things? And the argument is that the Catholic knows by the impossibility of the contrary, that if you deny the church, then you deny the ability to know.
02:31:03
Well, obviously, I reject the assertion that a Protestant cannot know how to exegete Scripture.
02:31:08
God has spoken in our language. God designed us. And God is able to reveal himself clearly in the language.
02:31:14
And point of fact, God incarnate in Jesus Christ, and by the way, I'll pick that up, one minute if it's addressed to you, and 30 seconds to comment, would that be alright?
02:31:25
Yeah, whatever. If there's a need. How about if we just let the one question answer at this point?
02:31:34
We've had a lot of rebuttal. Yeah, okay, alright. Okay, so one minute to respond to the question? Yeah, that's fine. If we can cut the questions down to about 30 seconds?
02:31:41
I shall try harder. One -minute responses to five -minute questions don't work very well. But I totally reject the idea that God has created us in such a way that we cannot know what he says in his word.
02:31:54
I would point out that the entire argument as I hear it is very obviously self -contradictory.
02:32:01
Because as soon as the magisterium states anything, it has to be interpreted by the person who is listening or going to the magisterium.
02:32:09
So if you cannot know how to exegete Scripture, then you can't know how to exegete the magisterium either. Because as soon as the magisterium speaks, that is now in the same form of verbal communication, whether it's by voice or by word, that we have in Scripture or in the preaching of the apostles.
02:32:22
So the assertion to me seems incredibly self -contradictory. And it seemingly is based upon the assumption that unless you have some sort of miraculous revelation of the term you used was the location of the canon or where the canon is, that God cannot pass or lead his people to a recognition of it.
02:32:42
And I would respond to the same question I've asked over and over again and I never get an answer to. And that is, be quiet. And that is, how did the believing
02:32:50
Jewish person 50 years before Christ know that Isaiah and 2 Chronicles were Scripture? Jesus held them accountable to Scripture.
02:32:56
How did they know? And any answer you get will support the Protestant position not the Roman Catholic position on that issue.
02:33:03
But could I respond to that? Because let me just give at least a 30 -second response or whatever.
02:33:12
You said 30 seconds? Okay. How would the
02:33:19
Jew know which books were there? Well, he would have to know it from his tradition and as we know, the
02:33:26
Jewish traditions didn't agree so that they had competing traditions among the Pharisees and the
02:33:32
Sadducees. So when Christ deals with Sadducees, he only can quote from Torah because the
02:33:38
Sadducees only accepted the first five books. He couldn't appeal to the latter or early prophets.
02:33:45
But with the Pharisees and their associates and disciples, he could because they did accept those.
02:33:53
I would love to respond but we'll never get any questions. Yeah, right. And the other thing too is, in terms of responding about the
02:34:03
Magisterium, how do you interpret the Magisterium? This is a key issue. You're right.
02:34:08
And I'm agreeing with you that you have this understandability that's given in Scripture but it still also maintains mystery and part of the role of the
02:34:17
Magisterium is to put the mystery into other words which we all do when we preach. That's part of our task as preachers.
02:34:24
With that, I'm going to look to the center aisle and I'm going to ask whether the question is for Father Pacwa.
02:34:31
No, it's for Dr. White. How about the first person behind you who has a question for Dr.
02:34:36
Pacwa? Okay, over here. Good evening,
02:34:43
Dr. Pacwa. I also would like to say I agree with you that I also hope that Governor Bush becomes the next
02:34:49
President of the United States. I'd like to ask you a question dealing with the issue of infallibility of Rome.
02:34:57
And that is that Rome claims to have the infallibility to declare or to at least proclaim what
02:35:03
Scripture and oral tradition are and also to give the interpretation of what both of these things mean.
02:35:10
In light of this, how can one hold Rome accountable to or how can someone test a claim that is made by Rome like using verses like 1
02:35:22
Thessalonians 5 .21 or 2 Corinthians 13 .5 which says that we're supposed to examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith unless we fail the test or that we should test all things, hold fast to what is good.
02:35:33
In terms of testing, again, this is where you have to take a look to test what the
02:35:43
Catholic Church teaches. And again, I don't even like to say Rome. The city doesn't talk except maybe kind of smutty.
02:35:50
But it's the role of Peter. It's the role of Peter and Peter's authority.
02:35:59
And we do have to take a look at what the Popes say. In fact, in terms of dogmatic teaching, it's rare.
02:36:09
We check and see is this something that Scripture says or that Scripture contravenes.
02:36:15
Secondly, one of the things that the Pope does himself is he consults with the laity.
02:36:22
And he asks the people of God, is this something that we have?
02:36:28
For instance, the assumption of Mary and the Immaculate Conception that the people of God were questioned through their bishops.
02:36:36
And so we'll test over against the faith all of the Church. And then we also have to take a look at what the
02:36:45
Pope says. And we do. We argue inside Catholicism as to whether or not it's scriptural and traditional.
02:36:52
So we take fairly lively discussion. Can I have an opportunity?
02:36:58
Yeah, go ahead. Well, I think the question goes to something that's very important. And that is, once you have an allegedly infallible statement, there is no longer any way of holding it up to the kind of examination that was mentioned in the verses that were presented.
02:37:15
And that is, once you have an infallible interpretation, for example, of the meaning of justification,
02:37:20
I would assert that the Roman Catholic view of justification is contradicted by numerous passages of Scripture in Romans 4 and 5 and Galatians 2.
02:37:29
But a Roman Catholic, I do not believe, has the, shall we call it, the epistemological basis to examine the allegedly infallible statements of the
02:37:40
Roman Catholic Church in the light of Scripture because of the commitment to the ultimate authority of Rome.
02:37:47
I think, if I'm interpreting the question correctly, that that was what was being asked, is how do you get around that in the sense of having a real way of testing?
02:37:59
We have 10 questions at the microphones and about 10 minutes at most.
02:38:06
So we'll, again, call for questions as brief and clear as they can be.
02:38:11
The center aisle, a question for Dr. White. Okay. Dr. White, if the
02:38:16
Bible is the sole infallible standard by which we may measure Christian doctrine, how did the early
02:38:22
Christians of the first few centuries after the apostolic era discern
02:38:28
Christian doctrine before the New Testament was canonized as sacred Scripture? I'm not asking how we discern the canon, but how the first Christians discerned
02:38:38
Christian doctrine, such as justification, communion, baptism, things like that. The early church answer to that would be that they made reference to what they had available to them in the light of the
02:38:50
Old Testament Scriptures, which were the Scriptures of the church at that time. And, interestingly enough,
02:38:55
I would argue very strongly that some of the beliefs of various of the sundry early church fathers, such as maybe
02:39:03
Clement of Alexandria, some of the real primitive writings that you'd find, for example, the
02:39:08
Shepherd of Hermas, things like that, were quite sub -biblical in their teaching because of that very issue.
02:39:16
That is, that they did not have access to the fullness of what we have in the New Testament.
02:39:21
And, in fact, some people are surprised by this, but I believe very strongly that in many ways we are able to be closer to the apostles and their teaching, which is a great privilege, than many people who lived only within a couple of hundred years of the apostles due to the fact that we have the wealth of God's Word, which, by the way, is a blessing.
02:39:39
It's not something that God had to give to us, as well as the fact that we have access to the backgrounds that many of them were not allowed to have.
02:39:47
And that, again, demonstrates the necessity of looking only to that which is theanoustos for our doctrine.
02:39:53
Why? Because if you take the early church writings and in some way, shape, or form invest authority into them, whatever that may be, and an individual writes something, he writes something out of ignorance of what the
02:40:06
Scriptures actually teach, of what is truly theanoustos, but then you take that and use that to interpret the
02:40:12
Scriptures, you're now on a vicious cycle that, again, as the previous question demonstrated, really doesn't have any means of self -correction or reformation unless we accept that we need to go only with what is theanoustos, that which is
02:40:25
God -breathed. A question for Dr. Pacwa and this group to my left. Yes, I have a question for Dr.
02:40:33
Pacwa, mainly. The question is about the
02:40:39
Bible, Catholic versus Protestant, and then the third one will be about the
02:40:46
Catholic tradition. The Catholic Bible has 73 books total.
02:41:00
The New Testament is the same for the Catholic and the Protestant. The seven books that are added up in a
02:41:12
Catholic Bible are all in the Old Testament. When and how the seven books, and what period of time the seven books were written, and when they were added to the
02:41:26
Bible? The seven books of which you speak were written sometime between 215 or so B .C.
02:41:39
to perhaps 50 B .C., though we're not sure of the Book of Wisdom. But it's in that period for those seven books.
02:41:48
They are found in copies of the earliest
02:41:54
Christian Bibles that we have, and they're present.
02:42:00
We don't have any complete Bibles before the year 300 A .D.
02:42:07
It's in the 4th century that we have copies from the 4th century, we still have copies, and they're present there.
02:42:16
Written after 400 B .C., which is after Malachi, and before the first...
02:42:23
Actually, I consider Dr. Luke is the first book in the
02:42:29
New Testament, although not in place. May we turn for another question now?
02:42:37
One apiece, just to keep things rolling along. I'm going to go ask to my right whether there's a question for Dr.
02:42:45
White. Yes. Dr. White, why do you have a problem believing that just like the
02:42:57
Holy Spirit helped the early church see the truth of which books are
02:43:04
Bible, why do you have a problem believing that that same Holy Spirit can help the church see the truth today?
02:43:11
I obviously don't. I believe that the Holy Spirit did indeed give the canon to the church, and so I don't have a problem with the
02:43:20
Holy Spirit because I believe the Holy Spirit helps his church today to understand the truth today. I just don't believe that what the
02:43:26
Roman Catholic Church teaches is the truth that the Holy Spirit is revealing. Obviously, I don't believe that the gospel of Rome, inclusive of the concept of justification as something in which you grow, and something that you can lose as a commission of mortal sins, and all the things associated with the mass as a perpetuatory sacrifice and all that stuff.
02:43:48
I test that on the basis of scripture and find it wanting. Father Pacwa and I have debated both of those issues.
02:43:54
I think if you put the two of them together, it's probably somewhere around almost seven hours worth. You can imagine listening to us for seven hours.
02:44:02
You can pick those up and discover why that is. But never was it an issue of having a problem with the
02:44:09
Holy Spirit being able to do anything. That's not the issue at all. In the center aisle, is there a question for Father Pacwa?
02:44:19
Perhaps behind you? Anywhere? No one there? Yes, the gentleman here.
02:44:26
No, the gentleman behind you with the question for Father Pacwa. We're going to go with just one question per customer here so that we can be fair to all and yet end in the next five minutes.
02:44:39
We'll talk after. Thank you. My question is if there's a contradiction or an apparent contradiction between the different forms of authority, what would win out between the tradition of the
02:44:53
Fathers, the scripture, and the Holy Spirit? If there's a contradiction between the sacred tradition and the scripture and the
02:45:06
Holy Spirit, which one would win out? Yes, do you understand the question?
02:45:11
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not from Florida. I said
02:45:19
I'm from Texas. My simple answer in this last few seconds of our time is
02:45:35
I don't see that there's a contradiction. The Holy Spirit wins in all cases because it's the
02:45:43
Holy Spirit who inspired the scriptures. He's not going to contradict himself there. I also believe that as Paul wrote to the
02:45:52
Thessalonians that the word that he spoke is the word of God and inspired by the
02:45:58
Holy Spirit, and therefore there's not going to be a contradiction there. Will human beings have contradictions?
02:46:06
Oh, sure. Again, any husband who is the God -designated head of his family knows that there are contradictions.
02:46:17
And so also will there be within us about different things that go on in our understanding.
02:46:23
But I believe that the Holy Spirit is the winner in all of that because he's inspired it.
02:46:31
I know I said 10, 15, but will you bear with me? These five have been standing there patiently since the beginning of the time for questions.
02:46:40
They're growing, too. If we do not add to those five, how about if we try very quickly to get their questions sharp and clear and brief and the same kind of answer?
02:46:53
Center, aisle, and question. I believe it's for Dr. White. Yes, it is. I actually have found about seven issues that needed clarification, but I'm hoping that I can focus them into this one question.
02:47:08
I'm aware of four passages that speak of the authority of both
02:47:14
Scripture and tradition for the people of God, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. I'm also aware of two passages that say that Scripture must be taken in a wider authoritative context.
02:47:28
Now, it would seem to me that with these explicit passages that it is necessary to, if there is going to be a change of situation, there must be an explicit text that states that we are now bound only to Scripture and to nothing else.
02:47:46
Is there such a passage? Well, that of course makes a major assumption, and that is that if there is going to be a shift that you somehow continue to have revelation that marks every shift.
02:47:56
When revelation ended, obviously both sides agreed we entered into a different time period.
02:48:02
We entered into a different functioning of the church. There are not apostles today. That's why you have apostolic succession, not a constant renominating of new apostles who receive new revelation.
02:48:13
So the only way that you could have the statement that you're looking for is if you continue to have revelation.
02:48:19
That's obviously not the case. The point that I made during the debate is that most of the assertions concerning the issue of tradition not only assume a meaning for that tradition that I don't think the
02:48:29
New Testament or Old Testament would bear, but most importantly have to be put into a context where revelation is ongoing to be meaningful.
02:48:37
And both sides agree, I believe, that revelation is not ongoing. And therefore those assertions just simply don't really carry a whole lot of weight.
02:48:46
Question here for Father Paco. Yes, sir. The Catholic papacy, where do they gain their authority from?
02:48:53
From the Bible, right? From the Petrine Doctrine? No. Absolutely not. Where do they make their claim for authority?
02:48:58
Jesus Christ. Which is the Word. Well, He's the Word made flesh. But no, the papacy gets its authority from the person of Jesus Christ.
02:49:07
From Christ. And that's outlined in the Petrine Doctrine in Matthew 16. Oh, yeah. That's where it's written down.
02:49:12
Yes. But where it comes from is Jesus. Exactly. And if the papacy gains its sole authority from the
02:49:18
Bible, why is it not held accountable to the sole authority of the Bible? Well, just because of what
02:49:23
I just said. I didn't accept your major. You know, your major is that we get it from the Bible. I said we get it from Jesus Christ.
02:49:32
But He's not the Bible. Is Jesus Christ the Bible? No, He's not the
02:49:39
Bible. He is the Word made flesh. Correct? The moderator has pointed out to him by a debater, which the moderator is only in the most informal settings occasionally, that in the debate questions you're not supposed to go back and forth.
02:50:00
So I guess I have not been holding to that. Okay. But we perhaps should, okay?
02:50:06
Yeah, sure. Sure. It's just a confusion of the statement. No, Jesus Christ is the
02:50:12
Word made flesh. He is God. Good. And that's in your Bible. But, and the authority that the
02:50:19
Pope has, we believe, comes from the person of Jesus Christ. It's recorded in Scripture, but it comes from the person of Jesus Christ.
02:50:26
That's our faith. Is there a question for Dr. White? The gentleman behind, okay.
02:50:34
I have a question for Dr. White. In the caves of Qumran, there was some mounting evidence about what the
02:50:42
Protestants call the apocrypha, or Catholics call the deuterocanonicals.
02:50:48
And they found, discovered the ancient, the evidence of those early disciples using the apocrypha or deuterocanonicals.
02:50:58
And also the reference to the deuterocanonicals or apocrypha in the
02:51:04
Gospel, specifically Wisdom Chapter 2, which is basically along the same lines of Isaiah, the coming of the
02:51:15
Messiah. So my question then is, how can you have a, can you give a rebuttal on that evidence?
02:51:25
Well, I'm not sure that you presented much in the way of evidence. You said that they're known as the
02:51:31
Dead Sea Scrolls. That's general knowledge. The question is, are they taken as being Scripture, is point
02:51:37
A. Point B, the simple fact of the matter is the New Testament writers do not use the standard terms for Scripture of the apocryphal books in their citations.
02:51:51
When you combine that with the facts that are easily attainable in regards to the state of affairs in Palestine at the time of the writing of the
02:52:00
New Testament, there is tremendous evidence that while they knew of these books, made allusions to these books, they were part of the library that they would be familiar with.
02:52:11
They had every opportunity in the world. In fact, there were lots of opportunities where they could have gone to the apocryphal books for an allusion that might have even supported their case better, but they didn't.
02:52:21
They didn't go to them because they were not considered canonical by Jesus and the apostles, and that's supposed to be what is most important to us.
02:52:28
I do not believe that there is any apostolic tradition of the canonicity of those books in any way, shape, or form.
02:52:36
I do not believe you can prove that the apostles passed on some tradition along those lines at all.
02:52:41
Again, I would recommend to anyone, if you can track it down, sadly all good books go out of print eventually, but Roger Beckwith's The Old Testament Canon of the
02:52:48
New Testament Church, 1985, excellent work on that subject. Question here for Father Pacwa.
02:52:56
I'm sure you've heard this a lot, but I was wondering if you could give us your interpretation on 1 John 2 .27, which in short quotes, but the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you.
02:53:13
So what's your question? Can you give us your quick interpretation on 1 John 2 .27, which states that you need not any man to teach you?
02:53:20
That's my interpretation. Yeah, the anointing that you received would be the anointing of the
02:53:27
Holy Spirit, and he teaches you everything. This is something that Jesus had said back in John 16 too.
02:53:35
But my question is that if ye need not any man to teach you, then why would ye need in a sense to listen to the infallibility of the
02:53:40
Roman RCC? So you think that the anointing therefore is going to be that which is enough to teach us.
02:53:46
Well, I guess it's the same problem that the Ethiopian eunuch had, where he had to say, how can
02:53:53
I understand unless someone explain it to me? And the same thing that we actually see.
02:53:59
Now, in terms of the apostles explaining the scriptures to us, and St.
02:54:05
Matthew even in the Gospel will put, as his own editorial comments, as it is written in the prophet Isaiah.
02:54:11
So he will explain it to us. However, we do need the anointing of the Holy Spirit so that it's not only something that we accept intellectually, which is a very important element, but also the depth of the mystery is something that the
02:54:26
Holy Spirit reveals to our hearts so that we have it also in a saving way, and that the Holy Spirit teach us. And that's for the very same reason.
02:54:33
Again, I don't think James or I ever learned everything just by the anointing of the Holy Spirit. We had teachers who
02:54:40
I trust were anointed. And I also would believe very strongly that those who passed on the tradition are doing so by the power of the
02:54:50
Holy Spirit, and those who are teaching in the magisterium have a guarantee to teach me correctly by the gift of the
02:54:56
Holy Spirit Jesus Christ promised them. And now the privilege of asking the last question of the evening falls to the center aisle.
02:55:05
I hope it was worth the wait. Dr. White, you mentioned 1 Timothy 3 .15, and you said that it's the church that holds up the truth.
02:55:14
If it's the church that holds up the truth, then how can the church err? How can the church be fallible?
02:55:20
And how can there be more than one? And furthermore, where in Scripture do we see Jesus building many churches as in Protestantism that all disagree over salvific issues?
02:55:30
Well, there is no more than one church, obviously. We don't believe that there are many churches. We believe there are many local churches, but we believe in the universal body of Christ, first of all.
02:55:39
And secondly, the question seems to confuse that which holds something else up with that which it holds up.
02:55:46
The Scriptures are very clear to us in Acts chapter 20, for example, and in the very same, 2
02:55:51
Timothy chapter 3, that there will be many difficulties in the church. There will be many who arise within the fellowship of the church, teaching perverse doctrines and drawing disciples away after them.
02:56:02
We are not told when Paul meets with the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20 where he said, this is coming.
02:56:08
There's going to be fierce wolves that are going to come into the flock. We are not told, therefore, look to the bishop of Rome.
02:56:15
Instead, in Acts chapter 20, read it for yourself. After warning that when he leaves, there's going to be tremendous difficulties in the church, he says to those
02:56:22
Ephesian elders, therefore, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up.
02:56:29
And so even in telling the church that there would be those who would be heretics and schismatics and false teachers within their ranks, the biblical response to that is to commit the church to God and to the word of his grace, because it is clearly his will that the church in this world struggle and fight, agonizomai is the
02:56:49
Greek term, agonized for the gospel, because we only hold precious that for which we have to struggle for.
02:56:59
I think that was where I'll put Dr. White's principle into play. Talk to him afterwards.
02:57:06
And afterwards, there will be more time for questions. May I hold you just a moment, please? Patience tested one more time.
02:57:14
I've had a portion of scripture here open for some minutes, and it just happens to be the portion that Father Pacwa referred to in his last remarks.
02:57:25
I thought as we go our separate ways now, it would be good to be reminded of this portion of scripture where the
02:57:32
Apostle Paul writes to the Ephesians in chapter 4 here and reminds us of the goal of unity that is before the church that is the reason why we should not give up and keep having debates, whether formal or informal, with other
02:57:54
Christians. And here's that goal of unity as it's expressed for us in the scriptures that we've talked so much about this evening.
02:58:02
Ephesians chapter 4 in the first verse, As a prisoner for the Lord, then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.
02:58:12
Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient, bearing with one another in love.
02:58:18
Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
02:58:24
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called.
02:58:31
One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
02:58:42
Then down in verse 11, It was Christ who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare
02:58:54
God's people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the
02:59:04
Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.